Thursday, March 31, 2011
Bali profits from business of soul-searching
Google/AFP, by Angela Dewan (AFP), March 31, 2011
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Bali is an obvious hub for yoga fanatics |
UBUD, Indonesia — Being a Hindu yogi once meant renouncing worldly pleasures for a life of solitary meditation, wandering the jungle in search of union with god.
Today, new-age yogis wander the globe from one retreat to another, stay in luxury hotels and preach to the converted masses through a headset microphone.
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Yoga industry in the United States alone is valued at almost $6 billion a year |
At the Bali Spirit Festival last week, yogis sold their take on life -- along with complementary DVDs -- as visitors from as far afield as the United States, Australia and Europe lapped up expensive yoga apparel, mats and mala beads. Just stepping through the festival gates cost $100 a day.
"I bought a gold pass for $500 and I find it hard to get $100 worth of yoga a day. At the same time, all the classes have been amazing, so in the end, I?m happy to have paid that," said Australian Jean Cameron, 39.
A 2008 study published by the Yoga Journal valued the yoga industry in the United States alone at almost $6 billion a year, with some more recent estimates for the global industry rising to $18 billion.
Bali is an obvious hub for yoga fanatics. The Balinese are Hindu, the Indonesian island is rich with natural beauty and the government supports spiritual tourism including temple tours and visits to traditional healers.
Demand for such experiences spiked recently with the publication of Elizabeth Gilbert's best-selling memoir "Eat, Pray, Love" -- a romantic journey of self-discovery featuring a mystical encounter with a Balinese soothsayer.
Uma Inder, a Hatha yoga teacher, has witnessed the radical transformation of yoga in Bali. She moved from England to the island 22 years ago, spending her first seven years practising yoga alone in the jungle.
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This year, around 4,000 people participated in the Bali Spirit Festival |
"In those days you didn?t talk about yoga and no one really knew about it. Nowadays, it?s a social buzz. It?s now talked about, it?s paraded and it?s very much about entertainment," Inder said.
Festival organiser Meghan Pappenheim makes no apologies for the commerciality of the event, and sees it as a positive way to draw more people to yoga.
"I?m the first to admit I?m an entrepreneur, I?m a capitalist. This event has a target market, and those are the people with the money who can go home and make a difference," she said.
"My philosophy is that you make money and then you give it away. You make enough to buy a phone and a nice car, and you give the rest away."
Only four years old, the festival itself is yet to turn a profit. But Pappenheim and her Balinese husband, Kadek Gunarta, say they have used the yoga boom to raise $36,000 for charity through various events.
The festival has a sponsor, Fiesta condoms, which donated $25,000 for an HIV/AIDS outreach programme for Balinese high school students.
So far, Pappenheim and her husband have funded the festival from money they make from a small empire of businesses, which include a yoga centre, an art gallery, an eco-friendly furniture studio and a cafe.
Pappenheim is optimistic that the festival too will become profitable as attendance numbers double annually. This year, she estimates 4,000 people participated.
Links a la Mode
Fashion: Forever EvolvingEdited by Collette Osuna of Statements in Fashion
Hello everyone! I'm super excited to be making my debut as an IFB Links a la Mode Editor this week. As I visited each link, I was reminded that each had the exact thing in common with the next, that Fashion is Forever Evolving.
From your Mothers fashion advice, a beauty "how to" video, or a legendary icons passing, fashion is always changing and taking form in a new shape. I am constantly thriving to acquaint myself with the "fashion unfamiliar." This weeks links did just that for me. I'm thrilled to be a new member of the IFB family and cannot wait to see everyone's posts throughout the upcoming year!
Links à la Mode: March 31st
- Color Me Blue Fashion: The Lazy Girl's Guide To Style.
- Fashioned By Love: Carmen Dell'Orefice: Living Haute Couture
- Fashables: These Shoes Called My Name
- Fumiko Kawa: Redesigned Elle Homme shirt with clean cuts
- Interrobangs Anonymous: Feminism and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
- Independent Fashion Bloggers: Why Fashion Bloggers Should Love Instagram
- House in Tillford: Tips and tricks for getting the best bargains at designer warehouse sales
- Makeup & Jeans: A faux bronze look and entire glamorous face in 11 steps!
- Mallory in New York: Sephora Launches The World's First Unretouched Makeup Ad!
- Mrs. Bossa: Does Pink Stink? How colour-coding gives the wrong message about girls
- Relatively Chic: 25 Ways to Help Japan Through Fashion & Art
- Statements in Fashion: Weekend Jean Lover: From Drab to Fab
- http:/
/ www.stylingyou.com.au/ blog/ 2011/ 03/ fab-friday-style-tip-statement-rings/ ">Styling You: Statement rings: Why you should wear one while drinking champagne - Sugar & Spice: Fashion and feminism: unlikely partners?
- The Citizen Rosebud: A touching tribute to the inspiration of ICON Elizabeth Taylor
- The Loudmouth: Big mouth, bigger hair: My hair timeline.
- The Simply Luxurious life: Eric Bompard - Cashmere Heaven
- The Styling Dutchman Fashion & Finding Myself
- Tickle Me Chic: The "Plastic Surgeons of digital media"
- Those Graces: I Got It from My Momma: Style Lessons My Mom Taught Me
- T Minus T Plus: Baby Steps into Pattern Mixing
SPONSOR:
Shopbop Sunglasses: DITA, Karen Walker, Retro sun, Tom Ford, Mosley Tribes, Ray-Ban, Phillip Lim, Marc Jacobs, Carrera, & Chloe
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
The Chore of Movie Theater Visits
So I thought about going to the movies. Thought about it. There was Lincoln Lawyer, Limitless, Sucker Punch, and perhaps even the sequel to Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Don’t let my usual sarcasm fool you, I actually enjoyed the original. Honestly. Really). But then I thought about the prices of the movies. Then I thought about the prices of the food. Then I thought about all the financial risks to watching a flick. Then I thought about the potential of jerks and twerps watching the movie. And all the thinking convinced me not to watch anything. And this is not normal for a film major. Should not be normal for a film major.
I am supposed to be excited to watch a movie. I am supposed to watch a movie every week. I am supposed to be on top of the latest releases, writing extremely critical reviews that nobody will read because I critique the most random and inconspicuous things. That used to be me. What happened to the film major in me? Did I stop loving movies? Impossible, I still reference movies all the time ("You can't park that animal over there, its illegal!"), and I still write movies on a nearly daily basis. The truth is, going to the theaters has become more of a hassle than ever before.
Movie theaters have emerged from a let’s-go-now activity into a let’s-plan-this-ahead chore. The good ol’ days in which you can watch a movie and have a snack at less than $10 have diminished—unless you find a shoddy one in the corner of a dark neighborhood. Oh and have fun being Rico Suave and paying for everything when taking your date to the movies. Movie theaters are becoming ridiculous by jacking up the prices of the movie tickets, jacking up the prices of their food and beverages, and offering next to nothing in terms of trying to enhance the way we watch movies---outside the Godforsaken 3-D glasses which have been around since the 50s technically.
As a matter of fact, movie-watching has gotten even worse by getting rid of ushers, allowing people to enter a movie theater late, and worst of all not doing anything to combat the pissholes that try to become comedians in the middle of a movie. In order for for me to watch a movie with an audience that is guaranteed to be paying attention and not dick around, I'd have to go to the midnight showings of every flick. And while technically that is cheaper and ultimately more enjoyable, that's also going to cut back on my sleep. So what the heck should we do to make movies enjoyable again? Go back to the basics, and get back to reality. ("Hey I've been turned into a cow. Can I go home now?")
First off, the prices. Check this out:
Average ticket prices:
1950: $0.53
1960: $0.69
Difference $+0.16
1980: $2.69
1990: $4.23
Difference: $+1.54
2000: $5.39
2010: $7.89
Difference: $+2.50
2011: $8.01 (Excluding 3-D)
With 3-D: $11.01
With IMAX: $11.01
With IMAX and 3-D: $14.01
That's ridiculous. In the 90s, we used to have $1.50 theaters for older movies. Good luck finding those in this day and age. Now if you want to see a high-quality movie, you have to pay over $11. Now, yes inflation should be taken into account, but now we have options. We can opt out to Netflix, Redbox, Amazon, XBox Live, the Nintendo Wii, and even YouTube and all this is a heck of a lot cheaper. We can purchase beautiful HDTVs and Blu-Ray players or high-quality DVD players and nearly get that same movie theater experience for ultimately a lot cheaper when compared to seeing movies all the time outside the home. The price hikes and purely insane extra additions have to stop. Movie theater companies need to draw the line somewhere. Let's scale back on the tickets. $5 for a new movie. $7 for 3-D and HDTV. $3 for kids. $3 for seniors. Forking over a Lincoln sounds much more reasonable than giving away a Hamilton.
Now, it is true that movie studios do have a small voice in picking the prices of the flicks, but the food prices is all fault of AMC and whatever other theater company exists. Nearly $5 for an apple juice? Nearly $4 for a small bag of popcorn? $7 for dark chocolate? Now, I know I am in Tourist Country, but most movie theaters are guilty as charged with this same terrible phenomenon. Once the baseball park has cheaper prices on food, we are reaching an issue here. Craft a dollar menu of some sort, and press mildly higher prices for larger and higher-valued items. Trust me, it is cheap and a quick profit in terms of popcorn. Popcorn prices should never be higher than Disney prices...never ever. ("I've got to save Bubba!!!")
Now, ushers. We hire people to sell the tickets, to rip the tickets, and sometimes (I put that word in mildly) to check the tickets at the door before the movie starts. So why not enhance the moviegoing experience by re-creating the usher position? These people will be in charge of making sure we don't have teenage punks ruining a movie. They carry a blinding flashlight and blind the misbehaving peeps (kids will be forgiven, unless the movie swerves past PG-13, in which case the parents are punished). This will not only help things, but can also create jobs, which is sorely needed in this country (I am politically moving this issue..). And ESPECIALLY with movie theaters serving alcohol nowadays..
Lastly, movie theaters needs a fresh new look, a fresh new take. Now how awesome would it be movie theater companies pushed to play older movies every so often? That way the newbies can relive the experiences that older folks got to witness and will never forget. Who can ever forget their first visual encounter with the T-Rex in Jurassic Park? Or the attack sequence in Independence Day? Or the opening to the Lion King? Or better yet, their first encounter with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters? Movie theaters should push for re-releases of old-old-old-old school movies like Psycho, Casablanca, Rear Window, Singin' in the Rain, The Gold Rush, City Lights, and others that reflect the long-beloved Golden Age of Hollywood. Sometimes reliving the past can also lead to success---just ask Nintendo. And the New York Knicks (ZING!!!!!)
Bottom Line: I am a film major that loves movies, but is beginning to hate going to movie theaters. And it shouldn't be this way. I should not have to second-guess new releases because odds are I will Netflix it months later. I miss the going to the theater with someone and seeing a new movie with an audience and collectively invest in the characters and the plot. Watching 300 and Transformers at home is absolutely nothing like seeing those types of movies with an audience. Try watching a horror movie by yourself as compared to a unsuspecting crowd of viewers. Totally different. ("This is where we fight! This is where they die!!")
After decades of sitting comfortably, these movie theater companies are suddenly losing money, losing the amount of visitors, while at the same time stripping away the value of the experience and still increase the prices. Movie theaters left and right are dropping and folding because of the lack of crowds. We need a change. Otherwise, I might even be Netflixing the summer blockbusters. We can fix this. Let's fix it together. Make it cheap. Preserve the event for all its worth. And for goodness sakes add some variety, something fresh to the mix.
Make going to the movies actually......fun again.
Main Suspect in Deadly 2002 Bali Bombings Arrested in Pakistan
Fox News, Associated Press, March 29, 2011
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| Undated sketch of Bali bombing suspect Umar Patek. (AP) |
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Intelligence sources say top Indonesian terror suspect Umar Patek has been arrested in Pakistan.
Patek is one of the main suspects in the 2002 Bali bombings that left 202 people dead.
Two officials speaking on condition that they not be named said Patek was taken into custody in Pakistan on March 2. One of the sources is an Indonesian security official, and the other is a Philippine intelligence official who cited information from U.S. counterparts.
Related Articles:
Hundreds of artifacts unearthed in S. Sulawesi
Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Makassar | Wed, 03/30/2011
Researchers say they have discovered hundreds of artifacts spanning several eras from sites in Bantaeng, South Sulawesi.
“We can classify the archaeological findings in Bantaeng into the pre-historic, pre-Islamic, Islamic and [modern] Bantaeng periods, based on the artifacts' characteristics,” research team leader Naniek Harkantiningsih said.
Ten researchers from the National Archeology Research and Development Center, the Cultural and Tourism Resource Development Agency and the Culture and Tourism Ministry conducted research in eight Bantaeng sub-districts between March 14 and 28.
Naniek said the team found approximately 600 artifacts, including Chinese ceramics and pottery that dated to the Yuan, Ming and Sung dynasties, and artifacts from Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and the Netherlands.
Researchers also found several coins and a burial complex that might date to the Islamic period in the 1between the 15th and 18th centuries, he said.
The burial site, discovered in Ulu Ere and Gantarang sub-district, was still intact and had been unknown to local residents, he added.
The artifacts, which would be conserved in cooperation with local groups, were evidence that Bantaeng was a center of the spice trade, shipping cacao and vanilla to European countries during the Gowa Tallo kingdom, Naniek said.
“The cultural remains must be preserved and be turned into a cultural heritage site as well as an object of tourism. This way the remains will bring benefits as an archaeological research center and as a source of economic development to the regency and people of Bantaeng” she said.
The researchers began work in January 2007 and were expected to investigate sites in nine regencies and one municipality in the province before the project ends in 2015.
Researchers will next move to Bulukumba, Sinjai, Bone and Maros regencies.
Pourquoi Pas?
{weheartit}
Why not keep on believing my loves? I have been job searching lately which warrants its fair share of ups and downs...especially when the fashionable industry you are dying to be in is a bit closed door. I, like everyone, have hit my points where I can no longer keep myself upbeat, but 90% of the time, I'm optimistic that my amazing opportunity is right around the corner. So I skip from coffee rendez-vous to networking event basking in the glory of New York City and feeling satisfied that at least I know I am home and in the right place.
Monday I had a coffee with a new friend who shared some rejuvenating words that caught me off guard...
No matter where you are in life, if you only focus on your impossible circumstances you are bound to sink. If you keep your head up and your eyes on your goal, you have no other choice but to keep on stepping and arrive at your destination. Its in the doubting, the questioning, the focusing on the negatives that the road gets impossible.As a planner, be it events or life, the hardest thing for me to do is let go and trust God will provide. And even though I have been provided for time and time again, I still worry. So I'm glad that when I struggle with the calm of knowing everything will work out, I have great friends to be that constant reminder of trust and patience and faith.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
UK Inspiration Topshop Style
I love living in New York for one main reason (among many) it has EVERYTHING! When running errands last week around SoHo I stopped in the hip UK store Topshop...you know...to see what all the fuss was about. I must say I was pleased. Although not everything was quite my style, there were plenty of pieces, staple and flair, that I loved and wanted immediately for Spring...if it ever comes!
Any UK Style Inspiration
to fit your Topshop fancy?
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