Nate Fleming's Blog, page 17

Embracing Beauty • Day 8 • More Examples of Beauty in Music

As we begin week two in our 31 day search for beauty, I want to remind my readers why we are doing this by glancing at some of today’s headlines.

“Trump bragged on hot mic about being able to grope women”

“Fox News anchor Shep Smith says of Hurricane Matthew: ‘Your kids will die'”

“Rentboy.com CEO pleads guilty to promoting prostitution”

Yep. A typical Saturday on the internet.

Now, turning our attention back to some beauty, I’d like to share some musical contributions sent by my good friend, Karina Ivanova.

Karina is studying in France, and she also sent this amazing timelapse video of Paris, which I’d also offer as an examination of beauty.

It’s interesting how France keeps coming up this month, isn’t it?

 

Stay tuned for more examples of embracing beauty, and please share this post with your friends! Let’s help spread beauty all over the internet.

Also, if you have an example of beauty that you want to share, drop me a line at info@thimblerigsark.com and I’ll be happy to include it!

Embracing Beauty • The First Week & Some New

Embracing Beauty • The First Week & Some New

Today marks the end of the first week of my month of embracing beauty, my experiment to attempt to offer counter-programming to all of the ugliness that the world throws at us every time we turn on our laptops or devices. The week has been refreshing for me, and for my blog’s readers as well, I hope.

Rather than simply charging forward, I decided to take a day to catch my breath and review the beauty we focused upon this past week, highlighting my favorite bits, and adding a few new things for good measure.

By the way, I’ve noticed that not many people are sharing these examples of beauty with their friends. If you are at all inspired by what I’m doing, make sure to share, so that we can pass on the beauty! It’s amazing how people will share an ugly tweet by Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, but not a bit of beauty.

And again, I want to reemphasize that I make nothing from this blog, and so this is not a plea to gain me hits for financial gain. It’s simply a plea to help me spread beauty. So what are you waiting for? Share these stories right now!

Day 1 • Hyeonseo Lee’s Escape from North Korea

It might seem strange that I began this month of beauty with the story of a North Korean defector, but if you took the time to watch Hyeonseo Lee tell her story, it should be pretty obvious why I made that decision.

Lee’s dedication to her family, her bravery to speak in public about North Korea, her optimism, and her indomitable spirit all add up to one of the most refreshing and beautiful personal stories that I’ve seen in a long time.

Especially in this time of the daily histrionics of the U.S. presidential election.

If you haven’t watched Lee’s Ted Talk, then go to Day 1 and give her fifteen minutes of your time. You won’t regret it.

Also, I do want to also point out that Lee has told her story in the New York Times bestseller, “The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story.”  Click on the book cover image to go to Amazon and see more details.

Day 2 • A Teacher’s Story

On the second day, we switched gears and I posted the story of a resilient educator working with a child who faces huge challenges in his learning. It was a beautiful story, and should inspire anyone who faces challenges in any kind of work.

I do want to point out that this story, told by a friend, is the sort of story that is repeated in classrooms of dedicated teachers all over the world every day. But you don’t hear those stories, because positive stories don’t get the clicks. No, unfortunately, it is the nature of the world that our focus will always be more on the classroom failures or setbacks than on the classroom successes. It’s a pity, isn’t it?

So, make sure to take the time to thank your children’s teacher, especially if they are doing a good job.

Day 3 • The Photography of Samuel Zeller

A week before I started this 31 Days of Embracing Beauty, I put the word out that anyone should feel free to share examples of beauty, and I would include them. This call is what brought me the teacher’s story from Day 2, and it also brought me the photography of Samuel Zeller on Day 3.

I appreciate that Zeller focuses his lens on atypical beauty – streets and metal fences and lines of architecture. As the quote of Day 3 said, and I paraphrase, beauty is everywhere, but not everyone can see it.

Zeller sees it.

If you haven’t take the time to explore Zeller’s work beyond the small gallery I posted, make sure you do so. You can see some amazing photography on his unsplash page.

Also, don’t forget to send me your own examples of beauty to share with the readers of the Thimblerig’s Ark blog! Email me at info@thimblerigsark.com with your examples.

Day 4 • The Top 100 Most Beautiful Songs According to Reddit

If you haven’t already, make sure you run over to Day 4, and let that Spotify list play in the background as you go about your day. The music selected by the users of Reddit have the potential to make even the worst day seem a little bit better.

But before you do that, make sure to listen to a song that should have been on that list, but because the average Reddit user is between 18 and 24, it was probably just too far out of their wheelhouse.

Peter Gabriel’s In Your Eyes. One of the most beautiful songs of my lifetime.

Day 5 • The Animation of Glen Keane

If you watched Duet on Day 5, then you’ll agree that Glen Keane has an eye for beauty. Another place you can see Keane’s fingerprints is in the 2012 Academy Award winning short, Paperman. Keane helped with the character design on the character of Meg in this magical and beautiful short.

And the amazing hand-drawn/CGI animation is lifted up by the wonderful score by one of my favorite film composers, Christophe Beck. Look for more about Beck in the coming days of 31 Days of Embracing Beauty.

Day 6 • The Art of the Musée d’Orsay

And this brings us to Day 6, the amazing artwork found in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Make sure to go and give it a gander, and be floored that such examples of artistic beauty and genius are found under one stunning roof.

By Daniel Vorndran / DXR, CC BY-SA 3.0

Did you know that the museum, which was originally a train station, was nearly demolished in the 1970’s to make way for a hotel complex? The station had become obsolete for trains in the 1930’s because the trains had become too long, was used as a mailing center during World War 2 for sending packages to troops, was the set for an Orson Welles movie, was the home of a theater company, and served as a massive storage unit for years.

In 1970, permission was given for the station to be demolished to make way for a hotel, but those efforts were fortunately stopped by Jacques Duhamel, Minister for Cultural Affairs, who put the space on a supplementary list of historical monuments. Not long after, the idea of turning the station into a museum was pitched, and by the mid 1980’s, the Musée d’Orsay was officially opened.

Stay tuned for more examples of embracing beauty, and please share this post with your friends! Let’s help spread beauty all over the internet.

Also, if you have an example of beauty that you want to share, drop me a line at info@thimblerigsark.com and I’ll be happy to include it!

Embracing Beauty • Day 6 • The Art of the Musée d’Orsay

The Musée d’Orsay in Paris houses some of the world’s masterpieces, with paintings by Monet, Van Gogh, Degas, Cézanne, and many others. The museum itself, originally built as a train station, is a work of art in and of itself.

For today’s example of beauty, we’ll be looking at some of the classic works that you can see if you visit the Musée d’Orsay. Also, if you follow the link below the gallery, you can find out more of the fascinating history of the museum, as well as see many more examples of beautiful works of art that are housed there.

To see more, visit the website for the Musée d’Orsay.

Stay tuned for more examples of embracing beauty, and please share this post with your friends! Let’s help spread beauty all over the internet.

Also, if you have an example of beauty that you want to share, drop me a line at info@thimblerigsark.com and I’ll be happy to include it!

Past days of Embracing Beauty:

Embracing Beauty • Day 1 • Hyeonseo Lee’s Escape from North Korea

Embracing Beauty • Day 2 • A Teacher’s Story

Embracing Beauty • Day 3 • The Photography of Samuel Zeller

Embracing Beauty • Day 4 • The Top 100 Most Beautiful Songs According to Reddit

Embracing Beauty • Day 5 • The Animation of Glen Keane

Embracing Beauty • Day 5 • The Animation of Glen Keane

You know the work of animator , even if you aren’t familiar with his name. Having worked with Disney for many years, Keane’s character animation contribution is a virtual who’s who of the pre-Pixar Disney canon. From his last feature animated position as animation supervisor, character designer, and the directing animator in the hit Disney film, Tangled, to his first job as character animator on The Rescuers, Keane’s fingerprints are found all over some of our favorite Disney films.

But for today’s embrace of beauty, I want to focus on Keane’s most recent contribution to the world of animation, his 2014 animated short, Duet.

If you are a fan of animation, I’d invite you to take a look at more Keane’s work on the various Tumbler accounts dedicated to his art. Here are some beautiful examples taken from theartofkeane.blogspot.com.

You can find another example of beauty in Keane’s work in a video he made with the Opéra national de Paris, called Nephtali, which “uses both film and drawing in order to depict the journey of a ballerina that is drawn towards a higher power.”

Lastly, while not necessarily fitting with our exploration of beauty, Glen Keane talks about the past and future of visual storytelling in this fascinating video, Step into the Page.

Follow Glen Keane on Twitter here, and on Facebook, here.

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Stay tuned for more examples of embracing beauty, and please share these posts with your friends each day this month! Remember, this blog doesn’t have any advertising, and I make no money off of getting hits on stories. I just want to counteract the ugliness we see each day with small and huge examples of the beauty that exists in this world!

Also, if you have an example of beauty that you want to share, drop me a line at info@thimblerigsark.com and I’ll be happy to include it!

Past days of Embracing Beauty:

Embracing Beauty • Day 1 • Hyeonseo Lee’s Escape from North Korea

Embracing Beauty • Day 2 • A Teacher’s Story

Embracing Beauty • Day 3 • The Photography of Samuel Zeller

Embracing Beauty • Day 4 • The Top 100 Most Beautiful Songs According to Reddit

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Embracing Beauty • Day 4 • The Animation of Glen Keane

You know the work of animator , even if you aren’t familiar with his name. Having worked with Disney for many years, Keane’s character animation contribution is a virtual who’s who of the pre-Pixar Disney canon. From his last feature animated position as animation supervisor, character designer, and the directing animator in the hit Disney film, Tangled, to his first job as character animator on The Rescuers, Keane’s fingerprints are found all over some of our favorite Disney films.

But for today’s embrace of beauty, I want to focus on Keane’s most recent contribution to the world of animation, his 2014 animated short, Duet.

If you are a fan of animation, I’d invite you to take a look at more Keane’s work on the various Tumbler accounts dedicated to his art. Here are some beautiful examples taken from theartofkeane.blogspot.com.

You can find another example of beauty in Keane’s work in a video he made with the Opéra national de Paris, called Nephtali, which “uses both film and drawing in order to depict the journey of a ballerina that is drawn towards a higher power.”

Lastly, while not necessarily fitting with our exploration of beauty, Glen Keane talks about the past and future of visual storytelling in this fascinating video, Step into the Page.

Follow Glen Keane on Twitter here, and on Facebook, here.

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Stay tuned for more examples of embracing beauty, and please share these posts with your friends each day this month! Remember, this blog doesn’t have any advertising, and I make no money off of getting hits on stories. I just want to counteract the ugliness we see each day with small and huge examples of the beauty that exists in this world!

Also, if you have an example of beauty that you want to share, drop me a line at info@thimblerigsark.com and I’ll be happy to include it!

Past days of Embracing Beauty:

Embracing Beauty • Day 1 • Hyeonseo Lee’s Escape from North Korea

Embracing Beauty • Day 2 • A Teacher’s Story

Embracing Beauty • Day 3 • The Photography of Samuel Zeller

Embracing Beauty • Day 4 • The Top 100 Most Beautiful Songs According to Reddit

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Embracing Beauty • Day 4 • The Top 100 Most Beautiful Songs According to Reddit

Of course, a look at beauty in the world would be incomplete without an examination of beauty as represented by music.

But if beauty is subjective, beauty in music might just be doubly so. The beauty of a song can haunt me for a multitude of reasons – where I was when I first heard the song, the circumstances in my life when the song spoke to me for the first time, relationships, emotional maturity, spiritual longings… there are so many reasons why one person might be enraptured by the beauty of a song while another person might find it cloying and trite.

And so, for this first foray into beauty in music, I thought I’d go to the current arbitrar of the internet: reddit.

Three years ago, user named McSlurryHole posted a question on Reddit that he or she probably never imagined would get much traction:

“Think to yourself, what is the most beautiful song you have ever heard, im not talking about your favourite song, or the most technical, or something that made you cry, I just want to know the song that made you say ‘holy shit… I could die to this'”

After the replies came close to 10,000 in a day, another reddit user, Dansecaribe, compiled the top 100 songs from that list and created a Spotify list.

Today, for my act of embracing beauty, I give to you – embedded below – that Spotify list of the Top 100 Most Beautiful Songs, as voted by the music lovers of Reddit.

If, for some reason, Spotify won’t work for you, you can also check out this YouTube playlist, which should contain most of the same pieces of music:

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Stay tuned for more examples of embracing beauty, and please share these posts with your friends each day this month! Remember, this blog doesn’t have any advertising, and I make no money off of getting hits on stories. I just want to counteract the ugliness we see each day with small and huge examples of the beauty that exists in this world!

Also, if you have an example of beauty that you want to share, drop me a line at info@thimblerigsark.com and I’ll be happy to include it!

Past days of Embracing Beauty:

Embracing Beauty • Day 1 • Hyeonseo Lee’s Escape from North Korea

Embracing Beauty • Day 2 • A Teacher’s Story

Embracing Beauty • Day 3 • The Photography of Samuel Zeller

Embracing Beauty • Day 3 • The Photography of Samuel Zeller

Our series on beauty continues today with the photography of Samuel Zeller. Zeller is a photographer who lives in Geneva, Switzerland, and specializes in seeking out the beautiful in unusual places.

Asked in an interview in Frankie Magazine what kind of subjects interested him the most, Zeller said, “The seemingly less interesting ones – the corner of a building, the industrial areas, those things we see but don’t look at closely. I’ve always paid attention to my surroundings, and find more and more interest in finding beauty everywhere.”

This definitely matches the spirit of what I’m trying to do with this series, 31 Days of Embracing Beauty, and so I hope that you enjoy Zeller’s work. And if you do, then share his work with your own social media connections.

Help spread the beauty today!

You can find much more of Samuel Zeller’s photography on his website, samuelzeller.ch, as well as on Instagram, and on Unsplash.

To follow Zeller on Twitter: @zellersamuel.

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Stay tuned for more examples of embracing beauty, and please share these posts with your friends each day this month! Remember, this blog doesn’t have any advertising, and I make no money off of getting hits on stories. I just want to counteract the ugliness we see each day with small and huge examples of the beauty that exists in this world!

Also, if you have an example of beauty that you want to share, drop me a line at info@thimblerigsark.com and I’ll be happy to include it!

Past days of Embracing Beauty:

Embracing Beauty • Day 1 • Hyeonseo Lee’s Escape from North Korea

Embracing Beauty • Day 2 • A Teacher’s Story

Embracing Beauty • Day 2 • A Teacher’s Story

Today’s example of embracing beauty comes from Blythe, a dedicated kindergarten teacher from Canyon, Texas.

Blythe writes:

I have been contemplating your request for things of beauty. I did not want to send you a picture of a sunset (though I find that to be of great beauty) but instead a story of grit, determination and beauty.

This is the story of one of my sweet littles. I will call him “Cal”.

Cal came into my class with a bright personality, a twin brother, and ears that could barely hear. He wore powerful hearing aids, and I had a special microphone that I wore that would take my voice directly to his ears.

Still, he struggled with learning.

It was my great dilemma as a teacher: how do I teach someone to read when language is made up of sounds, and he cannot hear the sounds?

My heart ached for my sweet Call, because he wanted to learn to read so badly. He would sigh as he realized he had gotten something wrong, and sometimes his resigned face would send me from the room in tears.

Over time, my dilemma went from how do I teach him to read to how do I teach him to not give up? How do I teach him to keep trying when it is going to take him 75% more effort than every one else to do things that come easy for others? How do I teach him to love learning and to fight for it?

And then I remembered sitting in the office of one of the university teachers who inspired me to be a teacher. She was reteaching me a lesson that I had not understood from class, a lesson that I still did not understand, and when I was ready to give up, she stopped me, and said “Blythe, your job is to show up ready to learn and my job is to teach you. If you do not understand it the way I am teaching, it is my job to find a way to teach you so that you DO understand. Your job is to show up, my job is to teach. You showed up, so I will find a way, and I will keep at it until you understand.”

Your job is to show up, my job is to teach. You showed up, so I will find a way, and I will keep at it until you understand.

This teacher changed the way I looked at learning. Suddenly things seemed possible with a good teacher and lots of determination. This is what I wanted my sweet Cal to understand, so I would research and try new things, and if it did not work I would look for something else. I was determined, and I wanted him to know it.

Around spring break and I was starting to become discouraged again. But then it happened.

Beauty came on a Thursday afternoon.

Cal was practicing sight words on my iPad when he walked over with the most delightful grin on his face. “Look, Miss Chapman! I wrote a sentence!”

I looked at the iPad to see “I see a cat” written in kindergarten script.

“I see a cat.” It is a deceptively simple sentence until you know that the word cat was not on any papers in our room, nor was it posted anywhere on the walls. Cal had sounded out the word cat with no help. He had put together that sounds go with letters, and letters make words and words hold meaning.

The smile on his sweet face is something I will always remember. He fought for that moment, and it was pure joy and beauty (with some tears mixed in). I don’t know if Cal will remember writing “cat” that day, but I will always hold that memory close. I was reminded that faithfulness and determination are built upon daily. I was reminded that the fight to learn is worth it.

Beauty comes in many forms, and on that day it was a six year old boy whose ears did not work, but who figured out how to write words!

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Nate’s note: Blythe sent me this story as an example of the beauty of a child overcoming challenges to learn, but I would add that it’s also a story of the beauty of a persistent and invested educator, determined that all of the children in her care will succeed in learning.

Stay tuned for more examples of embracing beauty, and please share these posts with your friends each day this month! Remember, this blog doesn’t have any advertising, and I make no money off of getting hits on stories. I just want to counteract the ugliness we see each day with small and huge examples of the beauty that exists in this world!

Also, if you have an example of beauty that you want to share, drop me a line at info@thimblerigsark.com and I’ll be happy to include it!

Embracing Beauty • Day 1 • Hyeonseo Lee’s Escape from North Korea

October has finally arrived, and it couldn’t have arrived soon enough. The world has wearied me with its focus on the negative and ugly, and so I’m pleased to be spending some time over the next 31 days searching out beauty.

I do want to point out that while beauty is more or less subjective, there are some objective ideas of beauty that I’ll be exploring. Also, if people want to contribute their ideas of beauty (music, poetry, art, photography, even ideas or stories), I’ll be happy to include them.

So, if you want to be a part of this small project, and my attempt to overcome the ugliness of the world with a bit of counterprogramming, please email me at info@thimblerigsark.com.

And so, my first contribution to the 31 days of Embracing Beauty, and it’s a bit unconventional. It’s the story of Hyeonseo Lee, a young woman who defected from North Korea, and eventually helped her family to defect. I include Ms. Lee’s story – not to be political – but because her story is a beautiful and inspiring story of a woman’s bravery, her struggle to live a free life, and her care and sacrifice for her family.

Enjoy, and I’ll see you tomorrow with my second day of embracing beauty!

Read about my 31 Days of Embracing Beauty project here.

31 Days of Embracing Beauty

Every day it’s the same ugly thing, isn’t it?

Headline news about the latest bloody terrorist attack.

Gleeful stories about the most recent insult one presidential candidate has lobbed at the other.

Joyful reminders about the next big humiliating controversy swirling around a celebrity who has made unfortunate choices.

Merciless arguments about politics or sports or current affairs that don’t seem to have any hope of resolution.

It’s no great revelation that ugly news sells, and so the internet revels in ugly news. After all, an ugly headline can get a lot of attention. And if the story is ugly enough, it might anger people to the point that they share it to their friends on social media, which means that other people will get angry and share. Ugly comments are made, angry rebuttals are flung back, and before you know it, everyone is knee deep in the digital pig slop.

Meanwhile, the ones reporting the ugliness revel in the ad dollars that all these angry hits bring in, even as they push the “publish” button to send the next ugly story out, starting the whole process all over again.

Well, I’m tired of it. Tired of it all.

The ugliness and anger and fear and spite and hate is wearing me down, even if I don’t realize it on a conscious level. Did you know that studies have shown that over-exposure to negativity and ugliness can even create PTSD-like symptoms in people?

So, odds are, you’re feeling tired as well.

How do we respond? What do we do? Do we just load up on scotch and bourbon and sit in a dark corner of the room lamenting the state of the universe?

We could do that. Or we could fight back.

http://austincommonplace.tumblr.com

In The Idiot, Dostoevsky wrote that beauty will save the world, and I’ve decided that it’s time for this blog to join the resistance, and do an admittedly small part to help the world be saved.

Thimblerig’s Ark is turning the tables on the ugliness of the internet for the month of October, and for 31 days, this blog will focus exclusively on beauty.

To clarify, from October 1 to October 31, I will post daily reminders of the beauty of life. It might be uplifting and beautiful news stories, it might be inspirational or joyful photographs, it might be poetry, literary excerpts, film clips, music… the connection will be that these items will somehow capture the spirit and meaning of the word beauty.

And I’m going to need your help with this. I invite you to help join this beauty revolution by sending me your own favorite examples of beauty, and I’ll post them as well. A second part of this plan succeeding is that you make the commitment to share the beauty with the rest of the world on your own social media over the course of the month, helping counter the world’s ugliness by giving our own connections the opportunity to embrace some beauty.

While the forces of ugliness continue trying to push us down – especially in the days leading up to the election – why don’t we all engage in some counter-programming of our own, and turn our eyes to beauty?

Can you imagine?

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Please send any ideas or examples of beauty to me at info@thimblerigsark.com, and include some thoughts on what inspired you to send in that particular item. If you want to include your own contact information, feel free, and I’ll add that to the post.

Also, please include a link for the work, and/or information about about the content creator, so that we can give that person their due as well.

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*This idea was inspired by an interview with screenwriter, Barbara Nicolosi.

**I have no advertisements on this blog, and I receive no money for hits. So, feel free to share the blog itself with others – or just share the items you find here. But if you do that, I just ask that you give proper attribution to the content creators, even if you don’t mention Thimblerig’s Ark.