Bring a Yoga Mat - Dress Like a Zombie

The invite said "Bring a Yoga Mat - Dress Like a Zombie." When filmmaker and Boing Boing pal Jason Wishnow set out to create a trailer for Scott Kenemore's new book "The Zen of Zombie : Better Living Through the Undead" (yes, people make video trailers for books!) a vision came to his brrraiiiiinns. Why not gather 100 people in a Brooklyn park, dress them as zombies, and film them all doing yoga? There's no inner peace like undead inner peace.

So today on Boing Boing tv, in honor of Halloween, we've produced a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Jason's Zombie Yoga trailer. Watch out for flying guts when they do "downward decapitated dog" or "corpse pose." (Music by T.bias.)

LINK: http://tv.boingboing.net/2007/10/30/zombie-yoga.html

Portrait - Stuff Found in Jail Library Books

Portrait,
originally uploaded by jumbledpile.

Posted on Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder, October 31, 2007
Link: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/31/stuff-found-in-jail.html

Jumbled Pile is a volunteer for the Jail Library Group, which provides reading materials to the residents of jails in Dane County, Wisconsin.

Occasionally, he comes across notes and sketches placed between the pages of the books. He scans these and posts them to his Flickr site. (Thanks, Seán in Seattle!)

Happy National Chocolate Day!

Happy National Chocolate Day!

Posted Oct 28th 2007 9:06AM by Bob Sassone

As if anyone needs a holiday as an excuse to eat chocolate!

Today is National Chocolate Day, and I thought that instead of having one post where I mention the day and list some recipes I'd do a bunch of posts that have to do with chocolate the entire day. So expect recipes, facts about the history of chocolate, maybe even some posts on things that you can make out of chocolate. I'll let you know what I find. Tune in throughout the day for more.

Mmmm...chocolate.

Tags: brownies, candy, cocoa, dark chocolate, hot chocolate, milk chocolate, national chocolate day

Slashfood.com

The Spirit Moved Her

Yoko Ono Wanted To Marry A Priest

Yoko Ono insists her dreams of marrying a priest came true when she wed John Lennon, because he was more spiritual than most. The artist/musician grew up wanting nothing more than to support a religious man and help him raise a family.

She tells America's More magazine, "In my 20s, I wanted to be a writer, and I think I am. I wanted to marry a priest and, as his wife, take care of the Sunday school. This almost became true - John's spirit was priest-like."

Ono also dreamed that she and Lennon would live a peaceful life together forever - until her world was shattered by the former Beatle's assassination in 1980.

She adds, "I thought I would be with my husband, retired and living a peaceful life. Of course, that dream went out the window."

Starpulse News Blog

It's a Small World

France Embraces Disney,

Thanks to a Rat

Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios

Remy in the hand of Linguini, characters in the animated film “Ratatouille.”

By Brooks Barnes

Published: October 22, 2007

It just might be a small world after all.

Although the Walt Disney Company has always had a bit of a translation problem in France — remember those pitchfork-wielding farmers who showed up in force to protest the 1992 opening of Euro Disney? — the company seems to have found a new ambassador in Remy the rat.

The animated film “Ratatouille,” about a rodent who dreams of becoming a French chef, has become the highest-grossing film of 2007 in France. The film sold more than $60 million in tickets, placing it No. 1 at the French box office for six weeks, beating the record set by “Titanic.”

The success of “Ratatouille” is not particularly surprising. It is set in Paris and celebrates French culture. (Narration early in the movie declares that “some of the best restaurants in the world are in Paris.”) Still, the fawning reviews for the film — Le Monde declared it “one of the greatest gastronomic films in the history of cinema” — suggest that Disney, at least for now, is no longer a public enemy.

More unexpected has been the healthy response to the Paris opening of the Broadway production of “The Lion King” on Oct. 4. The French have historically greeted Broadway-style productions, with the exception of “Les Miserables,” with upturned noses.

But ticket sales for “Le Roi Lion” have been brisk enough to support an open-ended run, according to a Disney spokesman. Even Disneyland Resort Paris is starting to sizzle: the park, celebrating its 15th anniversary, is achieving attendance records, with more than 6.1 million visitors in the first half of 2007, up 11 percent from the first half of 2006, according to regulatory filings.

Still, Disney’s French critics probably won’t put away their pitchforks yet. The resort’s movie-themed Walt Disney Studios Park, which opened in 2002, is struggling despite new attractions, including a “Finding Nemo” roller coaster. Perhaps the French know that “nemo” means nobody in Latin.

The New York Times

J.K. Rowling Outs Dumbledore

J.K. Rowling Outs Dumbledore
by Natalie Finn
E! News Online

Albus Dumbledore took quite a few secrets with him to the grave. And it's possible that even he didn't know about this one.

After helping Dumbledore's favorite pupil uncover a treasure trove of information about the Hogwarts headmaster in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final installment of her billion-dollar fantasy series, J.K. Rowling has pulled something new out of the pensieve:

Dumbledore was gay.

(What you just heard was the sound of conservative religious groups scribbling down one more reason to loathe the Harry Potter franchise.)

"Falling in love can blind us to an extent," Rowling explained Friday in front of a packed house at New York's Carnegie Hall, where she capped off her first U.S. book tour since 2000.

Which explains why the brilliant wizard was briefly blinded as a young man by the charm and skill of Gellert Grindelwald, his companion turned arch-nemesis who turned out to be more interested in the Dark Arts than a three-bedroom craftsman in Hogsmeade.

After Dumbledore was "horribly, terribly let down," Rowling explained, he went on to destroy Grindelwald in what is considered in the wizarding world to have been the ultimate wand-toting battle between good and evil.

That love, she said to raucous applause, was Dumbledore's "great tragedy."

"If I had know this would have made you so happy, I would have told you years ago," Rowling said.

If this revelation seems almost too whimsical, consider this: Rowling, who penned much of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in a café while living out of her car, can certainly be a bit cheeky, but it seems highly unlikely that she would try to put one over on a Manhattan landmark full of kids and other readers who have made her one of the richest people in England.

While working on the sixth Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which focuses largely on Dumbledore and Harry's relationship, as well as the elder wizard's interaction with a young Voldemort, Rowling said that she slipped director David Yates an eye-opening note after noticing that there was a reference in the script to a girl in Dumbledore's past.

There's no word yet on if this will affect Michael Gambon's character in the final two Potter movies, which are slated for release in 2008 and 2010, respectively.

Dumbledore's sexuality has apparently been of great interest to bloggers and chat room denizens for years, with his history—and intimate affinities—becoming the subject of much debate and, ahem, original short stories.

"Just imagine the fan fiction now," Rowling joked.

Of course, one could always have shrugged off the lack of romance in his life, what with his hectic work schedule and his penchant for secrecy.

And, as the scarred one learned in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore could be quite temperamental, especially when protecting those he loved.

~*~

See also article in Washington Post: washingtonpost.com

Yoko Ono Meets Beth Ditto

Yoko Ono meets
Beth Ditto
Sunday October 14, 2007
Observer Music Monthly

Beth Ditto, larger than life frontwoman of the Gossip, has told someone who happens to know Yoko Ono that the venerable artist and musician is her all-time heroine. Then it transpires that the pair will both be in London the same week, and plans are put in place for a first-time meeting. OMM stands by as Beth, who is rather sweetly very nervous, hurls herself into the encounter ...

Beth: First, I have to say for me lately, living in America, that things are heavy, you know what I mean?

Yoko: It's a heavy time ...

Beth: It's a heavy time and I think what is so upsetting is that American culture has gone into this really desperate period. I feel scared, because I feel people don't know what to do right now. There was a previous time, when I wasn't alive, when people were mad and showed their anger and there was a whole youth movement ... well, not just youth but anti-war and civil rights. I can only speak for America because that's where I live. But it's really scary to see all this power taken away.

Yoko: We're all in the same boat, and we just need to cool down a bit. I think that us as entertainers relax people, and relaxation will help them forget the moment. And actually, instead of just fearing we have to go to the next step. Yes, fear is very good because that's an acknowledgement of something, but the next step is to make it well. To think that we don't have the power to make things well is already wrong. We can make it well.

Beth: That's the thing I felt with your album from earlier this year, Yes, I'm a Witch - it was so amazing. It really is the most empowering title I can think of. Nathan, my bandmate, said: 'Have you seen what she's called her record? It's going to blow your mind!', because I had just recently come in to this part of me that was about being a witch. About not just how empowering that was as a woman but with my connection to the earth.

Yoko: In the old days they used to burn witches, and I think the way in which we are living now, we don't burn witches but we are scared of them still.

Beth: We persecute still.

Yoko: And that is very strange. The male version - a wizard - is always respected and my feeling is that both witches and wizards are both magical people and the human race is a magical race and we just have to know that we're all witches and wizards and we can make it.
Beth: I absolutely agree with you. I'm not very well travelled - I've only been to Europe, that's it - but I read and try to educate myself as much as you can with the American media; but when you're talking about us being witches and wizards I completely understand and it seriously is like when George Bush was re-elected and no one knew what to do. And I remember people being mad at Gossip because we didn't speak out against the war so much. We were obviously against it and we'd talked about it - but we hadn't really done anything about it. I wasn't powerful enough.

Yoko: Yes, but you're the power. The way you were expressing yourself is all right; some people will always knock you because they are scared themselves so they want to somehow make you responsible. But you're doing everything that's possible and right by just being yourself, and so what Gossip are doing is right.

Beth: I feel it's hard to feel that way, that's why I feel like such a ... it's hard to say, I agree.

Yoko: If all of us in the world become artists and musicians and the judge and the lawyers judged each other by singing it would be a beautiful world.
Beth: That would be amazing!

Yoko: If you didn't say you have got a political training and just said you have to know how to sing, it would be great.

Beth: It's true!
Yoko: One day all of us artists and musicians are going to spread the art and the power of hearing in the world, and that's the only thing we can do.

Beth: Do you feel that you have to have a mission?

Yoko: Yes, and make everyone wake up to the fact that they are magicians, they are wizards and witches and they're artists.
Beth: I agree. Not only that, but connection is a spiritual thing - it just hangs over your head.
Yoko: I feel that we're almost in the same place, but you're in the position where people knock you, or what you're doing, but others admire you. You don't want to misdirect yourself and go that way and listen to the people who are knocking you, because they are angry about themselves.
Beth: Do you ever feel like you're alone?

Yoko: Well, you see, alone and loneliness are very different things. I have so much to do that I don't have time to think of another person all the time. I'm very happy to have this freedom to be allowed to do things.

Beth: When I think of being alone I think of being out on a limb for the struggle, whatever the struggle is, whether it's art or visibility or just to be quiet sometimes.
Yoko: The thing is, even the most supposedly beautiful women in the world are always saying 'Am I all right?' because they always have some excuse to not like themselves. It's very hard to find someone you respect. The thing is, you don't have to be afraid of what people are thinking because usually it's to do with themselves. They may say 'Hey, you're great' - but they don't mean it. This is so funny. One time someone came up to John [Lennon] and said: 'I loved your record.' So John said: 'Which one?' and they went, 'Errrrmmm.' They didn't know the title or anything. John was saying afterwards: 'You should never ask that question. They just want to say something so you'll love them.'
Beth: I see. I really appreciate honesty. People are like, 'I've never heard of you.' That's great! That's fine: you can't hear everything. One of the favourite things anyone ever said to me was, 'I didn't like your record.' Thanks, I really appreciate that.
Yoko: Did you ever hear the story about three pots of plants? Three pots of plants, each watered with certain thoughts: one watered with nothing, just water, the other watered with love and the other with hate. Which one do you think grew better?

Beth: Love.

Yoko: Well, you think that, don't you? Hate and love was equal, and the one you didn't do anything about died. You see, many people hated me supposedly, right? And people said: 'Well, how did you survive?' I just said: 'Well, I used that hatred as a power, as an energy, and it's a great power, my God. As long as you don't get distressed about it.' It was really amazing. I was told I look very young and people were asking, 'What do you do?' And it just dawned on me that ... you know, there is a Japanese saying - good medicine tastes bitter, it's true. The whole world was giving me bitter medicine for 40 years, and it was probably better than if they all kept giving me sugar.

Beth: One thing that Lou Reed said was, 'I wish someone had told me that the things I was doing at a certain point in my career sucked.' I feel like when you meet people who are famous and you're mean to them, they are a lot more appreciative because people don't do that with them.
Yoko: Well, I really appreciate that.

Beth: Me too. But my growing up was my bitter medicine. I'm glad I had it, it was different, completely different, but I'm glad.

OMM: Sorry to interrupt, but with John, I guess, what was great for him was that you challenged him.

Yoko: Well, we challenged each other.

Beth: That's the thing. I was afraid to approach the subject of John. You just don't know people and when you see this one-dimensional picture of a person and you don't really know where their boundaries are ...
Yoko: It's OK. It's funny - recently I went to an elementary school in Denver because my grandchild was in this class of six-year-olds, and the teacher said: 'Well, she's an artist so you should ask her artistic questions.' So I said: 'Well, if you want to ask about the Beatles then that's all right.'
Beth: I bet everyone was, like, sweet!

Yoko: And you know one question they asked me was, 'Have you ever met Ringo?' So I said yes and this girl just fell on the floor, just fainted. Just because I said I'd met Ringo!
Beth: As a feminist, I wanted to ask you about your music, and what you do, and about you. But of course all those things shaped you, you can't deny that. I guess I just wanted you to dictate the conversation and I just wanted to listen.

Yoko: I'm more interested in your life and what you've been through. Also, by the way, we both know a little bit more about my life ...
Beth: When they said we were going to do this thing I was like, 'How the hell!' We should probably play a game of Twister first to get acquainted, but I feel like my questions are more about what activism was like then compared to now.
OMM: Did the Sixties feel different to how things feel now?

Yoko: Well, we tried our best, and I think the younger generation now are more powerful and better placed for that because they know what we did and they know where we failed too. There was the Sixties sexual liberation but there was the other thing, the drugs, and we were really conned into it. We had no awareness.
Beth: I think there were other things too - from what I've read, there were actually marches. But if you ask people to stage a boycott now, it's like pulling teeth because people just want their cable [TV] - if they have cable, they feel enlightened. There is this weird sense of complacency. Even, like, my mother, who has this amazing sense of the world, there's still fear in her. She's afraid to lose her job - that's held over people's heads. But I feel like we're on the brink of something, although I don't know what, and I feel like I'm in this position. Like, I teach at this rock'n'roll camp for girls, teaching little girls to play music.

Yoko: This conversation is a real eye-opener for me. I didn't know you were a feminist, I didn't know you were this political. All this is very beautiful.

Beth: Well, that's the thing. People forget I'm from a punk scene of stinking vegan radicals. We have our own things, and we're all gay, and I think it's all interesting because the media forgot about it.

Yoko: The media likes the idea of concentrating on things the reader would like to know, and readers like to know about scandal and trashy stuff and some weirdos. But we're fine.

Beth: We're upstanding citizens.

Yoko: And it's a way of trashing, you know. Trash them and the readers will feel better.

Beth: But they can't pull a fast one with me; they can't tell me I'm fat because I know and that's fine with me, and you can't tell me I grew up poor because I've heard it all before. You can't call me lazy, as I know I'm not. There's nothing you can tell me that I don't already know.

Yoko: But it's a way of looking at things. There was a time when people were very polite to us. And those days might come back, who knows? And the more you are active about something you love the world is going to be a better place.

Beth: That's the best thing I've ever heard. I feel like I'm of this generation that is in this gap and I want to turn people on to what people my age know about you. These little girls ... I do a vocal class where they learn not to have an amazing voice but how to run vocals through an amp in a garage so you can hear yourself sing. We learn how to ask about things. We're not going to teach them to sing like an opera singer. I bring them in Nina Simone, Antony and the Johnsons and you, and I think it's really important. I hope I'm doing this generation as good a job as you did.

Beth Ditto: don't eat this at home

1. Ditto, who hails from Arkansas, recently put to bed the question of whether or not she has ever eaten squirrel. 'You kill it, you eat it, people get ready for the squirrel- hunting season, you fry it like chicken,' she told Jonathan Ross on his BBC1 chat show last month.

2. The Gossip's breakthrough single, 'Standing in the Way of Control', was written in response to the US government's refusal to allow homosexuals to marry.

3. Ditto's partner, Freddie, is a transgendered individual who was born female but identifies as a man. 'I call Freddie he. You can call her she.'

4. She once sold T-shirts for a company called TeesMe. 'Every morning a man would call at 9am and I'd say "TeesMe" and he'd hang up. I'm pretty sure he was a dirty old man.'

5. According to Ditto, the Gossip's fourth album will be called Fat Bitch. This may have been a joke.



Yoko Ono: buttocks help the mind

1. Ono attended Tokyo's exclusive Peers School, entrance to which is only afforded to descendants of aristocrats.

2. In 1962, Ono married Anthony Cox, a US jazz musician, film producer and art promoter, who found her in a psychiatric hospital in Japan, where she had been placed by her family.

3. In the Sixties, as a member of the avant-garde art movement Fluxus, she made a film comprising numerous shots of buttocks and a sales list of imaginary artworks. 'It would be very good for someone's mental health to buy something that didn't exist,' she said.

4. Her first solo album, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, includes the song 'Why', on which she repeats the word 'why' for five minutes.

5. Ono finds men inherently amusing. 'They have this delicate, long thing hanging outside their bodies which goes up and down by its own will. If I were a man I would always be laughing at myself.' ·

Yoko Ono has just unveiled a 'Peace Tower' in Reykjavik.
See www.imaginepeace.com

Imagine Peace Tower

Imagine Peace Tower,
originally uploaded by gummibsen.

Imagine Peace Tower

Tuesday, 9th of October, Iceland. What would have been John Lennon's 67th birthday, was celebrated by the installment of an enormous tower of light, which will shine from 9th of October, his birthday, until 8th of December, the day of his death, "so it has the feeling of the shortness of life, but the light is eternal," Ono said.. The Imagine Peace Tower is in Viðey small island outside Reykjavik.

The sculpture in the foreground is Jón Gunnar Árnason's Sun Craft
the "Viking ship".

BEAMING PEACE

Friðasúlan með steinum,
originally uploaded by rosalof.

Beautiful shot of the Imagine Peace Tower lit on October 9, 2007.

i ii iii

IMAGINEPEACE.com

Definitely go to IMAGINEPEACE.com :-)

Remember : we are one

What she says... ;-)


We stand on this beautiful planet enjoying
the sunrise, the sunset, the change of seasons
the oceans, the mountains, the clear sky
and the lovely towns and cities we've created together

We cherish the moment of peace and quiet
We cherish the moment of having fun
We cherish every moment of warmth and love
We laugh, we heal, and we embrace

With what we've learnt and experienced
With our wisdom and the sense of unity
We protect our world from destruction
For our hearts beat in unison
Even when we fight with one another

We breathe for life
We'll survive
Remember: we are one

A big hug and kiss to each one of you
I feel privileged to share this time with you
Thank you for being in my life
at times as teachers, as angels, as friends
always as blessings, always with love
Without you, I would not be

Today is the beginning of our joyful lives
Let's dance together in our hearts
and play the game of life
In love

We breathe for life
We will survive
Remember: we are love

Yoko Ono
Birthday Thoughts, 2003


IMAGINEPEACE.com

New/Old John Lennon photograph uncovered

John Lennon photograph uncovered

By Duncan Hooper

Last Updated: 8:42am BST 03/10/2007

Dressed in matching camelhair coats and sporting compulsory 1950s quiffs, the two young men walking down Liverpool's Lime Street in 1958 show little to set them apart from other fashion-conscious youngsters of their generation.

John Lennon (right) and Quarrymen manager Nigel Walley

Certainly none of the passers-by eager to get on with their shopping seem to pay much attention to the pair.

But the 17-year old on the right is John Lennon, who had founded The Quarrymen band a year earlier. He is accompanied by the band's manager Nigel Walley.

The photograph, which had been locked away in a cupboard for almost 50 years, was uncovered by a BBC documentary team.

Mr Walley, who now lives in Clacton, Essex, had not seen the picture since 1958. He said: " It's very emotional for me seeing this photo again after all these years. John was a very good friend of mine.

"One thing I know John would have loved, was seeing this photograph. It's something I'll always treasure now."

"I haven't a clue what we were doing then - just a couple of lads out in town larking about probably."

The pair remained close friends after the Beatles found stardom and would get together to reminisce about their youth.

Mr Walley said: "I was only speaking to him a few days before he died. It was a great shock to hear he had been shot. We were making plans to see each other again."

Lennon founded The Quarrymen skiffle group in 1957 and named them after his school Quarrybank. He met Paul McCartney at a gig in the same year and the two went on to revolutionise popular music with the Beatles.

The photo emerged after an anonymous Beatles collector who bought the image at auction came forward. The BBC Inside Out North West programme which uncovered it will be screened tonight at 7:30pm on BBC 1.