You’ve surely heard of Lichtenstein, noted friend of Andy Warhol. Together they participated in the first big exhibit of Pop Art in 1962 in New York. Lichtenstein was fascinated by the universe of comics, and he explored them through various formats, which you can see for yourself if you visit the “Meditations on Art” exhibit on display until the 30th of May in the Milan Triennial.

Composed of paintings, drawings, collages and sculptures, the exhibit features more than 100 large-scale works in which yellows, reds, blues, black and white dominate. This is the first time such a retrospective on this fabulous New York artist has been organized, and it’s waiting for you in Milan. Take advantage and pay a visit! If you have been in Barcelona, perhaps you are familiar with one of his sculptures near the port “Head” (1991-1992), which was inspired by architect Antoni Gaudí´s aesthetic and commissioned especially for the Olympic Games.

Meditations on Art

The exhibit is divided in 5 thematic sections with the goal of illuminating lesser known facets of this well known pop artist’s work. It begins with his works from the 50´s, during which period he revisited and reinterpreted medieval paintings and works from artists such as William Ranney, Paul Klee or Pablo Picasso, and opened the doors to abstraction in Europe.

Other figures mix in, everything from modern European art to Native American culture to the classic cowboy iconography of the Wild West. During the sixties Lichtenstein defined his artistic style. He began to take his visual cues from such masters as Matisse, Cézanne, Mondrian, and Dali.

This is a fantastic opportunity to learn more about and appreciate the artistic evolution of one of the founders of pop art while simultaneously familiarizing yourself with the major movements of European avant-garde art -Cubism, Expressionism, Futurism, Minimalism- as seen through a lens which also relied heavily on popular art.

Some may ask what talent is required to depict comic characters or landscapes in half-tone, with bold black lines and primary colours. A key to understanding this artist lies in the doctrine advanced by Andy Warhol with reference to the work of art in the age of reproduction. Life and consumption are art; series reproduction of art puts it within reach of everyone, that’s to say, it becomes “popular”. No longer must we rely on art history books or the bible to understand art.

Take advantage of this artistic must see to visit one of Italy’s most attractive cities. Rent apartments in Milan, an attractive and intelligent way to have an unforgettable trip.

Fear is a natural response, and a healthy one. It is designed to alert us to potential dangers in our environment and triggers a series of physical reactions to help us out. Fight or flight is the most well-known response to fear. When your body perceives a danger, your system is flooded with the hormones and electrical impulses that you need to either fight like a demon or run like hell.

But for too many of us, this cave-man response to fear gets in the way of living well. While the threat of a sabre-tooth tiger in our cave would be well-tended to with a rush of adrenaline, the normal noises of a city street stimulates the same responses, doing more harm than good.

The same normal response to fear begins to produce phobia-like associations that are irrational, or a constant sense of anxiety when there is really nothing to be afraid of. So is there a way to control the fear response?

The new answer is yes.

There are a couple of ways you can control and eliminate your fear response to certain situations. One is using medication: The beta-blocker propanolol can be taken when you consciously recall a fearful memory or event. For instance, if you have a fear of heights, your body has processed the memory (packaged with the fear response) and stored it. By recalling that memory, and taking a dose of propanolol at the same time, the beta-blocker prevents the brain from absorbing the chemicals involved with the fear. This completely changes the memory. Now, you will remember the event, but there is no emotional response that goes with it. This means that although you will clearly recall the dizzying vertigo of standing on a cliff-edge, it will be no more upsetting than remembering tying your shoes this morning.

This therapy has been used to help victims of traumatic events to end their associations of fear, pain and powerless: From car accidents to violent crime, including rape, many people are now able to get on with their lives, free from the debilitating associations. In other words, meeting strangers or crossing the road no longer results in a crippling fear response.

Another way to eliminate the fear response takes longer, but is drug-free. By associating the memory or situation with positive feedback, the brain reinterprets the event as something enjoyable. For instance, someone who is phobic of spiders can be shown images of the arachnids, whilst receiving foot massages or some other pleasant activity. Over the course of a few weeks or months, the brain begins to associate the previously feared activity with reward, and the end result is that next time that person sees a spider in the shower, the immediate response is one of relaxation and well-being.

In essence, fear is simply a chemical response associated with an event. Those chemicals are packaged up with memory and stored as a complete set. By unpacking the memory and replacing the fear chemicals with good ones, the fear response is completely changed. It really is a case of mind over matter.

Rent an apartment in Milan for a whole new set of positive memories, and take a little time out from the world to retrain that brain.

A message to all my friends. Stop sending me chain e-mails. No, I am not going to die if I don’t forward your email to 10 people in the next 3 minutes. No, Apple is not going to give you a free Ipod if you send an email to 100 friends. No, the little girl in New York will not survive brain cancer if you forward a fake poem to your most beloved friends. Welcome to the hall of shame: Internet Hoaxes.

The most notorious was the one selling bonsai kittens. On this website, you could order one week old kittens, which were glued into a glass jar. They could breath through holes in the lid, and be fed by a tube. Highly decorative! People were so disgusted with the website that even the FBI started an investigation. Turned out it was a hoax set up by some MIT graduate students.

Another persistent hoax is the fake eggs from China. It states that in China there are companies producing artificial eggs, made of gelatin and benzoic acid, sold for half the price of real eggs. There even exist websites that show you how to do it. It is supposed to taste and smell just like a real egg. Although China is famous for its dog meat and poisonous toys, creating fake eggs is still a bridge too far.

My personal favorite: making popcorn with your mobile phone. Everyone knows that mobile phones produce heat. Experts have been worried about the effect on the brain, and that gave the marketing departments of cardo Systems (a producer of wireless headphones) a great idea. They launched a campaign on youtube, where some guys manage to make popcorn using their mobile phones. Fortunately, it was a total fake: mobile phones don’t produce enough heat to cook your brain or to fry an egg.

Then there are a lot of e-mails that try to warn you of something. A kid died when his stomach exploded after eating mentos sweets and drinking coca-cola light! Someone’s dog and cats died from liver failure after they cleaned their house with Swiffer Wet Jet, it’s highly poisonous! Facebook has started deleting people because they have too many users! Seriously? No, these are all false.

Looking forward to spend a holiday in Milan? Copy and paste this link in your facebook status. Post a photo of yourself wearing a bikini on our profile, make 150 people join in the next 5 minutes and you’ll get a free vacation in Italy. Or, you could just rent apartments in Milan and save your energy for visiting this beautiful city.

If we were to start writing a history book about the recent past, we would have to add a new category: the web. And note the following date: the 15th of March 1985, the day that the first internet domain was created, the .com, which just celebrated its 25th this past month. So let’s take a look back and talk about a few things .net, .com, .org, .gov etc. The latest idea bandied about has been the creation of an .xxx domain for commercial pornography websites.

80 million .com
Currently 700.000 new domain names are created every month. They are like an id card for businesses and people, like a licence plate for cars, a flag for countries or an area code for a telephone number, informing us of the origin of the web site and telling a bit about what it does. The first one suggested was “.cor” for corporation – but “.com” was selected because it referred to commercial and was then extended to other fields. We also have “.net” for network, “.org” for organizations and infinity of abbreviations.

Internet domains (DNS) grew steadily during the 90´s. The business Symbolics launched the first “.com” in 1985, and by 1997 there we over a million registered domains around the world. In 1999, Internet already had over 20 millions active web pages and this year there are 80 million –without counting the inactive pages. According to Verisign, the business in charge of the domain “.com” 192 million domains of all types currently exist,

.com and politics
American politics is also wrapped up in the history of the oldest domain in history. Bill Clinton’s presidency coincided with the creation of “.com” and because of this was the subject of a Political impact forum and 25th anniversary gala in Washington.

This coming may 26th, the 25 people or companies who have contributed the most to the creation of the Internet, the “25.com”, will be awarded during a ceremony in San Francisco. Clinton’s former vice-president, Al Gore, is a nominee, despite having declared in that he created the Internet in 1999, a commentary with which he opened himself up to the mockery of the George Bush and the Republican Party.

Internet for peace
Internet is one of 237 candidates for the Nobel peace prize to be presented in October 2010, an initiative supported by various celebrities that has its own manifesto on the web, translated to a dozen languages under the name “Internet for peace”. Who would have thought that the “.com” would one day have such a radical effect on our lives?

Now it is easy and convenient to make all of our vacation arrangements via the Internet. Don’t miss Apartments in Milan, a dotcom where you can find the best accommodations at the best prices.

While in former times we send us carrier pigeons, or contracted an errand boy or just waited for the nice postmen to give us the desired love letter of our beloved flame from far away, now we, the every time more primitive human beings, only push the “on” button, we “connect” us, do the “log in” and we already can read the thousands of mails from our new lover. In digital form, of course. For sure, a life without the World Wide Web is almost unimaginable, but most of us have even a more active and exciting virtual life than a real life. (Don’t look at me like that, you know what I’m talking about!): The invasion of the “click” society.

If ‘internet’ is the word of the 20th century, then ‘social networks’ is the term of the 21st one. Those networks are an essential part of the everyday life of uncountable persons from the entire world. Whether it is facebook, twitter, MySpace, and god knows how they’re all called, those who haven’t an account on the mentioned social networks are even considered to be outsiders. But those little rebels, escaping from the cybernetic wave, probably have their reasons for such an abstinent behavior.

Confess! How often do you run to your laptop for “just checking my emails”? Even if you don’t want to hear, know or believe it, but such kind of internet using can produce a sincere addiction with serious consequences for your private and professional life. (“Sweetheart, you always chat with your buddies. It’s such a long time ago that we had a romantic candle light dinner…” or “Mss Porter, you should work and not send thousand of private emails. You’re fired!”…ouch..)

According to studies, more than 41,7 Million Europeans are registered at those social networks. Prognoses reveal an immense increase and predict that for 2012 more then 27,1 millions British people, followed by 21,7 millions of Germans and approximately 21,3 Millions of French will expose their private life in all kinds of social networks. When you’re a single, you’re undoubtedly smiling now, because internet is the best and biggest online dating service ever.

Of course, most of the critics exaggerate claiming that our society is getting dumb. But internet can be the most fantastic information source of world history. You only should know how to use it. Because changing the facebook profile every ten minutes and communicating everyone that “I will go for a walk” or “I’m soo tired” or “weekend, yeah”..Well… that doesn’t make really sense.

Come on, surf the internet, organize your next incredible trip to Italy and rent the comfortable and economic apartments in Milan. Disconnect from all this high-tech stuff and concentrate on the real important and wonderful things of life.