Thanks to David Snyder and his tweet I watched René Redzepi’s talk at the Terroir Symposium in Toronto. They published it on Eater, but a while later the video was set on private (I will post it, as soon as it’s online again – hopefully). It’s a shame because René’s talk was amazingly inspiring.

For the ones who still don’t know René Redzepi, he is the chef and owner of the best restaurant in the world – NOMA in Copenhagen. It is fantastic just reading about it, following it via the web is incredibly inspring. They are working on a documentation about René Redzepi, NOMA and the whole culture that comes along with it: NOMA, the perfect storm. I am really excited about it.

The talk from Torroir was about René Redzepi burning out, resetting and focussing on the important things. Especially the last two minutes were golden, where he talks about what he likes about food. Basically that’s the way I am living it. And that’s why I transcribed it (I had it still open on my iPhone, so I was able to write it down). Enjoy:

“And what do I like about food? I can’t answer that question simply, because food is everything. It’s a metaphor for how we interact with the world. On sad moments and on happy moments. It’s a matter for conversation, it’s a transformation of our environment. With food we literally consume light and weather. We are putting the world into our bodies. Food becomes who you are. With food you can repair yourself.

But believe it or not, the reason why I fell in love with cooking has got nothing to do with the lovely magnificent 85 hour work weeks, or the lovely centimeter and a half that I lost of from one of my fingers to the courtesy of a sharp knife.

No, I fell in love with flavor. And what deliciousness, if you allow it to, can do for you. It excites you and it fuels you. It can be a time machine, it fills you with memories. Yeah, yeah, sure, a body doesn’t need it to stay alive, but my mind does. It’s the extra icing on top. It is what makes life fun to live. To me celebrating a well cooked meal, delicious flavors – weither being a taco al pastor on the streets of Mexico, or the ten course elaborate meal or even the perfect cooked chicken from an old yard. That’s the difference between bodily maintenance and real living. Am I ok? Yeah, I am fucking much more than ok.”

It’s all about flavor in life, no only when it comes to food.

What would you do if you had one extra day? Like an 8th day in the week. Within this beautiful beautiful video a couple is answering this question. Enough said, watch it!

Thanks Marcus, for pointing out to this.

Fernweh [ˈfɛʁnˌveː] is one of these brilliant German words that puts so much into just few letters. It is the yen to see distant places, like “wanderlust” but much more intense. As you know I love travelling and I love inspiration. And of course also the combination of gathering inspiration to travel makes me spent hours in the web. Airbnb is one of my favorite sources. I like the idea of searching for places based on the location where you stay. It’s just the other way than searching for a city, country, or region and then looking for a place to stay – you will find different things.

This week I found this amazing place on Airbnb: The Ark in Șirnea, Rumania. An incredible place in the middle of nowhere (on the border of Transylvania). On top of a mountain with a perfect view.

“The space that will host you is one of the first to meet the sun every morning and its windows and porch offer you a majestic meeting with nature which, once you attend, you will always want repeating.
Everything a person needs and a lot of what a soul wants is now gathered in our Ark. We usually cruise the day on its board, but would like to extend the presence and offer you an invitation for joining us in an experience that is easy to love and hard to forget.
What you can do in Sirnea? Ultimately meet yourself and the nature, discover along with your friends and loved ones a unique place, go mountain hiking, mountain biking, horse riding, slay riding (in winter), skiing (in winter), having great evenings by the fire, go to local museum (excellent ethnographic reference), local old church, mingle with the locals in the village bar, etcetera. The list is as big as you will allow it to be.”

Just looking at the photos make me want to pack my bag, book a flight, get a car and let my soul rest. Incredible.

Thanks to the Internet it is easy to find a lot of incredible inspiration for travelling. Just let me mention a few:

Stilpirat

My buddy Steffen just went to Vietnam for three weeks. I was following his trip over the whole time. I loved it. It was like travelling a little bit with him. He apparently had a great time. If you don’t speak German, try it with GoogleTranslate or otherwise just wander through the photos.

Visitors J

Steffen was also the one who introduced me to Visitors J. Two guys, Tim Bruns and Lars Riemenschneider, wandering through Japan and surrounding places. They take photos, beautiful photos. They report about their experiences on English and German. I am addicted to it. Check them out on flickr as well.

“The aim: Japan, Tokyo at the moment
We try to enjoy our six months (more or less) trip in Japan as much as possible without having real Japanese language skills, as we realised with regret. However, the vibe is good.
The device: To get along and survive a few months in Tokyo. The budget is limited, that’s why we need to earn some money soon. Finding a flat would also be nice. If we don’t get anything, the street will be our home.
At the beginning of the next year, at the latest, we want to travel around the country. Hopefully, we have gathered a lot of experience, money and some additional vocabulary till then. Or at last a tent. It’s a journey towards the uncertain with an unknown ending. Spontaneity and naivety are closely related to our characters and will be our steady companions.
The mission: Getting to know Japan, maybe more. We need the country and the country needs us.”

A Restless Transplant

Now imagine you quit your job, get yourself a VW van, and just drive. That’s exactly what Foster Huntington did. For more than a year he is already travelling through North and West America. I stumbled upon A Restless Transplant through Phillip T. Annand, apparently he and Foster are friends, they have been travelling together for a while. You should follow Foster via Instagram.

“I was born in Portland Oregon and grew up splitting time between the city proper and the Columbia River Gorge, 50 miles to the east. I attended the Catlin Gabel School in Portland Oregon and Colby College in Waterville Maine. After Graduating, I moved to New York to work as Concept Designer at Ralph Lauren. On August 5th 2011, I quit my job and hit the road.” Foster Huntington on facebook

In my last post I wrote about how my online usage is interest-based. For example I like sandwiches, that’s why I follow certain people on Twitter, follow certain sources on QUOTEfm,  like certain things on Facebook, collect certain lists on Foursquare. One important aspect is consumption. I buy things because I am interested in them – because I like them.

Since the service Svpply started my whole consumption started to change. When I see something online which I would like to own, I press the browser plugin and add it to my Svpply account. I can also add it to certain collections – perfectly for gathering gift lists for your beloved one(s). When I look into my Svpply account later I delete stuff I don’t like anymore. And I get back to the things I really would like to have. When I still want them, get feedback from my girlfriend, can afford them, I am about to purchase it.

I use Svpply a lot. And just a few weeks ago they called me member of the week. Which made me proud. We, my girlfriend and I, also use Svpply to send us things we might like. You can suggest items to other users, which is fun.

But I also go to Svpply to look for things. Like I want a new backpack. I go to Svpply and search for it, look through my list, look through lists of people I follow until I find the perfect backpack.

Like the title says I have the feeling it’s more conscious. I deal a longer time with the things I would like to buy, I give them more thoughts, look for feedback, suggestions, etc. And that is an aspect that is not used often enough on Svpply: you can leave comments below the items. And it would be cool to see what people think about the products they own. I just started to.

But there is more. I use tumblr a lot. You probably never saw it but I have a tumblr where I collect nice interior ideas: Visual Inspiration. Before you complain that I don’t add any links or information about the origin of the photos. This is just a collection of things I like, for me and my girlfriend to get inspiration for what we can do with our apartment.

It used to look like this:

Now we started to add some things like a ladder, an antler or a bunny, sometimes people. We have a working space, coffee, a bar and a view. But we are not done yet. Far from done but I love how it is developing, becoming our home.

The following is partly an answer to Sara (I wrote the rest before). I liked her article until I read the comments.

I am not in Berlin, maybe I am a hipster but I feel really comfortable in my own 4 walls. Maybe that’s the most important thing. I spend a lot of time here, so it better should be beautiful. Is it expensive? Sometimes. Does it make me happy? Yes. I don’t wear Deichman shoes, so why should I sit on an IKEA sofa. You wear your cool old MCM backpacks, I have an old leather suitcase with a hat on top. You wear your funny Mickey Mouse sweater, I can put a fucking old ladder in my living room. What I am saying: you care how you look, I care how my living room looks. I don’t blame you for your “Lavalampe und Laminat”, don’t blame me for my “Stuck und Fischgrätenparkett”.

If you care, you can hide printer, cables and staplers. It is not that hard. If you can’t make it with money, be creative. In any way it should be creative. But like I say above if you are INTERESTED in changing it, there is a way. Or like Jamiroquai said “If I like it, I do it.” If you don’t care, don’t troll around.

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Wordpress, Svpply, Foursquare, Flickr, Google, QUOTEfm, Pocket, LastFM, SoundCloud, Spotify, Tumblr, IFTTT, Notesy/Notational Velocity – these are the services I use, most of them daily. Some people might thing these are way too many. Do I need all of them? Nope, probably not. But I don’t want to miss one of them. Some might think I don’t even use all services – like Pinterest. But Pinterest for me is too random, I collect interest-based: stuff I want to buy: Svpply; things I like: tumblr (more on this one in the next post). And for me I figured out everything I do online is interest-based. And why am I so obsessed with these services? Because they support my interest.

Like I wrote in the about page of this blog: my interest is difficult to limit. I can get interested in anything. Just tell me the right story. Of course I have favorites: coffee, food – especially sandwiches, design, interior, music, travelling, the digital world, sports and much more. And I love to find new stuff: new music, new things I can put in my apartment, new articles, new restaurants. These services above help me find the right things, not only new stuff but also things that are so pointed exactly onto my taste. So that I rarely spend any time (in the web) with stuff I am not interested in.

And why?

Why do I have to know the best and the newest things? It is not about showing off, take a role of opinion leader or something it’s just curiosity. Curiosity makes me do all these things. And I think it is a very important feeling. Maybe one of the most important aspects when it comes to innovation and change. The Oxford Dictionary defines curiosity as “a strong desire to know or learn something.” That’s it. Without knowing or learning new things you get stuck – and by getting stuck you loose.

Back to the topic Digital Utopia.

As much as I love these services, I get cramps when I see how limited they are. Not until recently I wasn’t able to switch from Instagram to Foursquare although I connected a photo to a place. I once tweeted to Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare, my idea and he responded and a while later they integrated a switch so you can open the exact Foursquare location from within Instagram.

Connect

There are many more examples. This is a very very cool example and apparently two saw the positive impact on both their services and connected them. It’s just a matter of API. And IFTTT uses these APIs to let you make some of these connections. It’s a really nice service. I started to play around with it a little bit and created this tumblr where I collect all the things I do: What I’ve done. It is just the collection of things I marked as purchased on Svpply, places I checked in on Foursquare, articles I read on Pocket, music I like on SoundCloud, etc. No magic, nothing even interesting, it is like a little diary for myself and to see what is possible.

But here is the problem: one important aspect is that all APIs are there, open, usable. Twitter for example is only an “Action Channel”, which means you can only send things to Twitter, you can’t for example use Tweets as a trigger. Why? Because Twitter doesn’t want to. A while ago I wrote this on tumblr:

I don’t get it. Changes against the customers, against the users are worst than regression. It is betrayal. Especially if one like Jack Dorsey tells you that the customer is most important. I get it that it is also about making money but there need to be another way than limiting the usage for your customers. I don’t care if the services want things from me, information, data, money – but as long as I get a service back that serves me.

Facebook. Like I said I don’t care that they want as much data as possible as long as I get something back in return. Did you every realize that you can’t just copy text from within the iPhone app? Or copy a link like you can in any other service? Facebook wants you to hold as much as possible inside their own environment that it is starting to suck.

The Utopia Part

How wonderful would it be if services would really work together? If the APIs would be so open you can actually improve the services. Putting real focus on the customer would lead to that. In the beginning it was’n possible to send your played songs from SoundCloud to LastFM. Now it is, because someone made it possible. I want that to be possible with any service. And not just in a complicated Github way. I want to be able to connect it like IFTTT. Some things work perfectly together like QUOTEfm and Pocket, Spotify and Facebook, SoundCloud and Tumblr. But please, don’t limit the customer in choosing which services should work together.

Technical Utopia

Don’t get me started on this one. I want a folder on my MacBook that makes it possible to put videos in there, and they should be automatically send to my iPad. What would we do without AirFoil?

What do I want to say?

I love new services and believe me, there could be much more. (Like a travelling service, something better for sports, a great website for weather….). But if someone starts his own project they should also think about how to connect them with other services, from the beginning. Instead of just adding something to the digital world, integrate it, connect it. Not only by making it possible to search for users from you twitter following list, “share this on facebook”, etc. take a look what data you could use, what makes sense. Thank you.

Sorry Mr. Bittman, but you are wrong. “The sandwich has become staid and unimaginative“? “We’ve allowed sandwich-making to become something that is either done by someone else or a task to be squeezed in between breakfast and taking the kids to the bus“? In his article “Every ‘Wich Way – How to Create an Artful Sandwich” on nytimes.com, Mark Bitman – food journalist, writes about how people forgot how to make “good” sandwiches. For example with leftovers. Or people “showcasing a variety of unusual ingredients and allowing individuals to throw them together“. Like Dikembe Mutombo always said “Not in my house!”.

Within my “Ode to the Sandwich” I quoted Tim Hayward’s feelings towards sandwiches and it is still more than true for myself. But that’s me. I definitely need to agree with Mark, people are lazy. I get crazy comments about my sandwiches, saying “Wow, they look so good. Everytime I see one of your sandwiches on Instagram or Facebook, I want to have one myself.” or “Can you make me one too?“. I would like to quote Mr. Bittman here, sandwiches are easy to make, just be creative:

“It all starts with good bread, a commodity that’s easy enough to find. It continues with spreads, which need not be that out of the ordinary but should be seasoned assertively enough to not disappear. The “body” of the sandwich — which may be open-faced or not — is the key, of course, and it’s here that it pays to open the vault: not just tuna but anchovies, not just ham but prosciutto, not hamburger but beef tartar and so on.” (via nytimes.com)

I use several breads: baguette, toast, self-baked whole grain, bagel, bread rolls… (And most of us live in Germany – the country of breads). I love using leftovers: not only meat like chicken but also whatever the fridge has to offer: zucchini, steak and mushrooms, or poached eggs & baked beans. I use spreads like my favorite honey mustard or mayonnaise, Korean BBQ sauce, teriyaki or I just marinate the ingredients in some sauces (soy, Korean BBQ, etc.). Open, closed, whatever. Just add these three things: bread, “body”, spread – and you get as perfect results as I do. You can get yourself a contact grill which makes the experience even better. (If you put anything on a sandwich with melted cheese, it will taste delicious.)

I am wondering if the sandwich will have as much attention as the burger has right now. In Germany burger restaurants are the new pop-up stores, the new coffee places, or you could say “burger is the new black”. Don’t get me wrong I love burgers but it’s funny to see how this trend develops. What I wanted to say: I can imagine that such a trend could happen to the sandwich soon. A while ago the news announced that Subway surpassed McDonald’s. Well, I hate both but I really NEVER EVER go to subway. I once did, puked and will never go back again. More and more tiny stores open with their own delights. Here in Düsseldorf the first Bánh mì store opened. So there is one sandwich store. Now, count 1 and 2 together and you could see that sandwich shops will spread out like burgers do right now. I would look forward to it. In fact it’s hard to get a decent sandwich out there – something creative with bread, body and spread.

Image by Olly Moss

There is a German saying: “Wer ’so’ sagt ist noch lange nicht fertig.” – which means something like “The one who says ’so’ is far from being done.” That’s why I call this post “So…”. Because I am far from being done blogging. Since my new job (not so new anymore, almost 1 year now), I am blogging less and less. Why? I don’t know. No good excuse. I have plenty of time to write some lines. In fact most of the stuff we are doing right now is writing, or not? Most of the work I do is writing. Emails, but also other things like concepts, papers, proposals, reports, tweets, facebook status updates and and… So why not adding some lines on thoughts? That’s what I want to do way more often now again. I am looking forward to it.

When I was in elementary school, nobody told me that I need to write hundreds of emails each day…. — Markus Reuter (@roitsch) December 7, 2010

On the top of the page you can see an idea by Olly Moss. (Once again found by Mr. Kleske). For Olly it’s the difference between creatives and non-creatives. I think it’s more about the difference between people who do things and people who like to get inspired by things. The one who makes, the other one who takes. And in order to be fully satisfied you need to be the one who makes. And I definitely want to do more. More like the things I have done so far. This is not about my job, it’s about the things you do for yourself.

I just met Steffen and we were talking about doing what makes you happy. It was brilliant. Steffen does a lot of stuff. And what inspires me a lot is that he creates stuff. Things you can actually take in your hands, look at, be proud of and share.
I don’t know what I can do what I can create with my hands. But I can create moments, opportunities and bring people together. Create value, not only for me but especially for others. Like Tim O’Reilly says: “Create more value than you capture.” I have thoughts in my head – ideas – which I would like to realize. Not realizing ideas make you grumpy. I don’t like being grumpy.

First step: writing, blogging, get own thoughts out of the head into the world. This year I want to meet some people, get things done, maybe create some more events. If you are interested in meeting, get in contact.

I will be at the VOID next week. If you are there, give me a shout.

Oh and by the way, even though I did blog a lot less, it was an awesome year 2012. But you may have seen it on instagram, facebook, twitter, tumblr, svpply, quote.fm, …

Behance, the online platform to showcase & discover creative work, created this beautiful ode to the Creative Work. 92 seconds of goose bumps. I love it.

Also take a look at Behance’s about page, pretty nice.

I wrote about the banana before here:

“The banana pillow of Andy Warhol. I saw it at kid robot when I was in New York City in 2005 and I always wanted to buy it. And when I decided to buy it, it was sold out. The banana is really cool. It is not only one of the most famous symbols of Pop Art, but also on the cover of Velvet Underground & Nico. I listened to Velvet Underground/Lou Reed a lot while I was in New York. The perfect music for the city.”

About a year ago I wrote this tumblr post and asked for help. But nobody could help me. I asked the team of Toykio but nobody could help there either. But trough an online art auction house I was able to find it. I was the only bidder, so here it is. And I am happy.

Nonetheless, people are celebrating the appearance of the sun and the warm weather as if we did win the European Championship. Maybe we should do a parade, like in New Orleans. A big Second Line. Oh wait, I am watching too much Treme. What I wanted to say: people were pissed about the weather. Understandable but sometimes a bit annoying. Not many jokes out there that were actually good. Although I liked this one by Kai of Open Studio:

And summertime is the perfect time for Bar-B-Q. I am not talking about BBQ, there is no perfect time for a BBQ, it’s always perfect time for a BBQ. A while ago Kai, another Kai (who is blogging AGAIN), posted an incredible mixtape. And the first song after the intro is maybe one of the best songs I’ve ever heard. It gave me a smile after 5 seconds, made me wanna shake my hips and jump around. Pure enjoyment put into just a few hundred seconds. Good times.

And now, let’s get out there and enjoy this adventure in the sun.