View allAll Photos Tagged BLOODLESS
Done in Ai, Finalized in Photoshop.
Lineage: Descendant of the Mirrorwild Court
Known for: Disappearing noble courts, silencing songs, and bloodless dreamers
Valessia is whispered of in old ballads sung in the wrong key. A fae of exquisite grace, cursed with a thirst for more than love. Her wings still bear roses from the night she died, and bloomed again, cursed to beauty eternal. She dances not with mortals, but through their dreams—and when they wake, they only remember the chill of velvet and the taste of sorrow.
Qatar (i /ˈkɑːtɑr/ or i /kəˈtɑr/, kə-TAR;[4][5] Arabic: قطر [ˈqɑtˤɑr]; local pronunciation: [ɡitˤar][6]), also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is an Arab country, known officially as an emirate, in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south; otherwise, the Persian Gulf surrounds the state. A strait of the Persian Gulf separates Qatar from the nearby island nation of Bahrain. Qatar is an oil- and gas-rich nation, with the third largest gas reserves,[7] and the first[8] or second[9] highest GDP per capita in the world. An absolute monarchy, Qatar has been ruled by the al-Thani family since the mid-19th century and has since transformed itself from a British protectorate noted mainly for pearling into an independent state with significant oil and natural gas revenues.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Qatari economy was crippled by a continuous siphoning off of petroleum revenues by the Emir, who had ruled the country since 1972. His son, the current Amir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, overthrew him in a bloodless coup in 1995. In 2001, Qatar resolved its longstanding border disputes with both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
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Camera: Nikon D3x
Lens: Nikon 24-70 f/2.8G
Focal Length: 38mm
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed : 1/40
ISO: 160
Exposure: Manual
Selby Abbey
St. Germain’s Chapel to whom the abbey is dedicated is located at the east end of the south aisle.
The Church of Selby Abbey was dedicated to Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Germain. But though the dedication was a triple one, St Germain has always been regarded as our Patron Saint. He was born in the year 378 or 380 at Auxerre, France. In his early days Germain followed a military career and, it appears, at some time he practised as an advocate. As a soldier he was distinguished, becoming a ‘Duke’, or military leader, and sometimes he was referred to as ‘one of the six dukes of Gaul.’ In those pre-ecclesiastic days he married, his wife being described as ‘a lady of great quality in Rome,’ whose name was Eustachia. At that period Germain seems to have been a thorough man of the world. Nothing, indeed, is known of him in his disfavour, except that as a devotee of the chase he appears to have been somewhat callous, if not cruel, in his dealings with the spoils of the hunting-ground.
At that time Amator was the Bishop of Auxerre. He saw that in spite of his apparent worldliness, Germain had the makings of a saint in him. He had often remonstrated with him and tried to win him for the Church, but tin vain. One day, however, Germain was decoyed into the church at Auxerre. The doors were barred; Germain was seized and bound; and Bishop Amator forcibly cut off his locks, so giving him the first tonsure and bidding him live ‘as one who was destined to become a bishop.’
Instead of resenting the treatment, Germain quietly accepted his position. It was the turning-point in his career. His old life was abandoned, and very soon he was ordained deacon. He became a monk, his life in the cloister distinguished by a marvellous asceticism. For 30 years he is said never to have touched wheaten bread, wine, oil, pulse, or salt, his one daily meal being eaten in the evening; and sometimes he went without food altogether for a whole week at a time. For one ecclesiastical eminence to another he rose, till eventually he was consecrated Bishop of Auxerre. He was a great theologian and, among the chief things that he did, he came over to England to quell the Pelagian heresy. In that connection he preached a wonderful sermon at St Albans, astonishing all by his fervour, eloquence and learning, and he made many converts. Afterwards he visited many parts of England and Wales. He went to Cornwall and even visited the Isle of Man; and on one occasion, aided by his old military experience, he led the British soldiers against the Picts and Scots, winning the bloodless victory known as the ‘Alleluia Victory.’ No wonder that in the centuries that followed many churches in Great Britain were built in his honour, the most important of them all being the great and beautiful Abbey Church on the banks of the Yorkshire Ouse in Selby.
After a brilliant life as an ecclesiastic, Germain died in a good old age in the year 448, the place of his death being Ravenna, in Italy. That was on July 31st. But his body was taken by road to his native place of internment. The journey was one of two months’ duration, and his remains were honourably laid to rest in his Cathedral at Auxerre on October 1st, 448. These two dates explain the fact that the Festival of St Germain (for he was afterwards canonized and made a Saint) is kept by the Church on July 31st and October 1st. One is the annual commemoration of his death; the other that of his burial.
Information with thanks to the Selby Abbey web site.
Thank you for your visit and your comments, they are greatly appreciated.
Mecca
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other uses, see Mecca (disambiguation).
This article contains Arabic text, written from right to left in a cursive style with some letters joined. Without proper rendering support, you may see unjoined Arabic letters written left-to-right, instead of right-to-left or other symbols instead of Arabic script.
Coordinates: 21°25′00″N 39°49′00″E / 21.416667°N 39.816667°E / 21.416667; 39.816667
مكّة المكرمة
City of Mecca / Makkah Al Mukarrammah
Masjid al-Haram, the center of Mecca, and the source of its prominence
Nickname(s): Umm Al Qura (Mother of Villages)
Location of Mecca
Country Saudi Arabia
Province Makkah Province
Construction of Kaaba +2000 BC
Established Ibrahim
Joined Saudi Arabia 1924
Government
- Mayor Osama Al-Bar
- Provincial Governor Khalid al Faisal
Area Mecca Municipality
- Urban 850 km2 (328.2 sq mi)
- Metro 1,200 km2 (463.3 sq mi)
Population (2007)
- City 1,700,000
- Density 4,200/km2 (2,625/sq mi)
- Urban 2,053,912
- Metro 2,500,000
Makkah Municipality estimate
Time zone EAT (UTC+3)
- Summer (DST) EAT (UTC+3)
Postal Code (5 digits)
Area code(s) +966-2
Website Mecca Municipality
Mecca IPA: /ˈmɛkə/, also spelled Makkah IPA: [ˈmækə], Arabic: مكة Makka (in full: Makka al-Mukarrama IPA: [(Arabic) mækːæ(t) ælmʊkarˑamæ]; Arabic: مكّة المكرمة, literally: Honored Mecca) is a city in Saudi Arabia. Home to the Masjid al-Haram, it is the holiest city in Islam and plays an important role in the faith. As of 2008 the annual Hajj pilgrimage attracts two to three million pilgrims to the city,[1][2] and presents both opportunities for the city's economy, and challenges for its infrastructure. Culturally, the city is modern, cosmopolitan and ethnically diverse.[3][4][5][6]
Islamic tradition attributes the beginning of Mecca to Ishmael's descendants. In the 7th century, the Islamic prophet Muhammad proclaimed Islam in the city, by then an important trading center, and the city played an important role in the early history of Islam. After 966, Mecca was led by local sharifs, until 1924, when it came under the rule of the Saudis.[7] In its modern period, Mecca has seen a great expansion in size and infrastructure.
The modern day city is located in and is the capital of Saudi Arabia's Makkah Province, in the historic Hejaz region. With a population of 1.7 million (2008), the city is located 73 km (45 mi) inland from Jeddah, in a narrow valley, and 277 m (910 ft) above sea level.
Etymology
Mecca is the original English translation of the Arabic name. Historically, the city has also been called Becca.[8][9] In the 1980s, the Saudi Arabian government and others began promoting the spelling Makkah (in full form, Makkah al-Mukarramah), which more closely resembles the actual Arabic pronunciation. This spelling is starting to be taken up by many organizations, including the United Nations,[10] United States Department of State,[11] and the British Foreign Office, [12] but the spelling Mecca remains in common use. Another alternative is Meccah.[13]
Government
Mecca is governed by the Municipality of Mecca, headed by a mayor (Also known as Amin) appointed by the Saudi Government. The current mayor of the city is Osama Al-Bar. A municipal council of fourteen locally elected members is responsible for the functioning of the municipality.
Mecca is the capital of Makkah Province, which includes neighboring Jeddah. The governor was Prince Abdul Majeed bin Abdul Aziz from 2000 until his death in 2007.[14] On May 16, 2007, Prince Khalid al Faisal was appointed as the new governor.[15]
History
1787 Turkish artwork of the Holy Mosque and related religious sites (Jabal al-Nur)
Early history
According to Islamic tradition, the history of Mecca goes back to Ibrahim (ابراهيم, Abraham) when he built the Kaaba with the help of his son Ismā'īl (اسماعيل, Ishmael), around 2000 BC. The inhabitants were stated to have fallen away from monotheism through the influence of the Amelkites.[16] Historians state that the Kaaba later became the repository of 360 idols and tribal gods of all of Arabia's nomadic tribes. Until the 7th century, Mecca's most important god would remain to be Hubal, having been placed there by the ruling Quraysh tribe.[17][18]
Ptolemy may have called the city "Macoraba", though this identification is controversial.[19] In the 5th century, the Quraysh took control of Mecca, and became skilled merchants and traders. In the 6th century they joined the lucrative spice trade as well, since battles in other parts of the world were causing trade routes to divert from the dangerous sea routes to the relatively more secure overland routes. The Byzantine Empire had previously controlled the Red Sea, but piracy had been on the increase. Another previous route, that from the Persian Gulf via the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, was also being threatened by exploitation from the Sassanid Empire, as well as being disrupted by the Lakhmids, the Ghassanids, and the Roman–Persian Wars. Mecca's prominence as a trading center surpassed the cities of Petra and Palmyra.[20][21]
By the middle of the 6th century, there were three major settlements in northern Arabia, all along the southwestern coast that borders the Red Sea, in a habitable region between the sea and the great desert to the east. This area, known as the Hejaz, featured three settlements grown around oases, where water was available. In the center of the Hejaz was Yathrib, later renamed as Medina. 250 mi (400 km) south of Yathrib was the mountain city Ta’if, northwest of which lay Mecca. Though the area around Mecca was completely barren, Mecca was the wealthiest and most important of the three settlements. Islamic histories state that it had abundant water via the Zamzam Well, which was the site of the holiest shrine in Arabia, the Kaaba, and was also at the crossroads of major caravan routes.[22]. Actually the well of Zamzam was barely sufficient to support the small community there, the Kaaba was but one of many such Arabian Polytheistic temple found in the peninsula, and the city was the terminus for a single caravan route which ran from Mecca to Syria.[23]
The harsh conditions of the Arabian peninsula usually meant a constant state of conflict between the tribes, but once a year they would declare a truce and converge upon Mecca in an annual pilgrimage. This journey was intended for religious reasons, to pay homage to the shrine, and to drink from the Well of Zamzam. However, it was also the time each year that disputes would be arbitrated, debts would be resolved, and trading would occur at Meccan fairs. These annual events gave the tribes a sense of common identity and made Mecca extremely important throughout the peninsula.[24]
Muhammad's great-grandfather had been the first to equip a camel caravan, and they became a regular part of the town's economy. Alliances were struck between the merchants in Mecca, and the local nomadic tribes, who would bring leather, livestock, and metals which were mined in the local mountains. Caravans would then be loaded up in Mecca, and would take the goods to the cities in Syria and Iraq.[25] Islamic tradition claims that goods from other continents also flowed through Mecca. From Africa and the Far East towards Syria supposedly flowed spices, leather, drugs, cloth, and slaves; and in return Mecca was to have received money, weapons, cereals, and wine, which were distributed throughout Arabia. The Meccans signed treaties with both the Byzantines and the Bedouins, and negotiated safe passage for caravans, which included such things as water and pasture rights. These further increased Mecca's political power as well as economic, and Mecca became the center of a loose confederation of client tribes, which included those of the Banu Tamim. Other forces such as the Abyssinian, Ghassan, and Lakhm were in decline, and Meccan influence was the primary binding force in Arabia in the late 6th century.[24]
Muhammad
Main articles: Muhammad, Conquest of Mecca, and Muhammad in Mecca
Muhammad was born in Mecca in August[26] 570, and thus Islam has been inextricably linked with Mecca ever since. Muhammad was born in a minor faction, the Hashemites, of the ruling Quraysh tribe. Islamic tradition states that he began receiving divine revelations here in 610 AD, and began to preach monotheism against Meccan animism. After enduring persecution for 13 years, Muhammad emigrated (see Hijra) in 622 with his followers to Yathrib (later called Medina). The conflict between the Quraysh and the Muslims, however, continued: the two fought in the Battle of Badr, where Muslims defeated the Quraysh outside Medina; whilst the Meccans overcame the Muslims at the Battle of Uhud. Overall, however, Meccan efforts to annihilate Islam were unsuccessful, and during the Battle of the Trench in 627, the combined armies of Arabia were unable to defeat Muhammad.[27]
The Ottoman Empire, including MeccaIn 628, Muhammad and his followers peacefully marched to Mecca, attempting to enter the city for pilgrimage. Instead, however, both Muslims and Meccans entered into the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, whereby Muslims and Quraysh would cease fighting and Muslims would be allowed into the city the following year. Two years later the Quraysh violated the truce, but instead of continuing their fight, the city of Mecca shortly surrendered to Muhammad, who declared amnesty for the inhabitants and gave generous gifts to the leading Quraysh. Mecca was cleansed of all its idols and cult images in the Kaaba. Muhammad declared Mecca as the holiest site in Islam ordaining it as the center of Muslim pilgrimage, one of the faith's five pillars. Despite his conquest, however, Muhammad chose to return to Medina, leaving behind Attab bin Usaid to govern the city. Muhammad's other activities in Arabia led to the unification of the peninsula, putting an end to the wars that had disrupted life in the city for so long.[27][20]
Muhammad died in 632, but with the sense of unity that he had passed on to the Arabians, Islam began a rapid expansion, and within the next few hundred years stretched from North Africa well into Asia. As the Islamic Empire grew, Mecca continued to attract pilgrims not just from Arabia, but now from all across the Empire, as Muslims sought to perform the annual Hajj.
Mecca also attracted a year-round population of scholars, pious Muslims who wished to live close to the Kaaba, and local inhabitants who served the pilgrims. Due to the difficulty and expense of the Hajj, pilgrims arrived by boat at Jeddah, and came overland, or joined the annual caravans from Syria or Iraq.
Medieval and pre-modern times
The First Saudi State, Including MeccaMecca was never the capital of any of the Caliphates including the Ottoman Empire. Muslim rulers did, however, contribute to its upkeep. During the reign of Umar and Uthman Ibn Affan, concerns of flooding caused the caliphs to bring in Christian engineers to build barrages in the high-lying quarters, and also to construct dykes and embankments to protect the area round the Kaaba.[20]
In Islamic history, Muhammad's emigration to Medina established the city as the first capital of the nation. When the Umayyad Caliphate took power they moved the capital to Damascus, Syria, and then the Abbasid Caliphate moved the capital to Baghdad, Iraq. The center of the Islamic Empire remained at Baghdad for nearly 500 years, and flourished into a center of research and commerce. In the 13th century, the Mongols invaded Baghdad and sacked the city. This event was one of the most detested events in Islamic history. Soon after the Battle of Baghdad, the Mongols rampaged west and conquered Syria. The next city to quickly emerge as the center of power in the Islamic state was Cairo, in Egypt. When the Ottoman Empire came into prominence the capital was moved to Constantinople. However, Mecca remained a prominent trading center. Pilgrims arriving for the Hajj often financed their journey by bringing goods to sell in the Meccan markets, and acquiring goods there which they could sell when they returned home.[28]
Mecca re-entered Islamic political history briefly when it was held by Abd-Allah ibn al-Zubayr, an early Muslim who opposed the Umayyad caliphs. The Caliph Yazid I besieged Mecca in 683.[29]
Thereafter the city figured little in politics, it was a city of devotion and scholarship. For centuries it was governed by the Hashemite Sharifs of Mecca.
In 930, Mecca was attacked and sacked by Qarmatians, a millenarian Ismaili Muslim sect led by Abu Tahir Al-Jannabi and centered in eastern Arabia.[30] The Black Death pandemic hit Mecca in 1349.[31] In 1517, the Sharif of Mecca, Barakat bin Muhammed, acknowledged the supremacy of the Ottoman Caliph, but maintained a great degree of local autonomy.[32]
Mecca in 1850The city was captured in 1802 by the First Saudi State (also known as Wahhabis[citation needed]), and the Saudis held Mecca until 1813[citation needed]. This was a massive blow to the prestige of the Ottoman Empire, who had exercised sovereignty over the holy cities since 1517, and the lethargic Ottomans were finally moved to action. The task of bringing Mecca back under Ottoman control was assigned to their powerful viceroy of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha,[33] who successfully returned Mecca following the victory at Mecca in 1813. In 1818, the Wahhabis were again defeated, but some of the Al Saud clan lived on to found the Second Saudi State that lasted until 1891, and later the present Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia
In June 1916, During the Arab Revolt, the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali revolted against the Ottoman Empire from Mecca and it was the first city captured by his forces following Battle of Mecca (1916). Sharif Hussein declared a new state, Kingdom of Hejaz, and declared Mecca as the capital of the new kingdom. Following the Battle of Mecca (1924), the Sharif of Mecca was overthrown by the Saudis, and Mecca was incorporated into Saudi Arabia.[7]
View of Mecca 1910On November 20, 1979 two hundred armed Islamist dissidents led by Saudi preacher Juhayman al-Otaibi seized the Grand Mosque. They claimed that the Saudi royal family no longer represented pure Islam and that the mosque, and the Kaaba, must be held by those of the true faith. The rebels seized tens of thousands of pilgrims as hostages and barricaded themselves in the mosque. The siege lasted two weeks, and resulted in several hundred deaths and significant damage to the shrine, especially the Safa-Marwa gallery. While it was the Pakistani forces that carried out the bloodless assault, they were assisted with weapons and planning by a small team of advisors from The French GIGN commando unit.[34]
On July 31, 1987, during an anti-US demonstration by pilgrims, 402 people were killed (275 Iranian pilgrims, 85 Saudis [including policemen], and 45 pilgrims from other countries) and 649 wounded (303 Iranian pilgrims, 145 Saudis [including policemen] and 201 pilgrims from other countries) after the Saudi police opened fire against the unarmed demonstrators.
Geography
Mecca's skyline, 2008
The Zamzam well was once an important source of fresh water. Today it serves pilgrims who visit the Grand Mosque.Mecca is at an elevation of 277 m (910 ft) above sea level, and approximately 50 mi (80 km) inland from the Red Sea.[22] The city is situated between mountains, which has defined the contemporary expansion of the city. The city centers on the Masjid al-Haram area, whose altitude is lower than most of the city. The area around the mosque comprises the old city. The main avenues are Al-Mudda'ah and Sūq al-Layl to the north of the mosque, and As-Sūg Assaghīr to the south. As the Saudis expanded the Grand Mosque in the center of the city, where there were once hundreds of houses are now replaced with wide avenues and city squares. Traditional homes are built of local rock and are generally two to three stories. The total area of Mecca metro today stands over 1,200 km2 (460 sq mi).[35]
Central Mecca lies in a corridor between mountains, which is often called the "hollow of Mecca." Mecca's location was also important for trade, and it was the stop for important trade routes.[20]
In pre-modern Mecca, the city exploited a few chief sources of water. The first were local wells, such as the Zamzam Well, that produced generally brackish water. The second source was the spring of Ayn Zubayda. The sources of this spring are the mountains of J̲abal Saʿd (Jabal Sa'd) and Jabal Kabkāb, which lie a few kilometers east of Ḏj̲abal ʿArafa (Djabal 'Arafa) or about 20 km (12 mi) east southeast of Mecca. Water was transported from it using underground channels. A very sporadic third source was rainfall which was stored by the people in small reservoirs or cisterns. The rainfall, as scant as it is, also presents the threat of flooding and has been a danger since earliest times. According to Al-Kurdī, there had been 89 historic floods by 1965, including several in the Saudi period. In the last century the most severe one occurred in 1942. Since then, dams have been constructed to ameliorate the problem.[36]
The Carnation Revolution (Portuguese, Revolução dos Cravos) was an almost bloodless, left-leaning, military-led revolution started on April 25, 1974, in Lisbon, Portugal, that effectively changed the Portuguese regime from an authoritarian dictatorship to a liberal democracy after a two-year process of a Left-wing semi-military administration. Although government forces killed four people before surrendering, the revolution was unusual in that the revolutionaries did not use direct violence to achieve their goals. The population, holding red carnations, convinced the regime soldiers not to resist. The soldiers readily swapped their bullets for flowers. It was the end of the Estado Novo, the longest authoritarian regime in Western Europe (but not the last to fall; Francisco Franco ruled Spain until 1975).
(Wikipedia)
Location: Ludford Bridge, Ludlow, Shropshire, England, UK.
Ludford Bridge gained notoriety in 1459 when it was the epicentre of the Battle of Ludford Bridge, One of the early battles, and in this instance largely bloodless, of the "War of the Roses", which resulted in a short lived triumph for the Lancastrians.
Thank you for visiting - your faves and comments are all very much appreciated.
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And when she pulls you down into bloodless dawn
into passion's black and broken song
I will tend the fire, and scatter your bones.
Illicit sounds,
from all and sundry,
Sinister jousts,
from all and enemy,
Denouement; bloodless melancholia.
Something I was trying out and turned out so well, I decided to leave it as is and post it!
Pose by Bauhaus Movement - Frequency Shift 08 @ Current TLC round
~!dM Wicca outfit~ Memento Mori gacha - Jan 2017
!dM Wicca - LARA armStraps **GOLD**
!dM Wicca - LARA harnessBelts **GOLD**
!dM Wicca - LARA harnessChest **GOLD**
!dM Wicca - LARA panties **GOLD**
!dM Wicca - LARA silkCloak & small Hood **BLACK/SILVER** RARE (part of the RARE box)
(outfit consists of 3 separate boxes)
Not wearing the skirt from the RARE set, only the Cloak & Hood
!Head Desk! Cilla (2016 Advent Calendar Gift!)
*PROMAGIC* Haya-Pasties-Gold (gacha)
.:Soul:. Open Heart Earring @ The Coven event
Cae :: Lovestruck :: Bracelet @ Current Gacha Garden Event
Fangs [Thirst::Bloodlines] 4.2 (Part of the Thirst HUD)
L'Emporio ::*Margorie*:: Necklace @ Vampire Heart 2017 Event
L'Emporio ::*Margorie*:: Shoes- Maitreya (part of L'Emporio Dress) @ Vampire Heart 2017 Event
Maitreya Mesh Body - Lara V3.5
Slink Avatar Enhancement Hands V2.5
[AK] Mesh Head Eretica Vers. 1.4
LoveCats shape Goth Lilith skin sz med (modified to fit AK head)
:[P]: Plastik - Bloodless Eyes:// Golden (part of the 55 Linden Friday skin 2/10/17) from :[P]:- Constus Skin (UNI):// Caramel:Tarus
~EVE Background Items~
E.V.E Frosted Hearts Red M1 & Black M2 @ Shop Your Heart Out Event
E.V.E Ivy Bonsai {Red Blood} @ We <3 Roleplay
E.V.E Dream Ribbon Silver (gacha)
E.V.E MOON Snow on Branches Winter Bush Black Chrome
E.V.E WHISPERS Hearts Addon {Gold} @ TLC
E.V.E DYSTOPIA Stage Grass M01Glow
Windlight used:
[TORS] Horror - bloody moon
Also using Lumalite Pro for the additional lighting
© Photo by Tasos Tsoukalas
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e-mail : t.tsoukalas1978@yahoo.com
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In 1803 after years of battles against Ali Pasha, the people of Souli cleaved by his treacherous actions, were forced to capitulate and agreed to abandon the historic Souli under the key term of a smooth and bloodless walkout.
Therefore, people of Souli were divided into three groups, one of which headed to Zalogo in order to settle there according to the agreement.
Ali Pasha, instead of keeping what was agreed upon, attacked them fiercely at Zalogo sending numerous armed forces and demanding the surrender of their weapons and their tranfer to Ioannina.
The consequences were tragic for the brave people of Souli. One part of them broke through the noose and were saved. Another fled to the monastery of Saint Taxiarchis where they were captivated. A group of about sixty women along with their children, in order to avoid the disgrace, resorted to the edge of a cliff called .
When the Turks approached the women preferred a glorious death over slavery and disgrace. They held one another hand in hand and started dancing.
''Then , having pushed their children downwards into the chaotic abyss, they jumped off the steep rocks and died, along with their beloved children. Undefiled! Free!''
This conduct of the women of Souli is not only admirable but also unique.
The muse praised their heroic death:
Farewell poor world,
Farewel sweet life,
And you, miserable homeland,
Farewell forever
A fish doesn't live on land,
not the flower in the sand,
And the women of Souli can't live
Without freedom!
model: Ava
Young and creepy girl wearing a riding hat and holding a crop while she sits on a chair that rests on a pile of human skulls.
Europe, Portugal, Lisboa, Baixa, Praça dos Restauradores, Calçada da Glória, Elevador da Glóra (uncut)
It's time to kick-off the new Portgugal series - I will first show you some images of the first leg of our voyage which brought us to.... Lisboa. I will return to the Tour de France 2015 mini-series later.
Displayed here is the Elevador da Glória, during the blue hour. Graffiti can rarely be taken only at face value and in this case the name Mr Luto (= Mr Mourning) and the favela (= slum) gave us a pretty good idea were the street artist was 'hinting' at.
Our interpretation was influenced by the massive June 6 demonstration on the Avenida d Liberdade that we had seen the same afternoon. It was about the social injustice that was bestowed upon the country after it had been financially 'bailed out' by the ECB/IMF. The neo-conservative program that went with that has cut deep in society's social and economic fabric and can be compared with the program were the Greek voted about last Sunday. Although it was less drastic. It involved the selling of national assets (privatization of for instance the national airport organization ANA (it was sold to Vinci Airports) and a drastic worsening of the social security arrangements (lowering of wages and pensions for instance).
During the demonstration one of the commonly heard slogans was "Abril de novo, com a força do povo" (= We need another April 25 (=the bloodless carnation revolution that ended the Salazar dictatorship in 1974) by the power of the people). An urgent and heartfelt call.
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This Elevador da Glória is one of the three old funiculars in service, enabling the public mount the steepest hill of downtown Lisbon in a relaxed way. The Glória connects the Restauradores Square to the S. Pedro de Alcantara belvedere in the Bairro Alto (literally: high quarter) quarter. It's 265 metres long and the average incline is 18%.
The elevadores are one of the icons of Lisboa and are operated by Carris, the company which operates the busses and trams (eléctricos) in Lisboa.
About the funicular rail system:
The funicular comprises two tram style carriages, running on rails, one of which moves up and the other down simultaneously, linked by a steel cable. The system can be comparaed with an elevator in a building - the car and the counterweight that move in opposed directions are balanced. So the only thing the elevator engine has to do is set the system into motion and overcome the friction of it (and the difference between the weight of the car with passengers and the counterweight).
In the funicular da Glória there is no central engine though and the counterweight is formed by a carriage. Each carriage has twin electrical motors (total power of one carriage 50 HP). This propulsion system is called "twin traction".
The first incarnation of the funicular in the late 19th century was propelled by gravity - water was pumped in a tank of a funicular carriage after it had arrived at the top station of the line and it was released again after it had reached the bottom. The water was pumped back to the top station after that. `
Elevador da Glória (1) is here
Elevador da Glória (2) is here
Elevador da Glória (3) is here
Elevador da Glória (4) is here
Elevador da Glória (5) is here
Elevador da Glória (6) is here.
Elevador da Glória (7) is here
Elevador da Glória (8) is here
Elevador da Bica (1) here
Elevador da Bica (2) here
Elevador da Bica (3) here
Elevador da Bica (4) here
Elevador da Bica (5) here
Elevador da Bica (6) here
Elevador do Lavra (1) here
Elevador do Lavra (2) here
Elevador do Lavra (3) here
Elevador de Santa Justa (1) here
Elevador de Santa Justa (2) here
# 104 of the Lisboa & Outra banda album.
“i watched the living soldiers
pass by the dead
at the roadside
without a glance,
and the dead looked scarcely human.
they resembled wax mannequins
thrown from a show window,
lying about in grotesque,
inhuman postures,
arms pointing towards the sky,
legs frozen
as though they were running.
their faces were bloodless,
waxy white.
the clean, cold air
carried no taint of decomposition.
but sometimes
the wind brought us a whiff of acrid cordite smoke
and the soot of a burnt village.”
“Tanks and Cannons Standing Starkly in the Snow,”
by Larry Lesueur
reprinted in "Reporting World War II"
(Part One) American Journalism 1938-1944
Don't miss the beautiful pale golden color of the middle horse. These lovely animals are anciently native to The Camargue--the huge wetlands area between the two arms of the Rhône Delta. The "Camarguais" horses are the traditional mounts of Camargue "cowboys" who manage the Carmargue Bulls. The bulls are used in the "Course Camarguaise" a type of bloodless bull fighting done in southern France. Location: The Camargue, Rhône Delta, southern France.
NOTE: This photo is one of my "golden oldies," taken 15 years ago with an early digital camera that had a tiny sensor (2 megapixels, 17.2 mm2): the Konica Minolta Dimage X. Are you sure you need a big-sensor camera for photos you post on the internet?
In my album: Dan's Animals.
One of the reasons I went to the coast this past week was to try and capture the Blood Moon Monday night. Set the alarm for 3:15am and saw nothing but clouds, this was a practice shot from the night before... Oh well, next shot is October 8th and I've got almost 5,000 other shots to look thru! :-))
While enjoying an after dinner bica on the quay terrace of the fine Ponto Final restaurant in Cacilhas (Almada) we saw the sky turn red and the sun approaching the April 25 bridge. I envisaged the 'ultimate' graphic sweet spot for it and waited for it to happen after ordering another round of bicas. This is the result . Behind the bridge is Lisbon - Belém and the harbour.
The next day we would be aboard the high speed ‘Alfa Pendular’ train, taking us over the bridge and on to Faro and the Sotavento.
The April 25 bridge is the last bridge before the Tejo reaches the Atlantic ocean.
It took the New Yorker Steel International Inc and its co-contractors 4 years to build this suspension bridge at a cost of 32 million US dollars. It shares quit a lot of design characteristics with the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. It was inaugurated in 1966 as the 'Salazar Bridge', named after the dictator who had it built. It was later renamed to commemorate the bloodless 'Carnation Revolution' that happened on the 25th of April 1974.
It has two decks. On the top 5 lane deck the car, busses and lorries pass and on the lower deck the trains do. From the outset the bridge was designed to carry a railway on the lower deck. In summer 1999 the lower railway deck was ready for use after major preparatory works which included the fitting of additional cables and the widening of the roadway to six lanes, as well as re-painting of the bridge. Due to the xtra weight the bridge sank some centimetres. The "retro-fit" of the railway track was the largest such project undertaken on a bridge in the world. By the way: the initial Golden Gate plans were for a two deck bridge too, but the due to cost and engineering considerations it was changed to single deck design.
The reason there are so much years before the work on the railway retrofitting started:
-Traffic congestion getting worse – it took commuters sometimes 1,5 h to cross the Tejo. By 1996 the bridge was absorbing, with increasing difficulty, 137,000 vehicles a day, carrying 50,134,000 passengers per annum
-Government funding and public choice – priority was given to other projects
-Discussion about a separate railway bridge - time was spend discussing the alternative – a high capacity dedicated railway bridge with a better integration in the regional railway and subway network. The Seixal and Amada municipalities opted for this. Still, in 2005, it is common to see queues on either side and across the bridge, despite the relief afforded by the construction of the Vasco da Gama road bridge further upstream. The building of a new railway bridge is again contemplated.
Best viewed: LARGE
The Winter Palace (part of the Hermitage) in the city of Saint Petersburg with Palace Square and Alexander Column in the foreground, Saint Petersburg,, Russia
Some background information:
The Winter Palace is a palace and museum of art and culture in the city of Saint Petersburg. It is part of the Hermitage and situated between Palace Embankment and Palace Square. Today the Hermitage is the second-largest art museum in the world. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display, comprise over three million items,, including the largest collection of paintings in the world. Apart from the Winter Palace, the Menshikov Palace, the Museum of Porcelain, a storage facility at Staraya Derevnya, and the eastern wing of the General Staff Building are also part of the museum. Of the six buildings in the main museum complex, five – namely the Winter Palace, the Small Hermitage, the Old Hermitage, the New Hermitage and the Hermitage Theatre – are open to the public.
Today’s palace is adjacent to the site of Tsar Peter the Great's original Winter Palace. The present and fourth Winter Palace was built and altered almost continuously between the late 1730s and 1837, when it was severely damaged by fire and immediately rebuilt. The storming of the palace in the Russian February Revolution of 1917, as depicted in Soviet paintings and Sergei Eisenstein's 1927 film October, became an iconic symbol of the Soviet Union.
The palace was constructed on a monumental scale that was intended to reflect the might and power of Imperial Russia. From the palace, the Tsar ruled over 22,400,000 square kilometres (8,600,000 square miles) and hence, over almost 1/6 of the earth's landmass) by the end of the 19th century. The green-and-white palace was designed by many architects, most notably Bartolomeo Rastrelli, in what came to be known as the Elizabethan Baroque style. It has the shape of an elongated rectangle, and its principal façade is 215 metres (705 feet) long and 30 m (98 feet) high. The Winter Palace has also been calculated to contain 1,786 doors, 1,945 windows, 1,500 rooms and 117 staircases.
The first Winter Palace, built between 1711 and 1712 on behalf of Tsar Peter the Great, was a modest building of two main floors under a slate roof. It was named Winter Palace, because it was intended to be Peter’s residence in the winters, in marked contrast to his summer residence Petehof Palace. As Peter soon became tired of the first building, its second version was already erected as from 1721. But it was still very modest compared to royal palaces in other European capitals. It was here that Peter the Great died in 1725.
After Peter’s grandson Peter II had become Tsar, the palace was greatly enlarged and redesigned by the Swiss-Italian architect Domenico Trezzini between 1727 and 1728. Trezzini expanded the existing Winter Palace to such an extent that the second palace became merely one of the two terminating pavilions of the new and third Winter Palace. Like the second, the third palace was built in the Petrine Baroque style. But shortly after it was completed, the Imperial Court left Saint Petersburg for Moscow, and the Winter Palace lost its status as the principal imperial residence.
The new Empress Anna, who reigned from 1730 to 1740, cared more for Saint Petersburg than her immediate predecessors. She re-established the Imperial court at the Winter Palace and, in 1732, Saint Petersburg again officially replaced Moscow as Russia's capital, a position it was to hold until 1918. In 1741, the infant Tsar Ivan VI, succeeding Anna in 1740, was soon deposed in a bloodless coup d'état by Grand Duchess Elizabeth, a daughter of Peter the Great. During her reign, Bartolomeo Rastrelli devised an entirely new scheme in 1753, on a colossal scale: the present Winter Palace.
The expedited completion of the palace became a matter of honour to the Empress, who regarded the palace as a symbol of national prestige. Work on the building continued throughout the year, even in the severest months of the winter. By 1759, shortly before Elizabeth's death, a Winter Palace truly worthy of the name was nearing completion.
In 1762, following a coup d'état, in which her husband was murdered,, Catherine the Great, paraded her seven-year-old son, Paul, on the Winter Palace's balcony to an excited crowd below. But she was not presenting her son as the new and rightful ruler of Russia, as that honour she was usurping herself. Tsarina Catharine soon commissioned the palace to be further enlarged and transformed. She was also responsible for the three large adjoining palaces, known collectively as the Hermitage – the name by which the entire complex, including the Winter Palace, was to become known 150 years later.
The interior of the Hermitage wing was intended to be a simple contrast to that of the Winter Palace. Indeed, it is said that the concept of the Hermitage as a retreat was suggested to Catherine by that advocate of the simple life, Jean Jacques Rousseau. In reality, it was another large palace in itself, connected to the main palace by a series of covered walkways and heated courtyards in which flew rare exotic birds. But Catherine also acquired several extensive art collections, among them the collections of Horace Walpole and John Lyde-Brown. As the Winter Palace filled with art, it more and more overflowed into the Hermitage.
After the death of Catherine the Great in 1796, the Hermitage became a private treasure house of the Tsars, who continued collecting, albeit not on the scale of Catherine the Great. In 1850, an important collection from the Republic of Venice was brought into the Winter Palace. It was Tsar Nicholas I, who vastly expanded and transformed Catherine’s Large Hermitage Building into a purpose-built public art gallery. After eleven years of building, the first art museum in Russia, the Imperial Hermitage Museum, opened on 5th February 1852.
The last Tsar to truly reside in the palace was Alexander II, who ruled from 1855 to 1881, when he was assassinated. Following his death, the Winter Palace was never truly inhabited again. From that point on, the Imperial Family resided at the Anichkov Palace when being in Saint Petersburg. However, the Winter Palace was still used for official functions.
In 1894, Nicholas II was enthroned. History has shown that he was the last Tsar of Imperial Russia. On 22nd January 1905, an incident took place that became known as the Bloody Sunday massacre. During a demonstration march of workers towards the Winter Palace, about 1,000 women, men and children were killed or injured by shooting tsaristic troops. This massacre was the catalyst of the Russian Revolution of 1905, which led to constitutional reform, including the establishment of the Russian legislative assembly State Duma.
During the Russian February Revolution of 1917, in which Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate, the Russian Provisional Government, led by Alexander Kerensky, based itself in the northwest corner of the Winter Palace. However, most of the state rooms were occupied by a military hospital. It was to be just a short occupation of both palace and power. By 25th October 1917, the provisional government was failing and, realising the palace was a target for the more militant Bolsheviks, ordered its defence. It barricaded itself in the palace, assisted by a few remaining loyal servants, who had formerly served the Tsar.
In a state of siege, the Winter Palace entered the most turbulent period in its history. Five thousand sailors newly arrived from Kronstadt were deployed to attack the palace, while the cruiser Aurora positioned itself on the Neva, all its guns targeted at the Winter Palace. Across the water, the Bolsheviks captured the Peter and Paul Fortress and also turned its artillery towards the besieged building. Inside the palace the provisional government, now impotent, was nervously surveying the scenes outside.
At 7:00 pm, the Government held its last meeting in the Malachite Room, with the telephone and all contact with the outside world disconnected. A short debate determined that they would not leave the palace to attempt dialogue with the hostile crowds outside. With the palace completely surrounded and sealed, the Aurora began her bombardment of the great Neva façade as the Government refused an ultimatum to surrender. Further machine gun and light artillery fire were directed at the palace as the Bolsheviks gained entry via His Majesty's own staircase. In the ensuing battle there were casualties on both sides until the Bolsheviks finally, by 2:00 am, had control of the palace.
Leaving a trail of destruction, they searched room after room before arresting the Provisional Government in Small Dining Room of the private apartments, from where they were taken to imprisonment in the fortress across the river. Kerensky managed to evade arrest and escape to Pskov, where he rallied some loyal troops for an attempt to retake the capital. His troops were able to capture Tsarskoe Selo, but were beaten the next day at Pulkovo.
The Winter Palace was now a redundant and damaged building symbolic of a despised regime, facing an uncertain future. Howevern, on 30th October 1917, the palace was declared to be part of the Hermitage public museums. This first exhibition to be held in the Winter Palace concerned the history of the revolution, and the public were able to view the private rooms of the Imperial Family.
Following the Revolution, there was a policy of removing all Imperial emblems from the palace, including those on the stonework, plaster-work and iron work. After the Siege of Leningrad which lasted from 1941 to 1944, when the palace was damaged, a restoration policy was enacted, which has fully restored the palace. Furthermore, as the Russian Government does not categorically shun remnants of the Imperial Era as was the case during Soviet rule, the palace has since also had the emblems of the Romanovs restored. The Winter Palace is no longer the hub of a great empire, and the Romanovs no longer reside there, but the crowned Russian eagle serves again as a reminder of the palace's Imperial history. Today, as part of one of the world's best known museums, the Winter Palace attracts an annual 3.5 million visitors.
The Technocrats' Magazine / one-shot
[Technocracy was a progressive engineering movement founded by Howard Scott and Walter Rautenstrauch and centered at Columbia University School of Engineering]
> A Bloodless Revolution
Cover: Norman Saunders
Reprint: Comic-Club NK 2010
ex libris MTP
I have seen him. He is kept in a cage in Jackson, Mississippi, next to the Old State Capitol, which was built twenty years before the Civil War. You can see him in these photographs. He is steely gray with the bloodlessness of all heartless men.
www.flickr.com/photos/benledbetter-architect/31149135237/...
When I got close to photograph him, he stared at me with a cold hatred. He knew who I was. I was glad he was in the cage.
The cage is in an odd little house that sits directly in front of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. The message of this house is clear. It is the Confederacy’s reign of terror that Mississippi wants to remember. Or, as Faulkner put it, the past is never dead. It’s not even past.
I grew up in Mississippi. Like many who share my heritage, the deep racism of the place tore at me then, and tears at me still. (I am not naïve, though. I live in Connecticut now, where the same hatreds and fears abide. They are just not quite so much in evidence here. Maybe as some have said the difference in numbers gives we yankees a false sense of security. It’s a reasonable point.)
We are a troubled, and troubling, land.
Since its "official" formation in 2020, the international community has had few opportunities to observe the Songun People's Army (SPA) in actual "hot" conflicts. The relatively bloodless incursion into Mongolia during the fall of 2015 saw the successful overthrow of the democratically-elected and pre-western government. However, this operation was conducted almost completely by Chinese troops controlled by Beijing, with only cursory liaison officers from the other nationalities in the Songun union representing their own governments. Select special operations forces and "little green men" were deployed in very limited number to support Yugoslav and other pro-communist partisans in the Second Eastern European War, but the vast majority of Hanoi's massive military structure stayed home in their barracks. Ironically, the last time either the Chinese or Vietnamese armies fought a large-scale conflict was against one another in the late 1970s. Thus, the main body of the SPA remains untested to this day, despite Hanoi's willingness to deploy their ground and naval forces worldwide to back up friendly regimes.
In these photos released from an SPA training event, Songun infantry dismount from a ZFB-07 scout car and practice clearing a number of decrepit buildings. Until a section of the simmering cold war goes hot, glimpses of exercises like this will remain all we have regarding the secretive nature of the Songun People's Army.
---
Another joint upload with Matt, showing off our SPA troops. And huge props to Magnus for letting us borrow his larger MLS dio for a few minutes!
Carte de visite by Robert W. Addis of Washington, D.C. The 11th Rhode Island Infantry spent the majority of its enlistment in the Defenses of Washington holding the western portion of the line against possible enemy attack. One of its officers is pictured here: Capt. Edward Taft of Company F. Born and raised in Providence, Taft, he served for a three-month stint in the 1st Rhode Island Infantry from June to August 1861. Commanded by Col. Ambrose E. Burnside, the Rhode Islanders participated in the First Battle of Bull Run.
A year later, Taft returned to the army with the 11th for a nine-month tour in the relative safety of the nation's capital. A regimental historian put their service as nine months' men into a context that gave men and officers a reason to feel good about their bloodless duties:
"They were in one sense emergency men, and in another sense they were really the reserve of the great armies. That there was an emergency, and a great and critical emergency, in the affairs of the country at the close of the summer of 1862, hardly needs assertion. It goes without saying. The defeated but still unconquered Army of the Potomac had lost immensely in men and material, and, more than all, it had lost its prestige, and nothing tangible or visible in the way of success had been accomplished. The credit of the country had been strained, as it seemed, to its utmost capacity. General McClellan was losing the marvelous confidence the country had reposed in him. Lee, flushed with apparent success, was moving northward and threatening our capital and its northern and western connections."
The historian continued: "It became a vital question whether timely enlistments could be made for three years so as to recruit the shattered regiments in the field to meet Lee's advancing columns and still provide for the safety of Washington; a matter of paramount political and military necessity. Under these circumstances time was of equal value with money. These nine months' volunteers could as well man the defences of Washington, until they were fitted for service in the field, as those who had undergone the active campaigns of the peninsula and elsewhere, and who were still in the field. The one great demand was to strengthen the two armies in Virginia, now practically united again as the Army of the Potomac, never, in all time, to be known by any other name, and not only prevent Lee from marching northward, but drive him back again within the defences of Richmond."
The 11th served its time and returned to Rhode Island. Taft went on to become a wholesale liquor dealer and died in 1905 at age 65. He outlived his wife and one child and was survived by two daughters.
He is posed here wearing a stylish overcoat and mud-spattered pants and boots with spurs.
I encourage you to use this image for educational purposes only. However, please ask for permission.
Day Twelve:
You're right. I know you're sitting there, possibly standing, maybe even laying down, but you're all thinking the same. No blood. How can someone be that hacked off that they don't bleed? Do you want to know my secret? I don't bleed my own blood.
I do, however, bleed everyone else's. That is why some of you are laying down now. In a pool of all your bodily fluids, because when one is out, they're all out. Fear does magnificent things to a person, and it happens in a very messy way.
But don't fear. Or rather. Do. All the fears. But take comfort in the knowledge that this is it. There is nothing more but the great beyond. I'm sure you can see it in the distance. A far-off dark place in a reflectionless void. Cold. Unfeeling. Just like me.
So let us go.
Wearing:
Skin & Body Parts:
:*:CPD:*: Lady Nosferatu Ear Bloodless - (from MP)
<<>> Silent eyes - RUST
Enfant---Daisy_W2 Base_teeth
Slink Hands (Elegant 1) & Feet (Flat)
Makeup:
*Milk* Lace Neck Tattoo White (tinted)
[:ME:] Naomi's EyeShadow (Lined Neutral)
Folly - Tintable Glaze - Labyrinth - Free @ Folly!
Hair:
ILLMATIC :: Frenchie - Chestnut[Female](Forward)
#adored - ka-pow lashes (nose attach) tinted
::.Flugeln Brise.::Eyelash01 (Free!)
Clothes:
! [DeVicious] Wolfsbane (Gold Panty & Bra) (tinted)
!! Silk Worms !! Bondmaid Boom Dress Brown
ieQED skuld.cage.flat.brown.left (Gacha Item)
Jewelry & Accessories:
*Sweet Kajira*Salima copper earrings (Gacha Item)
DRD fingerclaws (tinted)
Noodles - Clara Arm Chain Silver (tinted)
!! Silk Worms !! Da Buzz Collar Common Bronze (Gacha Item)
.:ellabella:. Rondure - Silver & Pearl (Gacha Item)
::Silk Worms:: Gatcha Bracer salmon (Gacha Item)
[geek.] Ludo Horns -Brown- 1
[Keystone] Bru'ella - Copper / Common (Gacha Item)
BALACLAVA!! Leaves Ear Cuff (morning) (tinted)
Hands are around my neck and I'm barely concious. I can feel nails on my neck, knees in the gravel, fists on chests. Are you proud of what you've done? The emotion drains my veins and I'm numb, bloodless. I can't stand. I can't stand- without- air- I- can't-
breathe anymore
The water is like comfort; it's lifeless vitality surging around me, swallowing me, accepting me. 'Oh, Ophelia,' they said, but they didn't know. Don't pity me. No sadness, just acceptance. They drove me here, with their endless... endless-
there's a darkness. Like a tunnel. I could see the light at the end and it's been switched off. Never again will I put you in control of the lights. I gave you that once before but when you were bored of brightening my world you switched them all off. Not just the brightest, but all of them. Consumed by the darkness. Alone. Frightened. Did you -
of course you knew. How could you? I want to scream this in your face. I want to grab you by the shirt, my hands balling into fists, one against your heart. I want to screw up my face in anger and make you see what you've done. Until now you've only laughed. Melodramatic. A child. Just a child.
But it was too much too young. Yes a child. But no longer naive.
The water. I'm safe in the water.
I can breathe better there. Maybe I was a fish in a past life. Maybe I never spoke, which accounts for the endless words now. Words. Words like viruses; infecting me, infecting you. Pulsing through my bloodstream, I want to- scream, I think.
Bob - bob - bob
my mouth mouths the words but they never come out. What must muteness be like? Look at me, I'm screaming for attention but nobody can hear. I wouldn't like that. I can understand that too much.
Don't let it get to you.
Don't let it get to you.
Let go. Let it go. Forget it. Just forget.
I wish it were a switch. A memory I could trigger at a time to suit. Breathe. For now, you're safe.
A little darker than I'd intended, but you get the idea.
So much to do.
Exactly four years after Adolph Louwens, Allard Aldringa, Johan Conders and Gerhard Swarte - 'Consules' of the 'Senatus populusque Groninganus' - put down the 'foundation stone' of the Nieuwe Kerk of Groningen, the Reverend Johannes Martinus (1603-1665) gave its inaugural sermon on June 7, 1664. The Nieuwe Kerk was the first church building in Groningen designed specifically for the 'new' reformed religion which replaced Catholicism in 1594 (after the so-called 'Reduction' - relatively bloodless - which brought Groningen into the orbit of the Union of Utrecht, forerunner of present-day The Netherlands).
This majestic building was 'erected, consecrated and dedicated' in the New Churchyard, which replaced the older one in the inner city. It was initially used especially for the victims of the plague which devastated Groningen in 1656. In that terrible Summer, Johannes Martinus had had to bury his wife, Eelkjen Geerts, his sons Gerhardus, Georgius and Johannes, and his sister-in-law who lived with them. He never swayed, though, from his duties. A prolific writer of theological books and pamphlets, a member of many church councils, a patron of orphans, a corrector of the printing errors in the new edition of the Bible in Dutch ('Statenbijbel'), he had noted how important it was for sound theology to have at hand a good Concordance of Holy Writ. To this end he enlisted his son-in-law, theologian Abraham Trommius (1633-1719); together they worked on that massive project. Trommius completed it 1685-1692, long after Martinus's death. It's been a highly useful book down through the centuries, and I myself as many earlier before the advent of computer searches have often consulted the sombre black tome.
But today on this bright afternoon no place for dire thoughts of death; only for commemoration of the feats of past citizens of Groningen, and gratefulness for the Blue Sky! and, Look! The shrubbery is greening already!
The Tacoma Urban Sketchers invited our Seattle Urban Sketcher group down to attend this years Festival of Sail with them. It was a fun outing. We settled in on the opposite bank of the harbor so we had a bit of distance between ourselves and the ships instead of being right on top of them and in the midst of crowds of people. That worked nicely.
I am afraid I don't know the name of this vessel for certain, but I think it is the Hawaiian Chieftan, a steel hull vessel built around 1988. If this is her, and by the Blue design on the hull I think she may be, then in 1993 she joined the Lady Washington in San Francisco Bay where they held a mock battle. Don't ask me why...I am not aware of there ever having been a sea battle between Hawaiian vessels and the US, although the Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown by the US, first by local businessman and then made official by the US Gov't. It was a bloodless takeover. So perhaps this mock battle was just pretend and not a re-enactment?
The two vessels have since made nice with each other and work together for sail training and education.
This little fact is completely non-sequitor, but the Hokulea, the Polynesian twin hulled voyaging canoe, just returned to Hawaii after an epic, 3 year voyage around the globe. The amazing thing is the only navigation they used was what was available to the Polynesian people when they migrated in their twin hulled canoes to the Hawaiian Islands, eventually to populate them. Think of that feat! They sailed around the globe using no technology, just their senses to read the stars and sun and moon, currents, clouds, etc. And that is what the crew of the Hokulea did as well. This was a 40,000 mile voyage. Check it out on the web. It is an amazing feat and something all the participants can be immensely proud of.
This is one my favourite beaches near Oporto, if you ever plan a trip here, makes sure you don't miss it (especially recommend a natural salt swimming pool that was created over the rocks, on the beach, it's really unique!)
Technical info:
In this shot I increased the tonal contrast and used masks to do different level adjustments depending on the area (increased the light at the bottom and darkened the top to enhance the clouds' texture - an effect similar to the use of a graduated neutral density filter)
Exposure 0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture f/7.1
Lens18 mm
ISO Speed 200
Since its "official" formation in 2020, the international community has had few opportunities to observe the Songun People's Army (SPA) in actual "hot" conflicts. The relatively bloodless incursion into Mongolia during the fall of 2015 saw the successful overthrow of the democratically-elected and pre-western government. However, this operation was conducted almost completely by Chinese troops controlled by Beijing, with only cursory liaison officers from the other nationalities in the Songun union representing their own governments. Select special operations forces and "little green men" were deployed in very limited number to support Yugoslav and other pro-communist partisans in the Second Eastern European War, but the vast majority of Hanoi's massive military structure stayed home in their barracks. Ironically, the last time either the Chinese or Vietnamese armies fought a large-scale conflict was against one another in the late 1970s. Thus, the main body of the SPA remains untested to this day, despite Hanoi's willingness to deploy their ground and naval forces worldwide to back up friendly regimes.
In these photos released from an SPA training event, Songun infantry dismount from a ZFB-07 scout car and practice clearing a number of decrepit buildings. Until a section of the simmering cold war goes hot, glimpses of exercises like this will remain all we have regarding the secretive nature of the Songun People's Army.
---
Another joint upload with Matt, showing off our SPA troops. And huge props to Magnus for letting us borrow his larger MLS dio for a few minutes!
Fairfax, Maine had celebrated what would become the standardized Halloween holiday since 1925. Back in the day, it had made the wise transition from tolerating youths engaged in vandalism and arson, to promoting wholesome events the the entire town could enjoy. Through all the naysayers that disliked the macabre themes, the costumes and exchange of sweets persisted, and the community overall took pride in the festivities.
For the past five Halloweens, Roger had not known that sensation. Where Christmas or Thanksgiving could be spent indoors with close relatives, Halloween most certainly, intrinsically needed a touch of rebellion, a smidge of boldness.
For the past five Halloweens, no parade. Roger remembered he really liked it when he was younger; probably wouldn’t be the same anymore, but it was nevertheless a missing piece to the season.
For the past five Halloweens, fewer and fewer people felt like decorating their lawns and street corners. There were certainly taller fences around the lawns, though, and every few street corners there was a police officer. Fairfax, still contending with an influx of meta-human crime, would have its Halloween, in some shape or form. Roger stood by that same sentiment. In fact, the envelope, he felt, could be pushed a little more.
He leans off the Kings’ front gate as Chris finally hops out the door, checking his costume.
Roger inspects the ensemble. “From this, I’m getting… medieval C.H.U.D?”
Chris’ head jerks up from his last button. “Frankenstein. Frankenstein’s monster. He’s not medieval, he’s… one of those ‘-ian’ eras.”
“Still, you’re carrying a… sword.”
“The Creature definitely survived the Arctic at the end. And he was definitely smart enough to start using a weapon. He disliked guns, right? So.”
Roger scoffs. “Man, if you could go back and learn that the author said Frankenstein wields a sword in a potential sequel, I’d give you all my candy tonight.”
He glances over his shoulder, also back at the door. “You told your parents you’re staying at whose house?”
Chris winces. “‘Vic’s’.”
Roger does a double-take at his friend. “‘Vic’!?”
“Hey they asked me before I even had a name ready in my head, and it just sorta... Don’t worry Roger, they don’t even know Vicki, and won’t think about it twice.”
“Yeah… okay,” Roger groans. “We’ve got an hour and forty-five to get stocked. Then I get you and the others past ‘security’… Old guy on the end of my street still has a hole in his backyard fence, straight to the park. Then, the farm out to the east-“
“You’re eerily familiar with this,” Chris chuckles.
“Roger!”
The boys, almost onto the sidewalk, spin around at the sound of Mrs. King’s voice.
“Your parents can still make it over tonight? I’ve got more food than I know what to do with.” She smiles.
“Will-do Mrs. K, just as soon as my dad’s off work!”
She nods. “Chris, don’t stay out later than nine, and stay in Vic’s house until the morning.”
Roger sees Chris begin to protest, when Mrs. King adds on, “For your father, please.”
“Yes, Mom.”
She retreats inside and they resume their walk through the quietest streets Fairfax had seen on Halloween to date.
“My folks are really glad yours are back, Chris. I don’t think I knew, when we were little, how it was… that they lost good friends too…”
Chris’ eyes snap out of a glaze. “Mm.”
“How’s Gary? Does he remember any friends from here? You could’ve invited him along too, you know; it’d have gone cool with me.”
“Ha, no,” Chris says dismissively. “That bookworm doesn’t care about sneaking out, or having any adventures. Or candy. Imagine that. Thirteen, and doesn’t like candy.”
Glinda rounds a corner in front of them, and Chris points. “Ah, I get it… ‘cause, Glinda, and she’s a witch…”
“Hey guys! Isn’t this dress smart?” She fluffs some of the hair under the brim of her pointed hat. “I found a matching bag too!”
“That’s… rad,” Roger almost yawns. “Vicki was supposed to be be here with you. She’s your sleepover alibi.”
“Behind schedule,” Glinda hums. “Said she needed more time for an outfit and, I quote, she ‘could track down those two delinquents, and their secret hideout, blindfolded’, so she said go on ahead.”
“You’ll keep up with us? You’re not going to get all antsy?” Roger inquires.
“You’re not scaring me tonight, Roger Dunbar.”
“Sure, sure. But if you do get cold feet, just remember there’s no place like home, and click your heels.”
“That’s the strangest idiom you’ve ever come up with,” Glinda declares, waving her wand at him.
Roger once again becomes flustered. “It’s not an idi-“
“I’d actually just as soon wait for Vicki,” Chris interrupts. “We still have time to stay around her house and trick-or-treat, before we head off. You DID say we’d all stick together.”
Roger flips down the black mask that had been resting in his hair and points a finger at Chris. “‘I am ALtering the dealll.”
Chris fails to hide the growing dimples on his cheeks, and he nods. “Okay, I’ll give you that one.”
Glinda wrinkles her nose. “Why’d you make your voice all deep?”
“You have GOT to watch movies.”
***
“I’m already late, so it’s no big deal if I’m MORE late,” Vicki offers. “You change your mind?”
Frannie Nash keeps fiddling with the straps of her backpack. “Don’t have a costume.”
“The boys can shove their costumes. Just bring you. … they’re not a bad group.”
“I won’t have fun,” Frannie states. Her voice didn’t raise at all. It wasn’t even an argument.
Vicki sighs. “I wouldn’t force you to go. Just don’t want you to think I’m picking favorites.”
Frannie tucked in her neck. “You’re not, I know.”
They were just about to cover the last of the park’s turf and cross the street to Frannie’s house, and before the crosswalk went green, Vicki wanted to be sure things were squared away.
“Then that’s the end of it. I won’t bring that stuff up, okay? I trust you with your own judgements.”
“Thanks Vicki-“
Someone leaps straight through the shrub on Vicki’s right before the pair of girls reach the corner. She and the apparent prankster stumble onto their knees and palms in the sod, with a startled Frannie a split-second away from taking off.
“Why don’t you watch it, you-!“
Vicki sees him face-on just for a moment, as he was already pulling himself up without an apology nor an indication he had succeeded in some deliberate bit of tomfoolery. He was terrified. The boy she saw every recess, walking alone outside of school, had undeniable panic written into his features.
Frannie backs up as he stands and continues his flight by successfully vaulting a bench this time. “I… I have to go Vicki. See you…”
“Frannie…” Vicki starts. She blinks away the spinning in her head from the collision, and brushes off her sleeves as Frannie scurries the last stretch of her way home. Vicki scans for the boy again, inadvertently kicking something with a muddied high-top. His… sketch pad?
She recovers it, and finds herself flipping through heavily-worn pages. The same figure drawn over and over, but in various poses, each running into the next like a meticulous comic. Vicki catches herself.
“Stop being a busybody and go after him. He’s going to miss this.”
She’s stopped again from picking up his trail, but this time, for a very different reason. She can just make out a another face, situated between some trees that Frannie and she had passed before their encounter with the boy. It had the strangest quality to it; Vicki was looking directly at it, but felt as though its attributes were in a distant memory, hazy and indistinguishable. She shook her head and tried again to focus on whoever it was, but the same ambiguity suffocated her perception. Was the face… glowing? Was it attached to a body?
“Definitely time to go home,” Vicki affirmed to herself. “I’ll find the boy tomorrow.”
She dashed off of park property, purposely jaywalking in the hopes of getting one of the officers stationed all over to notice, in case the face was following her. But there was no one to be seen, anywhere. Not even lights in houses, despite the sun being on the horizon. At the top of her lungs Vicki hollered for anyone at all to come out, but to her ears, nothing but a whisper escaped her.
Now she ran without thinking. The two remaining blocks to her house flew by. Sheer fright kept her from devoting energy to anything but her legs. It was only once she was gripping the iron work on her home’s front gate that her thoughts caught up with her. What if the thing stopped chasing her and targeted Frannie instead? Was it even a good idea to go inside? This had to be a dream… except, she could remember the entire day…
Vicki swung open the gate, but the metal hinges didn’t creak like they had for years and years. The latch didn’t even feel right. She hurried past the trees whose branches were being tossed in a wind she failed to feel in her hair or jacket. She felt as though she were on the verge of nausea. Coming to a halt at her stoop, Vicki realized her neighbor’s dog was in its yard. She almost cried at the sight of something not out of place, until it turned its snout down between its forelegs and howled, long and plaintive. She’d never seen a dog do that, not in that way.
Her knuckles were gripped over the banister, bloodless and frigid. The face was off to the side of her yard, wavering, its specific characteristics still not discernible.
“You should find the boy,” it spoke to Vicki.
“What do you want?!” Vicki begged.
“Maybe he can help you,” was all it suggested.
“You’re doing this! Get away or-!”
“Find your friend and this can stop. I do not think you will be safe, otherwise.”
Vicki drew a breath, and dared two steps back towards the gate. The face made no move to intercept her. So she took off once more. She had to find him. Her mind was starved for something, anything normal.
***
Glinda takes a moment and again studies the imposing cornstalks encircling her and her friends. They shift as one and rustle in the breeze. There were no glimmering fangs or gnarled claws to be seen waiting impatiently within the wall of husks. She allows herself another exhale and returns to Roger and Chris, sorting their earnings for the night.
“Another cherry one, Chris. Trade me.”
“It’s your loss, but here,” Chris accepts, chucking a small packet from his own bucket.
“Not a loss at all,” Roger says, catching it. “Cherry ones always taste like the cough syrup.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“You hurt me physically, Chris. But y’know what..?”
Roger passes two unwarranted candy bars towards Chris. The largest ones he had.
“Whoa, how’d I earn these?”
“For not being a square, even with a cop for a dad. Honestly I thought you might not sneak out here tonight.”
Chris rocks back and snorts. “Pshaw! I’ve been WAITING to do this kind of stuff again. It was no fun when we moved to the city. Hey Glinda, you should get one of these too.”
Glinda takes the candy. “Thanks… Roger, why did you think Chris wouldn’t come? Didn’t you say you both did this all the time when you were little?”
“He means specifically here. Because it’s a crim-” Chris begins with a mouthful of licorice, before Roger gives him a wide-eyed look.
“‘Because’..?” Glinda probes. “Because what? Roger…”
She watches the boy expectantly. Chris, between the two, pulls his wig down over his face.
“It’s nothing Glinda; inside-joke we have,” Roger brushes it off.
Glinda is unfazed.
Roger caves in. “It’s uh… may be, in a way, possibly, an off-limits zone? Right now?”
She continues drilling a hole through him with her eyes.
“Because of a shady investigation dealing with radiation?”
“WHAT?”
“That was really smooth, Chris,” Roger moans. “Really smooth.”
“You weren’t going to say anything before you lead me out to a creepy field that might be mutating us into sludge-monsters as we speak? Roger Dunbar I’m…”
“Glinda, chill! Chris’ dad was actually on the scene; he said no one there had any side-effects!”
Chris adds, “They didn’t find any, with the screening processes they used. There’s actual a few ways they didn’t try, Dad said-“
Roger’s face goes red. “Chris, I swear, you’re one syllable away from getting duct-taped… the next time I have some.”
“We should’ve gone back so long ago anyway!” Glinda protests. “I let you ditch Vicki, and then I find out… Oh, I want to leave!”
“If Vicki is still on her way here, then we can’t go now!” Roger reasons.
“Guys, I…” Chris perks up. “That was something out there I just heard…”
“Don’t you start!” Glinda sniffs. “You think it’s so funny, trying to razz me with dumb-“
“No, I’m REALLY serious. There shouldn’t be any caretakers out here.”
“… Would they have kept investigators out this late?” Roger asks, now in a hushed tone.
Glinda backs into to the adjacent barrier of corn. “I want to go now.”
Roger scoops up his helmet. “Yeah. Forget the candy.”
The three kids inch away, eyes locked on the thicket whence the noises are carrying. Glinda whips out a Polaroid camera from her robes as Roger and Chris come up alongside her.
“What are you doing with that?” Roger hisses.
“Maybe we can blind whoever it is, long enough for us to escape. I… I thought I would take pictures, mostly if Vicki got here, to show off…”
“You can’t share where we were at school, Glinda! If you brag about this, who knows which of your friends would blab-“
“I won’t NOW!” Glinda seethes, nearly giving away their position. “Why’d I have to choose you two to spend Halloween with? Of all the pea-brained…”
She trails off, and Chris lets out an unintentional squeak. Something bipedal, bullet-shaped and dripping lurches out of the greenery. It gives a caw like that of a sickly crow, and clumsily scoots one of the discarded containers of candy around with the entirety of its bulky upper-half.
“We… say… nothing,” Roger murmurs.
“Yep.”
“Mhm.”
The new arrival seems preoccupied with an Almond Joy; enough, to not to notice the trio, even when Roger’s lightsaber prop slips from his belt loop and lands noisily in a puddle. Glinda’s heart almost stops. Chris motions fervently.
“Maybe it can’t hear, c’mon…”
Just as the kids are mere feet from circling around to another row of crops, the clouds part slightly to reveal an ominous full moon. Glinda’s sequined clothes are illuminated a vivid sapphire, contrasting the murky landscape. What must have been the monster’s head wobbles upright, wrappers lodged in its lumpy skin. A string of slick globes lines its underbelly. At the top, two more are side by side; these ones luminescent and, without a doubt, lidded. The thing produces an unearthly trill, and hurls itself bodily after the reflection.
The kids scream at the charging abomination. Chris pushes Glinda and Roger ahead of him into the leaves, then sidesteps a rubbery appendage lashing through the vegetation. Glinda sees him cowering as the attacker rips away more of their means of cover. She tries to make herself pivot, but her knees lock.
“I can’t. I have to. I can’t. He’s going to get-“
The flailing beast slams the ground, settling Glinda’s dilemma for her as she is flung backward in a wave of wet earth. It spots her again, with the unobstructed moon still transforming her into a beacon. Glinda lays frozen in the muck, with the hideous shape tramping ever closer. A hundred thoughts try to enter her mind, only to be extinguished to making way for a hundred more. She didn’t remember what she last said to Vicki. The last thing she HAD said to her parents had been a lie. Did Roger know…
Roger was yards away, dust in his vision. Their eyes meet. Glinda’s internal shouts pounded in her head like the tide.
“He can’t leave. Please don’t. Please.”
But from her lips, different words sprung: “RUN! JUST RUN!”
Roger looks to Chris now, but his friend is sprawled out, breathing hoarsely with his arms tangled over his face. Glinda watches, dumbstruck, as Roger snags a shredded portion of Chris’ cape and flings it over the monster’s peaked scalp, then tries weighing down one of its squirming tentacles with his entire bodyweight, hanging from it like it were a jungle gym. All the while Roger yells like a madman, perhaps more astonished by his initiative than Glinda herself.
He only holds on for so long. The greenish brute hurls Roger up and into some yet-undisturbed stalks, which luckily cushion him enough to save him from landing directly on his neck. Before it can also remove its crude blindfold, one of the growths on its torso bursts. It squawks hellishly, turning too late to counter a limber figure’s flying kick in its side. Rescuer and beast impact the ground so hard that Glinda bounces back to her feet only due in part to her own power. The kids’ defender stands up, slapping away a tentacle and driving a knee into his foe. Glinda and Roger race to Chris’ side, trying to keep track of the fight at the same time.
Their relief is quickly dispelled. The man who intervened observes the kids through the hollow eyes of an angular mask. One hand tightens into a fist. The other points beyond the valley, back towards Fairfax’s residential area. An electronic roar reverberates from his slitted mouthpiece.
“Oorrrrrr elllssee… yooouuuu neexttt”
Glinda and Roger made the decision nonverbally. Even Chris, barely conscious, was able to find his bearings. They ran.
***
Vicki could feel her pulse in her ears. She had scoured the park, the outlying properties of Fairfax and was well into the “wilderness” by now. No indications of the boy having come this way, nor had there been anyone to help her. Whatever was following her, it had to be… concealing everyone from her, and vice versa. It could have been messing with the time too; Vicki felt she could have been searching for half a day, easily, except the sun had been setting all the while. She pauses. Immediately, she could tell the being with an indefinite form was upon her.
“You need to find him.”
“HOW,” Vicki said between gasps, “can I, if you’re changing everything? He could’ve been-“
“I am not altering your perceptions now; we are away from… distractors. Please, continue.”
Vicki remembers Glinda and the others. They would be out this way, if she was right in thinking that Roger was daring them to visit that laboratory… something about an incident had been on the news, days ago. If there were any chance of running into them on this path, Vicki knew she had to divert. As much as she wanted to see them again, not be alone… she couldn’t drag them into this.
“There’s nothing out this way. Not any place he could be hiding,” she lies.
“There must be,” it retorts. Vicki hears emotion this time. It’s growing irritated. “It”… sounded female.
Vicki could hardly stand it anymore. “If you know Fairfax why can’t YOU find him yourself?!”
“You. Will not. Be safe,” the voice reminds her.
“There’s… there’s an abandoned mine to the south!” Vicki recollects in a moment of clarity.
“Show me.”
The trek ensues. Now, Vicki does not feel as though she is in limbo; her exertions are actually tiring, and the air finally begins to cool. She nears the mine, ready to collapse, trying to ignore her blistering soles. She had thought for years that she might be the single person in Fairfax to know of this location, but if the boy had proven to be so elusive, it stood to reason he had also found such a place. If he wasn’t here… Vicki was prepared to challenge her captor to do their worst; her stamina was all but gone.
“Check the the left passage,” Vicki rasped, flopping an arm at the overgrown wooden frames nestled in a shallow hill. “The other one is caved in just a few yards in. … hey… Hey, are you there?”
There is not but a symphony of crickets to answer her. The world, for the first time in what may have been an eternity only to her, seemed tangible. No less sinister, however.
She is given no chance to call again. A wrist and a shoulder hoist her from under the arms straight up into a tree. Her stomach is further upset, her queasiness making her question what she sees: Athletic-looking boots with a sheen from accumulated dew, pounding up the trunk, are the means by which she is being whisked away. She and the gravity-defier tip onto a sturdy branch just at the apex of their jump. They steady one another on the small beam. It’s the boy.
“What in the NAME of-“
“How did you get here?” the boy demands sharply.
“You THREW me up here!” Vicki wails shakily.
“I did no such- I mean ‘here,’ as in, the mine!”
She reveals the boy’s dropped book and thrusts it at him. “Take this thing, and get me down! I don’t want anything else to do with you… you meta-maniacs!”
“You didn’t… you led someone else here?” He grabs her shoulder and looks over his own. The forest is… quiet. Expect for a soft, rhythmic whooshing, maybe of an owl. Also a metallic clatter of equal pitch.
The boy plunges off the vantage point instantly, covering Vicki’s mouth. The tree fragments like kindling above them. The boy lands light as a feather despite their velocity, and deposits Vicki in a dry gulley.
“Do NOT come out until I lose them again, or they get me and have left.”
“What?!”
He takes out his returned sketchpad and effortlessly outlines more figures in an action sequence. Vicki watches his hand become imperceptible as it flies over the page. Then he pockets it and front-flips back to the regular forest floor. Vicki clambers a short ways up the embankment only to duck again as clods of dirt, from another violent impact, rain down. The boy has confronted a giant of a man, who is reeling in a ball and chain from a newly-formed crater. The links each had the circumference of a football, and the weighted end, not much smaller than a disco ball. The villain hefts them back to him as if they were paper mâché.
“Enough dodgeball, kid. You didn’t make bail,” he rumbles through a latticed visor. The ends of the chain jostle at his heels.
Then “she” materializes between Vicki’s hiding spot and the boy. The face from before now belongs to a body, sinewy and swirling with the entire color spectrum. Her white hair behaves almost like the rays shooting off her skin. The boy doesn’t wait for them to get any closer; he dives at a medium-sized tree, and propels himself a second time off its bough, aiming for the man with the chain. The trunk snaps off from his kick and begins to fall on the shining woman, but she flicks two fingers at it, and it dissipates into a swarm of bats.
The boy has evaded yet another flailing chain, nimbly taking a few steps on it as its length rockets beneath him. He executes a roundhouse kick for the man’s head, but to Vicki’s shock, the villain doesn’t budge, and boy’s ankle twists. He flops unto a grass patch and screams; the blades have become real blades, courtesy of the woman. Vicki’s seen enough.
“Go to hell!” she bellows, pitching a rock from the ditch with her might. It cracks the woman on the spine, and at once she slumps to one knee. Vicki realizes that a piece of the woman has actually chipped off. The shard lay there, losing its multitude of hues.
“Glass…”
The large man scrambles to his accomplice’s side. Vicki equips another rock, when sirens can suddenly be discerned. She thought she might have even heard dogs. The man lifts up Vicki’s tormentor and starts to flee, which she resists.
“The boy has to be dealt with. And her, too” Vicki overhears her wheeze.
“He IS dealt with, and the girl’s left with the mess. We’re done here.”
He turns to Vicki briefly as he exits, repeating himself with a snarl. “We’re DONE here. I’m warning you now: Don’t get caught up in this.”
Vicki flips him off as he barrels away with the woman. She then crouches at the boy’s side. He’s clutching in vain at countless puncture wounds in his belly and ribs.
“Lie still. There’s a patrol coming, and they can help you.” In truth, Vicki didn’t know that. She had no idea how serious his injuries were.
The boy seems to only now be aware of the sirens, as well as blue and red flashes breaking through the leaves. He sits up and pitifully hugs her shoulder.
“It’s okay,” she reassures.
“I can’t afford to bet that they’re really police. And neither c-augh, can you,” he coughs.
“What?” She feels on her shoulder that he’s holding one torn-out sheet from his book. In the darkness she can just see there are two distinct figures drawn on it, not the same one over and over like before. They were falling.
“I haven’t done this before, so I’ll understand you wanting to kill me after.”
“What are you-“
He throws himself a short distance upward, then pulls Vicki with him straight through the ground.
DO NOT SPARE YOURSELF
by Mario Benedetti
translated by Maria Popova
Don’t stand motionless
by the side of the road
don’t petrify your joy
don’t desire with reserve
do not spare yourself now
or ever
do not spare yourself
don’t fill up on tranquility
don’t claim from the world
only a quiet corner
don’t let your eyelids fall
heavy as judgments
don’t remain lipless
don’t fall asleep unready to dream
don’t think yourself bloodless
don’t deem yourself out of time
but if
in spite of it all you can’t help it
and petrify your joy
and desire with reserve
and spare yourself now
and fill up on tranquility
and claim from the world
only a quiet corner
and let your eyelids fall
heavy as judgments
and remain lipless
and fall asleep unready to dream
and think yourself bloodless
and deem yourself out of time
and stand motionless
on the side of the road
and you have been spared
then
do not stay with me.
I apologize for not having posted anything in the last days, please accept this work as redemption.
friends anyway?
just kidding :)
About this image:
Handheld HDR from 3 exposures +2 /0/-2
Nikon D7000
Nikkor 18-105 VR
Photomatix
Some time in photoshop and a bit of salt!
Ponte 25 de Abril
The 25th of April Bridge, also known as Bridge over the Tagus (Ponte sobre o Tejo), was inaugurated in 1966 with the name 'Salazar Bridge', the dictator who had it built. It was later renamed to commemorate the 'Carnation Revolution' that happened on the 25th of April 1974. This was a day of "bloodless revolution." In the Carnation Revolution, the soldiers placed carnations in the muzzles of their rifles as they led the revolt against the world's longest dictatorship.
This suspension bridge is very similar in appearance to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. It is 2.278km long and leaves Lisbon at high level above Alcântara and makes landfall at Almada on the southern bank of the river.
Particularly busy during weekends, traffic jams can be avoided by taking the recently-built Vasco da Gama bridge or leaving your car on a parking lot and taking the train that passes on the under side of the bridge since 1999.
On the Almada side you will be able to see the towering monument of Cristo Rei, similar to the Redentor in Brazil, overlooking the Tagus. If you wish to go there, a lift will take you up 82m to the top of the pedestal, offering excellent views of the city and the river.
text from: www.strawberryworld-lisbon.com/lisbon/places/ponte-abril....
thanks for passing by
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click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;
clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;
Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind
www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...
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"U sciccareddu", from the Sicilian "the little donkey", is a pyrotechnical-animal mask, once present in many village feasts in the Messina area, today it is found only in a limited number of centers, among these is the town of Casalvecchio Siculo , a small town in the hinterland in which there is another animal figure, that of the "camiddu", in Sicilian "camel", and of his camel driver (see a photographic story of mine made earlier in this regard). The feast of the "sciccareddu-little donkey" sees a young man of the village wearing a metal supporting structure, on which takes place a whole series of fireworks: this represents with no little imagination the donkey (this year it was the "Camel driver" of the "camiddu-camel"feast which is always celebrated in Casalvecchio); the young man who carries this metal castle on himself, protects himself abundantly from pyrotechnic fires, which form "crazy wheels" in correspondence with the "four limbs", pyrotechnic fires that involve symbolic-ritual suggestions of ambiguous meaning, is the life against death, the light against darkness, the fear and the desire to challenge it, without ever forgetting the horrifying-ancestral aspect of the "beast", which represents the dark unknown evil, which always hovers over people's lives. There are those who have hypothesized that this asinello-monstrous-orrify is a very meek animal too, once very common and omnipresent in the Sicilian districts, so that the fears that it could generate are simultaneously suppressed by being a well-known animal and very meek.
This "sciccareddu-little donkey" with its load of pyrotechnic-crazy fires-bengal fires, and other crackling devilries, challenges and is challenged by all present, young and old coming also from far away, there is who looks but remaining well sheltered, many others instead challenge him, as in a bloodless bullfight, where some unlucky person can receive a few small burns (like myself, who found himself with some small burns in his legs, and a lens-protection filter, it was almost melted-burned in several points, now useless, but withe the lens without problems.....! :o)) .......).
“u sciccareddu”, dal siciliano “l’asinello”, è una maschera pirotecnica-animalesca, un tempo presente in molte feste paesane del territorio messinese, oggi la si ritrova solo in un numero limitato di centri, tra questi il paese di Casalvecchio Siculo, piccolo centro dell’entroterra nel quale si trova un’altra figura animalesca, quella del “camiddu”, in siciliano “cammello”, e del suo cammelliere (vedi un mio racconto fotografico fatto in precedenza in merito). La festa dello “sciccareddu-asinello” vede un giovane del paese indossare una struttura portante in metallo, sulla quale prende posto tutta una serie di giochi pirotecnici: questo rappresenta con non poca fantasia l’asinello (quest’anno a dargli vita è stato il “cammelliere” della festa del “camiddu-cammello” che si festeggia sempre a Casalvecchio); il giovane che porta su di se tale castello in metallo, si protegge abbondantemente dai fuochi pirotecnici, che formano delle “ruote pazze” in corrispondenza dei “quattro arti”, fuochi pirotecnici che comportano suggestioni simbolico-rituali dal significato ambiguo, è a vita contro la morte, la luce contro le tenebre, la paura e la voglia di sfidarla, senza mai dimenticare l’aspetto orrifico-ancestrale della “bestia”, che rappresenta l’oscuro ignoto male, che aleggia sempre sulla vita delle persone. C’è chi ha ipotizzato che tale asinello-mostruoso-orrifico è pur sempre un animale molto docile, un tempo comunissimo e onnipresente nelle contrade siciliane, per cui le paure che esso potrebbe generare sono contemporaneamente soppresse dall’essere un animale ben conosciuto ed in definitiva molto docile.
Tale “sciccareddu-asinello” col suo carico di fuochi pirotecnici-girandole pazze-bengala, ed altre diavolerie scoppiettanti, sfida e viene sfidato da tutti i presenti, giovani e meno giovani provenienti anche da lontano, c’è che vuole assitere rimanendo però bene al riparo, molti altri invece lo sfidano, come in una corrida incruenta, dove qualche malcapitato può rimediare qualche piccola bruciatura (come il sottoscritto, che si è ritrovato con qualche piccola bruciatura alle gambe, ed un filtro proteggi-obiettivo che, me ne accorsi successivamente, era quasi fuso-bruciato in più punti, oramai inservibile, con l’obiettivo però salvo….! :o)) …).
Cuaresma Exhibit 2011
San Agustin Church
"O all ye that pass by the way attend, and see if there be any sorrow like so my sorrow."---Lam. i. 12
O YE who pass along the way
All joyous, where with grief I pine,
In pity pause awhile, and say,
Was ever sorrow like to mine?
See, hanging here before my eyes,
This body, bloodless, bruis'd, and torn,---
Alas! it is my Son Who dies,
Of love deserving, not of scorn.
For know, this weak and dying Man
Is Son of Him Who made the earth
And me, before the world began,
He chose to give Him human birth.
He is my God! and since that night
When first I saw His infant grace,
My soul has feasted on the light,
The beauty of that heavenly face.
For He had chosen me to be
The lov'd companion of His heart;
And ah I how that dear company
With love transpierc'd me like a dart!
And now behold this loving Son
Is dying in a woe so great,
The very stones are moved to moan
In sorrow at His piteous state.
Where'er His failing eyes are bent,
A friend to help He seeks in vain
All, all on vengeance are intent,
And eager to increase His pain.
Eternal Father! God of love!
Behold Thy Son! ah! see His woe!
Canst Thou look down from Heaven above
And for Thy Son no pity show?
But, no-----that Father sees His Son
Cloth'd with the sins of guilty men;
And spares not that Beloved One,
Though dying on His cross of pain.
My Son! my Son! could I at least
Console Thee in this hour of death,
Could I but lay Thee on my breast.
And there receive Thy parting breath!
Alas! no comfort I impart;
Nay, rather this my vain regret
But rends still more Thy loving heart
And makes Thy death more bitter yet.
Ah, loving souls! love, love that God
Who all inflamed with love expires;
On thee this life He has bestowed;
Thy love is all that He desires.
Czechoslovakian postcard by Nákladem K & P, Praha, no. c. 600, 1930. Photo: Millenium-Film-Elekta-Journal. Scene from the historical film Svatý Václav/ St. Wenceslas (Jan S. Kolár, 1930), starring Zdenek Stepánek as St. Wenceslaus, Duke of Bohemia. Here, the German actress Dagny Servaes as Wenceslaus' mother Dragomira. Caption: The thane Skeř (Josef Loskot) with Princess Drahomira (Dagny Servaes).
Plot: The beginning of the film is set in pagan Bohemia. The Přemyslid duke Bořivoj and his wife Ludmila are baptized by the missionary Methodius. When hunting, their son Vratislav meets a pagan girl, Drahomíra, and, after she is baptized, he marries her. First, their son Wenceslas (Václav) is born, then Boleslav. Wenceslas is raised by his grandmother, Ludmila, in the spirit of Christianity, culture, and humanity. Since his childhood, he has felt that his view of the meaning of life is very different from what he sees in the pagan surroundings. Radmila, a daughter of a significant thane, Skeř, falls in love with Wenceslas, but he doesn’t return her love, because he has decided to dedicate his life to God. After Vratislav dies, Ludmila and Drahomíra start fighting for the throne. Wenceslas ascends the throne, but the plotter Skeř incites Boleslav, Drahomíra, and Radslav, Duke of Zlič, to oppose Ludmila and Wenceslas. Instead of a violent fight, Wenceslas challenges Radslav to a duel which ends with Radslav being subjugated. Warlike Boleslav refuses this bloodless solution, behaving in the same way later, in the battle with German troops.
Meanwhile, Ludmila is killed at the suggestion of Skeř and Drahomíra, and, therefore, Drahomíra is banished by Wenceslas. After Radslav is subjugated and Drahomíra is banished, Skeř finds the last chance to gain power – Boleslav. At first, Boleslav refuses the idea of fratricide, but he gradually succumbs to it. Pretending that a chapel will be consecrated, Boleslav invites Wenceslas to his castle. He gets his company drunk in order to find Wenceslas in prayers alone in the morning. Boleslav starts a fight in the courtyard, but he is knocked down. The members of his company come in a hurry and kill the escaping Wenceslas in front of the church door. The penitent mother, Drahomíra, comes to the place of the murder, Boleslav regrets his deed, and Skeř, hit by Wenceslas’s heavenly greatness, falls from the castle ramparts, into the swamp. (Source: 2010 brochure on the film, www.vlada.cz/assets/tema/SvVaclavBooklet-verze05-_anglick...)
St. Wencesla(u)s (Czech: Svatý Václav) is a 1930 Czechoslovak historical film about Saint Wenceslas by Jan S. Kolár. It was the most expensive Czech film to date, with the largest set constructed in Europe to accommodate an all-star cast of over a hundred, together with 5,000 extras for the lavish battle scenes.
The historical background (not necessarily told in the same way in the film) is that the Bohemian nobility appointed Drahomíra Queen Regent for her son Wenceslaus, when her husband Vratislaus, Duke of Bohemia, died in 921. Yet, she had to share the government with Vratislaus' mother Ludmilla, who take care of the education of Drahomira's son Wenceslaus, heir to the throne. Claiming that the pious Ludmilla, with help of Bavarian missionaries, was turning her grandson into a monk, rather than the future ruler of Bohemia, Drahomira sent two henchmen to strangle Ludmilla to death. The next year, Bavarian troops raided the Duchy. When Wenceslaus became of age and thus became Duke in 922, he sent his mother into exile, but called her back three years after. Upon the murder of her son by his own younger brother Boleslaus in 935 (or 929) she fled the court. Wenceslaus would soon become seen as martyr and saint, and the model of the pious, vigorous king (rex justus). Despite his bad start with a fratricide, Boleslaus would rule for some 30 years, strengthen and expand the duchy and contribute to its economy.
Dagny Servaes (1894 - 1961) was a German-Austrian theatre and film actress. She reached her peak in Ernst Lubitsch' Das Weib des Pharao/The Loves of Pharaoh (1922).
© Photo by Tasos Tsoukalas
e-mail : t.tsoukalas1978@yahoo.com
In 1803 after years of battles against Ali Pasha, the people of Souli cleaved by his treacherous actions, were forced to capitulate and agreed to abandon the historic Souli under the key term of a smooth and bloodless walkout.
Therefore, people of Souli were divided into three groups, one of which headed to Zalogo in order to settle there according to the agreement.
Ali Pasha, instead of keeping what was agreed upon, attacked them fiercely at Zalogo sending numerous armed forces and demanding the surrender of their weapons and their tranfer to Ioannina.
The consequences were tragic for the brave people of Souli. One part of them broke through the noose and were saved. Another fled to the monastery of Saint Taxiarchis where they were captivated. A group of about sixty women along with their children, in order to avoid the disgrace, resorted to the edge of a cliff called .
When the Turks approached the women preferred a glorious death over slavery and disgrace. They held one another hand in hand and started dancing.
''Then , having pushed their children downwards into the chaotic abyss, they jumped off the steep rocks and died, along with their beloved children. Undefiled! Free!''
This conduct of the women of Souli is not only admirable but also unique.
The muse praised their heroic death:
Farewell poor world,
Farewel sweet life,
And you, miserable homeland,
Farewell forever
A fish doesn't live on land,
not the flower in the sand,
And the women of Souli can't live
Without freedom!
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. . . Today is 2 weeks post-op my total knee replacement, and tomorrow I finally get to leave the house! No photo walks just yet, it's for my post-op evaluation.
A big Thank You to Porter Hills in-home Physical Therapy Department, and all my great friends and family for helping me along this path so far . . .
Have a great week Facebook and Flickr friends! For a totally bloodless non-gory animation of what a total knee looks like watch this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV6a995pyYk
Wearing:
Skin & Body Parts:
.:SB:. Stephanie's Eyes [Black] (from MP)
:*:CPD:*: Lady Nosferatu Ear Bloodless (from MP)
:::Dimbula Rose::: DOLL skin_Halloween clown (old lucky board item)
Slink Avatar Hands (Elegant 1) & Feet (Flat)
Makeup:
[mock] ICON eyeshadow in EmoBlue[liner shadow]
[mock]Clear Gloss [one size fits most]
Folly - Tatt Makeup - Lip Glitz (tinted gold) Free @ Folly!
Hair:
[LeLutka]-LILLIAN Hair - IrishRed
Amacci Hairbase Tattoo 2 - Deep Copper (free!)
Clothes:
. a i s l i n g . Tess Orty Shoes
*[MeshedUp]*_Sinem Dress & Belt
Jewelry & Accessories:
.PANIK. Fantasy Unicorns - Ciel /Gold (Gacha Item)
*N@N@*Frenchie ring Unissex
(alafolie) perles carrees doree* (earrings/necklace set)
*[MeshedUp]*_Sinem Necklace (came with dress!)
FBD Spring bracelet Prism gold Rare (Gacha Item)
MiWardrobe - Dragon-Fly - Necklace - WTSL Gift - MW
Italian postcard by NPG, no. 23. Photo: Varischi Artico & C., Milano.
Tina Di Lorenzo (1872-1930) was one of the 'grand dames' of the Italian stage during the early twentieth century, nicknamed 'Angelicata' and 'La encantadora'. In 1915 she also acted in two or three films. In 1901 she married reputed stage actor Armando Falconi, who would have a second career in Italian sound cinema.
Tina Di Lorenzo was born in Turin in 1872 from the union between a Sicilian nobleman, Marquis Corrado Di Lorenzo di Castelluccio, and the actress Amelia Colonnello. Her father was a descendant of the Marquis of Castelluccio di Noto, a noble Sicilian family, while her mother was also from a noble family and lady-in-waiting to Queen Elena of Savoy. At the age of 13, she trained in the dramatic arts in Naples and embarked on an acting career under the stage name Tina Di Lorenzo. Success came to her in 1889, at the Teatro Rossini in Naples, during a performance of 'Ruit hora' by Francesco Proto, Duke of Maddaloni, after which the press praised her great acting skills. Two years later, she was already the first actress in the Pasta company, with which she did a successful tour in Argentina. On her return, she triumphed in Italy in such plays as 'Divorziamo' by Sardou, 'La trilogia di Dorina' by Rovetta, 'Le vergine' by Praga, 'Fedora' by Sardou, etc. She searched rather for bourgeois realism than for D'Annunzian exaltation. Indeed, Di Lorenzo was seen as the anti-Duse at that time. While some thought she was only really good in bourgeois comedy, she proved to be a good dramatic actress too in plays such as Bracco's 'Maternità' and Rostand's 'La Samaritana', showing she could be more than the wholesome, modest and joyful Italian woman.
In 1897, Tina Di Lorenzo joined Flavio Andò's company for a series of highly acclaimed performances throughout Italy. They also did an extensive tour through Eastern Europe, with plays such as 'Magda', 'Adrienne Lecouvreur' and 'La dame aux camélias'. She possessed a rare beauty, a melodious voice and the manners of a great lady despite her young age: she earned the nickname 'Angelicata' from her worshippers. She was consecrated as a rising star of dramatic art and soon became one of the most sought-after actresses and sought-after by the chiefs. She toured extensively abroad, especially in Latin America. Thanks to her talent and beauty, she was nicknamed 'Encantadora' in Argentina. A friend of the "Red Count" Emanuele Bricherasio, in 1899 she became the first testimonial of the newly founded FIAT, posing on the Valentino avenues for an advertising photo, driving the "3 ½ HP" model. In 1901 she married her cousin Armando Falconi, also an actor: their love story began during a tour in Hungary, during which he defended her from the attacks of a journalist who painted Di Lorenzo in unflattering tones. Following a fortunately bloodless duel fought with pistols, Falconi prevailed and earned the love of his cousin, from whom their son Dino was born, a future writer-director. Tina Di Lorenzo was part of numerous companies, from the Stabile del Teatro Manzoni in Milan (from 1912 to 1914) where she was prima donna, to the company of Francesco Pasta and Enrico Reinach to that of Flavio Andò, reaping an extraordinary and uninterrupted series of successes.
Tina Di Lorenzo participated in only three films. All three were made in 1915 at the Ambrosio company of Turin. Twice she acted together with her husband, Armando Falconi, in La scintilla (Eleuterio Rodolfi, 1915) and La bella mamma (Eleuterio Rodolfi, 1915). She acted opposite Annibale Ninchi in La gorgona (Mario Caserini, 1915). Only IMDb mentions the latter film, but she is not listed in Vittorio Martinelli's repertory 'Il cinema muto italiano ' as being part of the cast. In her film debut La scintilla, based on a play by Alfredo Testoni, she is the naive wife of a man (Oreste Bilancia) who has a mistress, while the wife herself is courted by a young painter (Armando Falconi). When she finds out about her husband's affair she is so devastated that she almost makes a fatal misstep with the painter, but her young daughter saves the marriage and family. The press praised the performances by Di Lorenzo and Falconi but also realised this film was perhaps not made for the broad audience of cinema, lacking also the witty dialogues from the stage version. Di Lorenzo was by now a mature actress and not the young adult from the plot anymore. Yet, she remained convincing and touching, and all the pros were much more important than the cons. On the other hand, in her second film, La bella mama, in which she rivals as a mother with her daughter, played by Fernanda Negri Pouget, the press was less positive. It may have caused her to stop film acting, and focus on the stage. Di Lorenzo retired to private life in the years between 1918 and 1920, returning to the stage only once, in 1926, at the Teatro Drammatico Nazionale in Rome, for an edition of Goldoni's 'La locandiera'. She died prematurely in Milan in 1930. That same year, a street in the city of Livorno was named after her. The Municipal Administration of Noto honoured its illustrious daughter Tina Di Lorenzo by naming the city's municipal theatre after her in 2011. Angelo Fortuna dedicated an intense biography to her: 'Tina Di Lorenzo. Il fascino e l'arte della encantadora'.
Sources: Roberta Ascarelli (Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani), Vittorio Martinelli, (Il cinema muto italiano, 1915 - Vol. I and II), Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
This is one of the strangest tintypes in our collection! How can a picture of President Grover Cleveland, a man in a dress, and a man with a fake mustache and beard be related? After a number of suggestion, discussion on Facebook groups, and research in 19th century political history I think we have it figured out.
It is political satire referencing the annexation of Hawaii! President Harrison (the man with the fake beard) had Congress annex the Hawaiian islands after a 1893 bloodless revolution. The man in the dress (muumuu) represents the Queen of Hawaii, Liliuokalani. When Cleveland (the drawing on the wall) was elected he recommended that the monarchy be restored, which Congress rejected. These were the three individuals most involved in this historic event. Convoluted but I now feel correct!
Vintage Italian postcard, c. 1900s (or 1890s). CR (Compagnia Rotografica, Milan). NPG (Neue Photographische Gesellschaft). Photo by Bettini, Livorno, No. 131.
Tina Di Lorenzo (1872-1930) was one of the 'grandes dames' of the Italian stage during the early twentieth century, nicknamed Angelicata and La encantadora. In 1915 she also acted in two or three films. In 1901 she married reputed stage actor Armando Falconi, who would have a second career in Italian sound cinema.
Tina Di Lorenzo was born in Turin on 4 Dec. 1872 from the union between a Sicilian nobleman, Marquis Corrado Di Lorenzo di Castelluccio, and the actress Amelia Colonnello.
Her father was a descendant of the Marquis of Castelluccio di Noto, a noble Sicilian family, while her mother was also from a noble family and lady-in-waiting to Queen Elena of Savoy.
At the age of 13, trained in the dramatic arts in Naples, she embarked on an acting career under the stage name Tina Di Lorenzo. Success came to her in 1889, at the Teatro Rossini in Naples, during a performance of Ruit hora by Francesco Proto, Duke of Maddaloni, after which the press praised her great acting skills. Two years later, she was already first actress in the Pasta company, with which she did a successful tour in Argentina. At her return, she triumphed in Italy in such plays as Divorziamo by Sardou, La trilogia di Dorina by Rovetta, Le vergine by Praga, Fedora by Sardou, etc. searching rather for bourgeois realism than Dannunzian exaltation. Indeed, Di Lorenzo was seen as the anti-Duse at that time. While some thought she was only really good in bourgeois comedy, she proved to be a good dramatic actress too in plays such as Bracco's Maternità and Rostand's La Samaritana, showing she could be more than the wholesome, modest and joyful Italian woman.
Di Lorenzo then joined Flavio Andò's company in 1897 for a series of highly acclaimed performances throughout Italy, plus an extensive tour through Eastern Europe, with plays such as Magda, Adrienne Lecouvreur and La dame aux camélias. She possessed a rare beauty, a melodious voice and the manners of a great lady despite her young age: she earned the nickname 'Angelicata' from her worshippers. She was consecrated as a rising star of the dramatic art and soon became one of the most sought-after actresses and sought-after by the chiefs. She toured extensively abroad, especially in Latin America. Thanks to her talent and beauty, she was nicknamed Encantadora in Argentina.
A friend of the "Red Count" Emanuele Bricherasio, in 1899 she became the first testimonial of the newly founded FIAT, posing on the Valentino avenues for an advertising photo, driving the "3 ½ HP" model. n 1901 she married her cousin Armando Falconi, also an actor: their love story began during a tour in Hungary, during which he defended her from the attacks of a journalist who painted Di Lorenzo in unflattering tones. Following a fortunately bloodless duel fought with pistols, Falconi prevailed and earned the love of his cousin, from whom their son Dino was born, a future writer-director. Tina Di Lorenzo was part of numerous companies, from the Stabile del Teatro Manzoni in Milan (from 1912 to 1914) where she was prima donna, to the company of Francesco Pasta and Enrico Reinach to that of Flavio Andò, reaping an extraordinary and uninterrupted series of successes.
Tina Di Lorenzo participated in only three films, all three made in 1915 at the Ambrosio company of Turin. Twice she acted together with her husband, Falconi, in La scintilla (Eleuterio Rodolfi, 1915) and La bella mamma (1915, Rodolfi). Yet, she acted opposite Annibale Ninchi in La gorgona (1915, Mario Caserini), although it is only IMDb who mentions the latter film (in Martinelli's repertory Il cinema muto italiano she is not listed as being part of the cast). In La scintilla, based on a play by Alfredo Testoni, and the film debut of Di Lorenzo, she is the naive wife of a man (Oreste Bilancia) who has a mistress, while the wife herself is courted by a young painter (Armando Falconi). When she finds about her husband's affair she is so devastated that she almost makes a fatal misstep with the painter, but her young daughter saves the marriage and family. The press praised the performances by Di Lorenzo and Falconi but also realized this film was perhaps not made for the broad audience of cinema, lacking also the witty dialogues from the stage version. Also, Di Lorenzo was by now a mature actress and not the young adult from the plot. Yet, she remained convincing and touching, and all the pros were much more important than the cons. On the other hand, on her second film, La bella mama, in which she rivals as a mother with her daughter, played by Fernanda Negri Pouget, the press was less positive. It may have caused her to stop film acting, and focus on the stage.
Di Lorenzo retired to private life in the years between 1918 and 1920, returning to the stage only once, in 1926, at the Teatro Drammatico Nazionale in Rome, for an edition of Goldoni's La locandiera. She died prematurely in Milan on 25 March 1930. On 29 August of the same year, a street in the city of Livorno was named after her. The Municipal Administration of Noto honoured its illustrious daughter Tina Di Lorenzo by naming the city's municipal theatre after her in 2011. To her, Angelo Fortuna dedicated an intense biography entitled: Tina Di Lorenzo. Il fascino e l'arte della encantadora.
Sources: Italian Wikipedia, IMDb, Roberta Ascarelli, "Tina Di Lorenzo", in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Treccani), Vittorio Martinelli, Il cinema muto italiano, 1915 (Vol. I and II).
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"U sciccareddu", from the Sicilian "the little donkey", is a pyrotechnical-animal mask, once present in many village feasts in the Messina area, today it is found only in a limited number of centers, among these is the town of Casalvecchio Siculo , a small town in the hinterland in which there is another animal figure, that of the "camiddu", in Sicilian "camel", and of his camel driver (see a photographic story of mine made earlier in this regard). The feast of the "sciccareddu-little donkey" sees a young man of the village wearing a metal supporting structure, on which takes place a whole series of fireworks: this represents with no little imagination the donkey (this year it was the "Camel driver" of the "camiddu-camel"feast which is always celebrated in Casalvecchio); the young man who carries this metal castle on himself, protects himself abundantly from pyrotechnic fires, which form "crazy wheels" in correspondence with the "four limbs", pyrotechnic fires that involve symbolic-ritual suggestions of ambiguous meaning, is the life against death, the light against darkness, the fear and the desire to challenge it, without ever forgetting the horrifying-ancestral aspect of the "beast", which represents the dark unknown evil, which always hovers over people's lives. There are those who have hypothesized that this asinello-monstrous-orrify is a very meek animal too, once very common and omnipresent in the Sicilian districts, so that the fears that it could generate are simultaneously suppressed by being a well-known animal and very meek.
This "sciccareddu-little donkey" with its load of pyrotechnic-crazy fires-bengal fires, and other crackling devilries, challenges and is challenged by all present, young and old coming also from far away, there is who looks but remaining well sheltered, many others instead challenge him, as in a bloodless bullfight, where some unlucky person can receive a few small burns (like myself, who found himself with some small burns in his legs, and a lens-protection filter, it was almost melted-burned in several points, now useless, but withe the lens without problems.....! :o)) .......).
“u sciccareddu”, dal siciliano “l’asinello”, è una maschera pirotecnica-animalesca, un tempo presente in molte feste paesane del territorio messinese, oggi la si ritrova solo in un numero limitato di centri, tra questi il paese di Casalvecchio Siculo, piccolo centro dell’entroterra nel quale si trova un’altra figura animalesca, quella del “camiddu”, in siciliano “cammello”, e del suo cammelliere (vedi un mio racconto fotografico fatto in precedenza in merito). La festa dello “sciccareddu-asinello” vede un giovane del paese indossare una struttura portante in metallo, sulla quale prende posto tutta una serie di giochi pirotecnici: questo rappresenta con non poca fantasia l’asinello (quest’anno a dargli vita è stato il “cammelliere” della festa del “camiddu-cammello” che si festeggia sempre a Casalvecchio); il giovane che porta su di se tale castello in metallo, si protegge abbondantemente dai fuochi pirotecnici, che formano delle “ruote pazze” in corrispondenza dei “quattro arti”, fuochi pirotecnici che comportano suggestioni simbolico-rituali dal significato ambiguo, è a vita contro la morte, la luce contro le tenebre, la paura e la voglia di sfidarla, senza mai dimenticare l’aspetto orrifico-ancestrale della “bestia”, che rappresenta l’oscuro ignoto male, che aleggia sempre sulla vita delle persone. C’è chi ha ipotizzato che tale asinello-mostruoso-orrifico è pur sempre un animale molto docile, un tempo comunissimo e onnipresente nelle contrade siciliane, per cui le paure che esso potrebbe generare sono contemporaneamente soppresse dall’essere un animale ben conosciuto ed in definitiva molto docile.
Tale “sciccareddu-asinello” col suo carico di fuochi pirotecnici-girandole pazze-bengala, ed altre diavolerie scoppiettanti, sfida e viene sfidato da tutti i presenti, giovani e meno giovani provenienti anche da lontano, c’è che vuole assitere rimanendo però bene al riparo, molti altri invece lo sfidano, come in una corrida incruenta, dove qualche malcapitato può rimediare qualche piccola bruciatura (come il sottoscritto, che si è ritrovato con qualche piccola bruciatura alle gambe, ed un filtro proteggi-obiettivo che, me ne accorsi successivamente, era quasi fuso-bruciato in più punti, oramai inservibile, con l’obiettivo però salvo….! :o)) …).
Since its "official" formation in 2020, the international community has had few opportunities to observe the Songun People's Army (SPA) in actual "hot" conflicts. The relatively bloodless incursion into Mongolia during the fall of 2015 saw the successful overthrow of the democratically-elected and pre-western government. However, this operation was conducted almost completely by Chinese troops controlled by Beijing, with only cursory liaison officers from the other nationalities in the Songun union representing their own governments. Select special operations forces and "little green men" were deployed in very limited number to support Yugoslav and other pro-communist partisans in the Second Eastern European War, but the vast majority of Hanoi's massive military structure stayed home in their barracks. Ironically, the last time either the Chinese or Vietnamese armies fought a large-scale conflict was against one another in the late 1970s. Thus, the main body of the SPA remains untested to this day, despite Hanoi's willingness to deploy their ground and naval forces worldwide to back up friendly regimes.
In these photos released from an SPA training event, Songun infantry dismount from a ZFB-07 scout car and practice clearing a number of decrepit buildings. Until a section of the simmering cold war goes hot, glimpses of exercises like this will remain all we have regarding the secretive nature of the Songun People's Army.
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Another joint upload with Matt, showing off our SPA troops. And huge props to Magnus for letting us borrow his larger MLS dio for a few minutes!
Since its "official" formation in 2020, the international community has had few opportunities to observe the Songun People's Army (SPA) in actual "hot" conflicts. The relatively bloodless incursion into Mongolia during the fall of 2015 saw the successful overthrow of the democratically-elected and pre-western government. However, this operation was conducted almost completely by Chinese troops controlled by Beijing, with only cursory liaison officers from the other nationalities in the Songun union representing their own governments. Select special operations forces and "little green men" were deployed in very limited number to support Yugoslav and other pro-communist partisans in the Second Eastern European War, but the vast majority of Hanoi's massive military structure stayed home in their barracks. Ironically, the last time either the Chinese or Vietnamese armies fought a large-scale conflict was against one another in the late 1970s. Thus, the main body of the SPA remains untested to this day, despite Hanoi's willingness to deploy their ground and naval forces worldwide to back up friendly regimes.
In these photos released from an SPA training event, Songun infantry dismount from a ZFB-07 scout car and practice clearing a number of decrepit buildings. Until a section of the simmering cold war goes hot, glimpses of exercises like this will remain all we have regarding the secretive nature of the Songun People's Army.
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Another joint upload with Matt, showing off our SPA troops. And huge props to Magnus for letting us borrow his larger MLS dio for a few minutes!
Walking along the path from Pilot Hill towards Walbury Hill, the Berkshire County Top, on the left can be seen the Faccombe Estate. This is owned by Arthur Landon, son of the White Sultan of Oman, the mysterious Brigadier Tim Landon, a sort of modern day Lawrence of Arabia, who in 1970 helped to organise a bloodless coup to depose the Sultan in favour of his son and bring the country into the 20th Century. Landon then had a rich patron and was able to buy the village of Faccombe on the Hampshire/Berkshire border. On the left of the photo is a wind turbine, a new one recently installed to replace the original, which was one of the first in Britain, built to generate electricity for the 650 acre farm. Here is a link to a close up view of the turbine: www.flickr.com/photos/theparkie/8243240910/
See other photos in the first comment box.
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Qi Bo's photos on Flickr Hive Mind
www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...
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"U sciccareddu", from the Sicilian "the little donkey", is a pyrotechnical-animal mask, once present in many village feasts in the Messina area, today it is found only in a limited number of centers, among these is the town of Casalvecchio Siculo , a small town in the hinterland in which there is another animal figure, that of the "camiddu", in Sicilian "camel", and of his camel driver (see a photographic story of mine made earlier in this regard). The feast of the "sciccareddu-little donkey" sees a young man of the village wearing a metal supporting structure, on which takes place a whole series of fireworks: this represents with no little imagination the donkey (this year it was the "Camel driver" of the "camiddu-camel"feast which is always celebrated in Casalvecchio); the young man who carries this metal castle on himself, protects himself abundantly from pyrotechnic fires, which form "crazy wheels" in correspondence with the "four limbs", pyrotechnic fires that involve symbolic-ritual suggestions of ambiguous meaning, is the life against death, the light against darkness, the fear and the desire to challenge it, without ever forgetting the horrifying-ancestral aspect of the "beast", which represents the dark unknown evil, which always hovers over people's lives. There are those who have hypothesized that this asinello-monstrous-orrify is a very meek animal too, once very common and omnipresent in the Sicilian districts, so that the fears that it could generate are simultaneously suppressed by being a well-known animal and very meek.
This "sciccareddu-little donkey" with its load of pyrotechnic-crazy fires-bengal fires, and other crackling devilries, challenges and is challenged by all present, young and old coming also from far away, there is who looks but remaining well sheltered, many others instead challenge him, as in a bloodless bullfight, where some unlucky person can receive a few small burns (like myself, who found himself with some small burns in his legs, and a lens-protection filter, it was almost melted-burned in several points, now useless, but withe the lens without problems.....! :o)) .......).
“u sciccareddu”, dal siciliano “l’asinello”, è una maschera pirotecnica-animalesca, un tempo presente in molte feste paesane del territorio messinese, oggi la si ritrova solo in un numero limitato di centri, tra questi il paese di Casalvecchio Siculo, piccolo centro dell’entroterra nel quale si trova un’altra figura animalesca, quella del “camiddu”, in siciliano “cammello”, e del suo cammelliere (vedi un mio racconto fotografico fatto in precedenza in merito). La festa dello “sciccareddu-asinello” vede un giovane del paese indossare una struttura portante in metallo, sulla quale prende posto tutta una serie di giochi pirotecnici: questo rappresenta con non poca fantasia l’asinello (quest’anno a dargli vita è stato il “cammelliere” della festa del “camiddu-cammello” che si festeggia sempre a Casalvecchio); il giovane che porta su di se tale castello in metallo, si protegge abbondantemente dai fuochi pirotecnici, che formano delle “ruote pazze” in corrispondenza dei “quattro arti”, fuochi pirotecnici che comportano suggestioni simbolico-rituali dal significato ambiguo, è a vita contro la morte, la luce contro le tenebre, la paura e la voglia di sfidarla, senza mai dimenticare l’aspetto orrifico-ancestrale della “bestia”, che rappresenta l’oscuro ignoto male, che aleggia sempre sulla vita delle persone. C’è chi ha ipotizzato che tale asinello-mostruoso-orrifico è pur sempre un animale molto docile, un tempo comunissimo e onnipresente nelle contrade siciliane, per cui le paure che esso potrebbe generare sono contemporaneamente soppresse dall’essere un animale ben conosciuto ed in definitiva molto docile.
Tale “sciccareddu-asinello” col suo carico di fuochi pirotecnici-girandole pazze-bengala, ed altre diavolerie scoppiettanti, sfida e viene sfidato da tutti i presenti, giovani e meno giovani provenienti anche da lontano, c’è che vuole assitere rimanendo però bene al riparo, molti altri invece lo sfidano, come in una corrida incruenta, dove qualche malcapitato può rimediare qualche piccola bruciatura (come il sottoscritto, che si è ritrovato con qualche piccola bruciatura alle gambe, ed un filtro proteggi-obiettivo che, me ne accorsi successivamente, era quasi fuso-bruciato in più punti, oramai inservibile, con l’obiettivo però salvo….! :o)) …).
Despite their proximity to the west coast of Africa these islands were apparently entirely uninhabited when Portuguese navigators João de Santarém and Pero Escobar arrived on Saint Thomas’s day the 21st of December 1470. The Portuguese quickly settled the islands and were soon importing slaves from the mainland to work in their newly established sugar plantations. The sugar produced here was of poor quality compared to that from elsewhere and from the beginning of the 19th century was replaced with coffee this crop was in turn largely replaced by cocoa. Slavery in the islands’ plantations or roças carried on until 1875 when it was abolished and replaced with a system of contract labour this did not significantly improve the lives of the island’s labour force and the Portuguese continued to import labourers from their mainland colonies. At the beginning of the 20th century the plight of the plantation workers reached the outside world, protests from the Aboriginal Protection Society and the Anti-Slavery Society, prompted William Cadbury to send an agent to the islands to investigate. Possibly to protect his company's own commercial interests and to allow time for them to establish their own plantations in the Gold Coast (Ghana) he chose not to act for some years, until after he visited the Islands in 1909 to see for himself. Cadburys and other chocolate companies then started a boycott of Cocoa from the Islands. However little changed for the people who remained as virtual slaves.
In 1953 descendents of former slaves known as Forros fearing they would be conscripted and forced to work on the plantations protested at Batepa, Portuguese troops attacked the protesters and in the massacre that followed over 1,000 Forros may have been killed. This event sparked the establishment of a liberation movement however despite the Batepa Massacre, unlike in Portugal’s mainland colonies there was no war for independence. Following Portugal’s bloodless Carnation Revolution in 1974 the islands demanded their independence and this was granted the following year.
Although STP's independence had been achieved peacefully the Portuguese plantation owners fled abandoning their plantations and the islands. Soon afterwards the roças were nationalised by STP’s new Marxist government many of them fell in to disrepair during this period.