“When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”
His mama and Kanye share the same birthday, he’s the father to two young boys and a Cancer who couldn’t give a shit about fashion. “My job is to destroy people with creativity and style, which actually doesn’t destroy but inspires them. That’s my job.” One third of the music collective Sa-Ra Creative Partners, Taz Arnold has been unfashionable for some time now. “It’s not that deep,” the South Central LA native casually emits with a cool West Coast tone. “I’m into style and art. I’m a creative person, and I’m into the science of what creativity is.”
So, who is Taz Arnold? “One of the most famous ‘boosters’ of Polo since the ‘80s, since I was a kid in high school. I’m known in New York, Detroit, Florida, Dallas, and I’m known from ‘boosting’ clothes for my collection. That’s how people know me. I was always beyond being interested in fashion.”
And then there’s a kind of honesty about him that you can relate to - the other side of Taz. “I was given half a tab of LSD when I was 3-years-old, but I grew up my whole life never drinking alcohol or doing drugs until like three years ago. I think that’s the reason: to start my life with an open mind.”
Whether he’s rocking black wings, leopard pants, cowboy boots or eight Gucci belts, Taz Arnold has had an open mind since way back. That open mind has manifested into Sa-Ra Creative Partners and, more recently, into his clothing line TISA Vision. Digesting a new level of creativity with the TISA brand, Arnold now has a platform where he is part designer and part consultant, sharing his philosophy and art with the likes of MCM, Pastelle (Kanye West’s upcoming line) and others.
It wouldn’t be just to label Taz as a fashion head. In fact, it would be the biggest lie we could tell you and a misrepresentation of the man. Instead, swallow the fact that Taz is a seeker, maybe even a seer, who was raised with pyramids and rainbows in his home, five minutes away from the beach. Among the infamous gang wars in South Central, Arnold grew up in the belly of LA’s style wars. “The majority of the people who lived in LA while I was a kid growing up dressed how I dress right now. That’s a part of LA’s culture that has never been exposed.” Taz continues in his style battles with a new angle: he’s claiming the rainbow and “officially taking it back.”
“A rainbow and color is natural and has nothing to do with someone’s sexual preference. It’s fucking ridiculous. The rainbow is for gay people, straight people, people who don’t have sex, kids, animals, everything.” If you’ve seen photos of Taz, you know that anything goes, and lack of color is not an option. “A guy won’t wear shorts above his knees because he’s scared of what people think. Like who the fuck dresses for other people? Why are you spending all this money so that you can look like somebody else?” Puzzled and passionate, Arnold settles for a minute to regain his composure and then softly stakes his claim. “The main thing is this - I’m taking the rainbow back.”
A look at his collection and it’s clear that Taz is serious. Rihanna and other celebrities have been sporting the colorful molded plastic knuckle rings, so by way of TISA, Hollywood chicks are now wearing “Love” across their fingers. An idea that sat in his mind for five years, the brand has allowed Arnold to introduce a range of products.
“I’m a person who will be bringing new things in the form of products; it’s not just clothes and apparel.” With TISA, like Taz, it’s more of a concept - one that equates to freedom and simply not giving a damn. “I don’t care about this fashion shit. I dress how I dress because that’s what I do. If you need my advice, or if you want to hire me to consult or utilize the TISA platform than let’s do business.” And fashion heads have been quick to tap into Arnold’s creative eye, including Phenomenon, (a brand that’s just starting to catch on that Arnold describes as “very dope”), another collection with MCM coming out for spring and summer and, as mentioned before, the much anticipated Pastelle line.
This is the second capital of Syria 350 km north of Damascus, and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in history. Abraham (pbuh) is said to have camped on the acropolis which, long before his time, served as the foundation of a fortress where the Aleppo citadel is standing now. He milked his grey cow there, hence Aleppo's name "Halab Al-Shahba".
Ever since the 3rd millennium BC, Aleppo has been a flourishing city, with a unique strategic position. This position gave the city a distinctive role from the days of the Akkadian and Amorite kingdoms until modern times.
It was the meeting point of several important commercial roads in the north. This enabled Aleppo to be the link in trade between Mesopotamia, the Fertile Crescent and Egypt. The Amorites made it their capital in the 18th century BC. This position also made it subject to invasions from various races; from Hittites, Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Romans.
Aleppo was prominent in the Christian era; it became a Bishopric and a huge cathedral was built in it, which is still standing.
The conflict between Byzantium and Persia, however, resulted in the latter's occupation of Aleppo in 440 AD. The Persians robbed the city, burned considerable parts of it and damaged many of its features. Though expelled by Justinian, the Persians still threatened Aleppo and frightened its inhabitants until the Arab Islamic conquest came in 636 AD.
The city then regained its status, both cultural and commercial. Apart from the Umayyad and Abbasid periods in which Aleppo flourished, the Hamadani state established by Sayf Addawla in 944 AD made Aleppo the northern capital of Syria. Sayf Addawla built Aleppo's famous citadel, and in his days the city enjoyed great prosperity and fame in science, literature and medicine, despite this leader's military ambitions. Mention should be made of the two most prominent poets, Al-Mutanabbi and Abu Al-Firas Al-Hamadani; of the philosopher and scientist, Al-Farabi; and of the linguist, Ibn Kahlaweh, all of whom lived in Sayf Addawla's court and were renowned for great knowledge and scholarship.
Aleppo was famous for its architecture; for its attractive churches, mosques, schools, tombs and baths. As an important center of trade between the eastern Mediterranean kingdoms and the merchants of Venice, Aleppo became prosperous and famous in the centuries preceding the Ottoman era. Many of its khans (caravanserai) are still in use even today; one of them is called Banadiqa Khan, Banadiqa in Arabic being the term for inhabitants of Venice.
In the Ottoman age, Aleppo remained an important center of trade with Turkey, France, England and Holland. This caused various types of European architecture to be adopted in Aleppo which can be seen in many buildings today.
Nowadays, Aleppo is famous for its ancient citadel with medieval fortress, the great Umayyad mosque, and the extraordinary souqs (bazaars) with every conceivable kind of article for sale. It was and still the far distant trade center when Shakespeare mentioned it in Macbeth and Othello.
The old city was surrounded by a wall incorporating defense towers and fortified gates built during the Islamic period. A large part of the wall still standing.
The Archaeological Museum of Aleppo contains exhibits from the stone age to modern times.
It has particularly interesting collection of antiquities from some of the most ancient sites in Syria including Mari, Ugarit, and Ebla, as well as objects found in the Euphrates Basin, Hama, Tell Halaf and Ayn Dara, in addition to remains from Greek, Roman, Arab and Islamic periods.
The ultra-rare 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa just set a new world record for the most expensive motor car ever to be sold at auction, achieving a final price of €9,020,000 or about $12.2 million at RM Auctions' annual Leggenda e Passione event in Italy. The beautiful Scaglietti-designed "pontoon-fender" 250 TR was one of only 22 made. One of the most instantly recognizable cars in Ferrari's history, it's highly coveted by collectors - Ralph Lauren owns two of them.
"The historical significance of this car attracted a bidding war as collectors from around the world - both in the room and on the telephone – competed to secure one of the most alluring and iconic of all Ferrari racing cars," said Max Girardo, Managing Director of RM Europe. "The eyes of the world were watching today's sale as cars of this quality are so rarely offered to the market. The quality and the provenance of the Testa Rossa speaks for itself and the price we achieved today is testament to that."
With a complex and fascinating personality, Picasso had, however, bouts of prolongued bad humour, be it on account of his family problems or dissatisfaction with his work. During those times, he was unbearable - nothing was ever good enough! - which could explain his short-lasting relashionships, especially with women. However, he also showed a generous and tolerant side towards other artists and creative people, in general; he respected their work and tried not to intrude upon them.
So, when someone wanted to photograph him, he would obediently follow every instruction, as if he was amazed at the frenzy of tripods, cameras and projectors that surrounded him. Numerous pictures of the Spanish painter were taken using this method, by photographers such as Robert Capa, Cartier-Bresson, Yosuf Karsh, David Seymour, Robert Doisneau and Man-Ray, and, although they're very good, they show more of the photographer's personality than Picasso's. This, however, was not Edward Quinn's approach.
Edward Quinn started out as a musician. During WWII he became a RAF pilot and, once the war was over, he continued to fly civil airplanes. During the 1950s, he lived in Côte d'Azur, which, at the time, was already the place of leisure of countless international celebrities. So, he decided that it might be a good idea to become a photographer... In 1951, during one of his assignments, he met Picasso. In the first photographs he took of the painter, he let him work freely, with no artificial poses.
Picasso felt at ease with the photographer and focused on his work, forgetting he was being photographed. And thus, for over 20 years, Quinn entered the painter's private sphere, capturing the man behind the artist - his house, women, children, friends, pets. He was one of the few privileged enough to do so and he was able to gather the most amazing set of pictures of the painter known to date. Picasso, on the other hand, never asked him to see his portraits; he knew that, inspite of the journalist's interest in him as an "object", there was a code of etics taken into account. That's why they became friends.
The first project in the plan to change the Paris skyline is a 50-story glass pyramid. The move comes after officials voted to drop a ban on high-rise buildings. Le Projet Triangle at Porte de Versailles was designed by Swiss team Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron who designed the Olympic stadium in Beijing. The tower will have offices, a conference center, 400-bedroom hotel and restaurants and cafes. it will be surrounded by parks, gardens and shops. The building is planned to be around 590 feet high which will make the third highest building in Paris. The tower will run on solar and wind power and is set for completion in 2012.
The Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris has just unveiled the ultimate luxury automobile - the world's only Hermès-designed, hand-built Rolls-Royce Phantom. The one-of-a-kind car was custom made to the famed hotel's specifications by Rolls-Royce in collaboration with the legendary French fashion house.
The project, which took a year to complete, was overseen by the luxury hotel's in-house Artistic Director Jeff Leatham. He first selected the car's color scheme to match the famed hotel's "personality". The team at Hermès' Interieur & Design department then conceived and created customized upholstery and accessories based on the aesthetics and rich heritage of the Four Seasons George V.
Leatham selected two tones of elegant gray for the Rolls' exterior, anthracite and titanium, and a deep rose leaf gray was chosen for the full Hermès glove-soft leather interior. Key elements such as the steering wheel and passenger consoles were finished in Hermès Taurillon Plume calfskin to complement the rest. A romantic touch was added in the form of a "starlight headliner": a canopy consisting of 800 lights on the Rolls' roof liner as a tribute to the City of Lights.
Leatham followed each step of the fabrication process from the Rolls-Royce motorworks in Goodwood, England to the ateliers of Hermès in Pantin, France. While the car was being hand-built in Goodwood, 39 of its interior parts including the door handles, steering wheel and interior consoles were shipped to France and entrusted to the expert craftsmen of Hermès. As a finishing touch, classic Hermès throws in complementary color schemes were stowed in the passenger area.
"The Hotel's goal in commissioning two of the world's most talented makers of luxury goods to collaborate on the project was to create an experience that is unsurpassed for our guests in Paris," says Christopher Norton, Regional Vice President and General Manager of the Four Seasons Hotel George V. ''This Rolls-Royce represents a marriage of like-minded brands that are single-mindedly focused on the very highest of standards and quality. As it is the hotel's 80th anniversary this year, it is fitting to introduce an experience that is unique in the world and only available at Four Seasons George V."
When the car was complete, five drivers were appointed by the George V and specially trained by Rolls-Royce to operate the precious vehicle. The car is available to hotel guests for airport pick-up at a rate of about $1,000, and for day trips or business in Paris, at a rate of about $5,000 per day, via the hotel's Concierge desk.
The oldest living thing on eArth is not a Giant Redwood tree thats the largest living thing on the plAnet, but a Bristlecone Pine tree located in the White Mountains of California dated to be aged over 4,600 years old.
California is one of the oldest places on eArth! -ti$a
Chanel have created a special Segway x2 designed by Chanel chief designer Karl Lagerfeld. The Chanel Segway is all black and features quilted leather fenders and handles. The Segway which has a top speed of twenty kilometers an hour also features a Chanel quilted leather pouch attached to the front handlebars.
The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided gorge carved by the Colorado River in the United States in the state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park— one of the first national parks in the United States. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of preservation of the Grand Canyon area, and visited it on numerous occasions to hunt and enjoy the scenery.
Longstanding scientific consensus has been that the canyon was created by the Colorado River over a six million year period. The canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long, ranges in width from 4 to 18 miles (6.4 to 29 km) and attains a depth of over a mile (1.83 km) (6000 feet). Nearly two billion years of the Earth's geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted. The “canyon began in the west, followed by another that formed in the east. Eventually, the two broke through and met as a single majestic rent in the earth some six million years ago. [...] The merger apparently occurred where the river today bends to the west, in the area known as the Kaibab Arch.”
Before European immigration, the area was inhabited by Native Americans who built settlements within the canyon and its many caves. The Pueblo people considered the Grand Canyon (”Ongtupqa” in Hopi language) a holy site and made pilgrimages to it.The first European known to have viewed the Grand Canyon was GarcÃa López de Cárdenas from Spain, who arrived in 1540. In 1869, Major John Wesley Powell, a one-armed Civil War veteran, made the first recorded journey through the canyon on the Colorado River.
The Grand Canyon is a massive rift in the Colorado Plateau that exposes uplifted Proterozoic and Paleozoic strata, and is also one of the six distinct physiographic sections of the Colorado Plateau province. The Grand Canyon is unmatched throughout the world for the vistas it offers to visitors on the rim. It is not the deepest canyon in the world —Cotahuasi Canyon (11598 feet or 3535 m) and Colca Canyon (10499 feet or 3200 m), both in Arequipa, Peru, and Hells Canyon (7,993 feet or 2436 m) on the Oregon-Idaho border, are all deeper — but Grand Canyon is known for its overwhelming size and its intricate and colorful landscape. Geologically it is significant because of the thick sequence of ancient rocks that are beautifully preserved and exposed in the walls of the canyon. These rock layers record much of the early geologic history of the North American continent.
Uplift associated with mountain building events later moved these sediments thousands of feet upward and created the Colorado Plateau. The higher elevation has also resulted in greater precipitation in the Colorado River drainage area, but not enough to change the Grand Canyon area from being semi-arid. The uplift of the Colorado Plateau is uneven, and the north-south trending Kaibab Plateau that Grand Canyon bisects is over a thousand feet higher at the North Rim (about 1,000 ft/300 m) than at the South Rim. The fact that the Colorado River flows in a curve around the higher North Rim part of the Kaibab Plateau and closer to the South Rim part of the plateau is also explained by this asymmetry. Ivo Lucchitta of the U.S. Geological Survey first suggested that, as the Colorado River developed before significant erosion of the region, it naturally found its way across or around the Kaibab Uplift by following a “racetrack” path to the south of the highest part of the plateau. Almost all runoff from the North Rim (which also gets more rain and snow) flows toward the Grand Canyon, while much of the runoff on the plateau behind the South Rim flows away from the canyon (following the general tilt). The result is deeper and longer tributary washes and canyons on the north side and shorter and steeper side canyons on the south side.
Temperatures on the North Rim are generally lower than the South Rim because of the greater elevation (averaging 8,000 ft/2,438 m above sea level). Heavy rains are common on both rims during the summer months. Access to the North Rim via the primary route leading to the canyon (State Route 67) is limited during the winter season due to road closures. Views from the North Rim tend to give a better impression of the expanse of the canyon than those from the South Rim.
The principal consensus among geologists is that the Colorado River basin (of which the Grand Canyon is a part) has developed in the past 40 million years. A recent study places the origins of the canyon beginning some 17 million years ago. Previous estimates had placed the age of the canyon at 5 to 6 million years. The study, which was published in 2008 in the journal Science utilized uranium-lead dating to analyze calcite deposits found on the walls of nine caves throughout the canyon.There is a substantial amount of controversy because this research suggests such a substantial departure from prior widely supported scientific consensus.
The result of all this erosion is one of the most complete geologic columns on the planet.
The major geologic exposures in the Grand Canyon range in age from the 2 billion year old Vishnu Schist at the bottom of the Inner Gorge to the 230 million year old Kaibab Limestone on the Rim. Interestingly, there is a gap of about one billion years between the stratum that is about 500 million years old and the lower level, which is about 1.5 billion years old. That indicates a period of erosion between two periods of deposition.
Many of the formations were deposited in warm shallow seas, near-shore environments (such as beaches), and swamps as the seashore repeatedly advanced and retreated over the edge of a proto-North America. Major exceptions include the Permian Coconino Sandstone, which most geologists interpret as an aeoliansand dune.
The great depth of the Grand Canyon and especially the height of its strata (most of which formed below sea level) can be attributed to 5,000 to 10,000 feet (1500 to 3000 m) of uplift of the Colorado Plateau, starting about 65 million years ago (during the Laramide Orogeny). This uplift has steepened the stream gradient of the Colorado River and its tributaries, which in turn has increased their speed and thus their ability to cut through rock (see the elevation summary of the Colorado River for present conditions).
Weather conditions during the ice ages also increased the amount of water in the Colorado River drainage system. The ancestral Colorado River responded by cutting its channel faster and deeper.
The base level and course of the Colorado River (or its ancestral equivalent) changed 5.3 million years ago when the Gulf of California opened and lowered the river’s base level (its lowest point). This increased the rate of erosion and cut nearly all of the Grand Canyon’s current depth by 1.2 million years ago. The terraced walls of the canyon were created by differential erosion.
About one million years ago, volcanic activity (mostly near the western canyon area) deposited ash and lava over the area, which at times completely obstructed the river. These volcanic rocks are the youngest in the canyon.
El ti$avi$ion.tv is the brainchild of chief creative visionary tAz Arnold "I created this program so people can start to see things in a new way that is not so fragmented; this is a first in media and a new platform which will help ti$a and the collective synthesis to communicate more effectively with our unique and ultra creative audience" says Arnold. Along with tAz's chic and magnanimously styled quintet of beautiful women, he goes where no other man has gone before. Limited only by his own imagination, tAz delves into ancient mysteries and otherworldly perspectives culminating into a series of stellar visuals, melodies and harmonics while focusing on thoughts of peace and uniting ones inner grid or colored wheels known as the chakra rainbow. Electrochemically speaking one double bonds the excrement with electric sweat combined with magnetic bile creating the alchemist's grand palette also known as ti$a's plethora of beauty. This is the beginning of a new creative cycle with renewed energy and a new perspective. As the mind progresses so will the rhetoric nuances and aesthetic. Stay tuned the journey is just beginning!
Arguably the best rAp song ever mAde.. heed the me$$age and the $tyle!
The Real Grand Master$ Flash like Crazy!
One of the founders of HIP HOP and the Mighty Zulu Nation Afrika Bambaataa.
Extracted from the Appendix of the book 'Urban Cries'
Hip Hop in terminology, describes five fundamental principles. These principles are the core elements that substantiate the Hip Hop Culture itself.
1. Deejay-ing... is the first element of Hip Hop; this has evolved into an industry of music production. Many of the world’s renounced producers of today were deejays in the earlier days of the culture.
2. Emceeing... is the second element of the culture. It represents the voice, the trumpet, of the culture.
3. Break Dancing... the third element, is a form of martial arts – like Capoeira for instance, – it does no harm. The art of break dancing expresses strength, skill, balance and creativity.
4. Graffiti... the fourth element, which is a form of hieroglyphics, is a way of expressing ones tag, or brand, so to speak. The tagging has evolved into the clothing industry, represented as branded garments.
5. Knowledge... the fifth element, holistically combines the first four. ‘Right Knowledge’ connects one to God. Simile to the four elements in the Khemetian culture, combined by the fifth element. (earth, water, air, fire – and the fifth-God/Ether)
LET US FOCUS ON THE 5th ELEMENT..KNOWLEDGEOFSELF,LOVE ANDTRUEUNITY!
