femmebot:

toliveanddieinlondon:

This is Hideaki Akaiwa. When the Tsunami hit his home town of Ishinomaki, Hideaki was at work. Realising his wife was trapped in their home, he ignored the advice of professionals, who told him to wait for the army to arrive to provide search and rescue.

Instead he found some scuba gear, jumped in the raging torrent - dodging cars, houses and other debris being dragged around by the powerful current, any of which could have killed him instantly - and navigated the now submerged streets in pitch dark, freezing water until he found his house. Swimming inside, he discovered his wife alive on the upper level with only a small amount of breathing room, and sharing his respirator, pulled her out to safety.

If he had waited for the army, his wife of 20 years would be dead.

Oh, and if that’s not enough badassery for one lifetime, Hideaki realised his mother was also unaccounted for, so jumped back in the water and managed to save her life also. Since then Hideaki enters the water everyday on a one man search and rescue mission, saving countless lives and proving that two natural disasters in a single day, and insurmountable odds can’t stand in the way of love. This man is my hero.

Respect.

Reblogged from femmebot's tumblr

It’s interesting how you and Nicholas Grimshaw and Richard Rogers were all drawn to Bucky in your formative years. What drew all of you into his orbit?

It was his philosophy, his optimism, his belief in friendly clean technology that would enable the species to survive if they used their intelligence.

Here is Norman Foster's recreation of Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Car:

And here is Fuller's original in action:

Buy the new book on the Dymaxion car at Stout Books.

“My weapon was my cello.” - Vedran Smailovic

During the Siege of Sarajevo, Vedran Smailovic, principal cellist of the Sarajevo Opera, played his cello every day in the ruins of the National Library, to honour all those who were killed by shellings and snipers and to provide some peace and hope for those who were still trying to survive. The piece he played every day was Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor.

As Fela said, "Music is the weapon of the future."

Dream theory In Malaya is titled after a paper by visionary anthropologist Kilton Stewart, who in 1935 visited a remarkable highland tribe of Malayan aborigines, the Senoi, whose happiness and well-being were linked to their morning custom of family dream-telling, where a child's fearful dream of falling was praised as a gift to learn to fly the next night and where a dream-song or dance was taught to a neighbouring tribe to create a common bond beyond differences of custom. The Semelai are another tribe not far from the Senoi but who live in the largest swamp area of Malaya, A recorded fragment of their joy-filled watersplash rhythm was re-structured and became the the generating force for the composition Malay, as well as providing a thematic guide for the entire recording.

Last night, I dreamt of having to negotiate a series of ladders, ropes and other gymnastic feats to get to the seats of a theater to watch a performance I really wanted to see. The heights were too much for me and I couldn't get to the seats to watch-- maybe tonight I'll make it to the show.