Johannes Bröckers -"Schnauze, Alexa!"

Kurz und knapp stellt der Autor die verschiedenen problematischen Aspekte des Amazon-Konzerns dar, verknüpft die derzeitigen Strategien mit einem Ausblick auf die Zukunft, so dass tatsächlich stimmt, was der Untertitel benennt - das Buch liefert überzeugende Argumente nicht bei Amazon einzukaufen.

Johannes Bröckers, "Schnauze, Alexa!". Westend, Frankfurt 2018.

Losgelöst - Der Unverpackt-Bioladen

www.losgeloest-bielefeld.de

Endlich gibt es auch in Bielefeld eine Möglichkeit, Biolebensmittel unverpackt ohne Plastikgedöns einzukaufen. Eine durchweg gute Sache und ich freue mich für die Betreiber, dass sie ihr Projekt umsetzen konnten!

Basically playful

video by Dumma David
words by Alan Watts

So sing and dance more!

artsy.net

I was recently contacted by Joel from artsy.net. He was promoting their Claude Monet page, maybe my post Encounter with Monet triggered this. I looked at their site and it is really quite impressive.
This is what they say about themselves:

Artsy’s mission is to make all the world’s art accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. We are a resource for art collecting and education.

The Claude Monet page is one example for what they have to offer:
"Monet's bio, over 75 of his works, exclusive articles, as well as up-to-date Monet exhibition listings. The page even includes related artist and category tags, plus suggested contemporary artists, allowing viewers to continue exploring art beyond our Monet page."

The site features a lot of artists, from Rembrandt to contemporary artists. You can find painters, sculptors, photographers and designers. It's indeed a great resource and certainly fun to browse through all this wonderful art and discover new artists.

Seb Lester

 
'First Time Ever' Mural Project by Seb Lester

I've been following Seb Lester's art for some time now on instagram,
I think it is amazing what he does with letters. 

Blog post about blogging

I started this blog in 2004. Although I posted about some rather personal experiences at first it soon transformed into a space where I review my reading and write down fragments, quotes and pictures of things I liked or that I found interesting. I joined postcrossing in January 2010 and because there are many beautiul cards this became a topic of the blog too.

Posting was infrequent during the first years but since 2010 I tend to write between ten and fifteen posts per month, mostly depending on the time available (a lot of work = less postcrossing, less reading, less everything = less blogging).

In 2012 I closed down my homepage (read about that here) because I thought it wasn't appropriate anymore, too static, the address now redirects here to this blog.

Altogether I'm quite happy to have Everything and In Between because it helps me to evaluate and to better remember the things I read or see or listen to. I have to focus on what's important to me in books and why I like or dislike something. And I can come back later and visit these thoughts about a book or an author. My readers (if there are any) can do so too but since I'm not that active in the blogosphere increasing the numbers of visitors is not my first priority. But of course it is nice to think that someone might be interested in what I have to write or show - you are very welcome.

And the reason for writing this little overview of my blog's history is that this is my 1000th post.

Moomins Wordcloud

Today I reblog this wordcloud from All things Moomin which shows the 100 most frequently used words in the original Swedish text in the Moomin book Finn Family Moomintroll from 1948.
So here it is:

Sa = Said
Mumintrollet = Moomintroll
Snusmumriken = Snufkin
Snorkfröken = Snorkmaiden
Hemulen = Hemulen
Tofslan & Vifslan = Thingumy and Bob

I just love the spelling and the sounds of the Swedish words!

Serious Drawings

Your choice too if you like Marc Johns' drawings.
I think they're great. Visit his blog to see more.

Elke Dag

Postcrossing is an amazing hobby as is, lots of different people, styles, interests and - of course - different cards. That's something that doesn't get old. And every now and then you come across a fellow postcrosser that's even more interesting, likes the same stuff you yourself like or does interesting things. Recently, I had the pleasure of sending a postcard to Gerda in the Netherlands. She's a photographer, graphic designer and ... a post woman, what a great combination! She linked her blog on her postcrossing profile and here's what she writes about her blog concept:

"EVERY DAY I look around and see special things. Those things I photograph.
EVERY DAY I choose two photos that show a contrast but also a similarity.
EVERY DAY I post 2 photos, above them 1 title."

I like her pictures a lot and I think the idea to combine two contrasting pictures that are nevertheless connected is great. I could imagine stories about these photos... surreal perhaps... but great stories.
So I wanted you to get the chance to look at her blog too:

ELKE DAG - EVERY DAY

Here's one example with the title Fold:

Reading Challenge

Reading is fine and one of the best things you can do in your free time. You can never read too much, sadly you usually don't read enough. A while ago, I joined goodreads, a social network for readers (maybe you noticed the widget on the right), where you can search for new books, get recommendations, talk and write about what you read and plan your next reading. In addition to writing about my books here I usually post my reviews there too.

In 2012 I also took part in the goodreads reading challenge where you choose a specific number of books you want to read over the year. I set my goal to a realistic number of 50 books which I managed quite easily.
I want to read more in 2013 but I haven't decided on the exact number yet.

Browsing on goodreads' groups I came across another challenge which was set up by one of the other members. Mandy came up with the idea and she writes about it on her blog bookaholicasworld.
Here are the - in part unusual - conditions for the challenge:

1. Ein Buch mit mindestens 500 Seiten. 
2. Ein Buch, dessen Cover dir gar nicht gefällt.
3. Ein Buch, das mit dem Buchstaben “Z” im Titel beginnt.
4. Ein Buch, in dem mindestens 1 Tier vorkommt.
5. Ein Buch, das mittlerweile seit einem Jahr auf deinem SuB (= Stapel ungelesener Bücher) liegt.
6. Ein Buch, das schon einmal gelesen wurde oder gebraucht ist.
7. Ein Buch mit einem schwarz-weißen Cover.
8. Ein Buch, das du abgebrochen und nie beendet hast.
9. Ein Buch, dessen Autor weder deutsch- noch englischsprachiger Herkunft ist.
10. Ein Buch, dessen Erscheinung du kaum erwarten konntest.
11. Ein Buch, das alle Vokale [a, e, i, o, u] im Titel enthält.
12. Ein Buch von einem kleinen/unbekannteren Verlag.
13. Ein Buch, das vor dem 21. Jahrhundert veröffentlicht wurde (bis 1999).
14. Ein Buch, dessen Autor oder Genre dich bisher nicht begeistern konnte.
15. Ein Buch, das eine andere Person wahllos aus deinem SuB fischt.
16. Ein Buch, dessen Autor den Nobelpreis erhalten hat.
17. Ein Buch, das du lesen möchtest, bevor der Film erscheint.
18. Ein Buch, das im Titel eine Fantasy-Gestalt enthält (z.B. Elfenfluch, Dämonenkuss, Engel der Nacht, usw.)
19. Ein Buch, das auf einer wahren Begebenheit basiert.
20. Ein Buch lesen, in dem es um das Thema BÜCHER geht.

Let's see what'll become of it. Updates will be available on the special Challenges page.

Doonited

A project I recently found:

"Doonited is about people inspiring each other to a sustainable lifestyle by acting responsible towards others, towards themselves and towards our planet. It is a global movement for everybody to join and enjoy."

doonited.com

The world as I know it?

visited 21 states (9.33%)
Seems I have to broaden my travel interests...

Create your own visited map of The World

Listography

While in Brighton last week I saw this book: Listography. Your Life in Lists by Lisa Nola, Chronicle Books 2007. I didn't buy it then but the idea of refreshing the teenage habit of making lists of silly things and ideas got stuck in my head. So I researched and found that there's listography.com where you can make all kinds of lists and get ideas for a lot of lists no one in their right mind could come up with. There's no use in doing this apart from having fun writing those lists and it's definitely silly sharing the nonsense. That said I'll go and set one or two lists up myself. Silly me.

Postcrossing

In half a year I got more than 70 postcards from 24 different countries (the most exotic ones being New Zealand with a travelling distance of nearly 18000km (!) or United Arab Emirates, it was actually from Abu Dhabi) and sent the same amount of cards out into the world to 27 different states.

I can't decide whether I like getting or writing cards more.

It's perfect to come home from work and find a little piece of the world in form of greetings from far away in your mailbox, with nice photos of foreign places, different stories told and beautiful stamps to look at.

But I also love the moment when the next adress appears on the screen, along with a few lines of profile notes, maybe some interesting wishes what should be on the postcard. You can wonder what that person is like, where he or she lives, what life he or she leads... And then I can browse through my box of cards and try to choose the perfect card for that person.

I guess I'm really happy with this new hobby of mine. :)

Happy postcrossing indeed!

PS.: Picture is a postcard sent from the USA by PollyJ!

Let's talk stamps

Postcrossing connects people, makes people think and be creative. The card I sent to Vijay Kapre in India made it on his blog called Let's talk stamps. I think it's amazing what he found out about the lighthouse on the card and the stamps I put on it.

May the wind be always at your back

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields and,
Until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

- for one who is out there on an amazing journey...

Speeding up

"Within a single generation, digital media and the World Wide Web have transformed virtually every aspect of modern culture, from the way we learn and work to the ways in which we socialize and even conduct war. But is the technology moving faster than we can adapt to it? And is our 24/7 wired world causing us to lose as much as we've gained?"

This is a quote from the introduction to a Frontline series. Frontline is an American documentaries programme (PBS) which offers several of their documentaries online. One of them is "Digital Nation - Life on the Virtual Frontier" which I highly recommend to watch. One of its chapters focuses on multitasking, another one on education, very interesting. It's definitely worth the 90 minutes.
Just to think about:

"The world has sped up in a lot of ways but education hasn't."

You have mail!

Wie mir postcrossing so lange verborgen bleiben konnte, ist mir ein Rätsel.
Mit einer Leidenschaft für das Sammeln von Postkarten (und Briefpapier) und das Schreiben komme ich nun aber nicht mehr darum herum. Meine ersten drei Karten schicke ich heute los nach Beijing (China), Schiedam (Niederlande) und in die Nähe von Boston (USA). Spannend.

Money and misery

Count your sheep - now go to bed!

Entschleunigung

Ich habe den letzten James Bond Film damals gehasst. Nicht wegen seiner nichtsnützigen Story, nicht wegen dem nur schwer zu ertagenden, leidenden Protagonisten, nicht wegen der elendigen unterschwelligen Werbung für elendige Statussymbolprodukte.

Er war mir zu schnell. Ich könnte zur Story jetzt eigentlich nichts mehr sagen. Ich habe keine Ahnung, worum es ging, ich konnte zwischendurch noch nicht einmal mehr sagen, welche Personen sich gerade wo befanden und was sie taten. Sekundenschnitte. Zack, zack, zack.

Erzähltempo 220.

Im letzten Jahr hat mich oft die Frage beschäftigt, warum sich das Leben manchmal auch so anfühlt. Erzähltempo 220. Überforderung. Physisch, psychisch, sozial, arbeitstechnisch...

Zweimal bin ich in den letzten Tagen darauf gestoßen und es macht mich noch nachdenklicher, als ich sowieso schon bin.

In der Zeit stand ein Artikel über die Die Wiederentdeckung der Muße, der Geist braucht Pausen, um wirklich gut arbeiten zu können.

Raventhird schreibt in seinem Blog über Analogik und darüber, wie anstrengend Twitter, Facebook und die ganze Blogosphäre sein können.

Ich will nicht den ollen Buchtitel Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit wieder hervorkramen, aber ich glaube dennoch, dass uns etwas Entschleunigung gut tun könnte.