ART - SEEBRUHNE BREGENZ THEATER

Bregenz Festival - Floating Stage

Every year, the Bregenz Festival takes place in the Austrian city of Bregenz at the Lake Constance. Every summer the audience can experience excellent open-air opera performances 

on the biggest floating stage worldwide.

The creative spirit is perhaps one of the greatest gifts which we humans have been endowed with. Our task as a festival is not only to act as custodians of past creativity, but also to carry this creative power into the lives of our visitors.  

This year we celebrate the courage of the poet André Chénier, whose dedication to justice did not falter even in the face of revolutionary terror. Giordano's opera tells the story of a life that experienced both the wasteful luxury of the Ancien Régime and the radical policies of the Revolution; in the centre stands a passionate individual compelled by his conscience to place his hand in the hellfire of history. This is the stuff that perfect Seebühne operas are made of! All the more so if they come with music of such breathtaking emotional intensity as is the case with Umberto Giordano's André Chénier. 

With the opera in the Festspielhaus, we celebrate creation and creativity in a more direct way, having commissioned a new work from the Scottish composer Judith Weir. With the same single-mindedness with which we placed Mieczysław Weinberg centre-stage in the 2010 festival, this season we are assisting in the birth of a new opera: an opera written just for you! 

Judith Weir has always been fascinated by the age-old art of storytelling. In her very beautiful and accessible works, she draws on the mythical power of folk tales, many of which deal with age-old problems of human existence. Achterbahn / Miss Fortune is the modern retelling of such a tale – a story about the dizzying vicissitudes of life where, in the blink of an eye, a millionaire can be reduced to washing dishes for a living.

Many have called our programme daring, even risky.

We reply in Chénier's own words: "Obstacles make us great!"

http://bregenzerfestspiele.com

INSIGHT – PH MIRACLE DIET

The pH Miracle diet is a new healthy diet plan with a number of unique benefits. This diet has appealed to so many as it is a complete turn-around from the high protein, low carb diets people have been on in the last few years. The pH Miracle diet, also called the alkaline diet or the Young diet (after it's creator Robert Young) has a whole new approach to nutrition. Many holistic doctors, dieticians and nutritionists view this as a much better balanced approach to nutrition that is based on the true needs of the body.

The basis for the pH Miracle diet is that the human body has a pH that is slightly alkaline. The theory goes that as the body functions at this slightly alkaline level then our diet should comprise mostly alkaline foods. The standard American diet includes a lot of foods that are high in acidity like sugar, caffeine, packaged foods and animal protein. These foods and more can disrupt the body's pH balance and cause a whole lot of health problems. The proponents of the pH Miracle diet say that too many of these acidic foods can disrupt the body's use of alkaline minerals such as sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium, which in turn can make people prone to various chronic diseases.

http://phmiracleliving.com

http://ph-miracle-diet.org

INSIGHT - CARL JUNG

There are no accidents!

It was Carl Jung who coined the term “synchronicity” for those odd, haunting, amazing coincidences or events which we all have experienced. These moments seem to tell us to pay attention, to perhaps change, to look harder and/ or to remember who we really are. The feeling of wonder and joy of these little moments is our connection to the universe and each other. It assures us, moves us forward, and makes us feel human and touchable. Synchronicity has always been there.

We find that our lives are intertwined and more meaningful than we thought. We find ourselves

sharing these tidbits of experiences with family and friends even strangers saying, “it’s a small world” or “can you believe this?” Notice the next time it happens to you. You’ll find yourself smiling and feeling light-hearted! The true measure of miracles is how it makes us feel connected.

The term synchronicity is coined by Jung to express a concept that belongs to him. It is about a causal connection of two or more psycho-physic phenomena. This concept was inspired to him by a patient's case that was in situation of impasse in treatment. Her exaggerate rationalism (animus inflation) was holding her back from assimilating unconscious materials. One night, the patient dreamt a golden scarab - cetonia aurata. The next day, during the psychotherapy session, a real insect this time, hit against the Jung's cabinet window. Jung caught it and discovered surprisingly that it was a golden scarab; a very rare presence for that climate.

So, the idea is all about coincidence: in this case, between the scarab dreamt by the patient and its appearance in reality, in the psychotherapy cabinet. But this coincidence is not senseless, a simple coincidence. By using the amplification method, Jung associates in connection with the scarab and comes to the concept of death and rebirth from the esoteric philosophy of antiquity, a process that, in a symbolic way, the patient should experience for a renewal and vitalization of her unilateral personality, the cause of the neurosis she was suffering from.

Thus, a significant coincidence of physical and psychological phenomena that are acausal connected.

http://www.carl-jung.net/synchronicity.html

INTERESTING - COFFEE GRINDER

Hug your morning wood…

Machines have a reputation for being cold and impersonal, except of course if you rely on your laptop’s hard drive to be your second (sometimes better) brain. But it’s not everyday that designers create things that tune into your emotions like the funky moon rings our sister used to wear in the Seventies.

Emerging from the wildly innovative art school Bezalel in Jerusalem is Heart-Beans, a coffee grinder which when you hold it close to your body, like a baby, grinds coffee based on the rhythm of your heart. (Check out the cute guy demonstrating how it works.)

According to our friend Ziva, who plucked this gem from the blogosphere, Heart-Beans uses natural wood and high-tech lasers to detect your heart rate. It’s this pulse which “inspires” the machine to grind.

It was designed by a team of students at Bezalel during a course called ‘Food for Thought’; the coffee grinder is a statement on our culture’s of consumption, it speaks to our obsession with objects, and it caters to the way we worship technology. The designers say:

“To use this object, you must caress it and hug it, much like as a baby is held, the user inevitably bonds with it, emotionally.”

Currently in prototype stages, Ziva at Designist Dream remarks:

It’s pretty cool. It’s pretty smart. Everyone loves coffee - ‘cept for those snooty tea drinkers. And it’s technology with heart as you can see in the video below... It’s the robot that fulfills your innermost desire. In this case, coffee. Deep, rich and dark, from the bottom of your heart (beat). Ground with love - or whatever else you’ve got brewing inside.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/06/heart-beans-coffee-grinder.php

Designer: Adi Navwany, Michal Shamsian, Itamar Paloge & Danielle Ram