Baldwin Street

Baldwin Street in New Zealand is one of it's kind. According to the Guiness Book of World Records, this relatively short street (under 350 metres) is the world's steepest residential street. It's rising from 30 m to 100 m above sea level at the top. Since 1988, Baldwin Street is the venue for the Baldwin Street Gutbuster - an annual event where athletes run from the base to the top of the street and back down again.

Animal hybrids

There are many strange animal hybrids around the world. The cross of two related breeds can give a fantastic creature that looks totally out of this world, for example:

Liger is the biggest cat living on earth, it's a cross of a lion and a tiger

Zetland is a cross of a zebra and a pony 

Geep is a cross of a sheep and a goat 

And leopon, a cross of lion and a leopard. These beautiful animals are bred for their fur

Ice cave

The Eisriesenwelt (german: "World of the Ice Giants) is the largest ice cave in the world located in the Austrian Alps, near Salzburg. Its length is more than 42 km. In the beginning, the locals believed that the cave is the entrance to Hell. Then in 1879, a scientist from Salzburg explored the first two hundred meters and that allowed further explorations. The cave is open from may to october and the temperature is ordinarily below freezing so warm clothes are required. Inside the cave there are many extraordinary, natural ice sculptures. All this looks unbelievable, beautiful and totally out of this world.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Recently, I've watched very interesting movie entitled " Fantastic Mr. Fox". This production is very specific because it mixes several forms of animation, mainly stop motion. The movie is from 2009 and is based on the Roald Dahl children's novel of the same name. The story is about an urbane fox who steals, together with an opossum, food from three farmers. The men are furious and they decide to kill the fox so they are trying to destroy his home but the animals manage to escape all the time.
The film features the voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murrey among other great actors and was directed by Wes Anderson. It's simple, entertaining, beautiful and is suitable both for children and adults.

Street art

Street art is a very specific field of art. We can find it in public locations, in other words, on the street. It's more than a simple graffiti which is an act of vandalism. Street artists create art in public spaces because they want to gain attention of bigger public. This kind of art can be called sometimes : "urban art", "guerrilla art", "post-graffiti" or "neo-graffiti". Lot of artists have their own style and their work is known on the street. There are even several festivals of street art. I think that this is fantastic. Some of these paintings are beautiful and creative. They bring some colours to the gloomy streets of big cities.

Grotesque

Grotesque is a Japanese novel written by Natsuo Kirino. It is a fascinating story told by an unnamed female narrator whose sister and old friend have been murdered. The woman lives under the shadow of her younger sister Yuriko from the very beginning. Yuriko is an extremely beautiful girl who is always in the center of attention. The narrator hates her. She feels rejected, not accepted and tired of the constant comparisons. Later, Yuriko and narrators school friend  - Kazue Sato become prostitues and are murdered probably by the same man.

The book is divided into several parts - story told by the narrator, Yuriko's diary, Kazue Sato's diary and a report written by the accused of murder - Zhang who admits killing Yuriko but he denies the other crime. In the other parts, not written by the narror, we can see the different points of view on the same situation. The narrator who introduced us to the story and presented her opinion turns out to be tentative. Everyone has their own truth. The author don't give us the answers in this story. The readers must find them by themselves.

Grotesque seems to be a crime novel but in reality it's a very good and detailed study of characters. We can also find many typical elements for the Japanese culture.

The Beginning

 To start with, I will write about Trent Reznor, more precisely about soundtracks that he composed. He is well known leader of the band Nine Inch Nails and his soundtracks have the same dark and mysterious atmosphere as the music of his group. Reznor composed music in cooperation with Atticus Ross for two David Fincher's movies : The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tatto. They received Golden Globe, Academy Award and Grammy Award for their work. For me they are amazing and original but I know that for some this music might be kind of boring. Anyway, I recommend them to anyone.