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Sources: DUMMY, Consequence Of Sound, and Silent Shout

The detailing and structure of the apartment (located in a Paris side street near the Canal Saint-Martin) are in terrific condition, which is impressive considering it was constructed in the 1800s.  One of the most charming aspects of the apartment’s history that inspired Yvan to make the purchase is that at some point in its history the space was used as a school for the Vozmozhno circus.  Yvan called upon his friend and Paris-based architect Stéphane Ghestem (Stéphane helped discover the space as well) for the redesign, and Stéphane brilliantly managed to incorporate a wide spectrum of Yvan’s interests, from Moroccan living rooms, to the architecture of ancient Greece, to the work of Le Corbusier, and much more.  Stéphane tells AD: “And all of this is reflected in the decor of the apartment.  I wanted to make it look chic and modern, but quite unusual — surreal.”

One look at these photos and I felt as if Stéphane had been reading my own mind, and hats off to Yvan for choosing such a talented designer to take on the project.  Yvan also tells AD: “I like modernism, and again, I wanted to have a modern apartment,” he explains.  “But somewhat cool materials associated with the this style, I do not like.  So I chose the man-made stuff, warm and luxurious.  My apartment is a cozy and strange little nest, where I can escape from the bustle of Paris.”  To learn more about the designs of Stéphane Ghestem be sure to visit his site at Abstrakt-Architecture.com.

SEE ALSO: Renowned Designers Yabu Pushelberg Let You Inside Their Incredible NYC Home
SEE ALSO: This Top-To-Bottom Redesign Of A Century-Old Movie Theatre In Eastern Germany Is Blowing My Mind

SEE ALSO: Banner Photo #126: “HUNGRY FOR CHANGE” Exposes Dirty Secrets Of Food, Weightloss & Diet Industries

Source: CBS This Morning

TO STREAM TO DAFT PUNK’S BRAND NEW ALBUM CLICK HERE.  IF THE STREAMING WINDOW (SCREEN #1) DOES NOT APPEAR AND YOU GET SCREEN #2 INSTEAD, CLICK ON THE WORDS “DAFT PUNK” NEAR THE TOP OF THE SCREEN AND THAT SHOULD BRING YOU TO SCREEN #1.

Source: FADER

Gates’ most urgent goal: help the millions of children under five who die every year, one every 20 seconds from preventable diseases.  

CHARLIE ROSE: “No one alive that I know of has said, ‘My goal is to eradicate a disease and then another disease and then another disease.’  This is somebody that dreams high.”

BILL GATES: “Yeah, because I’m excited about that.  And it’s doable.”

Today, Gates spends most of his time here, at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle.  He runs it with his father, Bill Sr., and his wife, Melinda, whom he credits with being a driving force behind the foundation.  There are over 1,100 employees to help them decide which programs to fund, but Gates still visits sites around the world to see what’s working and what’s not.  The grants here go towards school nutrition, improving agriculture and, most important to Gates, life-saving vaccines.

BILL GATES: “Well, whenever you see a mother bringing a sick child into a facility, it’s easy to relate to, ‘What if that was my child?’  You realize, how crazy it is that with the world being rich enough to afford all sorts of frivolous things, that those basic things still aren’t being provided.”

You can watch the full 60 Minutes profile of Bill Gates below.  To learn more about the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation be sure to visit GatesFoundation.org, and follow the foundation on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

Source: 60 Minutes

I’m not sure what I would do without my mother.  She’s the most stabilizing force in my life and a constant source of unconditional love.  And there is no one else on Earth who has taught me more about life and love and everything in between than my mom Marlene.  In honor of the wisdom of mothers both past and present, Brain Pickings recently compiled a beautiful collection of the finest letters of motherly advice from some of the most influential and timeless women and mothers of all-time.  The following are just a few of my favorites:

MAYA ANGELOU TO THE DAUGHTER SHE NEVER HAD:  “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.  Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.  Do not complain.  Make every effort to change things you do not like.  If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking.  You might find a new solution.  Never whine.  Whining lets a brute know that a victim is in the neighborhood.  Be certain that you do not die without having done something wonderful for humanity.”

CLARE BOOTHE LUCE TO HER 18-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER ANN:  “Don’t worry about your studies.  When you want to do them well you will do them superbly but for the moment the main thing is to get what little happiness there is out of life in this wartorn world because ‘these are the good old days’ now.”

FUTURE PRESIDENT JOHN ADAMS’ WIFE ABIGAIL ADAMS TO HER 12-YEAR-OLD SON IN 1780:  “These are times in which a Genious would wish to live.  It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.  Would Cicero have shone so distinguished an orater, if he had not been roused, kindled and enflamed by the Tyranny of Catiline, Millo, Verres and Mark Anthony.  The Habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties.  All History will convince you of this, and that wisdom and penetration are the fruits of experience, not the Lessons of retirement and leisure.  Great necessities call out great virtues.  When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the Heart, then those qualities which would otherways lay dormant, wake into Life, and form the Character of the Hero and the Statesman.”

You can read all of these letters and more by visiting BrainPickings.org.  A common thread running through them all is how life is not designed to be easy — it is filled with peaks of brightness and valleys of darkness.  But it’s this spectrum of emotions and experience that makes life so enriching.  As we each move along our own life journey it is the heart and wisdom of our mothers that keeps our compasses on track, always reminding us that love is the most important fundamental of life.  Period.  So the next time life gives you a snowstorm, remember to forget about it and have a barbecue anyways.  It’s mothers who teach us that moments like this are the true heart of life.

Source: Brain Pickings

CLICK ON THE IMAGE OF THE TELEGRAMS BELOW TO ZOOM IN.

Source: FACT

The album was recorded in various locations, including New York, Los Angeles, Martha’s Vineyard and a few different apartments.  The most experimental of their albums, Modern Vampires of the City uses a variety of unconventional recording assets including “pitch shifting”.  In their glowing review of the album, Pretty Much Amazing writes: “Lyrically, this album covers the heavy stuff — age, time, life, death and religion.  As a consequence, it will undeniably be pinned as the ‘mature’ VAMPIRE WEEKEND album, in which the band ‘grows up.’  It’s hard to argue with these inevitable points — ‘MVOTC’ seems intentionally crafted to invite them.  But we can’t forget that this band has always had a knack for balancing emotion with light-heartedness, dating all the way back to the distant longing of ‘Campus’ and reflective nostalgia of ‘M79′ on their debut.  Koenig recently told Pitchfork that ‘the perfect tone is halfway between deeply serious and totally fucking around,’ and by those standards, the band’s tone has been perfect for three albums and counting.”

I listened to Modern Vampires of the City this morning from back-to-back and it’s pushing all the right buttons in all the right ways.  There’s no other band quite like VAMPIRE WEEKEND, and after listening to Modern Vampires Of The City you might just be inspired to run outside your door and suck the life blood out of the modern world — in a carpe diem kind of way.  You can stream the album in full and pre-order it as well by visiting VAMPIREWEEKEND.com.  As a footnote, the album’s cover is a dystopianesque shot of a fog-shrouded New York City, taken by New York Times photographer Neal Boenzi looking south from the Empire State Building in November 1966.  While New York’s smog problem was subsequently resolved, the world’s air has grown more polluted, which led the band to believe the image perhaps rendered “some kind of future.”  VAMPIRE WEEKEND have dedicated Modern Vampires of the City as a love letter to New York City.

Sources: Pretty Much Amazing and Wikipedia