15 Peaceful John Lennon Memorials

Imagine Nations

15 Peaceful John Lennon Memorials

 

  
Imagine a world without memorials to the late John Lennon, it isn’t hard to do. The fact there ARE commemorative tributes to the former Beatle and peace crusader scattered across the globe in some obvious and unlikely places, however, attests to the enduring popularity of the man, his music and his message.

Lennon Wall – Prague, Czech Republic

(images via: Globespinners and Prague.net)

The very first memorial to John Lennon is surprising on a number of levels: it appeared spontaneously as soon as word of Lennon’s murder was announced, it’s a constantly evolving project with no set structure, and it’s in Prague, capital city of the Czech Republic.

(image via: Prague.net)

You’ll find the Lennon Wall at 5 Velkoprevorske Nam (Square) near the French Embassy in downtown Prague’s Mala Strana (Lesser Town).

(images via: JF Sebastian, Hello! and Mail Online)

Prague was a very different place in 1980 and because John Lennon symbolized freedom of thought to Czechoslovakia’s oppressed youth, the communist authorities strongly discouraged citizens from expressing themselves artistically on the wall – to no avail. Today the Lennon Wall is a popular tourist attraction and although after 30-odd years virtually no bare stone is visible, tour guides advise visitors to “Bring your paints, and imagine world peace.”

Imagine Peace Tower – Reykjavik, Iceland

(images via: ImaginePeace and Fotomundo/Allan Tannenbaum)

The Imagine Peace Tower, located on Viðey Island in Kollafjörður Bay near Reykjavík, Iceland, is Yoko Ono’s personal memorial to her late husband. The tower consists of a battery of 15 searchlights fitted with prismatic mirrors that enable the light column to reach heights of up to 4,000 meters (over 13,000 feet). Dedicated in 2006, the geothermic energy-poweredImagine Peace Tower is lit annually from October 9th (Lennon’s birthday) to December 8th and again for one week at the end of December and New Year’s Eve.

John Lennon Statue – San Miguel, Lima, Peru

(images via: Galileus and One Journey at a Time)

A much more traditional memorial to John Lennon takes the form of a bronze statue situated in Lima, Peru’s district of San Miguel. The statue depicts Lennon in his long-haired, late 1960′s Beatles heyday and is fronted by an “Imagine” mosaic obviously inspired by the memorial circle in New York City’s Central Park.

(image via: Beembee)

The San Miguel statue of John Lennon was dedicated in July of 2007 and overlooks the Pacific ocean shore. Though embraced by Lima’s citizens and often the site of tribute concerts, the statue was actually the pet project of San Miguel’s Mayor Salvador Heresi, an unabashed and devoted Beatles fan.

John Lennon Memorial Garden – Durness, Scotland

(images via: Nick Bramall and The Family Cat)

The John Lennon Memorial Garden in Durness, Scotland was opened in August of 2002 when local gardeners landscaped a small

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VAPOUR RETRO

VAPOUR RETRO SOUTH BEACH COLLECTION REVIEW + GIVEAWAY

• BY ORGANIC BEAUTY TALK ON
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Rose berry and light pink coral nail polish along with a sheer rose coral lip tint make up Vapour Organic Beauty’s new Retro South Beach Collection. The colors are pretty, versatile and perfect for summer. Vapour’s Siren Lipstick is made with 70% certified organic ingredients and 30% natural mineral pigments and vitamins. This natural lipstick goes on sheer with a light pigmented color and fruity scent that hydrates lips (although it’s not deeply moisturizing…layer with a balm first if you need a lot of

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• 100% Pure - Natural hair conditioners with certified organic ingredients to restore dry/damaged hair, for healthy/glossy locks, to revitalize bounce and body, and to promote a healthy scalp 

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Incredible Examples of Lego Architecture

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31 Incredible Examples of Lego Architecture

 

 

If there’s one toy that can transcend cultural, age and geographical barriers, it’s Lego. The timeless toy has been enjoyed by children all over the world and from all walks of life. But it’s not just a child’s toy – Lego is a full-time hobby for plenty of adults, too. These impressive works of Lego architecture were all created by people who have a healthy affection for the colorful building blocks.

Historic Moments

(images via: SF Weekly, MOC Pages)

Is there any better way to commemorate a special day than to build it in Lego? Here, two unforgettable moments in American history are recreated in plastic blocks for all to enjoy. At top, President Obama’s inaugural ceremony appeared at Legoland in Carlsbad, California. The scene featured thousands of tiny Lego people, including the president and his family, George W. Bush and his family, and a number of celebrities who were on hand to celebrate the occasion. Just below that is the touching recreation of the Miracle on the Hudson, or the day that pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger emergency-landed an airplane on the Hudson River. The large display was created by the Central Ohio Lego Train Club.

Famous Landmarks

(image via: 

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3D-Printed Home Accents

Decor on Demand

 14 3D-Printed Home Accents

  

3D printing has enabled designers to take the manufacturing process into their own hands for the creation of one-of-a-kind objects, many of which you can buy to liven up your home decor. The computer-generated designs are printed in three dimensions in materials like plastic, ceramic and metal, and are often based on mathematical algorithms. Here are 14 lamps, light switches, tea cups and more that are available for purchase.

Jellyfish Lamp Shade

This intricate two-piece Jellyfish lampshade was designed using fractal techniques and 3D computer-aided design methods, inspired by a modified Mandelbulb fractal. The dangling ‘tentacles’ are chains that billow around in the wind. It works with a standard IKEA bulb kit.

Aqueduct Mini Planter Set

This 10-pack of Aqueduct Mini Planters hooks together into a modular system that shares water from one unit to the next. The water flows from the top planters into the bottom. Made up of 3 double-channel planters and 7 single-channel planters, it can be assembled in all sorts of configurations and hooked up with additional sets to create window-sized screens of plants.

Switch-a-Lope

This fun light switch plate

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Geometric Street Paintings in France

Colorful Contrast: Geometric Street Paintings in France

  

A broad stripe of bright paint in a zig-zag pattern contrasts with muted, understated urban surroundings in the latest urban art installation by artist duo Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann.

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Sweetest Love, I do not go

Sweetest Love, I do not go

Sweetest love, I do not go,
For weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter love for me;
But since that I
Must die at last,

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On the Lady Elizabeth, and Count Palatine Being Married on St. Valentine's Day

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Hail Bishop Valentine, whose day this is,
All the air is thy Diocese,
And all the chirping choristers
And other birds are thy parishioners,
Thou marryest ever year
The lyric Lark, and the grave whispering Dove,
The Sparrow that neglects his life for love,
The household bird, with the

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It is not Love it is Madness

 Poetry 

It is not Love it is Madness

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Beauty For All

Beauty For All 

Beauty For All 2

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Floating Hotel with Modular Detachable Room Boats

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7 Underwater Wonders of the World

 7 Underwater Wonders of the World

 

Sucked into the sea by earthquakes or intentionally flooded to create dams, ancient and contemporary cities lurk just beneath the surface in bodies of water all over the world. Some, like Alexandria in Egypt, represent some of the most significant archaeological findings in recent history; others are more mysterious in origin. The eerie remains of these 7 submerged cities will reveal their secrets only to those who can swim through their underwater streets in scuba suits.

Cleopatra’s Alexandria, Egypt

(images via: smithsonian, archdaily)

The Alexandria of ancient Egyptian ruler Cleopatra was lost for 1,600 years, with tales of its existence seeming like no more than legends. But a team of marine archaeologists stumbled across the ruins off the shores of the modern-day Alexandria in 1998, unearthing vast monuments still standing after all this time. The city was likely taken by the sea as a result of earthquakes. Historians have found columns, sphinxes, statues, temples and the foundations of a palace that likely belonged to Cleopatra herself.

Alexandria is considered one of the richest archaeological sites in the world. In addition to these vast stone monuments, coins and everyday objects have been discovered, painting a picture of a city described more than 2,000 years ago by Greek geographers and historians. Recent dives have unearthed some of the major scenes from the lives of Cleopatra and Marc Antony as well as statues of the queen’s son and father.

Pavlopetri, Greece

(images via: university of nottingham)

Believed to have been submerged off the coast of Greece by a series of earthquakes around 1,000 BCE, Pavlopetri is the oldest-known underwater archaeological town site in the world. Unlike other underwater ruins, which are incomplete or difficult to verify as actual man-made structures, Pavlopetri has a complete town plan, including streets, 

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Floating on Ephemerisl

Floating on Ephemerisle: Seasteading Event ala Burning Man

For all its art and controversy, the desert is perhaps the most unique defining characteristic of Black Rock City, home of the Burning Man Festival in rural Nevada. Potentially even more challenging than harsh heat and dust storms: Emphermisle, a temporary autonomous zone on the water, coming

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A beautiful Mother's Day bento

A beautiful Mother's Day bento

My mother sent me photos of a gorgeous Mother’s Day bento my stepfather got for her (and for himself too of course!) yesterday. It’s from Hikagejaya, a restaurant in Hayama, a town near Kamakura in Kanagawa prefecture (where Yokohama, where my mom lives, is too). I’ve written about Hikagejaya previously; it’s one of my favorite restaurants in Japan, and their bentos are just wonderful.

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Japanese Life Bento

A Japanese Life of Bento

Bentos are just starting to penetrate the consciousness of people outside of Japan, though judging from the growing interest in bento sites like this one and several others, it’s definitely trending up. However, the bento or obento (the more polite honorific term) in its many guises is an integral part of life in Japan. Here are the many different types of bento that a typical Japanese person might eat at different stages of life.

The Preschool Years

Pre-school institutions in Japan are nursery school (保育園　ほいくえん　hoiku-en), which is for children aged about 2 to to 4, and kindergarten (幼稚園　ようちえん　yoh-chi-en), for age 5 to 1st grade. Most pre-schools do not have school lunch facilities, so children are required to bring bentos for lunch. For mothers, making bentos every day for their children can be a stressful yet exciting challenge.

Some mothers (and even a couple of fathers) knock themselves out making charaben or kyaraben (キャラ弁）, those highly decorated, cute bentos that still get the lion’s share of attention outside of Japan when it comes to bentos. The most-often stated reason for charaben is to encourage picky eaters to eat their food, but I’ve always thought that their role as a creative outlet for the mothers, as well as the urge to compete against other kids’ bentos (and by extension, their mothers’ bento skills) are just as strong incentives. Every lunchtime can be a contest of sorts as to who has the cutest bento. There are also numerous formal contests that a charaben enthusiast can enter to win prizes, money and more.

Elementary (Primary) School Years

Most elementary or primary schools (小学校　しょうがっこう　shoh-gakkou) have school lunch programs, so mothers are relieved from everyday bento duty. However, bentos are still necessary for school outings (遠足　えんそく　ensoku), which occur once or twice every school year. (Read about my ensoku bentos when I was a kid, which were a lot simpler than this one.)

Another occasion when bentos are needed is the annual Sports Festival　（運動会　うんどうかい　undohkai). This is a school-wide event where the kids are divided into two teams, Red and White, and compete in various athletic events. Parents are supposed to attend, and at lunchtime the whole family sits somewhere within the school grounds and tucks into a big family bento. This is another opportunity for the creative bentoist to show his or her skills off.

And of course, during summer vacation the family might go on a trip to the mountains or the seaside, with some onigiri (rice balls) or even a picnic basket.

The High School Years (Grades

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            Bento veterans, tell the new people - why bento?

In my brief absence (I was trotting through parts of Japan, doing serious bento research - honest! ^_^;) I’ve noticed quite a lot of new visitors to the site again. A lot of them are coming

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Wot i Think Remember Me

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Remember Me is a sci-fi action game from Capcom and French dev DONTNOD, and it is about doing unpleasant things to people’s memories and punching other people. Mostly punching people, to be honest. Let’s see I can totally recall what I thought of it.

 
I know exactly what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “‘Remember Me’ refers to this Capcom action game’s plot and theme, concerning the technological manipulation, trade and abuse of memories in futuristic France.” You are incorrect. It actually refers to trying to remember lots of button combinations. The subtitle was originally going to be “No? Then you’re going to be rubbish at this game.” Check Capcom’s United States Patent and Trademark Office registration for this game, you’ll see.

Yes, this is one of those proverbial games of two halves. One half is punching, which I’ll come back to in a bit. The other half, on paper the most compelling to me and I suspect to a fair few of you, concerns dark science-fictional memory hacking in Neo-Paris. Remember Me sort of gestures broadly towards concepts of what memory, and with it identity, really means, especially when any memory can be altered, and has some fun depicting a society wherein the wealthy are hooked on being able to relive memories of positive experiences (primarily sex, as well as that hormonal condition you humans call ‘love’) on demand, while the memory-harvested poor are murderous, babble-spouting ghouls living in slums and sewers.

It’s very much a classical science fiction high concept – what if you could buy someone else’s memories? – but if you’re hoping for a homage to 80s camp, I’m afraid it’s a lot more like Colin Farrell Total Recall 2012 than Arnie Total Recall. An 80s sci-fi touchstone whose influence is very much apparent is Blade Runner – pan-ethnic fusion culture, giant light-billboards, metropolitan ultra-sprawl and the juxtaposition of gleaming high-tech with urban squalor and ruin. Very nice to look at indeed, and like BioShock: Infinite it’s one of those games where the artists look to have been free to indulge themselves, but in both plot and tone it does feel like it’s a collection of hoary old sci-fi tropes bolted together and then painted in particularly shiny colours.

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ENDLESS VACATION

Endless Vacation

r , to remove all the frustration!

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LOVE POEM

A Hymn To Christ At The Author's Last Going Into Germany

In what torn ship soever I embark,
That ship shall be my emblem of thy Ark;
What sea soever swallow me, that flood
Shall be to me an emblem of thy blood;
Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise
Thy face, yet through that mask I know those eyes,
Which, though they turn away sometimes,
They never will despise.

I sacrifice this Island unto thee,

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