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.

Storytelling by Ikea

Ikea, the world known furniture and decorations seller from Sweden. You either hate them, or you are a big fan of them. 

But they do tell a strong story, to which they stick. 

They started in Sweden and they do tell you. The design with lots of wood and light colours is Northern European. All the names of the furniture have a Swedish background. The famous meatballs in the restaurant are a Swedish tradition. Every store is very recognisable in the bright yellow and blue, the colours of the Swedish flag.

The showroom, yes that maze that you can't get out. It is a big story. They do tell you what Ikea is selling, showing you practical solutions for the problems you could encounter in such a room. Making it all look and feel cosy, as if you could live there, in that showroom. And everything on display they sell. The carpet, the painting, the cushions, the light, everything is there for you to buy.

And than there is the catalogue. Wow, just look at Wikipedia and be blown away by the numbers. In 2013 208 million copies were printed, in 62 versions for 43 countries! That's more than any book has prints in a year.

And when you tell such a powerful story, you can even take a joke:

Ikea, a strong brand with a strong story.

Framing

No, not an instruction on how to frame your art work. But a technique used in communications and also in storytelling.

But I will use the art work frame to explain framing.

Framing is telling a part of the story or certain details of a story to get your opinion told. Like holding a 10 x 10 frame in front of The Nightwatch. You will only see a part of the picture, just a face, shoes, the little dog, but not the entire picture.

All stories are of course framed. Because you can't tell everything that is happening to everybody through the entire story. So when we leave Tom Bombadil behind in The Fellowship of the Ring, we don't know what is happening to him after that. He falls out of the frame and doesn't matter to the story anymore.

Framing in other media like news can be very misleading.
I'm going to use the next image as an example.

The middle image in colour is the entire picture, a man in war time, getting some water.

The cut out on the left side is an entire different picture. A man being held under fire.

And the cut out on the right side another completely different image. A soldier giving a poor man something to drink.

One picture, but with the frame you put over it, three completely different stories.

Life of Pi

Life of Pi of course has a book and a movie.
But for this blog I'm going to use the book. Why, because it has so more depth than the movie, although the movie was visually stunning.

But the book allows you to go in your own pace to places you have never been before, walking with Pi through his fathers zoo, through the hills of India, on the big boat (Tsimtsum) and on that so very small boat and of course finally back on land. Where he talks to the two investigators from the firm the Tsimtsum was from.

The part I really liked and shows the importance of a good story with good characters is where Pi just told the two investigators the story of his amazing survival. He got off the Tsimtsum in a small lifeboat together with a zebra, an orangutan, an hyena and a tiger named Richard Parker. After a short struggle Pi and Richard Parker remain. With Richard Parker in the life boat and Pi on a small raft behind it.

The investigators don't believe him. It can't be true with all the animals, since Richard Parker has vanished when getting onto land. They want to force him to tell the "truth", give them the names of the people with whom he got of the boat. This quote follows:

'So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?' Mr. Okamoto: 'That's an interesting question?' Mr. Chiabe: 'The story with animals.' Mr. Okamoto: 'Yes, The story with animals is the better story.'

Pi respond to it with that it is the same with believing in God. But I think it is the same with all stories. A good story needs characters you can relate to, emphasize with. An exciting storyline. Something the reader can take with him, to learn from and believe in. So if that is with animals or with people, indeed, as long as it is a good story, it is worth telling and hearing.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!!!

Let's start a new year with lots of new stories to share and listen to.

And while you all start a New Year, I'm truly starting a new year.

Yes, one year older (and hopefully wiser).

I was officially due on December 28th, but since my mother told everybody that she would fire me off with the fireworks, as a good girl should, I listened. There I was, January 1st. My first story, and one I still share.

Happy New Year to you all!