a story about songs

There is a tribe in Africa called the Himba tribe, where the birth date of a child is counted not from when they were born, nor from when they are conceived but from the day that the child was a thought in its mother’s mind. And when a woman decides that she will have a child, she goes off and sits under a tree, by herself, and she listens until she can hear the song of the child that wants to come. And after she’s heard the song of this child, she comes back to the man who will be the child’s father, and teaches it to him. And then, when they make love to physically conceive the child, some of that time they sing the song of the child, as a way to invite it. And then, when the mother is pregnant, the mother teaches that child’s song to the midwives and the old women of the village, so that when the child is born, the old women and the people around her sing the child’s song to welcome it. And then, as the child grows up, the other villagers are taught the child’s song. If the child falls, or hurts its knee, someone picks it up and sings its song to it. Or perhaps the child does something wonderful, or goes through the rites of puberty, then as a way of honoring this person, the people of the village sing his or her song. In the African tribe there is one other occasion upon which the villagers sing to the child. If at any time during his or her life, the person commits a crime or aberrant social act, the individual is called to the center of the village and the people in the community form a circle around them. Then they sing their song to them. The tribe recognizes that the correction for antisocial behavior is not punishment; it is love and the remembrance of identity. When you recognize your own song, you have no desire or need to do anything that would hurt another. And it goes this way through their life. In marriage, the songs are sung, together. And finally, when this child is lying in bed, ready to die, all the villagers know his or her song, and they sing—for the last time—the song to that person. You may not have grown up in an African tribe that sings your song to you at crucial life transitions, but life is always reminding you when you are in tune with yourself and when you are not. When you feel good, what you are doing matches your song, and when you feel awful, it doesn’t. In the end, we shall all recognize our song and sing it well. You may feel a little warbly at the moment, but so have all the great singers. Just keep singing and you’ll find your way home.

eating

Marije Vogelzang

be the change you want to see

Intervention Cindy Gallop MasterClass 15-11-11 von iabfrancetv

turn waiting time into shopping time

handicraft+art+community work+awarness for the environment+science

quote

"Rund 3,5 Millionen Menschen werden entindividualisiert und als homogene Masse und Bedrohung wahrgenommen", so der türkische Künstler Züli Aladag.

"not looking to judge or manipulate. but looking to learn, or support or evolve."

interesting talk (after min 10) which cannot be embedded.
more thoughts by dannah.
and about jane jacobs.

here and there

reminds me of "brass unbound" by johan van der keuken.
thanks marlon

ask and you will be helped

kickstarter

Francis Alÿs - When Faith Moves Mountains (2002)

Francis Alÿs - When Faith Moves Mountains (2002) - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

"...it will generate one story after the other. And the story will be passed on like an oral tradition. And later the ones who were there will tell the freshmen coming in. That way a memory will be built up of an event that only lasted a day and will live on for who know how long."..."So in fact we've got other projects. Things like drink the Atlantic, melt the Antartic, paint the sky. That kind of thing, simple stuff..."

re-constructing reality through a group effort of unrelated people

"In this project, we consider the problem of reconstructing entire cities from images harvested from the web. Our aim is to build a parallel distributed system that downloads all the images associated with a city, say Rome, from Flickr.com. After downloading, it matches these images to find common points and uses this information to compute the three dimensional structure of the city and the pose of the cameras that captured these images."
thanks kevin

magic

thanks fresser

thanks

when i walked back to my car, after seeing some dance piece i did not understand, i heard classical music coming from the other side of the bridge.
it turned out to be a free public concert, organised by clärchens ballhaus - one of the few places in berlin where generations and people from all sorts of backgrounds really mingle. one of my favourite places.
half way throught the concert the orchestra had to take a little break to tune their instruments again. because of the cold.

group of like-minded people+self expression+instant feedback

analog version of what the web is good at (go to 12:20) - before the web was around.

Joanie 4 Jackie from Miranda July on Vimeo.

timetraveling for real

informationen aus der zukunft können entscheidungen in der gegenwart so beinflussen, dass diese wiederum ebendiese zukunft verändern können.

reclaim the city

freeclimbing in vienna



surfing

public space

this is the courtyard of the museum quatier in vienna. there are always people hanging out, meeting up, mingeling, surrounded by several museum, restaurants and bars. it is public and it's being used. it's brilliant. and the thing that makes it work are those yellow objects. this is what potsdamer platz in berlin could have been like. let's see if they'll use their second chance with the stadtschloss.

community work (part2)

the ted community is truly generous. you can now get translations in the form of subtitles in up to 23 languages per talk plus interactive transcripts in those languages, that will take you to the point in the video that you click on in the text. replacing esperanto by voluntary community work.
talking about talks: listening to words features talks from all over the place, themes and genres.
thanks david

community work

i often walked past this place but it took me a while to figure out what it is all about. it is what it says: a superhero supply store. and it also is a place for kids to write and do their homework. the man who initiated all this also does 826 valencia in san francisco (followed by eg 826la), wonderful dvd magazine wholphin, the believer, mcsweeney's and writes his own books. if i had stayed in ny, i would have applied as a tutor there.
thanks kevin, thanks sashka