Charles Bukowski

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when we were kids
there was a strange house
all the shades were
always
drawn
and we never heard voices
in there
and the yard was full of
bamboo
and we liked to play in
the bamboo
pretend we were
Tarzan
(although there was no
Jane).
and there was a
fish pond
a large one
full of the
fattest goldfish
you ever saw
and they were
tame.
they came to the
surface of the water
and took pieces of
bread
from our hands.
our parents had
told us:
“never go near that
house.”
so, of course,
we went.
we wondered if anybody
lived there.
weeks went by and we
never saw
anybody.
then one day
we heard
a voice
from the house
“YOU GOD DAMNED
WHORE!”
it was a man’s
voice.
then the screen
door
of the house was
flung open
and the man
walked
out.
he was holding a
fifth of whiskey
in his right
hand.
he was about
30.
he had a cigar
in his
mouth,
needed a shave.
his hair was
wild and
and uncombed
and he was
barefoot
in undershirt
and pants.
but his eyes
were
bright.
they blazed
with
brightness
and he said,
“hey, little
gentlemen,
having a good
time, I
hope?”
then he gave a
little laugh
and walked
back into the
house.
we left,
went back to my
parents’ yard
and thought
about it.
our parents,
we decided,
had wanted us
to stay away
from there
because they
never wanted us
to see a man
like
that,
a strong natural
man
with
beautiful
eyes.
our parents
were ashamed
that they were
not
like that
man,
that’s why they
wanted us
to stay
away.
but
we went back
to that house
and the bamboo
and the tame
goldfish.
we went back
many times
for many weeks
but we never
saw
or heard
the man
again.
the shades were
down
as always
and it was
quiet.
then one day
as we came back from
school
we saw the
house.
it had burned
down,
there was nothing
left,
just a smoldering
twisted black
foundation
and we went to
the fish pond
and there was
no water
in it
and the fat
orange goldfish
were dead
there,
drying out.
we went back to
my parents’ yard
and talked about
it
and decided that
our parents had
burned their
house down,
had killed
them
had killed the
goldfish
because it was
all too
beautiful,
even the bamboo
forest had
burned.
they had been
afraid of
the man with the
beautiful
eyes.
and
we were afraid
then
that
all throughout our lives
things like that
would
happen,
that nobody
wanted
anybody
to be
strong and
beautiful
like that,
that
others would never
allow it,
and that
many people
would have to
die.

Bill Hicks: Revelations 

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Bill Hicks: Revelations performed live at the Dominion Theater in London, 1993.

William Melvin "Bill" Hicks (December 16, 1961 -- February 26, 1994) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, and musician. His material largely consisted of general discussions about society, religion, politics, philosophy, and personal issues. Hicks's material was often controversial and steeped in dark comedy. In both his stand-up performances and during interviews, he often criticized consumerism, superficiality, mediocrity, and banality within the media and popular culture, describing them as oppressive tools of the ruling class, meant to "keep people stupid and apathetic".
Hicks was 14 years old when he started performing stand-up comedy at the Comedy Workshop in Houston, Texas, in 1978. During the 1980s he toured the United States extensively and performed a number of high profile television appearances. It was in the UK, however, where Hicks first amassed a significant fan base, packing large venues with his 1991 tour. Hicks died of pancreatic cancer in 1994 at the age of 32. In the years after his death, his work and legacy achieved acclaim in creative circles. In 2007 he was voted the fourth-greatest stand-up comic on the UK's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups on Channel 4, and appeared again in the updated 2010 list as the fourth-greatest comic.

LUCID DREAM

Some tips on how to lucid dream

1. Take naps.

Napping during the day not only means you’ll be less tired (increasing likelihood of lucid dreams), but it gives you an extra chance to practice.

2. Take more notice of your surroundings.

If you stumble through your waking life in a haze, make it a habit to take more notice of the external world. Many people spend a lot of their day with an internal focus. If you habitually pay attention to the sights, sounds and colors of the world you’ll increase the likelihood of spotting something out of place in your dream world.

3. Listen to music as you sleep.

Music has the ability to trigger just about any emotion you can think of. Play a CD or run your iPod through a set of speakers bedside your bed as you sleep. Find some music that triggers strong memories or emotions and intersperse those tracks with relaxing background music. Create a playlist and let it loop as you sleep through the night.

4. Get a voice-activated tape recorder.

Unless you snore heavily, a voice-activated tape recorder put on your bedside table will be able to record any sounds you make during the night. If you’re talking during your dreams or making any sounds, playing back the tape the next morning will help you recall dreams any you may have otherwise forgotten. Not only will this help you learn how to lucid dream, it might give the definitive answer to whether or not you snore once and for all!

5. Eat spicy foods

Consuming foods with strong flavors or spices has an interesting effect on the body, just as taking some drugs or medications can do. These can trigger unusual or vivid dreams, both of which are a good thing if you’re learning how to lucid dream and trying to remember and control your dreams.

6. Use affirmations.

Rather than repeat “I am going to have a lucid dream”, try an affirmation like “I recognize and control my dreams” or “I know how to lucid dream and can control my dreams at will”. Write it on a sticky note and put it somewhere you’ll see it during the day like in your car or on your computer monitor. Repeat it before you go to bed each night.

7. Do a reality check when you wake up.

Sometimes you’ll awaken within a dream and be still asleep. Great horror movie fodder, to be sure. For lucid dreamers, the fear or concern is that the recognition of a dream may result in the dreamer waking up. It’s possible that “waking up” will be a false awakening when it really represents a loss of control over the dream as the unconscious mind takes over. Get into the habit of doing reality checks every time you wake up, and you can prevent this from happening.

8. Set your alarm

Wake yourself up during the night. Get out of bed and walk around for ten to thirty minutes before returning to sleep. This is similar to napping. The return to sleep from a recent awake an conscious state leaves what can best be described as “consciousness remnants” in your dream state that makes it easier to lucid dream. This is called WILD, or Wake Induced Lucid Dreaming. The alarm is best set for 3-4 hours into your sleep – the period when REM sleep usually occurs.

mature person

In fact a mature person does not fall in love, he rises in love. The word ’fall’ is not right. Only immature people fall; they stumble and fall down in love. Somehow they were managing and standing. They cannot manage and they cannot stand – they find a woman and they are gone, they find a man and they are gone. They were always ready to fall on the ground and to creep. They don’t have the backbone, the spine; they don’t have that integrity to stand alone.
A mature person has the integrity to be alone. And when a mature person gives love, he gives without any strings attached to it: he simply gives. And when a mature person gives love, he feels grateful that you have accepted his love, not vice versa. He does not expect you to be thankful for it – no, not at all, he does not even need your thanks. He thanks you for accepting his love. And when two mature persons are in love, one of the greatest paradoxes of life happens, one of the most beautiful phenomena: they are together and yet tremendously alone; they are together so much so that they are almost one. But their oneness does not destroy their individuality, in fact, it enhances it: they become more individual.
Two mature persons in love help each other to become more free. There is no politics involved, no diplomacy, no effort to dominate. How can you dominate the person you love? Just think over it. Domination is a sort of hatred, anger, enmity. How can you think of dominating a person you love? You would love to see the person totally free, independent; you will give him more individuality. That’s why I call it the greatest paradox: they are together so much so that they are almost one, but still in that oneness they are individuals. Their individualities are not effaced – they have become more enhanced. The other has enriched them as far as their freedom is concerned.
Immature people falling in love destroy each other’s freedom, create a bondage, make a prison. Mature persons in love help each other to be free; they help each other to destroy all sorts of bondages. And when love flows with freedom there is beauty. When love flows with dependence there is ugliness. -Osho

the kings of summer

“ If you’re nice to an animal, it loves you for life. If you’re nice to a person, who the fuck knows what’s gonna happen. ”

James The Amazing Randi

The film brings to life Randi’s intricate investigations that publicly exposed psychics, faith healers, and con-artists with quasi-religious fervor. A master deceiver who came out of the closet at the age of 81, Randi created fictional characters, fake psychics, and even turned his partner of 25 years, the artist Jose Alvarez, into a sham guru named Carlos. But when a shocking revelation in Randi’s personal life is discovered, it isn’t clear whether Randi is still the deceiver – or the deceived.

  

"When I loved myself enough, I began leaving whatever wasn’t healthy. This meant people, jobs, my own beliefs and habits – anything that kept me small.  My judgement called it disloyal. Now I see it as self-loving."

Kim McMillen

Ásgeir - Going Home (The Toe Rag Acoustic Sessions)

Home, I'm making my way home
My mind's already there
yes my mind is

light, you're with me in the dark
light my way at night
let your light shine

mantra

1. You are stronger than you realise. 2. You are crueller than you realise. 3. The smallest words will break your heart. 4. You will change. You’re not the same person you were three years ago. You’re not even the same person you were three minutes ago and that’s okay. Especially if you don’t like the person you were three minutes ago. 5. People come and go. Some are cigarette breaks, others are forest fires. 6. You won’t like your name until you hear someone say it in their sleep. 7. You’ll forget your email password but ten years from now you’ll still remember the number of steps up to his flat. 8. You don’t have to open the curtains if you don’t want to. 9. Never stop yourself texting someone. If you love them at 4 a.m., tell them. If you still love them at 9.30 a.m., tell them again. 10. Make sure you have a safe place. Whether it’s the kitchen floor or the Travel section of a bookshop, just make sure you have a safe place. 11. You will be scared of all kinds of things, of spiders and clowns and eating alone, but your biggest fear will be that people will see you the way you see yourself. 12. Sometimes, looking at someone will be like looking into the sun. Sometimes someone will look at you like you are the sun. Wait for it. 13. You will learn how to sleep alone, how to avoid the cold corners but still fill a bed. 14. Always be friends with the broken people. They know how to survive. 15. You can love someone and hate them, all at once. You can miss them so much you ache but still ignore your phone when they call. 16. You are good at something, whether it’s making someone laugh or remembering their birthday. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that these things don’t matter. 17. You will always be hungry for love. Always. Even when someone is asleep next to you you’ll envy the pillow touching their cheek and the sheet hiding their skin. 18. Loneliness is nothing to do with how many people are around you but how many of them understand you. 19. People say I love you all the time. Even when they say, ‘Why didn’t you call me back?’ or ‘He’s an asshole.’ Make sure you’re listening. 20. You will be okay. 21. You will be okay. Source: unknown

‘Game of Thrones’

We Should All Be Eating Insects

"Being lonely increases the risk of everything from heart attacks to dementia, depression and death, whereas people who are satisfied with their social lives sleep better, age more slowly and respond better to vaccines. The effect is so strong that curing loneliness is as good for your health as giving up smoking."

Realism can be bad for your health. Optimists recover better from medical procedures such as coronary bypass surgery, have healthier immune systems and live longer, both in general and when suffering from conditions such as cancer, heart disease and kidney failure.
It is well accepted that negative thoughts and anxiety can make us ill. Stress — the belief that we are at risk — triggers physiological pathways such as the “fight-or-flight” response, mediated by the sympathetic nervous system. These have evolved to protect us from danger, but if switched on long-term they increase the risk of conditions such as diabetes and dementia.
What researchers are now realizing is that positive beliefs don’t just work by quelling stress. They have a positive effect too — feeling safe and secure, or believing things will turn out fine, seems to help the body maintain and repair itself…
Optimism seems to reduce stress-induced inflammation and levels of stress hormones such as cortisol. It may also reduce susceptibility to disease by dampening sympathetic nervous system activity and stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system. The latter governs what’s called the “rest-and-digest” response — the opposite of fight-or-flight.
Just as helpful as taking a rosy view of the future is having a rosy view of yourself. High “self-enhancers” — people who see themselves in a more positive light than others see them — have lower cardiovascular responses to stress and recover faster, as well as lower baseline cortisol levels.

Our bodies may have evolved so that in situations of perceived social isolation, they trigger branches of the immune system involved in wound healing and bacterial infection. An isolated person would be at greater risk of physical trauma, whereas being in a group might favor the immune responses necessary for fighting viruses, which spread easily between people in close contact.

Crucially, these differences relate most strongly to how lonely people think they are, rather than to the actual size of their social network. That also makes sense from an evolutionary point of view,  because being among hostile strangers can be just as dangerous as being alone. So ending loneliness is not about spending more time with people, it is all about our attitude to others: lonely people become overly sensitive to social threats and come to see others as potentially dangerous. In a review of previous studies … he found that tackling this attitude reduced loneliness more effectively than giving people more opportunities for interaction, or teaching social skills.

There is some evidence that meditation boosts the immune response in vaccine recipients and people with cancer, protects against a relapse in major depression, soothes skin conditions and even slows the progression of HIV. Meditation might even slow the aging process. Telomeres, the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes, get shorter every time a cell divides and so play a role in aging. Clifford Saron of the Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California, Davis, and colleagues showed in 2011 that levels of an enzyme that builds up telomeres were higher in people who attended a three-month meditation retreat than in a control group.
As with social interaction, meditation probably works largely by influencing stress response pathways. People who meditate have lower cortisol levels, and one study showed they have changes in their amygdala, a brain area involved in fear and the response to threat.

In a study of 50 people with advanced lung cancer, those judged by their doctors to have high “spiritual faith” responded better to chemotherapy and survived longer. More than 40 percent were still alive after three years, compared with less than 10 percent of those judged to have little faith. Are your hackles rising? You’re not alone. Of all the research into the healing potential of thoughts and beliefs, studies into the effects of religion are the most controversial.
Critics of these studies … point out that many of them don’t adequately tease out other factors. For instance, religious people often have lower-risk lifestyles and churchgoers tend to enjoy strong social support, and seriously ill people are less likely to attend church.

Others think that what really matters is having a sense of purpose in life, whatever it might be. Having an idea of why you are here and what is important increases our sense of control over events, rendering them less stressful. In Saron’s three-month meditation study, the increase in levels of the enzyme that repairs telomeres correlated with an increased sense of control and an increased sense of purpose in life. In fact, Saron argues, this psychological shift may have been more important than the meditation itself. He points out that the participants were already keen meditators, so the study gave them the chance to spend three months doing something important to them. Spending more time doing what you love, whether it’s gardening or voluntary work, might have a similar effect on health. The big news from the study, Saron says, is “the profound impact of having the opportunity to live your life in a way that you find meaningful.”

Russell Maliphant & Sylvie Guillem

Sylvie Guillem is widely regarded as “the most brilliant ballerina of her generation” (The Guardian). Russell Maliphant has developed a unique approach to choreography, encompassing his vast experience of ballet and contemporary dance as well as capoeira, t’ai chi and martial arts, to create a language which is elegant, articulate and resonant.
The production features four works, including Two , a dazzling solo which seems to trap Guillem in a box of light. The works are complemented by Michael Hulls' stunning lighting and accompanied by music from Andy Cowton, Carlos Montoya and Shirley Thompson.
Since its debut in 2005, PUSH has received four major awards: an Olivier Award, a Time Out Award, Best Choreography (Modern) at the National Dance Awards and the South Bank Show Dance Award.

Zen Master Seung Sahn

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Excerpted from a lecture series entitled “Compass of Zen,” delivered by Zen Master Seung Sahn at retreats in 1988. Human beings have a lot of opposite thinking: like/dislike, good/bad, happiness/sadness, coming/going and so on. This opposite thinking creates opposite worlds within each one of us and our ignorance makes us hold on to these opposite worlds. These opposite worlds are ways in conflict with each other, so there is tension and suffering. This is the basic teaching of Hinayana Buddhism: all suffering comes from opposite thinking.
The Buddha taught how to go from opposite worlds to absolute world. Absolute world means the world before thinking. What is before thinking? Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” If I am not thinking, then what? Descartes did not explore this question but Buddhism has always talked about before-thinking. If I am not thinking, there is no I. If there is no I, there are no opposite worlds because opposites are created by “I.” When “I” disappears, opposite worlds also disappear; this is called emptiness or nirvana.

ksubi kolors from ksubi on Vimeo.

Yvan Rodic

Paramodel is an “art unit” formed in 2001 by Yasuhiko Hayashi (2001 Fine Art graduate from the Kyoto City University of Arts) and Yusuke Nakano (a Nihonga [Japanese-style painting] graduate from the same university). Their title comes from the combination of the words, “Paradise” and “model”, and the fusion of these two concepts is essentially the launching point of their creations. Although the unique talents and interests of these two individuals hardly ever intersect, they manage to work in parallel towards the same vision of constructing intricate models of Paradise using toy parts, like plastic train tracks and mini-cars. Engaging in this poetic, yet paradoxical practice of remodeling paradise, this art unit presents their visions in a variety of media, including installation, objets, animations, painting, sculpture, and photography.

yoga

dlugie