March showers bring April flowers. And allergies.

Sibel and Tim are excited about spring! Are you?

The lights of Hammerfest

An aurora is a natural display of light in the sky that can be seen with the unaided eye only at night. An auroral display in the Northern Hemisphere is called the aurora borealis, or the northern lights. A similar phenomenon in the Southern Hemisphere is called the aurora australis. Auroras are the most visible effect of the sun's activity on the earth's atmosphere.

Most auroras occur in far northern and southern regions. They appear chiefly as arcs, clouds, and streaks. Some move, brighten, or flicker suddenly. The most common color in an aurora is green. But displays that occur extremely high in the sky may be red or purple. Most auroras occur about 60 to 620 miles (97 to 1,000 kilometers) above the earth. Some extend lengthwise across the sky for thousands of miles or kilometers.
(excerpt taken from http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/aurora_worldbook.html)

In Bill Bryson's travel memoir Neither Here Nor There, he begins his journey in Hammerfest, Norway, "the northernmost point of the European mainland", with the hopes of witnessing the spectacular display of the Northern Lights.

He describes Hammerfest as a quaint and quiet little town where not much happens. He becomes a regular at the local coffee shop and hotel bar and spends most of his time waiting for the magical lightshow to appear. Eventually, more than two weeks in he gets his wish.

I think his descriptions of Hammerfest totally intriguing. I finally googled some images of the city (shown above) and was rather shocked to find it so picturesque. I guess that shouldn't surprise me as the Scandinavian countries are known being pretty nice, huh. I like the idea of escaping anonymously for a month to a place where, after a while, your routine makes you feel like a native rather than a stranger.

Picture : © Samuel Blanc / http://www.sblanc.com/

Go ahead and....Might as well...

Photographer Philippe Halsman believed, "When you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping and the mask falls so that the real person appears." His Jump Book, published in 1959, features 178 photographs of "celebrity jumpers." Pictured below are the Duke and Dutchess of Windsor, Audrey Hepburn, and of course, Marilyn Monroe and Richard Nixon.

When I finally break down and buy a new camera, I want to make my own jump book starring my friends and family. I can't wait!

The Professional Dreamers: Encounters at the End of the World

Werner Herzog (Filmaker, Badass): And how does it happen that we are encountering each other here at the end of the world?

Stefan Pashor (Philosopher, Forklift Driver): I think that uh (chuckling) that's a logical place to find each other because this place works as a...almost as a natural selection for people that have this intention to jump off the margin of the map. And we all meet here--where all the lines on the map converge.

(from Werner Herzog's extraordinary documentary on Antartica Encounters at the End of the World)

Chris Eigeman quotes-part 3

Barcelona-Fred Boynton
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Fred: "Yankee" and "gringo" are obviously pejorative, but it's the standard dictionary term that's the most insulting of all. "Estadunidense." Dense. D-E-N-S-E. It's the same spelling. Dense: thick, stupid. Every time you hear it. Estadunidense-dense-dense. It's like a direct slap in the face. It's incredible.

Montserrat: I think you are too sensitive.

Fred: Oh great, now we're too sensitive.
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Fred: You think wedding vows are going to change everything? God, your naivete is astounding! Didn't you see "The Graduate"?

Ted: You can remember "The Graduate"?

Fred: Yeah, I can remember a few things. Apparently you don't. The end? Katharine Ross has just married this really cool guy - tall, blond, incredibly popular, the make-out king of his fraternity in Berkeley - when this obnoxious Dustin Hoffman character shows up at the back of the church, acting like a total asshole. "Elaine! Elaine!" Does Katharine Ross tell Dustin Hoffman, "Get lost, creep. I'm a married woman"? No. She runs off with him - on a bus. That is the reality.

J.D., we hardly knew ye

"We're freaks, that's all. Those two bastards got us nice and early and made us into freaks with freakish standards, that's all. We're the tattooed lady, and we're never going to have a minute's peace, the rest of our lives, until everybody else is tattooed, too."

-J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

R.I.P

Pleased to meet you

So uh, I might have found my nirvana. Walking home from work yesterday, I passed a doggie daycare (on 12th street I believe?). They were so well-behaved! They all rushed up to the window to say hi, but they didn't bark. They just stared. Being all cute and stuff. 

I think the woman who worked there thought I was a loon. I couldn't stop grinning and waving at the dogs!