Murmurations

This stunning video of starlings in flight will give you goosebumps.

Two girls out canoeing in Ireland captured this unbelievable, beautiful, moving act of nature on camera. How brave of them to keep calm! Enjoy.



Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

Built for star-gazing

Even though I find thinking about outer space a bit scary and stressful, I absolutely love observatories from a design and function perspective. There is something lovely about a building constructed entirely for looking at stars.

Griffith Observatory in California [Credit: unkown]

Teide Observatory in Tenerife [Credit: Tenerife Tourism]

Royal Greenwich Observatory [Credit: philsphotoweb]

When I was a child, my parents were professors at the University of Oxford, and my father's office was in the converted dome of the Radcliffe Observatory at Green College. The roof was permanently closed, but the crank to turn the roof still functioned, so on special occasions my dad would let me brother and I go up and turn it. It was so magical!

The green dome where my father had his office, Green College, Oxford [Credit: P. Vojtechovsky]

Do observatories capture your imagination the way they do mine?

Knowing when to be silent

The good-to-honest truth, as told in graph form by Jessica at Indexed.

Credit: Jessica Hagy/Indexed

Beaver vs. Polar Bear

Two weeks ago, a Canadian senator proposed changing Canada's national animal from the beaver to the polar bear. The concept has gone viral, providing Canadian online commentators and twitterers with a practically unlimited supply of that's-what-she-said jokes.

The National Post, one of Canada's national newspapers, put together this funny graphic outlining the arguments for each side of the debate that is sweeping the nation(!):

Credit: Steve Murray/National Post

Are you on Team Beaver or Team Polar Bear? I am on Team Beaver! Have you ever seen one in real life? I have a few times, and they are incredibly adorable.

Friday night guilty pleasures

My guilty pleasures this week:

Indulging in Piroulines... 

...and singing along to old-school Mariah Carey.

Tribal tattoos

Do you watch rugby? I recently found out about a young rugby star from New Zealand, who has one of the most beautiful tattoos I've seen.

Isn't his tattoo striking? At a music festival last year, my friends and I tested each other to see if anyone could spot a tattoo that wasn't ugly...and none of us succeeded. They are hard to get right, and I think for them to work aesthetically, they have to go beyond personal significance and be works of art. I think Williams' tattoo hits the mark perfectly and is just gorgeous. Here are some closeups of his shoulder art:

Williams is part-Samoan, so it's a nice bonus that his tattoo hearkens some of his heritage. I doubt I'll ever take the plunge and get permanently inked, but if I did, I'd consider modeling it on this type of style. Although perhaps...something a little more subtle?

Orange and yellow

I just moved to Ontario two months ago, and have hardly left the big city. I certainly have not taken advantage of the how beautiful this province can be when the leaves change.

[Credit: anvilcloud]

[Credit: Keith Levit]

[Credit: Gordon Wolford]

[Credit: Peter Burian]

These photos make me want to explore, instead of sitting on public transit for two hours each day.

Loeffler Randall Mathilde v. Aldo Shehane boot

About once a month, I head over to the Loeffler Randall website to ogle their gorgeous footwear. I ogle the photos the way a construction worker would ogle a woman wearing these fine boots. And when I say fine, I mean like how a construction worker would say it. "Damn woman, you fiiiiiiine!"

Loeffler Randall Mathilde boot, consider yourself ogled

Unfortunately, most of their products run in the range of $400-800 USD, which is slightly out of my price range, what with the fact that my other hobby is figuring out how many meal combinations I can make from food purchased at the dollar store (truth). The specimen above is $695, or as the French say, le ouch.

Behold what I uncovered today at Aldo. I can't confirm this, but when I saw these in the window, choirs of angels may have struck up a chorus. It's possible.

Oh sweet Shehane boot, I may love you

At $160, they're not exactly giving away the Shehane boot, but it's similar in all the right ways and that makes it a bargain. Needless to say, I snatched these puppies up pretty fast. And while in practice the knock-offs slouch a little more in the ankle than the top dollar version does, it's definitely a worthy alternative.

Autumn leaves

Speaking of the weather.

Something about the crispness in the air makes me want to listen to jazz. How can you not think of Paris when you hear this? I would happily hibernate to this track all the way till Christmas.

Perfection.

Winter is on its way

The changing of seasons is a big deal. Just ask Mary Poppins. She up and moved her whole life whenever so much as the wind changed, leaving depressed and disconsolate children in her wake whenever she went. What an awful woman. That was the main message of that movie, right? Or was it "only take dancing lessons from chimney sweeps." I can't be sure.

Why encourage children to invest their money when they can befriend dancing, Victorian-era wage labourers, am I right?

Well, here in Toronto, last night was the first night of the year to drop officially below 0° Celsius, so I'm declaring it winter. Yes it is still October. But in Canada, that's how we roll. And with the change of seasons comes a new hobby. So here is my first blog post.

Oh, and in case there was any confusion: yes, this blog is a girl. Her name is Celeste.