View allAll Photos Tagged Culpability,
Washburn is the US capital city of New Kansas, Kepler System. True to it’s namesake, New Kansas is a fertile farming world from which a wide variety of crops are cultivated and animals raised. Settlements range from small, old fashioned farms to large, mechanised outposts of synchronised machines and technology.
Washburn is the hub for all manner of activity; business, education and pleasure. It is the port by which New Kansas feeds a large proportion of the Core Worlds. The city is home to several of the top biochemical and veterinary colleges of their kind. A giant spaceport sits on the outskirts of the city, big enough to accommodate the larger interplanetary barges for the transfer of crops and livestock. There is also quite the lively nightlife; most of these bars and cantinas centre around the American Cool Revival trend. They feature music and décor reminiscent of American days gone by.
There exists a quiet acrimony the settlers who reside solely within Washburn and the more isolated farmers. The latter consider their city-based fellows stuck-up and pretentious. The former consider the farming population crass and uncultured.
The city is home to the New Kansas Senator, when she is not involved in democratic discussions back on Earth. Although officially neutral during the Pan-Eurasian War, several of the large farmers sold food to the under-siege Coalition population of Kepler II. One side of the story paints the farmers as saving the lives of starving children. The reality was that rich agricultural groups made huge profits breaking a neutrality clause set by the government. The US investigation into the food smuggling found no person or organisation culpable is considered a whitewash by the Coalition.
© All rights reserved. A low-res, flatbed scan of a 6x7 (2 1/4 x 2 3/4 inch) transparency. From a cool trip with MattyD90.
I like to think of this time of year as the beginning to a new season of shooting. This is likely one of the worst years to share that point of view, seeing as how there were multiple shoot-worthy events this summer all around the Bay Area, in regards to the stuff seen on this photostream.
Still, atypical summer with nice sunsets and dawns or not, I hope everyone finds what their after and shoots some good stuff until the skies dry-up again next year.
Disclaimer: The proprietor of said photostream does not extend nor offer any guarantee of skies being filled with low fog. color, rainbows, halos, or other optical phenomena thereby listed in subsection b4 merely because he refers to said date as a starting point for photography. Results should not be deemed typical and there are probable and appreciable risks to entering in to any photographic pursuit, project, or excursion. Therefore, even in the case that someone doesn't see another cloud in the sky until Elvis lands on Crissy Field in the Hindenburg and sings 'Highway to Hell' with AC/DC, the proprietor cannot and will not be held culpable.
Colonia Hogar Ricardo Gutierrez
En Historias de Irregularidades y abandono, la autora Diana Rossi hace referencia a cómo surgió la modalidad de las Colonias como lugar para chicos judicializados. Con la ley 10.903, por primera vez se incorporaba el concepto de “protección integral del menor”. En su momento, el entonces senador J.A. Roca, único que interviniera en la sesión de la Cámara de Senadores que trató la ley, resaltaba el objeto perseguido por el Proyecto Agote (luego ley 10.903): “corregir los males que dimanan de la infancia, y de la infancia criminal, en todo el territorio de la Nación y, especialmente, en el de la Capital Federal.” Algunos hechos puntuales –la huelga de inquilinos de 1907 y los sucesos de 1919 en la fábrica de Pedro Vasena– favorecieron el tratamiento y aprobación de su proyecto legislativo. Por aquella época, los defensores de menores estaban encargados del destino de los niños y niñas calificados de vagos o delincuentes. La cárcel compartida con los adultos era el derrotero habitual, hasta que se les encontraba colocación en alguna familia. “En 1897 fueron colocadas por órdenes judiciales 767 jóvenes mujeres junto a criminales considerados culpables”, detalla la autora.
Las colonias-escuelas y las colonias-reformatorios ubicadas cerca de las ciudades o en pleno campo serán el tipo preferido de estas casas de prevención y reforma de los menores.
La colonia Marcos Paz, que devendrá a posteriori instituto “Gutiérrez”, resume en sus características las del modelo previsto en la legislación. Si bien ya existían los institutos correccionales cuando se creó en 1904, se adoptó para él el modelo de colonia agrícola tan difundido durante el siglo anterior en Estados Unidos.
El predio en el que se situó la Colonia había pertenecido al general Francisco Bosch, cuya viuda, Laura Sáenz Valiente, vendió al ministerio de Menores. El decreto que aprueba la compra en noviembre de 1903 dispone en su art. 1º: “que la propiedad de que se trata reúne las condiciones necesarias para implantar en ella un instituto destinado a la instrucción práctica de la ganadería, agricultura y de la industria, en el cual puedan instruirse los menores que por falta de padre y de hogar o por sus malas inclinaciones necesitan de la protección del Gobierno o de una dirección especial que les inculque hábitos de trabajo y corrija su deficiencia…”
Extracto de la Revista "Furias"
TRASLATOR
Colonia Hogar Ricardo Gutierrez
In Histories of Irregularities and abandonment, the author Diana Rossi makes reference to how the modality of the Colonies arose as a place for judicialized children. With Law 10,903, the concept of "integral protection of the minor" was incorporated for the first time. At the time, the then senator J.A. Roca, the only one to intervene in the session of the Senate that dealt with the law, highlighted the object pursued by the Agote Project (later law 10,903): "correct the evils that arise from childhood, and from criminal childhood, in all the territory of the Nation and, especially, that of the Federal Capital. "Some specific events - the strike of tenants of 1907 and the events of 1919 in the factory of Pedro Vasena - favored the treatment and approval of their legislative project. At that time, the defenders of minors were in charge of the destiny of the boys and girls described as lazy or delinquent. The jail shared with the adults was the usual course, until they were placed in a family. "In 1897, 767 young women were placed by judicial orders together with criminals considered guilty," says the author.
The colonies-schools and the colonies-reformatories located near the cities or in the countryside will be the preferred type of these houses of prevention and reform of minors.
The Marcos Paz colony, which will become a posteriori "Gutiérrez" institute, summarizes in its characteristics those of the model foreseen in the legislation. Although the correctional institutes already existed when it was created in 1904, the model of agricultural colony so widespread during the previous century in the United States was adopted for him.
The estate in which the Colony was located belonged to General Francisco Bosch, whose widow, Laura Saenz Valiente, sold to the Ministry of Minors. The decree approving the purchase in November 1903 provides in its art. 1º: "that the property in question meets the necessary conditions to establish in it an institute for the practical instruction of livestock, agriculture and industry, in which minors can be instructed because of lack of father and home or because of their bad inclinations they need the protection of the Government or of a special direction that inculcates work habits and corrects their deficiency ... "
Santo Domingo de la Calzada és una població situada al costat del riu Oja, que dóna nom a la regió, en el trajecte del camí de Santiago.
El seu nom i fundació provenen de Domingo García, després canonitzat com a Santo Domingo de la Calzada, qui creà un pont, un hospital i un alberg de peregrins, per a facilitar el seu pas cap a Santiago de Compostela, al voltant de l'any 1045.
És famosa la dita de "Santo Domingo de la Calzada, donde cantó la gallina después de asada", gràcies a un miracle atribuït al sant. En record d'aquesta llegenda es guarda permanentment a la catedral un gall i una gallina, en un galliner construït amb forja.
La Catedral va ser començada, segons els "Anales Compostelanos", l'any 1158, amb la finalitat d'acollir les restes d'un dels sants més coneguts i venerats en el Camí de Santiago, Santo Domingo de la Calzada, mort en l'any 1109.
El mestre Garçión, possiblement d'origen francès, va projectar un gran temple tardorromànic d'acord amb la importància del lloc, i del que encara es conserven importants vestigis, en concret la capçalera i el disseny de la resta del temple. Des del punt de vista arquitectònic destaca la seva estructura, amb una capçalera amb deambulatori que circumda el presbiteri, i tres capelles absidals de les que només la central és de les originals. Pel que fa a l'escultura d'aquesta part de la catedral, cal destacar per la seva importància tota la sèrie de capitells historiats del deambulatori i sobretot les quatre pilastres decorades que donen al presbiteri. En elles s'ha vist representat un arbre de Jessè destacant per la seva qualitat les imatges de la Santíssima Trinitat i d'un Rei David músic.
El cor de la catedral és una gran peça plateresca realitzada en la dècada de 1520 per Andrés de Nájera i Guillén d'Holanda, entre d'altres. La qualitat de les seves talles s'aprecia en els treballs de delicats calats o en la marqueteria dels seus setials. Els relleus de les cadires representen figures de sants i santes. Presidint, a la cadira abacial, es troba Santo Domingo. També és digne de ressenyar l'interessant programa simbòlic de tot el conjunt, reafirmat per una sèrie de sentències inscrites en molts dels respatllers.
El sepulcre de Santo Domingo de la Calzada és una obra en la qual conflueixen diversos estils per ser possiblement fruit de la unió de peces de tres sepulcres diferents. Romànica és la lauda sepulcral en la qual es representa al Sant jacent, gòtica és la taula en la qual es narren els seus miracles, i tardogòtic és el templet. Aquest va ser dissenyat per Felipe Vigarny i realitzat per Juan de Rasines en 1513.
El galliner, on s'aixopluguen el gall i la gallina com a record del famós miracle, és d'estil gòtic del segle XV.
Altres obres importants de la catedral són les capelles funeràries de Santa Teresa i de la Magdalena. La primera conté diversos sepulcres gòtics, el del centre de Pedro Suárez de Figueroa, i un bell retaule de pintura sobre taula de finals del segle XV. La segona és força menor en grandària però igualment interessant ja que és d'un estil proper al del gran escultor Felipe Vigarny. És d'estil gòtic tardà i en ella està enterrat Pedro de Carranza, maestrescola de la Catedral de Burgos. Destaca el sepulcre, la reixa i el petit retaule del pintor de l'època León Picardo.
El claustre és una obra gòtic-mudèjar en el qual destaca la sala capitular pel seu cadirat del segle XVII i per la seva enteixinat mudèjar com a sostre. S'hi exposen valuoses obres d'art com tríptics flamencs, orfebreria i altres importants peces escultòriques.
La llegenda del gall i la gallina
Al segle XIV pelegrina a Compostela Hugonell, un jove alemany de 18 anys que va acompanyat pels seus pares. En la fonda on s'allotgen treballa una noia jove que s'enamora d'ell i li requereix d'amors, al que el noi es nega. Despitada i amb ànsies de venjança, guarda al sarró del jove una copa de plata i després l'acusa de robatori.
El jove Hugonell i els seus pares es disposen a partir per seguir el pelegrinatge, quan arriba la justícia i comproven l'acusació registrant el sarró del noi. El declaren culpable i és condemnat a la forca. Els pares no poden fer res per ell més que resar a Santiago. De retorn a Alemanya, a l'acostar-se al cos penjat del seu fill per acomiadar-se senten com aquest els parla des de la forca i els diu que està viu per la gràcia del Sant.
Feliços i contents van a comunicar la notícia al corregidor que, just en aquest moment, està sopant opíparament unes aus. El corregidor naturalment es burla del que sent i llança la frase coneguda: «El vostre fill està tan viu com aquest gall i aquesta gallina que em disposava a menjar abans que em importunarais». I en aquest moment, les aus salten del plat i es posen a cantar i cloquejar alegrement.
D'aquesta llegenda va néixer la dita popular: «En Santo Domingo de la Calzada, donde cantó la gallina después de asada». Es tracta d'una llegenda molt similar a la Llegenda del Gall de Barcelos i probablement les dues tinguin un origen comú.
Agotado sin fuerzas, yace inherte, perdido, aquel muñeco rojo del niño que soñó con cambiar su mundo. Cada mañana, sentía la roja ilusión de su muñeco y, sin pensarlo, salía dispuesto a sorprender al mundo. Con el muñeco recostado en su pecho, pasaba horas pronunciando frases que sólo ellos dos podían entender. A veces, también se enfadaba y lo dejaba en el cajón. Pero no duraba mucho. No soportaba estar sin su muñeco rojo. Hasta que un día, una sucesión de descuidos hizo que aquel muñeco rojo del niñó que soñó con cambiar el mundo, apareciera sólo, tendido al borde del abismo y con el corazón roto. El niño lloró días y dias sin encontrar consuelo. Se sentía culpable por no haber cuidado bien de su muñeco rojo y sintió que algo se desgarraba en su interior. Noche tras noche, soñaba que lo agarraba fuerte, y volvía a ser feliz. Y amanecer tras amanecer se hacía consciente de la pérdida. Y, en voz baja, apenas ahogada en un susurro, se oía el llanto del niño que soñó con cambiar su mundo.
Explore # 425
4.9.2008
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sk4M2QsiL8
¿Qué porqué te quiero?
Porque aún yo siento
Ese primer beso
Que me diste justo
Cuando era el momento.
Y a pesar del tiempo
Vuelvo y te confiezo
Sigue siendo absurda
Tu pregunta necia
¿Qué porqué te quiero?
¿Qué porqué te quiero?
Son mil cosas a la ves
Es estar contigo
Es buscar tu abrigo
Es un no se qué.
¿Qué porqué te quiero?
Culpable es tu corazón
Inventaste un sueño
Donde soy tu dueño
Tu luna y tu sol.
¿Qué porqué te quiero?
Son tantos motivos
Fui como tu cielo
Fui luz en tu sombra
Fui más que un amigo.
Conmigo supiste
Dominar tu miedo
Y con mi ternura
Pude demostrarte
Que por que te quiero.
Que porqué te quiero..
Colonia Hogar Ricardo Gutierrez
En Historias de Irregularidades y abandono, la autora Diana Rossi hace referencia a cómo surgió la modalidad de las Colonias como lugar para chicos judicializados. Con la ley 10.903, por primera vez se incorporaba el concepto de “protección integral del menor”. En su momento, el entonces senador J.A. Roca, único que interviniera en la sesión de la Cámara de Senadores que trató la ley, resaltaba el objeto perseguido por el Proyecto Agote (luego ley 10.903): “corregir los males que dimanan de la infancia, y de la infancia criminal, en todo el territorio de la Nación y, especialmente, en el de la Capital Federal.” Algunos hechos puntuales –la huelga de inquilinos de 1907 y los sucesos de 1919 en la fábrica de Pedro Vasena– favorecieron el tratamiento y aprobación de su proyecto legislativo. Por aquella época, los defensores de menores estaban encargados del destino de los niños y niñas calificados de vagos o delincuentes. La cárcel compartida con los adultos era el derrotero habitual, hasta que se les encontraba colocación en alguna familia. “En 1897 fueron colocadas por órdenes judiciales 767 jóvenes mujeres junto a criminales considerados culpables”, detalla la autora.
Las colonias-escuelas y las colonias-reformatorios ubicadas cerca de las ciudades o en pleno campo serán el tipo preferido de estas casas de prevención y reforma de los menores.
La colonia Marcos Paz, que devendrá a posteriori instituto “Gutiérrez”, resume en sus características las del modelo previsto en la legislación. Si bien ya existían los institutos correccionales cuando se creó en 1904, se adoptó para él el modelo de colonia agrícola tan difundido durante el siglo anterior en Estados Unidos.
El predio en el que se situó la Colonia había pertenecido al general Francisco Bosch, cuya viuda, Laura Sáenz Valiente, vendió al ministerio de Menores. El decreto que aprueba la compra en noviembre de 1903 dispone en su art. 1º: “que la propiedad de que se trata reúne las condiciones necesarias para implantar en ella un instituto destinado a la instrucción práctica de la ganadería, agricultura y de la industria, en el cual puedan instruirse los menores que por falta de padre y de hogar o por sus malas inclinaciones necesitan de la protección del Gobierno o de una dirección especial que les inculque hábitos de trabajo y corrija su deficiencia…”
Extracto de la Revista "Furias"
TRASLATOR
Colonia Hogar Ricardo Gutierrez
In Histories of Irregularities and abandonment, the author Diana Rossi makes reference to how the modality of the Colonies arose as a place for judicialized children. With Law 10,903, the concept of "integral protection of the minor" was incorporated for the first time. At the time, the then senator J.A. Roca, the only one to intervene in the session of the Senate that dealt with the law, highlighted the object pursued by the Agote Project (later law 10,903): "correct the evils that arise from childhood, and from criminal childhood, in all the territory of the Nation and, especially, that of the Federal Capital. "Some specific events - the strike of tenants of 1907 and the events of 1919 in the factory of Pedro Vasena - favored the treatment and approval of their legislative project. At that time, the defenders of minors were in charge of the destiny of the boys and girls described as lazy or delinquent. The jail shared with the adults was the usual course, until they were placed in a family. "In 1897, 767 young women were placed by judicial orders together with criminals considered guilty," says the author.
The colonies-schools and the colonies-reformatories located near the cities or in the countryside will be the preferred type of these houses of prevention and reform of minors.
The Marcos Paz colony, which will become a posteriori "Gutiérrez" institute, summarizes in its characteristics those of the model foreseen in the legislation. Although the correctional institutes already existed when it was created in 1904, the model of agricultural colony so widespread during the previous century in the United States was adopted for him.
The estate in which the Colony was located belonged to General Francisco Bosch, whose widow, Laura Saenz Valiente, sold to the Ministry of Minors. The decree approving the purchase in November 1903 provides in its art. 1º: "that the property in question meets the necessary conditions to establish in it an institute for the practical instruction of livestock, agriculture and industry, in which minors can be instructed because of lack of father and home or because of their bad inclinations they need the protection of the Government or of a special direction that inculcates work habits and corrects their deficiency ... "
hola a todos!
aqui les dejo este mi mas reciente blend de belinda! fue un pedido de HBF y el chico q me lo pidio le encanto! espero ya ustedes igual les guste!
gracias a los q pasan x mi galeria y comentan :D
All paths lead here my head pounding the pavement pounding my feet know where to go. 20,30,40 years past the time sworn to be the end made a liar with longevity, levity, unconscious culpability
11 años..
lo demás ya te lo sabes...
por cierto!! ella es la culpable de q me viciara con la fotografia!!! :D
Today, my dog Bella and I attended the Vancouver PItbull Rally to show our support for the failings of breed specific legislation. Attended by many calm, well mannered pitbulls and their people, the rally was to demonstrate that the dogs are being judged unfairly.
Breed-specific legislation (BSL) is the banning or restriction of specific breeds of dogs considered “dangerous” breeds, such as pit bull breeds, Rottweilers and German shepherds. Many governments are turning to legislation that targets specific breeds as an answer to dog attacks. While supporters of BSL argue that the only way to be safe from dog bites is to eradicate “dangerous breeds” from the community, there is little evidence that supports BSL as an effective means of reducing dog bites and dog attacks. On the contrary, studies have shown that it is not the breeds themselves that are dangerous, but unfavorable situations that are creating dangerous dogs.While almost all BSL refers to “pit bulls,” many breeds of dogs have the facial and body characteristics of a “pit bull,” but are actually not pit bulls at all, including Labrador retrievers, bulldogs, Rhodesian Ridgebacks, mastiffs and many others.Legislation targeting specific breeds simply does not work because dog attacks result from multiple factors, not just a simple breakdown of breed culpability.
What does happen under breed-specific legislation?
■Innocent people continue to be threatened, bitten, traumatized, disfigured, and killed—by non-targeted breeds and types of dogs.
■Innocent dogs are killed because they look a certain way.
■Millions of dollars are wasted and animal control resources stretched thin in order to kill dogs and not save people.
■Abusive and irresponsible owners carry on with “business as usual.”
■Good owners and their families are outcasts (if they keep their targeted dog) or devastated (if they give up their targeted dog).
■Reason, science, and expertise gets ignored or, even worse, scoffed at.
■Nobody learns anything about the real reasons why dogs bite and attack, safety around dogs, or responsible dog ownership.
Breed-specific legislation makes victims of us all.
KOLKATTA—
Bangladesh police have charged dozens of people, including the owner of Rana Plaza complex, with murder, more than two years after the collapse of that building in Dhaka killed over 1,100 people, in the worst industrial disaster in the country’s history.
On Monday, police filed two charge sheets to the chief judicial magistrate’s court in Dhaka, in connection with two separate cases related to the April 24, 2013 collapse of Rana Plaza.
For the killing of at least 1,137 people - mostly workers at five garment factories housed in Rana Plaza - authorities charged 41 people, including plaza owner Sohel Rana, his parents, seven factory owners and more than a dozen government officials. And, in an illegal building construction case, the number of accused stands at 18.
Because 17 of those charged in the illegal construction case also stand accused in the murder case, the total number of people charged in the two cases numbers 42.
“All 41 charged in the murder case were collectively responsible for this killing of more than 1,100 innocent people. It was a case of mass killing,” lead investigator Bijoy Krishna Kar said Monday.
Many survivors said they refused to enter their factories in Rana Plaza after they noticed some cracks on the building hours before the collapse.
The investigation found that the cracks were noticed by some people one day before the building crashed. The investigators also found that the factory owners and Sohel Rana held a discussion about the cracks and decided to keep the factories running.
“The cracks were clearly ignored by Rana and the factory owners. They did not bother to close down the factories and keep the workers away from the building. They sent the workers to die there. So, we have pressed murder charges against those 41 people, including Sohel Rana and the factory owners,” Kar said.
Rana Plaza initially was approved as a six-story shopping mall. But officials say it was illegally extended to a nine-story factory complex, violating the code of construction.
“The illegal extensions on the building violating construction regulations triggered the massive tragedy,” Kar said.
Rana, three government engineers and the mayor are among the 18 charged in the illegal construction case.
The group of 41 people, including Rana and the factory owners, initially faced charges of culpable homicide. But following the investigation, police upgraded the charges to murder.
After the fatal collapse, Rana went into hiding but was arrested days after.
Among the 42 who have been charged, Rana and four others are in police custody now. While some others among the charged are out on bail, 26 have gone missing since the time of the collapse. Kar said police are seeking court warrants for those 26.
Iftekhar Zaman, executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh - the Bangladesh chapter of the global anti-corruption watchdog - said that it is “absolutely indispensable to bring to account” those responsible for the Rana Plaza tragedy, in order to ensure justice in the case as well as to prevent any such tragedy in the future.
“These two cases are much bigger than that of a case of typical violation of laws and rules. Therefore, they deserve speedier trials. The cases related to the Rana Plaza tragedy should therefore be tried in a special court to ensure that those found guilty in the due process face sufficiently deterrent punishment,” Zaman told VOA.
“Failure to do so will worsen the culture of impunity increasing the risk of other such violations of laws and rules to flourish, and thereby undermine the prospect of accountability and rule of law."
EVR Boston
February 8 – April 13, 2007
a project by Anton Vidokle and Julieta Aranda
Carpenter Center
24 Quincy Street
Boston, MA 02138
Monday – Friday: noon – 5
Saturday & Sunday: 1 - 5
Carpenter Center Lecture
by Anton Vidokle and Julieta Aranda
Thursday, February 8 2007, 6 pm
Carpenter Center lecture hall
reception with the artists to follow
e-flux video rental (EVR) is a project comprising a free video rental, a public screening room, and a film and video archive that is constantly growing. This collection of near 700 works of film and video art has been assembled in collaboration with over 60 international artists, curators and critics. Orignally presented on New York, at 53 Ludlow Street in 2004, EVR has been presented in Amsterdam, Berlin, Frankfurt, Seoul, Istanbul, Canary Islands, Austin Texas, Budapest, Antwerp, and Miami.
Every time EVR is installed in a new city, local arts professionals are invited to serve as selectors, choosing artists whose work is added to the collection. In addition, a program of screenings of works from the EVR collection is part of the project. In Boston, the program will continue with the participation from interns from the departments of Visual and Environmental Studies, History of Art and Architecture, as well as Mass Art and the Museum School in Boston.
In the 1960s and 70s, artists were drawn to working with video in part because it was cheap to use and easily reproduced and distributed. But video art has become increasingly assimilated to the precious-object economy of the art world. EVR is an exploration on the current processes of circulation and distribution of video art, and is structured to function like a regular video store, except that it operates for free. VHS tapes can be watched in the space, or, once a viewer fills out a membership form and contract, they can be checked out and taken home. A changing selection of works showcasing the depth and breadth of the collection will be screened during all times the exhibition is open to the public, coordinated by local students from Harvard and Boston-area arts schools.
This project also includes a special series of screenings on Tuesday nights curated by local artists, writers and curators as well as interns from the departments of Visual and Environmental Studies and History of Art and Architecture, Massachusetts College of Art, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.
Works selected by: fernanda arruda, marilyn arsem, defne ayas, gabriel perez barreiro, rene barilleaux, regine basha, thomas bayrle, katrin becker, ariane beyn, cis bierinckx, daniel birnbaum, osman bozkurt, adam budak, cac tv, annette dimeo carlozzi, luca cerizza, binna choi, mariana david, catherine david, nikola dietrich, power ekroth, mai abu eldahab, esra ersen, jose louis falconi, hedwig fijen, elena filipovic, lauri firstenberg, susanne gaensheimer, gabrielle giattino, massimiliano gionni, julieta gonzález, francesca grassi, andrea grover, cao guimaraes, alfred guzzetti, jörg heiser, arne hendriks, sofia hernandez, maria hlavajova, jens hoffmann, teresa hubbard & alexander birchler, anthony huberman, pierre huyghe, eungie joo, yu hyun jung, christoph keller, sung won kim, adam klimczak, anders krueger, pablo leon de la barra, fernando llanos, omar lopez-chahoud, jaroslaw lubiak, bill lundberg, ives maes, karen mahaffy, raimundas malasauskas, franco marinotti, vi ncent meessen, viktor misiano, edit molnár, kassandra nakas, molly nesbit, hans ulrich obrist, lívia páldi, november paynter, wim peeters & marie denkens, zsolt petrányi natasa petresin, stephen prina, risa puleo, alia rayyan, karyn riegel, david rych, hyun jun ryu, esra sarigedik, nermin saybasili, itala schmeltz, stefanie schulte strathaus, basak senova, henk slager, hajnalka somogy, ali subotnik, christine tohme, regina vater, gilbert vicario, florian waldvogel, franciska zólyom, nathalie zonnenberg
Artists: 24/7 tv, a-clip, vahram aghasyan, doug aitken, lucas ajemian, nevin aladag, kamal aljafari, jennifer allora & guillermo calzadilla, paulo almeida, can altay, carlos amorales, andré amparo, j tobias anderson, alexander apóstol, vasco araújo, assume vivid astro focus, michel auder, sven augustijnen, alexandra bachzetsis, miriam bäckström, lucas bambozzi, edson barrus, judith barry, yael bartana, taysir batniji, thomas bayrle, sarah beddington, patricia belli, elisabetta benassi, kazimierz bendkowski, roberto berliner, janet biggs, colectivo bijari, marc bijl, johanna billing, julien jonas bismuth, alberto bitar e leonardo bitar, john bock, manon de boer, mike bouchet, frank boue, andrea bowers, osman bozkurt, ulla von brandenburg, pavel braila, candice breitz, wojciech bruszewski, martin butler, chris caccamise, yane calovski & FOS, mircea cantor, domenico cappello, carolina caycedo, alex cecchetti & christian frosi, alejandro cesarco, juan cespedes, paul chan, terry chatkupt, marcos chaves, mina cheon, loulou cherinet, olga chernysheva, ali cherri, sunah choi, heman chong & isabel cornaro, kerstin cmelka, cecilia condit, joost conijn, marie cool & fabio balducci, alexander costello, alfredo b. crevenna, carlo crovato, roberto cuoghi, federico curiel, hubert czerepok, marilá dardot, simona denicolai & ivo provoost, marta deskur, angela detanico y rafael lain, stefaan dheedene, wilson diaz, melissa dubbin & aaron s. davidson, ivan edeza, effi & amir, james elaine/william basinski, fouad elkoury, hala elkoussy, shahram entekhabi & mieke bal, annika eriksson, espacio la culpable, marcell esterházy, extrastruggle, héctor falcón, matias faldbakken, jeanne faust/jorn zehe, rochelle feinstein, jakup ferri, dirk fleischmann, oriana fox, alicia framis, jonah freeman, gabrielle fridriksdottir, anna friedel, peter friedl, yang fudong, rene gabri, rubén galindo, andrea geyer, gilbert & george, jérémie gindre, christoph girardet, piero golia, emilio gómez muriel, francis gomila, dominique gonzales-foerster, rogelio a. gonzáles, rogelio a. gonzales jr., jacqueline goss, laurent grasso, loris gréaud, sagi groner, christian grou & tapio snellman, eva grubinger, cao guimaraes, dmitry gutov & radek group, joanna hadjithomas & khalil joreige, driton hajredini, yang-ah ham, adad hannah, sharon hayes, daniel herskowitz, shere hite, karl holmqvist, judith hopf & stephan geene, vlatka horvat, laszlo hudak & imre lenart, jane hudson, oliver husain, kristina inciuraite, las indestables, matthew day jackson, christian jankowski, evaldas jansas, tom johnson, ilya kabakov, gülsün karamustafa, franka kaßner, leopold kessler, hassan khan, nesrine khodr, laleh khorramian, heidi kilpelainen, changkyum kim, se-jin kim, shin il kim, tae-eun kim, szabolcs kisspál, leszek knaflewski, seung wook koh, jeroen kooijmans, korpys/löffler, katarzyna kozyra, elke krystufek, pawel kwiek, tim lee, crystobal lehyt, dominik lejman, jesse lerner, xavier le roy, erik van lieshout, deborah ligorio, khoór lilla & will potter, minouk lim & frederic michon, daniel lima, lana lin, lin + lam, petra lindholm, fernando llanos, dora longo bahia, polonca lovsin, cecilia lundqvist, mary lucier, maria lusitano, jorge macchi, cynthia madansky, gintaras makarevicius, joanna malinowska, marepe, teresa margolles, gilberto martinez solares, trish maud, marssares, eileen maxson, mc messiah, mc liezuvis, vincent meessen, jonas mekas, bjřrn melhus & yves netzjammer, john menick, ohad meromi, wieslaw michalak, simone michelin, christopher miner, lim minouk & frederic michon, sarah minter, aleksandra mir, mixrice, slava mizin & sasha shaburov, avi mograbi, naeem mohaiemen, sebastián díaz morales, frédéric moser & philippe schwinger, melvin moti, tova mozard, rabih mroue, felipe mujica, matthias müller, takeshi murata, juan nascimento&daniela lovera, deimantas narkevicius, argentino neto, sergio & rivane neuenschwader, tuan andrew nguyen, jesper nordahl, love nordberg, filip noterdaeme, sophie nys, yoshua okon, bjargey ólafsdóttir, anneč olofsson, yoko ono, els opsomer, anna orlikowska, tanja ostojic & david rych, the otolith group, chan-kyong park, philippe parreno, sean paul & david dempewolf, jenny perlin, diego perrone, alessandro pessoli, michael pfrommer, pablo pijnappel, john pilson, steven pippin, michelangelo pistoletto, shannon plumb, rafael portillo & manuel san fernando, linda post, liza may post, dean proctor & michael laub, the atlas group/walid raad, judy radul, orit raff, anne-britt rage, arturas raila, khaled d. ramadan, tere recarens, mandla reuter, jae oon rho, robin rhode, józef robakowski, camila rocha, tracey rose, douglas ross, karl ingar rřys, julika rudelius, daniel rumiancew, david rych, natascha sadr haghigian, anri sala, samir, fernando sánchez castillo, beatriz santiago muńoz, julia scher, markus schinwald, andrea schneemeier, karin schneider & nicolás guagnini & jeff preiss, meggie schneider & bin-chuen choi, corinna schnitt, solmaz shahbazi, wael shawky, taro shinoda, santiago sierra, silverio, guy richards smit, gregg smith, michael smith, sean snyder, aaron steffes, a.l. steiner, hito steyerl, deborah stratman, jános sugar, özlem sulak, superflex, pál szacsva y, mathilde ter heijne, tetine, kika thorne, rirkrit tiravanija, maciej toporowicz, ana torfs, cecilia torquato & andré amparo, mario garcia torres, kerry tribe, caecilia tripp, stefanos tsivopoulos, nasan tur, alexander ugay, johanna unzueta, utopia station, michael van den abeele, mona vatamanu & florin tudor, gabriel acevedo velarde, mark verabioff, katleen vermeir & ronny heiremans, dmitry vilensky, joe villablanca, gitte villesen, barbara visser, jenny vogel, sharif waked, marek wasilewski, ryszard wasko, douglas weathersby, clemens von wedemeyer, lawrence weiner, suara welitoff, aleksandra went & alicja karska, klaus weber, adrian williams, marten winters jordan wolfson, tin tin wulia, erwin wurm, cerith wyn evans, sislej xhafa, haegue yang, adnan yildiz, carey young, akram zaatari, olivier zabat, florian zeyfang, igor zupe and others
A point of view which is readily lost sight of - if one has even
thought of it - when defending those who refuse the celestial Messages, is precisely the very appearance of the Messengers; now, to paraphrase or to cite some well-known formulas, "he who has seen the Prophet has seen God"; "God became man in order that man might become God".
One has to have a very hardened heart not to be able to see this upon contact with such beings; and it is above all this hardness of heart that is culpable, far more than ideological
scruples.
The combination of holiness and beauty which characterizes
the Messengers of Heaven is, so to speak, transmitted from the human theophanies to the sacred art which perpetuates it: the essentially intelligent and profound beauty of this art testifies to the truth which inspires it; it could not in any case be reduced to a human invention as regards the essential of its message. Sacred art is Heaven descended to earth, rather than earth reaching towards Heaven.
A line of thought close to this one which we have just presented is the following, and we have made note of it more than once: if men were stupid enough to believe for millenia in the divine, the supernatural, immortality -assuming these are illusions- it is impossible that one fine day they became intelligent enough to be aware of their errors; that they became intelligent, no one knowing why, and without any decisive moral acquisition to corroborate this miracle. And likewise: if men like the Christ believed in the supernatural, it is impossible that men like the Encyclopedists were right not to believe in it.
Sceptical rationalism and titanesque naturalism are the two great abuses of intelligence, which violate pure intellectuality as well as a sense of the sacred; it is through this propensity that thinkers "are wise in their own eyes" and end by "calling evil good, and good evil" and by "putting darkness for light, and light for darkness" (Isaiah 5:20 and 21); they are also the ones who, on the plane of life or experience, "put bitter for sweet", namely the love of the eternal God, and "sweet for bitter", namely the illusion of the evanescent world.
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From the Divine to the Human by Frithjof Schuon
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Image: Meeting of the Icon of Our Lady of Vladimir in Moscow in 1395 icon
~*Photography Originally Taken By: www.CrossTrips.Com Under God*~
The September 11, 2001 attacks (often referred to as 9/11) were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon the United States. On that morning, terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners.[1][2] The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the World Trade Center in New York City, resulting in the collapse of both buildings soon afterward and extensive damage to nearby buildings. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania after passengers and members of the flight crew on the fourth aircraft attempted to retake control of their plane.
Excluding the 19 hijackers, 2,974 people died as an immediate result of the attacks with another 24 missing and presumed dead. The overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians, including nationals from over 90 different countries. In addition, the death of at least one person from lung disease was ruled by a medical examiner to be a result of exposure to dust from the World Trade Center's collapse, as rescue and recovery workers were exposed to airborne contaminants following the World Trade Center's collapse.
The attacks had major ramifications around the world, with the United States declaring a War on Terrorism in response and launching an invasion of Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, who had been accused of willfully harboring terrorists. The United States passed the USA PATRIOT Act, as many nations around the world strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation and expanded law enforcement powers. Stock exchanges were closed for almost a week, and posted enormous losses immediately upon reopening, with airline and insurance industries suffering the greatest financial losses. The economy of Lower Manhattan ground to a halt, as billions of dollars in office space was damaged or destroyed.
The damage to the Pentagon was cleared and repaired within a year, and a small memorial built on the site. Rebuilding the World Trade Center site has been more contentious, with controversy over possible designs as well as the pace of construction. The selection of the Freedom Tower for the site has drawn extensive criticism, forcing the abandonment of some parts of the project.
Attacks
Early in the morning on September 11, 2001, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners en route to California from Logan International, Dulles International, and Newark airports.[1] The hijackers flew two of the airliners, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center.[3] Another group of hijackers flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, and a fourth flight, United Airlines Flight 93, whose ultimate target was the U.S. Capitol building, crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.[4][5]
During the hijacking of the airplanes, some passengers and crew members were able to make phone calls using the cabin GTE airphone service and mobile phones.[6][7] They reported that several hijackers were aboard each plane. The terrorists had reportedly taken control of the aircraft by using knives and box-cutter knives to kill flight attendants and at least one pilot or passenger, including the captain of Flight 11, John Ogonowski.[8] The 9/11 Commission established that two of the hijackers had recently purchased Leatherman multi-function hand tools.[9] Some form of noxious chemical spray, such as tear gas or pepper spray, was reported to have been used on American 11 and United 175 to keep passengers out of the first-class cabin.[10] A flight attendant on Flight 11, a passenger on Flight 175, and passengers on Flight 93 mentioned that the hijackers had bombs, but one of the passengers also mentioned he thought the bombs were fake. No traces of explosives were found at the crash sites. The 9/11 Commission Report believed the bombs were probably fake.[8]
On United Airlines Flight 93, black box recordings revealed that crew and passengers attempted to seize control of the plane from the hijackers after learning through phone calls that similarly hijacked planes had been crashed into buildings that morning.[11][12] According to the transcript of Flight 93's recorder, one of the hijackers gave the order to roll the plane once it became evident that they would lose control of the plane to the passengers.[13] Soon afterward, the aircraft crashed into a field near Shanksville in Stonycreek Township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, at 10:03:11 a.m. local time (14:03:11 UTC). Al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed mentioned in a 2002 interview with Yosri Fouda, an al Jazeera journalist, that Flight 93's target was the United States Capitol, which was given the code name "the Faculty of Law".[14]
Three buildings in the World Trade Center Complex collapsed due to structural failure on the day of the attack.[15] The south tower (2 WTC) fell at approximately 9:59 a.m., after burning for 56 minutes in a fire caused by the impact of United Airlines Flight 175.[15] The north tower (1 WTC) collapsed at 10:28 a.m., after burning for approximately 102 minutes.[15] When the north tower collapsed, debris heavily damaged the nearby 7 World Trade Center (7 WTC) building. Its structural integrity was further compromised by fires, and the building collapsed later in the day at 5:20 p.m.[16]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) launched investigations into the cause of collapse for the three buildings, subsequently expanding the investigation to include questions over measures to prevent progressive collapse, such as fire resistance design and retrofitting of structural steel. The report into 1 WTC and 2 WTC was concluded in October 2005, and the investigation into 7 WTC is ongoing.[17][18] The current NIST hypothesis attributes the collapse to "fire and/or debris induced structural damage."[18]
The attacks created widespread confusion among news organizations and air traffic controllers across the United States. All international civilian air traffic was banned from landing on US soil for three days.[19] Aircraft already in flight were either turned back or redirected to airports in Canada or Mexico. News sources aired unconfirmed and often contradictory reports throughout the day. One of the most prevalent of these reported that a car bomb had been detonated at the U.S. State Department's headquarters in Washington, D.C.[20] Soon after reporting for the first time on the Pentagon crash, CNN and other media also briefly reported that a fire had broken out on the Washington Mall.[21] Another report went out on the AP wire, claiming that a Delta 767—Flight 1989—had been hijacked. This report, too, turned out to be in error; the plane was briefly thought to represent a hijack risk, but it responded to controllers and landed safely in Cleveland, Ohio.
Casualties
There were 2,974 fatalities, excluding the 19 hijackers: 246 on the four planes (from which there were no survivors), 2,603 in New York City in the towers and on the ground, and 125 at the Pentagon.[23][24] An additional 24 people remain listed as missing.[25] All of the fatalities in the attacks were civilians except for 55 military personnel killed at the Pentagon.[26] More than 90 countries lost citizens in the attacks on the World Trade Center.[27]
NIST estimated that approximately 17,400 civilians were in the World Trade Center complex at the time of the attacks, while turnstile counts from the Port Authority suggest that 14,154 people were typically in the Twin Towers by 8:45 a.m.[28][29] The vast majority of people below the impact zone safely evacuated the buildings, along with 18 individuals who were in the impact zone in the south tower.[30] 1,366 people died who were at or above the floors of impact in the North Tower.[31] According to the Commission Report, hundreds were killed instantly by the impact, while the rest were trapped and died after the tower collapsed.[32] As many as 600 people were killed instantly or were trapped at or above the floors of impact in the South Tower.
At least 200 people jumped to their deaths from the burning towers (as depicted in the photograph "The Falling Man"), landing on the streets and rooftops of adjacent buildings hundreds of feet below.[39] Some of the occupants of each tower above its point of impact made their way upward toward the roof in hope of helicopter rescue, but the roof access doors were locked. No plan existed for helicopter rescues, and on September 11, the thick smoke and intense heat would have prevented helicopters from conducting rescues.[40]
A total of 411 emergency workers who responded to the scene died as they attempted to implement rescue and fire suppression efforts. The New York City Fire Department lost 341 firefighters and 2 FDNY Paramedics.[41] The New York City Police Department lost 23 officers.[42] The Port Authority Police Department lost 37 officers.[43] Private EMS units lost 8 additional EMTs and paramedics.[44][45]
Cantor Fitzgerald L.P., an investment bank on the 101st–105th floors of One World Trade Center, lost 658 employees, considerably more than any other employer.[46] Marsh Inc., located immediately below Cantor Fitzgerald on floors 93–101 (the location of Flight 11's impact), lost 295 employees, and 175 employees of Aon Corporation were killed.[47] After New York, New Jersey was the hardest hit state, with the city of Hoboken sustaining the most fatalities.[48]
Weeks after the attack, the estimated death toll was over 6,000.[49] The city was only able to identify remains for approximately 1,600 of the victims at the World Trade Center. The medical examiner's office also collected "about 10,000 unidentified bone and tissue fragments that cannot be matched to the list of the dead."[50] Bone fragments were still being found in 2006 as workers were preparing to demolish the damaged Deutsche Bank Building.
Damage
In addition to the 110-floor Twin Towers of the World Trade Center itself, numerous other buildings at the World Trade Center site were destroyed or badly damaged, including 7 World Trade Center, 6 World Trade Center, 5 World Trade Center, 4 World Trade Center, the Marriott World Trade Center and St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church.[51] The Deutsche Bank Building across Liberty Street from the World Trade Center complex was later condemned due to the uninhabitable, toxic conditions inside the office tower, and is undergoing deconstruction.[52][53] The Borough of Manhattan Community College's Fiterman Hall at 30 West Broadway was also condemned due to extensive damage in the attacks, and is slated for deconstruction.[54] Other neighboring buildings including 90 West Street and the Verizon Building suffered major damage, but have since been restored.[55] World Financial Center buildings, One Liberty Plaza, the Millenium Hilton, and 90 Church Street had moderate damage.[56] Communications equipment atop the North Tower, including broadcast radio, television and two-way radio antenna towers were also destroyed, but media stations were quickly able to reroute signals and resume broadcasts.[51][57] In Arlington County, a portion of the Pentagon was severely damaged by fire and one section of the building collapsed.
Rescue and recovery
The Fire Department of New York City (FDNY) quickly deployed 200 units (half of the department) to the site, whose efforts were supplemented by numerous off-duty firefighters and EMTs.[59][60][61] The New York Police Department (NYPD) sent Emergency Service Units (ESU) and other police personnel.[62] During the emergency response, FDNY commanders, the NYPD, and the Port Authority police had limited ability to share information and coordinate their efforts.[59] The NYPD, FDNY, and Port Authority police did redundant searches for civilians, rather than coordinate efforts among the agencies.[63] As conditions deteriorated, the NYPD received information from its helicopters, and were able to pass along evacuation orders that allowed most of its officers to safely evacuate before the buildings collapsed.[62][63] However, radio communications between the NYPD and FDNY were incompatible and the information did not get to FDNY commanders. After the first tower collapsed, FDNY commanders experienced difficulties communicating evacuation orders to firefighters inside the towers due to malfunctioning radio repeater systems in the World Trade Center. 9-1-1 dispatchers also received information from callers that was not passed along.[60] Within hours of the attack, a massive search and rescue operation was launched. Rescue and recovery efforts took months to complete.
Attackers and their motivation
The attacks were consistent with the overall mission statement of al-Qaeda, as set out in a 1998 fatwā issued by Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Ahmed Refai Taha, Mir Hamzah, and Fazlur Rahman declaring that it was the "duty of every Muslim" to "kill Americans anywhere."
Al-Qaeda
The origins of al-Qaeda date back to 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Soon after the invasion, Osama bin Laden traveled to Afghanistan where he helped organize Arab mujahideen and established the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) organization to resist the Soviets. In 1989, as the Soviets withdrew, MAK was transformed into a "rapid reaction force" in jihad against governments across the Muslim world. Under the guidance of al-Zawahiri, Osama became more radical.[68] In 1996, bin Laden issued his first fatwā which called for American soldiers to leave Saudi Arabia.[69]
In a second fatwā issued in 1998, bin Laden outlined his objections to American foreign policy towards Israel, as well as the continued presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War.[70] Bin Laden used Islamic texts to exhort violent action against American military and citizenry until the stated grievances are reversed, noting "ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries."
Planning of the attacks
The idea for the September 11 plot came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who first presented the idea to bin Laden in 1996.[71] At that point, Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were in a period of transition, having just relocated back to Afghanistan from Sudan.[72] The 1998 African Embassy bombings marked a turning point, with bin Laden intent on attacking the United States.[72] In late 1998 or early 1999, bin Laden gave approval for Mohammed to go forward with organizing the plot.[72] A series of meetings occurred in spring of 1999, involving Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden, and his deputy Mohammed Atef.[72] Bin Laden provided leadership for the plot, along with financial support.[72] Bin Laden was also involved in selecting people to participate in the plot, including choosing Mohamed Atta as the lead hijacker.[73] As many as 27 members of al-Qaeda attempted to enter the United States to take part in the September 11 attacks.[8] Mohammed provided operational support, such as selecting targets and helping arrange travel for the hijackers.[72] Bin Laden overruled Mohammed, rejecting some potential targets such as the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles[74] because "there was not enough time to prepare for such an operation".[75]
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States was formed by the United States government and was commonly called the 9/11 Commission. It released its report on July 22, 2004, concluding that the attacks were conceived and implemented by members of al-Qaeda. The Commission stated that "9/11 plotters eventually spent somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to plan and conduct their attack, but that the specific origin of the funds used to execute the attacks remained unknown."
Hijackers
Fifteen of the attackers were from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt, and one from Lebanon.[77] In sharp contrast to the standard profile of suicide bombers, the hijackers were well-educated, mature adults, whose belief systems were fully formed.[78]
Within hours of the attacks, the FBI was able to determine the names and in many cases the personal details of the suspected pilots and hijackers.[79][80] Mohamed Atta's luggage, which did not make the connection from his Portland flight onto Flight 11, contained papers that revealed the identity of all 19 hijackers, and other important clues about their plans, motives, and backgrounds.[81] On the day of the attacks, the National Security Agency intercepted communications that pointed to Osama bin Laden, as did German intelligence agencies.
On September 27, 2001, the FBI released photos of the 19 hijackers, along with information about the possible nationalities and aliases of many.[84] The FBI investigation into the attacks, code named operation PENTTBOM, was the largest and most complex investigation in the history of the FBI, involving over 7,000 special agents.[85] The United States government determined that al-Qaeda, headed by Osama bin Laden, bore responsibility for the attacks, with the FBI stating "evidence linking al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the attacks of September 11 is clear and irrefutable".[86] The Government of the United Kingdom reached the same conclusion regarding al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden's declaration of a holy war against the United States, and a fatwā signed by bin Laden and others calling for the killing of American civilians in 1998, are seen by investigators as evidence of his motivation to commit such acts.
Bin Laden initially denied, but later admitted, involvement in the incidents.[89][90] On September 16, 2001, bin Laden denied any involvement with the attacks by reading a statement which was broadcast by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel: "I stress that I have not carried out this act, which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation."[91] This denial was broadcast on U.S. news networks and worldwide.
In November 2001, U.S. forces recovered a videotape from a destroyed house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, in which Osama bin Laden is talking to Khaled al-Harbi. In the tape, bin Laden admits foreknowledge of the attacks.[92] The tape was broadcast on various news networks from December 13, 2001. His distorted appearance on the tape has been attributed to tape transfer artifact.[93]
On December 27, 2001, a second bin Laden video was released. In the video, he states, "Terrorism against America deserves to be praised because it was a response to injustice, aimed at forcing America to stop its support for Israel, which kills our people," but he stopped short of admitting responsibility for the attacks.[94]
Shortly before the U.S. presidential election in 2004, in a taped statement, bin Laden publicly acknowledged al-Qaeda's involvement in the attacks on the U.S, and admitted his direct link to the attacks. He said that the attacks were carried out because "we are free…and want to regain freedom for our nation. As you undermine our security we undermine yours."[95] Osama bin Laden says he had personally directed the 19 hijackers.[96] In the video, he says, "We had agreed with the Commander-General Muhammad Atta, Allah have mercy on him, that all the operations should be carried out within 20 minutes, before Bush and his administration notice."[90] Another video obtained by Al Jazeera in September 2006 shows Osama bin Laden with Ramzi Binalshibh, as well as two hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi and Wail al-Shehri, as they make preparations for the attacks.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
In a 2002 interview with al Jazeera journalist Yosri Fouda, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed admitted his involvement, along with Ramzi Binalshibh, in the "Holy Tuesday operation."[98] The 9/11 Commission Report determined that the animosity towards the United States felt by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the "principal architect" of the 9/11 attacks, stemmed "not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel."[72] Mohamed Atta shared this same motivation. Ralph Bodenstein, a former classmate of Atta described him as "most imbued actually about... U.S. protection of these Israeli politics in the region."[99] Abdulaziz al-Omari, a hijacker aboard Flight 11 with Mohamed Atta, said in his video will, "My work is a message those who heard me and to all those who saw me at the same time it is a message to the infidels that you should leave the Arabian peninsula defeated and stop giving a hand of help to the coward Jews in Palestine."[100]
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was arrested on March 1, 2003 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.[101] Mohammed ultimately ended up at Guantanamo Bay. During US hearings in March 2007, which have been "widely criticized by lawyers and human rights groups as sham tribunals", Mohammed again confessed his responsibility for the attacks, "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z."
Other al-Qaeda members
In "Substitution for Testimony of Khalid Sheik Mohammed" from the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, five people are identified as having been completely aware of the operations details. They are: Osama bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh, Abu Turab Al-Urduni and Mohammed Atef.[104] To date, only peripheral figures have been tried or convicted in connection with the attacks. Bin Laden has not yet been formally indicted for the attacks.[105]
On September 26, 2005, the Spanish high court directed by judge Baltasar Garzón sentenced Abu Dahdah to 27 years of imprisonment for conspiracy on the 9/11 attacks and as part of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. At the same time, another 17 al-Qaeda members were sentenced to penalties of between six and eleven years.[106][107] On February 16, 2006, the Spanish Supreme Court reduced the Abu Dahdah penalty to 12 years because it considered that his participation in the conspiracy was not proven.
Motive
Many of the eventual findings of the 9/11 Commission with respect to motives have been supported by other experts. Counter-terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke explains in his book, Against All Enemies, that U.S. foreign policy decisions including "confronting Moscow in Afghanistan, inserting the U.S. military in the Persian Gulf," and "strengthening Israel as a base for a southern flank against the Soviets" contributed to al-Qaeda's motives.[109] Others, such as Jason Burke, foreign correspondent for The Observer, focus on a more political aspect to the motive, stating that "bin Laden is an activist with a very clear sense of what he wants and how he hopes to achieve it. Those means may be far outside the norms of political activity [...] but his agenda is a basically political one."[110]
A variety of scholarship has also focused on bin Laden's overall strategy as a motive for the attacks. For instance, correspondent Peter Bergen argues that the attacks were part of a plan to cause the United States to increase its military and cultural presence in the Middle East, thereby forcing Muslims to confront the "evils" of a non-Muslim government and establish conservative Islamic governments in the region.[111] Michael Scott Doran, correspondent for Foreign Affairs, further emphasizes the "mythic" use of the term "spectacular" in bin Laden's response to the attacks, explaining that he was attempting to provoke a visceral reaction in the Middle East and ensure that Muslim citizens would react as violently as possible to an increase in U.S. involvement in their region.
Aftermath
Immediate national response
The 9/11 attacks had immediate and overwhelming effects upon the people of the United States. Many police officers and rescue workers elsewhere in the country took leaves of absence to travel to New York City to assist in the process of recovering bodies from the twisted remnants of the Twin Towers.[113] Blood donations across the U.S. also saw a surge in the weeks after 9/11.[114][115] For the first time in history, all nonemergency civilian aircraft in the United States and several other countries including Canada were immediately grounded, stranding tens of thousands of passengers across the world.[116] Any international flights were closed to American airspace by the Federal Aviation Administration, causing flights to be redirected to other countries. Canada was one of the main recipients of diverted flights and launched Operation Yellow Ribbon to deal with the large numbers of grounded planes and stranded passengers.
War on Terrorism
The NATO council declared that the attacks on the United States were considered an attack on all NATO nations and, as such, satisfied Article 5 of the NATO charter.[118] In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the Bush administration declared a war on terrorism, with the stated goals of bringing Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to justice and preventing the emergence of other terrorist networks. These goals would be accomplished by means including economic and military sanctions against states perceived as harboring terrorists and increasing global surveillance and intelligence sharing. The second-biggest operation of the U.S. Global War on Terrorism outside of the United States, and the largest directly connected to terrorism, was the overthrow of the Taliban rule of Afghanistan by a U.S.-led coalition. The United States was not the only nation to increase its military readiness, with other notable examples being the Philippines and Indonesia, countries that have their own internal conflicts with Islamist terrorism.[119][120] U.S. officials speculated on possible involvement by Saddam Hussein immediately afterwards.[121] Although these suspicions were unfounded, the association contributed to public acceptance for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Domestic response
Following the attacks, President Bush's job approval rating soared to 86%.[122] On September 20, 2001, the U.S. president spoke before the nation and a joint session of the United States Congress, regarding the events of that day, the intervening nine days of rescue and recovery efforts, and his intent in response to those events. In addition, the highly visible role played by New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani won him high praise nationally and in New York.[123] Many relief funds were immediately set up to assist victims of the attacks, with the task of providing financial assistance to the survivors of the attacks and to the families of victims. By the deadline for victim's compensation, September 11, 2003, 2,833 applications had been received from the families of those killed.[124]
Contingency plans for the continuity of government and the evacuation of leaders were also implemented almost immediately after the attacks.[116] Congress, however, was not told that the United States was under a continuity of government status until February 2002.[125]
Within the United States, Congress passed and President Bush signed the Homeland Security Act of 2002, creating the Department of Homeland Security, representing the largest restructuring of the U.S. government in contemporary history. Congress also passed the USA PATRIOT Act, stating that it would help detect and prosecute terrorism and other crimes. Civil liberties groups have criticized the PATRIOT Act, saying that it allows law enforcement to invade the privacy of citizens and eliminates judicial oversight of law-enforcement and domestic intelligence gathering.[126][127][128] The Bush Administration also invoked 9/11 as the reason to initiate a secret National Security Agency operation, "to eavesdrop on telephone and e-mail communications between the United States and people overseas without a warrant."
Hate crimes
Numerous incidents of harassment and hate crimes were reported against Middle Easterners and other "Middle Eastern-looking" people, particularly Sikhs, because Sikh males usually wear turbans, which are stereotypically associated with Muslims in the United States. There were reports of verbal abuse, attacks on mosques and other religious buildings (including the firebombing of a Hindu temple) and assaults on people, including one murder: Balbir Singh Sodhi was fatally shot on September 15, 2001. He, like others, was a Sikh who was mistaken for a Muslim.
Muslim American reaction
Top Muslim organizations in the United States were swift to condemn the attacks on 9/11 and called "upon Muslim Americans to come forward with their skills and resources to help alleviate the sufferings of the affected people and their families". Top organizations include: Islamic Society of North America, American Muslim Alliance, American Muslim Council, Council on American-Islamic Relations, The Islamic Circle of North America, and the Shari'a Scholars Association of North America. In addition to massive monetary donations, many Islamic organizations launched blood drives and provided medical assistance, food, and residence for victims.[131]
Following the attacks, 80,000 Arab and Muslim immigrants were fingerprinted and registered under the Alien Registration Act of 1940. 8,000 Arab and Muslim men were interviewed, and 5,000 foreign nationals were detained under Joint Congressional Resolution 107-40 authorizing the use of military force "to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States."
International response
The attacks were denounced by mainstream media and governments worldwide. Across the globe, nations offered pro-American support and solidarity.[133] Leaders in most Middle Eastern countries, including Afghanistan, condemned the attacks. Iraq was a notable exception, with an immediate official statement that "the American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their crimes against humanity."[134] Another publicized exception was the celebration of some Palestinians.[135]
Approximately one month after the attacks, the United States led a broad coalition of international forces in the removal of the Taliban regime for harboring the al-Qaeda organization.[136] The Pakistani authorities moved decisively to align themselves with the United States in a war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Pakistan provided the United States a number of military airports and bases for its attack on the Taliban regime and arrested over 600 supposed al-Qaeda members, whom it handed over to the United States.[137]
Numerous countries, including the UK, India, Australia, France, Germany, Indonesia, China, Canada, Russia, Pakistan, Jordan, Mauritius, Uganda and Zimbabwe introduced "anti-terrorism" legislation and froze the bank accounts of businesses and individuals they suspected of having al-Qaeda ties.[138][139] Law enforcement and intelligence agencies in a number of countries, including Italy, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines arrested people they labeled terrorist suspects for the stated purpose of breaking up militant cells around the world.[140][141] In the U.S., this aroused some controversy, as critics such as the Bill of Rights Defense Committee argued that traditional restrictions on federal surveillance (e.g. COINTELPRO's monitoring of public meetings) were "dismantled" by the USA PATRIOT Act.[142] Civil liberty organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Liberty argued that certain civil rights protections were also being circumvented.[143][144] The United States set up a detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to hold what they termed "illegal enemy combatants". The legitimacy of these detentions has been questioned by, among others, the European Parliament, the Organization of American States, and Amnesty International.
Conspiracy theories
Various conspiracy theories have emerged subsequent to the attacks suggesting that individuals inside the United States knew the attacks were coming and deliberately chose not to prevent them, or that individuals outside of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda planned or carried out the attacks.[148] The community of civil engineers generally accepts the mainstream account that the impacts of jets at high speeds in combination with subsequent fires, rather than controlled demolition, led to the collapse of the Twin Towers.
Investigations
9/11 Commission
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission), chaired by former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean,[150] was formed in late 2002 to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the attacks, including preparedness for, and the immediate response to, the attacks. On July 22, 2004, the 9/11 Commission issued the 9/11 Commission Report. The commission and its report have been subject to various forms of criticism.
Collapse of the World Trade Center
A federal technical building and fire safety investigation of the collapses of the Twin Towers and 7 WTC has been conducted by the United States Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The goals of this investigation were to investigate why the buildings collapsed, the extent of injuries and fatalities, and the procedures involved in designing and managing the World Trade Center.[153]
The report concluded that the fireproofing on the Twin Towers' steel infrastructures was blown off by the initial impact of the planes and that, if this had not occurred, the towers would likely have remained standing.[154] Gene Corley, the director of the original investigation, commented that "the towers really did amazingly well. The terrorist aircraft didn’t bring the buildings down; it was the fire which followed. It was proven that you could take out two thirds of the columns in a tower and the building would still stand." [155] The fires weakened the trusses supporting the floors, making the floors sag. The sagging floors pulled on the exterior steel columns to the point where exterior columns bowed inward. With the damage to the core columns, the buckling exterior columns could no longer support the buildings, causing them to collapse. In addition, the report asserts that the towers' stairwells were not adequately reinforced to provide emergency escape for people above the impact zones. NIST stated that the final report on the collapse of 7 WTC will appear in a separate report.[156][157] This was confirmed by an independent study by Purdue University.
Internal review of the CIA
The Inspector General of the CIA conducted an internal review of the CIA's pre-9/11 performance, and was harshly critical of senior CIA officials for not doing everything possible to confront terrorism, including failing to stop two of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, as they entered the United States and failing to share information on the two men with the FBI.[159]
In May 2007, senators from both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party drafted legislation that would openly present an internal CIA investigative report. One of the backers, Senator Ron Wyden stated "The American people have a right to know what the Central Intelligence Agency was doing in those critical months before 9/11.... I am going to bulldog this until the public gets it." The report investigates the responsibilities of individual CIA personnel before and after the 9/11 attacks. The report was completed in 2005, but its details have never been released to the public.
Long-term effects
Economic aftermath
The attacks had a significant economic impact on the United States and world markets. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the American Stock Exchange, and NASDAQ did not open on September 11 and remained closed until September 17. When the stock markets reopened, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (“DJIA”) stock market index fell 684 points, or 7.1%, to 8921, its biggest-ever one-day point decline.[161] By the end of the week, the DJIA had fallen 1,369.7 points (14.3%), its largest one-week point drop in history.[162] U.S. stocks lost $1.4 trillion in value for the week.[162] In New York City, there were approximately 430,000 lost job months and $2.8 billion in lost wages, which occurred in the three months following the 9/11 attacks. The economic effects were mainly focused on the city's export economy sectors.[163] The GDP for New York City was estimated to have declined by $27.3 billion for the last three months of 2001 and all of 2002. The Federal government provided $11.2 billion in immediate assistance to the Government of New York City in September 2001, and $10.5 billion in early 2002 for economic development and infrastructure needs.[164]
The 9/11 attacks also had great impact on small businesses in Lower Manhattan, located near the World Trade Center. Approximately 18,000 small businesses were destroyed or displaced after the attacks. The Small Business Administration provided loans as assistance, while Community Development Block Grants and Economic Injury Disaster Loans were other ways that the Federal Government provided assistance to small business effected by the 9/11 attacks.[164] 31.9 million square feet of Lower Manhattan office space was either damaged or destroyed.[165] Many questioned whether these lost jobs would ever be restored, and whether the damaged tax base could ever recover.[166] Economic studies of the effects of 9/11 have confirmed that the impact of the attacks on the Manhattan office market as well as on office employment was more limited than initially expected because of the strong need for face-to-face interaction in the financial services industry.[167][168]
North American air space was closed for several days after the attacks and air travel decreased significantly upon its reopening. The attacks led to nearly a 20% cutback in air travel capacity, and severely exacerbated financial problems in the struggling U.S. airline industry.
Health effects
The thousands of tons of toxic debris resulting from the collapse of the Twin Towers consisted of more than 2,500 contaminants, including known carcinogens.[170][171] This has led to debilitating illnesses among rescue and recovery workers, which many claim to be directly linked to debris exposure.[172][173] For example, NYPD Officer Frank Macri died of lung cancer that spread throughout his body on September 3, 2007; his family contends the cancer is the result of long hours on the site and they have filed for line-of-duty death benefits, which the city has yet to rule on.[174] Health effects have also extended to some residents, students, and office workers of Lower Manhattan and nearby Chinatown.[175] Several deaths have been linked to the toxic dust caused by the World Trade Center's collapse and the victims' names will be included in the World Trade Center memorial.[176] There is also scientific speculation that exposure to various toxic products in the air may have negative effects on fetal development. Due to this potential hazard, a notable children's environmental health center is currently analyzing the children whose mothers were pregnant during the WTC collapse, and were living or working near the World Trade Center towers.[177]
Legal disputes over the attendant costs of illnesses related to the attacks are still in the court system. On October 17, 2006, federal judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected New York City's refusal to pay for health costs for rescue workers, allowing for the possibility of numerous suits against the city.[178] Government officials have been faulted for urging the public to return to lower Manhattan in the weeks shortly following the attacks. Christine Todd Whitman, administrator of the EPA in the aftermath of the attacks, was heavily criticized for incorrectly saying that the area was environmentally safe.[179] President Bush was criticized for interfering with EPA interpretations and pronouncements regarding air quality in the aftermath of the attacks.[180] In addition, Mayor Giuliani was criticized for urging financial industry personnel to return quickly to the greater Wall Street area.
Rebuilding
On the day of the attacks, Giuliani proclaimed, "We will rebuild. We're going to come out of this stronger than before, politically stronger, economically stronger. The skyline will be made whole again."[182] Debris removal officially ended in May 2002.[183] The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, responsible for rebuilding the World Trade Center site, has been criticized for doing little with the enormous funding directed to the rebuilding efforts.[184][185] On the sites of the totally destroyed buildings, one, 7 World Trade Center, has a new office tower which was completed in 2006. The Freedom Tower is currently under construction at the site and at 1,776 ft (541 m) upon completion in 2011, will become the one of the tallest buildings in North America, behind the Chicago Spire and the CN Tower in Toronto. Three more towers are expected to be built between 2007 and 2012 on the site, and will be located one block east of where the original towers stood. The damaged section of the Pentagon was rebuilt and occupied within a year of the attacks.
Memorials
In the days immediately following the attacks, many memorials and vigils were held around the world.[187][188][189] In addition, pictures were placed all over Ground Zero. A witness described being unable to "get away from faces of innocent victims who were killed. Their pictures are everywhere, on phone booths, street lights, walls of subway stations. Everything reminded me of a huge funeral, people quiet and sad, but also very nice. Before, New York gave me a cold feeling; now people were reaching out to help each other.”
One of the first memorials was the Tribute in Light, an installation of 88 searchlights at the footprints of the World Trade Center towers which projected two vertical columns of light into the sky.[191] In New York, the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition was held to design an appropriate memorial on the site. The winning design, Reflecting Absence, was selected in August 2006, and consists of a pair of reflecting pools in the footprints of the towers, surrounded by a list of the victims' names in an underground memorial space.[192] Plans for a museum on the site have been put on hold, following the abandonment of the International Freedom Center after criticism from the families of many victims.[193]
At the Pentagon, an outdoor memorial is currently under construction, which will consist of a landscaped park with 184 benches facing the Pentagon.[194] When the Pentagon was rebuilt in 2001-2002, a private chapel and indoor memorial were included, located at the spot where Flight 77 crashed into the building.[195] At Shanksville, a permanent Flight 93 National Memorial is in planning stages, which will include a sculpted grove of trees forming a circle around the crash site, bisected by the plane's path, while wind chimes will bear the names of the victims.[196] A temporary memorial is located 500 yards (450 meters) from the Flight 93 crash site near Shanksville.[197] Many other permanent memorials are being constructed around the world and a list is being updated as new ones are completed.[198] In addition to physical monuments, scholarships and charities have been established by the victims' loved ones, along with many other organizations and private figures.
¿Sabíais que? cualquier jurado me encotraria culpable de herejía, inquisidor y blasfemo?. Aun no pudiendo demostrar ni un ápice de lo que me acusan, yo confesaría mis no crímenes y con ello demostraría mi si culpabilidad de los delitos falsos a los cuales yo aun teniendo coartada firme y poderosa renuncio, por tener alma de mártir y vocación por ser el portador de la pesada espada rota y oxidada de mil almas subyacentes a punto de naufragar, todos pecadores, deseosos de entregar sus pecados y así salvarse de la perdición del fuego maligno. En total, un sin vivir eterno de azufre y amoniaco mañanero, sudadero de nostalgias por pasar u ocurrir.
Escrito el 21 4 2014
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No me dejes caer en el vulgar error de soñar que soy perseguido cada vez que alguien me contradice. Emerson (1803-1882) Poeta y pensador estadounidense.
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Información del disparo:
Realizado en interior con luz ventana, autorretrato, el Sábado 26 de Abril de 2014 a las 19:27 horas.
f/1.8 - 1/60 s - ISO 640 - 35 mm
Otros: Trípode, disparador remoto
I've been seeing the Bad, Bad Panda page for a couple of weeks now, usually when moving to view a photo: a quick refresh has done the trick...until today, when Flickr went "down", apparently one of those affected by Amazon's "outage". This photo took several efforts to upload so all is not yet back to normal. As there's far less new work than usual for me to view, I suspect not everywhere is back from being outaged. And it's raining in Gravesend, cold, intrusive and culpably wet rain.
Never mind: my splendid Google phone and Raw Therapee are on form and all is - well, almost well...
Here is a frond (?) that has been rained on.
[PXL_20251020_123734944]
Her inherited noctambulism is a calling of sorts she shares with her father. Also the perfect cover, and excuse, for her actions, whose culpability she is able to consign to her waking dreams.
[God] waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain. — A. W. Tozer
-----------------------------------
The Search for Grace: My father and My Father
by Lee Strobel, from The Case for Grace
He was leaning back in his leather recliner in the wood-paneled den, his eyes darting back and forth between the television set and me, as if he didn’t deign to devote his full attention to our confrontation. In staccato bursts, he would lecture and scold and shout, but his eyes never met mine.
It was the evening before my high school graduation, and my dad had caught me lying to him — big-time.
Finally, he snapped his chair forward and shifted to look fully into my face, his eyes angry slits behind his glasses. He held up his left hand, waving his pinky like a taunt as he pounded each and every word: “I don’t have enough love for you to fill my little finger.”
He paused as the words smoldered. He was probably expecting me to fight back, to defend myself, to blubber or apologize or give in — at least to react in some way. But all I could do was to glare at him, my face flushed. Then after a few tense moments he sighed deeply, reclined again in his chair, and resumed watching TV. That’s when I turned my back on my father and strode toward the door.
I didn’t need him. I was brash, I was driven and ambitious — I would slice my way through the world without his help. After all, I was about to make almost a hundred dollars a week at a summer job as a reporter for a rural newspaper in Woodstock, Illinois, and live on my own at a boarding house.
A plan formulated in my mind as I slammed the back door and began the trek toward the train station, lugging the duffel bag I had hurriedly packed. I would ask the newspaper to keep me on after the summer. Lots of reporters have succeeded without college, so why not me? Soon I’d make a name for myself. I’d impress the editors at the Chicago papers and eventually break into the big city. I’d ask my girlfriend to move in with me. I was determined to make it on my own — and never to go back home.
Someday, there would be payback. The day would come when my father would unfold the Chicago Tribune and his eye would catch my byline on a front-page exclusive. That would show him.
I was on a mission — and it was fueled by rage. But what I didn’t realize as I marched down the gravel shoulder of the highway on that sultry June evening was that I was actually launching a far different quest than what I had supposed. It was a journey that I couldn’t understand back then — and which would one day reshape my life in ways I never could have imagined.
That day I embarked on a lifelong pursuit of grace.
Grace Withheld, Grace Extended
See to it that no one misses the grace of God. — Hebrews 12:15
I always wondered: Would I cry when my father died?
After the confrontation in which my dad declared he didn’t have enough love for me to fill his little finger, I stormed out of the house, determined never to return. I lived for two months in a small apartment nearly forty miles away as I worked as a reporter for a small daily newspaper. The publisher agreed to hire me beyond the summer. My future seemed set.
I never heard from my father, but my mother kept urging me to return. She would call and write to tell me my dad certainly couldn’t have meant what he said. Finally, I did come home briefly, but my father and I never discussed the incident that prompted me to leave. I never broached it, and neither did he. We maintained a civil but distant relationship through the years.
He paid for my college tuition, for which I never thanked him. He never wrote, visited, or came to my graduation. When I got married after my sophomore year at the University of Missouri, my parents hosted the reception, but my dad and I never had a heart-to-heart talk.
Fresh from Missouri’s journalism school, I was hired as a general assignment reporter at the Chicago Tribune, later developing an interest in law. I took a leave of absence to study at Yale Law School, planning to return to the Tribune as legal editor.
A few days before my graduation, I settled into a cubicle in the law school’s gothic library and unfolded the New York Times for a leisurely morning of reading. I was already prepared for my final exams and was getting excited about returning to Chicago. Then my friend Howard appeared. I folded the newspaper and greeted him; he stared at me as if he had something urgent to say but couldn’t find the right words. “What’s wrong?” I asked. He didn’t answer, but somehow I knew. “My father died, right?” He nodded, then led me to the privacy of a small alcove, where I sobbed inconsolably.
Nothing heals like grace
Alone with My Father
Before my father’s wake began at the funeral parlor, I asked for the room to be cleared. I stood in front of the open casket for the longest time. A lifetime of thoughts tumbled through my mind. My emotions churned. There was nothing to say, and yet there was everything to say.
So many times in my life, I had rationalized away my need to take responsibility for the role I had played in our relational breakdown. He’s the one who should be apologizing to me. Or pride got in my way. Why should I go crawling to him? Or sometimes I’d just put it off. I can always handle that later.
Finally, after a long period of silence, I managed to whisper the words I desperately wished I had spoken so many years earlier: “I’m sorry, Dad.”
Sorry for the ways I had rebelled against him, lied to him, and disrespected him over the years. Sorry for my ingratitude. Sorry for the bitterness and rancor I had allowed to poison my heart. For the first time, I admitted my own culpability in our relational strife.
Then came my last words to my father: “I forgive you.” As best I could, I extended him grace — too late for our relationship, but in so many ways liberating and life-changing for me.
Over time, I found that nothing heals like grace.
Unexpected Words
Soon business associates, neighbors, golfing buddies, and others arrived at the wake to offer condolences to my mother and other family members. I sat by myself in a folding chair off to the side. I was dealing with deep and conflicted emotions and didn’t feel like interacting with anyone.
One of my dad’s business associates walked over and sat down beside me. “Are you Lee?” he asked.
“Yes, I am,” I said. We shook hands.
“Well, it’s great to finally meet you after hearing so much about you,” he said. “Your dad could never stop talking about you. He was so proud of you and excited about what you’re doing. Every time you’d have an article in the Tribune, he’d clip it and show it to everyone. When you went off to Yale — well, he was bursting with pride. He was always showing us pictures of your kids. He couldn’t stop bragging about you. It’s good to finally put a face with the name because we heard your name a lot from your dad. ‘Lee’s doing this.’ ‘Lee’s doing that.’ ‘Did you see Lee’s article on the front page?’ But then, I suppose you knew all that.”
My mind reeled as I tried to conceal my astonishment. I couldn’t help wondering what might have been different if those words had come to me directly from my dad.
When I became a follower of Jesus several years later, I saw the stark contrast. Here, there was no concealing how my Father felt about me. In direct declarations, the Bible shouted over and over: God’s love for me is unrestrained and unconditional; His grace is lavish and unending. I am His workmanship and His pride, and He couldn’t stand the thought of spending eternity without me in His family. And as God’s grace utterly rocked my life — forgiving me, adopting me, and changing my life and my eternity — something else became clear: how tragic it would be to withhold the news of that grace from others. How could I revel in it myself but never pass it along to a world that is dying for it? As atheist Penn Jillette said, “How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?”
As the apostle Paul asked, how can people believe in Christ if they have never heard about Him?
“[God] dispenses His goodness not with an eyedropper but a fire hydrant. Your heart is a Dixie cup and His grace is the Mediterranean Sea. You simply can’t contain it all,” said Max Lucado. “So let it bubble over. Spill out. Pour forth. ‘Freely you have received, freely give.’”
Writing about my journey of grace in this book has only strengthened my resolve to emulate the apostle Paul. “What matters most to me,” Paul wrote, “is to finish what God started: the job the Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God.”
That is the joyful task of every follower of Jesus.
Someday may it be written about me on my tombstone: He was so amazed by God’s grace that he couldn’t keep it to himself.
Excerpted from The Case for Grace by Lee Strobel, Zondervan.
The Postcard
A Colourmaster postcard that was distributed by Dragon Publishing Ltd. of Llandeilo. The photography was by Roger Vlitos.
On the divided back of the card is printed:
'Dylan's Writing Shed,
Laugharne, Dyfed.
In this converted garage with
views over the Taf estuary and
Sir John's Hill, Dylan Thomas
wrote much of his finest poetry.
Along with his last home, The
Boat House, it is preserved in
memory of the poet.'
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas, who was born in Swansea on the 27th. October 1914, was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night' and 'And Death Shall Have No Dominion.'
Dylan's other work included 'Under Milk Wood' as well as stories and radio broadcasts such as 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' and 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog'.
He became widely popular in his lifetime, and remained so after his death at the age of 39 in New York City. By then he had acquired a reputation, which he had encouraged, as a roistering, drunken and doomed poet.
In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas, an undistinguished pupil, left school to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post, only to leave under pressure 18 months later.
Many of his works appeared in print while he was still a teenager. In 1934, the publication of 'Light Breaks Where no Sun Shines' caught the attention of the literary world.
While living in London, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara. They married in 1937, and had three children: Llewelyn, Aeronwy and Colm.
Thomas came to be appreciated as a popular poet during his lifetime, though he found it hard to earn a living as a writer. He began augmenting his income with reading tours and radio broadcasts. His radio recordings for the BBC during the late 1940's brought him to the public's attention, and he was frequently used by the BBC as an accessible voice of the literary scene.
Thomas first travelled to the United States in the 1950's. His readings there brought him a degree of fame, while his erratic behaviour and drinking worsened. His time in the United States cemented his legend, however, and he went on to record to vinyl such works as 'A Child's Christmas in Wales'.
During his fourth trip to New York in 1953, Thomas became gravely ill and fell into a coma. He died on the 9th. November 1953, and his body was returned to Wales. On the 25th. November 1953, he was laid to rest in St Martin's churchyard in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire.
Although Thomas wrote exclusively in the English language, he has been acknowledged as one of the most important Welsh poets of the 20th century. He is noted for his original, rhythmic and ingenious use of words and imagery. He is regarded by many as one of the great modern poets, and he still remains popular with the public.
Dylan Thomas - The Early Years
Dylan was born at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, the son of Florence Hannah (née Williams; 1882–1958), a seamstress, and David John Thomas (1876–1952), a teacher. His father had a first-class honours degree in English from University College, Aberystwyth and ambitions to rise above his position teaching English literature at the local grammar school.
Thomas had one sibling, Nancy Marles (1906–1953), who was eight years his senior. The children spoke only English, though their parents were bilingual in English and Welsh, and David Thomas gave Welsh lessons at home.
Thomas's father chose the name Dylan, which means 'Son of the Sea', after Dylan ail Don, a character in The Mabinogion. Dylan's middle name, Marlais, was given in honour of his great-uncle, William Thomas, a Unitarian minister and poet whose bardic name was Gwilym Marles.
Dylan caused his mother to worry that he might be teased as the 'Dull One.' When he broadcast on Welsh BBC, early in his career, he was introduced using this pronunciation. Thomas favoured the Anglicised pronunciation, and gave instructions that it should be spoken as 'Dillan.'
The red-brick semi-detached house at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive (in the respectable area of the Uplands), in which Thomas was born and lived until he was 23, had been bought by his parents a few months before his birth.
Dylan's childhood featured regular summer trips to the Llansteffan Peninsula, a Welsh-speaking part of Carmarthenshire, where his maternal relatives were the sixth generation to farm there.
In the land between Llangain and Llansteffan, his mother's family, the Williamses and their close relatives, worked a dozen farms with over a thousand acres between them. The memory of Fernhill, a dilapidated 15-acre farm rented by his maternal aunt, Ann Jones, and her husband, Jim, is evoked in the 1945 lyrical poem 'Fern Hill', but is portrayed more accurately in his short story, 'The Peaches'.
Thomas had bronchitis and asthma in childhood, and struggled with these throughout his life. He was indulged by his mother and enjoyed being mollycoddled, a trait he carried into adulthood, and he was skilful in gaining attention and sympathy.
Thomas's formal education began at Mrs Hole's Dame School, a private school on Mirador Crescent, a few streets away from his home. He described his experience there in Reminiscences of Childhood:
"Never was there such a dame school as ours,
so firm and kind and smelling of galoshes, with
the sweet and fumbled music of the piano lessons
drifting down from upstairs to the lonely schoolroom,
where only the sometimes tearful wicked sat over
undone sums, or to repent a little crime – the pulling
of a girl's hair during geography, the sly shin kick
under the table during English literature".
In October 1925, Dylan Thomas enrolled at Swansea Grammar School for boys, in Mount Pleasant, where his father taught English. He was an undistinguished pupil who shied away from school, preferring reading.
In his first year, one of his poems was published in the school's magazine, and before he left he became its editor. In June 1928, Thomas won the school's mile race, held at St. Helen's Ground; he carried a newspaper photograph of his victory with him until his death.
During his final school years Dylan began writing poetry in notebooks; the first poem, dated 27th. April 1930, is entitled 'Osiris, Come to Isis'.
In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas left school to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post, only to leave under pressure 18 months later. Thomas continued to work as a freelance journalist for several years, during which time he remained at Cwmdonkin Drive and continued to add to his notebooks, amassing 200 poems in four books between 1930 and 1934. Of the 90 poems he published, half were written during these years.
In his free time, Dylan joined the amateur dramatic group at the Little Theatre in Mumbles, visited the cinema in Uplands, took walks along Swansea Bay, and frequented Swansea's pubs, especially the Antelope and the Mermaid Hotels in Mumbles.
In the Kardomah Café, close to the newspaper office in Castle Street, he met his creative contemporaries, including his friend the poet Vernon Watkins.
1933–1939
In 1933, Thomas visited London for probably the first time.
Thomas was a teenager when many of the poems for which he became famous were published:
-- 'And Death Shall Have no Dominion'
-- 'Before I Knocked'
-- 'The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower'.
'And Death Shall Have no Dominion' appeared in the New English Weekly in May 1933:
'And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the
west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and
the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they
shall rise again
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion'.
When 'Light Breaks Where no Sun Shines' appeared in The Listener in 1934, it caught the attention of three senior figures in literary London - T. S. Eliot, Geoffrey Grigson and Stephen Spender. They contacted Thomas, and his first poetry volume, '18 Poems', was published in December 1934.
'18 Poems' was noted for its visionary qualities which led to critic Desmond Hawkins writing that:
"The work is the sort of bomb
that bursts no more than once
in three years".
The volume was critically acclaimed, and won a contest run by the Sunday Referee, netting him new admirers from the London poetry world, including Edith Sitwell and Edwin Muir. The anthology was published by Fortune Press, in part a vanity publisher that did not pay its writers, and expected them to buy a certain number of copies themselves. A similar arrangement was used by other new authors, including Philip Larkin.
In September 1935, Thomas met Vernon Watkins, thus beginning a lifelong friendship. Dylan introduced Watkins, working at Lloyds Bank at the time, to his friends. The group of writers, musicians and artists became known as "The Kardomah Gang".
In those days, Thomas used to frequent the cinema on Mondays with Tom Warner who, like Watkins, had recently suffered a nervous breakdown. After these trips, Warner would bring Thomas back for supper with his aunt.
On one occasion, when she served him a boiled egg, she had to cut its top off for him, as Thomas did not know how to do this. This was because his mother had done it for him all his life, an example of her coddling him. Years later, his wife Caitlin would still have to prepare his eggs for him.
In December 1935, Thomas contributed the poem 'The Hand That Signed the Paper' to Issue 18 of the bi-monthly New Verse.
In 1936, Dylan's next collection 'Twenty-five Poems' received much critical praise. In 1938, Thomas won the Oscar Blumenthal Prize for Poetry; it was also the year in which New Directions offered to be his publisher in the United States. In all, he wrote half his poems while living at Cwmdonkin Drive before moving to London. It was the time that Thomas's reputation for heavy drinking developed.
In early 1936, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara (1913–94), a 22-year-old blonde-haired, blue-eyed dancer of Irish and French descent. She had run away from home, intent on making a career in dance, and at the age of 18 joined the chorus line at the London Palladium.
Introduced by Augustus John, Caitlin's lover, they met in The Wheatsheaf pub on Rathbone Place in London's West End. Laying his head on her lap, a drunken Thomas proposed. Thomas liked to comment that he and Caitlin were in bed together ten minutes after they first met.
Although Caitlin initially continued her relationship with Augustus John, she and Thomas began a correspondence, and by the second half of 1936 they were courting. They married at the register office in Penzance, Cornwall, on the 11th. July 1937.
In early 1938, they moved to Wales, renting a cottage in the village of Laugharne, Carmarthenshire. Their first child, Llewelyn Edouard, was born on the 30th. January 1939.
By the late 1930's, Thomas was embraced as the "Poetic Herald" for a group of English poets, the New Apocalyptics. However Thomas refused to align himself with them, and declined to sign their manifesto.
He later stated that:
"They are intellectual muckpots
leaning on a theory".
Despite Dylan's rejection, many of the group, including Henry Treece, modelled their work on Thomas's.
During the politically charged atmosphere of the 1930's, Thomas's sympathies were very much with the radical left, to the point of holding close links with the communists, as well as being decidedly pacifist and anti-fascist. He was a supporter of the left-wing No More War Movement, and boasted about participating in demonstrations against the British Union of Fascists.
1939–1945
In 1939, a collection of 16 poems and seven of the 20 short stories published by Thomas in magazines since 1934, appeared as 'The Map of Love'.
Ten stories in his next book, 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog' (1940), were based less on lavish fantasy than those in 'The Map of Love', and more on real-life romances featuring himself in Wales.
Sales of both books were poor, resulting in Thomas living on meagre fees from writing and reviewing. At this time he borrowed heavily from friends and acquaintances.
Hounded by creditors, Thomas and his family left Laugharne in July 1940 and moved to the home of critic John Davenport in Marshfield, Gloucestershire. There Thomas collaborated with Davenport on the satire 'The Death of the King's Canary', though due to fears of libel, the work was not published until 1976.
At the outset of the Second World War, Thomas was worried about conscription, and referred to his ailment as "An Unreliable Lung".
Coughing sometimes confined him to bed, and he had a history of bringing up blood and mucus. After initially seeking employment in a reserved occupation, he managed to be classified Grade III, which meant that he would be among the last to be called up for service.
Saddened to see his friends going on active service, Dylan continued drinking, and struggled to support his family. He wrote begging letters to random literary figures asking for support, a plan he hoped would provide a long-term regular income. Thomas supplemented his income by writing scripts for the BBC, which not only gave him additional earnings but also provided evidence that he was engaged in essential war work.
In February 1941, Swansea was bombed by the Luftwaffe in a three night blitz. Castle Street was one of many streets that suffered badly; rows of shops, including the Kardomah Café, were destroyed. Thomas walked through the bombed-out shell of the town centre with his friend Bert Trick. Upset at the sight, he concluded:
"Our Swansea is dead".
Soon after the bombing raids, he wrote a radio play, 'Return Journey Home', which described the café as being "razed to the snow". The play was first broadcast on the 15th. June 1947. The Kardomah Café reopened on Portland Street after the war.
In May 1941, Thomas and Caitlin left their son with his grandmother at Blashford and moved to London. Thomas hoped to find employment in the film industry, and wrote to the director of the films division of the Ministry of Information (MOI). After initially being rebuffed, he found work with Strand Films, providing him with his first regular income since the Daily Post. Strand produced films for the MOI; Thomas scripted at least five films in 1942.
In five film projects, between 1942 and 1945, the Ministry of Information (MOI) commissioned Thomas to script a series of documentaries about both urban planning and wartime patriotism, all in partnership with director John Eldridge:
-- 'Wales: Green Mountain, Black Mountain'.
-- 'New Towns for Old' (on post-war reconstruction).
-- 'Fuel for Battle'.
-- 'Our Country' (1945) was a romantic tour of Great Britain set to Thomas's poetry.
-- 'A City Reborn'.
Other projects included:
-- 'This Is Colour' (a history of the British dyeing industry).
-- 'These Are The Men' (1943), a more ambitious piece in which Thomas's verse accompanied Leni Riefenstahl's footage of an early Nuremberg Rally.
-- 'Conquest of a Germ' (1944) explored the use of early antibiotics in the fight against pneumonia and tuberculosis.
In early 1943, Thomas began a relationship with Pamela Glendower; one of several affairs he had during his marriage. The affairs either ran out of steam or were halted after Caitlin discovered his infidelity.
In March 1943, Caitlin gave birth to a daughter, Aeronwy, in London. They lived in a run-down studio in Chelsea, made up of a single large room with a curtain to separate the kitchen.
The Thomas family made several escapes back to Wales during the war. Between 1941 and 1943, they lived intermittently in Plas Gelli, Talsarn, in Cardiganshire. Plas Gelli sits close by the River Aeron, after whom Aeronwy is thought to have been named. Some of Thomas’ letters from Gelli can be found in his 'Collected Letters'.
The Thomases shared the mansion with his childhood friends from Swansea, Vera and Evelyn Phillips. Vera's friendship with the Thomases in nearby New Quay is portrayed in the 2008 film, 'The Edge of Love'.
In July 1944, with the threat of German flying bombs landing on London, Thomas moved to the family cottage at Blaencwm near Llangain, Carmarthenshire, where he resumed writing poetry, completing 'Holy Spring' and 'Vision and Prayer'.
In September 1944, the Thomas family moved to New Quay in Cardiganshire (Ceredigion), where they rented Majoda, a wood and asbestos bungalow on the cliffs overlooking Cardigan Bay. It was here that Thomas wrote the radio piece 'Quite Early One Morning', a sketch for his later work, 'Under Milk Wood'.
Of the poetry written at this time, of note is 'Fern Hill', believed to have been started while living in New Quay, but completed at Blaencwm in mid-1945. Dylan's first biographer, Constantine FitzGibbon wrote that:
"His nine months in New Quay were a second
flowering, a period of fertility that recalls the
earliest days, with a great outpouring of poems
and a good deal of other material".
His second biographer, Paul Ferris, concurred:
"On the grounds of output, the bungalow
deserves a plaque of its own."
The Dylan Thomas scholar, Walford Davies, has noted that:
"New Quay was crucial in supplementing
the gallery of characters Thomas had to
hand for writing 'Under Milk Wood'."
Dylan Thomas's Broadcasting Years 1945–1949
Although Thomas had previously written for the BBC, it was a minor and intermittent source of income. In 1943, he wrote and recorded a 15-minute talk entitled 'Reminiscences of Childhood' for the Welsh BBC.
In December 1944, he recorded 'Quite Early One Morning' (produced by Aneirin Talfan Davies, again for the Welsh BBC), but when Davies offered it for national broadcast, BBC London initially turned it down.
However on the 31st. August 1945, the BBC Home Service broadcast 'Quite Early One Morning' nationally, and in the three subsequent years, Dylan made over a hundred broadcasts for the BBC, not only for his poetry readings, but for discussions and critiques.
In the second half of 1945, Dylan began reading for the BBC Radio programme, 'Book of Verse', that was broadcast weekly to the Far East. This provided Thomas with a regular income, and brought him into contact with Louis MacNeice, a congenial drinking companion whose advice Thomas cherished.
On the 29th. September 1946, the BBC began transmitting the Third Programme, a high-culture network which provided further opportunities for Thomas.
He appeared in the play 'Comus' for the Third Programme, the day after the network launched, and his rich, sonorous voice led to character parts, including the lead in Aeschylus's 'Agamemnon', and Satan in an adaptation of 'Paradise Lost'.
Thomas remained a popular guest on radio talk shows for the BBC, who stated:
"He is useful should a younger
generation poet be needed".
He had an uneasy relationship with BBC management, and a staff job was never an option, with drinking cited as the problem. Despite this, Thomas became a familiar radio voice and well-known celebrity within Great Britain.
By late September 1945, the Thomases had left Wales, and were living with various friends in London. In December, they moved to Oxford to live in a summerhouse on the banks of the Cherwell. It belonged to the historian, A. J. P. Taylor. His wife, Margaret, became Thomas’s most committed patron.
The publication of 'Deaths and Entrances' in February 1946 was a major turning point for Thomas. Poet and critic Walter J. Turner commented in The Spectator:
"This book alone, in my opinion,
ranks him as a major poet".
From 'In my Craft or Sullen Art,' 'Deaths and Entrances' (1946):
'Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon, I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art'.
The following year, in April 1947, the Thomases travelled to Italy, after Thomas had been awarded a Society of Authors scholarship. They stayed first in villas near Rapallo and then Florence, before moving to a hotel in Rio Marina on the island of Elba.
On their return to England Thomas and his family moved, in September 1947, into the Manor House in South Leigh, just west of Oxford, found for him by Margaret Taylor.
He continued with his work for the BBC, completed a number of film scripts, and worked further on his ideas for 'Under Milk Wood'.
In March 1949 Thomas travelled to Prague. He had been invited by the Czech government to attend the inauguration of the Czechoslovak Writers' Union. Jiřina Hauková, who had previously published translations of some of Thomas' poems, was his guide and interpreter.
In her memoir, Hauková recalls that at a party in Prague, Thomas narrated the first version of his radio play 'Under Milk Wood.' She describes how he outlined the plot about a town that was declared insane, and then portrayed the predicament of an eccentric organist and a baker with two wives.
A month later, in May 1949, Thomas and his family moved to his final home, the Boat House at Laugharne, purchased for him at a cost of £2,500 in April 1949 by Margaret Taylor.
Thomas acquired a garage a hundred yards from the house on a cliff ledge which he turned into his writing shed, and where he wrote several of his most acclaimed poems. To see a photograph of the interior of Dylan's shed, please search for the tag 55DTW96
Just before moving into the Boat House, Thomas rented Pelican House opposite his regular drinking den, Brown's Hotel, for his parents. They both lived there from 1949 until Dylan's father 'D.J.' died on the 16th. December 1952. His mother continued to live there until 1953.
Caitlin gave birth to their third child, a boy named Colm Garan Hart, on the 25th. July 1949.
In October 1949, the New Zealand poet Allen Curnow came to visit Thomas at the Boat House, who took him to his writing shed. Curnow recalls:
"Dylan fished out a draft to show me
of the unfinished 'Under Milk Wood'
that was then called 'The Town That
Was Mad'."
Dylan Thomas's American tours, 1950–1953
(a) The First American Tour
The American poet John Brinnin invited Thomas to New York, where in 1950 they embarked on a lucrative three-month tour of arts centres and campuses.
The tour, which began in front of an audience of a thousand at the Kaufmann Auditorium in the Poetry Centre in New York, took in a further 40 venues. During the tour, Thomas was invited to many parties and functions, and on several occasions became drunk - going out of his way to shock people - and was a difficult guest.
Dylan drank before some of his readings, although it is argued that he may have pretended to be more affected by the alcohol than he actually was.
The writer Elizabeth Hardwick recalled how intoxicated a performer he could be, and how the tension would build before a performance:
"Would he arrive only to break
down on the stage?
Would some dismaying scene
take place at the faculty party?
Would he be offensive, violent,
obscene?"
Dylan's wife Caitlin said in her memoir:
"Nobody ever needed encouragement
less, and he was drowned in it."
On returning to Great Britain, Thomas began work on two further poems, 'In the White Giant's Thigh', which he read on the Third Programme in September 1950:
'Who once were a bloom of wayside
brides in the hawed house
And heard the lewd, wooed field
flow to the coming frost,
The scurrying, furred small friars
squeal in the dowse
Of day, in the thistle aisles, till the
white owl crossed.'
He also worked on the incomplete 'In Country Heaven'.
In October 1950, Thomas sent a draft of the first 39 pages of 'The Town That Was Mad' to the BBC. The task of seeing this work through to production was assigned to the BBC's Douglas Cleverdon, who had been responsible for casting Thomas in 'Paradise Lost'.
However, despite Cleverdon's urgings, the script slipped from Thomas's priorities, and in early 1951 he took a trip to Iran to work on a film for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The film was never made, with Thomas returning to Wales in February, though his time there allowed him to provide a few minutes of material for a BBC documentary, 'Persian Oil'.
Early in 1951 Thomas wrote two poems, which Thomas's principal biographer, Paul Ferris, describes as "unusually blunt." One was the ribald 'Lament', and the other was an ode, in the form of a villanelle, to his dying father 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night". (A villanelle is a pastoral or lyrical poem of nineteen lines, with only two rhymes throughout, and some lines repeated).
Despite a range of wealthy patrons, including Margaret Taylor, Princess Marguerite Caetani and Marged Howard-Stepney, Thomas was still in financial difficulty, and he wrote several begging letters to notable literary figures, including the likes of T. S. Eliot.
Margaret Taylor was not keen on Thomas taking another trip to the United States, and thought that if he had a permanent address in London he would be able to gain steady work there. She bought a property, 54 Delancey Street, in Camden Town, and in late 1951 Thomas and Caitlin lived in the basement flat. Thomas described the flat as his "London House of Horror", and did not return there after his 1952 tour of America.
(b) The Second American Tour
Thomas undertook a second tour of the United States in 1952, this time with Caitlin - after she had discovered that he had been unfaithful on his earlier trip. They drank heavily, and Thomas began to suffer with gout and lung problems.
It was during this tour that the above photograph was taken.
The second tour was the most intensive of the four, taking in 46 engagements.
The trip also resulted in Thomas recording his first poetry to vinyl, which Caedmon Records released in America later that year. One of his works recorded during this time, 'A Child's Christmas in Wales', became his most popular prose work in America. The recording was a 2008 selection for the United States National Recording Registry, which stated that:
"It is credited with launching the
audiobook industry in the United
States".
(c) The Third American Tour
In April 1953, Thomas returned alone for a third tour of America. He performed a "work in progress" version of 'Under Milk Wood', solo, for the first time at Harvard University on the 3rd. May 1953. A week later, the work was performed with a full cast at the Poetry Centre in New York.
Dylan met the deadline only after being locked in a room by Brinnin's assistant, Liz Reitell, and was still editing the script on the afternoon of the performance; its last lines were handed to the actors as they put on their makeup.
During this penultimate tour, Thomas met the composer Igor Stravinsky. Igor had become an admirer of Dylan after having been introduced to his poetry by W. H. Auden. They had discussions about collaborating on a "musical theatrical work" for which Dylan would provide the libretto on the theme of:
"The rediscovery of love and
language in what might be left
after the world after the bomb."
The shock of Thomas's death later in the year moved Stravinsky to compose his 'In Memoriam Dylan Thomas' for tenor, string quartet and four trombones. The work's first performance in Los Angeles in 1954 was introduced with a tribute to Thomas from Aldous Huxley.
Thomas spent the last nine or ten days of his third tour in New York mostly in the company of Reitell, with whom he had an affair.
During this time, Thomas fractured his arm falling down a flight of stairs when drunk. Reitell's doctor, Milton Feltenstein, put his arm in plaster, and treated him for gout and gastritis.
After returning home, Thomas worked on 'Under Milk Wood' in Wales before sending the original manuscript to Douglas Cleverdon on the 15th. October 1953. It was copied and returned to Thomas, who lost it in a pub in London and required a duplicate to take to America.
(d) The Fourth American Tour
Thomas flew to the States on the 19th. October 1953 for what would be his final tour. He died in New York before the BBC could record 'Under Milk Wood'. Richard Burton featured in its first broadcast in 1954, and was joined by Elizabeth Taylor in a subsequent film. In 1954, the play won the Prix Italia for literary or dramatic programmes.
Thomas's last collection 'Collected Poems, 1934–1952', published when he was 38, won the Foyle poetry prize. Reviewing the volume, critic Philip Toynbee declared that:
"Thomas is the greatest living
poet in the English language".
There followed a series of distressing events for Dylan. His father died from pneumonia just before Christmas 1952. In the first few months of 1953, his sister died from liver cancer, one of his patrons took an overdose of sleeping pills, three friends died at an early age, and Caitlin had an abortion.
Thomas left Laugharne on the 9th. October 1953 on the first leg of his trip to America. He called on his mother, Florence, to say goodbye:
"He always felt that he had to get
out from this country because of
his chest being so bad."
Thomas had suffered from chest problems for most of his life, though they began in earnest soon after he moved in May 1949 to the Boat House at Laugharne - the "Bronchial Heronry", as he called it. Within weeks of moving in, he visited a local doctor, who prescribed medicine for both his chest and throat.
Whilst waiting in London before his flight in October 1953, Thomas stayed with the comedian Harry Locke and worked on 'Under Milk Wood'. Locke noted that Thomas was having trouble with his chest, with terrible coughing fits that made him go purple in the face. He was also using an inhaler to help his breathing.
There were reports, too, that Thomas was also having blackouts. His visit to the BBC producer Philip Burton a few days before he left for New York, was interrupted by a blackout. On his last night in London, he had another in the company of his fellow poet Louis MacNeice.
Thomas arrived in New York on the 20th. October 1953 to undertake further performances of 'Under Milk Wood', organised by John Brinnin, his American agent and Director of the Poetry Centre. Brinnin did not travel to New York, but remained in Boston in order to write.
He handed responsibility to his assistant, Liz Reitell, who was keen to see Thomas for the first time since their three-week romance early in the year. She met Thomas at Idlewild Airport and was shocked at his appearance. He looked pale, delicate and shaky, not his usual robust self:
"He was very ill when he got here."
After being taken by Reitell to check in at the Chelsea Hotel, Thomas took the first rehearsal of 'Under Milk Wood'. They then went to the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, before returning to the Chelsea Hotel.
(Bob Dylan, formerly Robert Zimmerman, used to perform at the White Horse; Dylan Thomas was his favourite poet, and it is highly likely that Bob adopted Dylan's first name as his surname).
The next day, Reitell invited Thomas to her apartment, but he declined. They went sightseeing, but Thomas felt unwell, and retired to his bed for the rest of the afternoon. Reitell gave him half a grain (32.4 milligrams) of phenobarbitone to help him sleep, and spent the night at the hotel with him.
Two days later, on the 23rd. October 1953, at the third rehearsal, Thomas said he was too ill to take part, but he struggled on, shivering and burning with fever, before collapsing on the stage.
The next day, 24th. October, Reitell took Thomas to see her doctor, Milton Feltenstein, who administered cortisone injections. Thomas made it through the first performance that evening, but collapsed immediately afterwards.
Dylan told a friend who had come back-stage:
"This circus out there has taken
the life out of me for now."
Reitell later said:
"Feltenstein was rather a wild doctor
who thought injections would cure
anything".
At the next performance on the 25th. October, his fellow actors realised that Thomas was very ill:
"He was desperately ill…we didn’t think
that he would be able to do the last
performance because he was so ill…
Dylan literally couldn’t speak he was so
ill…still my greatest memory of it is that
he had no voice."
On the evening of the 27th. October, Thomas attended his 39th. birthday party, but felt unwell, and returned to his hotel after an hour. The next day, he took part in 'Poetry and the Film', a recorded symposium at Cinema 16.
A turning point came on the 2nd. November. Air pollution in New York had risen significantly, and exacerbated chest illnesses such as Thomas's. By the end of the month, over 200 New Yorkers had died from the smog.
On the 3rd. November, Thomas spent most of the day in his room, entertaining various friends. He went out in the evening to keep two drink appointments. After returning to the hotel, he went out again for a drink at 2 am. After drinking at the White Horse, Thomas returned to the Hotel Chelsea, declaring:
"I've had eighteen straight
whiskies. I think that's the
record!"
However the barman and the owner of the pub who served him later commented that Thomas could not have drunk more than half that amount.
Thomas had an appointment at a clam house in New Jersey with Todd on the 4th. November. When Todd telephoned the Chelsea that morning, Thomas said he was feeling ill, and postponed the engagement. Todd thought that Dylan sounded "terrible".
The poet, Harvey Breit, was another to phone that morning. He thought that Thomas sounded "bad". Thomas' voice, recalled Breit, was "low and hoarse". Harvey had wanted to say:
"You sound as though from the tomb".
However instead Harvey told Thomas that he sounded like Louis Armstrong.
Later, Thomas went drinking with Reitell at the White Horse and, feeling sick again, returned to the hotel. Dr. Feltenstein came to see him three times that day, administering the cortisone secretant ACTH by injection and, on his third visit, half a grain (32.4 milligrams) of morphine sulphate, which affected Thomas' breathing.
Reitell became increasingly concerned, and telephoned Feltenstein for advice. He suggested that she get male assistance, so she called upon the artist Jack Heliker, who arrived before 11 pm. At midnight on the 5th. November, Thomas's breathing became more difficult, and his face turned blue.
Reitell phoned Feltenstein who arrived at the hotel at about 1 am, and called for an ambulance. It then took another hour for the ambulance to arrive at St. Vincent's, even though it was only a few blocks from the Chelsea.
Thomas was admitted to the emergency ward at St Vincent's Hospital at 1:58 am. He was comatose, and his medical notes stated that:
"The impression upon admission was acute
alcoholic encephalopathy damage to the brain
by alcohol, for which the patient was treated
without response".
Feltenstein then took control of Thomas's care, even though he did not have admitting rights at St. Vincent's. The hospital's senior brain specialist, Dr. C. G. Gutierrez-Mahoney, was not called to examine Thomas until the afternoon of the 6th. November, thirty-six hours after Thomas' admission.
Dylan's wife Caitlin flew to America the following day, and was taken to the hospital, by which time a tracheotomy had been performed. Her reported first words were:
"Is the bloody man dead yet?"
Caitlin was allowed to see Thomas only for 40 minutes in the morning, but returned in the afternoon and, in a drunken rage, threatened to kill John Brinnin. When she became uncontrollable, she was put in a straitjacket and committed, by Feltenstein, to the River Crest private psychiatric detox clinic on Long Island.
It is now believed that Thomas had been suffering from bronchitis, pneumonia and emphysema before his admission to St Vincent's. In their 2004 paper, 'Death by Neglect', D. N. Thomas and Dr Simon Barton disclose that Thomas was found to have pneumonia when he was admitted to hospital in a coma.
Doctors took three hours to restore his breathing, using artificial respiration and oxygen. Summarising their findings, they conclude:
"The medical notes indicate that, on admission,
Dylan's bronchial disease was found to be very
extensive, affecting upper, mid and lower lung
fields, both left and right."
The forensic pathologist, Professor Bernard Knight, concurs:
"Death was clearly due to a severe lung infection
with extensive advanced bronchopneumonia.
The severity of the chest infection, with greyish
consolidated areas of well-established pneumonia,
suggests that it had started before admission to
hospital."
Thomas died at noon on the 9th. November 1953, having never recovered from his coma. He was 39 years of age when he died.
Aftermath of Dylan Thomas's Death
Rumours circulated of a brain haemorrhage, followed by competing reports of a mugging, or even that Thomas had drunk himself to death. Later, speculation arose about drugs and diabetes.
At the post-mortem, the pathologist found three causes of death - pneumonia, brain swelling and a fatty liver. Despite Dylan's heavy drinking, his liver showed no sign of cirrhosis.
The publication of John Brinnin's 1955 biography 'Dylan Thomas in America' cemented Thomas's legacy as the "doomed poet". Brinnin focuses on Thomas's last few years, and paints a picture of him as a drunk and a philanderer.
Later biographies have criticised Brinnin's view, especially his coverage of Thomas's death. David Thomas in 'Fatal Neglect: Who Killed Dylan Thomas?' claims that Brinnin, along with Reitell and Feltenstein, were culpable.
FitzGibbon's 1965 biography ignores Thomas's heavy drinking and skims over his death, giving just two pages in his detailed book to Thomas's demise.
Ferris in his 1989 biography includes Thomas's heavy drinking, but is more critical of those around him in his final days, and does not draw the conclusion that he drank himself to death.
Many sources have criticised Feltenstein's role and actions, especially his incorrect diagnosis of delirium tremens and the high dose of morphine he administered. Dr C. G. de Gutierrez-Mahoney, the doctor who treated Thomas while at St. Vincent's, concluded that Feltenstein's failure to see that Thomas was gravely ill and have him admitted to hospital sooner was even more culpable than his use of morphine.
Caitlin Thomas's autobiographies, 'Caitlin Thomas - Leftover Life to Kill' (1957) and 'My Life with Dylan Thomas: Double Drink Story' (1997), describe the effects of alcohol on the poet and on their relationship:
"Ours was not only a love story, it was
a drink story, because without alcohol
it would never had got on its rocking
feet. The bar was our altar."
Biographer Andrew Lycett ascribed the decline in Thomas's health to an alcoholic co-dependent relationship with his wife, who deeply resented his extramarital affairs.
In contrast, Dylan biographers Andrew Sinclair and George Tremlett express the view that Thomas was not an alcoholic. Tremlett argues that many of Thomas's health issues stemmed from undiagnosed diabetes.
Thomas died intestate, with assets worth £100. His body was brought back to Wales for burial in the village churchyard at Laugharne. Dylan's funeral, which Brinnin did not attend, took place at St Martin's Church in Laugharne on the 24th. November 1953.
Six friends from the village carried Thomas's coffin. Caitlin, without her customary hat, walked behind the coffin, with his childhood friend Daniel Jones at her arm and her mother by her side. The procession to the church was filmed, and the wake took place at Brown's Hotel. Thomas's fellow poet and long-time friend Vernon Watkins wrote The Times obituary.
Thomas's widow, Caitlin, died in 1994, and was laid to rest alongside him. Dylan's mother Florence died in August 1958. Thomas's elder son, Llewelyn, died in 2000, his daughter, Aeronwy in 2009, and his youngest son Colm in 2012.
Dylan Thomas's Poetry
Thomas's refusal to align with any literary group or movement has made him and his work difficult to categorise. Although influenced by the modern symbolism and surrealism movements, he refused to follow such creeds. Instead, critics view Thomas as part of the modernism and romanticism movements, though attempts to pigeon-hole him within a particular neo-romantic school have been unsuccessful.
Elder Olson, in his 1954 critical study of Thomas's poetry, wrote:
"There is a further characteristic which
distinguished Thomas's work from that
of other poets. It was unclassifiable."
Olson went on to say that in a postmodern age that continually attempted to demand that poetry have social reference, none could be found in Thomas's work, and that his work was so obscure that critics could not analyse it.
Thomas's verbal style played against strict verse forms, such as in the villanelle 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night'.
His images appear carefully ordered in a patterned sequence, and his major theme was the unity of all life, the continuing process of life and death, and new life that linked the generations.
Thomas saw biology as a magical transformation producing unity out of diversity, and in his poetry sought a poetic ritual to celebrate this unity. He saw men and women locked in cycles of growth, love, procreation, new growth, death, and new life. Therefore, each image engenders its opposite.
Thomas derived his closely woven, sometimes self-contradictory images from the Bible, Welsh folklore, preaching, and Sigmund Freud. Explaining the source of his imagery, Thomas wrote in a letter to Glyn Jones:
"My own obscurity is quite an unfashionable one,
based, as it is, on a preconceived symbolism
derived (I'm afraid all this sounds woolly and
pretentious) from the cosmic significance of the
human anatomy".
Thomas's early poetry was noted for its verbal density, alliteration, sprung rhythm and internal rhyme, and some critics detected the influence of the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins, had taught himself Welsh, and used sprung verse, bringing some features of Welsh poetic metre into his work.
However when Henry Treece wrote to Thomas comparing his style to that of Hopkins, Thomas wrote back denying any such influence. Thomas greatly admired Thomas Hardy, who is regarded as an influence. When Thomas travelled in America, he recited some of Hardy's work in his readings.
Other poets from whom critics believe Thomas drew influence include James Joyce, Arthur Rimbaud and D. H. Lawrence.
William York Tindall, in his 1962 study, 'A Reader's Guide to Dylan Thomas', finds comparison between Thomas's and Joyce's wordplay, while he notes the themes of rebirth and nature are common to the works of Lawrence and Thomas.
Although Thomas described himself as the "Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive", he stated that the phrase "Swansea's Rimbaud" was coined by the poet Roy Campbell.
Critics have explored the origins of Thomas's mythological pasts in his works such as 'The Orchards', which Ann Elizabeth Mayer believes reflects the Welsh myths of the Mabinogion.
Thomas's poetry is notable for its musicality, most clear in 'Fern Hill', 'In Country Sleep', 'Ballad of the Long-legged Bait' and 'In the White Giant's Thigh' from Under Milk Wood.
Thomas once confided that the poems which had most influenced him were Mother Goose rhymes which his parents taught him when he was a child:
"I should say I wanted to write poetry in the
beginning because I had fallen in love with
words.
The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes,
and before I could read them for myself I had
come to love the words of them. The words
alone.
What the words stood for was of a very
secondary importance ... I fell in love, that is
the only expression I can think of, at once,
and am still at the mercy of words, though
sometimes now, knowing a little of their
behaviour very well, I think I can influence
them slightly and have even learned to beat
them now and then, which they appear to
enjoy.
I tumbled for words at once. And, when I began
to read the nursery rhymes for myself, and, later,
to read other verses and ballads, I knew that I
had discovered the most important things, to
me, that could be ever."
Thomas became an accomplished writer of prose poetry, with collections such as 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog' (1940) and 'Quite Early One Morning' (1954) showing he was capable of writing moving short stories. His first published prose work, 'After the Fair', appeared in The New English Weekly on the 15th. March 1934.
Jacob Korg believes that one can classify Thomas's fiction work into two main bodies:
-- Vigorous fantasies in a poetic style
-- After 1939, more straightforward
narratives.
Korg surmises that Thomas approached his prose writing as an alternate poetic form, which allowed him to produce complex, involuted narratives that do not allow the reader to rest.
Dylan Thomas as a Welsh Poet
Thomas disliked being regarded as a provincial poet, and decried any notion of 'Welshness' in his poetry. When he wrote to Stephen Spender in 1952, thanking him for a review of his Collected Poems, he added:
"Oh, & I forgot. I'm not influenced by
Welsh bardic poetry. I can't read Welsh."
Despite this, his work was rooted in the geography of Wales. Thomas acknowledged that he returned to Wales when he had difficulty writing, and John Ackerman argues that:
"Dylan's inspiration and imagination
were rooted in his Welsh background".
Caitlin Thomas wrote that:
"He worked in a fanatically narrow groove,
although there was nothing narrow about
the depth and understanding of his feelings.
The groove of direct hereditary descent in
the land of his birth, which he never in
thought, and hardly in body, moved out of."
Head of Programmes Wales at the BBC, Aneirin Talfan Davies, who commissioned several of Thomas's early radio talks, believed that the poet's whole attitude is that of the medieval bards.
Kenneth O. Morgan counter-argues that it is a difficult enterprise to find traces of cynghanedd (consonant harmony) or cerdd dafod (tongue-craft) in Thomas's poetry. Instead he believes that Dylan's work, especially his earlier, more autobiographical poems, are rooted in a changing country which echoes the Welshness of the past and the Anglicisation of the new industrial nation:
"Rural and urban, chapel-going and profane,
Welsh and English, unforgiving and deeply
compassionate."
Fellow poet and critic Glyn Jones believed that any traces of cynghanedd in Thomas's work were accidental, although he felt that Dylan consciously employed one element of Welsh metrics: that of counting syllables per line instead of feet. Constantine Fitzgibbon, who was his first in-depth biographer, wrote:
"No major English poet has
ever been as Welsh as Dylan".
Although Dylan had a deep connection with Wales, he disliked Welsh nationalism. He once wrote:
"Land of my fathers, and
my fathers can keep it".
While often attributed to Thomas himself, this line actually comes from the character Owen Morgan-Vaughan, in the screenplay Thomas wrote for the 1948 British melodrama 'The Three Weird Sisters'.
Robert Pocock, a friend from the BBC, recalled:
"I only once heard Dylan express an
opinion on Welsh Nationalism.
He used three words. Two of them
were Welsh Nationalism."
Although not expressed as strongly, Glyn Jones believed that he and Thomas's friendship cooled in the later years because he had not rejected enough of the elements that Thomas disliked, i.e. "Welsh nationalism and a sort of hill farm morality".
Apologetically, in a letter to Keidrych Rhys, editor of the literary magazine 'Wales', Thomas's father wrote:
"I'm afraid Dylan isn't much
of a Welshman".
FitzGibbon asserts that Thomas's negativity towards Welsh nationalism was fostered by his father's hostility towards the Welsh language.
Critical Appraisal of Dylan Thomas's Work
Thomas's work and stature as a poet have been much debated by critics and biographers since his death. Critical studies have been clouded by Thomas's personality and mythology, especially his drunken persona and death in New York.
When Seamus Heaney gave an Oxford lecture on the poet, he opened by addressing the assembly:
"Dylan Thomas is now as much
a case history as a chapter in the
history of poetry".
He queried how 'Thomas the Poet' is one of his forgotten attributes. David Holbrook, who has written three books about Thomas, stated in his 1962 publication 'Llareggub Revisited':
"The strangest feature of Dylan Thomas's
notoriety - not that he is bogus, but that
attitudes to poetry attached themselves
to him which not only threaten the prestige,
effectiveness and accessibility to English
poetry, but also destroyed his true voice
and, at last, him."
The Poetry Archive notes that:
"Dylan Thomas's detractors accuse him
of being drunk on language as well as
whiskey, but whilst there's no doubt that
the sound of language is central to his
style, he was also a disciplined writer
who re-drafted obsessively".
Many critics have argued that Thomas's work is too narrow, and that he suffers from verbal extravagance. However those who have championed his work have found the criticism baffling. Robert Lowell wrote in 1947:
"Nothing could be more wrongheaded
than the English disputes about Dylan
Thomas's greatness ... He is a dazzling
obscure writer who can be enjoyed
without understanding."
Kenneth Rexroth said, on reading 'Eighteen Poems':
"The reeling excitement of a poetry-intoxicated
schoolboy smote the Philistine as hard a blow
with one small book as Swinburne had with
Poems and Ballads."
Philip Larkin, in a letter to Kingsley Amis in 1948, wrote that:
"No one can stick words into us
like pins... like Thomas can".
However he followed that by stating that:
"Dylan doesn't use his words
to any advantage".
Amis was far harsher, finding little of merit in Dylan's work, and claiming that:
"He is frothing at the mouth
with piss."
In 1956, the publication of the anthology 'New Lines' featuring works by the British collective The Movement, which included Amis and Larkin amongst its number, set out a vision of modern poetry that was damning towards the poets of the 1940's. Thomas's work in particular was criticised. David Lodge, writing about The Movement in 1981 stated:
"Dylan Thomas was made to stand for
everything they detest, verbal obscurity,
metaphysical pretentiousness, and
romantic rhapsodizing".
Despite criticism by sections of academia, Thomas's work has been embraced by readers more so than many of his contemporaries, and is one of the few modern poets whose name is recognised by the general public.
In 2009, over 18,000 votes were cast in a BBC poll to find the UK's favourite poet; Thomas was placed 10th.
Several of Dylan's poems have passed into the cultural mainstream, and his work has been used by authors, musicians and film and television writers.
The long-running BBC Radio programme, 'Desert Island Discs', in which guests usually choose their favourite songs, has heard 50 participants select a Dylan Thomas recording.
John Goodby states that this popularity with the reading public allows Thomas's work to be classed as vulgar and common. He also cites that despite a brief period during the 1960's when Thomas was considered a cultural icon, the poet has been marginalized in critical circles due to his exuberance, in both life and work, and his refusal to know his place.
Goodby believes that Thomas has been mainly snubbed since the 1970's and has become: "... an embarrassment to twentieth-century poetry criticism", his work failing to fit standard narratives, and thus being ignored rather than studied.
Memorials to Dylan Thomas
In Swansea's maritime quarter is the Dylan Thomas Theatre, the home of the Swansea Little Theatre of which Thomas was once a member. The former Guildhall built in 1825 is now occupied by the Dylan Thomas Centre, a literature centre, where exhibitions and lectures are held and which is a setting for the annual Dylan Thomas Festival. Outside the centre stands a bronze statue of Thomas by John Doubleday.
Another monument to Thomas stands in Cwmdonkin Park, one of Dylan's favourite childhood haunts, close to his birthplace. The memorial is a small rock in an enclosed garden within the park, cut by and inscribed by the late sculptor Ronald Cour with the closing lines from Fern Hill:
'Oh as I was young and easy
in the mercy of his means
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like
the sea'.
Thomas's home in Laugharne, the Boathouse, is now a museum run by Carmarthenshire County Council. Thomas's writing shed is also preserved.
In 2004, the Dylan Thomas Prize was created in his honour, awarded to the best published writer in English under the age of 30. In 2005, the Dylan Thomas Screenplay Award was established. The prize, administered by the Dylan Thomas Centre, is awarded at the annual Swansea Bay Film Festival.
In 1982 a plaque was unveiled in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. The plaque is also inscribed with the last two lines of 'Fern Hill'.
In 2014, the Royal Patron of The Dylan Thomas 100 Festival was Charles, Prince of Wales, who made a recording of 'Fern Hill' for the event.
In 2014, to celebrate the centenary of Thomas's birth, the British Council Wales undertook a year-long programme of cultural and educational works. Highlights included a touring replica of Thomas's work shed, Sir Peter Blake's exhibition of illustrations based on 'Under Milk Wood', and a 36-hour marathon of readings, which included Michael Sheen and Sir Ian McKellen performing Thomas's work.
Towamensing Trails, Pennsylvania named one of its streets, Thomas Lane, in Dylan's honour.
List of Works by Dylan Thomas
-- 'The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas: The New Centenary Edition', edited and with Introduction by John Goodby. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2014.
-- 'The Notebook Poems 1930–34', edited by Ralph Maud. London: Dent, 1989.
-- 'Dylan Thomas: The Film Scripts', edited by John Ackerman. London: Dent 1995.
-- 'Dylan Thomas: Early Prose Writings', edited by Walford Davies. London: Dent 1971.
-- 'Collected Stories', edited by Walford Davies. London: Dent, 1983.
-- 'Under Milk Wood: A Play for Voices', edited by Walford Davies and Ralph Maud. London: Dent, 1995.
-- 'On The Air With Dylan Thomas: The Broadcasts', edited by Ralph Maud. New York: New Directions, 1991.
Correspondence
-- 'Dylan Thomas: The Collected Letters', edited by Paul Ferris (2017), 2 vols. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Vol I: 1931–1939
Vol II: 1939–1953.
-- 'Letters to Vernon Watkins', edited by Vernon Watkins (1957). London: Dent.
Posthumous Film Adaptations
-- 2016: Dominion, written and directed by Steven Bernstein, examines the final hours of Dylan Thomas.
-- 2014: Set Fire to the Stars, with Thomas portrayed by Celyn Jones, and John Brinnin by Elijah Wood.
-- 2014: Under Milk Wood BBC, starring Charlotte Church, Tom Jones, Griff Rhys-Jones and Michael Sheen.
-- 2014: Interstellar. The poem is featured throughout the film as a recurring theme regarding the perseverance of humanity.
-- 2009: A Child's Christmas in Wales, BAFTA Best Short Film. Animation, with soundtrack in Welsh and English. Director: Dave Unwin. Extras include filmed comments from Aeronwy Thomas.
-- 2007: Dylan Thomas: A War Films Anthology (DDHE/IWM).
-- 1996: Independence Day. Before the attack, the President paraphrases Thomas's "Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night".
-- 1992: Rebecca's Daughters, starring Peter O'Toole and Joely Richardson.
-- 1987: A Child's Christmas in Wales, directed by Don McBrearty.
-- 1972: Under Milk Wood, starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Peter O'Toole.
Opera Adaptation
-- 1973: Unter dem Milchwald, by German composer Walter Steffens on his own libretto using Erich Fried's translation of 'Under Milk Wood' into German, Hamburg State Opera. Also at the Staatstheater Kassel in 1977.
Final Thoughts From Dylan Thomas
"Somebody's boring me.
I think it's me."
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
"When one burns one's bridges,
what a very nice fire it makes."
"I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble; It is so sad and
beautiful, so tremulously like a dream."
"An alcoholic is someone you don't like,
who drinks as much as you do."
"I hold a beast, an angel, and a madman in me,
and my enquiry is as to their working, and my
problem is their subjugation and victory, down
throw and upheaval, and my effort is their self-
expression."
"The only sea I saw was the seesaw sea
with you riding on it. Lie down, lie easy.
Let me shipwreck in your thighs."
"Why do men think you can pick love up
and re-light it like a candle? Women know
when love is over."
"Poetry is not the most important thing in life.
I'd much rather lie in a hot bath reading
Agatha Christie and sucking sweets."
"And now, gentlemen, like your manners,
I must leave you."
"My education was the liberty I had to read
indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes
hanging out."
"I'm a freak user of words, not a poet."
"Our discreditable secret is that we don't
know anything at all, and our horrid inner
secret is that we don't care that we don't."
"It snowed last year too: I made a snowman
and my brother knocked it down and I knocked
my brother down and then we had tea."
"Though lovers be lost love shall not."
"Man’s wants remain unsatisfied till death.
Then, when his soul is naked, is he one
with the man in the wind, and the west moon,
with the harmonious thunder of the sun."
"And books which told me everything
about the wasp, except why."
"We are not wholly bad or good, who live
our lives under Milk Wood."
"Love is the last light spoken."
"... an ugly, lovely town ... crawling, sprawling ...
by the side of a long and splendid curving
shore. This sea-town was my world."
"I do not need any friends. I prefer enemies.
They are better company, and their feelings
towards you are always genuine."
"This poem has been called obscure. I refuse
to believe that it is obscurer than pity, violence,
or suffering. But being a poem, not a lifetime,
it is more compressed."
"One: I am a Welshman; two: I am a drunkard;
three: I am a lover of the human race, especially
of women."
"I believe in New Yorkers. Whether they've ever
questioned the dream in which they live, I wouldn't
know, because I won't ever dare ask that question."
"These poems, with all their crudities, doubts and
confusions, are written for the love of man and in
praise of God, and I'd be a damn fool if they weren't."
"Before you let the sun in, mind he wipes his shoes."
"Nothing grows in our garden, only washing.
And babies."
"Make gentle the life of this world."
"A worm tells summer better than the clock,
the slug's a living calendar of days; what shall
it tell me if a timeless insect says the world
wears away?"
"Time passes. Listen. Time passes. Come
closer now. Only you can hear the houses
sleeping in the streets in the slow deep salt
and silent black, bandaged night."
"Rhianon, he said, hold my hand, Rhianon.
She did not hear him, but stood over his bed
and fixed him with an unbroken sorrow. Hold
my hand, he said, and then: Why are you
putting the sheet over my face?"
"Come on up, boys - I'm dead."
"Life is a terrible thing, thank God."
I've recently purchsed a few rolls of some obscure films, such as Tasma NK-2 and Svema MZ3, and I've found that every single roll has bands of fogging/pre-exposure on the first third of the roll. The seller has denied culpability in the matter, adamantly suggesting this is something I've done to introduce the problem.
To further test my belief that the film arrived to me in this compromised state, I clipped 8 inches off the beginning of a roll of Svema MZ3 yesterday and processed it alongside a roll of Tri-X I recently shot. The MZ3 came straight out of the cassette (in total darkness) and was not run through any camera, so this test strip of film should have been completely blank, except the first inch of the leader (which was outside the cassette). However, as you can see, it is not blank at all: there is significant light contamination in two clearly visible bands. This appears to be spaced in equal sized bands that correspond to the spot where the film protruded from the cassette (far left, where the darkest band of exposure ends, as indicated by the arrow). This leads me to think there is a problem with the felt light trap: if this felt has failed, it would lead to light contaminating the first 2 or 3 revolutions of the film inside the cassette. Since the seller is using old Kodak 35mm cassettes and rebranding them with their own labeling, it seems possible that the felt traps are old and compromised.
I'm waiting for a response from the merchant: I just emailed them a copy of this photo and information this morning. I certainly hope they are not going to persist in laying the blame on me for this problem, since I think this test proves that its not an issue I have introduced through careless/incorrect handling of the film.
Any of you have similar experiences with these obscure Ukrainian/Russian films packaged and sold here in the US?
Addendum, December 5, 2018:
I have exchanged emails with the Film Photography Project folks and here is what it all boils down to: "It's not our fault, its yours". They steadfastly refuse to acknowledge any responsibility in the matter, stating that the light contamination problem has been introduced by me, as a result of "improper storage of the film". To be precise, they stated in their final email that "The longer any Mylar based film is exposed to light before entering the camera the more chance it has of light piping, it needs to be stored in very dim or no light. The light is cumulative, and the longer it is out,
even in dim light, the more it can affect the first frames of the film." (exact quote)
OK, so this film is special and " it needs to be stored in very dim or no light." (My stock is on a shelf at the back of my darkroom, in very dim light, by the way) Do they tell you this anywhere in the literature on the web site before you buy?? Of course not. And get this: they KNOW this film will "light pipe" when stored in an illuminated environment, so do they ship these films in opaque black containers? of course not! They ship them in clear plastic containers that do absolutely nothing to prevent light contamination! When asked WHY they don't use black containers, they declined to answer. I'm totally unimpressed with their responses, and the fact that at no point did they offer to replace the film or offer any kind of compensation means I will never buy from them again. EVER. I think their denial of culpability is a telling point, and they don't really care about the customer experience. So be it.
Con el atardecer
Me iré de ti
Me iré sin ti
Me alejaré de tí
Con un dolor
Dentro de mi
Te juro corazón
Que no es falta de amor
Pero es mejor así
Un día comprenderás
Que lo hice por tu bien
Que todo fue por tí...
La barca en que me iré
Lleva una cruz de olvido
Lleva una cruz de amor
Y en esa cruz sin ti
Me moriré de hastío
La barca en que me iré
Lleva una cruz de olvido
Lleva una cruz de amor
Y en esa cruz sin ti
Me moriré de hastío...
Culpable no he de ser
De que por mi
Puedas llorar
Mejor será partir
Prefiero así
Que hacerte mal
Yo sé que sufriré
Mi nave cruzará
Un mar de soledad..
Adiós, adiós amor
Recuerda que te amé
Que siempre te amaré..
La nave en que me iré
Lleva una cruz de olvido
Lleva una cruz de amor
Y en esa cruz sin ti
Me moriré de hastío...
El 6 de juliol de 2019 es va inaugurar davant del teatre municipal d'Orange, on hi havia hagut la guillotina, un memorial en honor a les 332 víctimes del terror revolucionari a Orange (anys 90 del segle XVIII), entre 36 ells sacerdots i religiosos, i 32 monges beatificades pel papa Pius XI l' any 1925, però també sabaters, picapedrers, comerciants, alcaldes, jornalers, notaris, cirurgians, advocats, soldats i tot allò que podria representar una societat en tota la seva diversitat.
És obra de l'escultor Boris Lejeune, ja conegut per les seves creacions de Santa Joana d'Arc.
El relleu que hi ha al pedestal, a l'alçada dels ulls de l'espectador, representa aquesta escena malauradament habitual en aquella època: la víctima s'estén sota la fulla de la guillotina, dos botxins, artesans aplicats de la mort, són els últims minuts d'una persona declarada culpable. A les plaques disposades a l'altre costat del pedestal hi ha gravats els centenars de noms de les persones executades al mateix lloc on s'ha aixecat aquest monument.
Alçant els ulls, l'espectador veurà un grup escultòric que representa precisament la transformació de l'ombra en la llum del triomf. Representa el moment de l'apoteosi, el fred instrument de la mort, la guillotina, que es transforma en un portal, l'entrada al cel per sobre de la qual un àngel amb una palma a la mà, símbol del martiri, que acull les monges, l'èxit de les quals és etern.
Sota el relleu, hi ha gravat en una làmina de metall un extracte del poema d'una de les monges, en què triomfa sobre la guillotina la vida eterna sobre la mort.
"Qui et tem, oh guillotina,
al meu parer, molt malament;
Si ens fas semblar ombrívols
ens condueixes a bon port.
Si ens sembles cruel
És per la nostra felicitat real:
Una corona eterna
és el preu del teu rigor."
Aquesta foto ha jugat a Quel est ce lieu?.
Nocturna del cañón del Sil engullido por la niebla. 90 tomas de 60" procesadas con Capture One y unidas con StarStaX, de cuya traducción al castellano soy el único culpable.
81 tomas de 60" cada una más 9 tomas en negro para reducción de ruido.
Night shot of Sil Canyon covered by mist. 90 shots processed on Capture One and stacked with StarStaX.
81 shots of 60" each, plus 9 black frames for noise reduction, individually processed on CaptureOne and stacked with StarStaX for Mac.
Olympus E-M5+ZUIKO ZD ED 7-14mm 1:4.0. ISO 200・7mm・f/4.0・
81x60"+9 Black frames.
...y no hacer nada...
..no tener que coger el coche para ir a trabajar..o no hacer nada, poder leer hasta tarde..o no hacer nada, pasear largo rato,..o no hacer nada. Si, soy culpable de que a veces no me apetece hacer nada.
Santo Domingo de la Calzada és una població situada al costat del riu Oja, que dóna nom a la regió, en el trajecte del camí de Santiago.
El seu nom i fundació provenen de Domingo García, després canonitzat com a Santo Domingo de la Calzada, qui creà un pont, un hospital i un alberg de peregrins, per a facilitar el seu pas cap a Santiago de Compostela, al voltant de l'any 1045.
És famosa la dita de "Santo Domingo de la Calzada, donde cantó la gallina después de asada", gràcies a un miracle atribuït al sant. En record d'aquesta llegenda es guarda permanentment a la catedral un gall i una gallina, en un galliner construït amb forja.
La Catedral va ser començada, segons els "Anales Compostelanos", l'any 1158, amb la finalitat d'acollir les restes d'un dels sants més coneguts i venerats en el Camí de Santiago, Santo Domingo de la Calzada, mort en l'any 1109.
El mestre Garçión, possiblement d'origen francès, va projectar un gran temple tardorromànic d'acord amb la importància del lloc, i del que encara es conserven importants vestigis, en concret la capçalera i el disseny de la resta del temple. Des del punt de vista arquitectònic destaca la seva estructura, amb una capçalera amb deambulatori que circumda el presbiteri, i tres capelles absidals de les que només la central és de les originals. Pel que fa a l'escultura d'aquesta part de la catedral, cal destacar per la seva importància tota la sèrie de capitells historiats del deambulatori i sobretot les quatre pilastres decorades que donen al presbiteri. En elles s'ha vist representat un arbre de Jessè destacant per la seva qualitat les imatges de la Santíssima Trinitat i d'un Rei David músic.
El cor de la catedral és una gran peça plateresca realitzada en la dècada de 1520 per Andrés de Nájera i Guillén d'Holanda, entre d'altres. La qualitat de les seves talles s'aprecia en els treballs de delicats calats o en la marqueteria dels seus setials. Els relleus de les cadires representen figures de sants i santes. Presidint, a la cadira abacial, es troba Santo Domingo. També és digne de ressenyar l'interessant programa simbòlic de tot el conjunt, reafirmat per una sèrie de sentències inscrites en molts dels respatllers.
El sepulcre de Santo Domingo de la Calzada és una obra en la qual conflueixen diversos estils per ser possiblement fruit de la unió de peces de tres sepulcres diferents. Romànica és la lauda sepulcral en la qual es representa al Sant jacent, gòtica és la taula en la qual es narren els seus miracles, i tardogòtic és el templet. Aquest va ser dissenyat per Felipe Vigarny i realitzat per Juan de Rasines en 1513.
El galliner, on s'aixopluguen el gall i la gallina com a record del famós miracle, és d'estil gòtic del segle XV.
Altres obres importants de la catedral són les capelles funeràries de Santa Teresa i de la Magdalena. La primera conté diversos sepulcres gòtics, el del centre de Pedro Suárez de Figueroa, i un bell retaule de pintura sobre taula de finals del segle XV. La segona és força menor en grandària però igualment interessant ja que és d'un estil proper al del gran escultor Felipe Vigarny. És d'estil gòtic tardà i en ella està enterrat Pedro de Carranza, maestrescola de la Catedral de Burgos. Destaca el sepulcre, la reixa i el petit retaule del pintor de l'època León Picardo.
El Claustre és una obra gòtic-mudèjar en el qual destaca la sala capitular pel seu cadirat del segle XVII i per la seva enteixinat mudèjar com a sostre. S'hi exposen valuoses obres d'art com tríptics flamencs, orfebreria i altres importants peces escultòriques.
La llegenda del gall i la gallina
Al segle XIV pelegrina a Compostela Hugonell, un jove alemany de 18 anys que va acompanyat pels seus pares. En la fonda on s'allotgen treballa una noia jove que s'enamora d'ell i li requereix d'amors, al que el noi es nega. Despitada i amb ànsies de venjança, guarda al sarró del jove una copa de plata i després l'acusa de robatori.
El jove Hugonell i els seus pares es disposen a partir per seguir el pelegrinatge, quan arriba la justícia i comproven l'acusació registrant el sarró del noi. El declaren culpable i és condemnat a la forca. Els pares no poden fer res per ell més que resar a Santiago. De retorn a Alemanya, a l'acostar-se al cos penjat del seu fill per acomiadar-se senten com aquest els parla des de la forca i els diu que està viu per la gràcia del Sant.
Feliços i contents van a comunicar la notícia al corregidor que, just en aquest moment, està sopant opíparament unes aus. El corregidor naturalment es burla del que sent i llança la frase coneguda: «El vostre fill està tan viu com aquest gall i aquesta gallina que em disposava a menjar abans que em importunarais». I en aquest moment, les aus salten del plat i es posen a cantar i cloquejar alegrement.
D'aquesta llegenda va néixer la dita popular: «En Santo Domingo de la Calzada, donde cantó la gallina después de asada». Es tracta d'una llegenda molt similar a la Llegenda del Gall de Barcelos i probablement les dues tinguin un origen comú.
Pàgina a la UNESCO World Heritage List.
Aquesta imatge ha jugat a En un lugar de Flickr.
Corinne Bailey Rae - Put Your Records On ♪
Three little birds, sat on my window.
And they told me I don't need to worry.
Summer came like cinnamon
So sweet,
Little girls double-dutch on the concrete.
Maybe sometimes, we've got it wrong, but it's alright
The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same
Oh, don't you hesitate.
Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.
Blue as the sky, sunburnt and lonely,
Sipping tea in the bar by the roadside,
(just relax, just relax)
Don't you let those other boys fool you,
Got to love that afro hair do.
Maybe sometimes, we feel afraid, but it's alright
The more you stay the same, the more they seem to change.
Don't you think it's strange?
Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow.
'Twas more than I could take, pity for pity's sake
Some nights kept me awake, I thought that I was stronger
When you gonna realise, that you don't even have to try any longer?
Do what you want to.
Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
Girl, put your records on, tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down
Sapphire and faded jeans, I hope you get your dreams,
Just go ahead, let your hair down.
Oh, you're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow
Escúchala ! te la recomiendo (: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN85GFf-FUc
~ Me pongo los audífonos, salgo a caminar sin rumbo y pienso...
porqué llorar ? , son cosas que simplemente pasan, sin explicación, no hay culpables, solo pasan, no es necesario seguir amargándose, el luto ya pasó, todos cometemos errores, yo los cometí, pedí la oportunidad de remendarlos, no hay retroceso, eso me hace pensar: "Si te caes, replanteate, levántate, piensa como no volver a caer y no des vuelta a mirar la piedra que te hizo tropezar :), es mejor mirar hacia el frente, uno nunca sabe las vueltas de la vida.
hoy y ahora es mejor preocuparse de estar bien con uno mismo :), no pelear con uno mismo, y recuperar las cosas perdidas...
el amar es una acto tan lindo, para que sufrir al hacerlo ?, no vale la pena, mejor seguir, solo preocúpate de que el limite del amor es amar sin límites, da todo...
~ soy hermoso, no importa lo que digas, así que hoy, NO me hagas venir abajo,
no importa lo que hagamos, no importa lo que digan, somos la melodía dentro de la canción, lleno de hermosos errores ♪
Once Upon A Time, back in the late-80's. I worked as a kitchen manager at a newly-opened pseudo-restaurant called Willi's Chili and BarBar. The restaurant had been installed in a newly remodeled, two-story wood-frame house on a busy street just a couple blocks down from the campus of an Unnamed Southwest Missouri University, in a medium-sized city much like the medium-sized city of Springfield, Missouri.
In its former, pre-pseudo-restaurant days, the house had been what was known at the time as a "party house," i.e., an oftentimes money-making operation set-up by some enterprising student, where, for a small entrance fee, one might consume a limited amount of keg beer (limited because usually there were too-few kegs for too-many people) and pursue additional opportunities in the worlds of Sex, Drugs, and Rock&Roll.
Not a whole lot changed at the house after the remodel and the Grand Opening of Willi's Chili and BarBar. Willi, I discovered after I came to know him, was kind of a party boy himself. At that time I was teaching a couple of courses at the Unnamed Southwest Missouri University as a member of the adjunct (low-paid) faculty, but, because I had a lot of bills to pay (my girlfriend had moved out and left me with a house payment and $4400 worth of equity to cough-up, and I had a new-car payment to boot) I was also cooking full-time at a pseudo-French place (you might say that, back then, all the restaurants in the medium-sized city much like the medium-sized city of Springfield, Missouri were pseudo) called Patrick's, over on the south side of town, where the richer folks lived. Patrick's was okay, I learned a bit, but the pay was low (and some of it was in cash), and Patrick was, well, we won't go into that. Let's just say that he was predictably unpredictable. So I was looking for another, higher-paying, less-stressful cooking job, preferably with a more predictably predictable owner.
I heard about Willi's Chili and BarBar while it was still in the gestation stage, and one night, after I had taught my classes, I went over to the see Tina Louise (not her real name), who was a member of the Psychology faculty (she was also one of the more liberal members of the not-terribly liberal local city council) and was also Willi's consort. Her husband had died and his wife had died, or there were divorces in there somewhere. Anyway, they were together, shacked-up in the parlance of the time, and they were doing the restaurant together, though in reality Willi was the driving force. I told Tina Louise of my interest in the new restaurant and she invited me to meet Willi, over at their house, and have a get-acquainted interview.
Okay, long story short, I met Willi (he was a florid-faced middle-aged fellow who had also been a city councilman, but who had been recalled by his constituents when he insisted on doing a favor for a developer that his constituents vehemently informed him they didn't want him to do). He had also been a successful businessman, but was now being sued by some outfit in California over some legal matter, a legal matter that he was most vehemently not culpable in the commission thereof, according to Willi), told him about my cooking experience (over the course of two, or maybe more, drinks (now that I think back on it, it was more than two, and I remember being pretty thoroughly sloshed when I left their house that night)) and soon enough found myself hired as one of the two kitchen managers. One guy was the day guy and one guy was the night guy. I think I was the night guy.
The restaurant opens and is wildly successful. In the medium-sized city much like the medium-sized city of Springfield, Missouri, all the restaurants may have been pseudo, but some were more pseudo than others. What Willi's Chili and BarBar had going for it was crazy Willi, and the decor that Willi installed. He had been a World War II fighter pilot in the Pacific and had collected numerous Air Force related artifacts, drawings and photographs, and other mementoes, Flying Fortresses cruising and P-51 Mustangs diving and Jap Zeroes (that's what Willi would have called them) engulfed in flames and heading downwards, towards oblivion.
So while I kept my cooking job at Patrick's and continued to teach my classes, I began to help out at the now late-term, soon-to-open Willi's, working on recipes, planning prep lists, conducting interviews for the kitchen staff.
At last, opening day was at hand. The building inspector arrived, surveyed the premises, gave us the okay for the fifty-one seats that were installed, signed the Certificate of Occupancy, and left. Willi promptly had another forty seats installed, twenty inside and twenty outside on the front patio. Since the kitchen was about the size of two bathrooms on a ConAir commuter jet, any fool could see that things were going to be tight. And I was any fool.
From the git-go, we were super-busy . The number of local avant-garde hipsters in the medium-sized city much like the medium-sized city of Springfield, Missouri was large, and those ninety-one seats only went so far. Almost from opening day, the line stretched out the door, around the side of the building, and into the parking lot in back.
Willi designated one of the waitresses, one who looked especially fetching in short-short short shorts and a little handkerchief-kinda-bikini-top-thing, to go out with her order pad and take drink orders. The stout drinks, the short shorts, and the handkerchief-kinda-bikini-top-thing kept everybody happy.
The primary menu offering at Willi's Chili and BarBar was grease. Willi even specified that all the chili served must have a quarter-inch of grease floating on top. Just about everything had cheese in it, and every item on the menu had a name derived from Willi's World War II glory days. I don't remember all the names, but I can tell you that there was no entree called the "Enola Gay," and the vegetarian burrito was called "The Glider." Ribs were a popular seller, and barbequed chicken was a popular seller. Both of them spent some time in our little quartz oven (about the size of a microwave oven), and that quartz oven ran, night and day, at 800 degrees. Since the ceiling in the kitchen, on the cook's line, was seven feet high, and since, just to remind you, that kitchen was about the size of two bathrooms on a ConAir commuter jet, it was hot back there. It was hot as The Hot Place.
But in the beginning, when a restaurant is brand-new, when it's more of a Platonic Ideal than a Grubby Reality, it can be a heck-of a lot of fun. There's a Mickey Rooneyesque, Let's Put On A Show magical feel to it all. Everything's new, everyone's putting on their best face, hope reigns supreme. All the waitresses seem available, and alluring (at least until you get to know their stories). One night one of the waitresses came into the kitchen and, in the course of ordinary conversation, said something about something being "capricious." "Ooooh," I said, all mocking and condescending, "big word." "Did you think I was stupid?" she said. I looked at her. I hadn't paid much attention up to that point, perhaps because she was wearing glasses. She didn't look stupid, she looked rather smart, and she was plenty cute enough. Soon, we were out in the hall, chatting each other up. Not long thereafter, we were on a date, a date that segued soon enough . . . Well, I won't describe what it segued into, but it was pleasing, and left me with a lasting affection for the word "capricious." Of course, that word cuts a lot of ways, and not too many days passed before we were at a party, and my Capricious Lass turned to me (we were standing outside the bathroom in a hallway of a little two bedroom house) and said, "I lost my virginity right here." She meant right there in the hallway, on the floor. I should have known that my days were numbered, then and there.
In those early days at Willi's ,the pace, and the hours, were phenomenal. I had my two classes at the Unnamed Southwest Missouri University to teach (in the morning) and I also had another class that I was teaching at an Unnamed Southwest Missouri College on the other side of town (that was one night a week), and, my job at Willi's (I had quit at Patrick's, and, miraculously, made it out of there on good terms). That first week, I taught my two classes at the University and immediately rushed over to Willi's, where I worked past mid-night. On the days when I didn't have classes to teach, I worked all day. That first week, I worked 102 hours at Willi's.
It wasn't a schedule that I could keep up for long, and soon enough, for one indiscretion on another, and because he didn't want to keep paying me overtime, or at least as much overtime, Willi demoted me, stripped me of my rank as kitchen manager. There was a hefty, horse-faced middle-aged head bartender named Stella (as usual, not her real name) and she had quickly determined that I stood in her way of advancement. She undermined me with Willi at every turn. What astounded me was that when he demoted me, Willi informed me that he was also giving me a raise, of a dollar an hour. I still haven't figured that one out.
Stella took control, but I was still an integral part of the operation. I could have contributed more, but since neither Willi or Stella ever asked me, I never spoke up about the gaping leaks in their operation. They thought that hiring fraternity boys as bartenders was a good idea, because the frat boys would attract their house mates as customers. But night after night, after Stella and Willi had gone home (in Willi's case, he went upstairs---he and Tina Louise had fixed up the second floor as a one-room pied-a-terre), the frat boy bartenders entertained their brothers at the bar with free drinks. Everybody who worked there, in fact, got free drinks. The waitstaff got theirs, and, in return for cheese fries or a burger, us guys in the kitchen got ours.
Not that it really mattered, because just about everyone in the restaurant, everyone working there anyway, was high most of the time anyway. There was a chest freezer down in the basement, and the locked liquor cabinet was down there, so just about everyone had an excuse to go down, at more or less anytime. What Willi and Stella didn't know was that there was an exhaust vent, over by the furnace, and you could light up a joint, take a hit, and blow out the smoke into the vent, and it went all the way up and escaped through the roof of the house. I would have been the worst offender, gladly, but I had learned, cooking omelets in front of the customers at Patrick's on Sunday morning, that being high and cooking didn't go well together, at least for me, so I limited myself to the odd Screwdriver, when the kitchen was closed and we were cleaning up to go home. Half, two-thirds, maybe everybody else, was either drunk or stoned or both, most if not all of the time. One Sunday afternoon, I remember, two of the waitresses were so drunk that they had to sit down at the tables with their customers to steady themselves so they could write their orders. They came into the kitchen and laughed about it. Another time, I remember one of the waiters bragging that he had worked the previous day while doing five hits of acid.
Of course, if Willi had been on top of the situation, he would have picked up on the problems. If he had been more liked and respected, someone would have made him aware of the disfunction. But he started his day at ten in the morning with an eight-ounce juice glass full of vodka, every day. For a long time, I thought it was water, but then I figured it out. He had a rather winsome dog, a big Standard poodle, named Jack (not his real name) and sometimes in the morning, Willi would coax (well, after a while I guess he didn't have to coax too much) Jack up on a bar stool, and Stella or someone would give Jack a saucer full of Kahlua and cream. Finally someone, a disgruntled employee no doubt, called the health department and they put a stop to Jack's libations.
So now you have the scene, Willi's Chili and BarBar, a wide-open, Hellbent for Leather, anything goes kind of place, already in decline but not keen to the news. We'd been open maybe ten months, so it would been around February. A new guy started working at Willi's, another frat boy, named Stewart. He was tall and imposing in a I'm-throwing-my-weight-around kind of way, with a tall brow, a face of flat planes, and an arrogant, droning, nasal bray. I would have guessed that his family had some money, but still, he was waiting tables, so perhaps they didn't have that much money. Perhaps it was Stewart's air of superiority coupled with his physical bulk , his complete lack of elegance, grace, intelligence, decency. whatever, but soon enough, Stewart and I had become enemies in the kitchen. One day we squared off and mutual threats of physical anhillation were exchanged. Neither of us had the true tough guy's indifference to consequences (and, I might add, the physical courage) to go first, so we backed off, a mutual stand-down. But I'll say this---Stewart was someone I detested. When he was working and I was working, the whole atmosphere of a job I had formerly liked was now different.
It was about this time of year, towards the middle of March, Spring Break Time. On the Friday before the break began, almost the whole campus cleared out. That night, there was a freak, unexpected snowstorm that dumped four or five inches of heavy wet snow over the western half of Missouri.
I guess I was off that weekend. On Monday, after I taught my classes, I came in to work and found the restaurant completely changed. No one was talking, everyone was going about their appointed tasks in the most desultory manner, no looking up, no smiling.
"What happened?" I finally asked someone. "Why is everyone so depressed?"
"Didn't you hear? Stewart's dead. He ran his car head-on into a snowplow."
I won't say that I was saddened, but shocked I certainly was. Soon enough, the details started coming out. Stewart and one of the other waiters had gone back to the waiter's apartment and done some drugs, pot probably, or acid, perhaps. How much,
I don't know. Then Stewart had gotten into his car and started home for Kansas City. He was going to see his family for a day or two and then head down to Fort Walton Beach for the break. He got about half way home, somewhere up in central Missouri, around Sedalia, when he met the snowplow, on a bridge.
By Wednesday, the story had changed. Stewart hadn't been with the other waiter, and, as far as the other waiter knew, no drugs had been consumed. It's always funny when people's stories change. Do they think you forget, from one version to the next?
The kicker to the story of Stewart is this: He couldn't have been a guy who was much loved by his fellow frat brothers. He was a winning combination of obtuse, overbearing, bullying, and dumb. Even if they were like him, they couldn't have reveled in his companionship. And now, dead, he pored gasoline on the smoldering pyre of their detestation. As his frat brothers, they all were obligated to attend his funeral. It fell in the middle of spring break week, so they all had to buy plane tickets and get to Kansas City for the service. Whether they went back to the beaches after that I never heard.
Certainly the Stewart that exists for me is a one-dimensional character. I never saw another side of him, but most probably there were some worthy traits. I would like to think that even Stewart, who burns in my imagination like the purest of elements, contained some trace minerals that would surprise me. I don't want to say that I was glad to see him go, but I will admit I never caught myself missing him.
Before I moved up to the medium-sized city much like the medium-sized city of Springfield, Missouri, I had heard two things said about it. The first time was one afternoon in a fiction workshop. Jim Whitehead, loud, large, wonderful Jim Whitehead, subtle as a ten-pound sledge and now gone, was leading the workshop that semester. Someone had submitted a story that had for its setting [a medium-sized city much like the medium-sized city of] Springfield, Missouri. Whitehead leaned back in his chair (or leaned foreward---how would I remember) and said "Ha Ha, He He, Ho Ho (insert your own Jovian interjections), [a medium-sized city much like the medium-sized city of] Springfield, Missouri, it's a typical midwestern American city." Pause for dramatic effect. "Rotten at the core."
Then, a few years later, I was getting ready to move to the medium-sized city much like the medium-sized city of Springfield, Missouri. I was in my final days in Fayetteville, getting my bags packed, cleaning out my apartment. On Sunday morning for some unknown reason I went up to the English department. Ben Kimpel, the department chairman, the smartest man I ever knew, (but to get a proper visual you have visualize an elderly Tweedledum, or Tweedledee) was coming out the door of the building that, now that he's gone, bears his name. He looked at me. I guess he knew where I was moving. "Awh, Van Noate," he said, "don't be so down at the mouth. [The medium-sized city much like the medium-sized city of] Springfield, [Missouri] is not the asshole of the universe."
I lived there for eighteen years, and I can tell you that, though the medium-sized city much like the medium-sized city of Springfield, Missouri is not really a midwestern city (it actually has more of the Wild West, and more of the Ante-Belllum South in it), in all other respects, both statements are true. It's rotten-at-the core, but it's not the asshole of the universe. You can, most definitely, get a good meal, if you're willing to make it yourself. And for my flickr friends who might be out there in the vicinity, remember, they're always exceptions to the rule. You yourself are one of them.
Estado de la Instalación "Astillas" a las 20h00, al abrir la galería.
Opening Wednesday 11th at 8:00 PM.
"La Culpable", Sucre 101, Barranco, Lima, Peru.
"Astillas, queridos participantes, se pretende como una experiencia creativa compartida entre Eltono y todos ustedes. La instalación irá adquiriendo las formas que el público desee darle al mover las piezas de lugar y establecer todas las combinaciones posibles e imaginables, la instalación irá adquiriendo también la forma de los deseos de todos los participantes. Y a través de ese sencillo modelo de armado y desarmado permanente, la obra dejará de pertenecer a una sola persona, se hará literalmente astillas y será parte de todos.
Empiece a mover las piezas y déle rienda suelta a su voluntad."
Somos culpables
de este amor escandaloso
que el fuego mismo de pasión alimentó
que en el remanso
de la noche impostergable
nos avergüenza seguir sintiéndolo.
Poco a poco fuimos volviéndonos locos
y ese vapor de nuestro amor
nos embriagó con su licor
y culpa al carnaval interminable
nos hizo confundir
irresponsables.
Si fuimos carne de la intriga casquivana
que la imprudencia del rumor hoy desató
y descubiertos por la luz de la mañana
nos castigaron la desidia y el dolor. ♫
The drivers are as culpable as the government and industry.
Smokers are as culpable as the tobacco companies.
Drug users as culpable as the pushers.
The real solution to global warming must address both sides, not just blame and forced action on the "polluting" industries. I find many climate change zealots want to maintain their comfortable level of consumption, their gas guzzling trips to the ski resorts, their over-sized home on the edge of nature. They reek with hypocrisy. It's somebody else's problem in their minds.
(si, la frase de la canción de john cale y lou reed) pero puse otra canción, ( bellísima....
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Las luces vienen rapido
perdidas en un accidente
idas en un flash, irreal
pero tu lo sabias todo al fin...
tu ries con la luz,
yo canto las canciones
para mirarte, tonto...
te vi ahi
estabas en tu camino
agarrabas la lluvia
y por primera vez
el cielo se volvio insano
porque el cielo es el culpable
de llevarte tan lejos
conoces las maneras en que yo puedo ?
conoces las maneras en las que puedo perder ?
conoces las cosas que yo conozco ?
conoces las cosas que puedo hacer ?
¿donde esta tu corazon?
¿hacia donde fue tu corazon?
llevame lejos
llevame lejos de ti
tu ries ante la luz mientras yo lloro el presente
en grises atardeceres...
te vi ahi...
estabas en tu camino
sostenias la lluvia
y por la primera vez
el cielo parecio insano
porque el cielo es el culpable
de llevarte lejos...
las luces vienen despacio
choque de opera muerta
ido en un destello irreal
en (nitrous overcast)
conoces las maneras en que yo puedo ?
conoces las maneras en las que puedo perder ?
conoces las cosas que yo conozco ?
conoces las cosas que puedo hacer ?
Llevame lejos
llevame lejos de ti
donde esta tu corazon
¿hacia donde se fue tu corazon?
/////////////////////////////
the lights came on fast
lost in motorcrash
gone in a flash unreal
but you knew all along
you laugh the light i sing the songs
to watch you numb
i saw you there
you were on your way
you held the rain
and for the first time heaven seemed insane
cause heaven is to blame
for taking you away
do you know the way that i can?
do you know the way that i can't lose?
do you know the things that i can?
do you know the things that i can't do?
where is your heart?
where is your heart gone to?
tear me apart
tear me apart from you
you laugh the light i cry the wound
in grey afternoons
i saw you there
you were on your way
you kissed me cold
and for the first time heaven seemed insane
for taking you away
cause heaven is to blame
for taking you away
the lights came to pass
dead opera motorcrash
gone in a flash unreal
in nitrous overcast
do you know the way that i can?
do you know the way that i can't choose?
do you know the things that i can?
do you know the things that i can't lose?
tear me apart
tear me apart from you
where is your heart?
where has your heart run to?
Washburn is the US capital city of New Kansas, Kepler System. True to it’s namesake, New Kansas is a fertile farming world from which a wide variety of crops are cultivated and animals raised. Settlements range from small, old fashioned farms to large, mechanised outposts of synchronised machines and technology.
Washburn is the hub for all manner of activity; business, education and pleasure. It is the port by which New Kansas feeds a large proportion of the Core Worlds. The city is home to several of the top biochemical and veterinary colleges of their kind. A giant spaceport sits on the outskirts of the city, big enough to accommodate the larger interplanetary barges for the transfer of crops and livestock. There is also quite the lively nightlife; most of these bars and cantinas centre around the American Cool Revival trend. They feature music and décor reminiscent of American days gone by.
There exists a quiet acrimony the settlers who reside solely within Washburn and the more isolated farmers. The latter consider their city-based fellows stuck-up and pretentious. The former consider the farming population crass and uncultured.
The city is home to the New Kansas Senator, when she is not involved in democratic discussions back on Earth. Although officially neutral during the Pan-Eurasian War, several of the large farmers sold food to the under-siege Coalition population of Kepler II. One side of the story paints the farmers as saving the lives of starving children. The reality was that rich agricultural groups made huge profits breaking a neutrality clause set by the government. The US investigation into the food smuggling found no person or organisation culpable is considered a whitewash by the Coalition.
Sketches from the courtroom of the first trial of the Baltimore police officers accused of being culpable in the death of Freddie Gray. www.washingtonpost.com/news/drawing-dc-together/
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covetous
adjective
excessively and culpably desirous of the possessions of another.
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This photo was taken for a school project. The requirements of the project are that we use photography trickery (either post-produced or done in camera) to inform the subject of our photo.
I'm really happy with the turnout!
Oh, and definitely view this one Large!