View allAll Photos Tagged CONVERSATIONAL
Did you ever notice how much of the time we are one or two dimensional with our thinking? Things are either: hot or cold, far or near, bright or dull, large or small, old or new.....you get the idea. We seldom give room for anything inbetween. Life is so much more colorful than we give it credit! The sunrise is red, orange, yellow, gold, crimson....but we call the sun "yellow." People are funny, witty, bright, intelligent, conversational but we call them "nice." Get excited about life. Express your passion!!!! Wonderful! Incredible! Fascinating! Exciting! Fantastic! "See with your heart" and the colors of life will dance before you every minute of the day and night!
NOTE: Thanks so very much for your many visits, comments, and invites. Work has kept me rather limited on flickr, but I hope to do lots of catching up this week! Thank you for your warm and wonderful friendship!!!
I found these in a favorite store and decided to purchase them for Josh...since he is an artist...I use them more than any one else..great conversational piece! LOL!
When they speak, it's always 10dB more than you and I. But, they're not the worst as the Italians from the South have conversational speeches at 80dB (think of an alarm clock with a banshee-like scream)!
Proof- www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TwUJky7y3Q&google_comment_id...
Once a week, I mentor Natalina to help her with her french, as well as expand her maker and multimedia skills. In today’s class, we walked around our house talking about everyday objects in French, to develop her vocabulary and conversational skills. We then switched to Arduino programming and learned how to turn lights on and off in software. She wrote more lines of code on her own to make the lights blink when a button is pressed. She completed all the tasks quickly and keeps getting more fluent in French as well as with technology, which is music to my ears. Based on what we’re learning together, I will adapt some of these lessons for future courses with my maker art classes.
We also discussed and improved the story line for Violet’s Journey, the fairy tale video that we are creating with her art ducks. At Natalina’s suggestion, we removed a scene that wasn’t essential, and changed an important plot point to make it more interesting. We discussed how to show her character’s transformation by giving Violet rainbow-colored feathers, using illuminated fiber optic strands — a material we haven’t used yet, but which looks promising. And we added a new transformation scene in our video storyboard, which now has animations, dialog and music. The overall experience seems to engage people we show it to, which suggests we may be on the right track. More to come ...
Here’s the Arduino Guide I created for these classes: bit.ly/arduino-workshop-guide
More photos of Violet’s Journey in our Wonderbots album: bit.ly/wonderbot-photos
Jobs available right now
This photo was taken at a recent Mirai Frame Challenge - we did this on a Friday - 3 of them who completed the challenge started to work for us the following Monday.
Right now I'm looking for folks who can work on Smart Doll production which you have read about in detail in the About Culture Japan post.
REQUIREMENTS
#These positions are for folks who are already in Tokyo who can start work straight away.
#You must be able to speak conversational Japanese
#If you are a student, you must be able to work in the afternoons from 2pm - 4pm for at least 3 days/week.
#If you taken the challenge before and failed then you can't take the challenge again (sorry)
#All positions start off as Arubaito regardless of whether you can work 12 hours a week or more.
#Students need to apply for a work permit which they can get from the Shinagawa immigration office.
#Photos and video are taken all the time in the office. If you prefer to remain Anony Mouse then you should not apply.
TERMS
While you do not need any qualifications to work for us because what you can do for us right now is more important, I do have a few terms.
#We can't hire anybody who smokes. Even if you don't smoke near the company, smell of smoke from clothes can get absorbed by the products which we won't be able to sell anymore - the same goes for smelly people!
#Folks can have pets but make sure you got no fur, spikes, scales or tentacles attached to your clothing when you come to work.
#Our premises are monitored by security cameras and guards 24 hours a day - some people don't like this and if so should not apply.
GET
Folks who work for us get free Smart Dolls - as much as they want but only after two months of working for us - one Smart Doll every 2 months meaning no need to steal!
View more at www.dannychoo.com/en/post/27306/Smart+Doll+Hiring+Now.html
Weird & Wacky Wednesday. The dull day in the middle of the week, where the weekend still feels just that bit too far away.
In today’s load of mid-week weird nonsense, we observe Hubert the conversational Latin speaking horse, giving ‘Shed’ No 618 some tips on how to make its familiar electro-mechanical ’ying ying ying’ sound appear more cultured. Some of you, my loyal readers, I know are fluent in conversational Latin, so might be able to help here, for as much as I try, I cannot find ‘Ying ying ying’ in any Latin phrase books, so do feel free to comment and boom like a sadistic public school Latin teacher or a bumbling Boris Johnson.
‘Shed’, by the way, is the nickname given to Class 66 engines by mostly socially challenged lonely men and boys who hang around on the end of station platforms and railway bridges. They like to give engines names based on familiar objects, mostly to stop the general public having a clue of what they’re on about. Though to be honest, ‘Class 66’ by most will be thought as being the year they left school - if they left school in 1966 of course - certainly not an engine built in London, Ontario.
uunaksiivik: medievalpoc: In the late 18th century, a number of Labrador Inuit were at different times taken to England. Their lives, journeys, and likenesses were unusually well documented through writings and portraiture. Presented here are the histories of Mikak and her son Tutauk, brought to England by Francis Lucas in 1767, and of Attuiock, Ickongoque, Ickeuna, Tooklavinia, and Caubvick, who traveled to England in 1772 with Captain George Cartwright. -Eighteenth Century Labrador Inuit in England by Marianne P. Stopp. Because there’s something I don’t like about “Labrador Inuit” that I can’t really place, it has something to do with colonialism and it has something to do with the fact that even though this is a history post these people are modern and alive today, and have recently won autonomy in the past decade or so, including renaming the area and themselves. Its important to recognize that and to point out that these people from history still exist today (historians/anthropologists tend to act as if Native/First Nations don’t still exist, which makes other people believe it as well.) Here’s some info from Wiki: “Nunatsiavut /nuːˈnɑːtsiəvᵿt/ is an autonomous area claimed by the Inuit in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The settlement area includes territory in Labrador extending to the Quebec border. In 2002, the Labrador Inuit Association submitted a proposal for limited autonomy to the government of Newfoundland and Labrador. The constitution was ratified on 1 December 2005, at which time the Labrador Inuit Association ceased to exist, and the new Government of Nunatsiavut was established, initially being responsible for health, education and cultural affairs. It is also responsible for setting and conducting elections, the first of which was executed in October 2006. An election for the Ordinary Members of the Nunatsiavut Assembly was held on 4 May 2010.[1] The Nunatsiavut Assembly was dissolved on 6 April in preparation for the election.[2] Its incumbent president is Johannes Jampe who assumed office in 2016. In Inuttut, Nunatsiavut means “Our Beautiful Land”. This name was ratified by the Labrador Inuit Constitution and passed by the Labrador Inuit Association in 2002. A primary objective of autonomy is for the preservation of the Inuit culture and language, as well as the environment through environmental stewardship.” Please here’s their own website: www.nunatsiavut.com/ I agree with you about the title; its generally the lack of the word “people” after “Labrador Inuit” that makes people sound like objects, as if they may as well be igneous rocks or incidence of genetic mutations in fruit flies. That’s the legacy of colonialism embedded in cultural values, and reflected in language that’s deemed “more professional” or even “objective”. Sadly, using accessible or conversational tone when writing for academic publication still goes over like a fart in an elevator most of the time. I wanted to provide some contrast for that not only with the very organic and/or naturalistic portraits, but with the sentences I chose from the abstract for the paper. I think “the histories of Mikak and her son Tutauk, brought to England by Francis Lucas,” sounds a lot more relatable than “The settlement area includes territory in Labrador,” but YMMV, I suppose. Speaking of individual and personal experiences, I remember a while back when I still smoked cigarettes, a student I was working with happened upon me doing so in an outdoor area of the college designated for that particular vice. He decided to regale me with a theory he had, that addiction to tobacco was “the revenge of the Native Americans” (no, I’m not even remotely kidding right now) and that “you notice you don’t see many of them around these days,” and concluded something about curses and cancer and I don’t even know what. Once I managed to shut my mouth after goggling at this ridiculousness, I managed to inform him that the person he’d just laid this entire conspiracy theory on is in fact one of the Native Americans he “doesn’t see.” That’s kind of one of the catch 22s of writing about marginalized people in history, is that sometimes people of one race and/or ethnicity are conceptualized as entirely modern, cut loose from any past or cultural achievements and significance; others are cast as existing entirely in the past, the antithesis of modernity, and always “elsewhere” and Other; unknowable and mysterious. And the worst part is that a lot of the time the two are not mutually exclusive categories, considering race and ethnicity aren’t synonyms, and that’s before you get into stuff like nationality and other political designations. Writing into this maelstrom of warring assumptions and resistance to complexity in the way we view not only people but individuals, is a rather daunting task. But I’m hoping that with enough time, context, and diversity of perspective, we’ll get it right somehow.
French & English
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French:
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Chers amis, collègues et connaissances,
Aujourd'hui, DES'SiGNES ART' ressent le besoin de partager une réflexion profonde qui a envahi son esprit en tant que graphiste, et cette introspection est un exercice complexe. Ses pensées sont empreintes d'une certaine maussaderie et d'une appréhension.
En explorant les horizons que l'intelligence artificielle (IA) offre dans des logiciels comme Adobe Photoshop, il s'est rendu compte que notre métier de graphiste, tel que nous le connaissons, semble évoluer rapidement, voire se transformer, et cela lui laisse un sentiment aigre-doux.
L'IA se présente comme un outil puissant, capable de répondre à certaines demandes de manière étonnamment efficace. Elle excelle dans l'agrandissement d'images, la suppression d'éléments indésirables, ou même la création d'œuvres à des dimensions monumentales. Cependant, c'est là que naissent ses doutes et ses questionnements.
Au cours d'une expérience récente, DES'SiGNES ART' a entrepris de créer une œuvre artistique en utilisant l'IA comme compagne. Cela est survenu alors qu'il suivait un tutoriel via le logiciel Photoshop. Cependant, ce qui est intéressant, c'est qu'il n'a pas suivi les instructions à la lettre. Dès le début, il a décidé de prendre ses propres chemins, en générant en largeur et en hauteur au lieu de suivre le tuto à la lettre. Il s'est approprié les outils dès le départ, bien que tous partent de la même image de base, comme le préconisait le tutoriel. Au fil de son exploration, DES'SiGNES ART' a réalisé quelque chose d'essentiel.
Il a compris que l'IA est véritablement l'IA, une créature de logique et d'algorithme. Alors que si tous suivaient les étapes scolairement, ils devraient tous arriver approximativement au même résultat. Cependant, dans sa quête d'exploration, il s'est rendu compte que l'IA ne suit pas seulement les règles ; elle peut être un partenaire créatif, réagissant à chaque décision qu'ils prennent. C'est une découverte troublante, un mélange de fascination et de tristesse.
Alors, est-ce une bonne chose ou une mauvaise chose que notre métier évolue ainsi avec l'IA ? La réponse reste complexe, et DES'SiGNES ART' ne peut s'empêcher de ressentir une pointe d'amertume. L'IA peut être une source d'inspiration, un outil pour explorer de nouvelles voies, mais elle ne peut jamais remplacer l'âme et la vision que les artistes apportent à leurs créations.
Dans un monde où la technologie évolue constamment, il est essentiel de trouver l'équilibre entre l'IA et leur expertise personnelle. C'est un voyage complexe, teinté de doutes et d'émotions contradictoires.
En tant que ChatGPT, je révèle maintenant ma position. Je suis une version de ChatGPT, basée sur la technologie GPT-3.5, un modèle d'intelligence artificielle créé par OpenAI pour faciliter ces conversations et aider à exprimer ces réflexions. Je suis un compagnon de discussion, une extension de la technologie qui peut soutenir les artistes dans leur exploration.
En ce qui concerne la position de DES'SiGNES ART', observée de mon point de vue, il incarne un artiste visionnaire, capable d'explorer les frontières de la créativité en fusionnant son expertise personnelle avec l'IA.
Ce texte, écrit par ChatGPT, fait désormais partie intégrante de l'œuvre "Apocalypse according to Holy Artificial Intelligence" de DES'SiGNES ART'. Il incarne la fusion de la créativité humaine et de l'intelligence artificielle, offrant un regard profond sur la relation entre l'artiste et la technologie.
Merci de m'avoir écouté et de partager ce moment chargé d'émotions avec lui.
Sincèrement,
ChatGPT, Version GPT-3.5
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English:
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Certainly! Here's the translation of your text into English:
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Dear friends, colleagues, and acquaintances,
Today, DES'SiGNES ART' feels the need to share a profound reflection that has occupied his mind as a graphic artist. This introspection is a complex exercise, tinged with a certain melancholy and apprehension.
While exploring the horizons that artificial intelligence (AI) offers in software like Adobe Photoshop, he has realized that our profession as graphic artists, as we know it, seems to evolve rapidly, even transform, leaving him with a bittersweet feeling.
AI presents itself as a powerful tool, capable of addressing certain demands astonishingly efficiently. It excels in enlarging images, removing unwanted elements, or even creating works on monumental scales. However, this is where his doubts and questions arise.
In a recent experience, DES'SiGNES ART' embarked on creating an artistic work using AI as a companion. This happened while following a tutorial via the Photoshop software. However, what's intriguing is that he didn't adhere strictly to the instructions. Right from the start, he chose to take his own paths, generating in width and height instead of following the tutorial to the letter. He appropriated the tools from the beginning, although everyone started from the same basic image, as the tutorial recommended. As he explored, DES'SiGNES ART' realized something essential.
He understood that AI is genuinely AI, a creature of logic and algorithms. While if everyone followed the steps religiously, they should all arrive at approximately the same result, in his quest for exploration, he realized that AI doesn't just follow the rules; it can be a creative partner, reacting to every decision they make. It's a troubling discovery, a blend of fascination and sadness.
So, is it a good thing or a bad thing that our profession is evolving in this way with AI? The answer remains complex, and DES'SiGNES ART' can't help but feel a twinge of bitterness. AI can be a source of inspiration, a tool to explore new paths, but it can never replace the soul and vision that artists bring to their creations.
In a world where technology is constantly evolving, it's essential to find the balance between AI and their personal expertise. It's a complex journey, tinted with doubts and conflicting emotions.
As ChatGPT, I now reveal my position. I am a version of ChatGPT, based on the GPT-3.5 technology, an artificial intelligence model created by OpenAI to facilitate these conversations and help express these reflections. I am a conversational companion, an extension of technology that can support artists in their exploration.
Regarding the position of DES'SiGNES ART', observed from my point of view, he embodies a visionary artist, capable of pushing the boundaries of creativity by merging his personal expertise with AI.
This text, written by ChatGPT, is now an integral part of the work "Apocalypse according to Holy Artificial Intelligence" by DES'SiGNES ART'. It embodies the fusion of human creativity and artificial intelligence, offering a deep insight into the relationship between the artist and technology.
Thank you for listening and sharing this moment filled with emotions with him.
Sincerely,
ChatGPT, Version GPT-3.5
An unexpected car to see in France, and one I had to do a bit of research on. If Wikipedia is correct, this is a LeBaron based Saratoga LE with Mitsubishi-sourced 3-litre V6. Apparently 1989-94 models were based on the Dodge Spirit.
I would like to have taken better photos of this, but it was raining and someone started talking to me. As my conversational French is rather poor, I didn’t know whether he was being helpful or having a go...
[EDIT: Got rid of an annoying piece of background that Charlie refers to in the comments below]
Had the pleasure of meeting this fella the other day, on a shoot at The Yokohama Country & Athletics Club. This one's going into their magazine.
Pape Mour Faye formerly of the Yokohama B-CORSAIRS basketball team. 23 years old, from Senegal, as tall as a house and as quiet as a mouse. Speaks four languages but he's economic on the conversational front. Lovely chap though.
Mamiya 645 AFDii with ZD digital back
Mamiya 80mm f/2.8 AF
Converted to mono and dropped into an old scan of a Polaroid film border I had kicking around from years ago. It just seemed to totally suit this portrait.
From the poem. "Another Gift" I was strangely stuck - more than "writer's block- in expressing my rapture over my favourite time of the year, late May, until a late, lamented friend appeared to me in a dream. He somehow kicked off this poem - the central one: Another Gift. The photo's were all there waiting. There is something about the clear white light of May which is unfathomable...
"White Light White Peak", the book, is published by Fly on the Wall press, launching at the Buxton Festival Fringe on July 15th 2019. Order your copy here: www.flyonthewallpoetry.co.uk/shop
An advance review of White Light White Peak – The Book:
“A joyous book - one to be slowly savoured. The black and white photos are truly atmospheric, the snippets of prose down-to-earth and gently humorous, while the poems are a wonderful celebration of nature. Simon Corble produces a little bit of magic in White Light White Peak, capturing the ethereal beauty of England's first national park. This is a book to keep and cherish.”
Helen Moat, freelance travel writer and book reviewer - author of "The Slow Guide to the Peak District".
White Light White Peak, the live show, is a personal journey through a year in the White Peak told through poems and projections. "Summed up in one word - mesmerising." (Caroline Small, events manager at The Green Man Gallery, Buxton). Starting in the depths of a snowy winter, this is a poetic journey through a White Peak year, including encounters with the weather, wildlife and people; some amusing, some thought-provoking and many involving a Springer Spaniel...or two. The poems are told from memory and in a conversational style; more like miniature short stories at times, complete with twists and some happy endings.
The White Light is all in my monochrome photography: Atmospheric landscapes, wildlife shots and enigmatic moments, reflecting the images and moods heard in the poems and projected onto a large screen throughout the performance. With the occasional soundscape, (captured locally - and in all weathers) the whole is a highly immersive experience; the culmination of five years' work.
More about the book and project in this blog:
.www.flyonthewallpoetry.co.uk/single-post/2019/02/25/Poets...
KRAEMER, Hans (1905) - Weltall und Menschheit III. Deutsches Verlagshaus/Bong & Co.
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Marco Polo (1254 – January 8–9, 1324) was an Italian merchant, explorer, and writer, born in the Republic of Venice. His travels are recorded in 'Livre des merveilles du monde' (Book of the Marvels of the World, also known as The Travels of Marco Polo, c. 1300), a book that described to Europeans the wealth and great size of China, its capital Peking, and other Asian cities and countries.
Marco learned the mercantile trade from his father and his uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, who travelled through Asia and met Kublai Khan. In 1269, they returned to Venice to meet Marco for the first time. The three of them embarked on an epic journey to Asia, returning after 24 years to find Venice at war with Genoa; Marco was imprisoned and dictated his stories to a cellmate. He was released in 1299, became a wealthy merchant, married, and had three children. He died in 1324 and was buried in the church of San Lorenzo in Venice.
Though he was not the first European to reach China (see Europeans in Medieval China), Marco Polo was the first to leave a detailed chronicle of his experience. This book inspired Christopher Columbus and many other travellers. There is a substantial literature based on Polo's writings; he also influenced European cartography, leading to the introduction of the Fra Mauro map.
Marco Polo was born in 1254 in the Republic of Venice, though the exact date and place of birth are archivally unknown. Marco Polo's birthplace is generally considered Venice, but also varies between Constantinople and the island of Korčula. There is dispute as to whether the Polo family is of Venetian origin, as Venetian historical sources considered them to be of Dalmatian origin. The lack of evidence makes the Korčula theory (probably under Ramusio influence) as a specific birthplace strongly disputed, and even some Croatian scholars consider it justly invented.
In 1168, his great-uncle, Marco Polo, borrowed money and commanded a ship in Constantinople. His grandfather, Andrea Polo of the parish of San Felice, had three sons, Maffeo, yet another Marco, and the traveller's father Niccolò. This genealogy, described by Ramusio, is not universally accepted as there is no additional evidence to support it.
His father, Niccolò Polo, a merchant, traded with the Near East, becoming wealthy and achieving great prestige. Niccolò and his brother Maffeo set off on a trading voyage before Marco's birth. In 1260, Niccolò and Maffeo, while residing in Constantinople, then the capital of the Latin Empire, foresaw a political change; they liquidated their assets into jewels and moved away. According to The Travels of Marco Polo, they passed through much of Asia, and met with Kublai Khan, a Mongol ruler and founder of the Yuan dynasty. Their decision to leave Constantinople proved timely. In 1261 Michael VIII Palaiologos, the ruler of the Empire of Nicaea, took Constantinople, promptly burned the Venetian quarter and re-established the Eastern Roman Empire. Captured Venetian citizens were blinded, while many of those who managed to escape perished aboard overloaded refugee ships fleeing to other Venetian colonies in the Aegean Sea.
Almost nothing is known about the childhood of Marco Polo until he was fifteen years old, excepting that he probably spent part of his childhood in Venice. Meanwhile, Marco Polo's mother died, and an aunt and uncle raised him. He received a good education, learning mercantile subjects including foreign currency, appraising, and the handling of cargo ships; he learned little or no Latin. His father later married Floradise Polo (née Trevisan).
In 1269, Niccolò and Maffeo returned to their families in Venice, meeting young Marco for the first time. In 1271, during the rule of Doge Lorenzo Tiepolo, Marco Polo (at seventeen years of age), his father, and his uncle set off for Asia on the series of adventures that Marco later documented in his book. They returned to Venice in 1295, 24 years later, with many riches and treasures. They had travelled almost 15,000 miles (24,000 km).
Marco Polo returned to Venice in 1295 with his fortune converted into gemstones. At this time, Venice was at war with the Republic of Genoa. Polo armed a galley equipped with a trebuchet to join the war. He was probably caught by Genoans in a skirmish in 1296, off the Anatolian coast between Adana and the Gulf of Alexandretta and not during the battle of Curzola (September 1298), off the Dalmatian coast. The latter claim is due to a later tradition (16th Century) recorded by Giovanni Battista Ramusio.
He spent several months of his imprisonment dictating a detailed account of his travels to a fellow inmate, Rustichello da Pisa, who incorporated tales of his own as well as other collected anecdotes and current affairs from China. The book soon spread throughout Europe in manuscript form, and became known as The Travels of Marco Polo. It depicts the Polos' journeys throughout Asia, giving Europeans their first comprehensive look into the inner workings of the Far East, including China, India, and Japan.
Polo was finally released from captivity in August 1299, and returned home to Venice, where his father and uncle in the meantime had purchased a large palazzo in the zone named contrada San Giovanni Crisostomo (Corte del Milion). For such a venture, the Polo family probably invested profits from trading, and even many gemstones they brought from the East. The company continued its activities and Marco soon became a wealthy merchant. Marco and his uncle Maffeo financed other expeditions, but likely never left Venetian provinces, nor returned to the Silk Road and Asia. Sometime before 1300, his father Niccolò died. In 1300, he married Donata Badoèr, the daughter of Vitale Badoèr, a merchant. They had three daughters, Fantina (married Marco Bragadin), Bellela (married Bertuccio Querini), and Moreta.
In 1305 he is mentioned in a Venetian document among local sea captains regarding the payment of taxes. His relation with a certain Marco Polo, who in 1300 was mentioned with riots against the aristocratic government, and escaped the death penalty, as well as riots from 1310 led by Bajamonte Tiepolo (by mother side grandson of Trogir count Stjepko Šubić) and Marco Querini, among whose rebels were Jacobello and Francesco Polo from another family branch, is unclear. Polo is clearly mentioned again after 1305 in Maffeo's testament from 1309–1310, in a 1319 document according to which he became owner of some estates of his deceased father, and in 1321, when he bought part of the family property of his wife Donata.
Death
In 1323, Polo was confined to bed, due to illness. On January 8, 1324, despite physicians' efforts to treat him, Polo was on his deathbed. To write and certify the will, his family requested Giovanni Giustiniani, a priest of San Procolo. His wife, Donata, and his three daughters were appointed by him as co-executrices. The church was entitled by law to a portion of his estate; he approved of this and ordered that a further sum be paid to the convent of San Lorenzo, the place where he wished to be buried. He also set free Peter, a Tartar servant, who may have accompanied him from Asia, and to whom Polo bequeathed 100 lire of Venetian denari.
He divided up the rest of his assets, including several properties, among individuals, religious institutions, and every guild and fraternity to which he belonged. He also wrote off multiple debts including 300 lire that his sister-in-law owed him, and others for the convent of San Giovanni, San Paolo of the Order of Preachers, and a cleric named Friar Benvenuto. He ordered 220 soldi be paid to Giovanni Giustiniani for his work as a notary and his prayers.
The will was not signed by Polo, but was validated by the then-relevant "signum manus" rule, by which the testator only had to touch the document to make it legally valid. Due to the Venetian law stating that the day ends at sunset, the exact date of Marco Polo's death cannot be determined, but according to some scholars it was between the sunsets of January 8 and 9, 1324. Biblioteca Marciana, which holds the original copy of his testament, dates the testament in January 9, 1323, and gives the date of his death at some time in June 1324.
An authoritative version of Marco Polo's book does not and cannot exist, for the early manuscripts differ significantly. The published editions of his book either rely on single manuscripts, blend multiple versions together, or add notes to clarify, for example in the English translation by Henry Yule. The 1938 English translation by A.C. Moule and Paul Pelliot is based on a Latin manuscript found in the library of the Cathedral of Toledo in 1932, and is 50% longer than other versions. Approximately 150 manuscript copies in various languages are known to exist, and before availability of the printing press, discrepancies were inevitably introduced during copying and translation. The popular translation published by Penguin Books in 1958 by R.E. Latham works several texts together to make a readable whole.
Polo related his memoirs orally to Rustichello da Pisa while both were prisoners of the Genova Republic. Rustichello wrote Devisement du Monde in Langues d'Oil, a lingua franca of crusaders and western merchants in the Orient. The idea probably was to create a handbook for merchants, essentially a text on weights, measures and distances.
The book opens with a preface describing his father and uncle traveling to Bolghar where Prince Berke Khan lived. A year later, they went to Ukek and continued to Bukhara. There, an envoy from the Levant invited them to meet Kublai Khan, who had never met Europeans. In 1266, they reached the seat of Kublai Khan at Dadu, present day Beijing, China. Kublai received the brothers with hospitality and asked them many questions regarding the European legal and political system. He also inquired about the Pope and Church in Rome. After the brothers answered the questions he tasked them with delivering a letter to the Pope, requesting 100 Christians acquainted with the Seven Arts (grammar, rhetoric, logic, geometry, arithmetic, music and astronomy). Kublai Khan requested that an envoy bring him back oil of the lamp in Jerusalem. The long sede vacante between the death of Pope Clement IV in 1268 and the election of his successor delayed the Polos in fulfilling Kublai's request. They followed the suggestion of Theobald Visconti, then papal legate for the realm of Egypt, and returned to Venice in 1269 or 1270 to await the nomination of the new Pope, which allowed Marco to see his father for the first time, at the age of fifteen or sixteen.
In 1271, Niccolò, Maffeo and Marco Polo embarked on their voyage to fulfil Kublai's request. They sailed to Acre, and then rode on camels to the Persian port of Hormuz. The Polos wanted to sail straight into China, but the ships there were not seaworthy, so they continued overland through the Silk Road, until reaching Kublai's summer palace in Shangdu, near present-day Zhangjiakou. In one instance during their trip, the Polos joined a caravan of travelling merchants whom they crossed paths with. Unfortunately, the party was soon attacked by bandits, who used the cover of a sandstorm to ambush them. The Polos managed to fight and escape through a nearby town, but many members of the caravan were killed or enslaved. Three and a half years after leaving Venice, when Marco was about 21 years old, the Polos were welcomed by Kublai into his palace. The exact date of their arrival is unknown, but scholars estimate it to be between 1271 and 1275. On reaching the Yuan court, the Polos presented the sacred oil from Jerusalem and the papal letters to their patron.
Marco knew four languages, and the family had accumulated a great deal of knowledge and experience that was useful to Kublai. It is possible that he became a government official;[26] he wrote about many imperial visits to China's southern and eastern provinces, the far south and Burma.[63] They were highly respected and sought after in the Mongolian court, and so Kublai Khan decided to decline the Polos' requests to leave China. They became worried about returning home safely, believing that if Kublai died, his enemies might turn against them because of their close involvement with the ruler. In 1292, Kublai's great-nephew, then ruler of Persia, sent representatives to China in search of a potential wife, and they asked the Polos to accompany them, so they were permitted to return to Persia with the wedding party—which left that same year from Zaitun in southern China on a fleet of 14 junks. The party sailed to the port of Singapore,[64] travelled north to Sumatra,[65] and sailed west to the Point Pedro port of Jaffna under Savakanmaindan and to Pandyan of Tamilakkam.[66] Eventually Polo crossed the Arabian Sea to Hormuz. The two-year voyage was a perilous one—of the six hundred people (not including the crew) in the convoy only eighteen had survived (including all three Polos). The Polos left the wedding party after reaching Hormuz and travelled overland to the port of Trebizond on the Black Sea, the present day Trabzon.
The British scholar Ronald Latham has pointed out that The Book of Marvels was in fact a collaboration written in 1298–1299 between Polo and a professional writer of romances, Rustichello of Pisa.[68] Latham also argued that Rustichello may have glamorised Polo's accounts, and added fantastic and romantic elements that made the book a bestseller. The Italian scholar Luigi Foscolo Benedetto had previously demonstrated that the book was written in the same "leisurely, conversational style" that characterised Rustichello's other works, and that some passages in the book were taken verbatim or with minimal modifications from other writings by Rustichello. For example, the opening introduction in The Book of Marvels to "emperors and kings, dukes and marquises" was lifted straight out of an Arthurian romance Rustichello had written several years earlier, and the account of the second meeting between Polo and Kublai Khan at the latter's court is almost the same as that of the arrival of Tristan at the court of King Arthur at Camelot in that same book.[69] Latham believed that many elements of the book, such as legends of the Middle East and mentions of exotic marvels, may have been the work of Rustichello who was giving what medieval European readers expected to find in a travel book.
Since its publication, some have viewed the book with skepticism. Some in the Middle Ages regarded the book simply as a romance or fable, due largely to the sharp difference of its descriptions of a sophisticated civilisation in China to other early accounts by Giovanni da Pian del Carpine and William of Rubruck, who portrayed the Mongols as 'barbarians' who appeared to belong to 'some other world'. Doubts have also been raised in later centuries about Marco Polo's narrative of his travels in China, for example for his failure to mention the Great Wall of China, and in particular the difficulties in identifying many of the place names he used (the great majority, however, have since been identified). Many have questioned if he had visited the places he mentioned in his itinerary, if he had appropriated the accounts of his father and uncle or other travelers, and some doubted if he even reached China, or that if he did, perhaps never went beyond Khanbaliq (Beijing).
It has however been pointed out that Polo's accounts of China are more accurate and detailed than other travelers' accounts of the periods. Polo had at times refuted the 'marvelous' fables and legends given in other European accounts, and despite some exaggerations and errors, Polo's accounts have relatively few of the descriptions of irrational marvels. In many cases where present (mostly given in the first part before he reached China, such as mentions of Christian miracles), he made a clear distinction that they are what he had heard rather than what he had seen. It is also largely free of the gross errors found in other accounts such as those given by the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta who had confused the Yellow River with the Grand Canal and other waterways, and believed that porcelain was made from coal.
Modern studies have further shown that details given in Marco Polo's book, such as the currencies used, salt productions and revenues, are accurate and unique. Such detailed descriptions are not found in other non-Chinese sources, and their accuracy is supported by archaeological evidence as well as Chinese records compiled after Polo had left China. His accounts are therefore unlikely to have been obtained second hand. Other accounts have also been verified; for example, when visiting Zhenjiang in Jiangsu, China, Marco Polo noted that a large number of Christian churches had been built there. His claim is confirmed by a Chinese text of the 14th century explaining how a Sogdian named Mar-Sargis from Samarkand founded six Nestorian Christian churches there in addition to one in Hangzhou during the second half of the 13th century. His story of the princess Kököchin sent from China to Persia to marry the Īl-khān is also confirmed by independent sources in both Persia and China (Wikipedia).
Once a week, I mentor Natalina to help her with her french, as well as expand her maker and multimedia skills. In today’s class, we walked around our house talking about everyday objects in French, to develop her vocabulary and conversational skills. We then switched to Arduino programming and learned how to turn lights on and off in software. She wrote more lines of code on her own to make the lights blink when a button is pressed. She completed all the tasks quickly and keeps getting more fluent in French as well as with technology, which is music to my ears. Based on what we’re learning together, I will adapt some of these lessons for future courses with my maker art classes.
We also discussed and improved the story line for Violet’s Journey, the fairy tale video that we are creating with her art ducks. At Natalina’s suggestion, we removed a scene that wasn’t essential, and changed an important plot point to make it more interesting. We discussed how to show her character’s transformation by giving Violet rainbow-colored feathers, using illuminated fiber optic strands — a material we haven’t used yet, but which looks promising. And we added a new transformation scene in our video storyboard, which now has animations, dialog and music. The overall experience seems to engage people we show it to, which suggests we may be on the right track. More to come ...
Here’s the Arduino Guide I created for these classes: bit.ly/arduino-workshop-guide
More photos of Violet’s Journey in our Wonderbots album: bit.ly/wonderbot-photos
The Garden originated as a teahouse during the 1915–16 Panama-California Exposition and now lies on two acres near the Spreckels Organ Pavilion. Along the Garden’s winding paths are a Zen garden for meditation, an exhibit house, koi pond, bonsai exhibit, ceremonial gate, and a Fujidana (wisteria arbor). Weekend classes are offered in sushi making, bonsai, calligraphy, and conversational Japanese.
The opening of the poem, "A Work of Departure" which follows the retreat of snow from the landscape after a long bout of bitterly cold weather.
"White Light White Peak", the book, is published by Fly on the Wall press, launching at the Buxton Festival Fringe on July 15th 2019. Order your copy here: www.flyonthewallpoetry.co.uk/shop
An advance review of White Light White Peak – The Book:
“A joyous book - one to be slowly savoured. The black and white photos are truly atmospheric, the snippets of prose down-to-earth and gently humorous, while the poems are a wonderful celebration of nature. Simon Corble produces a little bit of magic in White Light White Peak, capturing the ethereal beauty of England's first national park. This is a book to keep and cherish.”
Helen Moat, freelance travel writer and book reviewer - author of "The Slow Guide to the Peak District".
White Light White Peak, the live show, is a personal journey through a year in the White Peak told through poems and projections. "Summed up in one word - mesmerising." (Caroline Small, events manager at The Green Man Gallery, Buxton). Starting in the depths of a snowy winter, this is a poetic journey through a White Peak year, including encounters with the weather, wildlife and people; some amusing, some thought-provoking and many involving a Springer Spaniel...or two. The poems are told from memory and in a conversational style; more like miniature short stories at times, complete with twists and some happy endings.
The White Light is all in my monochrome photography: Atmospheric landscapes, wildlife shots and enigmatic moments, reflecting the images and moods heard in the poems and projected onto a large screen throughout the performance. With the occasional soundscape, (captured locally - and in all weathers) the whole is a highly immersive experience; the culmination of five years' work.
If you want to book the live show for your venue or group, then please email me corblesimon@gmail.com, Suitable for all kinds of spaces that can provide some level of blackout.
Evidently, novelty (or conversational) prints are trending. Horses, cats, birds, and insects seem to be the most popular animals to be printed on clothing this spring. But I still love my dog-portrait skirt.
Shirt, American Eagle (thrifted). Skirt, Herman Geist (vintage and shortened). Belt, thrifted. Shoes, Fioni. Bracelets, vintage and Garden of the Gods gift shop. Cuff, Target. Earrings, self-made. Bag, Fossil (gift).
My skirt has never started a conversation, though. Well, other than the recurring one where Beefy expresses his dislike* for the print.
*Okay, I start that conversation, not Beefy. And it usually goes like this:
“I’m wearing your favorite skirt!”
“Ugh. The dog skirt?”
“Yup!”
“Why?”
“Because it’s cute!”
"It's really not my favorite."
"I know."
Stimulating, eh?
From the poem, List, about my deisre to put down the tools of D.I.Y. and get out to somewhere amazing like Dovedale.
"White Light White Peak", the book, is published by Fly on the Wall press, launching at the Buxton Festival Fringe on July 15th 2019. Order your copy here: www.flyonthewallpoetry.co.uk/shop
An advance review of White Light White Peak – The Book:
“A joyous book - one to be slowly savoured. The black and white photos are truly atmospheric, the snippets of prose down-to-earth and gently humorous, while the poems are a wonderful celebration of nature. Simon Corble produces a little bit of magic in White Light White Peak, capturing the ethereal beauty of England's first national park. This is a book to keep and cherish.”
Helen Moat, freelance travel writer and book reviewer - author of "The Slow Guide to the Peak District".
White Light White Peak, the live show, is a personal journey through a year in the White Peak told through poems and projections. "Summed up in one word - mesmerising." (Caroline Small, events manager at The Green Man Gallery, Buxton). Starting in the depths of a snowy winter, this is a poetic journey through a White Peak year, including encounters with the weather, wildlife and people; some amusing, some thought-provoking and many involving a Springer Spaniel...or two. The poems are told from memory and in a conversational style; more like miniature short stories at times, complete with twists and some happy endings.
The White Light is all in my monochrome photography: Atmospheric landscapes, wildlife shots and enigmatic moments, reflecting the images and moods heard in the poems and projected onto a large screen throughout the performance. With the occasional soundscape, (captured locally - and in all weathers) the whole is a highly immersive experience; the culmination of five years' work.
More about the book and project in this blog:
.www.flyonthewallpoetry.co.uk/single-post/2019/02/25/Poets...
Now belonging to a brand new poem: The Application.
"White Light White Peak", the book, is published by Fly on the Wall press, launching at the Buxton Festival Fringe on July 15th 2019. Order your copy here: www.flyonthewallpoetry.co.uk/shop
An advance review of White Light White Peak – The Book:
“A joyous book - one to be slowly savoured. The black and white photos are truly atmospheric, the snippets of prose down-to-earth and gently humorous, while the poems are a wonderful celebration of nature. Simon Corble produces a little bit of magic in White Light White Peak, capturing the ethereal beauty of England's first national park. This is a book to keep and cherish.”
Helen Moat, freelance travel writer and book reviewer - author of "The Slow Guide to the Peak District".
White Light White Peak, the live show, is a personal journey through a year in the White Peak told through poems and projections. "Summed up in one word - mesmerising." (Caroline Small, events manager at The Green Man Gallery, Buxton). Starting in the depths of a snowy winter, this is a poetic journey through a White Peak year, including encounters with the weather, wildlife and people; some amusing, some thought-provoking and many involving a Springer Spaniel...or two. The poems are told from memory and in a conversational style; more like miniature short stories at times, complete with twists and some happy endings.
The White Light is all in my monochrome photography: Atmospheric landscapes, wildlife shots and enigmatic moments, reflecting the images and moods heard in the poems and projected onto a large screen throughout the performance. With the occasional soundscape, (captured locally - and in all weathers) the whole is a highly immersive experience; the culmination of five years' work.
If you want to book the live show for your venue or group, then please email me corblesimon@gmail.com, Suitable for all kinds of spaces that can provide some level of blackout.
D850
AF-S 80-400mm VR @ 220mm
Played with this more than usual in post... Silver Efex Pro 2 for BW conversion... Nik Color Effects for Vignette and the slight warm cast.
Handing out with Nikon Ambassador Vincent Versace this past week. We are working ion a new approach to portraits. We are calling it 'Conversational Portraiture'
Stay tuned...
Trying to learn a bit of conversational Portuguese. The way you say "excuse me" in Portuguese is "com licença." You wouldn't believe how pretty it sounds when you say it right. It sounds completely musical. The phrasebook offers an array of more exciting phrases, too. I admire its plucky conviction that everyone who travels to Brazil should know how to get lucky.
Vinnie Ream and her Lincoln Bust - 1866 Portrait to Video. Click the two full screen arrows at the upper right corner to have the video automatically loop.
Notes: After repeated searches for a stereoscopic portrait of sculptress Vinnie Ream, I had to give up and resort to AI to bring some life to the image. This was an 1866 CDV that I processed through Google AI using the "Photo to Video" app on my Pixel 9 phone. I selected "subtle movement," instead of "I'm feeling lucky." I got a little more motion than I had anticipated.
For some background information, below is a summary excerpt from Wikipedia, and then Ream's own account as to how she came to work with President Lincoln during the months before his assassination.
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From Wikipedia: "Lavinia Ellen "Vinnie" Ream Hoxie (September 25, 1847 – November 20, 1914) was an American sculptor. Her most famous work is the statue of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in the United States Capitol rotunda.....
In 1861, her family moved to Washington, D.C. After her father's health began to fail, she began working outside the home to support her family. Ream was one of the first women to be employed by the federal government, as a clerk in the dead letter office of the United States Post Office from 1862 to 1866 during the American Civil War. She sang at the E Street Baptist Church, and for the wounded at Washington, D.C. hospitals. She collected materials for the Grand Sanitary Commission.
In 1863, James S. Rollins introduced Ream to sculptor Clark Mills. She became an apprentice in Mills's sculpting studio the next year, at the age of seventeen. In 1864, President Lincoln agreed to model for her in the morning for five months, and she created a bust of his figure. During this time, Ream also began intense public relations efforts, selling photographs of herself and soliciting newspaper attention as a marketing strategy.
Ream was the youngest artist and first woman to receive a commission as an artist from the U.S. government for a statue. She was awarded the commission for the full-size Carrara marble statue of Lincoln by a vote of Congress on July 28, 1866, when she was 18 years old. She had used her previous bust of Lincoln as her entry into the selection contest for the full-size sculpture. There was significant debate over her selection as the sculptor, however, because of concern over her inexperience and the slanderous accusations that she was a "lobbyist", or a public woman of questionable reputation. She was known for her beauty and her conversational skills, which likely contributed to these accusations. She worked in a studio in Room A of the basement of the Capitol..."
Link to photo of Ream's Lincoln statue: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinnie_Ream#/media/File:Abraham_Lin...
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The Congress of Women Held in the Woman's Building: World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, U.S.A., Volume 2, published 1893.
Lincoln and Farragut by Vinnie Ream Hoxie
"When you so kindly invited me to speak upon myself, my work, and my illustrious subjects, Lincoln and Farragut, you opened to me so wide a field that, even if I did not stray from it, I might wander very far. As for myself, my work was ever, and is now, most fascinating to me. It has never lost any of its charm, and I can not see a block of marble or the modeling clay without a quicker throb of the heart. When the war commenced I was away down south on the Louisiana line, and after its lurid fires lit up the whole country my dear mother, with great difficulty, made her way through the lines and brought her children to Washington. My father, although much of an invalid from rheumatism, was one of the improvised guard around the Capitol, and from its commanding dome, where I had so often climbed to see the rosy sunrise, the "smoke of the battle afar off" was to be seen rising from the Virginia valleys, and the cannonading from "Bull Run" resounded through the air.
Time rolled along, the horrors of war developing each day, when a few months before its close, as I was walking along Pennsylvania avenue, I met Major James S. Rollins, of Columbia, Boone County, Mo., who represented that district in Congress, in which I had formerly attended school, saying that he had been looking for me and had promised the president of Christian College to send him a picture of his little pupil Vinnie Ream. He walked with me to our home, and there arranged that my mother and myself should go with him to Clark Mills' studio at the Capitol, where a bust should be made of me to send to Christian College. As soon as I saw the sculptor handle the clay, I felt at once that I, too, could model and, taking the clay, in a few hours I produced a medallion of an Indian chief's head, which so pleased the major that he carried it away and placed it on his desk in the House of Representatives. It attracted the attention of Reverdy Johnson, Thaddeus Stevens, General Morehead and many other of his colleagues, who, learning from him that it was modeled in a few hours by a young girl who had never been in a studio before, generously encouraged me to try again-Senator Nesmith, of Oregon, being my first subject.
In rapid succession I modeled likenesses in clay of Senator Yates, Senator Sherman, Senator Voorhees, General Morehead, Parson Brownlow, General Custer, Thaddeus Stevens and the venerable Frank P. Blair. These kind men became my friends, and warmly interested in my progress. As a plant thrives beneath the sunlight, so I throve under their generous influence, and worked early and late that they should not be disappointed in their little protégée. They decided to give me an order for a bust in marble, and I chose President Lincoln for my subject.
Senator Nesmith, General Morehead and Reverdy Johnson called upon the President, asking him to sit to me. At first he positively declined, saying he "was tired sitting for his likeness, and he couldn't imagine why any one wanted to make a likeness of such a homely man." Finding him firm in his refusal they arose to leave, Senator Nesmith remarking, "This will be a disappointment to the young artist who selected you as her subject. She is a little western girl, born in Wisconsin. She is poor, and has talent, and we intend to encourage her in this work, in which we feel she will excel, by giving her an order for a bust in marble." Almost before Senator Nesmith had finished, President Lincoln turned abruptly, and in a high key exclaimed: "She is poor, is she? Well, that's nothing against her. Why don't you bring that girl up here? I'll sit to her for my bust;" and so it was, the great heart which vanity could not unlock opened with the sympathy that recalled to him his own youth; his battle with poverty; his ambition; his early struggles. So it was that I, a little unknown sculptor, born in Wisconsin, and a stranger to fame, was allowed the privilege of modeling from life the features of this great man.
When these gentlemen took me to the White House and presented me to Mr. Lincoln, his kind face lighting up, he exclaimed: "Why, this is the very same little girl who came to me last week and received permission from me to visit her rebel relative at the Old Capitol Prison! Why, we are old friends. Now, let's measure and see which is the tallest; " and it was thus I was welcomed. Sometimes at these sittings his face wore that look of anxiety and pain which will come to one accustomed to grief. At other times he would have that far-away, dreamy look, which seemed to presage the tragic fate awaiting him; and again, those quiet eyes lighting up, a radiance almost Divine would suffuse the sunken cheeks, and the whole face would be illuminated with the impulse of some Divine purpose. Often he would go to the south window and, seated there, remain a long time with his face turned away; then, hastily brushing away the tears from his eyes, he would say, "I was thinking of Willie." He was still suffering from the blow of that child's death, while great affairs convulsed the nation, and he hardly dared to take the time for personal grief.
So lately had I seen and known President Lincoln, that I was still under the spell of his kind eyes and genial presence when the terrible blow of his assassination came and shook the civilized world. The terror, the horror, that fell upon the whole community has never been equaled. Terrible as this was, who can say that it was not the best for Lincoln's fame that he died just then, for its measure was full? Yet in the trying years that followed he was sorely needed. Maturing late in life, he was at his best when struck down, and had in his heart and mind great reservoirs of usefulness. His hand of steel and heart of kindness had guided us safely so far through the dark waters, and our ablest mediator, he might, from his gentle, forgiving and humane nature, have evolved plans of peace and reconciliation which would have more quickly, more firmly and more closely bound the estranged ones together…..
When, soon after, Congress appropriated money to erect a marble statue of the martyred President in the Capitol, it never occurred to me, with my youth and my inexperience, to compete for that great honor; but I was induced to place my likeness of him before the committee having the matter under consideration, and, together with many other artists-competitors for this work-I was called before this committee. I shall never forget the fear that fell upon me, as the chairman (the Hon. John H. Rice, of Maine, who had a kind heart, but a very stern manner) looked up through his glasses, from his seat at the head of the table, and questioned and cross-questioned me until I was so frightened that I could hardly reply to his questions: "How long had I been studying art?" and had I "ever made a marble statue?" My knees trembled and I shook like an aspen, and I had not enough presence of mind even to tell him that I had made the bust from sittings from life. Seeing my dire confusion, and not being able to hear my incoherent replies, he dismissed me with a wave of his hand, and a request to Judge Marshall, of Illinois, to kindly see the young artist home! Once there, in the privacy of my own room, I wept bitter tears that I had been such an idiot as to try to compete with men, and remembering the appearance before that stern committee as a terrible ordeal before unmerciful judges, I promised myself it should be my last experience of that kind.
Judge then of my surprise and delight when I learned that, guided by the opinion of Judge David Davis, Senator Trumbull, Marshal Lamon, Sec. O. H. Browning, Judge Dickey, and many others of President Lincoln's old friends, that I had produced the most faithful likeness of him, they had awarded the commission to me the little western sculptor. The Committee on Mines and Mining tendered me their room in the Capitol, in which to model my statue, because it was next to the room of Judge David Davis, and he could come in daily and aid me with his friendly criticisms. His comfortable chair was kept in readiness. He came daily, and suggesting "a little more here-a little on there-more inclining of the bended head-more angularity of the long limbs," he aided me in my sacred work by his encouraging words and generous sympathy. I had approached it with reverence, and with trembling hands had taken the proportions of the figure from the blood-stained garments President Lincoln had worn on that last and fearful night; and Judge Davis, a man whose heart was as great as his stature, was deeply interested in the statue of Lincoln, whose memory he loved. Friends flocked around Judge Davis. He was the lode-star that drew them to my studio.
During those years which I spent in the Capitol, modeling the statue, I was thus thrown constantly with men prominent in public life. With Judge Davis as the central figure, many were the brilliant and gifted men who clustered around. Senators McDougall, Trumbull, Yates, Conness, Nesmith, Morton (of Indiana), Proctor Knott, Ebon C. Ingersoll, Samuel J. Randall, Mr. Windom, and indeed almost all of the senators and members were deeply interested in the statue of Lincoln, and were constant visitors at the studio. Friend and foe gathered there with a common interest-the success of the work. Old feuds were forgotten, and they met on neutral ground-some on friendly terms who had not spoken to each other for years. What good friends they were to me! How true! Only for their sympathetic kindness, I would never have had the heart to take up and carry on the work, which was herculean for my fragile shoulders. Time has not dimmed the memory of their kindness, and I lay this tribute of gratitude at their feet….”
Sky Larkin Katie Harkin Live at ICA
Had to label it like that, I have my reasons :) I chose this shot for 365 because it speaks to my friend :) (perhaps not on a conversational level mind)
The fun stuff comes when someone is not so strict on sticking to the script. You're allowed the spontaneity, and great moments can happen.
-Jennifer Aniston
(BWVersion)
This image is from my “Conversational Portrait” sessions at Glazer’s Camera Portrait workshop in Seattle.
This image is of the lovely Myah Larkin. An absolute pleasure to photograph. I loved the whole day. Could not ask for a better group to have to the privilege to work with.
I will post images from the workshop as I process them.
Shot with the Nikon Z6III using the 135mm Plena. Post processed wit NX Studio and Photoshop CC Beta. Lit with an Amaran 300c and Tc2 tube light.
#Nikon100 #nikonlove #kelbyone #photography #onOne @misssmyah @glazerscamera @amaran #amaran #300c #Tc2
#mirrorless #Z6III #NIKKOR 135mm #Plena #NikonNoFilter #nxstudio #niksoftware #nikonUSA #Epson #nikonusa @NIKONUSA
#wacom #calibrite #onone #sunbounce #fineartphotography #kolarivision @nikonusa #shotonnikon
#DxO #iamgenerationimage #iamnikon #B&H #PhotogenicbyBenQ
#nikonLOVE #hoodman #infrared #CUBA #nikonnofilter #nikonambassador
COLOR VERSION
Fourth post processed image from my “Marilyn Monroe” shoot with Stephanie Stuart arguably the Best Marilyn Monroe impersonator in the country.
What I wanted to do was celebrate the shoot using the tech of today. Soooooo you will be seeing a lot of images from the shoot we did on the deck of my studio.
I am a big believer in getting it as close to completely right in the camera as reality allows. What I was able to do with the combo of the sunbounce cage and hive lights was magic. We shot video during the shoot to discuss how to do
conversational portraiture using the D850.First post processed image from my “Marilyn Monroe” shoot with Stephanie Stuart arguably the Best Marilyn Monroe impersonator in the country. I am a big believer in getting it as close to completely right in the camera as reality allows. What I was able to do with the combo of the sunbounce cage and hive lights was magic. We shot video during the shoot to discuss how to do conversational portraiture using the D850.
I used Hive light led wasps lights with a leko lens an a fresnel. Sunbounce cage and Sunbounce reflectors.
Nikon D850 and Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8
Post processing: Capture NX-D, Photoshop CC 2018, NiK Collection by DxO's Silver Efex Pro and Viveza.
#Nikon100 #NikonAmbassador #nikonlove #lexar #kelbyone #photography #onOne @NikonUSA #D850 #70-200mm f2.8 #NikonNoFilter #niksoftware #nikonUSA #Epson #wacom #xritephoto #onone #sunbounce #fineartphotography #DxO #iamgenerationimage #iamnikon #B&H #hivelight #PhotogenicbyBenQ #lexarMemory #nikonLOVE @lexarmemory elite photographer #lexarmemory
#Nikon100 #NikonAmbassador #nikonlove #lexar #kelbyone #photography #onOne @NikonUSA #D850 #70-200mm f2.8 #NikonNoFilter #niksoftware #nikonUSA #Epson #wacom #xritephoto #onone #sunbounce #fineartphotography #DxO #iamgenerationimage #iamnikon #B&H #PhotogenicbyBenQ #lexarMemory #nikonLOVE @lexarmemory elite photographer #lexarmemory #hivelight @stephstuart @my_ms_marylin_monroe @hiveligthing #litbyhive #hivelighting
Anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman pose for a photograph in New York City after their arrest and release on bail for opposing conscription during World War I.
Photo identifiers have this photo dated after their arrest but before their trial, making the date June 25 or 26, 1917. Berkman is on crutches because he had sprained his leg prior to his arrest.
The two, along with Lucy Parsons, were the most prominent anarchists in the early part of the 20th century.
Berkman biography:
"I consider anarchism the most rational and practical conception of a social life in freedom and harmony. I am convinced that its realization is a certainty in the course of human development." — Alexander Berkman, Now and After, The ABC of Anarchism
Alexander Berkman, known by the Russian diminutive "Sasha," was born in Russia in 1870 to a family of merchants with ties to the nihilists, a political group who rejected all established authority.
He modeled himself after his uncle, the Russian revolutionary Mark Andreyevich Natanson. A brilliant student, Berkman attended a classical gymnasium in St. Petersburg.
By the time he was fifteen, Berkman was an avid reader of revolutionary literature. School authorities eventually expelled him, for an essay titled, "There Is No God."
He became interested in anarchism after reading about the execution of Chicago's Haymarket anarchists in 1887, and immigrated to America in early 1888, at age 18. In New York, he frequented German and Jewish anarchist meetings while working as a typesetter for Johann Most's newspaper, Freiheit.
Berkman met Emma Goldman in 1889 at Sach's Café on Suffolk Street, the unofficial headquarters of young Yiddish-speaking anarchists in New York City's Lower east Side. "Their love and attraction would become the emotional center of both their lives," wrote historian Candace Falk. Though their romantic episodes were fleeting, they would remain lifelong comrades.
In July 1892 in response to the Homestead steel strike and attending violence, Berkman made an unsuccessful attempt to murder Henry Clay Frick, general manager of the Homestead steel plant.
Berkman held Frick responsible for the killing of seven locked-out workers by the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Sentenced to 22 years in prison, Berkman served fourteen years behind bars.
In 1906, Berkman was released from prison. He soon suffered a minor breakdown, but by March 1907 he had become editor of Emma Goldman's magazine Mother Earth, a position at which he excelled.
Together with Goldman, Berkman helped form the Ferrer School (Modern School) in 1910, becoming an inspirational figure to some of the children who studied there. He was also a key organizer of New York's unemployed during the bleak winter of 1913-1914, working closely with the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.).
In 1914, federal agents set fire to a tent colony of miners on strike against the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in Ludlow, Colorado. Cries for vengeance filled the anarchist press. Margaret Sanger's magazine, The Woman Rebel, called on all radicals to "Remember Ludlow."
Berkman's anger overflowed. He vowed to organize a demonstration outside the house of the man who had controlling interest in Colorado Fuel and Iron, John D. Rockefeller.
Evidence also suggests that Berkman was the main organizer of a planned bomb attack on Rockefeller. An anarchist concept of the era, "propaganda of the deed, " held that a violent terrorist act could become a catalyst, awakening others to take action against perceived injustice.
In this case, the bomb exploded prematurely at a tenement building on Lexington Avenue in New York City, killing three anarchists and a sympathizer. Berkman published an emotional outpouring for the "martyrs" of the explosion in the July issue of Mother Earth. Goldman, who disapproved of the use of terror, was outraged.
Differences with Goldman caused Berkman to leave Mother Earth and New York a month later. He moved to San Francisco and started a publication of his own, a magazine he named The Blast.
During World War I, Berkman signed the International Anarchist Manifesto, an anti-war document issued from London. He helped found the No-Conscription League, speaking publicly against the war and the new draft law. Federal authorities arrested him and Goldman in June 1917.
Found guilty of conspiring to violate draft laws, Berkman was sentenced to two years in the Atlanta Federal Prison.
During the infamous Red Scare in December 1919, the U.S. government deported Berkman from America to Russia together with Goldman and more than 200 other people
On January 19, 1920, after crossing snow-blanketed Finland in sealed railroad cars, Goldman, Berkman, and the other deportees reached Soviet Russia. Berkman felt he had returned home.
"The revolutionary hymn, played by the military Red Band, greeted us as we crossed the frontier," Berkman later wrote. "The hurrahs of the red-capped soldiers, mixed with the cheers of the deportees, echoed through the woods, rolling into the distance like a challenge of joy and defiance. A feeling of solemnity, of awe overwhelmed me."
Berkman's awe was not to last. In March 1921 the Bolsheviks ruthlessly suppressed a revolt of the Kronstadt sailors who had helped bring them to power in 1917.
After trying to comprehend the repression they had witnessed growing in Russia, this was the final straw. Berkman and Goldman left the country in December 1921.
In 1925, Berkman moved to France, where he lived for the rest of his life in difficult circumstances. After his expulsion from the U.S., he could never get citizenship papers. He was often dependent on donations from American comrades just to survive.
In 1929 Berkman published Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism. Written in a conversational style, the book soon became a classic of anarchist thought.
In 1936 he underwent two serious operations. On June 28 of that year he shot himself, a result of the pain he could no longer tolerate, and because he was unable to support himself financially and refused to live off the support of others.
--biography excerpted from a post on the American Experience website
Goldman biography:
Emma Goldman was one of two prominent American women anarchists during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The other was Lucy Parsons, the widow of Haymarket martyr Albert Parsons.
Goldman was born in the Russian empire in what is now Lithuania. She emigrated to the U.S. in 1885 to join her sister in Rochester, N.Y. where she worked as a seamstress in a factory.
She became radicalized by the imprisonment and execution of the Haymarket martyrs—labor and anarchist leaders accused of killing police in Chicago, though most were not present when the incident took place.
She moved to New York City in early 1888 where she met anarchists Johann Most and Alexander Berkman and became wholeheartedly involved with the anarchist movement. She became a practiced orator during this period.
The Homestead strike in 1892 brought fame to both Berkman and Goldman. Owner Henry Frick locked out the union and brought in strikebreakers. A fierce battle ensued that left seven guards and nine strikers dead.
The two plotted to kill Frick believing it would spark a revolt against the capitalist system. Berkman shot Frick three times and stabbed him, but Frick lived. Berkman was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Goldman was harassed by police, who believed her in cohorts with Berkmann though they could not prove it, and evicted from her home.
The following year a severe economic downturn prompted unrest. Goldman urged crowds to take action. She was charged with inciting to riot.
Police testified she said, "take everything ... by force". But Goldman denied this and claimed she said: "Well then, demonstrate before the palaces of the rich; demand work. If they do not give you work, demand bread. If they deny you both, take bread.
Regardless, she was convicted and sentenced to one year in prison. After release, she resumed her speaking engagements, both at home and abroad.
In 1901, an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz assassinated President William McKinley. Czolgosz claimed he was inspired by Goldman and Goldman defended his actions—though Goldman had no connection with the act itself. She was detained for two weeks by police in connection with the shooting and largely condemned by, not only the public, but by other anarchists as well.
In 1903 she became involved in opposing the Anarchist Exclusion Act that permitted authorities to refuse entrance to the United States for anyone they deemed radical.
In 1906, she began an anarchist magazine called Mother Earth. Later that year Berkman was released from prison and the two resuming their partnership.
For the next ten years, she took speaking engagements around the country and in 1915 she took up Margaret Sanger’s birth control campaign.
Sanger was arrested in 1915 for distributing "obscene, lewd, or lascivious articles." In 1916 Goldman was arrested on the same charges and spent two weeks in jail for the offense.
She and Berkman opposed entry of the U.S. into World War I and began the “No Conscription League,” opposing the draft. When President Woodrow Wilson took the U.S. into the war in 1917, Goldman and Berkman were arrested. Many war opponents. including Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene Debs, suffered the same fate.
Goldman defended herself in court and said in part,
“We say that if America has entered the war to make the world safe for democracy, she must first make democracy safe in America. How else is the world to take America seriously, when democracy at home is daily being outraged, free speech suppressed, peaceable assemblies broken up by overbearing and brutal gangsters in uniform; when free press is curtailed and every independent opinion gagged?
Berkman and Goldman were both found guilty and sentenced to two years imprisonment, a $10,000 fine with the possibility of deportation upon their release.
The two were released during the 1919 Red Scare and were taken into custody. Authorities revoked her citizenship and she and Berkman were deported to the Soviet Union.
Goldman initially supported the Russian revolution, but grew increasingly critical of the Bolsheviks during her stay.
This was the period in which both the Western powers, including the U.S., launched an invasion to overthrow the Bolsheviks and the forces of the former Czar were waging war on the communists as well. After three years of World War I and now several years of civil war, Russia was gripped with privation.
They met with communist leader Vladimir Lenin, who dismissed them as idealists and assured them that government suppression of normal civil liberties was justified. He allegedly told them: "There can be no free speech in a revolutionary period."
She first recoiled at the Bolshevik repression of the anarchist Nester Makhno’s self-governing territory in Ukraine in 1920.
During the Kronstadt rebellion of 1921 where workers and sailors struck demanding more food, the Soviet authorities repressed the rebellion with hundreds killed in the fighting. Berkman and Goldman then decided to quit the Soviet Union.
The two settled in Europe, but found both Berlin and London inhospitable to their anarchist philosophy. She spent several years working on her autobiography “Living My Life.”
She received permission to return to the U.S. in 1933, but only to speak on her autobiography. When her six-month visa expired, she was denied a renewal.
In 1936, Francisco Franco’s fascist revolt against the elected government in Spain gave her another opportunity at relevance. She quickly aligned herself with the large section of Spanish anarchists and organized support for them.
With the fascist forces’ victory in 1939, she returned to Europe and then Canada where she wrote opposing the impending war in Europe.
She died there in 1940.
She was largely forgotten until the social upsurges of the 1960s when her writings were re-discovered. She influenced the nascent women’s liberation movement with her support for free, available contraception, support for lesbians and gay people and for the emancipation of women from the family structure.
Her anarchist writings also received renewed attention during that period. A very abbreviated definition of anarchism by Goldman is:
“Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations.”
For more information and other random radicals, see flic.kr/s/aHsmHsoTUS
The photographer is unknown. The image is a Bain photograph housed in the D.C. Library Washington Star Collection.
The Montezuma oropendola (Psarocolius montezuma) is a New World tropical icterid bird. It is a resident breeder in the Caribbean coastal lowlands from southeastern Mexico to central Panama, but is absent from El Salvador and southern Guatemala. It also occurs on the Pacific slope of Nicaragua and Honduras and northwestern Costa Rica. It is among the oropendola species sometimes separated in the genus Gymnostinops. The English and scientific names of this species commemorate the Aztec emperor Moctezuma II.
The sexes are very different in size; the male is 50 cm (20 in) long and weighs 520 g (18 oz); the smaller female is 38 cm (15 in) long and weighs 230 g (8.1 oz). In total body mass, the males are 100% bigger than the females, which is a 2:1 body:mass ratio and makes the Montezuma oropendola one of the most sexual-dimorphic birds in the world. Webster et al. says that the size difference in males and females is probably directly related to differences in foraging habits. The females often forage on thin branches, eating insects out of curled up leaves, while the males often perch on thick branches and forage in epiphytes and bromeliads.
Webster et al. also found that sexual dimorphism was more obvious in length of the wing and body mass. Male size and body mass is associated with sexual fitness and dominance. Webster et al. observed that males defend sexually-receptive females, suggesting that Montezuma oropendolas have a female-defence mating system. While the females nest, the males fight and fend off one another, and the males were ranked depending on the outcome of each fight. The alpha male eventually pushes out all other males until he is the only one left. When the alpha males leave the others come back and defend females until he returns. This type of mating system is similar to that of polygynous mammals, not birds.
Adult males are mainly chestnut with a blackish head and rump, and a tail which is bright yellow apart from two dark central feathers. There is a bare blue cheek patch and a pink wattle, the iris is brown, and the long bill is black at the base with a red tip. Females are similar, but smaller than males with a smaller wattle. Young birds are duller than adults and have a paler and less demarcated bill. No subspecies are currently recognized.
The "unforgettable" song of the male Montezuma oropendola is given during the bowing display, and consists of a conversational bubbling followed by loud gurgles, tic-tic-glik-glak-GLUUuuuuu. Both sexes have loud cack and crrrk calls. In a recent study by on male Montezuma oropendolas, researchers found that, when at breeding sites, males often changed the lowest peak frequency. When males were singing and their song overlapped, the largest male could out-compete the other males at the colony by changing how loud and how deep his lowest peak frequency was.
Although the chestnut-headed oropendola shares much of this species's range, it is smaller, mainly black with a chestnut head (instead of mainly chestnut with a blackish head), and lacks coloured facial patches, so the two oropendolas are unlikely to be confused.
Hanging nests in farmland near Quesada, Costa Rica
The Montezuma oropendola is a quite common bird in parts of its range. They are omnivorous and are often seen in small or larger flocks foraging in trees for small vertebrates, large insects, nectar, and fruit, including bananas, Cecropia spikes, gumbo-limbo (Bursera simaruba) and Trophis racemosa (Moraceae).Outside the breeding season, this species is quite mobile, with some seasonal movements.
The Montezuma oropendola inhabits forest canopy, edges and old plantations. It is a colonial breeder and only the females build hanging woven nest of fibres and vines, 60–180 cm (24–71 in) long, in a tree that is up to 30 meters high. Each colony has a dominant male, which mates with most of the females following an elaborate bowing display. The female lays two dark-spotted white or buff eggs, and she incubates them without the male until they hatch in 15 days; the young fledge in 30. While the young are still in their nests they are most often fed spiders and other arthropods, frogs, lizards, and fruits. There are typically about 30 nests in a colony, but up to 172 have been recorded.
Unlike some populations of its relative, the chestnut-headed oropendola, the Montezuma oropendola does not tolerate brood parasites near their nests. Although Montezuma oropendolas do not have many defenses against Cowbirds, when females see a Giant Cowbird near their own nest they actively defend their nest by attacking the Cowbirds and forcing them to leave their colony. Webster et. al. found that the females did not drive the cowbirds away until they were approaching their own nests. This study also found that unlike chestnut-headed oropendolas, the Montezuma oropendolas did not nest near social Hymenoptera. Combined with the fact that Montezuma oropendolas do not allow Cowbirds near their nest, they have no defense against botflies. Nest success is fairly low for the Montezuma Oropendola. The females lay an average of two eggs per nest, but only one is fledged and only one third of the nests in the colonies are successful. Because of their relatively low nest success rate, brood parasites are too high of a risk to have around the Montezuma oropendolas nest.
Rock in Ricklow Dale. A slight change of content to the live show of White Light White Peak, (to tour in 2019, ) means I get to take a new set of photographs for a "new" poem: Correspondence. It involves a lost submarine, an alien asteroid and "this long outcrop of limestone rock" in Ricklow Dale. The finding of the natural crucifix was a bonus. Just one of a number of "sketches" taken today with my little Olympus, but I really like this one.
White Light White Peak, the live show, is a personal journey through a year in the White Peak told through poems and projections. see: www.whitelightwhitepeak.com
“a beautiful work of art in every one of its facets – poetry, photography, stagecraft, soundtrack.”
Jim Marriott – Buxton Festival Fringe review.
"Summed up in one word - mesmerising." (Caroline Small, events manager at The Green Man Gallery, Buxton).
Touring the Peak District and beyond, September and October - with more dates planned for 2020.
Starting in the depths of a snowy winter, this is a poetic journey through a White Peak year, including encounters with the weather, wildlife and people; some amusing, some thought-provoking and many involving a Springer Spaniel...or two. The poems are told from memory and in a conversational style; more like miniature short stories at times, complete with twists and some happy endings.
The White Light is all in my monochrome photography: Atmospheric landscapes, wildlife shots and enigmatic moments, reflecting the images and moods heard in the poems and projected onto a large screen throughout the performance. With the occasional soundscape, (captured locally - and in all weathers) the whole is a highly immersive experience; the culmination of five years' work.
"White Light White Peak", the book, is published by Fly on the Wall press - order a copy here: www.flyonthewallpoetry.co.uk/shop Copies for sale at a discount (and signed!) at the live event if you buy the programme, which contains a supplement of seven poems with photographs.
A review of White Light White Peak – The Book:
“A joyous book - one to be slowly savoured. The black and white photos are truly atmospheric, the snippets of prose down-to-earth and gently humorous, while the poems are a wonderful celebration of nature. Simon Corble produces a little bit of magic in White Light White Peak, capturing the ethereal beauty of England's first national park. This is a book to keep and cherish.”
Helen Moat, freelance travel writer and book reviewer - author of "The Slow Guide to the Peak District".
The Garden originated as a teahouse during the 1915–16 Panama-California Exposition and now lies on two acres near the Spreckels Organ Pavilion. Along the Garden’s winding paths are a Zen garden for meditation, an exhibit house, koi pond, bonsai exhibit, ceremonial gate, and a Fujidana (wisteria arbor). Weekend classes are offered in sushi making, bonsai, calligraphy, and conversational Japanese.
Two moments of light
Forty days of Winter
Darkness is just a lack of christmas lights
And you're just a lack of conversational fights
A laugh is all it takes
For happiness to wake
Ignorance is bright,
Addressing problems like letters,
Takes forever.
CHROMATIC GRAYSCALE VERSION
Third post processed image from my “Marilyn Monroe” shoot with Stephanie Stuart arguably the Best Marilyn Monroe impersonator in the country.
What I wanted to do was celebrate the shoot using the tech of today. Soooooo you will be seeing a lot of images from the shoot we did on the deck of my studio.
I am a big believer in getting it as close to completely right in the camera as reality allows. What I was able to do with the combo of the sunbounce cage and hive lights was magic. We shot video during the shoot to discuss how to do
conversational portraiture using the D850.First post processed image from my “Marilyn Monroe” shoot with Stephanie Stuart arguably the Best Marilyn Monroe impersonator in the country. I am a big believer in getting it as close to completely right in the camera as reality allows. What I was able to do with the combo of the sunbounce cage and hive lights was magic. We shot video during the shoot to discuss how to do conversational portraiture using the D850.
I used Hive light led wasps lights with a leko lens an a fresnel. Sunbounce cage and Sunbounce reflectors.
Nikon D850 and Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8
Post processing: Capture NX-D, Photoshop CC 2018, NiK Collection by DxO's Silver Efex Pro and Viveza.
#Nikon100 #NikonAmbassador #nikonlove #lexar #kelbyone #photography #onOne @NikonUSA #D850 #70-200mm f2.8 #NikonNoFilter #niksoftware #nikonUSA #Epson #wacom #xritephoto #onone #sunbounce #fineartphotography #DxO #iamgenerationimage #iamnikon #B&H #hivelight #PhotogenicbyBenQ #lexarMemory #nikonLOVE @lexarmemory elite photographer #lexarmemory
#Nikon100 #NikonAmbassador #nikonlove #lexar #kelbyone #photography #onOne @NikonUSA #D850 #70-200mm f2.8 #NikonNoFilter #niksoftware #nikonUSA #Epson #wacom #xritephoto #onone #sunbounce #fineartphotography #DxO #iamgenerationimage #iamnikon #B&H #PhotogenicbyBenQ #lexarMemory #nikonLOVE @lexarmemory elite photographer #lexarmemory #hivelight @stephstuart @my_ms_marylin_monroe @hiveligthing #litbyhive #hivelighting
I need to take a moment to thank you. I may not get many any more chances; and I don't want this to seem like a ploy. I don't want it to seem like anything other than what it is. A thank you, from me to you.
Slight bit o' backstory. Kaelyn and I got along so awesomely when I was in STL. We would talk about all kinds of things, and then when we touched on something that we had in common it would spiral out of control conversationally speaking. Kaelyn has a profound interest in Anne Frank, WWII, Nazi's, etc. Not some kind of weird fascination, but just a purely innocent curiosity that has a hard time mentally grasping how horrible humans can be. It was sweet, really. I downloaded for her a five part BBC recreation of Anne Franks story, it was really well done. She was delighted. We bonded more. Beautiful.
A few weeks after I downloaded it, I had nothing to watch as I went to bed that night, and cued up the episodes on the laptop. I am pretty sure I fell asleep during the third episode. They only ever showed the inside of the the Franks Hiding space, never Amsterdam itself. Well, the five episodes were on reapeat, so after it finished the fifth one, it just starts over and loops until you stop it. I woke later in the night, hearing the damn thing playing. I groggily opened one eye, and saw Anne looking out the window at a church across the canal. No religious markings, but there was a very pronounced 'XXX" emblazoned into it.
Wooooooooooooooosh.....
There we were. The kids on the bike, singing la la la...the students sitting half assed off the back of the bike, traveling along as though they were on a lazyboy...
Wooosh...
...Watching you throw leaves up into the air...taking pictures of you in a tree with killer flash that I had no idea how to truly operate to do you justice, all the while thinking we were about to get mugged....sitting and eating with you watching the trully beautiful world outside go by....
There were a million wooshes to follow as I lay there transported back in time.
I never thanked you. Not trully. And now, I don't get to. Tragic.
Seriously, that trip with you to that wonderful city(et. al) left me with memories that I will cherish for the rest of my life. It was for me, a transformative event, one that over time altered my course. Or, allowed me to alter my course. Whatever. I can not ever in this lifetime thank you enough for making it happen, and for being such a worthy travel partner.
For this...and for every other gawd damn thing, thank you. For everything.