Recommended Reading / 49.

Every Monday, words to start the week. 

This week, from Humans of New York: Beautiful words from an equally beautiful mother.

“Luis is different. He’s got two moms. He’s an old soul. We live in the projects, and he doesn’t know who Michael Jordan is, or anything about rap music. He dresses himself in the morning. He chooses a button down and slacks, and sits in the kitchen with his legs crossed and reads the newspaper. But he’s still got the heart of a child. Yesterday he had $5 to buy himself a Halloween costume, and he saw a boy he knew while he was walking to the store, and he chose to buy him a costume instead. I always tell him: ‘You’re different, Luis. And that’s OK.’ When he wants to play, I walk him all the way down to Central Park, because I don’t really want him to change.” 

Visit Humans of New York, here. Photograph by Brandon Stanton.

Three more, just because: 
-Patti Smith's Thanksgiving.
-Matt Green has walked across the U.S. and visited every subway station in New York City. Now, he's touring every block in the Big Apple, too – 8,000 miles in total. (Thanks, Kottke.)
-Picasso says: "The chief enemy of creativity is good sense."
 
More recommended reading, here. Have a wonderful Monday.

POV: Busy.

POV ("point of view") is a series that addresses many of the same themes covered in my Equals Record column: growing up, saying yes to adventure, learning to embrace a quarter-life crisis. While my previous column focused largely on ideas, POV focuses on moments - glimpses, glances, tiny stories.

My two-year-old nephew, Dash, loves to say that he's busy. "I'm busy!" he'll cry, if you so much as look at him while he's playing trains, or turning the pages in a book, or coloring Elmo blue. Then, he'll shut his eyes (which apparently makes young children believe they're invisible).

Last week, I joined him and my brother and sister-in-law on a four-day trip upstate, where we made a pit stop at Dia:Beacon. Enamored of Richard Serra's gigantic steel sculptures, Dash ran through their shadowy tunnels, his tiny boots slapping the ground like snow.

"Look at me," I said, trying to take a picture.

He was watching the reflection of sunlight on the cement floor. "I'm busy," he said, and didn't look up.

Eyes of an Animal.

London design studio Marshmallow Laser Feast and the AND Festival have partnered on a new project they call In the Eyes of an Animal, a high-tech virtual reality experience that allows viewers to experience the forest from the point of view of an animal. You can fly; you can interact with other species; you can see trees and the grass and towering flowers with new eyes. I don't know what's better: the idea, or the photographs.

Visit Marshmallow Laser Feast, here. Happy viewing.

Robin's Nest.

Peter Becker's Robin's Nest is a hotel in Hesse, Germany completely comprised of treehouses. Becker tells iGNANT that until recently, the project was a one-man operation – just a sanctuary amid the trees, far from the bustle of Berlin and nowhere near a Wifi connection.

"It's a conscious decision so that people who come here can see and feel nature without their smartphones," he says. "When I ask people why they've come here, they tell me that they've already been to Spain and Italy ten times, but they haven't explored their own surroundings."

Read more at iGNANT. Photographs by Ana Santl.

For more on treehouse hotels: here's an article I wrote for VICE on Sweden's Treehotel (still high on my list of places to visit!).

Recommended Reading / 48.

Every Monday, words to start the week. 

Photos by Jackie Nickerson.

This week, from T: a glimpse into the mind and meals of Jeong Kwan, a Buddhist nun living in Seoul. Kwan's cooking, which she does at the Baekyangsa temple, has been praised by such noted chefs as Le Bernardin's Eric Ripert – it's thoughtful, exquisite, and very, very beautiful. Writes author Jeff Gordinier: "Kwan believes that the ultimate cooking — the cooking that is best for our bodies and most delicious on our palates — comes from [an] intimate connection with fruits and vegetables, herbs and beans, mushrooms and grains. In her mind, there should be no distance between a cook and her ingredients. ‘That is how I make the best use of a cucumber,’ she explains through a translator. 'Cucumber becomes me. I become cucumber.'"

Click here to read the rest. I won't spoil it, but the ending is spectacular.

A few more, just because: 
-Banned book mugshots.
-When celebrities paint.
-Roald Dahl's invented words and Cher's favorite things.
-A Zen master responds to hate mail: "These are wonderful words that you have given me, and I thank you very much. If you attain enlightenment, I will give them back to you."
               
More recommended reading, here. Have a wonderful Monday.