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....and yeah, just as Mr. John Stewart has said, this Magna Carta defines power to extremely wealthy people! And he meant, really extremely ;)
THE DRUNKEN MUSE
The story "Drunken Muse" was audio recorded on a hidden voice recorder during the conversations about two decades ago. The story-teller didn't know or consent to the recording.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tape_recorder
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-track_tape
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Cassette
The audio tapes on compact cassettes were never used. The records were partially damaged and lost.
Herewith the unedited transcript version.
medium.com/paul-jaisini-paints-invisible-paintings/paul-j...
I am so pumped to get back to painting as I return to the second year of the art school after a full year suspension. As always it is like time-travel culturally speaking, like walking right into the middle ages going through the antique building’s portal.
Art studios are the huge L-shaped lofts with super tall ceilings 20 feet no less with the wall to wall windows so that sunlight illuminates the space from south and east side designed for the purpose so that one could paint there from morning till sunset.
In a studio there are classical gypsum sculptures, expensive copies of Venus de Milo, David, Laocoön and the others. In the art studio there stood the noses, eyes, lips, feet, and palms on the wood shelves.
Sketching the gypsum body parts helps you to build the classic academic base on which stands the whole modern and contempo art. This sort of teaching is specific for the art schools that preserve the traditions they had been founded on. There is only few art schools like this and of this caliber left now. Could be that this is the only legendary school that continues to function as if nothing had changed in the world. In the rest of the world with billions of some art classes nobody knows what does the old tradition of art school is for, its totally unfashionable.
Studying classic art (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_art) here is the foundation for creativity in any of the art styles.
The smell of art is what defines the studio but not from human presence, something like an aroma reminiscent of the eastern market where smoke from hookaahs mix with the oil vapors, exotic fragrance from candles and spices. The Art Studios were never renovated since the times they were built over 150 years ago. The wood floors are saturated with art oils as if the floor is waxed with the organic oils from nuts, linen ( linseed oil, poppy seed oil, and so forth.) Adding to the mix the varnishes used by painters (pine wood varnish, Dammar varnish and others) It makes this ART SMELL to be the most intoxicating and ever-lasting musk.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_painting
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_painting - Ingredients
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio - Art_studio
The instance you enter the studio space you feel the belonging to a knighthood and the whole art history. You are the undivided part of those people who left their creation imprints.
Super pumped up after the long break up with the arts after my full year of non-stop party marathons I had returned to the bohemian life style.
Actually my other life style wasn't any different from the bohemian.
The only difference is that there is some meaning in the bohemian life style, something to create, to shape. Not just spend time doing sports and girls but something on a whole 'nother level only with the same sub text and by far more emotionally connected.
The bohemian I think is much more my thing, that fits me as a person. Maybe because my old man is the greatest sculptor.
He is color blind so apparently I took up the torch, I have a very special sense for color.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sculpture
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemianism
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness
There could be an inborn human predicament or inborn genius.
I returned into the world to kiss its ground. I like everything about it, the babeville and its fashion circus.
The art students are known to come up with endless varieties of how to be stylish.
Take me for example, I am chilling in a suit jacket. It was professionally hand-tailored out of a denim Pajamas with stripes and starry silk underlining.
This “look” is completed by my python leather jeans. And over that an authentic LONG military Germany Waffen Elite Officer black Leather Coat from the WWII, only it is without a Swastika.
I never part with my large portfolio and a Field Easel.
EASEL
About 700 students attend the studies. The art school accepts only the best of best with few exception such as the kids of celebrity artists, writers and musicians and people who had real power in the city.
I wasn't enrolled for money or the A-lister parents, but for my talents. The Art specialty (painting, drawing, sculpture) teachers here are the world-wide recognized contemporary artists.
In a matter of my working ethics these important artists would point at me as the example of how fast I work, how well I sketch in color, how I always choose the most unexpected and unusual angle for my composition and so on...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_(visual_arts)
name banner gif
Optical illusion geometric gif
(portraiture, still-life, and landscape)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Still_life
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_painting
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_drawing
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_painting
I never work on an académie (live drawing of a model, live painting of a model) the given eighty -- ninety hours. My whole process is about six -- nine hours to fully complete the work so I get out of the studio for some action and fun.
I’m probably the strongest in the class. My art professors know I don’t need to be there to distract the others.
When I’ve got nothing to do I start banging the head against the wall. Still I am criticized SUPER harshly for cutting the classes.
At this point I am not aware of the inner workings of “THE SYSTEM”.
I call suitcase with a secret compartment.
At the grade shows I only see the bad grades on my best artworks.
There is another side of the coin. It revealed in the future when I got to befriend a secretary at the Dean’s office. It was about the time of my graduating year.
The art teachers actually always considered me to be the leading artist among all students. They would grade all my artworks high on my personal record I knew nothing about.
That was how the art school’s system pushed the talented students to go further to open up their potential. Pushing to the limits of impossible.
I am harshly criticized for cutting a lot of classes.
There is another side of the coin. It will be revealed in the future when I got to befriend a secretary at the Dean's office. It was about the time of my graduating year.
The art teachers actually always considered me to be the leading artist among all students. They would grade all my artworks high on my personal record I knew nothing about.
That was how the art school's system pushed the talented students to go further to open up their potential. Pushing to the limits of impossible.
Willing or not but the doubts get in my head. I was thinking (rather frantically) that maybe I’m all just misguided. I will work to beef up my skills unable to accept that I am not really a “genius” artist. The bad grades were corrupting my vision.
Totally clueless that these bad grades in my case were used as "disciplinary measures" for my behavior of anarchy. These grades had nothing to do with my artworks.
And yet my best drawings and paintings are graded the lowest. At the same time the art professors are taking my works home. I always find empty walls where my works were displayed for the semester shows.
Sooner or later the missing artworks got me enraged. My classmates tell me the back story on what REALLY had happened.
All the art professors usually go the painting major's finals. So they just took my artworks right off the wall.
Ever since I heard this back story I flaunt how IDGAF to even pick up my works with the bad grades after the finals end.
Like a bunch of some doomsday looters in sight of an electronic store the art students same as the teachers vultured my artworks. Later some of my paintings and drawings were seen at the school's museum, especially the paintings.
The story of the artworks snatched off my exhibit wall developed further.
In the art school the art teachers are the privileged kind who exhibit regularly. All are the accomplished artists with big names.
Another thing about my artworks (no longer mine and in someone else's possession) is the story that involves someone with the top art rep being the art dynasty. Even so it happed that the leading art professor nicknamed Molly (for her annoying facial mole) used my art stuff to have her son who studied same years as me, just never expelled, to apply to an art academy with the highest qualification requirements. Molly's son portfolio sucked. To get him qualified to apply she gave her son all of my artworks she collected.
The juice was given to me by the reliable sources. The story was concurred by the eye--witnesses the students who were applying to the same academy together with Molly's son. Some of these students knew my work by the style, special color palette and the brushwork.
They all knew that Molly's son was using my artworks. He only had to forge his signature and remove mine.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Study_(art)
My drawings, sketches, paintings, watercolors are in "wide" use by others.
I tell that to describe the routine of my life.
It could explain why I was expelled three times for the chronic absence, for sabotaging the lectures -- getting my classmates to leave the studio and go to the movies or to the beach.
Fast forward to that event of the breaking point when I started to work systematically.
I was sucked into work as if a drug addiction. I was penetrating deeper to the very core of creativity. Reading books, going to the museums, working in the field, working in the museums to copy masters. I completely forgot all about life around me.
Practically I was devoured and digested with my nails and hair by that devil called the academic art. It sucked out the leftovers of my soul.
I stayed in the studio after the classes to work. There were only few students like this, spiritually close to me. To them it was their life style since the day they had entered the art school unlike me. Whenever I'd get bored with art I'd quit working and just leave without asking permission.
Now as if something had hit me hard and I started to really work. Most art students here typically come from such backgrounds when they did their baby steps and studied in the children's (secondary) art school from an early age and tutored by art teachers at home
I had a tendency to take on a higher complexity unprepared without the experience of any art school training (the eight years on a daily basic with teachers and methodical practice.)
As long as I remember myself I was drawing, during my school years, on the notebooks, with chalk on the asphalt, with stick on the sand. I did it subconsciously, not knowing what I was doing.
IDK, could be due to the several bad bike accidents when my head ended up hitting the brick...
Why did my brain moved into the direction of noticing those things that normal people should not be noticing? That the leaves on the trees are not at all green, but violet.
The falling shadows from the street lights are not at all outlined by black, the contours are the absolute blue.
The trees look like people.
There are so much more shades of colors that language could articulate.
Stuff like this filled up my head so that there was no place left for just a thought about girls, more so even the thoughts to manipulate my body functions. For instance using the
bathroom. I almost peed my pants. Truthfully I was on the edge of madness.
I remember how I hallucinated during my work imagining that someone had come into my studio and I spoke to "the guest." My brain was ill, there was no escape from that hell.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_(color)
Once I was walking on a street without any awareness. My mind was no longer in command of anything accept the obsession with my painting. As I was pushing the limits of what was humanly possible in a matter of progress from the previous stage when I could draw and paint with intuitive results now I considered as totally armature waste of art materials. My condition would be hard to describe since I could hardly remember what was it like during that madly intense period. I know that I was working non--stop and did make some major break through. It worked but at the same time the progress turned its evil side, I wasn't able to stop even for a brief moment. Something happened to my otherwise incorruptible memory that I could only remember few things from that period. And one of those things was my death walk through the city streets on a day I was supposed to disappear.
When I realized that I was walking automatically, blind and incredibly
avoiding the cars, for the first time I felt the fear of madness that can easily take my life. It wasn't something I would fear if I was in my other life when loosing it would be quite an ordinary thing and not due to my lost mind.
Whatever it was I survived with no chances to stay alive that day. I had more chances to live on when I was shot at execution style, when I was drowning in bad storm, climbing on a building like a cat, and on many others such occasions.
Some guardian angel was looking over me as I came to the final moment of certain death, blind, deaf, disoriented and delusional.
As we finished with draperies, still life, gypsum figures we moved on to the nude. To draw and paint from the live sitter, male or female model.
There comes an old fat hag to be posed before the artists. She will be POSING even during the breaks. She sits professionally without a slight move of her flab folds for us to draw her “forms”. ‘assume it was done for the boys not to get distracted with the female anatomy.
The models with “rounded” forms were chosen so we would study the reflects and double reflects on a “sphere-like” and “cylinder-like” forms.
There would be plenty of the cast shadow (a type of shadow that is created on a form), and a drop shadow ( below the image).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_positions
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_study
The working objective was to concentrate on the drawing’s construction.
When we’d get a young female model, she’d be so skeletal that we studied the skeleton. This type of models was as unattractive as the fat ones.
The art students without an eye for a drawing and technique produced their works of caricature quality. With the lost proportions the models looked like animals, skinny chickens or fat frogs.
For me it was a serious job, body didn’t exist. I x-rayed the flubs of fat to see the bones to connect them to muscles, to build a form.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caricature
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeleton
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skeleton
The illness I call the overdose had progressed and my end was near.
Homies who knew me used to say that I was cracked.
When I moved from the classicism to modern (I refused to see any modern or contemporary art, never wanted to see it, or ever saw it) I entered the Modern art on my own, as my foot stepped into the forth dimension.
I entered the world of mad pressure. Good I stepped in it one foot yet.
I was sleeping in the studio right on the floor near my work and placed an electric heater near by.
It was impossible to heat up whole place where fifty heavy-duty easels only took a quarter of the studio space.
In the center there was a huge round stage made from a special hard wood to hold any number of models when needed for the multiple human-figure compositions.
The place was full of easels, portable and the large for the field. The chairs, tables, palettes, boxes with paint, cases with paper and lots of other art stuff piled up into mountains.
The parquet floor was always covered in fresh oil paints even though the teachers tried in vein to prove a fact that working neatly was by far more productive.
We had a dormitory built same year as the art school which was 150 something years ago.
If you stayed late in the studio that was forbidden, you couldn't get to the dorm.
A guard at the main door was a real watch dog, he faithfully guarded the pathway knowing every student's face.
The dorm was occupied by those who couldn't pay for a room or the apartment in the city.
Ten beds were squeezed in a dorm room.
This part of the antique building was never renovated probably b/c it was planned to be turned into more art studios.
But since there were out of town students who had no place to live they were given a place in this dorm.
The beds were of a good prison-like quality so the survival was possible. Another thing is what was happening in the dorm.
On a typical day nobody there had any money left after the expensive art materials. Not a penny to get high. Alcoholic liquid (40-60%) was soaked into the bread.
From one bite of that bread you could instantly drop dead as if your legs got cut off by a train.
The receptors inside the nose absorb the fumes to hit right into the brain, this way the booze doesn't ever enter the digestive system and blood.
It kills or makes one go bonkers.
Some pissheads in desperation poured vodka into a wine bottle cap to inhale it like coke. After one cap screw it was a total alchoholocaust.
There were many ways of economizing: to use a medical thin rubber tube to suck the drink very slowly, one bottle would
serve four alkies.
It was the usual schizophrenic day for me. I had my dose of coffee and ate on a way to the studio.
Those days I didn't miss a class afraid to get expelled for the last and final time.
I couldn't understand this thing about my artworks. Why did my classmates literally begged on their knees to have the C-graded artworks I was never satisfied with.
It became my trade mark to give away all of my stuff left and right. I didn't know why I let go of my drawings and paintings so easy. Now I regret that. It would be interesting to see the growth.
Once I happened to tell a guy from my class who worked very hard on his drawing (he wasn't a good draftsman): "Oh Wow! you are doing a lot of progress, buddy, congrats!" I looked at his portfolio and pointed at a piece: "This drawing here is really mature and quite interesting, you achieved volume and air in just a linear drawing."
The guy suddenly goes red, stares at me wide-eyed with anger or confusion I couldn't quite understand...
"Am I saying something wrong?" I asked.
"You're fucking dissing me!" He answered.
"Why?" I wondered.
"This is YOUR drawing," Was the answer: "I took it, that is when I asked you and you gave it to me, don't you remember?"
I didn't recognize, didn't see my signature, as it was overlapping the drawing.
The guy was holding a grudge for this but it didn't turn him into one of my enemies.
At some point I am thankful to the teachers for their sneaky methods and experience on how to tame the most unruly and bring them into the art's stable. On the other hand these people were like sadistic fascists who used their special gases on me experimenting, would I survive it and live on.
The bohemian hyped up life only started after the classes at about seven in the evening. This part of the artist's life was full of sex, booze, and drugs, more sex booze drugs and orgies. The art youth was progressive, the sex - communal with the conveniently shared girlfriends and boyfriends.
Strangely the good times didn't concern me anymore now.
There was a small group of idiots who followed their criteria of achievement: to draw and paint a vase with flowers so that it comes to life, right out of the canvas to the carrying hands of the one who painted it. The flowers turned alive would be given to the girl/boyfriend.
The madness of the 4th dimension.
The art group was lead by me and another guy soon (one month later) to disappear forever for the reasons unknown.
After the classes me and few others searched for a studio. Found it. Not my studio. Any studio with the door unlocked.
As usual I would set a still life. Take off my nazi coat.
Set my next canvas on the easel to start quick sketching.
Out of nowhere shows up some dude who was a new student, he was much older, about twenty three, somewhere from Texas and just plain untalented.
He wanted to hang around with "the power-group" to learn.
There were few girls with the ambition to reach the level of a manly hand in creation.
We all usually worked in grave silence and even a slight noise would be extremely annoying.
If a brush would fall it seemed the atomic bomb had exploded somewhere near. We would exchange vicious cursing at the jittery creaking sneezing noise maker.
When you are focusing intensely and can't quite catch the brush stroke to complete the shaping of a form so that the image would turn real and come out of the flat surface the nerves are high strung to the limit.
The last months I just never left the studio, didn't even come outside. Slept on my German coat in the corner. It was veiled with the drapery. I'd wake up in the morning. The doorman was already used to give me the keys knowing that I sleep and work there. It came with a warning that if I am discovered I must tell any story and solemnly kept the secret.
The memories from those years distract me from telling what I want. It's about the event that had closed for me the entry into the forth dimension.
That day I was getting upset over some stupid teases: "What had happened to you!"
Whether the bros wanted to elevate my mental state, or they needed to get my works it had really caused me distraction. I was focusing on my work. Suddenly I hear the sounds of music in the studio. It jumped me: “Are you out of your fucking minds? That asshole doorman will come here."
"No he ain’t gonna."
"Why?"
"He is passed out, we had to carry him away." Was the answer.
"What is going down?" I worried.
"Not much, nothing is going down, we just want some fun. The way it is on here is so buzz-killing."
Was it some holiday, I didn’t know. Holidays passed by me, I didn’t smoke or drink and only worked. What they were saying didn’t reach me.
“Shut down the music. You’re gone but I must sleep here."
"Why must you sleep here?" Asked Lorenzo (nick-named after his personal preferences of the Benzos)
"Hmm, I guess there will be no way of working today?" I asked.
"Working, way working, you gonna make me some home works," Assured me the dude nicknamed Kuz. "For that I will make your sculpture complete."
As interesting as it was to play with the real forms in sculpting I disliked dealing with the clay. Those times I believed the painting to be so much more in gradations, possibilities and complexity. Now I changed my mind to consider any art media possess the unlimited possibilities.
I agreed. Suddenly the guys were fixing to leave and I had to ask: "So? Who will finish building up the sculpture if you're leaving?"
"No worries, will build it up, brb just a quick run for some booze before the stores closed up."
"What booze? Get out of here go to another studio. I work, don’t mess me up."
"No biggie, son, you can rest for once."
It was pointless to argue, they'd already been drunk and I was only getting nervous. My work wasn’t going good at all. I have changed the lighting set up many ways in vein.
Suddenly, out of nowhere Muse appears. A young, very-very attractive girl about eighteen. The returned gang introduced her to me:
"J-Sin, meet her... lets say Nicky."
"Eh, hello Nicky, who and what are you?" were my greetings.
She smiled to everyone and answered: "I will be posing for you today."
"We agreed about everything, will pay the price,” –explained Lorenzo barely moving his tongue, "She is gonna be happy!"
His bag full of bottles made loud clanking noise.
When the drunks got them out I counted six.
“Yes, this is going to be a wild night.” I was thinking what to do now. I approached the model, took off her coat and hanged it, removed her blouse and explained that she can go behind the curtain.
"Hey, hey! What curtain son, what’s with you? She is from the med school, our people!"
I heard the Kuz's inebriated voice. "She is THE model!"
"What -- nude?" I wondered.
"And what did you think, she'd sit covered up in here?" They burst into laughter.
Suddenly I feel elated with the anticipation of the new and amazing subject for the work. I was fed up with the poor set up and the struggle to "find" the good lighting for the gypsum head. How wonderful it turned out that I could make some picturesque oil sketches.
When the model took off her bra, her young breasts, her nipples instantly distract my attention from work.
Shit, I couldn’t focus. Since we hadn’t a glimpse at such models it was too interesting. Could be that something about this evening or the environment was different. First time in a long while the music was playing, the glasses jingled and filled up with wine.
As she posed we were all doing the quick sketching. She removed everything except her panties.
The drunken assholes wouldn’t let me focus.
"Let me finally have a chance to work." I yelled getting distracted.
They seemed to try bargaining: "We brought you the model, hey girl turn around!" Kuz pulled up her skirt and slapped her buddy. "Look at these buns, you've got to do another
drawing for the semester show."
"Boys, you are so bad!" She giggled to Kuz. "I will spank you for being soooo bad!" And she was laughing in most contagious sexy trills of her childish capricious voice.
I didn’t understand what these die--hard drunks were doing at the art school, without any talent or interest in art. My former palls in another life that was long forgotten. Today the serious artists who always worked together with me had left the moment this bad company swam by.
Now I was looking at their watery eyes winking at the model. They caressed her things as she reclined on the wooden stage to rest. I wanted to figure out why did they distract me even more now?
I was the same age as the model. I didn’t see her body, to me now it was the model for painting.
It was getting late when the cold winds penetrate the place from the drafty wall size windows. I put on my sweater in the starting freezer. The one meter or the three feet and 33/8 inch walls are like the thermos to absorb and hold the cool temperature. I looked at the laughing bunch who labored on my sculpture.
One was drawing a huge flying dick with wings with a charcoal right on a white wall.
I had finished sketching the figure. I came up to the stage to set up the heater. I asked the model if she could sit some more taking breaks whenever she needs to move.
When she looked at me she was constantly smiling.
"Sure she’ll sit! And she'll lay, right, sweet buns?"
I held my breath working imagining how awesome would be to have such a model every day. With a shaky hand I was working fast as a machine expecting any minute now she would say that she is too cold to sit another minute and she leaves, its all over. I will have to kill her and sit her lifeless body on a chair to complete my work.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!"
The heater I placed caused the red reflexes on the body. I was painting and had to get the color right. So I removed the heater. The model immediately complained about the cold. Kuz brought her a glass of wine asking me why did I remove the heater.
From wine her face flushed red. I tried to adjust the color scale, laying brushstrokes over the whole figure.
Meanwhile the music turned up it was getting real loud.
The model took her break.
I walked after her studying her forms.
"Is something wrong?" She asked.
"Its all right, could you turn this way."
"Oh, I see. Same in our med school, the nut cases," She openly declared to the others when I was on a floor looking from a lower viewpoint.
"Who is this?" She asked: "What kind of a mental is he?"
"Its a disease, but it will pass" – was the answer for her. "Sometimes it is terminal. Not his tho, his will pass, he loves the young girls very much…"
Something from the stupid jokes had reached me.
"Hon, now he needs the medical attention. You are the medic? We are forever in debt to yous for allowing us come to the mortuary and for helping with the dead bodies... What we have here is a zombie. You are the goddess who saves the body as your calling."
What I heard was polluting my pure artistic brain with that life I refused. Now I was paying attention not to the mammary glands but to her breasts. Her back muscles are slightly weak. As I looked over the skeleton the muscles slowly disappeared. No matter how hard I tried to focus my x-rays were weakened. Maybe the electricity turned off inside my head.
"Pour me some," I asked.
Six months of my immaculate virginity and celibacy was broken by a wine glass. The red wine like the blood of innocents was running in my throat filling up the brain that shortly was boiling with vigor. So I said:
"Could you please remove your panties?"
"It wasn’t the deal," protested the model with her eyes glowing like honey.
Lorenzo interrupted her:
"For god’s sake, take of your panties, what is it to you, aren't you a medic?"
"I thought someone here was shy, as for me" She lustfully licked her lips. "Well, of course its nothing."
"Who is shy?" Asked someone.
"Him the weirdo!" She giggled in a very cute bubbly little voice.
"Are you shy?"
"It seems it was me who asked her to remove the panties." I explained.
She just jumped right out of her panties not without pleasure it seemed.
I imagined how to position her, what pose should she take.
"Hey!" I asked Kuz to pour me another glass. He was cheering me on yet reminding that I should first finish the drawing.
"Later," I mumbled turning to the model: "Would you please sit on a chair and spread your pretty legs a little, as much as you wish."
"Hey, Alex, so he is normal?" She asked.
I was far away from normality. A actual girl weaved from the reality. But the process was a transformation with splitting dimensions.
She was turning more real when I touched her to show how to position her legs.
I glimpsed at the red pubic hair seeing the pink flesh of her vaginal lips.
I couldn't focus on my work. Could the “female anatomy” destroy the temple of magic I was erecting for the eight months?
I returned to my easel and continued working. She was fidgeting changing poses uncomfortable this something hurting that... But it was only natural, she was sitting naked on a plain hard wooden chair. She was sliding from one side of the chair to another. I was buzzed from wine and couldn’t work, but I tried to complete my work just to annoy these assholes who screwed up my day. First work was washed off with turpentine and I wiped up the canvas dry with a rag.
I was sketching now not with a charcoal but brushing in umber. It resulted in an interesting tonality and I was captured again. The model squirming on her hard chair complained.
"Yo, why don’t you lay her down, what is she suffering for?" Asked Alex, "Lay her the fuck down, why not."
Right! I thought a little and told her to lay on the stage. Underneath her I spread some drapery.
After few wine glasses I took off my sweater, my cheeks were on fire. Hers too. I unbuttoned my shirt, my blood was boiling, the body was washed with the warmth.
The heater was moved away.
"So true that wine warms you up," she said to Alex.
"Jay, so tell me how to lay her down there. Sit, sit, you poor thingy, I'll assist you" And he jumped on the stage. "Do you want her legs spread this way?" he asked opening
up her legs so that her whole anatomy was showing.
"Is this ok for you?" He winked at me: "Is it good?"
"Oh no, can’t show it like this at the mid-semester show." Thinking some I added: " Let it be, lift her leg a little higher, like this. Turn her head down."
"Like this?" He kissed her on the lips.
"Alex, the fuck you're doing, I don’t have any time."
"Work, keep drawing, go on!" he said. "We won’t disturb you."
I was outraged after I just washed everything off my canvas ready to work, but this wasn't going anywhere. I kept asking Alex what did he mean by not disturbing me when he messed everything up. I heard the girls laughing trills. "For real, he is ill!"
"The sick can be cured." Insisted Alex. "Will hill him." He slurred.
Of course, I own them my very life. If it weren't for them –- that’s it, finito.
Kissing her on the lips and winking at me Alex continued bugging me: “Is this right?”
For like ten minutes I was staring in the infinity in the emptiness… Then I yelled: "Why are you sucking her? Get away from her, let her lay there quietly."
Only to hear some nonsensical mumbling.
"But I want you to work on the position, is this position right?"
"Right, just fuck off of her."
Meanwhile Kuz, I noticed, was taking off his pants. He said: “Let him go fuck himself. Motherfucker is gonna fuck us up today, if he doesn’t want it, so fuck it.”
Now I thought I knew what they wanted from me.
I saw Alex’s naked butt as he laid on the stage, banging the girl and his ass wiggled.
I started sketching their nude asses.
My consciousness was still in the process of transforming.
I thought of how interesting were their poses.
Lorenzo came up to me and took the brushes from my hands placing all in my field easel he closed up.
"Listen, J-man, you’re being a fucking buzzkill. Go draw some vases, fuck off to another studio. You don’t want it. For free?"
I didn't understand him what did he mean. He explained:
"What do you see Alex is doing right now?"
"He is fucking his girlfriend." I said.
Lorenzo continued:
"Whose girlfriend? What we have here is a
scientist, from the med school who is helping us in our artistic quests, to understand the core of anatomy not only from the outside but from the inside. I recommend you, in order to comprehend, as you must know, you can only know the truth from the inside, experiencing the inside, to understand the outside. That’s why I seize the brushes. Here is another glass of wine. Drink!"
I looked at him as a doctor listening to his drunken bullshit.
"The most important thing for you is to understand from the inside. See, you can’t understand it from the outside, it’s not how things are done."
"Yes knowing the internal anatomy helps, take a muscle, body doesn’t exist without muscles." I agreed.
"Hell yeah, yeah… ha ha…that’s what I am going about. Look how Alex is working how he is learning."
I looked at the bare ass's motions back and forth, at the girl who was lifting her legs and actively moving her hips. Alex jumped off, wiped up his cock with the drapery, he also wiped out the girl. “Who is next?”
Kuz was kissing her from one side, when Lorenzo said:
"He worked very hard today, he must learn from the inside. You see, because he just can’t break through the inside."
When Kuz was mounting her, Lorenzo spanked him loudly:
"You can wait, the man needs the muse, get it? Understanding the Muse comes only from the inside.." They all bust into laughter.
Lorenzo nearly helped my cock inside the girl cheering on: "Just do it, little one, everything is gonna be great. Honey, turn him back into a soldier that we've lost."
"The man is gone, the man known yesterday is not the man you meet, forever, around the corner, in London or in the street..." chanted Nick appearing from nowhere. He continued slurring his poems.
Hearing the noise I didn’t know what’s going on as I kissed her breasts.
"Feel the forms." I heard the racket near by as I was buzzing off the wine and licking the girl's body. On the other side Lorenzo had joined in groping her breasts. To be more at ease I moved her body closer to the stage’s edge. I was on top.
I didn't hear any sounds of music, the entry door was covered with the draperies as the orgy just steamed up for the whole night.
I woke up on the stage from loud knocking.
The art students asked me what happened to the busted still life set.
I exhaled my dragon breath to hear no more questions. Took my coat and left the building. Walking the street I met Alex.
"Your face is not yet blushed, your eyes are a bit foggy, can’t say anything after the sleepless night. Like Cures Like."
He grinned getting money out of his pocket. "Let us get some treatment."
We walked to the known spot for aching heads gathering.
Exmoor is loosely defined as an area of hilly open moorland in west Somerset and north Devon in South West England, named after the River Exe, the source of which is situated in the centre of the area, 2 miles NW of Simonsbath. The moor has given its name to a National Park, which includes the Brendon Hills, the East Lyn Valley, the Vale of Porlock and 55 kilometres (34 mi) of the Bristol Channel coast. The highest point on Exmoor is Dunkery Beacon; at 519 metres (1,703 ft) it is also the highest point in Somerset. The total area of the Exmoor National Park is 692.8 square kilometres (267.5 sq mi), of which 71% is in Somerset and 29% in Devon.
Exmoor was designated a National Park in 1954, under the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act. The Exmoor National Park is primarily an upland area with a dispersed population living mainly in small villages and hamlets. The largest settlements are Porlock, Dulverton, Lynton, and Lynmouth, which together contain almost 40% of the park's population. Lynton and Lynmouth are combined into one parish and are connected by the Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway.
Exmoor has 55 kilometres (34 mi) of coastline, including the highest sea cliffs in England, which reach a height of 314 metres (1,030 ft) at Culbone Hill. However, the crest of this coastal ridge of hills is more than 1.6 km (0.99 mi) from the sea. If a cliff is defined as having a slope greater than 60 degrees, the highest sea cliff on mainland Britain is Great Hangman near Combe Martin at 318 metres (1,043 ft) high, with a cliff face of 250 metres (820 ft). Its sister cliff is the 250 metres (820 ft) Little Hangman, which marks the edge of Exmoor.
The scenery of rocky headlands, ravines, waterfalls and towering cliffs gained the Exmoor coast recognition as a heritage coast in 1991. With its huge waterfalls and caves, this dramatic coastline has become an adventure playground for both climbers and explorers. The cliffs provide one of the longest and most isolated seacliff traverses in the UK. The South West Coast Path, at 1,014 kilometres (630 mi) the longest National Trail in England and Wales, starts at Minehead and runs along all of Exmoor's coast. There are small harbours at Lynmouth, Porlock Weir and Combe Martin. Once crucial to coastal trade, the harbours are now primarily used for pleasure; individually owned sail boats and non-commercial fishing boats are often found in the harbours. The Valley of the Rocks beyond Lynton is a deep dry valley that runs parallel to the nearby sea and is capped on the seaward side by large rocks and Sexton's Burrows forms a natural breakwater to the Harbour of Watermouth Bay on the coast.
(Wikipedia)
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After a few days visit, I have to say that Exmoor national park is a hidden gem on the western coast of England. Stunning scenery and picturesque villages create a lovely combination of a peaceful place that is really worth visiting.
There are a lot of trails in the national park, both on the coast and in the hilly interior - and we of course tried a few of those.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about 106,400,000 square kilometres (41,100,000 sq mi),[1] it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area. The first part of its name refers to Atlas of Greek mythology, making the Atlantic the "Sea of Atlas".
The oldest known mention of "Atlantic" is in The Histories of Herodotus around 450 BC (Hdt. 1.202.4): Atlantis thalassa (Greek: Ἀτλαντὶς θάλασσα; English: Sea of Atlas); see also: Atlas Mountains. The term Ethiopic Ocean, derived from Ethiopia, was applied to the southern Atlantic ocean as late as the mid-19th century.[2] Before Europeans discovered other oceans, the term "ocean" itself was synonymous with the waters beyond the Strait of Gibraltar that we now know as the Atlantic. The early Greeks believed this ocean to be a gigantic river encircling the world.
The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. As one component of the interconnected global ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean (which is sometimes considered a sea of the Atlantic), to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south. (Other definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica.) The equator subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean and South Atlantic Ocean.
Geography
The Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea and Barents Sea. To the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe; the Strait of Gibraltar (where it connects with the Mediterranean Sea–one of its marginal seas–and, in turn, the Black Sea, both of which also touch upon Asia) and Africa.
In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean. The 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. Some authorities show it extending south to Antarctica, while others show it bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean.[3]
In the southwest, the Drake Passage connects it to the Pacific Ocean. The man-made Panama Canal links the Atlantic and Pacific. Besides those mentioned, other large bodies of water adjacent to the Atlantic are the Caribbean Sea; the Gulf of Mexico; Hudson Bay; the Arctic Ocean; the Mediterranean Sea; the North Sea; the Baltic Sea and the Celtic Sea.
Covering approximately 22% of Earth's surface, the Atlantic is second in size to the Pacific. With its adjacent seas, it occupies an area of about 106,400,000 square kilometres (41,100,000 sq mi);[1] without them, it has an area of 82,400,000 square kilometres (31,800,000 sq mi). The land that drains into the Atlantic covers four times that of either the Pacific or Indian oceans. The volume of the Atlantic with its adjacent seas is 354,700,000 cubic kilometers (85,100,000 cu mi) and without them 323,600,000 cubic kilometres (77,640,000 cu mi).
The average depth of the Atlantic, with its adjacent seas, is 3,339 metres (1,826 fathoms; 10,950 ft); without them it is 3,926 metres (2,147 fathoms; 12,880 ft). The greatest depth, Milwaukee Deep with 8,380 metres (4,580 fathoms; 27,500 ft), is in the Puerto Rico Trench. The Atlantic's width varies from 1,538 nautical miles (2,848 km; 1,770 mi) between Brazil and Sierra Leone to over 3,450 nautical miles (6,400 km; 4,000 mi) in the south
Cultural significance
Transatlantic travel played a major role in the expansion of Western civilization into the Americas. It is the Atlantic that separates the "Old World" from the "New World". In modern times, some idioms refer to the ocean in a humorously diminutive way as the Pond, describing both the geographical and cultural divide between North America and Europe, in particular between the English-speaking nations of both continents. Many British people refer to the United States and Canada as "across the pond", and vice versa
Ocean bottom
The principal feature of the bathymetry (bottom topography) is a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.[5] It extends from Iceland in the north to approximately 58° South latitude, reaching a maximum width of about 860 nautical miles (1,590 km; 990 mi). A great rift valley also extends along the ridge over most of its length. The depth of water at the apex of the ridge is less than 2,700 metres (1,500 fathoms; 8,900 ft) in most places, while the bottom of the ridge is three times as deep. Several peaks rise above the water and form islands.[6] The South Atlantic Ocean has an additional submarine ridge, the Walvis Ridge.[7]
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge separates the Atlantic Ocean into two large troughs with depths from 3,700–5,500 metres (2,000–3,000 fathoms; 12,000–18,000 ft). Transverse ridges running between the continents and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge divide the ocean floor into numerous basins. Some of the larger basins are the Blake, Guiana, North American, Cape Verde, and Canaries basins in the North Atlantic. The largest South Atlantic basins are the Angola, Cape, Argentina, and Brazil basins.
The deep ocean floor is thought to be fairly flat with occasional deeps, abyssal plains, trenches, seamounts, basins, plateaus, canyons, and some guyots. Various shelves along the margins of the continents constitute about 11% of the bottom topography with few deep channels cut across the continental rise.
Ocean floor trenches and seamounts:
•Puerto Rico Trench, in the North Atlantic, is the deepest trench at 8,605 metres (4,705 fathoms; 28,230 ft)[8]
•Laurentian Abyss is found off the eastern coast of Canada
•South Sandwich Trench reaches a depth of 8,428 metres (4,608 fathoms; 27,650 ft)
•Romanche Trench is located near the equator and reaches a depth of about 7,454 metres (4,076 fathoms; 24,460 ft).
Ocean sediments are composed of:
•Terrigenous deposits with land origins, consisting of sand, mud, and rock particles formed by erosion, weathering, and volcanic activity on land washed to sea. These materials are found mostly on the continental shelves and are thickest near large river mouths or off desert coasts.
•Pelagic deposits, which contain the remains of organisms that sink to the ocean floor, include red clays and Globigerina, pteropod, and siliceous oozes. Covering most of the ocean floor and ranging in thickness from 60–3,300 metres (33–1,800 fathoms; 200–11,000 ft) they are thickest in the convergence belts, notably at the Hamilton Ridge and in upwelling zones.
•Authigenic deposits consist of such materials as manganese nodules. They occur where sedimentation proceeds slowly or where currents sort the deposits, such as in the Hewett Curve.
Water characteristics
On average, the Atlantic is the saltiest major ocean; surface water salinity in the open ocean ranges from 33 to 37 parts per thousand (3.3 – 3.7%) by mass and varies with latitude and season. Evaporation, precipitation, river inflow and sea ice melting influence surface salinity values. Although the lowest salinity values are just north of the equator (because of heavy tropical rainfall), in general the lowest values are in the high latitudes and along coasts where large rivers enter. Maximum salinity values occur at about 25° north and south, in subtropical regions with low rainfall and high evaporation.
Surface water temperatures, which vary with latitude, current systems, and season and reflect the latitudinal distribution of solar energy, range from below −2 °C (28 °F). Maximum temperatures occur north of the equator, and minimum values are found in the polar regions. In the middle latitudes, the area of maximum temperature variations, values may vary by 7–8 °C (12–15 °F).
The Atlantic Ocean consists of four major water masses. The North and South Atlantic central waters make up the surface. The sub-Antarctic intermediate water extends to depths of 1,000 metres (550 fathoms; 3,300 ft). The North Atlantic Deep Water reaches depths of as much as 4,000 metres (2,200 fathoms; 13,000 ft). The Antarctic Bottom Water occupies ocean basins at depths greater than 4,000 metres.
Within the North Atlantic, ocean currents isolate the Sargasso Sea, a large elongated body of water, with above average salinity. The Sargasso Sea contains large amounts of seaweed and is also the spawning ground for both the European eel and the American eel.
The Coriolis effect circulates North Atlantic water in a clockwise direction, whereas South Atlantic water circulates counter-clockwise. The south tides in the Atlantic Ocean are semi-diurnal; that is, two high tides occur during each 24 lunar hours. In latitudes above 40° North some east-west oscillation occurs.
Climate
Climate is influenced by the temperatures of the surface waters and water currents as well as winds. Because of the ocean's great capacity to store and release heat, maritime climates are more moderate and have less extreme seasonal variations than inland climates. Precipitation can be approximated from coastal weather data and air temperature from water temperatures.
The oceans are the major source of the atmospheric moisture that is obtained through evaporation. Climatic zones vary with latitude; the warmest zones stretch across the Atlantic north of the equator. The coldest zones are in high latitudes, with the coldest regions corresponding to the areas covered by sea ice. Ocean currents influence climate by transporting warm and cold waters to other regions. The winds that are cooled or warmed when blowing over these currents influence adjacent land areas.
The Gulf Stream and its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift, for example, warms the atmosphere of the British Isles and north-western Europe and influences weather and climate as far south as the northern Mediterranean. The cold water currents contribute to heavy fog off the coast of eastern Canada (the Grand Banks of Newfoundland area) and Africa's north-western coast. In general, winds transport moisture and air over land areas. Hurricanes develop in the southern part of the North Atlantic Ocean. More local particular weather examples could be found in examples such as the; Azores High, Benguela Current, Nor'easter.
History
The Atlantic Ocean appears to be the second youngest of the five oceans. It did not exist prior to 130 million years ago, when the continents that formed from the breakup of the ancestral super continent Pangaea were drifting apart from seafloor spreading. The Atlantic has been extensively explored since the earliest settlements along its shores.
The Vikings, the Portuguese, and the Spaniards were the most famous among early explorers. After Columbus, European exploration rapidly accelerated, and many new trade routes were established.
As a result, the Atlantic became and remains the major artery between Europe and the Americas (known as transatlantic trade). Scientific explorations include the Challenger expedition, the German Meteor expedition, Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the United States Navy Hydrographic Office.
Notable crossings
Ra II, a ship built from papyrus, was successfully sailed across the Atlantic by Thor Heyerdahl proving that it was possible to cross the Atlantic from Africa using such boats in early epochs of history.
•Around 980 – 982, Eric the Red discovered Greenland, geographically and geologically a part of the Americas.
•In 985 or 986, Bjarni Herjólfsson was the first European to sight the Americas. He did not go ashore, though.
•In the year 1000, the Icelander Leif Ericson was the first European to set foot on North American soil, corresponding to today's Eastern coast of Canada, i. e. the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, including the area of land named "Vinland" by Ericson. The Norse discovery was documented in the 13th century Icelandic Sagas and was corroborated by recent L'Anse aux Meadows archeological evidence.
•Around 1010, Thorfinnr Karlsefni led an attempted Viking settlement in North America with 160 settlers, but was later driven off by the natives. His son Snorri Thorfinnsson was the first American born (somewhere between 1010 and 1013) to European (Icelandic) immigrant parents.
•In 1419 and 1427, Portuguese navigators reached Madeira and Azores, respectively.
•From 1415 to 1488, Portuguese navigators sailed along the Western African coast, reaching the Cape of Good Hope.
•In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on the island of San Salvador in The Bahamas.
•In 1497, John Cabot landed at Bonavista Newfoundland and Labrador.
•In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral reached Brazil.
•In 1524, Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano discovered the United States of America's east coast.
•In 1534, Jacques Cartier entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence and reached the mouth of the St. Lawrence River.
•In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed Newfoundland for the English Crown.
•In 1764 William Harrison (the son of John Harrison) sailed aboard the HMS Tartar, with the H-4 time piece. The voyage became the basis for the invention of the global system of Longitude.
•In 1858, Cyrus West Field laid the first transatlantic telegraph cable (it quickly failed).
•In 1865 Brunel's ship the SS Great Eastern laid the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable .
•In 1870 the small City of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) became the first small Lifeboat to cross the Atlantic from Cork to Boston with two men crew, John Charles Buckley and Nikola Primorac (di Costa), only.[9]
•In 1896 Frank Samuelsen and George Harbo from Norway became the first people to ever row across the Atlantic Ocean.
•On April 15, 1912 the RMS Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg with a loss of more than 1,500 lives.[10]
•1914–1918, the First Battle of the Atlantic took place.
•In 1919, the American NC-4 became the first seaplane to cross the Atlantic (though it made a couple of landings on islands and the sea along the way, and taxied several hundred miles).
•Later in 1919, a British aeroplane piloted by Alcock and Brown made the first non-stop transatlantic flight, from Newfoundland to Ireland.
•In 1921, the British were the first to cross the North Atlantic in an airship.
•In 1922, Sacadura Cabral and Gago Coutinho were the first to cross the South Atlantic in an airship.
•In 1927, Charles Lindbergh made the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight in an aircraft (between New York City and Paris).
•In 1931, Bert Hinkler made the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight across the South Atlantic in an aircraft.
•In 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first female to make a solo flight across the Atlantic
•1939–1945, the Second Battle of the Atlantic. Nearly 3,700 Allied ships were sunk at a cost of 783 German U-boats.[11]
•In 1952, Ann Davison was the first woman to single-handedly sail the Atlantic Ocean.
•In 1965, Robert Manry crossed the Atlantic from the U.S. to England non-stop in a 13.5 foot (4.05 meters) sailboat named "Tinkerbell".[12] Several others also crossed the Atlantic in very small sailboats in the 1960s, none of them non-stop, though.
•In 1969 and 1970 Thor Heyerdahl launched expeditions to cross the Atlantic in boats built from papyrus. He succeeded in crossing the Atlantic from Morocco to Barbados after a two-month voyage of 6,100 km with Ra II in 1970, thus conclusively proving that boats such as the Ra could have sailed with the Canary Current across the Atlantic in prehistoric times.[13]
•In 1975, Fons Oerlemans crossed the Atlantic in 82 days, starting from Safi (Morocco) to Trinidad and Tobago, on a selfmade raft.
•In 1980, Gérard d'Aboville was the first man to cross the Atlantic Ocean rowing solo.
•In 1984, Five Argentines sail in a 10-meter-long raft made from tree trunks named Atlantis from Canary Islands and after 52 days 3,000 miles (4,800 km) journey arrived to Venezuela in an attempt to prove travelers from Africa may have crossed the Atlantic before Christopher Columbus.[14][15]
•In 1994, Guy Delage was the first man to allegedly swim across the Atlantic Ocean (with the help of a kick board, from Cape Verde to Barbados).
•In 1998, Benoît Lecomte was the first man to swim across the northern Atlantic Ocean without a kick board, stopping for only one week in the Azores.
•In 1999, after rowing for 81 days and 4,767 kilometres (2,962 mi), Tori Murden became the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by rowboat alone when she reached Guadeloupe from the Canary Islands.
Ethiopic Ocean
The Aethiopian Sea, Ethiopic Ocean or Ethiopian Ocean (Okeanos Aithiopos), is an old name for what is now called the South Atlantic Ocean, which is separated from the North Atlantic Ocean by a narrow region between Natal, Brazil and Monrovia, Liberia. The use of this term illustrates a past trend towards referring to the whole continent of Africa by the name Aethiopia. The modern nation of Ethiopia, in northeast Africa, is nowhere near the Ethiopic Ocean, which would be said to lie off the west coast of Africa. The term Ethiopian Ocean sometimes appeared until the mid-19th century.[
Economy
The Atlantic has contributed significantly to the development and economy of surrounding countries. Besides major transatlantic transportation and communication routes, the Atlantic offers abundant petroleum deposits in the sedimentary rocks of the continental shelves. The Atlantic hosts the world's richest fishing resources, especially in the waters covering the shelves. The major fish are cod, haddock, hake, herring, and mackerel.
The most productive areas include Newfoundland's Grand Banks, the Nova Scotia shelf, Georges Bank off Cape Cod, the Bahama Banks, the waters around Iceland, the Irish Sea, the Dogger Bank of the North Sea, and the Falkland Banks. Eel, lobster, and whales appear in great quantities. Various international treaties attempt to reduce pollution caused by environmental threats such as oil spills, marine debris, and the incineration of toxic wastes at sea.
Terrain
From October to June the surface is usually covered with sea ice in the Labrador Sea, Denmark Strait, and Baltic Sea. A clockwise warm-water gyre occupies the northern Atlantic, and a counter-clockwise warm-water gyre appears in the southern Atlantic. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a rugged north-south centerline for the entire Atlantic basin, first discovered by the Challenger Expedition dominates the ocean floor. This was formed by the vulcanism that also formed the ocean floor and the islands rising from it.
The Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. These include the Norwegian Sea, Baltic Sea, North Sea, Labrador Sea, Black Sea, Gulf of Saint Lawrence, Bay of Fundy, Gulf of Maine, Mediterranean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea.
Islands include Newfoundland (including hundreds of surrounding islands), Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Great Britain (including numerous surrounding islands), Ireland, Rockall, Sable Island, Azores, St. Pierre and Miquelon, Madeira, Bermuda, Canary Islands, Caribbean, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Annobón Province, Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Ascension Island, Saint Helena, Trindade and Martim Vaz, Tristan da Cunha, Gough Island (Also known as Diego Alvarez), Falkland Islands, Tierra del Fuego, South Georgia Island, South Sandwich Islands, and Bouvet Island.
Natural resources
The Atlantic harbors petroleum and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals and whales), sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, and precious stones.
Natural hazards
Icebergs are common from February to August in the Davis Strait, Denmark Strait, and the northwestern Atlantic and have been spotted as far south as Bermuda and Madeira. Ships are subject to superstructure icing in the extreme north from October to May. Persistent fog can be a maritime hazard from May to September, as can hurricanes north of the equator (May to December).
The United States' southeast coast has a long history of shipwrecks due to its many shoals and reefs. The Virginia and North Carolina coasts were particularly dangerous.
The Bermuda Triangle is popularly believed to be the site of numerous aviation and shipping incidents because of unexplained and supposedly mysterious causes, but Coast Guard records do not support this belief.
Hurricanes are also a natural hazard in the Atlantic, but mainly in the northern part of the ocean, rarely tropical cyclones form in the southern parts. Hurricanes usually form between June 1 and November 30 of every year. The most notable hurricane in the Atlantic would be Hurricane Katrina in the 2005 season
Current environmental issues
Endangered marine species include the manatee, seals, sea lions, turtles, and whales. Drift net fishing can kill dolphins, albatrosses and other seabirds (petrels, auks), hastening the fish stock decline and contributing to international disputes.[16] Municipal pollution comes from the eastern United States, southern Brazil, and eastern Argentina; oil pollution in the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Lake Maracaibo, Mediterranean Sea, and North Sea; and industrial waste and municipal sewage pollution in the Baltic Sea, North Sea, and Mediterranean Sea.
In 2005, there was some concern that warm northern European currents were slowing down, but no scientific consensus formed from that evidence.[17]
On June 7, 2006, Florida's wildlife commission voted to take the manatee off the state's endangered species list. Some environmentalists worry that this could erode safeguards for the popular sea creature.
Marine pollution
Marine pollution is a generic term for the entry into the ocean of potentially hazardous chemicals or particles. The biggest culprits are rivers and with them many agriculture fertilizer chemicals as well as livestock and human waste. The excess of oxygen-depleting chemicals leads to hypoxia and the creation of a dead zone.[18]
Marine debris, which is also known as marine litter, describes human-created waste floating in a body of water. Oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the center of gyres and coastlines, frequently washing aground where it is known as beach litter
Bordering countries and territories
The states (territories in italics) with a coastline on the Atlantic Ocean (excluding the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas) are:
Europe
• Belgium
• Denmark
• Germany
• Spain
• France
• Faroe Islands
• Guernsey
• Isle of Man
• Ireland
• Iceland
• Jersey
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Portugal
• Sweden
• United Kingdom
Africa
• Morocco
• Angola
• Benin
• Bouvet Island
• Côte d'Ivoire
• Cameroon
• Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Republic of the Congo
• Cape Verde
• Western Sahara (claimed by Morocco)
• Spain (Canary Islands)
• Gabon
• Ghana
• Guinea
• Gambia
• Guinea-Bissau
• Equatorial Guinea
• Liberia
• Mauritania
• Namibia
• Nigeria
• Senegal
• Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
• Sierra Leone
• São Tomé and Príncipe
•
South America
• Argentina
• Brazil
• Chile
• Colombia
• Falkland Islands
• France (French Guiana)
• Guyana
• South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
• Suriname
• Uruguay
• Venezuela
Caribbean
• Aruba
• Anguilla
• Antigua and Barbuda
• Bahamas
• Saint Barthélemy
• Barbados
• Cuba
• Curaçao
• Cayman Islands
• Dominica
• Dominican Republic
• France (Martinique and Guadeloupe)
• Grenada
• Haiti
• Jamaica
• Saint Lucia
• Saint Martin
• Montserrat
• Netherlands (Caribbean Netherlands)
• Puerto Rico
• Saint Kitts and Nevis
• Sint Maarten
• Turks and Caicos Islands
• Trinidad and Tobago
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
• British Virgin Islands
• United States Virgin Islands
Central and North America
• Belize
• Bermuda
• Canada
• Costa Rica
• Greenland
• Guatemala
• Honduras
• Mexico
• Nicaragua
• Panama
• Saint Pierre and Miquelon
• United States
iPhone
Zen Brush App
Drawn freehand from pix brix piece, which was done directly from pixelated photo.
The word at the bottom got cut off, but I took a second photo, which I will post later on. This was also taken at L.A.'s City Hall.
Valentina G.
This photo is part of a small series that I'm going to create with a theme an 'inner journey', inspired by past experiences, quotations, poems, movies, music: in short, everything that made me 'feel' something, someway.
This is dedicated to all those questions that make us feel lost in ourselves, that make us wonder who we are, that make us look at the world as an abstract place, that is turning around us too quickly.
The background is not defined, and it is as the abandonment of a place, a part of us to be left behind and from which you want to disconnect.
And the darkness all around and the ivy are all thoughts that oppress us and haunt us, and the pose of the girl, underlines the emotions that these thoughts lead us.
But the light on her face, looking up, even if she's scared, they are like a discovery after dark, hoping to get out of the whirlwind and darkness.
Hope you like it. Let me know if you would enjoy my little project. :)
Processed with: "Soft" Curve!
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Yesterday was my amazing Sons Graduation Day.
21 Years ago this beautiful boy came bouncing into my life weighing 9lb after 29 hours of labour! He was the happiest smiley baby me and his Father could have ever wished for. Not a day goes by even now at 6' 3" tall I don't get a big bear hug and an 'I love you Mum'.
We change their nappies, teach them to walk, read a book, ride a bike, we take them to their first day of school, we see them through Infant school, Junior School, Senior School, College and then hopefully for some University to earn a Degree.
From the day they are born we hope and wait for this precious moment. Yesterday his Dad and I watched full of pride and emotion as he received his Degree. This is a defining moment in every parents life and you know you did all you could do to give them the tools for a great future, Debbie (KissThePixel) x
This is similar to a recent post and is also from the archives but I tend to vary the shots of similar (if not identical) subjects. Sometimes I have a definite idea of what I want to capture and other times I just want to do it all...
Have a nice weekend ;-)
...the Department of Motor Vehicles on Teutonia Avenue, I suggest that afterwards you celebrate the rare sweetness of bureaucratic liberation by going two doors north to YICK'S INN. You might miss it as, from a cosmetic standpoint, it is the most unprepossessing looking of restaurants. Who could be captivated by it? If one is prone to over-thinking, the idea might occur that its complete plainness is a celebration of a paradox. The facade of the place is intentionally so lacking in ornamentation that it manages to immediately catch attention. If done on purpose, this would be a fine strategy. But I doubt that the jarring sameness of the place is planned, and I believe this for a good reason: to survive and flourish as it has since the Carter administration, YICK’S doesn’t need inventive marketing, or for that matter, any marketing at all. The place has been under chef Jimmy’s ownership for untold generations. It captivates for the simple reason that it has always seemed to exist; it is such an entrenched part of Milwauee’s north-side culinary scene that one could well-imagine it was there before the city around it put down stakes. Who needs fancy-pants?
YICK’S (take-out only!) is permanent.
Upon closer inspection, especially if you have a hankering for the hyper-Americanized Chinese restaurant food of the last century, the temptation may arise to give the place a try. Since that cuisine was part of my childhood, I did precisely that. Entering YICK’S door turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made; right up there with quitting the clarinet in middle-school, a decision I every day thank God for helping me make. Yet one more reason to be a theist.
“Go in...don’t be shy,” I heard a faint voice, more distant than the sands of old Egypt advise. When the sands of old Egypt start cracking wise, it’s best to pay attention.
I went in there.
Before getting to what YICK’S does best, it would be negligent not to mention the sign that prominently greets and informs the patron upon entering. This text defines the spirit of the eatery’s place in the cosmic scheme of things.
PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU ORDER
THIS IS NOT A FAST FOOD RESTAURANT.
EVERYTHING IS MADE TO ORDER
PEASE DON'T RING THE BELL AND LEAVE NOW.
ONCE YOU HAVE PLACED AN ORDER AND WE HAVD STARTED PROCESSING YOUR FOOD, “NO REFUND”
NO CHANGE WILL BE MADE, NO EXCEPTION.
IF YOU WANT SOME FAST FOOD, WE SUGGEST YOU TRY THE FOLLOWING RESTAURANTS. THEIRS MAY BE FASTER, BETTER AND CHEAPER.
CHINA ONE 64TH AND BROWN DEER, CHINA ONE 74TH AND APPLETON CHINESE CHEF 78TH AND APPLETON, WONG’S WOK, CAPITAL AND APPLETON, HONG KONG EXPRESS 74TH AND GOOD HOPE, ROYAL WOK GREEN TREE AND GREEN BAY, WOK2GO SHERMAN AND BRADLEY, YENS CHINA 78TH AND GOOD HOPE.
And then a reassuring coda:
WE ARE NOT RELATED! GOOD LUCK!
This is a remarkable, and in some ways, inspiring passage. It brings to mind some ancient rabbinic advice that I have been conveniently trying to avoid for a good part of my inattentive life. YICK’S, I am happy to report , did me a favour. It helped me start to pay more attention. As it tuns out, the restaurant has made more contributions to my spiritual growth than attending High-Holy Day services at Congregation Shalom.
“And when you pray know who before you stand….” I can’t vouch for Jimmy’s theological stance when he is in the kitchen. But his words on that sign tell me that he knows where he is, he knows what he is doing, and he knows the glory of making the best damned fried rice in Milwaukee County.
Rebbe Jimmy.
Enough of the religious digression...this is a restaurant review.
At the risk of losing the curious reader who wants to get to “the meat and potatoes”, I must confess something: the only food I have sampled on the menu is the Fried Rice. The wisdom needed to approach the egg rolls is not yet with me. Not yet. Perhaps not in this lifetime. If I roll the cubes right, maybe in the next.
How is the fried rice? Is it “authentic.”? This last is a word I have recently begun to move away from using in any critical discussion. It tends to make critics even more insufferable than they already are, and may even inspire viola players to consider using a machete rather than horsehair bow to inflict harm.
“I am what I am” a voice adumbrates from the depths of the “take out” carton. Who could refuse to see what that “am” looks like? Not me, bubba. Here it is: a magisterial conglomeration of grains that when delved into, separates into wise counterpoints, breaks down further into pleasing intervals (mostly major sixths to those who want to know the specifics), and lastly arrives into individual pitches, seminal, golden and browned.
Maestro Jimmy.
love
–noun
1.a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2.a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
3.sexual passion or desire.
4.a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.
5.(used in direct address as a term of endearment, affection, or the like): Would you like to see a movie, love?
6.a love affair; an intensely amorous incident; amour.
7.sexual intercourse; copulation.
8.(initial capital letter) a personification of sexual affection, as Eros or Cupid.
9.affectionate concern for the well-being of others: the love of one's neighbor.
10.strong predilection, enthusiasm, or liking for anything: her love of books.
11.the object or thing so liked: The theater was her great love.
12.the benevolent affection of God for His creatures, or the reverent affection due from them to God.
13.Chiefly Tennis. a score of zero; nothing.
14.a word formerly used in communications to represent the letter L.
–verb (used with object)
15.to have love or affection for: All her pupils love her.
16.to have a profoundly tender, passionate affection for (another person).
17.to have a strong liking for; take great pleasure in: to love music.
18.to need or require; benefit greatly from: Plants love sunlight.
19.to embrace and kiss (someone), as a lover.
20.to have sexual intercourse with.
–verb (used without object)
21.to have love or affection for another person; be in love.
—Verb phrase
22.love up, to hug and cuddle: She loves him up every chance she gets.
—Idioms
23.for love,
a.out of affection or liking; for pleasure.
b.without compensation; gratuitously: He took care of the poor for love.
24.for the love of, in consideration of; for the sake of: For the love of mercy, stop that noise.
25.in love, infused with or feeling deep affection or passion: a youth always in love.
26.in love with, feeling deep affection or passion for (a person, idea, occupation, etc.); enamored of: in love with the girl next door; in love with one's work.
27.make love,
a.to embrace and kiss as lovers.
b.to engage in sexual activity.
28.no love lost, dislike; animosity: There was no love lost between the two brothers.
Gilbert Scott-Heron (April 1, 1949 – May 27, 2011) was an American soul and jazz poet, musician, and author, known primarily for his work as a spoken-word performer in the 1970s and 1980s. His collaborative efforts with musician Brian Jackson featured a musical fusion of jazz, blues, and soul, as well as lyrical content concerning social and political issues of the time, delivered in both rapping and melismatic vocal styles by Scott-Heron. His own term for himself was "bluesologist", which he defined as "a scientist who is concerned with the origin of the blues". His poem "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", delivered over a jazz-soul beat, is considered a major influence on hip hop music.
His music, most notably on the albums Pieces of a Man and Winter in America in the early 1970s, influenced and foreshadowed later African-American music genres such as hip hop and neo soul. His recording work received much critical acclaim, especially for The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. AllMusic's John Bush called him "one of the most important progenitors of rap music", stating that "his aggressive, no-nonsense street poetry inspired a legion of intelligent rappers while his engaging songwriting skills placed him square in the R&B charts later in his career."
Scott-Heron remained active until his death, and in 2010 released his first new album in 16 years, entitled I'm New Here. A memoir he had been working on for years up to the time of his death, The Last Holiday, was published posthumously in January 2012. Scott-Heron received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. He also is included in the exhibits at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) that officially opened on September 24, 2016, on the National Mall, and in an NMAAHC publication, Dream a World Anew. In 2021, Scott-Heron was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a recipient of the Early Influence Award.
Gil Scott-Heron was born in Chicago, Illinois. His mother, Bobbie Scott, was an opera singer who performed with the Oratorio Society of New York. His father, Gil Heron, nicknamed "The Black Arrow," was a Jamaican footballer who in the 1950s became the first black man to play for Celtic Football Club in Glasgow, Scotland. Gil's parents separated in his early childhood and he was sent to live with his maternal grandmother, Lillie Scott, in Jackson, Tennessee. When Scott-Heron was 12 years old, his grandmother died and he returned to live with his mother in The Bronx in New York City. He enrolled at DeWitt Clinton High School, but later transferred to The Fieldston School, after impressing the head of the English department with some of his writings and earning a full scholarship. As one of five Black students at the prestigious school, Scott-Heron was faced with alienation and a significant socioeconomic gap. During his admissions interview at Fieldston, an administrator asked him: "'How would you feel if you see one of your classmates go by in a limousine while you're walking up the hill from the subway?' And [he] said, 'Same way as you. Y'all can't afford no limousine. How do you feel?'" This type of intractable boldness would become a hallmark of Scott-Heron's later recordings.
After completing his secondary education, Scott-Heron decided to attend Lincoln University in Pennsylvania because Langston Hughes (his most important literary influence) was an alumnus. It was here that Scott-Heron met Brian Jackson, with whom he formed the band Black & Blues. After about two years at Lincoln, Scott-Heron took a year off to write the novels The Vulture and The Nigger Factory. Scott-Heron was very heavily influenced by the Black Arts Movement (BAM). The Last Poets, a group associated with the Black Arts Movement, performed at Lincoln in 1969 and Abiodun Oyewole of that Harlem group said Scott-Heron asked him after the performance, "Listen, can I start a group like you guys?"[18] Scott-Heron returned to New York City, settling in Chelsea, Manhattan. The Vulture was published by the World Publishing Company in 1970 to positive reviews.
Although Scott-Heron never completed his undergraduate degree, he was admitted to the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, where he received an M.A. in creative writing in 1972. His master's thesis was titled Circle of Stone. Beginning in 1972, Scott-Heron taught literature and creative writing for several years as a full-time lecturer at University of the District of Columbia (then known as Federal City College) in Washington, D.C. while maintaining his music career.
Scott-Heron began his recording career with the LP Small Talk at 125th and Lenox in 1970. Bob Thiele of Flying Dutchman Records produced the album, and Scott-Heron was accompanied by Eddie Knowles and Charlie Saunders on conga and David Barnes on percussion and vocals. The album's 14 tracks dealt with themes such as the superficiality of television and mass consumerism, the hypocrisy of some would-be black revolutionaries, and white middle-class ignorance of the difficulties faced by inner-city residents. In the liner notes, Scott-Heron acknowledged as influences Richie Havens, John Coltrane, Otis Redding, Jose Feliciano, Billie Holiday, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, Huey Newton, Nina Simone, and long-time collaborator Brian Jackson.
Scott-Heron's 1971 album Pieces of a Man used more conventional song structures than the loose, spoken-word feel of Small Talk. He was joined by Jackson, Johnny Pate as conductor, Ron Carter on bass and bass guitar, drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, Burt Jones playing electric guitar, and Hubert Laws on flute and saxophone, with Thiele producing again. Scott-Heron's third album, Free Will, was released in 1972. Jackson, Purdie, Laws, Knowles, and Saunders all returned to play on Free Will and were joined by Jerry Jemmott playing bass, David Spinozza on guitar, and Horace Ott (arranger and conductor). Carter later said about Scott-Heron's voice: "He wasn't a great singer, but, with that voice, if he had whispered it would have been dynamic. It was a voice like you would have for Shakespeare."
In 1974, he recorded another collaboration with Brian Jackson, Winter in America, with Bob Adams on drums and Danny Bowens on bass. Winter in America has been regarded by many critics as the two musicians' most artistic effort. The following year, Scott-Heron and Jackson released Midnight Band: The First Minute of a New Day. In 1975, he released the single "Johannesburg", a rallying cry for the end of apartheid in South Africa. The song would be re-issued, in 12"-single form, together with "Waiting for the Axe to Fall" and "B-movie" in 1983.
A live album, It's Your World, followed in 1976 and a recording of spoken poetry, The Mind of Gil Scott-Heron, was released in 1978. Another success followed with the hit single "Angel Dust", which he recorded as a single with producer Malcolm Cecil. "Angel Dust" peaked at No. 15 on the R&B charts in 1978.
In 1979, Scott-Heron played at the No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden. The concerts were organized by Musicians United for Safe Energy to protest the use of nuclear energy following the Three Mile Island accident. Scott-Heron's song "We Almost Lost Detroit" was included in the No Nukes album of concert highlights. It alluded to a previous nuclear power plant accident and was also the title of a book by John G. Fuller. Scott-Heron was a frequent critic of President Ronald Reagan and his conservative policies.
Scott-Heron recorded and released four albums during the 1980s: 1980 and Real Eyes (1980), Reflections (1981) and Moving Target (1982). In February 1982, Ron Holloway joined the ensemble to play tenor saxophone. He toured extensively with Scott-Heron and contributed to his next album, Moving Target the same year. His tenor accompaniment is a prominent feature of the songs "Fast Lane" and "Black History/The World". Holloway continued with Scott-Heron until the summer of 1989, when he left to join Dizzy Gillespie. Several years later, Scott-Heron would make cameo appearances on two of Ron Holloway's CDs: Scorcher (1996) and Groove Update (1998), both on the Fantasy/Milestone label.
Scott-Heron was dropped by Arista Records in 1985 and quit recording, though he continued to tour. The same year he helped compose and sang "Let Me See Your I.D." on the Artists United Against Apartheid album Sun City, containing the famous line: "The first time I heard there was trouble in the Middle East, I thought they were talking about Pittsburgh." The song compares racial tensions in the U.S. with those in apartheid-era South Africa, implying that the U.S. was not too far ahead in race relations. In 1993, he signed to TVT Records and released Spirits, an album that included the seminal track "'Message to the Messengers". The first track on the album criticized the rap artists of the day. Scott-Heron is known in many circles as "the Godfather of rap" and is widely considered to be one of the genre's founding fathers. Given the political consciousness that lies at the foundation of his work, he can also be called a founder of political rap. "Message to the Messengers" was a plea for the new generation of rappers to speak for change rather than perpetuate the current social situation, and to be more articulate and artistic. Regarding hip hop music in the 1990s, he said in an interview:
They need to study music. I played in several bands before I began my career as a poet. There's a big difference between putting words over some music, and blending those same words into the music. There's not a lot of humor. They use a lot of slang and colloquialisms, and you don't really see inside the person. Instead, you just get a lot of posturing.
— Gil Scott-Heron
In 2001, Scott-Heron was sentenced to one to three years imprisonment in a New York State prison for possession of cocaine. While out of jail in 2002, he appeared on the Blazing Arrow album by Blackalicious. He was released on parole in 2003, the year BBC TV broadcast the documentary Gil Scott-Heron: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised—Scott-Heron was arrested for possession of a crack pipe during the editing of the film in October 2003 and received a six-month prison sentence.
On July 5, 2006, Scott-Heron was sentenced to two to four years in a New York State prison for violating a plea deal on a drug-possession charge by leaving a drug rehabilitation center. He claimed that he left because the clinic refused to supply him with HIV medication. This story led to the presumption that the artist was HIV positive, subsequently confirmed in a 2008 interview. Originally sentenced to serve until July 13, 2009, he was paroled on May 23, 2007.
After his release, Scott-Heron began performing live again, starting with a show at SOB's restaurant and nightclub in New York on September 13, 2007. On stage, he stated that he and his musicians were working on a new album and that he had resumed writing a book titled The Last Holiday, previously on long-term hiatus, about Stevie Wonder and his successful attempt to have the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. declared a federally recognized holiday in the United States.
Malik Al Nasir dedicated a collection of poetry to Scott-Heron titled Ordinary Guy that contained a foreword by Jalal Mansur Nuriddin of The Last Poets. Scott-Heron recorded one of the poems in Nasir's book entitled Black & Blue in 2006.
In April 2009, on BBC Radio 4, poet Lemn Sissay presented a half-hour documentary on Gil Scott-Heron entitled Pieces of a Man, having interviewed Gil Scott-Heron in New York a month earlier. Pieces of a Man was the first UK announcement from Scott-Heron of his forthcoming album and return to form. In November 2009, the BBC's Newsnight interviewed Scott-Heron for a feature titled The Legendary Godfather of Rap Returns. In 2009, a new Gil Scott-Heron website, gilscottheron.net, was launched with a new track "Where Did the Night Go" made available as a free download from the site.
In 2010, Scott-Heron was booked to perform in Tel Aviv, Israel, but this attracted criticism from pro-Palestinian activists, who stated: "Your performance in Israel would be the equivalent to having performed in Sun City during South Africa's apartheid era... We hope that you will not play apartheid Israel". Scott-Heron responded by canceling the performance.
Scott-Heron released his album I'm New Here on independent label XL Recordings on February 9, 2010. Produced by XL label owner Richard Russell, I'm New Here was Scott-Heron's first studio album in 16 years. The pair started recording the album in 2007, with the majority of the record being recorded over the 12 months leading up to the release date with engineer Lawson White at Clinton Studios in New York. I'm New Here is 28 minutes long with 15 tracks; however, casual asides and observations collected during recording sessions are included as interludes.
The album attracted critical acclaim, with The Guardian's Jude Rogers declaring it one of the "best of the next decade", while some have called the record "reverent" and "intimate", due to Scott-Heron's half-sung, half-spoken delivery of his poetry. In a music review for public radio network NPR, Will Hermes stated: "Comeback records always worry me, especially when they're made by one of my heroes ... But I was haunted by this record ... He's made a record not without hope but which doesn't come with any easy or comforting answers. In that way, the man is clearly still committed to speaking the truth". Writing for music website Music OMH, Darren Lee provided a more mixed assessment of the album, describing it as rewarding and stunning, but he also states that the album's brevity prevents it "from being an unassailable masterpiece".
Scott-Heron described himself as a mere participant, in a 2010 interview with The New Yorker:
This is Richard's CD. My only knowledge when I got to the studio was how he seemed to have wanted this for a long time. You're in a position to have somebody do something that they really want to do, and it was not something that would hurt me or damage me—why not? All the dreams you show up in are not your own.
The remix version of the album, We're New Here, was released in 2011, featuring production by English musician Jamie xx, who reworked material from the original album. Like the original album, We're New Here received critical acclaim.
In April 2014, XL Recordings announced a third album from the I'm New Here sessions, titled Nothing New. The album consists of stripped-down piano and vocal recordings and was released in conjunction with Record Store Day on April 19, 2014.
Scott-Heron died on the afternoon of May 27, 2011, at St. Luke's Hospital, New York City, after becoming ill upon returning from a trip to Europe. Scott-Heron had confirmed previous press speculation about his health, when he disclosed in a 2008 New York Magazine interview that he had been HIV-positive for several years, and that he had been previously hospitalized for pneumonia.
He was survived by his firstborn daughter, Raquiyah "Nia" Kelly Heron, from his relationship with Pat Kelly; his son Rumal Rackley, from his relationship with Lurma Rackley; daughter Gia Scott-Heron, from his marriage to Brenda Sykes; and daughter Chegianna Newton, who was 13 years old at the time of her father's death. He is also survived by his sister Gayle; brother Denis Heron, who once managed Scott-Heron; his uncle, Roy Heron; and nephew Terrance Kelly, an actor and rapper who performs as Mr. Cheeks, and is a member of Lost Boyz.
Before his death, Scott-Heron had been in talks with Portuguese director Pedro Costa to participate in his film Horse Money as a screenwriter, composer and actor.
In response to Scott-Heron's death, Public Enemy's Chuck D stated "RIP GSH...and we do what we do and how we do because of you" on his Twitter account. His UK publisher, Jamie Byng, called him "one of the most inspiring people I've ever met". On hearing of the death, R&B singer Usher stated: "I just learned of the loss of a very important poet...R.I.P., Gil Scott-Heron. The revolution will be live!!". Richard Russell, who produced Scott-Heron's final studio album, called him a "father figure of sorts to me", while Eminem stated: "He influenced all of hip-hop". Lupe Fiasco wrote a poem about Scott-Heron that was published on his website.
Scott-Heron's memorial service was held at Riverside Church in New York City on June 2, 2011, where Kanye West performed "Lost in the World" and "Who Will Survive in America", two songs from West's album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The studio album version of West's "Who Will Survive in America" features a spoken-word excerpt by Scott-Heron. Scott-Heron is buried at Kensico Cemetery in Westchester County in New York.
Scott-Heron was honored posthumously in 2012 by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Charlotte Fox, member of the Washington, DC NARAS and president of Genesis Poets Music, nominated Scott-Heron for the award, while the letter of support came from Grammy award winner and Grammy Hall of Fame inductee Bill Withers.
Scott-Heron's memoir, The Last Holiday, was published in January 2012. In her review for the Los Angeles Times, professor of English and journalism Lynell George wrote:
The Last Holiday is as much about his life as it is about context, the theater of late 20th century America — from Jim Crow to the Reagan '80s and from Beale Street to 57th Street. The narrative is not, however, a rise-and-fall retelling of Scott-Heron's life and career. It doesn't connect all the dots. It moves off-the-beat, at its own speed ... This approach to revelation lends the book an episodic quality, like oral storytelling does. It winds around, it repeats itself.
At the time of Scott-Heron's death, a will could not be found to determine the future of his estate. Additionally, Raquiyah Kelly-Heron filed papers in Manhattan, New York's Surrogate's Court in August 2013, claiming that Rumal Rackley was not Scott-Heron's son and should therefore be omitted from matters concerning the musician's estate. According to the Daily News website, Rackley, Kelly-Heron and two other sisters have been seeking a resolution to the issue of the management of Scott-Heron's estate, as Rackley stated in court papers that Scott-Heron prepared him to be the eventual administrator of the estate. Scott-Heron's 1994 album Spirits was dedicated to "my son Rumal and my daughters Nia and Gia", and in court papers Rackley added that Scott-Heron "introduced me [Rackley] from the stage as his son".
In 2011, Rackley filed a suit against sister Gia Scott-Heron and her mother, Scott-Heron's first wife, Brenda Sykes, as he believed they had unfairly attained US$250,000 of Scott-Heron's money. The case was later settled for an undisclosed sum in early 2013; but the relationship between Rackley and Scott-Heron's two adult daughters already had become strained in the months after Gil's death. In her submission to the Surrogate's Court, Kelly-Heron states that a DNA test completed by Rackley in 2011—using DNA from Scott-Heron's brother—revealed that they "do not share a common male lineage", while Rackley has refused to undertake another DNA test since that time. A hearing to address Kelly-Heron's filing was scheduled for late August 2013, but by March 2016 further information on the matter was not publicly available.[69] Rackley still serves as court-appointed administrator for the estate, and donated material to the Smithsonian's new National Museum of African American History and Culture for Scott-Heron to be included among the exhibits and displays when the museum opened in September 2016. In December 2018, the Surrogate Court ruled that Rumal Rackley and his half sisters are all legal heirs.
According to the Daily News website, Kelly-Heron and two other sisters have been seeking a resolution to the issue of the management of Scott-Heron's estate. The case was decided in December 2018 with a ruling issued in May 2019.
Scott-Heron's work has influenced writers, academics and musicians, from indie rockers to rappers. His work during the 1970s influenced and helped engender subsequent African-American music genres, such as hip hop and neo soul. He has been described by music writers as "the godfather of rap" and "the black Bob Dylan".
Chicago Tribune writer Greg Kot comments on Scott-Heron's collaborative work with Jackson:
Together they crafted jazz-influenced soul and funk that brought new depth and political consciousness to '70s music alongside Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. In classic albums such as 'Winter in America' and 'From South Africa to South Carolina,' Scott-Heron took the news of the day and transformed it into social commentary, wicked satire, and proto-rap anthems. He updated his dispatches from the front lines of the inner city on tour, improvising lyrics with an improvisational daring that matched the jazz-soul swirl of the music".
Of Scott-Heron's influence on hip hop, Kot writes that he "presag[ed] hip-hop and infus[ed] soul and jazz with poetry, humor and pointed political commentary". Ben Sisario of The New York Times writes that "He [Scott-Heron] preferred to call himself a "bluesologist", drawing on the traditions of blues, jazz and Harlem renaissance poetics". Tris McCall of The Star-Ledger writes that "The arrangements on Gil Scott-Heron's early recordings were consistent with the conventions of jazz poetry – the movement that sought to bring the spontaneity of live performance to the reading of verse". A music writer later noted that "Scott-Heron's unique proto-rap style influenced a generation of hip-hop artists", while The Washington Post wrote that "Scott-Heron's work presaged not only conscious rap and poetry slams, but also acid jazz, particularly during his rewarding collaboration with composer-keyboardist-flutist Brian Jackson in the mid- and late '70s". The Observer's Sean O'Hagan discussed the significance of Scott-Heron's music with Brian Jackson, stating:
Together throughout the 1970s, Scott-Heron and Jackson made music that reflected the turbulence, uncertainty and increasing pessimism of the times, merging the soul and jazz traditions and drawing on an oral poetry tradition that reached back to the blues and forward to hip-hop. The music sounded by turns angry, defiant and regretful while Scott-Heron's lyrics possessed a satirical edge that set them apart from the militant soul of contemporaries such as Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield.
Will Layman of PopMatters wrote about the significance of Scott-Heron's early musical work:
In the early 1970s, Gil Scott-Heron popped onto the scene as a soul poet with jazz leanings; not just another Bill Withers, but a political voice with a poet's skill. His spoken-voice work had punch and topicality. "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" and "Johannesburg" were calls to action: Stokely Carmichael if he'd had the groove of Ray Charles. 'The Bottle' was a poignant story of the streets: Richard Wright as sung by a husky-voiced Marvin Gaye. To paraphrase Chuck D, Gil Scott-Heron's music was a kind of CNN for black neighborhoods, prefiguring hip-hop by several years. It grew from the Last Poets, but it also had the funky swing of Horace Silver or Herbie Hancock—or Otis Redding. Pieces of a Man and Winter in America (collaborations with Brian Jackson) were classics beyond category".
Scott-Heron's influence over hip hop is primarily exemplified by his definitive single "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", sentiments from which have been explored by various rappers, including Aesop Rock, Talib Kweli and Common. In addition to his vocal style, Scott-Heron's indirect contributions to rap music extend to his and co-producer Jackson's compositions, which have been sampled by various hip-hop artists. "We Almost Lost Detroit" was sampled by Brand Nubian member Grand Puba ("Keep On"), Native Tongues duo Black Star ("Brown Skin Lady"), and MF Doom ("Camphor"). Additionally, Scott-Heron's 1980 song "A Legend in His Own Mind" was sampled on Mos Def's "Mr. Nigga", the opening lyrics from his 1978 recording "Angel Dust" were appropriated by rapper RBX on the 1996 song "Blunt Time" by Dr. Dre, and CeCe Peniston's 2000 song "My Boo" samples Scott-Heron's 1974 recording "The Bottle".
In addition to the Scott-Heron excerpt used in "Who Will Survive in America", Kanye West sampled Scott-Heron and Jackson's "Home is Where the Hatred Is" and "We Almost Lost Detroit" for the songs "My Way Home" and "The People", respectively, both of which are collaborative efforts with Common. Scott-Heron, in turn, acknowledged West's contributions, sampling the latter's 2007 single "Flashing Lights" on his final album, 2010's I'm New Here.
Scott-Heron admitted ambivalence regarding his association with rap, remarking in 2010 in an interview for the Daily Swarm: "I don't know if I can take the blame for [rap music]".[81] As New York Times writer Sisario explained, he preferred the moniker of "bluesologist". Referring to reviews of his last album and references to him as the "godfather of rap", Scott-Heron said: "It's something that's aimed at the kids ... I have kids, so I listen to it. But I would not say it's aimed at me. I listen to the jazz station." In 2013, Chattanooga rapper Isaiah Rashad recorded an unofficial mixtape called Pieces of a Kid, which was greatly influenced by Heron's debut album Pieces of a Man.
Following Scott-Heron's funeral in 2011, a tribute from publisher, record company owner, poet, and music producer Malik Al Nasir was published on The Guardian's website, titled "Gil Scott-Heron saved my life".
In the 2018 film First Man, Scott-Heron is a minor character and is played by soul singer Leon Bridges.
He is one of eight significant people shown in mosaic at the 167th Street renovated subway station on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx that reopened in 2019.
Large-scale sculptures of
Barbara Chase-Riboud, Infinite Folds at the Serpentine North Gallery. An exploration of her sculpture technique and materiality, defined by the interplay between folds of cast bronze or aluminium and coilds of wool or silk. This exhibition is on until the 29th January 2023.
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CAMPAIGN 2014 - 2015 / Photography by Nimoe Constantine
The Fantasy Angels Company has a unique and highly defined personality that is clearly projected through a team of distinguished and well-known models who come to us with diverse beauties, strengths, skills, and cultural backgrounds. Our company operates through high impact commercial development endeavors displayed via different mass media advertising campaigns inside and outside Second Life®.
The firm works with some of the best known and most beautiful models within the fashion world and some of the most famous and prestigious brands within Second Life, bringing to the public a unique and innovative and fresh concept in each of our projects. Our models are Supermodels that are represented by the grid’s top modeling and fashion agencies and print publications all over Second Life®.
The Fantasy Angels Company is the original and first company of angels in Second Life® totally inspired in the Victoria´s Secret rl fashion shows. The Fantasy Angels is the New Sexy.
CREDITS: Photography by Nimoe Constantine I Angel: Tyra Eiren I Campaign: "I´m Totally Angelic" I Nationality: Mexican I Designers: Modern.Couture & *{ J u n b u g }* I Stylist: Tyra Eiren I Campaign Powered by THEFANTASYANGELS Production
TYRA EIREN
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A World Defined © Gobinder Jhitta - www.gobinderjhitta.co.uk
Preview shot taster for A World Defined's social media pages. I'm still busy editing the full shoot, amongst others. This month had been extremely busy already, I'm not complaining of course.
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Beauty is whatever gives joy. Edna St. Vincent Millay
the macromonday theme for today, 8/27, is to define beauty with a picture and a quote. this possiblity is my little black cat (LBC) whom we ascertained is 18 years old and in pretty good shape for an elder feline said the vet!!.... btb, i needed to take a gazillion pictures to get one that wasn't blurred-- she's not a fan of the camera close up.
For a long time, Dnipro was a closed city. In the soviet era, it was a major hub for both the Soviet space program as well as rocket manufacturing.
From my research, it appears that until the early 1990's when the Berlin wall came down, the Soviet Union was dissolved, and Ukraine, along with all of the other former Soviet bloc countries, became an independent nation.
Prior to that time, only those with official business were allowed in the city, if they were not a resident.
This history is evident in many parts of the town.
This particular display of the C-125 Pechora soviet-era surface-to-air missle system is part of a larger display, set in front of the Diorama "Battle for the Dnepr," honoring the thirtieth anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War (although this term is not used in Ukraine, referring instead to the Second World War), referring to soviet resistance during WWII against the Nazis.
There is no way to avoid or deny discussion of military or soviet history when talking about Ukraine and Dnipro.
The past is not the present, and does not define the future.
While modern Ukraine is making efforts to distance itself from communism, the former Soviet Union, and even currently the Russian Federation, to carve its own identity in the world, there are still many museums filled with rich history, much of which entails the soviet era, World War II, and the post-war era during the cold war.
I get sad when I think of war, but it is a part of the human consciousness. It is a day-to-day reality for many people around thee world even as you read this.
Therefore, commemorating great defenses, great battles where good prevails over evil, and honoring those who have fallen, always commands my respect, and my interest.
A little note about this photograph. It was shot in extremely dark conditions, with only the light you see in the background really providing any sort of illumination to the rockets.
I did not have my tripod, so I used a very high ISO of 12,800 and steadied my hand as best as I could. I promise you, the camera caught all the light that none of our eyes did not see. My friends that were with me that night commented how the photo looked better than real life, because it was so dark outside.
A circular polarizer filter really helps define the clouds! Photo taken in Murphy, Collin County, TX. The night of May 28th brought a deluge of rain, lasting all night, continuing with only a slight letup through May 30th. FYI: The rain measurement for the month of May surpassed all records that were ever kept. Even a little pond in a neighborhood park became a monster because of a creek flooding.
KLAX (Los Angeles International Airport) - 29 DEC 2023
"JetBlue 688" climbing out from RWY 25R en route to Boston Logan International Airport (KBOS).
This is the first plane with Mint to sport the new "Mint Leaves" livery.
Production Site: Hamburg (XFW)
First Flight: 09 AUG 2017
Test Registration: D-AVZE
Delivery to JetBlue: 16 AUG 2017 as N982JB
Ferried XFW-JFK-GSO on 17 AUG 2017 on delivery
Hex Code: ADB35C
Aircraft Name: One Mint, Two Mint, Blue Mint, You Mint (until MAY 2023)
"Prism" tail design until MAY 2023
Configuration: C16Y143
Engines: 2x IAE V2533-A5
"Mint Leaves" livery since JUN 2023
Named "A Defining MoMint" since JUN 2023
LOL my boy's a freak on a leash, literally. Riot's Legend at just under 6 months old with his mother trolling in the bg. I got my license yesterday (worst time ever lmfao, BUT I STILL PASSED, and it was my first test) so I threw Kiara in the back of my little s10 truck (not literally) and got Legend into the passenger's seat and drove up to town with them to the park. Although this isn't a dog park, I still let them explore off-leash (although technically the leash is still attached, just in case). Kiara did amazing as always, turning on a dime every time I called for her. Legend is still in the works as far as training goes but his recall was very good today. He immediately came back about 8 times out of 10 so that's pretty good. Love my sheps. ♥
Ruined photo. No smile. I always loved candid ruined photos. They say something about one’s feelings & thoughts. Very often before & at the start of the millennium I thought to myself “ twenty years. what will happen in twenty years?” ... More & more news of my teachers (or just teachers I knew) being gone, really gone, forever gone. And reality really hits hard. And it hurts. And then you realize “twenty” years can be a finite number & life is fleeting & time is merciless. If I looked a little closer into this photo instead of focusing on my tiny waist in picture perfect I would see almost tears in my eyes for the time or the feeling of time that can never be turned back. For the time that as teenagers or really young people we don’t feel. ***This Poland Spring bottle is an illusion. It was never there. It was from a completely different photograph that was developed from the same roll**
Away from the sad topic my point is ... time flies ! Go crazy & give life a chance ♥️