we've reached 10,000 views!

Today, Zabelieth officially reached 10,000 total views! We are elated and humbled! Thank you all so much for visiting us and reading all about our endeavours. Eli and I have so much fun writing for Zabelieth, and through this blog, we have the opportunity to explore many diverse topics and ideas. Thank you, readers, for your support, and please come back for more!!

If you haven't already, check out some of our top blog posts:

     The Best Tea Companies

     Homemade Lavender Soda

     Preparing to Study Abroad in London

     Links of the Week: Travelling the World

badass one-piece swimsuits

OYE Shaw Commercial

I don't know if it's just me getting older, or if it's actually a trend, but it seems like showing less skin is increasingly sexy! One-piece swimsuits are making a comeback, being perceived as a classier, sexier alternative to the now-commonplace bikini. Though they may not help with tan lines (with some of the cut-out swimsuits, you'll get some quite interesting patterns!), one-piece swimsuits are the top choice in beachwear this summer.

Here are a few of our favourite styles. Some are designer suits (and therefore quite expensive) and others are fit for everyday use.

Stampd LA East Coast One Piece

Classic:

Polyester Spandex Shiny Stripe Tank Bodysuit $34 at American Apparel

ASOS Lattice Neck Cross Back Plunge Swimsuit $39 at ASOS

Zipper-Front Bodysuit $45 at American Apparel

Norma Kamali Low Back One Piece $66 at REVOLVE

Norma Kamali Wonder Woman Mio $66 at REVOLVE

Anne Cole Classic One-Piece Swimsuit $78 at Macy's

Nautica Zippered One Piece $91 at Lord & Taylor

Stampd East Coast One Piece $92 at Stampd LA
   
6 Shore Road Punda Swimsuit $138 at Nasty Gal

OYE Elizabeth

Cutout:  

Black Mesh Insert Swimsuit $56 at River Island 

Motel Love Me Swimsuit $71 at ASOS   

Carmen Marc Valvo One Piece Asymmetrical Swimsuit $119 at Saks Fifth Avenue

6 Shore Road Colorblock One-Piece Swimsuit $138 at Urban Outfitters

6 Shore Road One-Piece Bombini Swimsuit $138 at Saks Fifth Avenue

OYE Shaw Commercial $298 at OYE Swimwear

Norma Kamali One-Piece Paneled Snake Swimsuit $350 at Saks Fifth Avenue

OYE Elizabeth $350 at OYE Swimwear

"If on a winter's night a traveler..." by Italo Calvino

This is an incredible book.  It completely lacks the traditional structure of a novel - the reader is taken into story after story in abrupt bursts, and then becomes the protagonist of the story himself/herself!  The feeling of being drawn into a tale, only to have it abruptly taken away without giving you an ending or any resolution whatsoever... this is just one of many odd psychological tricks Calvino pulls on his readers.  Ultimately this novel is about reading, about the relationship between readers and their novels.  Sounds like it would give you a headache, but it's actually an absolute thrill to read!  I have to share my favorite quotes from this must-read.  Enjoy!

"...then a kind of weariness settles on her, perhaps only the shadow of their weariness (or my weariness, or yours).  They have known her since she was a girl, they know everything there is to know about her, some of them may have been involved with her, now water under the bridge, over and done with; in other words, there is a veil of other images that settles on her image and blurs it, a weight of memories that keep me from seeing her as a person seen for the first time, other people's memories suspended like the smoke under the lamps." 19

"This is how you have changed yesterday, you who insisted you preferred a book, something solid, which lies before you, easily defined, enjoyed without risks, to a real-life experience, always elusive, discontinuous, debated." 32

"But how to establish the exact moment in which a story begins?  Everything has already begun before, the first line of the first page of every novel refers to something that has already happened outside the book.  Or else the real story is the one that begins ten or a hundred pages further on, and everything that precedes it is only a prologue.  The lives of individuals of the human race form a constant plot, in which every attempt to isolate one piece of living that has a meaning separate from the rest--for example, the meeting of two people, which will become decisive for both--must bear in mind that each of the two brings with himself a texture of events, environments, other people, and that from the meeting in turn, other stories will be derived which will break off from their common story." 153

"If one wanted to depict the whole thing graphically, every episode, with its climax, would require a three-dimensional model, perhaps four-dimensional, or, rather, no model: every experience is unrepeatable.  What makes lovemaking and reading resemble each other most is that within both of them times and spaces open, different from measurable time and space." 156

"At other times, on the contrary, I seem to understand that between the book to be written and things that already exist there can be only a kind of complementary relationship: the book should be the written counterpart of the unwritten world; its subject should be what does not exist and cannot exist except when written, but whose absence is obscurely felt by that which exists, in its own incompleteness." 172

"If a book truly interests me, I cannot follow it for more than a few lines before my mind, having seized on a thought that the text suggests to it, or a feeling, or a question, or an image, goes off on a tangent and springs from thought to thought, from image to image, in an itinerary of reasonings and fantasies that I feel the need to pursue to the end, moving away from the book until I have lost sight of it.  The stimulus of reading is indispensable to me, and of meaty reading, even if, of every book, I manage to read no more than a few pages.  But those few pages already enclose for me whole universes, which I can never exhaust." 254

developing a taste for craft beer

photo: pbbrew

The world of beer is diverse and complex, and yields an incredible range of tastes, flavours, and varieties. However, if your beer history is limited to Michelob Ultra and Budweiser, you're only experiencing a teensy portion of the beer universe. And, quite frankly, a very poor sampling of the beer universe! Mass-produced beers are meant to appeal to everyone, so they are usually extremely drinkable and cheap. Most have very little flavour or body. Instead of trudging over to grab the usual, boring six-pack of Miller Lite at a gas station, why not expand your beer knowledge a little bit? 

As opposed to the mass-market beers produced by corporate Anheuser-Busch and the like, craft beers are developed in small quantities by independently owned microbreweries. Craft beers are extremely diverse, encompassing every brewing style and flavour, so you are guaranteed to find something you like! Anything is possible with craft beers. As opposed to beer giants, craft breweries love to experiment with unique flavours: from blueberry wheat to oyster stout to banana bread beer, there are some weird but delicious options out there.

However, craft brews may be more difficult to find and more expensive than corporate-brewery beers. Grocery stores (especially specialty stores and Trader Joe's) and wine/beer shops are your bets for finding good craft beer. I get most of my new and unusual beers from a small wine shop in town. But don't be deterred! It's definitely worth the hunt to discover delicious new brews! 
             
Here I've included a brief guide to developing a taste for craft beer. If you're used to drinking something commonplace, I recommend the types of beer that may appeal to your taste, but will offer more variety and flavour. The availability of individual craft beers is going to depend on where you are, but just keep an eye out for the type that you're interested in, with an unknown and unusual label! 

Be adventurous! Many 'lite'-beer drinkers may be pleasantly surprised by some of the 'heavier' beers further down on the scale. The darker beers (brown ales, bocks and dobbelbocks, and some porters and stouts) are actually very smooth and easy to drink. Some are a little sweet! Don't be intimidated by the colour of the beer. In fact, the most 'difficult to drink' (bitter) beers - pale ales - are very light in colour.  

If you usually drink Bud Lite, Miller Lite, Michelob Ultra... 
Try a LIGHT LAGER, KOLSCH, PILSNER, or WITBIER. 

My favourites: 
   Blue Mountain Kolsch 151
   Allagash White 
   Legend Winter White      

  

If you usually drink Stella Artois or Corona... 
Try a PALE ALE, INDIA PALE ALE, or ENGLISH BITTER.  

My favourites:  
   Lagunitas Sucks 
   Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA (very bitter!)       
  

If you usually drink Blue Moon... 
Try a SAISON, HEFEWEISSEN, or WEISSBIER. 

My favourites: 
   Starr Hill The Love 
   Ommegang Hennepin




If you usually drink Sam Adams or Yuengling... 
Try an AMBER LAGER, VIENNA LAGER, BROWN ALE, or BOCK. 

My favourites:  
   Anchor Steam (lighter)
   Legend Brown Ale
   Weihenstephaner   

If you usually drink Guinness... 
Try a STOUT (flavoured stouts include smoked stout, cream stout, oatmeal, and espresso), PORTER (flavoured porters include chocolate, vanilla, chocolate milk, etc.), SCHWARZBIER, or DOPPELBOCK. 

My favourites: 
   New Holland Dragon's Milk Stout
   Williamsburg Alewerks Coffeehouse Stout
   Starr Hill Snow Blind Doppelbock

Warning: these darker beers usually have a significantly higher alcohol content than lighter beers (many average around 9-12% ABV), so be careful if you're accustomed to drinker a large amount of 'lite' beer!   

In addition, a fun app to check out is Untappd, which allows you to 'check in' and rate any new beers you've tried. The app will recommend new brews that you may like depending on your taste, and tell you where you can find them! 

Enjoy!!

6 Steps to Deleting Your Facebook in 2014

Could you do it?  It's unbelievable how heavily today's social interactions rely on this website.  A theme of 2013 has been the invasion of privacy, but what's interesting is how much people freely give up their own information.  How much is the NSA gathering that we don't already post for the world to see on websites like this?  Social media is fantastic, but when your current boss can see all of your photos from high school... that's a little weird.  Rather than spend hours fiddling with privacy settings and figuring out what friends should have access to what, I've made it my first task of 2014 to disconnect completely from Facebook.  From now on I will reach out to friends personally to find out what's going on in their lives.  I'll hear their life updates from their own lips.  Instagram and Twitter will suffice for sharing photos, big news, and random links.  The rest will be up to me, using good old phone and email to keep in touch with friends.  For those bold (some would say crazy) souls who want to get out of Facebook as smoothly as possible, here you go:

< < < > > >

STEP 1: Do a sweep of your Friends list.  This is the most time-consuming step, but I feel it's necessary.  When I decided to delete my account, I had over 600 friends which spanned more than a decade of my life.  In about two hours I was able to halve that number.  You know how you look on Facebook and get a little ego boost when you see how many friends you have?  Yeah, that's really not accurate, it turns out.  Because half of these people were people I (1) rarely, if ever, had an entire conversation with, (2) knew briefly but not well because they were just part of the wider group I was in, or (3) couldn't even remember the names of... seriously, I had no recollection of about 35 people's names and faces.  I even had (I kid you not) two Facebook accounts for people that don't even exist... one was for a giant Barbie doll.  So, it's not hard to get your friends down to a more manageable number.  The great part of this exercise is that you'll end up with a fantastic list of the people you really do care about keeping in your life (imo, quality is always better than quantity).

STEP 2: Explain how you're not going to fall off the face of the earth.  Your remaining friends deserve a head's up, and if you want to make sure that they'll still be able to reach you, this step is vital (Isn't it crazy to think how many people we would have no way of getting in touch with if Facebook didn't exist?).  It might be easier to divide who's left into groups based on how you know them.  I found it easiest to send a message to all my high school/hometown friends first, then college, etc.  Explain why you're closing your Facebook out, because if you don't you're going to get asked by everyone.  More importantly, let them know how you can still be reached.  In my message, I said that I hoped they would all connect with me on LinkedIn, gave them both my professional and personal email addresses, and also gave them my Skype username.

STEP 3: Leave notice on Group boards.  Were you in a sorority in college?  Do you have a Facebook group for your classmates from your semester abroad?  It's definitely worth it to take a moment to leave a quick "Hey, just a head's up I'm deleting my Facebook account, you can reach me here and here now, and I hope you'll reach out."  It just says that you still want to be in the loop, that you don't want to lose the friendships and connections you've cultivated there.  If there are individuals you really want to make sure you can stay connected with, then be sure to reach out to them on an individual basis - a group board isn't the place to do that.  For group boards, just think of it as leaving a change of address notice. ;)

STEP 4: Download all your information.  Download all your information.  Facebook has this nifty feature I just discovered.  Under General Account Settings there is a small, nondescript link that says "Download a copy of your Facebook data."  You'll get an email with a link and then you'll spend about 15 minutes to half an hour or more waiting for a giant file with ALL your Facebook information to download.  I literally mean ALL: it includes your chat/messages history; everything you've ever posted or liked or even hidden; all your photos, friends (including requests and even removed/deleted friends), and phone numbers; anything that was ever posted or liked by others on your Wall; anything you ever shared or searched; and all your status updates and recent activity.  The one thing it doesn't include is photos you're tagged in that belong to other people, but you can grab every photo you're tagged in with PhotoGrabber.

STEP 5: Delete your account.  The moment is here!  If you have trouble finding the button to delete your Facebook, you can just click this link and it will take you there directly (once you're logged in).  Remember, this is not the same as deactivating your account, which is what you should do if you just want a break from the website.  If you're having major doubts at this point, definitely consider just deactivating, because once you delete your account, you'll have to completely start from scratch should you decide to return.  Not that starting fresh on Facebook is a bad thing; in fact, that might be just what you need!

STEP 6: Give your social media a makeover.  You now have the ability to completely reevaluate how and through what social media you wish to network yourself.  Why not write a long email, or even a handwritten letter, to a friend you realized you hadn't talked to in ages while you were going through your Facebook friends.  Meanwhile, update your LinkedIn and make sure that you've reconnected with any business-related Facebook friends.  When it comes to your public face, keep Tweets, Instagram photos, etc. professional.  It's a clean slate; just think how much more personal you'll be now that you have to do a little extra work to maintain connections - perhaps it seems like you're going back to basics, but in the long run you'll end up with deeper, more lasting personal and professional relationships than you would be just clicking "Add."

van cleef & arpels: creators of the most beautiful watches in the world

Midnight Planetarium Poetic Complication

The Van Cleef & Arpels line of watches has awed me for some time now, and with each new collection, my obsession only grows. I was lucky enough to view their showroom at Harrod's in London this summer; I always have to remind myself that they actually produce fantastic jewellery as well as watches, but for me, the watches take centre stage. There is nothing on Earth like them.          

For example, the watch on the left is the Midnight Planetarium Poetic Complication watch, which  displays the planets of the solar system as they orbit the Sun. Each of the planets rotate exactly as they do in their actual orbits: this means that it will take nearly thirty years for Saturn to make one round of the dial! The time of day on Earth is shown by a shooting star on the edge of dial. This masterpiece costs $245,000-330,000 (depending on whether you want diamonds or not), so start saving now..... 

  

Van Cleef & Arpels was founded in 1895 in Paris and is known for its whimsical use of precious stones in fine jewellery and watches. They've been producing some of the most imaginative wearable works of art possible for more than a hundred years. They're also known for perfecting the 'Mystery Setting' technique, where individual stones are hand grooved to fit into a mesh of gold or platinum (rather than prongs). To me, it simply has to be magic, because I can't understand how human hands can produce things this beautiful.

Below are a few of my favourite individual watches and collections. You'll see the Five Weeks in a Balloon watch, in which the hot air balloon's anchor swings around the dial to indicate the time; the Midnight in Paris watch, which displays the night sky in Paris; the Palais de la Chance collection (which was inspired by luck and the zodiac, as you will see); and the Polar Landscapes collection. There are many, many more, but I find these the most breathtaking.


This is a video describing the movement of the Poetic Wish watches, in which a young man and woman indicate the time of day by moving forward towards the Paris sky to make a wish.

So even though I may never be able to afford any of these (most cost around $100,000), I just can't help but feel awed that such beautiful miniature works of art can be made by hand. These little pieces have moved watch-making to a new, wondrous level, and as an artist, I find them so inspiring!