Case in point:
I am found lost in a slumber when Sheldon and Kayla move to squeeze past as I shuffle to make room for them in my seat. The assumption: they are both going to the office for some ’small business’ – a Tanzanian euphemism for number ones. Read more »
Filed under: E's Motions | Leave a Comment »
I can’t remember the last time I slept in a double bed. It’s a great feeling, perfecting the star fish and exploring every square inch of the mattress. The silence of Eze, France is an ocean away from the tunes of taxi horns and street chatter in Harlem, New York. And that ocean is on my front door step.
Today I dipped my feet in that ocean off a pearl-coloured boulder in the beautiful Calanques of Marseille. A friend and I shared a baguette as we fought for reality, searching for it wedged in between crystal-clear fiords and towering cliff faces.
“Are we really here?” we echoed to each other. The sound waves bounced back and forth, and the tides of perception rolled in.
Bare feet and barely present, we tried our best to give our senses their fill.
“The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.”
Filed under: E's Motions | Tagged: france, marseille | Leave a Comment »
25 years ago, during a speech to the RIBA, Prince Charles shocked his audience by launching an attack on modern architecture, calling a proposed modern extension to the National Gallery ”a carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend.” The scheme was dropped, and since then Charles has maintained a role as a notorious critic of modern architecture. Recently, Charles wrote to the developers of a major residential project on the former Chelsea Barracks site, in an attempt to undermine a current design by one of the UK’s foremost architects, Richard Rogers. In the letter, Charles suggested that the traditionalist Quinlan Terry be given the project instead. Read more »
Filed under: Bigger Pictures, Steve Waterman | Tagged: British architecture, Modern Architecture, Prince Charles, Quinlan Terry, Richard Rogers, St George's Wharf | Leave a Comment »
I’m writing through the haze of jet-lag after eight hours worth of flights.
I left New York at 6:30pm. It just hit midday in Frankfurt. And I’ve had two hours sleep in economy.
International traveling is weird. As you fly, time is suspended. Swirling around you, but never gaining a footing. Then you arrive in what seems like an alternate universe, experiencing the affects of the journey but oddly detached from their cause. Is this what a black hole feels like? Read more »
Filed under: E's Motions | Tagged: Germany, Holocaust, injustice, jet-lag, suffering, Travel | Leave a Comment »
In 1961, the scientist Edward Lorenz was using a computer model to predict the weather, when he took a shortcut and entered the decimal .506 instead of .506127.
A tiny difference… but the result was a completely different weather scenario.
From this experience Lorenz developed the scientific idea known as ‘the butterfly effect.’ This refers to the way in which small variations in the initial conditions of a system can produce large variations in its long term behavior. System such as the weather appear chaotic simply because we cannot account for all the tiny factors that contribute to it.
The name ‘butterfly effect” comes from the idea that something as insignificant as the flap of a butterfly’s wings could potentially unleash a chain of events in the atmosphere that ultimately leads to the creation of a tornado.
When I heard about this it immediately resonated with a thought that I have had for some time: that even our small actions start resonate down through history. Small actions now may have huge consequences later on, and small actions thousands of years ago probably now affect us all. Read more »
Filed under: Bigger Pictures, Steve Waterman | Tagged: butterfly effect, Edward Lorenz, significance of small actions, Back to the Future, Pay it Forward | 3 Comments »
Currently I’m on a quarter-filled bus back to the land of opportunity, New York, after spending three days of crappy weather in Washington D.C. Coldplay’s Prospekt’s March EP serenades me through the gaunt, leafless trees as a pack of peanut M&M’s keeps me company by my seat. I admit, I thought for a moment about one friend’s decision to eat only Fair Trade chocolate, but ignored the conviction. Ignorance is a bliss that melts in your hand, not in your mouth. Read more »
Filed under: E's Motions | Tagged: Coldplay, Fair Trade, M&M's, New York, Procrastination, Travel, Washington D.C., Writing | 1 Comment »
Tidies up after self … Check
Cooks … Check
Fancy coffee machine … Check
Bakes hot cross buns at Easter … Check
Has ‘better work stories’ … Check
Can probably fix your computer … Check
No (known) major personal hygiene issues … Check
Yet still, no flat for Simon. Maybe I need to show more leg. Read more »
Filed under: I say | 1 Comment »
There is nothing gained in the miles of columns written about Fritzel. There is unanimous reaction that his acts were evil. Newspapers are wasting their front pages in what is now the coverage of a spectacle. But if this is the case, why are they continuing to give this so much press? Read more »
Filed under: Andrew Feltoe, London Calling! | 3 Comments »
After a hefty sabbatical from writing things for you to read, I’m returning to fifteenminutes.co.nz with a different slant. Dust Off The Bookshelf was a great idea, but suffered the same wheezy cough that has plagued communism for the last century. Namely, praxis. In the second incarnation of this blog, I’ll be writing about my travels to distant shores. If that gets boring, I’ll resort to uninformed critique.
To begin, a poem: Read more »
Filed under: E's Motions, Elliot Taylor | Tagged: coffee new plymouth travel poetry poem, new york paris italy, tanzania | 2 Comments »
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