Listening to Club Aerobics tracks and collaborations, sweaty dance party, comes to mind. Bianca Oblivion, DUCKY and Suspect Bitch make up the Clubs Aerobics team, and each brings her own flavor and spin to the groups dynamic. Bianca Oblivion recently chatted with us about her fellow female DJs and her collaboration with Akira Akira for the remix of Shiftees Go Premee.

Thanks to the graces of the internet, it seems that the music gods intended for these three creative minds to cross paths. No genres, no rules, no safe sh*t, no boring is Club Aerobics motto and while each carries her own pizzazz when they come together it all blends into a perfect high-energy mash ups. With two masters degrees, Bianca Oblivion has spent time living in the East and West coast (currently resides in Los Angeles) and has 10 years of DJing under her belt. She sprinkles some of her Hispanic roots and Jersey house into her tracks. DUCKY, a San-Fran bred and now LA-based producer and DJ, has been playing at clubs since she was 13 (via fake ID vibes). She quickly bubbled up in the LA and internet scenes with releases on OWSLAs sister labelNEST, Japanese tastemakersTrekkie Trax. Last but certainly not least is Suspect Bitch, LA-based producer. Drum and bass (D&B) opened up another world of music she hadnt quite yet explored. Not too long after attending a few D&B parties she decided she would learn how to DJ and naturally focus would shift to producing. Needless to say these three pretty much self-taught souls have racked up quite an impressive musical repertoire.

Tropical, grimey and hype are three words Bianca would use to describe her musical style. I love fast dancesYou can be jumping up and down sweating or like when youre dancing and that one beat hits, and youre just likefeeling it, said Bianca. Her description marries perfectly with one of her recent live DJ sets alongside Anna Lunoe during the Hyper House fall tour this past year. She [Anna Lunoe] started doing Hyper House live events in LA, and we would go and I met her in-person. She was really sweet and we all just got closer. Fastforward and Bianca joined the tours first stop at Santa Barbara.

For Bianca, DJing and dancing go hand in hand. For me whenever Im DJing, I visualize myself dancing and how I want to dance. For me, its so interconnected. Whenever I DJ, I see myself on the dance floor I try to put myself in that place, explains Bianca. What would I want to dance to? What are these people feeling? What do they want to dance to? How can I make those two things come together? Her recent remix of Shiftees Go Premee makes it virtually impossible to not have some part of your body moving with the beat.

Remembering the exact point in time of where she was and what she was doing when Shiftees e-mail extending a music opportunity found its way into her inbox. She recalls being surrounded by pumpkin this, pumpkin that. I was in a Trader Joes shopping and it was around Thanksgiving timethere was a lot of pumpkin spice everything. I was on my phone writing him back, giggled Bianca. She had wanted to work with Akira Akira for some time now and saw this as perfect timing to make that happen. Hes a really amazing producer. He can basically do anything, really fantastic upcoming producer and DJ. In the span of two weekends, Bianca and Akira cranked out the track. It kind of came together organically. We have similar tastes in what we play and what we like, said Bianca. With no further adieu, check out the energizing Go Premee remix below, and get ready to sweat:

For the full Q&A with Bianca Oblivion click the link below:

Mix 247 EDM: Youre part of a group called called Club Aerobics, can you tell us a little bit about the groups background? Mix 247 EDM: Whats the dynamic between Club Aerobics? Mix 247 EDM: Bianca Oblivion, guessing that isnt your full legal name, so where does that name come from? Mix 247 EDM: Before we dive into your work, I remember meeting you late last year and talking about how DJing isnt your first line of work. Can you share how you first started getting into this? And what life is when youre not mixing? Mix 247 EDM: TheGo Premee remix has been gaining a lot of attention, congrats! Both Martin Garrix and Mad Decent featured it in their Spotify playlists. How did this work come about? Mix 247 EDM: In three words, how would you describe (for someone who hasnt listened to you) your genre, what your tastes are what you gravitate toward [in terms of music]? Mix 247 EDM: Theres such a strong movement right now with women and supporting each other. When being identified in the music biz, does it bother or flatter you to be termed as a female DJ? Mix 247 EDM: Youve DJed with a DJ Ive been following for awhile, Anna Lunoehow was that like being part of a Hyper House night? Was it something her and her team reached out or what did that look like? Mix 247 EDM: Any projects in the pipeline?

Keep it right here for more edm news. Check out our online edm radio station for 247edm, house, dance, techno, Fashion and more.

Follow Mix 247 EDM

Twitter: twitter.com/Mix_247EDM

Facebook: facebook.com/Mix 247 EDM News

Google+: google.com/+Mix247edm

Instagram: instagram.com/mix247edm/

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/mix247edm

Read more here:

Behind the Beat: Bianca Oblivion from Club Aerobics Makes 'Em Sweat - Mix 247 EDM

"The Museum Workout" is a lively workout at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, staged amid some of the worlds masterpieces. (Feb. 17)

The Associated Press is the essential global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats.

APs commitment to independent, comprehensive journalism has deep roots. Founded in 1846, AP has covered all the major news events of the past 165 years, providing high-quality, informed reporting of everything from wars and elections to championship games and royal weddings. AP is the largest and most trusted source of independent news and information.

Today, AP employs the latest technology to collect and distribute content - we have daily uploads covering the latest and breaking news in the world of politics, sport and entertainment. Join us in a conversation about world events, the newsgathering process or whatever aspect of the news universe you find interesting or important. Subscribe: http://smarturl.it/AssociatedPress

Follow this link:

Fine Art Meets Sweaty Aerobics | Video | hartfordcitynewstimes.com - Hartford City News Times

February 17, 2017 at 4:51 am | By PAUL SWIECH

In this Jan. 19, 2017 photo, Rebecca Perkins, right, brings her mother, Catherine Whitaker, into the sensory room in the Meadows Mennonite Retirement Community in Meadows, Ill. The room includes projected light effects, a musical water bed and a host of textured wall pieces and other features designed to help residents with Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia hold onto reality. (David Proeber/The Pantagraph via AP)

In this Jan. 19, 2017 photo, Rebecca Perkins, left, shares a tactile ball with her mother, Catherine Whitaker, in the sensory room in the Meadows Mennonite Retirement Community in Meadows, Ill. The room includes projected light effects, a musical water bed and a host of textured wall pieces and other features designed to help residents with Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia hold onto reality. (David Proeber/The Pantagraph via AP)

In this Jan. 19, 2017 photo, Rebecca Perkins, right, brings her mother, Catherine Whitaker, into the sensory room in the Meadows Mennonite Retirement Community in Meadows, Ill. The room includes projected light effects, a musical water bed and a host of textured wall pieces and other features designed to help residents with Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia hold onto reality. (David Proeber/The Pantagraph via AP)

In this Jan. 19, 2017 photo, Rebecca Perkins, left, shares a tactile ball with her mother, Catherine Whitaker, in the sensory room in the Meadows Mennonite Retirement Community in Meadows, Ill. The room includes projected light effects, a musical water bed and a host of textured wall pieces and other features designed to help residents with Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia hold onto reality. (David Proeber/The Pantagraph via AP)

CHENOA, Ill. (AP) The calming smell of lavender filled the room as Rebecca Perkins brought her mother, Catherine Whitaker, inside.

The lighting was subdued. On one wall, flowing lighting which made it appear to mother and daughter as if they were looking to the bottom of a pool was stimulating, yet relaxing.

Perkins took her mother, sitting in a wheelchair, to a ball, which Whitaker squeezed, prompting bubbles to rise in a see-through tube. Every time Whitaker squeezed the ball switch, the color in the tube changed.

"Look, we got green," her daughter said. "Isn't it beautiful?"

Her mother nodded.

When the color switched from green to yellow to red to blue each time Whitaker squeezed the ball, Perkins told her mother "Isn't it something to think that we're doing that?"

Perkins, 65, told her mother, 93, that the bubble column reminded her of a Lava Lamp that an aunt and uncle once had. Whitaker nodded again.

Next, she took her mother to a tactile board of different textures. One surface reminded Perkins of an old laundry washboard. She reminded her mother of the ringer washing machine that she used when Perkins was a girl.

"I'm trying to make those little connections," she said. "Mom is still mom and I love her."

The latest therapeutic tool in Central Illinois to stimulate and relax people with Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia actually is a lot of simple tools in one room.

The sensory room at Meadows Mennonite Retirement Community in rural Chenoa is for residents of Meadows' Skilled Memory Support unit who have Alzheimer's disease or another type of dementia.

Dementia slowly robs people of their memory, thinking and appropriate behavior.

While sensory stimulation therapy is used at various long-term care facilities, Meadows apparently is the first facility in the Bloomington-Normal area with a dedicated, fixed sensory room.

"I think this room is an amazing addition to a really wonderful facility," Rebecca said after spending time with her mother in the room on Jan. 17. Whitaker was diagnosed with dementia several years ago and is at a moderate-to-severe stage, her daughter said.

"When people need a quiet space, this is it," said Perkins, of Peru.

The sensory room uses everyday objects to stimulate the senses of smell, sight, hearing and touch to evoke positive feelings.

"This (a sensory room) is one of a number of viable options for providing stimulation and engagement for people with dementia, particularly in the later stages," said Nancy Rainwater, vice president of communications with the Alzheimer's Association Greater Illinois Chapter.

"It has had some good outcomes," Rainwater said. "There is published research to support this."

People with Alzheimer's disease and other dementia experience memory loss to the point that it disrupts their daily life. Frustration, agitation, anxiety and social isolation result.

In some cases, anxiety is so great that psychotropic medication is prescribed, said Meadows Director of Nursing Joleen Hudson.

"Now, we can take residents to the room and calm them down with sensory stimulation," Hudson said. In the last quarter, fewer doses of psychotropic medicines were given because nurses now have the sensory room to use to try to distract, stimulate and calm residents, she said.

The room works to calm or stimulate anxious, sad or angry residents, Hudson said. "It can address a plethora of emotions."

When people have trouble recalling and expressing themselves, sensory stimulation can calm, bring back memories and result in a connection with another person, even if that connection is brief, said Memory Care Coordinator Bailey Kemp.

The room also is a form of entertainment for residents with dementia, she said.

"Unfortunately, dementia limits your ability to entertain yourself," she said. "This creates a piece of entertainment" that is available for residents with dementia to use 24/7 with staff or family member support.

"This is a really good tool for residents who are low-functioning," Kemp said. "It's cool for people who don't talk with anyone or have lack of eye contact."

Whitaker, who has lived at Meadows since May and whose language has become limited, has periods of anxiety, her daughter said.

When that happens, staff has taken her to the room and she has curled up on the warm, vibrating water bed and has fallen asleep, her daughter said.

"She was no longer agitated," Perkins said. "She has used it (the sensory room) several times."

When residents enter the room, the first thing they experience is the calming fragrance of lavender and subdued lighting.

"When you walk in, it's a feeling of quiet," Perkins said.

Projected on one wall is the simulated, multi-colored water flowing, which is designed to have a calming effect.

A shimmering illumination curtain of multi-colored strips is for visual and tactile stimulation, Kemp said.

"Mom loves to feel it with her fingers," Perkins said.

The bubble column is designed to calm residents visually and the accompanying ball switch provides tactile stimulation, Kemp said.

Pillows of various fabrics are for residents to hold for comfort and to experience different tactile stimulation.

"Fidget blankets" made by Perkins are lap blankets made of different textures and colors with several items sewn on to occupy residents who need something to do with their hands. Items include shoelaces, a ball that lights up, blocks and numbers.

"It provides mental stimulation and comfort," Perkins explained. "It gives you something in your lap to fidget with. When mom is done with it, she likes to fold it."

The heated, vibrating waterbed relaxes tense muscles and joints and enhances body awareness, Kemp said. Relaxing music may be played while the bed is being used.

Above the bed is a fiber optic curtain that some residents stroke to help them relax as they are lying in the bed.

"Lying in the bed is like getting a hug," Perkins said.

The tactile board consists of a variety of textures for different tactile sensations designed to elicit different memories.

For example, there's the part that looks like an old washboard, artificial turf, plastic chains and a mirror.

The sensory room was created in August in what was a resident's room, thanks to a $12,000 gift from the Parker and Sharon Lawlis family of Normal.

"This is another tool for the staff to calm residents so they'll have peace," said Sharon Lawlis, a member of the Meadows Mennonite board. "The staff is finding it so helpful and the residents are responding to it.

"We are proud that we have something cutting edge like this right here in our community," Lawlis said.

In March, sensory equipment will be added to the Skilled Memory Unit's sun room and dining room, so more residents will have access to sensory stimulation therapy, said Meadows Mennonite CEO Jay Biere.

That equipment is being paid for by a donor who wishes to remain anonymous, Biere said.

"We couldn't do this without donors and volunteers," Biere said.

"Our hope," Lawlis said, "is that this makes the residents' lives a little calmer, a little better."

___

Source: The (Bloomington) Pantagraph, http://bit.ly/2l6pXwQ

More:

EXCHANGE: Sensory stimuli calm residents with Alzheimer's - Beloit Daily News

Upon hearing of local barbershop Scissors & Scotch, I was brought back to the thought of the pictures I would see of my grandfather working as a barber in his little shop on the south side. While Scissors & Scotch may not perfectly match the iconic image of a steady-handed man smoothly tidying up the beard of a customer while relaxing music plays in the background, it acts as a wonderful junction where old meets new.

Walking into the salon, I was met with a classy and relaxing interior that made me feel like I had just entered a high-end country club. Scissors & Scotch has done away with the overdone plastic chair filled waiting areas and has constructed a calming lounge equipped with a bar. It provides an enjoyable wait area for those who have come with a friend and supplies customers with the free drink that accompanies every service.

Photo by Jeffery Fitzgerald

In spite of my lack of facial hair, I was still left with a large array of services to choose from. I decided to go along with the 15-Year service. This included a professional haircut, a relaxing neck and scalp massage, shampoo and conditioning, a hot towel treatment and a three-part facial cleansing treatment. Normally I will get my hair cut by either my mother or a notably cheap salon such as Supercuts. With the price of the bundle I received being only a few dollars more and of much better quality, the price was certainly worth it.

The experience was kept lively and enjoyable by the friendly staff. While cutting my hair, my stylist and I had a nice conversation. Usually it feels like the questions are asked only as an attempt to fill an awkward silence.

Photo by Jeffery Fitzgerald

This wasnt the case at Scissors & Scotch. I felt as though my stylist was genuinely interested in what I had to say. All of this came at a price I was relieved to find doable even on a starving college-student budget ($40, $30 for first-time customers).

The entire experience is geared toward making customers feel right at home. With the welcoming design, wonderful staff and excellent quality of service, I find no reason why Scissors & Scotch would fail to make the cut.

Please follow and like us:

Continue reading here:

Scissors & Scotch: classy cuts - ViewFinder Media

The Indian Express

On menu of Pune's first music cafe, a customised tune to lift your mood The Indian Express Patrons get the chance to choose from a variety of pieces such as 'Relaxing', 'Anger Control', 'Positivity', 'Concentration Booster', 'Women's Wellness' and 'Confidence Booster', among others. The Music Cafe aims to cater to the variety of moods and ... and more »

Original post:

On menu of Pune's first music cafe, a customised tune to lift your mood - The Indian Express

When it comes to music and the human brain, Daniel Levitin's expertise is hard to top. The musician, professor, and neuroscientist quite literally wrote the book on the topic when he penned the 2006 bestseller This is Your Brain On Music. His most recent book The Organized Mind furthers his exploration into our brains with a focus on how information overload is affecting cognition and what we can do it about it.

Over the last two years, he's been working with smart speaker maker Sonos on new research into how music affects people's minds and behavior at home. As part of its new marketing campaign centered around what the company regrettably diagnoses as "the silent home"the relative dearth of music being played out loud as families stare into their phones or tune into NetflixSonos enlisted Levitin to help design a new survey of people's listening habits at home. We sat down with Levitin at Sonos's Boston offices last week for a conversation about science, music, the brain, and how to stay sane in the age of Trump and Twitter.

Youve been working on some new research into music and people's lives at home. What are some of the most interesting or unexpected things you've learned about how musicor the lack thereof that affects our lives at home?

Levitin: I think one of the most interesting things is the number of people who really don't have music playing in their homes. Its quite striking across the nine countries we surveyed. Something as simple as entertaining friends and family: 84% of people in Sweden, 83% of people in the U.K., 79% of people in the U.S. don't play music when they have friends over. That just seemed surprising and weird to me. I'm of the Boomer generation, so music was just something that you did and it's the way that you related to other people, and even the generation behind me. These are people from all age brackets. It's not just the digital natives who aren't playing music. Nobody is.

Other activities like cooking dinner, doing the dishes, relaxing in the evening and weekend. In Denmark, 69% of people and in France 82% of people did not listen to music to relax for the evening or the weekend. That was one thing that was surprising. The other is the yearning that people have for more contact, juxtaposed with the amount of time they spend in their own isolated, digital words. 86% want to spend more time doing activities in person with others. It's as though two wheels are in a rut and they can't figure out how to get back on the road that they used to be on. We've got to encourage people to take screen-time breaks and to establish shared spaces in the home where they can enjoy communal activities.

These days, its pretty common to go out to a restaurant and see an entire family staring into their phones. What are some of the effects of this isolation and, based on the research you've done and seen, what might the impact be of changing these habits?

Levitin: The research on this is still in its infancy, of course. It's a somewhat new phenomenon, and so any data that we can get is helpful. I think that related to this, we've learned recently that kids who don't interact regularly with their parents but are instead put in front of educational or instructional television don't learn language properly. Language learning has to be interactive. It can't be just passive, receptive. I think we're also seeing that increasingly digital natives are reporting that they've got shorter attention spans than non-digital natives. Colleagues of mine at other universities who teach these large classes or even seminars say that in the last few years, a whole new breed of students come up to them during their office hours in the first week of class, say, "Professor, I have to read 20 pages tonight? I don't know how I'm going to do that. That's too much." They are accustomed to being constantly distracted and we know from neurochemical studies, people get addicted to that distraction.

Your book, The Organized Mind, deals with this quite a bit: the information overload and how our digital lives might be affecting our brains. What is your advice for people in the workplace? How do you deal with this deluge of information when youre trying to be productive?

Levitin: One piece of advice I have is based on our modern understanding of the different attentional modes of the brain. There's the mind wandering mode, the idea that the brain has this whole separate mode of existing where you're not in control of your thoughts and they're loosely connected from one to the next. Often, I think that when we're at our desks at work or if we're out in the field doing work, after a certain amount of time, we feel our attention flagging. The modern reaction when that happens is to double down. Maybe have another cup of coffee and keep pushing through.

In reality, your brain is telling you that it needs a break. Taking a break and getting yourself into this mind wandering mode by giving into it for 15 minutes at a time every couple of hours or so, you effectively hit the reset button in the brain, restoring some neurochemicals that had been depleted through focused activity. There are a lot of different ways to get into this mind wandering mode. One of them is listening to music. Another is going for a walk in nature. Listening to nature sounds. Looking at art, reading literature. Not reading Facebook posts. Literature has this special quality that it invites you to let your mind wander. I think that's part of the answer. Going off and searching the Web for your 15-minute break is not a break.

Weve grappled with information overload for years now, but in our new political climate, there's a certain intensity and anxiety thats now tied to a lot of the stuff that people are seeing online everyday. How do you think this might be affecting people's mental health? And what should we do about it?

Levitin: My reading of the research is that we really are, as a society working harder than before, but we're not working as efficiently. We feel overloaded by the onslaught of information, and so I think that creates the conditions in which things like fake news and alternative truth can exist because we just throw up our hands and say, "I can't deal. It's somebody else's job to deal with this, not mine." I don't mean to get on a soapbox, but I think that's when we begin to see democracy falter, when people don't want to get involved.

I think that we need to recover some sense of community and engagement with one another and with our towns and our neighbors that only comes from face-to-face interaction, not from retreating into our own digital devices. As President Obama said in his exit speech, democracy is not easy and is not free. You have to work for it. I think that work is putting our minds in a state where we can evaluate claims and information and stories as they come by. Evaluate them for ourselves or in discussion with other people. Start talking to people who disagree with us, which has become unfashionable. I don't mean yelling at people who disagree with you. Just talking.

I've had a couple of interesting conversations just in the last few months with people who I disagreed with strongly about a number of political issues, and the conversations were productive because we saw from each other's point of view how we came to hold those beliefs and discovered that we had really a lot more in common than we had differences. We were able to agree on the facts. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously quipped, you're entitled to your own opinions, but you're not entitled to your own facts. We agreed on the facts, but our opinions about how to address the problems, we had different views about what would be effective, but we wanted to end up in the same place where people were happy and prosperous and safe. I think that creating shared spaces in the home and shared moments in the home, if music can be part of that or talk radio or just art, some kind of discussion, I think that that's the antidote to all of this.

It seems like its partially a matter of people reconfiguring that balance between their digital lives and the time they're actually spending face to face. I assume those conversations you refer to werent on Twitter or Facebook.

Levitin: One of them was in person. One of them was on the phone. It was 45 minutes long and we talked about a lot of things. This is somebody who is polar opposite of me politically and is quite in the public eye and his opinions are very well known, but I was astonished that we agreed on far more than we disagreed on. I ended up admiring him for his stance for coming to the conclusions he came to, even though I still don't agree, but I can see how he got there.

This is the conversation that Republicans and Democrats aren't having anymore. I never thought I'd look back nostalgically at the Johnson presidency, but in the Johnson days, the two parties worked things out. They did that pretty much through more or less through the next couple of administrations. The polarization is a problem, and I think that the digital age has only put a hyper focus on polarization because of the echo chamber that you've covered already in your magazine.

You wrote This Is Your Brain On Music in 2006, so it was pre-iPhone, pre-Spotify. It seems like music is more pervasive in peoples lives than ever. How has musicboth as an industry and in terms of our relationship with itchanged in the last decade or so?

Levitin: I think we're living in a golden age of music, as we're living in a golden age of TV. There's a lot of creative people engaged in it. The barriers to entry are much lower than they used to be. Anybody with a laptop and a $200 mic can make something that sounds as good as most of the Rolling Stones records that were made in professional studios. That's great. The problem, of course, is that we haven't figured out how to monetize it. As Keith Richards said, for a period of time you could make recordings for a living and you could make a good living at it, but those days are gone until we figure something out. We're living in a world now where a lot of artists have to have day jobs. I would like to live in a world where "artist" is a job and a person can earn a living doing that. I don't want Bono to be writing songs in his spare time after a day of heavy labor making sandwiches. I want him to be able to devote himself to it.

I would say there's been a Balkanization of music sources in the way there's been a Balkanization of the media. When I was a kid, and maybe when you were a kid, you ran into the proverbial man in the street, woman, somebody you didn't know at a bus stop and you started talking about the news, you probably got your news from one of the same small handful of sources. You agreed what the news was, and you probably listened to music on one of the same two or three radio stations. Now there are thousands of places to get your news, thousands of places to get music, and so the common ground that we share is much less. Sure, there's still hit songs, but it's different. I see that changing. There's good and there's bad in that. The so-called long tail means that people can really fine tune their musical taste or their taste in books and independent films, find exactly what they love, but at the expense of the shared experience.

I don't think that there's any evidence that music is more pervasive. In fact, we found that 60% of people we surveyed said they listen to less music now than when they were younger. I don't know why that is, because there's more music available and it's free, but people don't make the time for it. It's not a priority the way it once was. I think that's a shame. I'm not thinking people should do nothing but listen to music, but as part of a balanced life that involves exercise and a good diet and nature and movies and ballet and literature and all the finer things.

Tell us a little bit about your own music consumption and how its evolved. How do you listen music now?

Levitin: I always fantasized in my twenties about buying a physical jukebox from a bar and restoring it. I had a nice collection of 45s. Now I have something even better: I have 20,000 songs on my hard disk and I just stick it in random. I got them in my car now and I have them in my backpack and I have them on my computer and at home, and that's most of my listening. I have 20,000 of my favorite songs. It's my own radio station. Anything that comes up, I'm going to like. I may not like it at that particular moment, depending on what I'm doing.

The second source is that friends who are making music send me advances of their stuff. Rodney Crowell, Paul Simon, people that I know who are actively working as songwriters and musicians will send me stuff. A friend of mine who manages Bob Dylan is just sending me the 36 CD boxset. It's supposed to be there when I get home tonight. I burn the CDs to my hard disk and then put them in the mix.

Then the third source is I stream. Once I got Sonos in the home, I found it easier to deal with things like Spotify and streaming radio and Apple Music. For one thing, they weren't playing out of these crappy little speakers in the computer. Typically, my wife and I will put one of the jazz stations when we're in the kitchen cooking and washing dishes and while we're eating. We hear a lot of good music that way.

How do you find the mental space to focus and be productive?

Levitin: I get more work done on airplanes than anywhere else. I wrote my last two books primarily on airplanes touring for the previous book. You've got the white noise of the engine. Somebody bringing you food.

Yeah, it's great. When I really need to focus, I tend to need to get away from the internet too. I turn off Wi-Fi. Sometimes I leave my phone at home to avoid the distractions.

Levitin: I do that once in a while and it's very refreshing. My wife and I hike a lot, because we're in California. So we'll go and we just won't bring the phones. We'll bring them in the car in case we have a breakdown or something, but when we're hiking, no phone and it's lovely.

Speaking of California, I just called an Uber because I have to get myself to the airport.

Read the rest here:

The Neuroscience Of Music, Behavior, And Staying Sane In The Age Of Twitter - Fast Company

Established 30 years ago this March, The Market is both a village grocer, providing healthy food options and personal care products, as well as a caf. Both areas of this Front Street shop offer organic ingredients and minimally processed (clean!) foods.

The Market was born from owner Shelly Scoggins desire to find a healthier way of living for her family. At the time she had a new baby on the way and finding a source for organic food options on the North Fork was nearly impossible. Thats when she knew it was the right time to open her market.

Today, youll find a wide variety of organic produce, vitamins, personal care products and gluten-free foods on the shelves. The Markets menu is creative and spans breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as smoothies and desserts. We chatted with Scoggin in the corner of her caf one afternoon at lunchtime and found out more about this gem of a health food store and eatery. (more)

Read more here:

organic produce Archives - Northforker - Northforker (blog)

'A Service of Love in Song' at Fairview Chapel

Fairview Chapel will provide a midwinter worship experience at 7 p.m. Feb. 19. The Message Bearers from Wakefield Bible Church will present A Service of Love in Song.

The goal of the group is to minister and inspire a closer walk with Christ through personal testimonies and song. On this visit, it will bring additional friends in Christ, including singer Peggy Burrier-Flickinger. The service will include Scripture, poetry and prayer.

This love tribute will be presented by candlelight and oil lamp at this small restored 1847 stone chapel on the hill.

The chapel is at 6802 Boyers Mill Road, New Market, just north of the entrance to Lake Linganore. For more information about this and other weekly services at the chapel, call 301-606-3094.

Juliana Perez, who has facilitated mindfulness meditation, spiritual and grief groups for over 20 years, will lead the Interfaith Spiritual Discussion Group at the Frederick Meditation Center in downtown Frederick.

The group will meet for six sessions beginning Feb. 27 and ending April 3 from 10:30 a.m. to noon. The first session on Feb. 27 is a free introductory workshop where participants can sample the class and choose to register for the remaining five sessions for $125. Those who wish to sign up for all six sessions at once are welcome to do so.

The sessions will incorporate meditation, poetry and readings from many spiritual traditions to help participants investigate their own personal belief system. Sample session themes will include What does it mean to have faith, to be spiritual? and Obstacles along the way: How have spiritual traditions of our youth affected us?.

Those interested may sign up for the free workshop only, or reserve their space for all six classes on frederickmeditation.com. For those who do not have a schedule that suits a morning class, Perez will facilitate an evening version of the Interfaith Spiritual Discussion Group starting March 9, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. This evening course is now open for registration as well.

Perez has led mindfulness meditation, spiritual and grief groups in the Seattle area for over 20 years and has a masters degree in social work and a certification in Interfaith Spiritual Direction from the Chaplaincy Institute, an interfaith seminary, in Berkeley.

The Frederick Meditation Center is at 1 W. Church St., above The Tasting Room in downtown Frederick.

Calvary United Methodist Church will host Bishop Latrelle Easterling, of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church, as the honored guest and preacher on March 5. This will be a one-service Sunday to begin the season of Lent. Worship will be at 10 a.m., and Sunday school for all ages will be at 9 a.m.

Bishop Easterling is the first woman bishop to lead the 233-year-old Baltimore-Washington Conference. She was elected as a bishop in The United Methodist Church in July 2016 and began serving the conference in September.

An Indiana native, Easterling is an inquisitive, collaborative and transformational leader. She is married to the Rev. Marion Easterling Jr., pastor of Wesley Grove UMC in Hanover and the former pastor of Parkway UMC in Milton, Massachusetts.

Calvary United Methodist Church is at 131 W. Second St., Frederick. Visit http://www.calvaryumc.org for more information.

See the original post:

Religion Notes: Fairview Chapel, Frederick Meditation Center, Calvary UMC to host events - Frederick News Post (subscription)

One of the early trailers for Logan featured a grizzled, older Wolverine with Johnny Cashs cover of Hurt playing. It was an evocative experience, a connection of music and tone, which perfectly sets the stage for this film.

Set in the near future, an older Logan (Hugh Jackman) is driving a limo, hes unkempt and sporting a scraggily beard. Hes self-medicating his pain with booze, his weathered face chronicling the hurt hes experienced.

Its a departure for the roguishly handsome Jackman there are no costumes here or quippy lines to distract from his sense of defeat.

Hes working to get money for actual medication to help his old friend Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), who is living in a remote location in Mexico, where he is cared for by a mutant named Caliban (Stephen Merchant). Xavier is kept medicated to keep him from having seizures, with his once impressive intellect savaged by age and his powers out of control.

The movie hints at a past tragedy and no new mutants have been born in years, though Xaviers delirious rantings speak of a new mutant.

Her name is Laura (great newcomer Dafne Keen) and shes quickly jettisoned into their lives. Shes a child, low on communication, but strong on action, and shes got some similar abilities to a certain X-Man. Keen, in her cinematic debut, is a pint-size powerhouse, turning out a strong performance in what is no doubt a difficult role, requiring extensive physical and emotional work.

Laura is being tracked by a mechanically enhanced killer named Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook, who makes his lackadaisical Southern drawl menacing), and theres only one mutant who can keep her safe. And just how is Laura connected to Logan?

At its heart, Logan is a road movie, a Western of sorts, with the drifter plodding from town to town with his young charge, working to find a better life and unable to avoid getting caught up in battle after battle.

Oh, and there are tons of battles here, bloody and visceral, almost animalistic. It does get over-the-top at times have fun counting the beheadings but there is an undeniable jolt of adrenaline when the claws come out.

Director James Mangold, working off a screenplay he co-wrote with Michael Green and Scott Frank, creates a dusty, sun-soaked future with stark scenes in the desert, long shots of caravans of trucks marching down highways and urban decay.

Logan marks Jackmans ninth turn as Wolverine and Stewarts seventh as Professor X. These are superb actors who know intrinsically these roles and its great to see them be able to really explore the furthest reaches of the characters. These arent the self-assured combatants from earlier movies, but rather broken vestiges of past greatness.

Much like the fourth-wall-breaking Deadpool was a new direction for Foxs Marvel mutant movies, Logan is as well, though in the other direction. This is a mature film, almost a meditation at times, of growing older, losing hope and coping with ones own mortality.

Jackman and Stewart have danced around whether theyll return to these roles in the future, but even if this is the last we see of them on the big screen, it sure is a great curtain call.

Go here to read the rest:

Hugh Jackman's 'Logan' a powerful meditation on mortality - amNY

Ellen Bahm, Getting healthy in the water 7:00 a.m. ET Feb. 17, 2017

Water Aerobics(Photo: Christopher Futcher, Getty Images)

Tired of sitting in front of the tube feeling like a slug? Want something to do that makes you feel great, is fun and is good for you? I've got just the answer - water aerobics at the YMCA.

Participating in water aerobics at the Y feels like playing for grown-ups.No more dread of being hot, sweaty and miserable.You stay cool while you exercise in the pool.Movement in the water is also great for joint and arthritis issues.

Worried about wearing a bathing suit in public in front of strangers?No sweat. At water aerobics, we are all shapes and sizes, both young and old. Besides, your body is underwater and nobody cares what you look like. There are very few Barbies.

Did I mention the class is fun?My favorite water aerobics class, Aqua dance, incorporates music. Our instructor, Angie, plays everything from "Respect" by Aretha Franklin to "Cake By The Ocean" by DNCE. We jam, sing and burn calories all against the resistance of the water.

Water aerobics improves flexibility and is a good all-around cardiorespiratory workout. You can expect to burn 30 percent more calories than a conventional floor workout.

So get up off that couch, join the Y and try water aerobics. Warning: it's addictive.

Whats The Best? Let us know in 300 words or less. If we publish your article, youll get a $50 gift card. Send submissions to Kathryn Gregory, kgregory@courier-journal.com, or to Kathryn Gregory, Best Editor, The Courier-Journal, P.O. Box 740031, Louisville, KY 40201-7431.

EllenBahm is a physical education teacher at Coral Ridge Elementary School in Fairdale, Ky. When she isn't in the water, she likes to watch UK basketball and play with her grandson, Cal.

Read or Share this story: http://cjky.it/2le3gbg

Go here to see the original:

Water aerobics at the YMCA | Review - The Courier-Journal