The Curiosity Chronicles

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And On Sundays We Rest. Curious Inspiration. 

Grainger Hunt, a senior scientist at the Peregrine Fund, marvels at the way thousands of the birds gather in flocks called murmurations. They are “a dazzling cloud, swirling, pulsating, drawing together to the thinnest of waists, then wildly twisting in pulses of enlargement and diminution,” he writes in Living Bird magazine. Here is a murmuration of a different kind, but spectacular nonetheless, the Russian Synchronized Skating Team skating to Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love you.” Enjoy.  

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And On Sundays We Rest. Curious Inspiration. 

“Vulnicura takes physical form : the cd is really ready now, and we are willing to show it to the world - thank you for waiting for us. To celebrate, take a gander at Andrew Thomas Huang's oozing, undulating moving album cover, set to Vulnicura's 'Family'” - Bjork. 

Enjoy. 

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Pagan Poetry. (at Snaefellsnes Peninsula)

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Icelandic Hygge. #hygge (at Blue Lagoon spa í Hreyfingu)

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Heaven Does Exist. (at Vatnajökull National Park)

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Gossiping over the fence with the neighbors. (at Snaefellsnes Peninsula)

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Little House On The Glacier. #hygge (at Mosfellbær, Iceland)

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Exhaling. Icelandic hygge. #hygge (at Meðalfellsvatn)

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"The old woman remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum. "This bird", boasted the market vendor, "was once a duck that stretched its neck in hopes of becoming a goose. And now look, it is too beautiful to eat!" Then the woman and the swan sailed across an ocean many thousands of lei wide, stretching their necks toward America. On her journey, she cooed to the swan, "In America, I will have a daughter just like me. But over there, nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husbands belch. Over there, nobody will look down on her because I will make her speak only perfect American English. And over there, she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow. She will know my meaning because I will give her this swan, a creature that became more than what was hoped for." But when she arrived in the new country the immigration officials pulled the swan away from her, leaving the woman fluttering her arms and with only one swan feather for a memory. For a long time now, the women had wanted to give her daughter the single swan feather and tell her; "This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions."" (at Shanghai 长宁区)

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Fall in Shanghai. (at Jing'an Temple)

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Breakfast. (at The PuLi Hotel and Spa)

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Chinese hygge. #hygge #amber (at The PuLi Hotel and Spa)

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Bounty. Hand-blocked shibori bought directly from the maker while he ground the indigo. #shibori

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Spectacular. #indigo (at 釜の淵公園)

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Heaven. #i#shibori

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Persimmon Ikebana. (at Hotel Okura South Wing 〜ホテル オークラ 別館〜)

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And on Sundays We Rest. Curious Inspiration. Chasing Ice is a 2012 documentary film about the efforts of nature photographer James Balog and his Extreme Ice Survey to publicize the effects of climate change, directed by Jeff Orlowski. It documents a historic breakup at the Ilulissat Glacier in Western Greenland. The calving event lasted for 75 minutes and the glacier retreated a full mile across a calving face three miles wide. Watch all the way through and look at the comparative size of the glacier at the end. Enjoy.