In Boyhood and its sequels, Youth and Summertime, J.M. Coetzee uses family photographs as aides-memoire but makes no mention of his own adolescent passion for taking them. How fascinating it was, then, to see the images made in boyhood in dialogue with the words of an older man looking back, and to imagine the way the ethics and aesthetics of the former might have forged the latter; also, to consider what the image reveals that the word cannot, and vice-versa.
Month: January 2018
Add Bodie Hills to your travel bucketlist for its wildflowers,…
Add Bodie Hills to your travel bucketlist for its wildflowers, wildlife and a one-of-a-kind ghost town. California’s Eastern Sierra region is a dramatic transition zone between the snow-capped granite spires of the Sierra Nevada and the endless sagebrush covered uplands of the Great Basin. A trip at the right time of year will reward visitors with a diversity of wildflowers. Because of their high elevation, wildflower blooms are later here than much of California – typically arriving in May-June on the lower slopes and into July on the highest peaks. Pictured here is the “Dry Lakes Plateau” where ephemeral lakes fill with snowmelt. Photo by Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Management, @mypubliclands
Decorating With Area Rugs: How to Spice Up Your Bedroom
An area rug is a great way to bring out the best in any room. They come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and can be picked up relatively cheap, too. You don’t need to have lots of money to start decorating with area rugs. There are plenty of DIY ideas that you can do at home. If you are wondering where you can find some inspirations, here are some really handy tips.
Add some stripes to the room
Choosing a rug that’s stripy will automatically make the room look bigger. Stripes also give the room a very contemporary modern feel. However, if you’ve already got a striped duvet cover or walls, a plain area rug would be a better choice.
Fluff it up a little
There’s nothing more comforting than getting out of bed in the morning and stepping on a nice, fluffy rug. As well as adding extra warmth to the room, fluffy rugs also make a nice contrasting feature against wooden floors.
Minimalism is the key
Another popular choice is minimalism. You don’t need to have a bedroom packed with lots of objects and loud colors. Plain colored walls with a basic, plain area rug are all you need to pull this look off. It’s very minimalist yet very effective.
Break up the colour
Some people tend to go a little overboard with the same color when decorating their bedroom. Adding an area rug to the room that’s a different shade breaks it up a little.
Wall to wall effect
People sometimes choose wall-to-wall area rugs as opposed to carpeting. It has a really nice effect and is certainly a much cheaper option. You can get them in just as many designs. They look just as good and they’ll save you a whole lot of money in having to fit the carpet.
Blend in the greys
When you first think of grey, you may automatically think old-fashioned. That’s no longer the case. In fact, grey is making a comeback! Grey on grey is a very popular look at the moment, particularly in the bedroom. Having different hues of grey on the walls mixed with a different hue of grey on the floor makes for a very nice look.
Create the mood
Not everyone has the same taste and not everyone will want the same mood for their bedroom. So, choose a rug that matches the mood you’re trying to create. Solid colors or classic pattern rugs work well for a traditional style bedroom. They will make you feel instantly at ease. On the other hand, adding stripes and dots will make the room look more upbeat.
Careful positioning
The positioning of a rug can make all the difference to the look your room portrays. Offsetting an area rug will give it maximum visual appeal and can be done by placing the bed on just a third of the rug. This works well with heavily patterned area rugs.
Double the fun
If you have quite a large bedroom, having two distinctly different but complementing rugs in the room can have a nice effect. It can help break up the monotony in such a large area. Just make sure they are different, as too much of the same is never a good thing.
Cozy it up
Laying in a warm bed in a cozy little room is enough to put a smile on anyone’s face. And while you may feel that a small bedroom is already cozy, adding a nice wool area rug can make it even cozier. It will also give the room a nice, rustic look. Now that you have some ideas as to how to decorate your bedroom with area rugs, all that’s left for you now is to go and find (or make) that perfect rug!
See Also: 6 Decor Hack to Make Your House look Pretty
The post Decorating With Area Rugs: How to Spice Up Your Bedroom appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
How to Make Your Cat Internet Famous
Cats have been a major part of human life for centuries. They are useful, fun to have around, and often quite amusing. But why is the internet so obsessed with cats? And how to make your cat internet famous?
Famous Cats Are Nothing New
Even before there was the internet, there were a lot of famous cats already. Garfield is one great example. This cat appeared in both TV and newspapers. The Brighton Cats, on the other hand, became celebrities after their owners photographed them in absurd poses. The Cheshire Cat was famous for being in Alice in Wonderland while Sylvester became famous with Tweety Bird. Hello Kitty has been wildly popular since the 1980s.
The Internet Has Made Cats More Than Famous
It’s one thing to have a photo of your cat doing something silly go viral but getting your feline friend cat-a-pulted to fame is a whole different story. You’ll have to work hard to manage your cat’s career. And that’s what the owners of famous cats, like Grumpy Cat and Maru have done. They dedicated all their time to managing their famous cats’ social media accounts and public appearances. They even have the sale of books and other merchandise to manage. Could you imagine managing your cat’s online social profiles? It’s actually a lot more common than you might think.
How To Increase Your Cat’s Popularity
I can’t guarantee your cat will become the next Grumpy Cat or Maru but if you have a cool cat that does some cool stuff, there’s no downside to testing the waters. To get started:
- Set up social channels for your cat. YouTube and Instagram tend to be the best ones.
- Start posting regularly to each channel. YouTube is a great place for funny cat videos.
- Test which kinds of content get the most response and focus there.
Build Your Cat’s Audience
Building an authentic online brand for your cat isn’t much different from building one for yourself. All you have to do is keep working to build your cat’s online presence through posting and engagement. It takes some time to build any social media presence, so be patient. Just remember to be authentic and responsive and your cat will surely be on his way to success. You might end up getting a book deal out of it.
Why Do Humans Find Cats So Amusing?
Cats don’t seem to show emotions the way dogs do. They tend to ignore the camera and they do not give a darn. Cats are more than just a pet. They are great companions who will never leave your side. They don’t demand much which is great because life is busy. And occasionally, they can provide great entertainment. So, keep your cameras ready just in case your cat decides to turn you into a millionaire.
It’s The Age Of Wealthy Cats
Many cats that are internet famous are raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad revenue and merchandise sales each year. Your cat may be just one funny facial expression away from that and you won’t know until you try. Are you ready to make your cat internet famous? Learn more about why the internet is so obsessed with cats from this infographic!
Courtesy of Pet Life Today
The post How to Make Your Cat Internet Famous appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
George Schuyler: An Afrofuturist Before His Time
What unsettled me about Black No More (1931) the first time I read it was that George Schuyler was so merciless—about everyone. At a moment when black writers were finally awakening to the beauty of black culture, Schuyler had moved on to the part where we deconstruct race. He showed neither sentimentality nor chauvinism for his own race or any other. He hated everyone, and there is a strange purity to his loathing, a kind of beauty to his cynicism. It is his resistance to pandering, to joining tribes and clubs that feels so refreshing. It is the loneliness of Schuyler’s position that makes me trust it.
Why Enabling Someone Is Never A Loving Act
You’re reading Why Enabling Someone Is Never A Loving Act, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
When You Only Want To Help
Addiction is hard on everyone. If you watch your loved one continually abuse their body, you fear what they’re doing to their health. Abusing drugs and alcohol creates a potential for legal consequences and may interfere with your loved one’s ability to make a living. They make choices that cause unhealthy relationships and drain your bank account. When you see them make mistakes, your instinct is to protect your family from embarrassment and your loved one from pain. You want to help, but you end up making it comfortable for them to continue abusing their substance of choice.
Blurred Lines
Enabling often starts with the best intentions. As habits and behavior patterns become ingrained, it can be hard to separate what actions are helping from the ones that shield loved ones from the consequences of their mistakes.
Enabling means doing something for another that they should do for themselves or stepping in to handle penalties meant for them. For a parent, if their child is arrested for drugs or alcohol, they feel a protective desire to safeguard their future. For a spouse, when their loved one causes arguments or makes a mess, it feels compassionate to protect relationships by covering up what happened.
Examples of enabling behavior include keeping secrets to protect reputations, paying money for overdue rent or bail, or blaming circumstances when the individual gets drunk or high. Loved ones also enable when they threaten to enforce negative consequences for the bad behavior, but don’t follow through.
Enablers don’t start out trying to make it easy on their loved one. Oftentimes, in the beginning, they don’t realize the depth of the problem, and they only intend to offer temporary help. It comes from a place of good intentions, but spirals out of control. Over time, they become the person who the individual relies on to function in spite of their addiction. It actually will encourage and reinforce bad behavior, allowing it to thrive.
Enabling Isn’t Loving
Enabling is the opposite of loving, because it provides what’s comfortable, not what’s needed. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported that in North America there are 23.5 million people ages 12 and older who need treatment for alcohol or drugs. At the time of the survey, only 11 percent (~2.6 million people) were receiving treatment at a specialized facility.
As individuals destroy their lives because of their addiction, their loved ones wonder why they don’t seek help. When they ruin so many family gatherings that they’re no longer invited, when they lose that job that was the opportunity of a lifetime, when they create one legal and financial disaster after another, it’s hard to understand why they don’t come to hate the substance that causes it. Often, it’s because enabling encourages toxic behavior.
Enabling keeps individuals from facing the pain they cause so they can continue to delay treatment. It doesn’t just encourage more substance abuse for the individual, but it also hurts everyone in a relationship with them. Siblings feel neglected when parents spend their time enabling a brother or sister. Children receive less nurturing from their parents and keeping secrets chokes outside relationships.
Understanding Codependency
Codependent relationships develop when one person has an unhealthy reliance on another to fulfill their needs. It can be especially complex in the parent-child relationship. Codependency usually involves avoidance, enabling, enmeshment or controlling behaviors.
Avoidance occurs when family members don’t want to face the problem. They tell themselves their child is just going through a phase or that dropping academic achievement will get better soon.
Enabling behaviors happen when parents realize their child has a problem, but they worry how it will affect their future, so they try to protect their child from consequences. They hide bad behavior and offer any necessary legal representation.
When parents draw their own self-worth or identity from their children, they often exhibit enmeshment codependency. They hide their own disappointment and sadness to keep their child from feeling pain.
Other parents respond by being controlling. They seek to regulate all their child’s activities to keep them from obtaining drugs or alcohol. The child never becomes responsible for their own self-control and often does not receive treatment.
How To Tell The Difference
Most people are raised to help those in need. It helps to find the line between helping and enabling by looking for telltale behaviors.
If you regularly make excuses for bad behavior, you protect your loved one from conflict. It’s better to allow them to communicate on their own. You may notice you often step in to do things they are responsible for, like picking up kids or gathering materials for school assignments. If you tell lies to your child’s teachers about why they didn’t complete their project or show up for rehearsal, you cover up their behavior and help them continue to make bad decisions.
Enabling can look different depending on your relationship and family dynamics. Try checking your behaviors against a codependency checklist for an objective evaluation.
Family First Intervention understands how difficult it is to wait for loved ones to seek help. We have accredited interventionists who help individuals seek treatment and find hope. We support family members throughout the process, with experts in every state.
You’ve read Why Enabling Someone Is Never A Loving Act, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
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How the Pioneers of Pointillism Continue to Influence Artists Today
Neo-Impressionists Georges Seurat and Paul Signac pioneered a painting technique, dubbed Pointillism, that was revolutionary for its time. Bored of traditional paintings, artists of the era were searching for new ways to make “impressions” of landscapes and day-to-day life. Seurat and Signac looked to science for inspiration, and discovered how to trick the eye into seeing more in a painting than the sum of its parts: an arrangement of colored dots.
Informally known stippling art or dot art, since its inception, Pointillism has influenced many artists working across a diverse range of mediums, and today we see traces of it in modern art, fashion, and tattoos.
What is Pointillism?
Part of the Post-Impressionist movement, Pointillism is the technique of painting with distinct dots of color, which are meticulously applied in patterns to compose a cohesive image.
While Impressionists, such as Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh, often used small dabs and strokes of paint as part of their technique, Pointillism artists took this idea a step further, by painting tightly packed, individual dots of pure color. When viewed from afar, the viewer’s mind and eye blur the dots together to create detailed images, comprising a fuller range of tones than the dots provide alone. The term “Pointillism” was in fact coined by art critics in the late 1880s to ridicule the works of these artists. Little did they know that the term would be used today as a positive association for some of the world’s most renowned master painters.
Influential Pioneer Artists of Pointillism
Georges Seurat
“A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” (1884-1886) by Georges Seurat via Wikimedia Commons
“Bathers at Asnières” (1884) by Georges Seurat via Wikimedia Commons
The first pioneer of Pointillism was French painter Georges Seurat, who founded the Neo-Impressionist movement. One of his greatest masterpieces, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884–1886), was one of the leading examples of Pointillism. The dotty composition depicts 19th century Parisians relaxing on the River Seine. One of his other works painted shortly before—titled Bathers at Asnières (1884)—mirrors the riverbank scene. In this piece, the bathers are doused in light, while most of the people in the …Sunday Afternoon… painting are hidden in shade. Both pieces were painted on large canvases with dots of oil paint in a range of summer hues.
Paul Signac
“The Pine Tree at Saint Tropez” (1909) by Paul Signac via Wikimedia Commons
Another artist to adopt the revolutionary style was Paul Signac, who studied the science of dot art with Seurat. Since 1886, the French artist worked in this style throughout the entirety of his career, and carried on producing a large collection of Pointillism artwork, even after Seurat died in 1891, aged just 31. Among his most well-known works is The Pine Tree at St. Tropez, which depicts a brightly colored pine tree in the south of France; a place where the artist spent his time each summer. In another, titled Un Dimanche (A Sunday), Signac’s close-together, vibrant oil paint daubs depict a Parisian couple and their cat on a Sunday afternoon. This is an example of how Pointillism artists created clearer pictures: by painting smaller dots, closer together.
“Un Dimanche (A Sunday)” (1888-1890) by Paul Signac via Wikimedia Commons
End of the Golden Age of Pointillism
By the 1890s, Pointillism had reached its peak, with many artists of the time choosing to adopt the technique. However, even though the golden age of Pointillism is now over, many of the concepts and ideas still continue to be used by artists today, in many different mediums.
The post How the Pioneers of Pointillism Continue to Influence Artists Today appeared first on My Modern Met.
The Bitter Secret of ‘Wormwood’
If Errol Morris had simply recounted the facts, even in a way that emphasized the real suffering of the victims, that would have shocked nobody. They are the stuff of every spy movie, a genre that has successfully turned state surveillance and assassinations into seductive excitement. But unlike that genre, Wormwood—a word for a bitter poison, used by Hamlet to describe bitter truths—doesn’t produce dramatic tension by exploiting our desire to be in on the secret. It exposes us to the baser side of that desire: the narcissism, mean-spiritedness, and contempt that are so often the psychological realities of secrecy.
Sexist Vintage Ads Completely Reimagined Just by Reversing Gender Roles
You don’t have to look far to find sexist vintage ads. In the middle of the 20th century, these advertisements were considered completely normal and even amusing. Nowadays, they’re not just dated but appalling for the misogynistic treatment of women they display. (Of course, these types of gendered stereotypes in advertising still exist today, though in less potent forms.) To help expose its toxicity, photographer Eli Rezkallah is reimagining some of the worst old sexist ads by swapping gender roles.
Rezkallah calls his series In A Parallel Universe, and it’s a redo of the advertising of yesteryear—with men taking on the tasks commonly reserved for women. In his retelling, the women are the ones who have careers and demand dinner be on the table when they come home each day; the men, however, are so inept that they can hardly open a ketchup bottle.
The photographer had the idea for In a Parallel Universe after Thanksgiving with his relatives. “I overheard my uncles talk about how women are better off cooking, taking care of the kitchen, and fulfilling ‘their womanly duties.’” he explained. “Although I know that not all men like my uncles think that way I was surprised to learn that some still do, so I went on to imagine a parallel universe, where roles are inverted and men are given a taste of their own sexist poison.”
Rezkallah’s images are a satisfying rebuttal to the advertising of long ago, but it’s not a solution to their harmful point of view. Instead, he intends for this series to help illuminate the problematic aspects of the print ads. “I hope that people who are stuck in stereotypical gender roles imposed by patriarchal societies will be able to visually see the cracks in the limitation that those roles carry through this project.”
In his series In a Parallel Universe, photographer Eli Rezkallah reimagines gender stereotypes in advertising.
The sexist vintage ads are given a twist by swapping the roles of men and women.
“I hope,” he explained, “that people who are stuck in stereotypical gender roles imposed by patriarchal societies will be able to visually see the cracks in the limitation that those roles carry through this project.”
Eli Rezkallah: Website | Instagram | Facebook
h/t: [Design TAXI]
All images via Eli Rezkallah.
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The post Sexist Vintage Ads Completely Reimagined Just by Reversing Gender Roles appeared first on My Modern Met.
Couple Defies Gravity by Getting Married 400 Feet Suspended in Mid-Air
Photo © The Hearnes
There are many ways to say “I do” but few are as daring as Ryan Jenks and Kimberly Weglin. After getting engaged on a space net in Moab canyon, the adventurous couple decided to have their wedding in the same place—suspended net and all. When the big day finally came, Jenks and Weglin said their vows four hundred feet above the desert floor. The photographers, Abbi and Callen Hearnes, captured the extreme wedding pictures, which are as stunning as they are breathtaking.
As if the ceremony site wasn’t unconventional enough, the couple customized their nuptials with other playful (if not terrifying) elements. While Jenks and Weglin exchanged their vows, their friends were performing aerial moves on silks below and walking on high lines. And in a creative take on “flower girls,” they had the roles fulfilled by BASE jumpers who plunged off the cliffs with 5,000 “petals in their packs.”
The gorgeous wedding photos convey the incredible energy of all who participated in the special day. “It was unreal,” Abbi recalls, “I am so beyond in love with this amazing community and stoked to see everyone’s creativity come together for Kim and Ryan.” Weglin echoes this in an Instagram post: “It was so fun to be able to take the traditional ceremony of marriage and turn it into something so completely ‘us,’ down to every last detail.”
Looking for extreme wedding ideas? Ryan Jenks and Kimberly Weglin made it happen when they got married suspended 400 feet in the air.
Photo © The Hearnes
Photo © The Hearnes
Photo © The Hearnes
Photo © The Hearnes
The event, which included a space net and BASE jumpers, was captured in extreme wedding pictures by photography couple The Hearnes.
Photo © The Hearnes
Photo © The Hearnes
Photo © The Hearnes
Photo © The Hearnes
Photo © The Hearnes
Photo © The Hearnes
Photo © The Hearnes
Photo © The Hearnes
The post Couple Defies Gravity by Getting Married 400 Feet Suspended in Mid-Air appeared first on My Modern Met.
Sig Nordal 