Emily Davidow
What does the Global Climate Crisis have in common with the Loch Ness Monster ?
Posted on 06.18.08 by Emily
A. Both are fictional. Or at least highly speculative.
No. We’ve already established that.
B. Both indicate danger, especially around bodies of water.
Sure, but we’re looking for a more specific answer.
C. How about tree-fitty.
Exactly! Tree-fitty.

What’s tree-fitty?

Loch Ness Monster: $3.50

Global Climate Crisis: 350 is the red line for human beings, the most important number on the planet. The most recent science tells us that unless we can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, we will cause huge and irreversible damage to the earth.

Where are we now? About 385. Learn more, connect with others and take action at the newly relaunched 350.org founded by Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy (one of the most compelling and inspiring books I am reading right now.)


My Fingers Wear Pants… and Read Books
Posted on 04.16.08 by Emily


I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley from Book Videos on Vimeo.

I Was Told Thered Be Cake by Sloane Crosby I had noted I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley as a book I would probably enjoy reading, but without a sense of urgency. Then comes this short film and these diorama diaries. Sloane creates elaborate multi-media dioramas in lucite boxes for a bunch of her stories and brings them to life in these videos. Ha! I am falling in love. And ordering your book. Thanks for making me laugh!

“Like most people I imagine do, I have three sets of magnetic poetry. I don’t know why you wouldn’t. One of them is cat themed, which is in no way pathetic.” (from Diary of a Diorama: Smell This)

Filed under: advertising and books and creativity and culture and design and emily approved and funny and marketing and nyc and shopping and video


Streams of Consciousness
Posted on 03.15.08 by Emily

Oprah’s online book club event with Eckhart Tolle for A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose is truly wonderful. You can watch it on her site, download (video, audio and transcript) or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. The most exciting part is the use of Skype, allowing people from all over the world to participate in the live event using video chat. Whether you’re interested in the topic, technology or both, it’s worth registering (free) to see how it works and check out the extended materials.

 

In the amazing TED Talk above, Dr. Jill Taylor (author of My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey) reaches the insights Oprah and Eckhart discuss through a stroke. As a neuroanatomist, she was able to observe her own stroke from the inside out. She uses a real human brain as a prop, showing how differently the left and right hemispheres experience the world, outlining an anatomy of enlightenment and “circuitry of peace.”

Her talk highlighted for me how we are literally out of balance individually and collectively. “Modern” education focuses almost solely on the left brain and undervalues development of the right side. We need to develop the whole thing and use everything we’ve got. Bring back arts, music and movement and add in meditation. (Of course, if you use more than 5% of your brain, you don’t want to be on Earth anymore…)

Filed under: better world and consciousness and creativity and culture and happiness and health and interconnected and science and senses and video and webstuff


Something Happy in the State of Denmark
Posted on 02.18.08 by Emily

Interesting 60 Minutes segment, “Pursuit of Happiness” with Morley Safer investigating the claims that Denmark is the happiest country. United States was ranked 23th, Japan 90th.

He interviews Professor Kaare Christensen at the University of Southern Denmark, who wrote “Why Danes are Smug” and tried to discover why Denmark finds it self on top of the happiness heap. Dr. Christiansen attributes Danish happiness to modest expectations.

Here are some other qualities that might have something to do with it:

  • little disparity of wealth
  • little violence
  • people feel safe and secure
  • education is free through university (the government pays you)
  • free health care
  • subsidized child care
  • paid parental leave
  • elder care
  • humility: the Danish government’s website states: “the present configuration of the country is the result of 400 years of forced relinquishments of land, surrenders and lost battles.”

How does that work? The Danes pay about 50% in taxes for these services.

Tal Ben-Shahar, professor of Positive Psychology at Harvard, says Americans want it all - more is better. More is better usually applies to material realm. That doesn’t work. It doesn’t make us happier. What does?

“The number one predictor of well-being is close friendships and close relationships in general, which includes of course, family relationships. Much better predictor of well-being than affluence is,” Ben-Shahar says.

Asked what he would advise Americans to do, a Danish student said: “Well, okay. I have an advice. Don’t depend too much on the American dream. Yeah. I think you might get disappointed.”

(Full transcript of show. Tip of the hat to Duplicitous Primates)

Filed under: better world and culture and happiness and video


links for 2008-02-12: connect the dots la la la la
Posted on 02.12.08 by Emily

Filed under: activism and advertising and animals and better world and creativity and culture and links and love and marketing and photography and science and taste and technology and travel and video and webstuff


GhostGarden and More GPS Games
Posted on 01.29.08 by Emily

Ghost Garden

The surreal romance of aristocratic expat Lucy and castaway Jack enchanted me as I strolled through Sydney’s Royal Botanical Gardens in early January, following their love story on a handheld HP GPS device preloaded with Anita Fontaine’s spooky sweet Ghost Garden, part of the 2008 Sydney Festival. As I traveled through the gardens, certain locations would trigger animated scenes that revealed the story, set in the 1800s. I could feel the past, present and future all melting into one, and I got excited imagining the day when it be easy to create my own site-specific adventures for people to discover as they’re traveling through a space.

Garmin Colorado400T
That day turned out to be less than a month away! Wherigo is a flexible gaming platform that Garmin is embedding in their new Colorado 400t Handheld GPS unit (Pictured at right. Thanks, Brady!) Wherigo Builder allows anyone to build alternate reality games, tour guides, local reviews, real estate marketing apps, scavenger hunts, pub crawls or Victorian love stories that are site-specific by mapping out zones, creating a story and then sharing it online. (Alternately, you could write it directly in Lua, a programming language whose name means “moon” in Portuguese and is also what World of Warcrafters use to build on top of their platform.) If you have a PocketPC Device, you can download the Wherigo Player and start playing.

Anything similar for the iPhone’s fauxGPS maps or soon to be true GPS?

For now, you can enjoy my Emily Approved Sydney recommendations in Google Maps and in Google Earth.

Filed under: art and consumerism and creativity and culture and design and emily approved and gardening and love and senses and technology and travel and video and webstuff


links for 2008-01-25 Funky Forest
Posted on 01.25.08 by Emily

Funky Forest

Filed under: art and creativity and culture and design and environment and links and sustainability and technology and video and women


Loving Words
Posted on 11.06.07 by Emily

Lower Case n
“Lower Case N, Standing on a Hill,” from classic Sesame Street

My day started off with some of the brilliant skits and songs that instilled in me an early and abiding love for letters, letterforms and language: Lower-case N, Standing on a Hill from Sesame Street, Easy Reader and the Adventures of Letterman from Electric Company. I love learning that was Morgan Freeman, Gene Wilder, Joan Rivers and Zero Mostel. I’m feeling the urge to indulge in an extended experience. (Thanks, Panopticist!)

Not long after, I discovered Hyperwords, an excellent FireFox extension that lets you select any word and translate it, look it up in a dictionary or thesaurus, shop it, search it, blog it, slice it through a tin can and still apply many more commands than I have time to explore right now. One especially handy feature is being able to select any currency amount and convert it on the fly. (Despite how painful it is to convert prices in [any currency] to U.S. dollars now.)

Filed under: art and creativity and culture and design and emily approved and happiness and love and typography and video and webstuff


links for 2007-11-01: Looking at Things Differently
Posted on 11.01.07 by Emily

Lamas and Cameras in Bhutan
Posted on 10.13.07 by Emily

muensel: true love comes and goes

According to “Is That a Lama Behind the Camera,” Anupama Chopra’s great article in the New York Times on Bhutan’s budding film industry, last year a record 24 films were produced in the tiny Himalayan kingdom, population 700,000; in 2003 the total was only six. Even though there were only ten films produced in the country in 2005, delightful movie posters announced screenings in the theaters or public halls of every town I traveled through. The article describes a trend towards song-and-dance fantasy, but the movies that caught my eye had taglines that sounded far more realistic: “Muensel — True love comes… and goes,” “Ratho Namgay — bungling along a lifetime achievement of failure,” and “Kikhor — the drama of life begins at home, within the family.” It’s clear that while the dialogue is in Dzongkha and the costumes are traditionally Bhutanese, the themes are universal.

(more…)

Filed under: art and consumerism and creativity and culture and emily approved and fashion and funny and happiness and movies and observations and travel and video

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