As a bona fide tree-hugger, I love the way the center tree seems to radiate with its own inner light. Misha Logvinov captured this photo in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California, and titled it “‘Controlled’ Burn in Big Basin State Park.” Indeed the bright leaves at the top left of the middle tree seem as if they are ablaze.
If you’d like to have your photos considered for our Photo of the Day post, start uploading at Gadling’s Flickr Pool.
Back in July I took a daytrip to Suzhou, China (about 40 minutes by train outside of Shanghai) and visited the future site of The Bookworm’s latest English-language library cafe location. Owner Peter Goff took me on a tour of the construction site, which you can see here (scroll down to the photos at the bottom of the post.)
I was happy to learn this week that the transformation is complete and the new Suzhou Bookworm is now open for business. The photos really wowed me. After walking through demolition rubble and dust, it was cool to see the finished project looking so fab — the two-story bookstore cafe appears almost to be floating along one of the canals that Suzhou is famous for.
A few days ago, Peter checked in with an update on how things are going: “We had our first booktalk last night..historical fiction writer Adam Williams doing his stuff. It was great. About 30 people turned up to listen and buy books so not a bad start.” They had another event today, award-winning Canadian children’s writer Marie-Louise Gay.
This opening is another great score for booklovers in China. Be sure to visit a Bookworm location (the others are in Beijing and Chengdu) when your itinerary brings you through any of these cities.
An exhibition of dead bodies opened today in Barcelona, allowing visitors to see the complexity of the human anatomy like never before.
You can get a close look inside the skeletal, muscular, reproductive, respiratory and circulatory systems of your body. Many of the bodies are dissected in different ways so as to see what happens under our skin when performing daily activities.
The 17 corpses that display over 200 human organs are said to be of Chinese people, and have been donated for the exhibition by a medical school. The bodies have undergone a chemical treatment called ‘plastination’ that prevents them from decomposition and gives them a fibrous aseptic texture.
They even have displays comparing healthy and unhealthy bodies/organs; for e.g. you can see a real healthy lung, and a lung destroyed by smoking.
Not surprisingly, the exhibition has raised many eyebrows because it is not clear if the bodies were donated for a commercial exhibition like this, or if consent was given to do the same; rumors even say that they are bodies of executed Chinese prisoners. For these reasons, many have been calling it a shameless commercial display of death.
I personally think it’s great. Unless you are a doctor or say a homicide detective, there is no way you can see what’s really under your own skin, so I think it’s incredible that you can now go to an exhibition to have a glimpse at your own body structure (that is not artificial). There is no better way to educate yourself about your body; isn’t this how doctors study the human anatomy anyway?
The exhibition is being held at the Maritime Museum in Barcelona, and will run until January 13, 2008.
It’s going to be difficult for New York’s Serendipity 3 to recover from a health inspector-mandated closing, which was due to rodents and roaches. The restaurant has already seen a lot of positive media attention, most recently from its Guinness-record breaking $25,000 dessert. If it were just any restaurant that had to close due to some infestations, we probably wouldn’t hear about it. But if you charge what amounts to many people’s yearly salary for a dessert, well, it’s going to be hard to live that whole rodent-and-cockroach-infestation thing down.
Naturally, owner Steve Bruce is scurrying to fix the problem as quickly as possible. But how do you feel about dropping several thou for a dessert in a restaurant that can’t keep its pests in check?
My first real experience of a “nudist” anything, was last year when I went to the Balearic Island of Formentera. It all began when our host picked us up from the port butt-naked. We had never met him before, but for him to stand there naked and welcome us onto the island was as normal as having coffee for breakfast. I was momentarily scandalized, but it didn’t take me long to laugh about it.
5-days on a nudist island and you’d think I’d be comfortable to join the gang at least on day 4. But no. I was the only loser with my bikini on and I stuck out like a sore thumb; I just couldn’t do it without being super self-conscious!
A bit of research online and I found cults of people and organisations who only want to be able to travel naked: “dedicated to the wholesome acceptance of the human body and the enjoyment of nude recreation”, as Hill Country Nudists like to put it.
According to Australian News, nudists can choose from 270 clubs, resorts and campgrounds in the US, and the American Association of Nude Recreation estimates that nudists contribute about $400 million into the global tourism industry.
However, nudity doesn’t always sell: California based nudist travel group Lifestyles Tours and Travel, a company that organizes adult-only holidays has just filed for bankruptcy as it owes $110 million to 49 creditors.
Big money, big market huh! And the only difference is that clothing is optional!
