Feel Good Guru

Yeah, the funny cat videos, the Evolution of Dance, and Where the Hell is Matt are all awesome and hilar. Good times, good laughs on YouTube.

But not often in the online video rabbit hole are you moved to tears by astounding beauty. Every once in a Yukon blue moon someone cuts through the cacophony and leaves you speechless.

24-year-old Kseniya Simonova has done that, nabbing the imagination of the world. Watch her sand animation that won this year’s “Ukraine’s Got Talent”. You’ll be amazed. (more…)

=Heart-Warming Coolness! Cold February nights in Toronto call for more than another log on the fire and a snuggle on the couch with hot cocoa and another episode of whatever. Cold February nights in Toronto call for a huge dose of foolish joy to jolt you out of the rabbit hole of hibernation and depression. I’d say even a little insanity is necessary to match the derangement you’ve been feeling at the thought of another eight weeks of winter. And Toronto the Fabulous has the perfect prescription for your family and friends on suicide watch: WinterCity Festival! Worth a trip out of hibernation just to see Pi-Leau by Close Act of The Netherlands transforming Nathan Phillips Square into an underwater fantasy where the sea level is rising and all creatures struggle for life and love… (more…)

With voting season in the past, and America soon to be safely in the hands of a poet, an angel of peace and a change artist, why not celebrate all the euphoriosity and positivity by dropping some green on the internet world’s most fabulous artists and artisans?

Etsy dot com is the go-to online destination for cool this shopping season. It’s the e-bay of hand-made, and it rocks big time in the funky world of inspired small-business! (more…)

Paul “Moose” Curtis is a filthy man. But he’s making a difference by making pictures by cleaning. It’s called “reverse graffiti”, or as he prefers, “clean tagging” or “grime writing”. He starts with a very dirty surface, like a city wall or traffic tunnel, and creates a contrast by cleaning images into the dirt.

His latest blackened canvas is Broadway tunnel in San Francisco where he created a 140ft mural of trees indigenous to the area.

The self-described “Professor of Dirt” says it shocks people to realize how dirty their city is when they see his art. As a result of his activism, entire walls and tunnels have been cleaned. (more…)

Yesterday, for the first time in a long time, I got my hands into some dough. I used to bake bread from scratch every single morning at my restaurant in Banff, and whether they realized it or not, it was one of the things that kept my regulars coming back day after day for lunch. Baking is not magic, but there’s magic in baking.

For a while, I used a large mixer to knead the dough to save time, but I found that not only did the machine alter the alchemy, never getting it quite right, I actually needed the exercise of kneading. I would lock myself in, tune out the world, tune into the process, and discover the secrets of the universe in 4 daily loaves. (more…)

Come down to the southwest, he said, where epic summer thunderstorms roll in over the mesas with no warning, darken the sky, shake the earth and drench the sun-parched land in biblical twenty-minute downpours, with great flashes of lightning and booming thunder, then dissolve away into sweet, gentle sunshine, nearly all moisture evaporating instantly.

We’ve got pretty good soy lattes down here, he said. Only pretty good because at this altitude (7000 ft) water steams at a lower temperature. Doesn’t affect the tequila, though. (more…)

Recently opened, the “Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill” in Grenwich Village in New York is the latest installation of British graffiti artist, Banksy. It’s outrageous, audacious, oddly haunting, and according to an email the BBC received from the elusive artist, was mounted in response to his experience seeing a pet chiuaua wearing a diamond necklace paraded past a homeless man.

A bold statement to point out our strange relationships with animals – how we spoil some and turn others into hot dogs. (more…)

Haven’t you always dreamed of doing something else with your life? Quit your rat race and head for California where the weather’s fine and the livin’s easy? Haven’t you always admired people who do just that? Well, instead of being the one who envies, admires, says to themselves, “one day…” why not be the one envied and admired, the one who gives others hope, the one people come to to ask “how’d you do it?” Why not take that leap of faith?

We dreamers can relate to this: Artist John Robertson is selling his dream life in southern California for $280,000. (more…)