Alex Ratcliffe-Lee

woah

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:43:38 -0500

I ate over two pounds of cookies on Monday. I know this because the woman sold them to me by weight. Don’t do this, you will not feel good afterward. I did however feel better than expected and am still alive to be a champ.

intermittent fasting and changing your eating habits

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:38:19 -0500

intermittent fasting and changing your eating habits:

movingdragon:

forcedistancetime:

(via delightinmotion)

This little article is helpful for anyone interested in changing their eating habits. I myself have a hard time figuring out when to stop eating but the truth is it takes some self-control and a few weeks of re-programming. I highly recommend reading this (it takes about 3 minutes) and then acting upon it. Consideration of your situation may be necessary before embarking on breaking bad eating habits but otherwise worrying that you might not be able to eat that donut is a waste of your time. I wrote down some goals and guidelines for myself and posted the paper above my computer screen. I can’t necessarily measure how much they’ve helped because I believe it was on a subconscious level. I have made some considerable progress in one week.

"Now don’t misunderstand me. I said he was in love with his fate, not with himself. Those are..."

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:21:20 -0500

“Now don’t misunderstand me. I said he was in love with his fate, not with himself. Those are two very different things. His life assumed a separate identity and started pursuing interests of its own, quite apart from mirek’s. That is what I mean when I say his life became his fate. Fate had no intention of lifting a finger for mirek(for his happiness, security, good spirits, or health), whereas Mirek was willing to do everything for his fate (for it’s grandeur, lucidity, beauty, style, and scrutability). He felt responsible for his fate, but his fate felt no responsibility for him”

- Milan Kundera The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

I’m in the middle of this book right now and this quote to be frank, really fucked with me and ripped my head open. It may be time to make some decisions.

landscapelifescape: California’s Humboldt Redwoods State...

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:51:52 -0500

landscapelifescape:

California’s Humboldt Redwoods State Park

“Among the tallest and longest-lived trees on Earth, redwoods depend on summertime’s moisture-rich fog to replenish their water reserves. But climate change may be reducing this crucial fog cover. Though still poorly understood, climate change may be contributing to a decline in a high-pressure climatic system that usually “pinches itself” against the coast, creating fog.”

Giant Redwoods May Dry Up; Warming to Blame?

Fasting

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:42:00 -0500

Calorie Restriction Cleans Cells (Thursday August 23 2007)

An interesting pitch for the latest research on autophagy and calorie restriction from EurekAlert!: “Cutting calories helps rodents live longer by boosting cells’ ability to recycle damaged parts so they can maintain efficient energy production. … Caloric restriction is a way to extend life in animals. If you give them less food, the stress of this healthy habit actually makes them live longer … How does it work? During the aging process, free radicals - highly reactive byproducts of our cells’ respiration - wreak havoc on our cellular machinery. … younger cells are adept at reducing, recycling and rebuilding. In this process, damaged mitochondria are quickly swallowed up and degraded. The broken down pieces are then recycled and used to build new mitochondria. However, older cells are less adept at this process, so damaged mitochondria tend to accumulate and contribute to aging. … The stress of a low-calorie diet was enough to boost cellular cleaning in the hearts of older rats by 120 percent over levels seen in rats that were allowed to eat what they wanted.”

Here is the link to original article, which I haven’t read but I fell upon this excerpt while perusing the net for information about fasting. In about a half hour i’ll be approaching the end of one of my first 24 hour fasts. I stopped eating at 5 yesterday. Took class in the morning with a cup of coffee. I felt a little jittery but once my heart rate was up by the end of class my energy level was sky high. The first time I ever fasted was when I was in Highschool and some of my friends were fasting for a religious purpose and so I thought i’d try it out, simply for the sake of trying it. First of all during the entire day I was fasting I didnt do much except hang out on the computer, and whenever I stood up I got extremely light headed and dizzy. However by the end of the fast I found I had lost my appetite completely and didn’t even feel hungry. I’m not quite sure why this was but it was fascinating. It’s safe to say I’m healthier now than I was when I was a sophomore in highschool dancing and playing soccer everyday, especially if I can take a class with no food in my stomach (just fyi the lightheadedness stemmed from the fact that my body was dependent on ingesting carbs every few hours for my entire life) and not ever experience lightheadedness but in fact more energy. I’ve read other articles and testimonies where episodic deprivation of food to your body will help fat loss, if anyone is interested. I’m fasting mainly for the purpose of the quote mentioned above. I’m not eating less though because at the end of the fast I plan on eating all of the food I didn’t eat during the day, or at least some of it, depending on how I feel.

Oh and the processes they are measuring in rats also happens in humans….

In Defense of Avidity

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 21:25:33 -0500

invisiblestories:

poetbabble:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.

- Goethe

This is the way of things, something to remember. My life is filled with hesitation and equally so, the more I try and be a part of this world, the more opportunities arise.

invisiblestories: The Veils, “Sit Down by the Fire” “My...

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:10:17 -0500

invisiblestories:

The Veils, “Sit Down by the Fire”

“My father’s singing in the falling leaves/about the complicated beauty of a river run dry.”

If I can do anything right now, I can relate to the sentiments this song expresses. It also invokes in me a feeling of rightness and sincerity. There are some nights when I’m outside whether it be in Vermont or otherwise where sitting down by the fire is so compelling. To quote C.S. Lewis’ Suprised by Joy “[Since nature’s] beauties were such that even a fool could not force them into competition, this cured me once and for all of the pernicious tendency to compare and to prefer -an operation that does little good even when we are dealing with works of art and endless harm when we are dealing with nature. Total surrender is the first step towards the fruition of either. Shut your mouth; open your eyes and ears. Take in what is there and give no thought to what might have been there or what is somewhere else. That can come later, if it must come at all.” Being around nature is one of the healthiest environments I have found for myself. It puts my soul at ease. I swallow my pride almost instantly and unconsciously knowing that what I’m experiencing is utterly visceral. Of course this perspective is only enhanced and catered to by the fact that I’ve been living in an urban setting for the past 4 years. It is a wonder if I would have the same kind of appreciation for it had I been surrounded by it rather than isolated by brick and concrete but in any event spring is coming, and I hope I’m ready.

invisiblestories: (via rhea137) irony

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:09:41 -0500

invisiblestories:

(via rhea137)

irony

In Defense of Food

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:01:20 -0500

“Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants” -Michael Pollan

I just finished reading In Defense of Food (an Eater’s Manifesto) by Michael Pollan. He covered topics such as how to eat, what to eat, and where we went wrong. It wasn’t anything eye opening for me at this point in time but it was nicely put and a much easier read than the monotony of Good Calories Bad Calories by Taubes where he goes on mentioning every statistic about cholesterol known to man. Regardless, Pollan’s book brought up many questions and thoughts. He speaks of the age of Nutritionism, a time period we are currently experiencing where reductionist science has taken food and divided it up into macro and micro-nutrients (e.g. Carbs, proteins, fats being macro and vitamins and minerals representing the micro) in order to figure out how certain things work. This boom in Nutritionism has perhaps complicated things more than not. I’m not putting down reductionist science but in this case it tends to make a bigger problem rather than a smaller one. What the studies that they do can’t measure is how different nutrients might react along with others. Different combination’s produce different results. We all know too much sugar isn’t a good thing and that it spikes insulin, but if eaten with or after eating fat, the absorption process is slowed. The division of all of these nutrients has produced “food” products that advertise a certain health claim. “Nutritionism is, in a sense, the official ideology of the Western diet” (Pollan 11). Our food has become divided and industrialized in order to fit and supposedly match the fast track of “progress” that we think we are on.

It doesn’t have to be this complicated. It never did. I’m going to refer to the quote at the top of the page. Life will be much simpler and enjoyable if one would regard those words. I can’t say I abide by them 100% of the time (there are some days where I bow down to Ben & Jerry’s) but I can say that when I have, it’s made a world of difference. Plus, with a generation growing up that for the first time might not live as long as their parents, sometimes being more progressive means taking steps backwards to get on track. Our society is moving so fast sometimes that I think people don’t realize that it’s also important to figure out whether or not what they are doing is going to help or hinder them. I don’t want to live in a country where no one knows how to cook or have an appetite for real food.

P.S. If anyone is still interested I’m working on that paleo/primal diet again. My largest obstacle tends to be my appetite but I’ve made a lot of progress on that as of late. A website I frequent that’s really been a ton of help for me regarding exercise, nutrition (ha go figure), recipes, and general health news and info can be found at www.Marksdailyapple.com. It’s a really cool site that is pretty easy to navigate. You can find articles he wrote like ‘the definitive guide to fats’ that gives you a simple straight forward answer to help you on your way.

mills: Louis Moreau Gottschalk - Bamboula, ‘Danse des...

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:32:05 -0500

mills:

Louis Moreau Gottschalk - Bamboula, ‘Danse des Nègres’

Performed here by Philip Martin, Gottschalk’s piece was inspired by the Bamboula, an African dance brought to the Americas by slaves. Gottschalk was a Creole -his father was a Jewish Englishman and his mother was from Santo Domingo- and he grew up in New Orleans. He was likely exposed to the Bamboula in Congo Square, then called the “Place de Negres,” where slaves were allowed to gather on Sundays, released from their labors.

Congo Square preserved many of the African musical traditions which would later intermingle with European forms to become jazz, blues, and rock, and their descendants. When I was a young drummer, I purchased a CD called Congo Square, from whom I don’t know, which had the African dance followed by this piece, which I’ve loved ever since.

I thought this appropriate to reblog because the girls of PB II have been rehearsing a piece by Corbett to music by Gottschalk. Not this particular piece but something like it.

davidcho: Big Boi feat. Gucci Mane - ‘Shot Blockas’ SOULFUL RAP...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:05:52 -0500

davidcho:

Big Boi feat. Gucci Mane - ‘Shot Blockas’

SOULFUL RAP MUSIC.

Peripherally related: my favorite Gucci Mane related lyric comes by way of Young Jeezy in Rihanna’s song ‘Hard’ -

See my Louis tux, Louis flag, Louis Frames,/ Louis Belt? What that make me, Louis Mane?

via Neel (also somewhat peripherally)

I’ve realized I’m not one of those people that picks up lyrics easily. When I listen to music like this it’s always the beat and how the voice compliments the sound. I haven’t explored the meaning behind it but it’s grooovy.

mills: Clouds and clocks. (Image from a beautiful photoset by...

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:32:59 -0500

mills:

Clouds and clocks. (Image from a beautiful photoset by April Cakes).

My friend Tragos, in response to another of countless essays on this or that “generation,” noted why he feels that these periodic commentaries on Xers, Yers, and Millennials fascinate us despite their utter meaninglessness. Whatever their wittiness, their sardonic and seemingly-knowing nods to cultural phenomena we love to be reminded of, they are statistically indefensible: sweeping, Thomas-Friedman-esque generalizations about tens or hundreds of millions of individuals whose ages alone are no more essential to their nature than their ethnicity, class, religiosity, aptitudes, experiences, place of origin, sex, or genetics.

As I asked Tragos: when we cannot even cleanly define the span of generations, especially when we complicate them by comparing, say, a 1980 baby in NYC to one in Anchorage, one rich, one poor, etc., how can we possibly consider it meaningful when some indolent author-journalist sallies forth with a few pointed remarks about media, technology, and other comparably superficial signifiers? Such remarks are as useful as comments at your neighborhood bar concerning “women” or “whites.”

And yet! There does seem to be something more than the egoistic pleasure of comparing and contrasting ourselves superficially with others -do I watch more or less TV, or do I only watch shows on the Internet?- to generational investigations, if not concretely then in literature. Nothing is more novelistic than the embodiment of a time; it is a critical cliche -true and dull- that the best novels seem to “capture the zeitgeist.”

To me, this seems a classic illustration of the utility of impressionism: art behaves unscientifically, performs operations on data sets that cannot be methodologically justified, and achieves a fidelity to reality that is as useful to comprehending a time, a place, a people, as any sociological survey. One cannot scientifically defend un-researched assertions about millions, but one reads a single novel and is acquainted, so far as one can be, with an era long past.

(If such articles on generations -“Are Millennials More Likely to Have Successful Marriages?”- were considered as impressionistic sketches and not journalism, I’d not consider them nearly so ridiculous).

What has this to do with clouds and clocks? It reminds me -as does much- of the problems of aggregation, of individuation, of how one accurately renders on a social scale a reality composed of individual actors. It is always a reduction to do so, always a kind of falsehood, yet it is necessary, too, and has its own sort of truth. That truths change with scale is unsettling, and reminds me of Karl Popper’s distinction between clouds and clocks, and of how physical indeterminacy can nevertheless yield predictable systems.

These remarks by Erwin Schrödinger are illustrative as well; you’re no doubt familiar with the process of diffusion, but it is notable that for individual molecules, there’s really no such thing:

Imagine a vessel filled with a fluid, say water, with a small amount of some coloured substance dissolved in it… If you leave this system alone a very slow process of ‘diffusion’ sets in, the [substance] spreading from…place of higher concentration towards the places of lower concentration, until it is equally distributed through the water.

The remarkable thing about this rather simple and apparently not particularly interesting process is that it is in no way due, as one might think, to any tendency or force driving the… molecules away from the crowded region to the less crowded one… Nothing of the sort happens… Every one of them behaves quite independently of all the others, which it very seldom meets. Every one of them, whether in a crowded region or in an empty one, suffers the same fate of being continually knocked about by the impacts of the water molecules and thereby gradually moving on in an unpredictable direction –sometimes towards the higher, sometimes towards the lower concentrations, sometimes obliquely.

That this random walk of the molecules, the same for all of them, should yet produce a regular flow towards the smaller concentration and ultimately make for uniformity of distribution, is at first sight perplexing –but only at first sight.

Diffusion -a process essential biology in particular- works because of the aggregated behavior of individual elements that themselves do not obey the pattern-rules of the aggregate. Like an individual who, freely and of his own agency makes unpredictable choices and reacts intellectually and emotionally to his world, a single molecule cannot be relied upon to exemplify the “mass” behavior of diffusion. Yet, in total, the system of molecules does, just as many millions of individuals do seem somehow to sum into a society describable, in principle and to a degree in fact, by an observer.

I will continue to insist that society is better described by a novelist than a scientist, for the time being, simply because I am an individual, a molecule, and it remains more interesting to me what Tragos does -even as he typifies and violates the rules of his “generation”- than whether we millions move this way or that in our random shuffling.

Thank you for this. Comparing what I’ve read to what I experience and see in my life I realize that there is nothing important or useful or accurate about any of those general statistics, yet for a split second I found myself sorting through them looking for something that I might be able to fit into. It’s a slippery slope and I have to keep reminding myself about how much useless shit is out there.

Yes, those pictures of clouds are baller, but also, how does one capture them?

Walking in the woods makes you smarter

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:16:41 -0500

Walking in the woods makes you smarter:

jratlee:

bobulate:

Seth Fischer on giving your brain a needed break, or “attention restorative theory:”

When you go for a walk in, say, the woods, you’re using a more subtle “involuntary attention” when looking at things like sunsets or squirrels. When you’re in the city, you’re always avoiding that asshole bicyclist, stepping over that pile of human poo, or spending your brain power ignoring the Rottweiler barking at you in the window. Because your “direct attention” is always focused, your prefrontal cortex is always on overdrive, and you end up not being as good at things that you need “direct attention” for, like learning at school or solving problems you haven’t faced before or resolving conflict. In other words, if you don’t take some time to look at a sunset, your brain never gets a break, and that’s not good.

Before you take a hike, see also: “The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting With Nature“ or the slightly less complex, “The Cognitive Benefits of Nature.”

to everyone who asks why i don’t live in new york city, here is my proverbial middle finger/your answer.

Nature asks nothing of you and gives you everything. booyah

chew yo' food

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:02:51 -0500

Digestion starts in the mouth
Saliva contains several enzymes that break down whatever you’re chewin’
Chew until you can’t recognize what it is you’re chewing.
Depending on what it is, i’ll chew each bite almost 50 times.
It helps absorb the nutrients.
word.
Been consciously breathing a lot too.
In through the nose out through the mouth
Breathe with your stomach not your chest
Surfin the web? Breathe 10 times, see what happens.
Go for a walk, it’ll help reduce inflammation
It also helps digest the food that you chewed a billion times.
Oh look, no more problems.
word.

"The deadly power of rushing about wherever I pleased had not been given me. I measured distances by..."

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:07:30 -0500

“The deadly power of rushing about wherever I pleased had not been given me. I measured distances by the standard of man, man walking on his two feet, not by the internal combustion engine. I had not been allowed to deflower the very idea of distance; in return I possessed “infinite riches” in what would have been to motorists “a little room.” The truest and most horrible claim made for modern transport is that it “annihilates distance.” It does. It annihilates one of the most glorious gifts we have been given… A modern boy travels a hundred miles with less sense of liberation and pilgrimage and adventure than his grandfather got from traveling ten.”

- C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy. The idea that speed devalues space -and that such a devaluation impoverishes our experience of the world, deprives us of beauty and adventure- seems true to me, and easily demonstrated: think of the spaces of your childhood!

As a child, you experience the shed in the backyard, the ditch near your house, tree in the park, the sandbox, the closet, the sofa-fort as wonders of imaginative space. They are worlds! When you revisit the worlds of your past, you at once think, “How small it is.” This is not solely because you’re larger; you are also faster, and your mind -restless, impatient, adult- cannot create in those confines any longer.

Incidentally, art that restores the sense of space I had in childhood is often my favorite art; an excellent example is the work of Joshua Heineman. So is that of Nika States.

Concerns about distance, beauty, and memory recur in Milan Kundera’s works as well; see, for example, his remarks about speed, memory, and forgetting, or the passage below, from Immortality:

A highway differs from a path not only because it is solely intended for vehicles, but also because it is merely a line that connects one point with another. A highway has no meaning in itself; its meaning derives entirely from the two points that it connects. A path is a tribute to space. Every stretch of path has meaning in itself and invites us to stop. A high is the triumphant devaluation of space, which thanks to it has been reduced to a mere obstacle to human movement and a waste of time.

Before paths disappeared from the landscape, they had disappeared from the human soul: man stopped wanting to walk, to walk on his own feet and enjoy it. What’s more, he no longer saw his own life as a path, but as a highway: a line that led from one point to another, from the rank of captain to the rank of general, from the role of wife to the role of widow. Time became a mere obstacle to life, an obstacle that had to be overcome by ever greater speed.

Path and highway; these are also two different conceptions of beauty… In the world of highways, a beautiful landscape means: an island of beauty connected by a long line with other islands of beauty. In the world of paths, beauty is continuous and constantly changes; it tells us at every step: “Stop!”

Both Lewis and Kundera ascribe a violent and self-effacing quality to the obsession with speed, with compressing the world into quanta to be parsed, itemized, counted, rocketed between; Lewis writes, “Of course if a man hates space and wants it to be annihilated, that is another matter. Why not creep into his coffin at once? There is little enough space there.”

At the beginning: childhood, when the vacant lot next to your house is larger than any field you’ll ever see, any forest you’ll ever explore, a richer world than you’ll experience again: every tree’s bark captivating, every rock covering a menagerie of animals, every hole the lair of a monster. At the end: total compression, completely instantaneous travel throughout your world, the total collapse of reality into a pine box.

Between them, one struggles to keep one’s world as large as possible, not to let it close in around one: one’s city, one’s house, one’s television, one’s mind. One must break routines, abandon highways, sit in sand and dirt, walk paths, find alleys with old boxes to make spaceships out of; or perhaps one can translate childhood play into the language of adulthood; one can figuratively push against, smear paint on, write on the walls, postponing the looming singularity by living as a child does: in the present moment.

(via mills)

Mills hit’s the spot on this one. On some days these ideas worry me. Will I be looking back on a culture that was so caught up on figuring out how to progress? It’s true speed loves to eat up space, and that’s what makes it so appealing. Watching dancers on stage move at ridiculous speeds while at the same time covering the whole stage in the process is extremely exciting. It takes the idea and puts it in a different context. You are in a theatre where the audience has already quantified the distance and space. It’s was exciting because they were able to see how fast you can go from A to B.

My impatience is just a reminder of how fast I want to move sometimes. What for? I wouldn’t mind making a sofa-fort again.

Andrew showed me this one night. the timing is pretty insane. ...

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 18:45:13 -0500

Andrew showed me this one night. the timing is pretty insane. It reminded me how cool the process can be regardless of the outcome. Each picture was finished only long enough for her to grab more sand.

jingc: Fascinating interview with a sushi chef - he says that...

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:27:15 -0500

jingc:

Fascinating interview with a sushi chef - he says that even 20 years of experience with sushi is not enough, that plain is the best way, and that “special” tuna means low quality tuna.

jingc: The XX - Shelter

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:16:49 -0500

jingc:

The XX - Shelter

shifting in the winds.

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:54:46 -0500

I was about seven days short of my goal when the superbowl came around and Mrs. Regan put a huge plate of honey wings with flour on them in front of me….. I ate a lot of food that day and finished it off with a nice light cookie cake of course. A distended abdomen sucks anyway you look at it. The whole food log became a pain in my ass one day and so i just decided to drop it. I was fairly confident in my eating. Last night I enjoyed a bag full of tates chocolate chip cookies. Regardless of whether or not things happen for a reason, studying the puritans in class last night got me thinking about standards and what I set for myself. For as long as I can remember I’ve been really good at denying myself and trying to live up to standards that are severely unattainable. In order to maintain some sort of dignity whether it be false or not, I’ve created an extremely complex fortress to keep myself distanced from the stuff I fear. Mechanisms for every situation. I’m not alone on this though. Everyone’s got a fortress but what I have a lot of trouble with on most days is struggling against myself constantly. Rationalizing fear is also something I get into the habit of. These standards don’t aid any lifestyle. I try to get into rhythms but end up crashing and accelerating at high speeds.

I swear I had more to say while I was contemplating all this during rehearsal. But when I’m being as general as this, there’s not much point to say much else. Whether i’m writing this due to my mood (which happens to be fairly upbeat) or not I’m being sincere. Maybe it was the probiotic that I took this morning? Who knows? I’m a jerk and I’m not as special as I’d like to believe. I’m sick of thinking that I’m not. It is really hard to do. That’s okay though.

[side note- Still planning on hitting up the diet full force at some point maybe in the next couple of days. It get’s easier every single time I try it. I ordered some customized snack bars from youbar. I called them “Copacetic”. I don’t recommend buying them habitually seeing as I paid 55 bucks for 13 bars which included shipping. Good experience though. Plus they taste good and it’s got a cool texture. 19 grams of fat, 4 of which are saturated. 18 grams of carbs, 5g fiber, and 6g sugar. 14 grams of protein. 291 calories total. Ingredients are almond butter, why protein, organic coconut, clover honey, cocoa, goji berries, flaxseeds, all in one vitamin Infusion, cinnamon, ginger. It’s pretty well rounded.

What are your thoughts (on any topic in this post)?

"Do I hope that if feeling disguises itself as thought I shall feel less? Aren’t all these notes the..."

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:30:48 -0500

“Do I hope that if feeling disguises itself as thought I shall feel less? Aren’t all these notes the senseless writhings of a man who won’t accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it?”

- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, p. 33, quoted by the exceptional Enormous Air; see also his posted excerpts concerning the limitations of mind and evading reality. Is this an indictment of intellectualism? Do we abstract ourselves from subjects of analysis in order to “disguise” feelings as thoughts? (via mills)