Swallow the Sun

Ever since reading "Eat, Pray, Love" several years ago, the memoir's words have never left me. Written about Elizabeth Gilbert by Elizabeth Gilbert, it tracks her year journey through the world and through her soul. The book have me a passion to travel and discover and love and..it's just sort of hard to explain. Gilbert has a way of story telling that grabbed me--she's honest and concise and an expert and finding the words to define those things we all feel but can't manipulate into words. Also, she writes about Italy, a place I am longing to visit, so I read the Italy portion of the book slowly and imaginatively, it's my own little way of being on the cobbled streets eating gelato and overhearing the crowd at a nearby soccer game. Words also interest me and she spends a lot of time on the translation of words from our language to others. The literal translations of things can be humorous or inspiring, nevertheless they at least bring an appreciation for the words I speak each day and are spoken in other forms across the globe. Gilbert writes about people she meets and I feel myself missing them as I finish the books final pages. I didn't start this post to talk about the book, but as you can see--I love it. To pieces. If you get the chance, please, please, read it. Especially since the movie is coming out soon and though you've already probably seen trailer footage that might tarnish your mental film reel as you read, I hope you can create the characters and scenes yourself before you see it played out in its entirety on the silver screen, if you are, of course, even interested in seeing the movie. I have a fear, as is natural, I think, that the film will fall very short for me. It was the little idiosyncrasies of the characters, the cultural immersion I felt as she effortless described the scenery before her and the dead on metaphors Gilbert's wonderful memoir was filled with that made me fall in love with Eat Pray Love. They story itself is not so much about finding a love as much as finding yourself and from the trailers I've seen so far, it seems that they shift the victory and the concept of the story to this 'love story.' I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that I'm wrong. For Gilbert's sake. It would be a pity for such a beautiful story to be lost.

Do you like Ted Talks? Do you know what they are? If not, please find out. "Ted Talks" Conferences are held annually in different locations and they invite the most fascinating thinkers and doers of the past year to give a talk. As the Ted website notes, they "...are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes)." And so, these talks are great, I listen to the podcasts of them in my car all the time and the videos are also available online, at http://www.ted.com/. I recommend the talks by Mike Rowe, J.J. Abrams, Sir Ken Robinson and Dan Buettner, who speaks about the areas in the world whose inhabitants often live to be over 100, why this is, and what we can do to be like them. I find this talk, and the others whom I listed, to be very inspiring and even life changing. Stimulating in the least.

Given my obvious adoration for Elizabeth Gilbert (see above if you missed the whole 'she's awesome and her book changed my life' thing) and humungous fan-age of Ted Talks, when I saw that Elizabeth Gilbert had given a Talk in 2009, I was instantly sucked in. Her talk was interesting and spoke on the subject of creative minds seen as crazies who are prone to suicide of depression. I don't really want to talk about it anymore, or spoil anything else for you, so just watch it if you're interested or a Gilbert fan like myself.
Here's the link

The annual conferences in Long Beach/Palm Springs and Oxford bring together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

Florence & The Machine - Dog Days Are Over

listen to this and I dare you, try not to dance or at least tap your toes. I've lost at least 150 calories thanks to this tune today. I can't stay still when it comes on and...it's been on a lot.