Cold?

Some stories have such a powerful quote, you can't help but play with it.

With the current story of the cold in the US and the catchy quote: "Winter is coming" (from Game of Thrones). This was bound to happen. 

1001 stories

The famous stories of 1001 nights.
Told by Scheherazade.

Her own story goes as follows.

A Persian King was very angry, because his wife had been unfaithful to him. To relief his anger he married a different virgin every night, and beheaded her the next morning. 

Scheherazade heard of this madness and wanted to stop it. So she asked her father to marry her to the king. He didn't want to, but she had a plan. 

After the wedding she started telling the king a story. When dawn broke, she stopped without finishing the story. Because she knew she had to be beheaded. But the king wanted to hear the ending of the story. So he asked her to finish her story the next night. She finished it, but went straight to the next, even more exciting story. And again, she stopped at dawn, without the story being finished. And again, the king granted her another night. This went on for 1001 nights. When finally the king was over his anger and had fallen in love with Scheherazade, marrying her.

Her stories have given us many wonderful Persian stories about flying carpets, magic lamps, thieves in caves, pirates at sea and travelers hot wide deserts. What a wonderful storyteller she must have been.

Stories without words

You come across them every day.

Just look at the sky, you know what the weather will be, without one word being exchanged.

The sound of dripping rain will notify you to bring along your umbrella.

The traffic light on your way to work. No doubt you will stop at red and keep going at green. No one tells you: stop or go.

The smell of fresh baked bread during lunchtime, they almost seem to yell at you "eat us", but they don't, but you surely do like to eat them.

And even people tell stories without saying anything.
When I come skipping into work in the morning, all dressed in bright colours, with a big smile on my face. You know I'm having a good day, even when I haven't said a word. 
When I come in dragging my feet, not matching clothes, bags under my eyes and my hair going all places, yes, I didn't sleep too well. And you know even without asking (and you will probably keep out of my way, just to be safe).

The fancy word for it is non-verbal communications. And we all do it, almost all the time, even without thinking about it. We keep on telling stories even without words.

The Bodyshop

The Bodyshop, started in 1976 with one store in the UK, now has world wide over 2.500 stores.

They work and communicate from a very strong believe: 

"The business of business should not just be about money, it should be about responsibility. It should be about public good, not private greed." Dame Anita Roddick. Human Rights Activist. Founder of The Body Shop.

They sell beauty products, but those do not make their core story. Their values as they state on their website are: Support Community Fair Trade, Defend Human Rights, Against Animal Testing, Activate Self-Esteem and Protect Our Planet.

These beliefs come forth in everything they do. Commercials aren't about the products, they are about the silliness of skinny models, when no normal woman is that skinny. Or making sure all beauty products are cruelty free.

And they show this with everything they do. The website is green, the logo has green colours in it. Even the stores have lots of green in them with wooden displays.

They have a very powerful story to tell, and they live to it, since the day they started.

Humans of New York

A blog to be jealous of.
With thousands of followers.
And a book published from it.

In 2010 Brandon Stanton took to the streets of New York City (one of my favourite cities in the world) to take pictures of the people of the city. To capture New Yorkers and their stories.

This results in a blog with pictures of all kinds of people. With quotes they give him about them.

Check it out!

Humans of New York

Take your time girl

Stories in Music, I have already shared a few with you over the last few weeks. The next one is from a Dutch singer-songwriter, but I truly want to share it with all my friends.

Take your time girl. By Niels Geusebroek.

First the song is so sweet. I absolutely love it. The first time I heard it on the radio I thought it had to be from a singer from the UK or the US. Because Dutch songs aren't usually that good. But it is that good!

And second, the story behind it. The beat that you hear in the beginning of the song and that is carried through the entire song is the heartbeat from an unborn baby. 

The song was composed at the request of a couple of Dutch radio DJ's. A colleague of theirs, Hannelore, the news anchor, had showed them the ultrasound of her baby girl. And they thought it so special, they asked for the song.

When you look at the video, the woman you see is Hannelore.

And the little heartbeat has now started her own story. Olivia was born on January 1st 2014! (So we share our birthdays!)

Inception

Dreaming is where you mind tells you again the stories of all that has happened to you during the day. They show you what you want or what you are afraid of. All in the form of stories. And as I have already shown, stories come in many forms. As is true for dreams. Magical, scary, adventurous, exciting. From nightmares to the dreams you hope will come true.

In the movie Inception (2010) the main characters have found a way in which they can enter a persons dream and change it.
They have to be a sleep and linked to the other person by a system. The two persons will meet in the dream. And as in dreams, you have so many more abilities, to fly, to create, to be the person you want to be. But what if the person who is with you has a different meaning to why they are there? What if they want something from you? In the dream, they can try to alter your way of looking at them. With this they put the idea in your dream. This idea becomes real to you in your every day life. And your story changes.

A bit of a scary idea, when I write it like that.
But I loved the movie. Exciting, visually stunning and something to think about.

In this seen the inventor of the system (Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio) explains to one of his new dream-builders (Ariadne, played by Ellen Page) how the building of dreams works.

Creating dreams, creating stories.