ЯRMARKA

Today I finally went to see the annual ЯRMARKA at the Art Academy of Latvia. It is one of the most important art events in Latvia which is a student work exhibition/charity fair.
It was like a maddening real-life kaleidoscope of inspiration. All the contents of that room of tamed imagination were threatening to burst out and everything - sexually frustrated deers, teeth-baring dogs, hordes of lucent butterflies, staring owls, sinew bunnies, teddy-bear trees and shoveling squirrels - was about to come charging at my easily vulnerable perception and drown me in unbearable waves of bright convulsions. All of that is sure to haunt me for the days yet to come.

somewhere in the exam-land

snowflake factory

Bored out of your wits? Here you can forget all about it and create your own snowfall by drawing snowflakes. You can make intricate, minimalistic, angular, round, crazy-bunny or meditative-buddha ones. Just give it a try and you'll be addicted!

postcards from penguin

I desperately want this to be under my Christmas tree this year.
Isn't it the best gift you could give to anyone who loves books?
Ingenious.

buy at Penguin
photos: to be shelved

friday: the sound of silence

Hello darkness, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left it's seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
'neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.

/Paul Simon The Sound of Silence, 1964/

Harry Potter and the Free House-elf

I cannot believe I still haven't posted absolutely anything on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I saw it two weeks ago, on the very first day of showing. Some theaters were actually cheating and showing the movie the day before the official premiere, which I think was an insult to everybody who's been loyally waiting for the movie to come out. But this is not the story about that.


I, of course, was extremely jealous when I read all the amazing stories on averagewizard.com about the midnight screenings and people dressing up and role-playing and singing while waiting for the movie to start. I had nothing of that. But I did have the time of my life though. I was nearly jumping up and down in my seat and clapping my hands and giggling like a Hufflepuff first-year when the lights went down and the movie actually started!


Of course, Harry Potter is not the movie likely to ever come under my brutal magnifying glass of criticism. I simply enjoyed it. It's Harry Potter. All the criticism fails here. Because it is all really about the story. And that ... that is brilliant.


Basically the fan girl inside me could not be silenced. I was ready to jump up and cheer whenever a new character appeared on the screen. The biggest squeals from me went for Snape and Dobby, of course. And a tear for Dobby as well. Dobby the house-elf is trending right now. Last week twitter was overflowing with tweets about the brave little creature. The terrific artist Danny Roberts from Igor + André also paid a tribute to Dobby with this lovely piece of art.

Long live MAGIC!

did you know V

The world's only immortal animal is turritopsis nutricula.

The turritopsis nutricula species of jellyfish may be the only animal in the world to have truly discovered the fountain of youth.

Since it is capable of cycling from a mature adult stage to an immature polyp stage and back again, there may be no natural limit to its life span. Scientists say the hydrozoan jellyfish is the only known animal that can repeatedly turn back the hands of time and revert to its polyp state (its first stage of life).

The key lies in a process called transdifferentiation, where one type of cell is transformed into another type of cell. Some animals can undergo limited transdifferentiation and regenerate organs, such as salamanders, which can regrow limbs. Turritopsi nutricula, on the other hand, can regenerate its entire body over and over again. Researchers are studying the jellyfish to discover how it is able to reverse its aging process.

green.yahoo.com