Exploring The Shift
The shift is not a thing. It is the action of discovering Self.

I recently wrote about the soviet bus shelters and found a similar article on neatorama about the town Ramenskoye located some 50km southeast of Moscow.

The houses there are entirely painted with adorable designs which are entirely different from what I'd associate with russian suburbs. What I really adore about Russians is their ability to improvise.

Here is a picture and a link to a site with more photos, but unfortunately the comments there are cyrillic so I didn't find out much.

Link

This is just too damn cute to not post (full story and background).

Via neatorama, via aborath

Besides splendid, the word magnificent means great which of course means big and hence it is exactly the right word for this puppet play. And it is amazing how about halfway through the video my perception of size shifted (like what was normal size and what was big or small).

Did I ever tell anyone how I love YouTube? Well, I guess I mention that all the time. What I love about it most, is how this medium makes me aware of things people do, things of which I would have never heard of otherwise. I love YouTube it also because it makes people do new things, just because they know they can make and post videos about it easily.

This is why I'm offering the following video, about a man who does something which seems to be called Contact Juggling. It looks beautifully unreal and the music is great too …

There's a beautiful story about a Chinese woman who had her bag stolen and who was getting it back with all items. After all, there's some goodness in everybody, even thiefs.

China phone thief repents after 21 text messages

I'm sort of going back to the roots of this blog, wanting to show the wondrous diversity of life in this particular dimension which we call planet earth.

BoingBoing linked to Polar Inertia today, with photo series by Christopher Herwig, documenting modern society. I'm just beginning to explore the site, but the series which was featured on boingboing, is one that I that I find particularly intriguing.

(image © Christopher Herwig)

I think you won't be able to guess what this is. It is not a Bauhaus art installation, but a bus shelter from the former Soviet Union.

The roadside bus stop serves a simple purpose – to show where the bus will stop and to provide some comfort and shelter for waiting passengers. One would think that the Soviets would have come up with one universal design for this community structure – simple, functional and cheap to mass produce. However, in many instances this was not the case, much time, effort and imagination went into many roadside bus stops. The sky was the limit with different shapes and design– blocks, domes, columns, towers, A-frames and archways, even ones shaped like birds, yurts and hats. If the bus stop was less bold and daring with its architectural design then the creators would often attract attention with decorating the structure with murals or mosaics. The themes that these decorated bus stops took usually varied depending on the region, often reflecting the local culture, history, or industries.

If you check the phots, make sure you view the whole series as some of the shelters may not be so stunning individually, but seeing the sheer creativity and variety is nothing but stunning, especially because of the eerie contrast of this variety in a society which would be associated with conformity and architectural blandness compared the uniformity of bus stops in western society, which focuses so much on individuality: Soviet Bus Shelters

I also like his series about Indian Rikshaw Mudflaps, which is also about overflowing creativity in transportation.

I've been neglecting this blog a bit recently due to lack of spectacular insights to post here, so until I find something deep and meaningful to share with whoever reads this blog, I'll take Elias' advice from a recent session and will focus more on playfulness (but I'll keep trying to sneak in Elias catchphrases in an unobstrusive way).

Speaking of playfulness, I just found a video of a rabbit which implemented payfulness in quite a bold way.

Well, ever since Monty Python's movie Holy Grail it is well known that rabbits are deady and bloodthirsty creatures (movie scene).

One may have taken that as a typical exaggeration by Monty Python, but now a fearless and agressive rabbit has been spotted and filmed.

(Found on haha.nu (which is one of my favorite blogs, because I always find light and amusing stuff there to distract me from thinking deep thoughts :-))

Usually when people hear about conscious creation they immediately go into some extreme details, like asking if you put this to work, could you get run over by a bus and walk away unharmed? The reasoning behind this is the idea of cause and effect, i.e. that a specific event always has the same outcome.

I'd like to change the question a bit and provide an answer in form of a video: If a truck topples over and falls on your car and crushes it flat, can you walk away unharmed?

See for yourself (but don't try this at home, at least not unless you're sure you mastered the belief system of cause and effect):

Miracle - video powered by Metacafe

I recently posted videos to two Goldberg Machines and yesterday haha.nu (re)posted a video of an 2003 commercial for the Honda Accord, which is probably the most incredible Goldberg Machine you'll ever see. I remember that I watched it for ten times in a row when I first saw it a few years ago, all with my jaw dropped and eyes wide open in disbelief.

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I have a couple of focuses who intensely work with metal, many of them creating blades of all kind, like a japanese swordsmith or a person creating knifes in France, working at the original Forge Laguiole. The fascination for fine craftsmanship, especially in metal, spills over big time into this life, although in this focus my own skills in that regard are close to zero. But show me a fine piece done in stainless steel and I'm the happiest person on the planet.

So, when I saw the work of Mark Ho yesterday on haha.nu I was struck in awe and smiling all over the face.

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This is another example of what humans are capable of when faced with limits. Ben Underwood who lost his eyes at the age of two. Since then he developed the amazing ability to "see" by making clicking noises and listen to the echo like bats do. He can do almost everything normal teeangers do, like walking down a street without help, participate in a pillow fight, play video games or skate on rollerblades. You really see the grace of his movements to fully appreciate his ability.

I especially like how his mother approached the handicap, which is probably for a large part responsible for the development of this unique trait.

Is this dimension really wondrous and extremely diverse? If you are not convinced yet, have a look at these samples of sculptures from around the world .

I especially like the one below, the space cow, the upside down rider and the guy coming up from the manhole in Brussels (well, and the blowjob couple :-).

I came across a news snippet from LA Weekly recently which I like because it outlines the immense creativity in humans and because it's a nice metaphor for overcoming separation.

There's a beach between Mexico and the U.S. with no signs, no parking lot, no lifeguard but with a huge border fence made of metal pylons which are rammed into the sand and going out far into the water. It's a place where nobody except the border patrol is supposed to come to.

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I mentioned yesterday that I appreciated ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

There are two versions of that. On the one hand there are those stories which arise out of the circumstances of ordinary life and which touch the heart, like Team Hoyt or the Walking Dog . On the other hand I appreciate projects which, when measured by normal standards , are useless, stupid or crazy (or all of that at the same time). Projects which defy the idea of productivity and which are done out of pure fun, simply because someone wants to do them or wants to know if they can be done. I guess part of the fun comes exactly from the lack of rationale behind them, like building a hamster wheel for a cat or making realistic replicas of guns from paper.

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Part of my intent for this blog is to document the magic and diversity in this pyhsical dimension. It is hard to put in words, but I am fascinated by people and events who are doing things which, if you'd ask me offhand, I'd say are impossible or hard to believe. Like Team Hoyt for example.

In fact the following video reminds me a lot of Team Hoyt, in the sense that it is about a normal person and her dedication and love towards the so called handicapped (this time a dog). What strikes me there (in both cases) is how this arises out of the normal, out of everyday life and how this displays the potential of what is possible on this planet.

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