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Very exciting and I'm hoping to jet over there after work today (I know, I shouldn't be working on a Saturday, huh?). For those of you who don't know, The Tribeca Film Festival is the brain child of the legendary Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff to "spur the economic and cultural revitalization of lower Manhattan through an annual celebration of film, music and culture" following 9-11. The festival end May 4th.
If you're in the New York area, get your butt into the city!
Here's the schedule
"Yet for many families in the remote reaches of Yunnan, tea-picking remains outside the realm of commerce. It's something they do for themselves and is so tightly intertwined with their daily lives that harvesting tea is a routine household chore like putting the laundry out to dry."
--Thomas Fuller
How beautiful...
Source: Thomas Fuller's IHT article, "Tea, wild or not, enriches Chinese province"
Image credit: Ateava (Taken while trekking through Southern China's Yunnan Province. The bottom one was taken with permission inside a beautiful family's residence.)
See you in two years...
The Whitney Biennial 2008 just wrapped up and being a critical barometer of the American contemporary art scene, Ateava chose to brief review the event. For those of you who don't know, the biennial is a well regarded contemporary American exhibition held in New York City highlighting relatively unknown artists.
This year's biennial was raw and focused. It's also my favorite one of the past four. No gimmicks were present here, and if they existed, were well hidden. The chief curators, Chrissie Iles and Philippe Vergne managed to capture how relevant art is in these restless, discontented times. I'm usually turned off by art as social commentary, but found many of the underlying themes that did pay homage to the ills or times interestingly relevant. Found objects installations and videos were prevalent, while painting was a rarity.
Understandably, there may be some who will tag this year's exhibition as mediocre, but this sentiment most likely stems from their expectations of what art should be. If you choose to look at the biennial (and art in general) in terms of "ideas", then it should be a success. Clearly the show struggles to make sense of current social, political and economic contexts vis-à-vis a non preachy, raw, conceptual vocabulary. Those looking for meticulously crafted, tangible installations, that speaks to subjects such form and color should look elsewhere.
Unhappy, unglamorous, and restless yes, but this show is also more alive and optimistic about art since the wave of american pioneers beginning the the 60s and 70s.
(More images and photo credits after the jump...)
Read More!
Women who drink at least three cups of tea a day are less likely to have heart attacks and strokes. New research published in the medical journal Arteriosclerosis assesses the relationship of tea consumption with common carotid artery intima-media thickness (CCA-IMT) and carotid plaques. Key findings within the 6597 subjects aged ≥65 years include a lower likelihood of high blood pressure, diabetes and a high body mass index (BMI), including a lower tendency to smoke. Oddly, the positive benefits were not as significant for men, however the male tea drinkers were less likely to ingest alcohol, coffee, or meat. Both male and female tea drinkers showed a higher tendency of diets rich in fruits and vegetables, and tended to have higher levels of education.
The study, who's aim was to "assess the relationship of tea consumption with common carotid artery intima-media thickness (CCA-IMT) and carotid plaques" proves great news in the growing mountain of evidence supporting tea's health benefits, but it was not without flaws. Statistical evidence of actual heart attacks and stokes was not reported. Additionally, specifics as to tea grade or quality were not included.
Source: Tea Consumption Is Inversely Associated With Carotid Plaques in Women (Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. 2008;28:353.) Stéphanie Debette; Dominique Courbon; Nathalie Leone; Jérôme Gariépy; Christophe Tzourio; Jean-François Dartigues; Pascale Barberger-Gateau; Karen Ritchie; Annick Alpérovitch; Philippe Amouyel; Pierre Ducimetière; Mahmoud Zureik.
MGMT is spiritually in sync with who Ateava is right now.
Rebellious aspirational nostalgia against the uncertain, complex humdrum of society.
Voluntary optimistic naïveté forcing new conclusions about ourselves and the world.
Watch:
MGMT - "Time To Pretend" Music Video
MGMT - "Electric Feel" -Interactive Music Video Game rendition (The actual game can be downloaded here)
YouTube tribute video for "Kids"
New evidence suggests tea may be the antidote to the Bacillus anthracis (yes, anthrax). According to research conducted by Les Baillie of the Welsh School of Pharmacy at Cardiff University and Theresa Gallagher, Biodefence Institute, Medical Biotechnology Center of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute in Baltimore, tea has the potential to inactivate anthrax activity in the body.
The caveat: adding milk will inhibit the antibacterial activity, or as Professor Baillie puts it:
"I would suggest that in the event that we are faced with a potential bio-terror attack, individuals may want to forgo their dash of milk at least until the situation is under control.
Source: March issue of the Society for Applied Microbiology journal Microbiologist
A personal holiday message to our readers from Ateava.
With time to reflect on life stories with our friends and family over a warm cup of tea, we also would like to extend our message of happy holidays to everyone throughout the world.
Image: The Christmas tea party (Seven children at table by Christmas tree) Meadville, Pa. : Standard Scenic Company, c1906
There's been a torrent of press around a new study showing green tea may decrease the risk of advanced prostate cancer in men. According to the study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, the risks of having advanced prostate cancer was "50 percent lower for men who drink five or more cups of green tea a day compared with those who have less than one cup".
So should we expect this study to help shatter tea drinking American male stereotypes?
A while back Steph's blog had a post probing the American males relationship to tea, and well, being a male, have had plenty of thoughts on this. I'll sum them up for the purpose of brevity to remind Ateavablog readers that the same thing was said about cappuccino-sipping men in the pre-Starbucks era (the 80s). In fact, beverage appreciation is not new territory for the American alpha male set, as wine connoisseurs among us have proven (I'm writing this blog entry on my Blackberry at one of Manhattan's hottest wine shops, Cellar72). It wouldn't surprised me to find these aficionados to be among the first early adopters looking for a non-alcoholic alternative to wine.
"The re-hinging power of tea is real, and real men respect it."
I'll leave you with an entertaining insight extracted from from The Herb Tea Book (Loveland, CO: Interweave Press, 1998) over at Robert K. Henderson's web site. According to him, "somehow, between Lewis and Clark's tea-fueled expedition to the Pacific and the Civil War, American guys stepped off the tea wagon.... And we've been chumps ever since"...
Image: Five men forcing a tarred and feathered customs officer to drink from a teapot, a bucket and a liberty cap are on the ground at his feet. They stand beneath the "Liberty Tree" from which a rope with a noose hangs; in the background, shadowy figures on a ship dump tea overboard.
Image Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
Modern Korea is not the tea drinking culture in the manner of China of Japan today (some are looking to change this), but most people don't realize they are in many ways, the tour-de-force behind the the sacred Japanese Zen tea rituals we have grown to know and love. Ateavablog will certainly blog more about the down the road (as we try to make quality Korean green tea available at out shop), but in the meantime if you happen to be in or around the Yongin, Gyeonggi Province of Korea, you'll need to check out The Amore Museum's latest exhibition covering Joseon era Korean tea culture. A must see for those aficionados dying to understand Korea's historical role as tea's spiritual bridge between China and Japan.
Source
The Amore Museum
Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, Korea
Information: (031) 280-5595
Web site: http://museum.amorepacific.co.kr/
No entrance fee is required.
