Bruce Springsteen – My hometown.
On Feb. 8 Bruce Springsteen was honored as the 2013 MusiCares Person of the Year at a star-studded gala in recognition of his exceptional artistic achievements and philanthropic work.The gala featured performances by Alabama Shakes, Faith Hill, Elton John, John Legend, and Sting, among others.
Perhaps more than any other recording artist today, Bruce Springsteen celebrates the power and glory of the gospel of rock and roll. After more than 40 years of strapping on a guitar and fronting a band, Springsteen has reached a point in his career where he could rest on his laurels and few would blame him. Only he hasn’t. And won’t. Not now. Not tomorrow. Probably not ever.
Here’s proof: Instead of slowing down, he’s sped up. Instead of playing less, he’s playing more. Instead of becoming soft and more forgiving, he’s become hard and more pressing. Springsteen used to play three-hour-plus shows — with an intermission. Now he plays four hours — with no intermission.
Given a long, distinguished career that includes world tours, sold-out stadium shows, No. 1 albums, 20 GRAMMY Awards, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, and a Kennedy Center Honor, Springsteen could write safe and secure albums that cater to modern pop sensibilities and the charts. But Wrecking Ball, his latest effort, is a masterpiece of intensity and fury. It pokes a finger in the chest of our national leaders and demands answers as to why we’ve come to a place where the American dream is in jeopardy of losing its soul and promise.
Grand Canal, Venice.
The Grand Canal is a canal in Venice, Italy. It forms one of the major water-traffic corridors in the city. Public transport is provided by water buses (vaporetti) and private water taxis, and many tourists explore the canal by gondola.The banks of the Grand Canal are lined with more than 170 buildings, most of which date from the 13th to the 18th century, and demonstrate the welfare and art created by the Republic of Venice. The noble Venetian families faced huge expenses to show off their richness in suitable palazzos; this contest reveals the citizens’ pride and the deep bond with the lagoon. Amongst the many are the Palazzi Barbaro, Ca’ Rezzonico, Ca’ d’Oro, Palazzo Dario, Ca’ Foscari, Palazzo Barbarigo and to Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, housing the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. The churches along the canal include the basilica of Santa Maria della Salute. Centuries-old traditions, such as the Historical Regatta, are perpetuated every year along the Canal.
Because most of the city’s traffic goes along the Canal rather than across it, only one bridge crossed the canal until the 19th century, the Rialto Bridge. There are currently three more bridges, the Ponte degli Scalzi, the Ponte dell’Accademia, and the recent, controversial Ponte della Costituzione, designed by Santiago Calatrava, connecting the train station to Piazzale Roma, one of the few places in Venice where buses and cars can enter. As was usual in the past, people can still take a ferry ride across the canal at several points by standing up on the deck of a simple gondola called a traghetto, although this service is less common than even a decade ago.
Most of the palaces emerge from water without pavement. Consequently, one can only tour past the fronts of the buildings on the grand canal by boat.
Beautiful Romania : Lake Sfanta Ana.
Lake Sfanta Ana is the only crater lake in Romania located in the volcanic crater named “Puciosul” of the Eastern Carpathians, near Tuşnad in the Natural Reserve of Mohoș, Harghita County, Romania.Palynology studies concluded that the history of Lake Saint Anne began about 9,800-8,800 years ago, at the stage of peat bog and shallow lake.It has an oval form and an area of 220,000 m².
According to measurements made in 2005, the maximum depth of the lake is 6.4 m and the sediment thickness is about 4 m. The lake is supplied exclusively from precipitations, therefore the degree of mineralization of the water is very low. The water purity approaches of that of distilled water, with only 0.0029 ml mineralIn winter, the lake is covered with a layer of ice of up to 1 mNear the lake there is a Roman Catholic chapel dedicated to Saint Anne.
Toledo Metro Station, Naples, Italy.
If you want a reason to visit Naples,the metro Napoli’s Art Station is very good one. It has been declared as the most impressive subway design in all of Europe. This art station was commissioned to be designed by Oscar Tusquets Blanca’s firm from Barcelona. Blanca is an architect de diverse who has experience from a bit of everything including design, painting, furniture design, writing and urban planning.
Metro Napoli station is an ongoing project initiated by city government to make the subway stand out in the world and get increased tourist attraction and traffic. Oscar collaborated with different artists to create a blue design that gives an underwater vibe, walls covered with large mosaics and escalators along with hallways, softly illuminated by lighting .
Bruce Springsteen – My Father’s House.
But would you encourage them?
Sure, you can say, “Hey, come on, step up to the plate” or “We need you” or “It’ll make a big difference,” and that would be absolutely true and valid. But in the end – hey, it’s not your life.
Do you think they could get hurt professionally?
If you’re in the entertainment business, it’s a world of illusion, a world of symbols. So I think you’re talking about somebody who may feel their livelihood is threatened. I think you’ve got to move the world in the right direction so that there is acceptance and tolerance, so that the laws protect everybody’s civil rights, gay, straight, whatever. But then you also have got to give people the room to make their own decisions.
But on a very personal level, what would you tell somebody who asked you for advice about whether or not he or she should come out?
First of all, I can only imagine that not being able to be yourself is a painful thing. It’s awful to have to wear a mask or hide yourself. So at the end of my conversation, I’d just say, “Hey, this is how the world is; these are the consequences, and these are your fundamental feelings.” Because a person’s sexuality is such an essential part of who he is, to not be able to express it the way that you feel it [sighs] has just got to be so very painful.
Arhipelagul Sporadelor : Skiatos.
Skiathos este o locatie exotica pentu o vacanta perfecta. Este supranumita Mykonos a Sporadelor. Peste 69 de plaje cu nisip fin, cele mai frumoase din Grecia. Viata de noapte şi foarte multa vegetatie. Skiathos inseamna “Umbra lui Athos”. Insula are mai puţin de 50 km patrati şi 12 km de la un capat la altul.Insula Skiathos, înzestrata în mod unic de natura, este literalmente înconjurata de mai mult de 60 de plaje cu nisip fin.
Chichen Itza ,Mexico.
Chichen Itza is the most important archaeological vestige of the Maya-Toltec civilization in Yucatán (10th-15th centuries). Its monuments, particularly in the northern group which includes the Great Ball Court, Temple of Kukulkan and Temple of the Warriors, are among the undisputed masterpieces of Mesoamerican architecture because of the beauty of their proportions, the refinement of their construction and the splendour of their sculpted decorations. These monuments exerted an influence throughout the entire Yucatán cultural zone from the 10th to the 15th centuries.
Located midway between Mérida and Cancún, Chichen Itza is the northernmost of the major archaeological sites in Yucatán. Covering more than 300 ha, it is also one of the largest and richest in monuments. Above all, it is one of the most significant in historical terms because it illustrates two major periods in pre-Hispanic civilizations in the Mesoamerican zone.
The town was established close to two natural cavities (cenotes or chenes), which facilitated tapping the underground water area of the cenote of Xtoloc during the Classic period. The dates for this settlement vary according to subsequent local accounts: one manuscript gives 415-35, while others say 455. The town that grew up around the sector known as Chichen Viejo already boasted important monuments of great interest: the Building of the Nuns, church, Akab Dzib, Chichan Chob, Temple of the Panels and Temple of the Stag. They were constructed between the 6th and 10th centuries in the characteristic Mayan style then popular both in the northern and southern areas of the Puuc hills.
The second settlement of Chichen Itza, and the most important for historians, corresponded to the migration of Toltec warriors from the Mexican plateau towards the south during the 10th century. According to the most common version, the King of Tula, Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, or Kukulkan as the Mayans translated the name, reportedly took the city between 967 and 987 after wandering for many years. What is known for certain is that the Toltec invaders subjugated the local population with a ferocity which even five centuries later the chronicles of the ‘sacred books’ of the Mayans spoke of. The Toltecs imposed the ritual of human sacrifice which until then was rarely, if at all, practised in the region.
Following the conquest of Yucatán a new style blending the Mayan and Toltec traditions developed, symbolizing the phenomenon of acculturation. Chichen Itza is a clear illustration of this fusion. Specific examples are, in the group of buildings to the south, the Caracol, a circular stellar observatory whose spiral staircase accounts for its name, and, to the north, the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl, El Castillo. Surrounding El Castillo are terraces where the major monumental complexes were built: on the north-west are the Great Ball Court, Tzompantli or the Skull Wall, the temple known as the Jaguar Temple, and the House of Eagles; on the north-east are the Temple of the Warriors, Group of the Thousand Columns, market and ball courts; on the south-west is the Tomb of the High Priest.
This new architecture, known today as Maya-Yucatec, took from the old local structures the art of stereotomy used on walls and vaults while incorporating certain Toltec elements in the decorations. Besides all the battle scenes, which are depicted in luxurious detail, the most obvious of the influences from central Mexico are the likenesses of the plumed serpent Quetzalcoatl, present on columns and substructures where enormous heads of reptiles create a vigorous decorative motif. Other examples of the Mexican influence are the famous statues of the rain god Chac-Mool, executed in a typical half-reclining pose.
The history of Chichen Itza from the end of the 10th to the 15th centuries is complex. The monopolistic authority of military leaders seems to have been mitigated after the city joined the Mayapán League, which included Uxmal. After the 13th century no major monuments seem to have been constructed at Chichen Itza and the city rapidly declined after the fall of Mayapán. In 1556 Bishop Diego de Landa visited the practically abandoned ruins and recorded the legends pertaining to the various monuments. The ruins were not excavated until 1841.
