Narrated by Johnny Depp, here is Alex Gibney's portrait of American journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson in the documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (2008):

From Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney and producer Graydon Carter comes a probing look into the uncanny life of national treasure and gonzo journalism inventor Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. A fast-moving, wildly entertaining documentary with an iconic soundtrack, the film addresses the major touchstones in Thompson's life--his intense and ill-fated relationship with the Hells Angels, his near-successful bid for the office of sheriff in Aspen in 1970, the notorious story behind the landmark Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his deep involvement in Senator George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign, and much more.

Trailer:

Full documentary:

Yogi Cameron shares the recipe for a super tea using turmeric, coriander (also known as cilantro) and ginger and how to use them individually. As of this week, I've added the super tea to my daily regimen.

While a student in Honk Kong, photographer, actor and director Fan Ho, captured the city with his camera during the 1950s–60s when it underwent a major transformation. His black-and-white images with it's incredible light, are the legacy of an era that no longer exists.

Approaching Shadow, 1954:

In a Chinese Street, 1964 (via SFO Museum):

I've mentioned before that as a result of watching the Transcendental Meditation documentary "School of Thought" (2008) directed by Tony Perri, I began practicing mantra meditation.

Here is the full version playing on Vimeo with download option enable (for some reason, it doesn't show up easily in the Google search results):

Update: The film is available to watch at Gaia.

Suddenly, I found a reason to buy an iPhone 6. Utterly amazing that today's compact cameras and phones are able to produce footage of this quality.

iPhone 6 240-fps slo-mo by Osborne Images:

The book Dancing with Cats by writer Burton Silver and photographer Heather Busch, celebrates its 15th anniversary with a reissued hardcover edition.

Hmmm, I´m not sure if this is for fun or for real (from Heather's website):

All around the world today, people are rediscovering the ancient practice of cat dancing, tapping into this remarkable method of channeling feline energy.

Share the gift of feline grace, and connect with your cat on an intirely new level. Let yourself be inspired by the joyous photographs and moving testimonials within this books pages. A brave leap forward in the history of human-feline relations, Dancing With Cats will have you and your cat jumping for joy in no time.

Featured image: Via book wholesaler Hardie Grant Gift.

The term wall dog comes from the way sign-painters are chained to a wall by a safety line much like a dog on a leash. In this video we meet some of New York's wall dogs, responsible for all the beautiful and gigantic murals around the city:

Vic Clinco has probably one of the world's largest private collections of hot chilli sauce. Having collected bottle's ever since his wife bought him 12 bottles as a Christmas gift back in 1996, the growing collection now consists of nearly 6000 bottles:

In his collection is an extremely rare pair of 'Adam and Eve' sauces from CaJohn’s Fiery Foods and one of his 'prized additions' is two bottles of Blair’s Calderas (caldera means volcanic cauldron) that are incredibly hard to find. Blair’s also makes the Guinness World Record-certified hottest sauce on the planet – the Caldera 16 Mil. This is short for 16 million Scoville units. Scoville units measure the pungency and spiciness of chilli peppers. And of course Vic managed to get his hands on a bottle. Apparently there are only 499 bottles in existence and on specialist hot sauce websites, a bottle sells for almost £3,000.

Vic said: “To put how hot that is in perspective, 11 million Scoville units is hotter than most police pepper sprays in the States – they mostly range from between 2 Mil and 9 Mil. “It is actually not even a true sauce, it’s in crystallised form, pretty darn cool.

Vic says this his most expensive bottle is worth about $900 (£580) – a one-of-a-kind – and the most he has ever paid for a bottle is $400 (£260). [...]

Image credit: Barcroft Media

In Alex's images, the people are unaware of having had their picture taken because she´s doing something called stalker photography. Filmmaker MP Cunningham captures her rare form of photography in the film The Observer:

I was introduced to Alex about a year ago through a mutual friend. I had heard about a "stalker photographer" from a couple people and was pretty intrigued. After about a two month process of trying to get her to sit down with me she finally agreed to tell her story. I was pretty blown away. Seeing the world through her eyes has been a unique experience to say the least. Her photos are unreal. Can't say I completely agree with her craft but its very beautiful in its own way. [...]

I'm not entirely convinced that this is a true story and that the girl in the film is the real Alex, but nevertheless I find the film and story intriguing:

Here is an interview with MP Cunningham made by Directors Notes.

You find more of Alex's photography here.

American record producer Rick Rubin talks at lenght with Rolling Stone Magazine about the practice of Transcendental Meditation, creativity, making music and odd studio times:

How did you get interested in transcendental meditation?
When I was 14 years old, I went to see my pediatrician, the doctor who delivered me, because my neck hurt when I went to school. He said, incredibly for his day, that it was stress and I needed to learn to meditate. As he said it, I remember thinking, My parents aren't going to go for this. But they said, "Oh, well, if that's what the doctor says."

[...]

Did TM work for you?
I can't remember how it affected my neck issues, but it definitely affected my life. I did it from when I was 14 until I was going to NYU. Maybe stopping was a backwards version of trying to find out who I was — meditating was part of my family life, even though nobody else in my family did it.

After I moved to California, I decided I was going to start again, after not doing TM for five years. To actually start took months: it seemed like a very big decision. From the first meditation back, I realized that the person I am was shaped by the experience of the years of meditation. I feel like I can see deeply into things in a way that many of the people around me don't, or can't

[...]

Are there times when you're in the studio with somebody and you think they'd benefit from learning TM?
[...] There's a great deal of bullshit that people think about when they make music, things that don't matter. TM kind of wipes that away, and you focus on the real job at hand, as opposed to thinking about what the management wants, or what the record company's saying, or what somebody at a radio station might think.

Here is a short film made by Alison Chernick with Rick talking about being in harmony, the power of music, creativity and silence:

Tip: See also my post "Transcendental Meditation and the Alternatives".

Featured image: Portrait of Rick (unable to find photo credit).