View allAll Photos Tagged Denigration
Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors / Hirshhorn Museum
“Now is the time to resist the slightest extension in the boundaries of what is right and just.
Now is the time to speak up and to wear as a badge of honor the opprobrium of bigots.
Now is the time to confront the weak core at the heart of America’s addiction to optimism; it allows too little room for resilience, and too much for fragility.
Hazy visions of “healing” and “not becoming the hate we hate” sound dangerously like appeasement.
The responsibility to forge unity belongs not to the denigrated but to the denigrators.
The premise for empathy has to be equal humanity; it is an injustice to demand that the maligned identify with those who question their humanity.” ―Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/now-is-the-tim...
Dutch flyer, part 1. Adrienne Ames in The Sign of the Cross (Cecil B. DeMille, 1932).
In Cecil B. De Mille's lavish historical epic The Sign of the Cross (1932), a Roman soldier becomes torn between his love for a Christian woman and his loyalty to Emperor Nero. The outstanding cast is one of the film's strongest points. Fredric March is stalwart as the Roman official who falls in love with a sweet Christian girl, played by Elissa Landi. But they are upstaged by the villains, Charles Laughton and Claudette Colbert playing Emperor Nero and his wife Empress Poppaea. The Sign of the Cross (1932) is the third and last in DeMille's biblical trilogy with The Ten Commandments (1923) and The King of Kings (1927).
In 1932 – at the height of the depression, Paramount was in financial straits and Hollywood's output was mostly limited to small-scale dramas and bedroom comedies. However, Cecil B. DeMille decided to make an epic. Against all odds, he carried the torch for grandeur and spectacle and produced and directed one of his best films, The Sign of the Cross (1931), a vivid retelling of the struggles of the first Christians. The Roman Empire - First Century A. D. After burning Rome, Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar (Charles Laughton) decides to blame the Christians and issues the edict that they are all to be caught and sent to the arena. The mad Emperor and his vile Empress engage in every sort of vice and degradation. Wanton cruelty becomes a spectator sport and virtue and innocence are denigrated. Two old Christians are caught, and about to be hauled off, when Prefect Marcus Superbus (Fredric March), the highest military official in Rome, comes upon them. When he sees their stepdaughter Mercia (Elissa Landi), he instantly falls in love with her and frees them. Marcus pursues Mercia, which gets him into trouble with the Emperor for being easy on the Christians and with Empress Poppaea (Claudette Colbert), who loves him and is jealous. When Landi's Mercia's friends are marched off to the arena to die, she wants to join them. Marcus sacrifices his career by demanding that the emperor spares her life. Nero agrees, but only if she renounces her faith... So, which will eventually triumph - the might of Imperial Rome, or the gentle ones who follow The sign of the cross? Steffi-P at IMDb: "The acting in Sign of the Cross is a bit of a mixed bag, although it is of a higher standard than many of the DeMille talkies. Charles Laughton is hammily brilliant, laying down a blueprint for Emperor Nero which Peter Ustinov would follow to a well-deserved Oscar-nomination in Quo Vadis (1951). However Laughton's part is fairly small, and the screenplay makes Claudette Colbert the real villain. Colbert is fantastic, playing the Empress as an ancient world vamp, giving by far the best performance of the bunch. It's almost a shame that It Happened One Night re-invented her as a major romantic lead because she really was at her best when she played villains." Martin Kukuczka at IMDb adds: "Except for the cruel arena sequence, which is still entertaining in some way, any viewer will be surprised at one scene: Poppaea's famous milk bath. That's a moment that everyone should consider while watching the film. Her sexual bath is one of the best made moments that cinema has ever seen. It is totally filled with desire and sexuality. And all thanks to the great performance by Ms. Colbert. No surprise Cecil B DeMille cast her to play Cleopatra two years later, in 1934." As with many other pre-Code films that were reissued after the Motion Picture Production Code was strictly enforced in 1934, The Sign of the Cross (1932) has a history of censorship. In the original version, Marcus is unsuccessful in his desire to seduce Mercia. He then urges Ancaria (Joyzelle Joyner) to perform the erotic 'Dance of the Naked Moon' that will "warm her into life". This 'lesbian dance' was cut from the negative for a 1938 reissue but was restored by MCA/Universal for its 1993 video release. Some gladiatorial combat footage was also cut for the 1938 reissue, as were arena sequences involving naked women being attacked by crocodiles and a gorilla. These were also restored in 1993.
Sources: Steffi-P (IMDb), Martin Kukuczka (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
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Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
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State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
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Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
Kinjai Gallery,
Bangkok through poster 2020 Exhibition
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Submitted on Tue, 16 Jun 2020 - 08:35 PM
Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha has claimed that HM the King asked for no prosecutions under Article 112 of the Criminal Code.
On 15 June, the Prime Minister stated that the things that he is most concerned about now are acts denigrating the monarchy.
He urged Thai people not to believe distorted messages that create hate which are being spread increasingly as a special day approaches. The Prime Minister did not identify the day but observers believe he was referring to the anniversary of the 1932 Siamese Revolution on 24 June.
On anti-monarchy campaigns in neighbouring countries and Europe, the Prime Minister said that the authorities will send letters to these countries and it would depend on how they reacted. Gen Prayuth denied that Thailand was operating undercover missions outside the country.
The Prime Minister added that the authorities have asked for the cooperation of states where there are anti-monarchy movements. Some of the people involved have refugee status. Those people must know what they should not do in those countries.
“Be aware why Article 112 is not being used to prosecute cases and why there are people grabbing this opportunity. His Majesty has royal mercy and his royal grace has been directly repeated to me these past 2-3 years not to use Article 112.”
Deputy Prime Minister Gen Prawit Wongsuwan said that the authorities are now investigating the anti-monarchy network. When the names are identified, they will be prosecuted. He also affirmed that Article 112 will not be used.
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UN 'deeply troubled' by lese majeste charges
Rights body 'alarmed' that activists charged include a 16-year-old
Bangkok Post 18th December 2020
The UN human rights body expressed alarm on Friday over Thailand’s detentions of democracy activists, including a minor aged 16 years, under the lese majeste law.
“We are deeply troubled by the move by Thai authorities to charge at least 35 protesters in recent weeks, including a 16-year old student protester, under Article 112 — the lese majeste provision of Thailand’s criminal code,” the United Nations Human Rights Committee said in a statement.
The offence carries sentences of between three and 15 years’ imprisonment for defaming, insulting or threatening the royal family, noted Ravina Shamdasani, the committee’s spokeswoman.
“We are particularly alarmed that the 16-year-old protester was yesterday presented by police to the Juvenile Court with a request for a detention order.”
24 – O Número do Viado .
Jogo do Bicho – The animal game - is an illegal gamble game in Brazil .
Every number is associated with a animal .
24 is the deer – veado in Portuguese , which is also associated with viado , a shortage of the word Transviado – which mean perverted .
Both number – 24 , and animal – deer –have a strong connection with very pejorative homosexual stereotypes in the Brazilian popular culture .
In this work I want to explore how society perceive male sexuality and homoeroticism . Also I want to show the cultural tendency of dehumanising and denigrating minorities , transforming them in something other then a human been
70X50 cm original available for purchase .Also prints A4 and A3 available
Prints available at
ingluewetrust.tictail.com/product/24-o-numero-do-viado
Analog collage
www.facebook.com/silviocollage
society6.com/SilvioSeverinoCollage
An anti-establishment view or belief is one which stands in opposition to the conventional social, political, and economic principles of a society. The term was first used in the modern sense in 1958, by the British magazine New Statesman to refer to its political and social agenda. Antiestablishmentarianism (or anti-establishmentarianism) is an expression for such a political philosophy.
In the UK anti-establishment figures and groups are seen as those who argue or act against the ruling class. Having an established church, in England, a British monarchy, an aristocracy, and an unelected upper house in Parliament made up in part by hereditary nobles, the UK has a clearly definable[citation needed] Establishment against which anti-establishment figures can be contrasted. In particular, satirical humour is commonly used to undermine the deference shown by the majority of the population towards those who govern them. Examples of British anti-establishment satire include much of the humour of Peter Cook and Ben Elton; novels such as Rumpole of the Bailey; magazines such as Private Eye; and television programmes like Spitting Image, That Was The Week That Was, and The Prisoner (see also the satire boom of the 1960s). Anti-establishment themes also can be seen in the novels of writers such as Will Self.
However, by operating through the arts and media, the line between politics and culture is blurred, so that pigeonholing figures such as Banksy as either anti-establishment or counter-culture figures can be difficult. The tabloid newspapers such as The Sun, are less subtle, and commonly report on the sex-lives of the Royals simply because it sells newspapers, but in the process have been described as having anti-establishment views that have weakened traditional institutions. On the other hand, as time passes, anti-establishment figures sometimes end up becoming part of the Establishment, as Mick Jagger, the Rolling Stones frontman, became a Knight in 2003, or when The Who frontman Roger Daltrey was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 in recognition of both his music and his work for charity.
Anti-establishment in the United States began in the 1940s and continued through the 1950s.
Many World War II veterans, who had seen horrors and inhumanities, began to question every aspect of life, including its meaning. Urged to return to "normal lives" and plagued by post traumatic stress disorder (discussing it was "not manly"), in which many of them went on to found the outlaw motorcycle club Hells Angels. Some veterans, who founded the Beat Movement, were denigrated as Beatniks and accused of being "downbeat" on everything. Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote a Beat autobiography that cited his wartime service.
Citizens had also begun to question authority, especially after the Gary Powers U-2 Incident, wherein President Eisenhower repeatedly assured people the United States was not spying on Russia, then was caught in a blatant lie. This general dissatisfaction was popularized by Peggy Lee's laconic pop song "Is That All There Is?", but remained unspoken and unfocused. It was not until the Baby Boomers came along in huge numbers that protest became organized, who were named by the Beats as "little hipsters".
"Anti-establishment" became a buzzword of the tumultuous 1960s. Young people raised in comparative luxury saw many wrongs perpetuated by society and began to question "the Establishment". Contentious issues included the ongoing Vietnam War with no clear goal or end point, the constant military build-up and diversion of funds for the Cold War, perpetual widespread poverty being ignored, money-wasting boondoggles like pork barrel projects and the Space Race, festering race issues, a stultifying education system, repressive laws and harsh sentences for casual drug use, and a general malaise among the older generation. On the other side, "Middle America" often regarded questions as accusations, and saw the younger generation as spoiled, drugged-out, sex-crazed, unambitious slackers.
Anti-establishment debates were common because they touched on everyday aspects of life. Even innocent questions could escalate into angry diatribes. For example, "Why do we spend millions on a foreign war and a space program when our schools are falling apart?" would be answered with "We need to keep our military strong and ready to stop the Communists from taking over the world." As in any debate, there were valid and unsupported arguments on both sides. "Make love not war" invoked "America, love it or leave it."
As the 1960s simmered, the anti-Establishment adopted conventions in opposition to the Establishment. T-shirts and blue jeans became the uniform of the young because their parents wore collar shirts and slacks. Drug use, with its illegal panache, was favored over the legal consumption of alcohol. Promoting peace and love was the antidote to promulgating hatred and war. Living in genteel poverty was more "honest" than amassing a nest egg and a house in the suburbs. Rock 'n roll was played loudly over easy listening. Dodging the draft was passive resistance to traditional military service. Dancing was free-style, not learned in a ballroom. Over time, anti-establishment messages crept into popular culture: songs, fashion, movies, lifestyle choices, television.
The emphasis on freedom allowed previously hushed conversations about sex, politics, or religion to be openly discussed. A wave of radical liberation movements for minority groups came out of the 1960s, including second-wave feminism; Black Power, Red Power, and the Chicano Movement; and gay liberation. These movements differed from previous efforts to improve minority rights by their opposition to respectability politics and militant tone. Programs were put in place to deal with inequities: Equal Opportunity Employment, the Head Start Program, enforcement of the Civil Rights Act, busing, and others. But the widespread dissemination of new ideas also sparked a backlash and resurgence in conservative religions, new segregated private schools, anti-gay and anti-abortion legislation, and other reversals. Extremists[clarification needed] tended to be heard more because they made good copy for newspapers and television.[citation needed] In many ways, the angry debates of the 1960s led to modern right-wing talk radio and coalitions for "traditional family values".
As the 1960s passed, society had changed to the point that the definition of the Establishment had blurred, and the term "anti-establishment" seemed to fall out of use.
In recent years, with the rise of the populist right, the term anti-establishment has tended to refer to both left and right-wing movements expressing dissatisfaction with mainstream institutions. For those on the right, this can be fueled by feelings of alienation from major institutions such as the government, corporations, media, and education system, which are perceived as holding progressive social norms, an inversion of the meaning formerly associated with the term. This can be accounted for by a perceived cultural and institutional shift to the left by many on the right. According to Pew Research, Western European populist parties from both sides of the ideological spectrum tapped into anti-establishment sentiment in 2017, "from the Brexit referendum to national elections in Italy." Sarah Kendzior of QZ opines that "The term "anti-establishment" has lost all meaning," citing a campaign video from then candidate Donald Trump titled "Fighting the Establishment." The term anti-establishment has tended to refer to Right-wing populist movements, including nationalist movements and anti-lockdown protests, since Donald Trump and the global populist wave, starting as far back as 2015 and as recently as 2021.
An anti-establishment view or belief is one which stands in opposition to the conventional social, political, and economic principles of a society. The term was first used in the modern sense in 1958, by the British magazine New Statesman to refer to its political and social agenda. Antiestablishmentarianism (or anti-establishmentarianism) is an expression for such a political philosophy.
In the UK anti-establishment figures and groups are seen as those who argue or act against the ruling class. Having an established church, in England, a British monarchy, an aristocracy, and an unelected upper house in Parliament made up in part by hereditary nobles, the UK has a clearly definable[citation needed] Establishment against which anti-establishment figures can be contrasted. In particular, satirical humour is commonly used to undermine the deference shown by the majority of the population towards those who govern them. Examples of British anti-establishment satire include much of the humour of Peter Cook and Ben Elton; novels such as Rumpole of the Bailey; magazines such as Private Eye; and television programmes like Spitting Image, That Was The Week That Was, and The Prisoner (see also the satire boom of the 1960s). Anti-establishment themes also can be seen in the novels of writers such as Will Self.
However, by operating through the arts and media, the line between politics and culture is blurred, so that pigeonholing figures such as Banksy as either anti-establishment or counter-culture figures can be difficult. The tabloid newspapers such as The Sun, are less subtle, and commonly report on the sex-lives of the Royals simply because it sells newspapers, but in the process have been described as having anti-establishment views that have weakened traditional institutions. On the other hand, as time passes, anti-establishment figures sometimes end up becoming part of the Establishment, as Mick Jagger, the Rolling Stones frontman, became a Knight in 2003, or when The Who frontman Roger Daltrey was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 in recognition of both his music and his work for charity.
Anti-establishment in the United States began in the 1940s and continued through the 1950s.
Many World War II veterans, who had seen horrors and inhumanities, began to question every aspect of life, including its meaning. Urged to return to "normal lives" and plagued by post traumatic stress disorder (discussing it was "not manly"), in which many of them went on to found the outlaw motorcycle club Hells Angels. Some veterans, who founded the Beat Movement, were denigrated as Beatniks and accused of being "downbeat" on everything. Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote a Beat autobiography that cited his wartime service.
Citizens had also begun to question authority, especially after the Gary Powers U-2 Incident, wherein President Eisenhower repeatedly assured people the United States was not spying on Russia, then was caught in a blatant lie. This general dissatisfaction was popularized by Peggy Lee's laconic pop song "Is That All There Is?", but remained unspoken and unfocused. It was not until the Baby Boomers came along in huge numbers that protest became organized, who were named by the Beats as "little hipsters".
"Anti-establishment" became a buzzword of the tumultuous 1960s. Young people raised in comparative luxury saw many wrongs perpetuated by society and began to question "the Establishment". Contentious issues included the ongoing Vietnam War with no clear goal or end point, the constant military build-up and diversion of funds for the Cold War, perpetual widespread poverty being ignored, money-wasting boondoggles like pork barrel projects and the Space Race, festering race issues, a stultifying education system, repressive laws and harsh sentences for casual drug use, and a general malaise among the older generation. On the other side, "Middle America" often regarded questions as accusations, and saw the younger generation as spoiled, drugged-out, sex-crazed, unambitious slackers.
Anti-establishment debates were common because they touched on everyday aspects of life. Even innocent questions could escalate into angry diatribes. For example, "Why do we spend millions on a foreign war and a space program when our schools are falling apart?" would be answered with "We need to keep our military strong and ready to stop the Communists from taking over the world." As in any debate, there were valid and unsupported arguments on both sides. "Make love not war" invoked "America, love it or leave it."
As the 1960s simmered, the anti-Establishment adopted conventions in opposition to the Establishment. T-shirts and blue jeans became the uniform of the young because their parents wore collar shirts and slacks. Drug use, with its illegal panache, was favored over the legal consumption of alcohol. Promoting peace and love was the antidote to promulgating hatred and war. Living in genteel poverty was more "honest" than amassing a nest egg and a house in the suburbs. Rock 'n roll was played loudly over easy listening. Dodging the draft was passive resistance to traditional military service. Dancing was free-style, not learned in a ballroom. Over time, anti-establishment messages crept into popular culture: songs, fashion, movies, lifestyle choices, television.
The emphasis on freedom allowed previously hushed conversations about sex, politics, or religion to be openly discussed. A wave of radical liberation movements for minority groups came out of the 1960s, including second-wave feminism; Black Power, Red Power, and the Chicano Movement; and gay liberation. These movements differed from previous efforts to improve minority rights by their opposition to respectability politics and militant tone. Programs were put in place to deal with inequities: Equal Opportunity Employment, the Head Start Program, enforcement of the Civil Rights Act, busing, and others. But the widespread dissemination of new ideas also sparked a backlash and resurgence in conservative religions, new segregated private schools, anti-gay and anti-abortion legislation, and other reversals. Extremists[clarification needed] tended to be heard more because they made good copy for newspapers and television.[citation needed] In many ways, the angry debates of the 1960s led to modern right-wing talk radio and coalitions for "traditional family values".
As the 1960s passed, society had changed to the point that the definition of the Establishment had blurred, and the term "anti-establishment" seemed to fall out of use.
In recent years, with the rise of the populist right, the term anti-establishment has tended to refer to both left and right-wing movements expressing dissatisfaction with mainstream institutions. For those on the right, this can be fueled by feelings of alienation from major institutions such as the government, corporations, media, and education system, which are perceived as holding progressive social norms, an inversion of the meaning formerly associated with the term. This can be accounted for by a perceived cultural and institutional shift to the left by many on the right. According to Pew Research, Western European populist parties from both sides of the ideological spectrum tapped into anti-establishment sentiment in 2017, "from the Brexit referendum to national elections in Italy." Sarah Kendzior of QZ opines that "The term "anti-establishment" has lost all meaning," citing a campaign video from then candidate Donald Trump titled "Fighting the Establishment." The term anti-establishment has tended to refer to Right-wing populist movements, including nationalist movements and anti-lockdown protests, since Donald Trump and the global populist wave, starting as far back as 2015 and as recently as 2021.
These are the final days of the genuine Dharma taught by the Buddha. The Buddha’s teachings will continue to exist in their natural condition for just over a thousand more years.
I have talked about the good teachings
Of our most loving teacher and the Arhats.
Other people, learned authors of explanatory works,
Land Lords, translators,
And people accustomed to good sayings
Have already,
As if they were the sun,
Shone forth these teachings without error.
Few people talk about the Sage’s words these days.
When they do talk about them
It’s only because they want attention.
Most people hate the teachings.
Some people get into [the teachings],
But they prefer to denigrate them.
They turn against what they have studied.
They turn the teachings,
Which are better than gold,
Into antiques.
These people are tortured by emotional illness,
But they don’t use medicine.
Kye Ma’o, the pain is really frightening.
Kye Ma’o, what a waste.
We reach out to give medicine,
But we can’t do it all.
We have to keep trying
To reveal the purpose of this life
For what it is.
Presently,
The gardens in central [India] are growing heretics.
A lot of the teachings in this snowy mountain range
Are mere similitudes of the Dharma.
The evil doing kings in these frontiers
Are destroying the libraries.
Kyi Hud! They are destroying the teachings.
I’m starting to get serious, right now.
I say these things, but very few listen to me.
In an effort to cut through my exacerbating this
In my own mind
I have quit with talking
So that I can just do this.
It might not turn out to help everyone,
But I want to contemplate the good teachings for myself.
If a few people hear what I say it will help them.
These are the final days of the teachings.
This is what I am doing in them.
By the merit there is in composing this
Admission at the Dharma’s Gate
May living beings enter it!
May they reach the peaks of the tenth level!
The layman Sonam Tsemo, whose intellect is difficult to fathom, wrote this work: Admission at Dharma’s Gate. It is well written. It is finished.
WORDS OF THE SAKYA MASTERS
Translation from the Tibetan by Chris Wilkinson
Loppon Sonam Tsemo, second of the five founders of the Sakya Order was born in the Male Water Dog year (1142 in Sakya, Tibet, Died: 1182).
"He is said to have attained full Buddhahood."
An anti-establishment view or belief is one which stands in opposition to the conventional social, political, and economic principles of a society. The term was first used in the modern sense in 1958, by the British magazine New Statesman to refer to its political and social agenda. Antiestablishmentarianism (or anti-establishmentarianism) is an expression for such a political philosophy.
In the UK anti-establishment figures and groups are seen as those who argue or act against the ruling class. Having an established church, in England, a British monarchy, an aristocracy, and an unelected upper house in Parliament made up in part by hereditary nobles, the UK has a clearly definable[citation needed] Establishment against which anti-establishment figures can be contrasted. In particular, satirical humour is commonly used to undermine the deference shown by the majority of the population towards those who govern them. Examples of British anti-establishment satire include much of the humour of Peter Cook and Ben Elton; novels such as Rumpole of the Bailey; magazines such as Private Eye; and television programmes like Spitting Image, That Was The Week That Was, and The Prisoner (see also the satire boom of the 1960s). Anti-establishment themes also can be seen in the novels of writers such as Will Self.
However, by operating through the arts and media, the line between politics and culture is blurred, so that pigeonholing figures such as Banksy as either anti-establishment or counter-culture figures can be difficult. The tabloid newspapers such as The Sun, are less subtle, and commonly report on the sex-lives of the Royals simply because it sells newspapers, but in the process have been described as having anti-establishment views that have weakened traditional institutions. On the other hand, as time passes, anti-establishment figures sometimes end up becoming part of the Establishment, as Mick Jagger, the Rolling Stones frontman, became a Knight in 2003, or when The Who frontman Roger Daltrey was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 in recognition of both his music and his work for charity.
Anti-establishment in the United States began in the 1940s and continued through the 1950s.
Many World War II veterans, who had seen horrors and inhumanities, began to question every aspect of life, including its meaning. Urged to return to "normal lives" and plagued by post traumatic stress disorder (discussing it was "not manly"), in which many of them went on to found the outlaw motorcycle club Hells Angels. Some veterans, who founded the Beat Movement, were denigrated as Beatniks and accused of being "downbeat" on everything. Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote a Beat autobiography that cited his wartime service.
Citizens had also begun to question authority, especially after the Gary Powers U-2 Incident, wherein President Eisenhower repeatedly assured people the United States was not spying on Russia, then was caught in a blatant lie. This general dissatisfaction was popularized by Peggy Lee's laconic pop song "Is That All There Is?", but remained unspoken and unfocused. It was not until the Baby Boomers came along in huge numbers that protest became organized, who were named by the Beats as "little hipsters".
"Anti-establishment" became a buzzword of the tumultuous 1960s. Young people raised in comparative luxury saw many wrongs perpetuated by society and began to question "the Establishment". Contentious issues included the ongoing Vietnam War with no clear goal or end point, the constant military build-up and diversion of funds for the Cold War, perpetual widespread poverty being ignored, money-wasting boondoggles like pork barrel projects and the Space Race, festering race issues, a stultifying education system, repressive laws and harsh sentences for casual drug use, and a general malaise among the older generation. On the other side, "Middle America" often regarded questions as accusations, and saw the younger generation as spoiled, drugged-out, sex-crazed, unambitious slackers.
Anti-establishment debates were common because they touched on everyday aspects of life. Even innocent questions could escalate into angry diatribes. For example, "Why do we spend millions on a foreign war and a space program when our schools are falling apart?" would be answered with "We need to keep our military strong and ready to stop the Communists from taking over the world." As in any debate, there were valid and unsupported arguments on both sides. "Make love not war" invoked "America, love it or leave it."
As the 1960s simmered, the anti-Establishment adopted conventions in opposition to the Establishment. T-shirts and blue jeans became the uniform of the young because their parents wore collar shirts and slacks. Drug use, with its illegal panache, was favored over the legal consumption of alcohol. Promoting peace and love was the antidote to promulgating hatred and war. Living in genteel poverty was more "honest" than amassing a nest egg and a house in the suburbs. Rock 'n roll was played loudly over easy listening. Dodging the draft was passive resistance to traditional military service. Dancing was free-style, not learned in a ballroom. Over time, anti-establishment messages crept into popular culture: songs, fashion, movies, lifestyle choices, television.
The emphasis on freedom allowed previously hushed conversations about sex, politics, or religion to be openly discussed. A wave of radical liberation movements for minority groups came out of the 1960s, including second-wave feminism; Black Power, Red Power, and the Chicano Movement; and gay liberation. These movements differed from previous efforts to improve minority rights by their opposition to respectability politics and militant tone. Programs were put in place to deal with inequities: Equal Opportunity Employment, the Head Start Program, enforcement of the Civil Rights Act, busing, and others. But the widespread dissemination of new ideas also sparked a backlash and resurgence in conservative religions, new segregated private schools, anti-gay and anti-abortion legislation, and other reversals. Extremists[clarification needed] tended to be heard more because they made good copy for newspapers and television.[citation needed] In many ways, the angry debates of the 1960s led to modern right-wing talk radio and coalitions for "traditional family values".
As the 1960s passed, society had changed to the point that the definition of the Establishment had blurred, and the term "anti-establishment" seemed to fall out of use.
In recent years, with the rise of the populist right, the term anti-establishment has tended to refer to both left and right-wing movements expressing dissatisfaction with mainstream institutions. For those on the right, this can be fueled by feelings of alienation from major institutions such as the government, corporations, media, and education system, which are perceived as holding progressive social norms, an inversion of the meaning formerly associated with the term. This can be accounted for by a perceived cultural and institutional shift to the left by many on the right. According to Pew Research, Western European populist parties from both sides of the ideological spectrum tapped into anti-establishment sentiment in 2017, "from the Brexit referendum to national elections in Italy." Sarah Kendzior of QZ opines that "The term "anti-establishment" has lost all meaning," citing a campaign video from then candidate Donald Trump titled "Fighting the Establishment." The term anti-establishment has tended to refer to Right-wing populist movements, including nationalist movements and anti-lockdown protests, since Donald Trump and the global populist wave, starting as far back as 2015 and as recently as 2021.
In 2016, Trump ran on the platform of constructing a border wall and denigrating Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists and maybe some good guys. He stated Mexico would pay for the wall. Then ex-president of Mexico Vincente Fox stated, "Mexico won't pay for your fucking wall." Now the wall funding is forestalled and only 2 additional border guards were hired despite spending millions on ads. Some border protester spray painted the actual wall "Fuck Trump y su puto muro". Enter the age of Trump Disneyland, where ICE is throwing canisters of tear gas at families trying to make for a better life in the US.
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Art of the Real
Sitting beside the Henty Highway (the B200) through the Australian state of Victoria, and almost directly opposite the Rosebery silo art (painted by Kaff-eine) is a little white timber church.
No longer a place of worship, it is now the Mallee Sunsets Gallery Cafe.
I’ve heard they make the best coffees in Rosebery! Well, they ARE all there actually IS in Rosebery...in the 2016 census, Rosebery had a population of five! But let’s not denigrate a rave review!
The gallery has some lovely photographic artwork worth getting out of the heat to see, and right outside is an old Holden Gemini car, painted by the mural artist Kaff-eine.
Kaff-eine also painted a pair of Arabian horses on the side of an old butchery in Beulah, and some hidden street art out on abandoned buildings around the region.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today we are at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his wife Arabella. Lettice is visiting her family home for Christmas and the New Year. She motored down to Wiltshire with her old childhood chum, Gerald, also a member of the aristocracy who has tried to gain some independence from his family by designing gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street. The Christmas tree, cut from the grove of trees on the Glynes estate, adorned with its gold tinsel, satin bows and shiny glass baubles still stands amidst all the grand gilt Louis and Palladian style furnishings of the drawing room: a remnant of the family Christmas, the gaily decorated presents that sat beneath its boughs are but a joyful memory from Christmas Day now, and the tree will be taken down by Bramley, the Chetwynd’s faithful butler and several of the Glynes’ maids tomorrow for Twelfth Night*. Lettice’s sister, Lalage (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally), is also staying at Glynes with her own family, but has gone to visit locally living friends with her husband, Charles, and their three children. However, Lettice’s Aunt Eglantyne, the younger artistic spinster sister of the Viscount (known affectionately as Aunt Egg by all her nieces and nephews), remains at Glynes for the day along with Lettice. The Viscount and Lady Sadie, Leslie and Arabella, and Eglantyne are all gathered in the drawing room at the behest of Lettice, who has mysteriously announced that she has some important news to share, but will divulge nothing more.
“Where the devil is she then?” asks the Viscount irritably as he sits on an upright gilt salon chair embroidered with fine petit point by his mother, his arms folded akimbo across his chest. “The bloody cheek of her!”
“Language, Cosmo.” chides Lady Sadie from her seat across the fire from him, her usual place in the Glynes drawing room, where she quietly sits and embroiders some roses on a piece of linen stretched across her embroidery hoop.
“Well!” blusters the Viscount. “I think I have a right to be irked, Sadie. Lettice goes on about wanting to make some important announcement, telling us we all need to be present, being irritably mysterious about it,” He unfolds his arms and gesticulates before him. “And then she doesn’t even have the decency to show up at the time she asks us all to be here. Leslie and I need to be attending to the estate, not pandering to her and playing her silly games!”
“Pappa is right. It is rather selfish of Tice, Mamma.” Leslie adds in a slightly kinder, yet serious tone, uncharacteristically critical of his youngest sibling. “The estate doesn’t stop just because it’s New Year, and Pappa and I have business at Willow Wood Farm, and that’s on the far side of the estate.”
“If Lettice says it’s important, it’s important, Cosmo dear.” Eglantyne insists coolly from her seat on a sofa, toying distractedly with the long black glass bead sautoir** cascading down the front of her dramatic russet coloured Delphos gown***, her usual choice of frock, as she flips through Lady Sadie’s latest copy of Horse and Hound****. “She isn’t prone to over dramatisation.”
“No, but she does enjoy being the centre of attention.” mutters the Viscount.
“Wherever might she get that from?” Eglantyne asks rhetorically as she looks up at her brother from over the top of the magazine, watching him redden, bluster and shift uncomfortably in his seat under her astute observations, causing her to smile behind the pages of equestrian events held up in front of her.
Lady Sadie glances at the delicate Dresden china clock on the drawing room mantle. “I’m as put out as you Cosmo. Arabella and I have business in the village to attend to, don’t we Arabella dear?” When Arabella nods her ascent with a shallow nod, Lady Sadie goes on. “But it is only just after eleven. Let’s give Lettice a few more minutes.”
As the Viscount coughs and grumbles his reluctant agreement, folding his arms akimbo again across his golden yellow shepherd’s check***** vest, a loud rumbling from outside begins to break the tense atmosphere of the drawing room. “What the blazes…” the Viscount falters.
Lady Sadie puts aside her embroidery, rises from her seat and walks across the drawing room carpet to the full length windows that afford unobstructed views of the driveway. She discreetly moves the scrim curtain slightly and sighs heavily. “It’s Sir John in that ghastly, vulgar and showy car of his.”
“He’s come down in his Torpedo******?” Leslie pipes up, pulling himself out of his languid position by his wife’s side on the sofa, sitting upright in excitement. “I say! How ripping!”
“A racing car for a racy lifestyle.” opines the Viscount disparagingly in a quiet voice. “The old letch.”
Not hearing her husband’s denigrating comments about Sir John, Lady Sadie replies to her son’s remark. “Irritating is more like it. This really is too tiresome!” She sighs again. “What on earth can he want?”
“I thought you liked, Sir John, Sadie.” Arabella remarks, looking up from an old copy of The Tatler******* in her hands.
“Oh I don’t mind him, dear,” Lady Sadie responds with a huff, dropping the edge of the lace scrim curtain and turning back to face the room, whilst outside the front door Sir John energetically leaps elegantly from his Bugatti. “It’s just that being our neighbour… mmm… of sorts, and of influence in the district, whatever his business is, it will take precedence over Lettice’s news, however important she may think it, and that means we will be later in visiting the Miss Evanses.”
“Heaven forbid we should miss visiting the Miss Evanses.” Arabella remarks sarcastically, glad that she is facing away from her mother-in-law and into the room as she rolls her eyes upwards and smirks cheekily at Leslie, who smirks back as they share their mutual dislike of the two genteel gossipy spinster sisters who live in Holland House, a Seventeenth Century manor house, in Glynes village.
“Arabella!” Lady Sadie chides. “You know as well as I do that both the Miss Evanses have been sick with head colds since before Christmas.”
“That didn’t stop them trudging up here from the village with their beastly head colds to see the Christmas tree in the hall,” Leslie gripes. “Snuffling and coughing all over the place, and making a general nuisance of themselves with their simpering ‘only if it’s not too much trouble to get us a chair, give us an extra snifter or two of brandy, have Harris take us home’.” He rolls his eyes this time.
“Well, whatever they may or may not be, Leslie,” Lady Sadie counters. “The Evanses live in our village, and as lady of the manor, and your wife the future lady, Arabella and I have a duty to pay sick visits to them and see to their wellbeing. It’s just the same for you, as the presumptive heir, have a duty to visit the tenant farmers at Willow Wood Farm with your father.”
“I think Lettice should accompany us to the Miss Evanses, since she is putting us out like this.” Arabella says sulkily. “Perhaps three against two will make our sick visit a little more palatable. Even when they are sick, they can still whitter away nineteen to the dozen********. It’s exhausting.”
“Arabella!” Lady Sadie scolds. “That is most uncharitable.”
“But true.” smirks Leslie.
“Nothing will ever kill Geraldine or Henrietta Evans.” mutters the Viscount disgruntledly. “And at this rate, with infernal Sir John here as well, Leslie and I will never get to Willow Wood Farm.”
“Now, now!” Ladie Sadie replies as she walks back across the room. “Be polite. Stop slouching,” She flips her bejewelled hand in her husband’s general direction, causing him to sit up straightly in his seat. “And mind your manners, Cosmo.” She lowers herself elegantly into her seat and smooths down the tweed of her skirt over her knees as she prepares to receive Sir John with a painted smile on her face. “It’s not Sir John’s fault that you have better things to do than sit down and chat about county business with him.”
At that moment, the door to the Glynes drawing room opens and Bramley walks in.
“Err… Sir John Nettleford-Hughes, Milord.” the butler announces stiffly, but with a slight awkwardness as he speaks and steps aside to allow Sir John to enter.
Sir John strides in, oozing the confidence of male privilege that his sex, class and enormous wealth bestows with every step, wearing it every bit as well as the smart and well-cut Jermyn Street********* tweed suit he is dressed in. As he does so, Lettice follows closely in his wake, smiling a little shyly as she then steps alongside him and slips her left hand into his right. He turns his head ever so slightly to her and squeezes her hand in return in a most intimate fashion as his confident smile strengthens ever so slightly.
Arabella gasps as does Leslie, the married couple exchanging surprised glances at what they see. The pages of Horse and Hound in Eglantyne’s hands shiver with astonishment as she stares with her wide green eyes as her niece and Sir John approach them all.
“Sir John,” the Viscount says, rising to his feet. “How do you do. To what do I owe the..” The strangled gasp of surprise coming from his wife as she rises from her seat with trembling elegance distracts him momentarily. He turns away from his guest and sees Lady Sadie’s face drain of colour, as her blue eyes like cold aquamarine chips grow wide. He frowns at her, then quickly returns his attention to Sir John and concludes his sentence. “The unexpected pleasure?” It is then that he notices his youngest daughter as she slips alongside Sir John. “Oh good! There you are Lettice.” he says with false bonhomie. “Look who’s here!”
“Err.. Cosmo.” Lady Sadie manages to utter in a strangulated way as she steps from her seat to her husband’s side.
“How do you do, Lord Chetwynd,” Sir John turns his attention momentarily to the Viscount’s wife. “Lady Sadie.” He nods curtly. “It’s not really so unexpected a visit.” he continues, cutting off anything Lady Sadie might be about to say with his well elocuted syllables, his confident smile broadening a little more.
“Cosmo.” Lady Sadie tries to interject again.
“You see,” Sir John concludes. “I’ve come here at Lettice’s behest.”
For nearly a year Lettice had been patiently awaiting the return of her beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, after he was sent to Durban by his mother, Lady Zinnia in an effort to destroy his and Lettice’s relationship which she wanted to end so that she could marry Selwyn off to his cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers. Lettice was subsequently made aware by Lady Zinnia that during the course of the year, whilst Lettice had been biding her time, waiting for Selwyn’s eventual return, he had become engaged to the daughter of an Australian, Kenyan diamond mine owner, whilst in Durban. Fleeing Lady Zinnia’s Park Lane mansion, Lettice returned to Cavendish Mews and milled over her options over a week as she reeled from the news. Then, after that week, she knew exactly what to do to resolve the issues raised by Lady Zinnia’s unwelcome news about her son. Taking extra care in her dress, she took herself off to the neighbouring suburb of Belgravia and paid a call upon Sir John Nettleford-Hughes.
Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John is still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intends to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a aftermath of the Great War when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate belonging to her parents, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Selwyn rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. Lettice reacquainted herself with Sir John in the last year at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate, Gossington, a baronial Art and Crafts castle near the hamlet of Kershopefoot in Cumberland. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. She then ran into him again at the Portland Gallery’s autumn show in Bond Street, where she found him yet again to be a pleasant and attentive companion for much of the evening. As well as lavishing her with his attentions, Sir John made a proposition to her that night: he offered her his hand in marriage should she ever need it. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them. Turning up unannounced on his doorstep, she agreed to his proposal after explaining that the understanding between she and Selwyn was concluded. However, in an effort to be discreet, at Lettice’s insistence, they have not made their engagement public, allowing the dust about Selwyn’s break of his and Lettice’s engagement to settle, until now.
“At… Lettice’s behest?” the Viscount queries, cocking an eyebrow as he looks uncomprehendingly at his daughter. “What’s this about, Lettice? Enough with your silly games of intrigue! Leslie and I don’t have time for this, when we have estate business to attend to.”
“Err… Pappa.” Leslie ventures.
“Cosmo.” Lady Sadie tries again, reaching out and touching her husband’s arm, and indicating to her youngest daughter’s hand.
“You might think otherwise, Lord Chetwynd, when you hear what I’ve come here about.” remarks Sir John matter-of-factly.
“We’re engaged, Pappa!” Lettice blurts out, unable to contain herself any longer, her painted lips broadening into a bright smile as she shows her perfect white teeth. “Sir John and I!”
Lady Sadie, Leslie, Arabella and Eglantyne all draw their breath as one.
“What?” the Viscount’s face falls.
“Sir John and I are engaged, Pappa.” Lettice repeats.
“You… you and… Sir John?” the Viscount stammers, looking uncomprehendingly between his daughter and the older man.
“Lettice and I are announcing our engagement, Lord Chetwynd.” Sir John says, his confident smile strengthening as he tenderly raises Lettice’s left hand in his right one, the intimate movement sending a shock through Lady Sadie. He proudly proffers Lettice’s hand to the Viscount and Lady Sadie, where a beautiful and surprisingly dainty Victorian engagement ring sits on Lettice’s ring finger, a large square cut emerald********** surrounded by smaller diamonds set in platinum sparkling gaily in the light cast by the electrified chandelier above.
Leslie and Arabella gasp, rising quickly to their feet and scurrying across the drawing room carpet to inspect the ring. Never one to be rushed, Eglantyne slowly rises with poise and elegance, but says nothing, her lips pursed, and her face twisted into a look of disgusted intrigue, before slowly sauntering the few paces to join her nephew and his wife at Lettice and Sir John’s side.
“I wish you every happiness Tice***********!” Arabella cries with enthusiasm, throwing her arms around her sister-in-law, her exuberance breaking the stunned silence of the others.
“Yes, every happiness, Tice!” Leslie adds, following his wife’s response and hugging his sister. Yet as the felicitations fall from his lips, his voice betrays the concerns he has. As he holds her at arm’s length, his sparking pale blue eyes and slightly quavering smile are full of unspoken questions. Lettice smiles confidently in return and silently squeezes her eldest brother’s forearms as an indication that everything is alright, even if the news of her engagement is a shock to him. Leslie’s smile strengthens a little, his face taking on a slightly resigned look as he continues with a huff, “Good old Tice! After seeing all the fuss of our wedding, and how beautiful Bella looked, you just couldn’t resist, could you?”
Lettice releases the breath she had been holding, laughing anxiously as she does. “No, you’re quite right, Leslie! I had to be the next one in the family to get married! Heaven forbid one of Mamma’s cousins usurped me.”
“I say, congratulations old bean!************” Leslie says, turning his attention to Sir John and slapping his right upper arm with his left hand in a kind fashion and shaking his hand enthusiastically. “You’ve picked yourself a beautiful and intelligent bride.”
“Thanks ever so, old chap.” Sir John replies with a happy smile of gratitude towards his future brother-in-law.
“Yes, congratulations, Sir John.” Arabella says kindly. A little unsure as to whether to kiss him or not, she falters before him. “Tice inherited the looks and the brains in the Chetwynd family,” She turns to Leslie and smiles. “Unlike my husband.”
“Cheeky!” Leslie laughs as he looks at his pretty wife.
“Thank you, my dear Mrs. Chetwynd.” Sir John replies to Arabella, proffering his right cheek for her to kiss, assisting her in her indecision. “Now, if we are to be family, you really must address me as John.” His right cheek grazes Arabella’s left cheek.
“If we are to have you as our brother-in-law, you must call us Leslie and Bella.” Leslie pipes up.
“Yes… yes of course, Leslie and Bella.” Sir John chuckles distractedly in reply, accepting another congratulatory handshake from Leslie. Yet his eyes drift from Leslie’s gaze to his fiancée as she stands looking somewhat forlorn before her parents. Although her back is turned to him, Sir John can tell by her stance that Lettice is anxious. Her shoulders are stiffly upright, and her hands are clasped in front of her beseechingly.
“I wish you every happiness, Lettice my dear.” Lady Sadie remarks as she places her arms firmly on Lettice’s forearms and proffers her an air kiss of congratulations. “Although this is somewhat of a surprise, I must say.” she adds with an awkward laugh, releasing her daughter and staring across at Sir John.
“Engaged?” the Viscount asks in disbelief again.
“Please say you aren’t cross with me, Pappa.” Lettice addresses her crestfallen looking father with a mewling pout. “With us. I mean, I know we didn’t actually ask your permission, but we didn’t think you’d mind,” She prattles on. “And I am of age, after all.”
“Of course you are, Lettice my dear.” Lady Sadie replies on behalf of her husband, filling in the awkward silence between father and daughter. “I must say, you certainly took your time about it though.” She tuts. “Twenty-four, out in society and still on the shelf.” She smiles, but like Leslie there is concern in her blue eyes, causing her usual hard brilliance to mellow into a softer hue as worry fills them. “Still, you have chosen,’ she gulps. “Chosen well. Sir John is every bit of a catch as you are. It’s… it’s just come as something of a surprise, hasn’t it, Cosmo, my dear?”
“Please say you’re happy for me, Pappa!” Lettice implores.
“But when?” the Viscount manages to ask his daughter in a voice hoarse with emotion, looking at her with questioning eyes, seeing Lettice as a young woman for the first time, rather than a little girl. “How?”
“Oh, in the usual way, Lord Chetwynd.” Sir John says brightly, taking a few steps, leading him out of Leslie and Arabella’s orb of conversation and intruding into Lettice’s one with her parents. “I proposed, and she said yes.”
“Well, it kind of snuck up on us and surprised us, didn’t it, John darling.” Lettice says awkwardly, gulping and breathing heavily as she does.
“Yes!” Sir John chuckles a little awkwardly, thrusting his left hand deep into his trouser pocket as he rolls up and down slightly upon the balls of his feet. “Yes, I suppose it did.”
“So how did it happen,” Eglantyne asks as she steps up to her niece and fiancée, speaking for the first time. “Exactly?” There is an edge of hostility to her voice as she speaks, and as she glides elegantly up alongside her brother, she blows a cloud of acrid smoke from the Black Russian Sobranie************* she has lit and placed in her amber and gold holder, into Sir John’s face as she speaks. “It’s a story I should very much like to hear.”
“Aunt Egg!” Lettice exclaims, fanning her face with her hand to dissipate the heavy fug of smoke that envelops them.
“Really Eglantyne!” Lady Sadie snaps. “Must you smoke in here? You know how much I disapprove of men smoking indoors,” She looks askance at her sister-in-law with her hennaed red hair and bohemian dress drawing upon her cigarette. “Never mind women! It’s undignified!”
“Yes, I must, Sadie, even if it sticks in your craw. If my niece is announcing her surprise engagement, I think I must insist on smoking, short of being offered a very stiff drink by you to dull the surprise.” Eglantyne snaps back.
Lettice looks at her aunt with hurt eyes. “Aunt Egg!”
Ignoring Lettice, Eglantyne folds her arms akimbo and fixes Sir John with her appraising green eyes, smiling as she draws deeply on her cigarette through her holder. “Please, do go on, John. Regale us with the tale of your proposal.”
“Well, you were actually there, Eglantyne my dear,” Sir John replies with confidence, giving Lettice’s forearm a gentle comforting and protective squeeze, drawing her closer to him, determined not to be intimidated by Eglantyne, ignoring her evident hostility.
“I was?” Eglantyne asks in surprise, sending forth another plume of acrid greyish blue smoke.
“You were.” he assures her. “It was the night of the Portland Gallery’s autumn show.”
“Lettice?” Eglantyne queries, turning in surprise to Lettice. “Why did I not know about this?” she asks with a mixture of resentment and bitterness in her voice.
“Well, Lettice doesn’t have to tell you everything, Eglantyne.,” Sir John retorts. “Even if you are her favourite aunt.
“Well it didn’t quite happen that night, Aunt Egg” Lettice tries to explain in an apologetic tone. “It is true that John did propose to me that night, or rather he made me a proposition…” She pauses. “Of sorts.”
“A proposition?” Lady Sadie asks in concern, glancing first and Lettice and then more skeptically at Sir John. “What did you mean, child?”
“Well, I offered her my hand in marriage that night, should she ever need it.” Sir John replies.
“But that was…” Lady Sadie calculates the dates in her head. “But… didn’t you… you and Selwyn… still have an understanding then?” she manages to falter as she blushes, looking questioningly at her daughter.
“I did, Mamma.” Lettice replies.
“And that, my dear Eglantyne is why you wouldn’t have heard about my proposal that evening.” Sir John says cheerfully. “There was nothing to say on the matter. Lettice was still engaged to young Spencely at the time. I’d only asked Lettice to consider my proposal that evening, not accept it, and then, only in the event should circumstances with young Spencely ever change.”
“And how fortuitous for you that her circumstances changed, dear John.” Eglantyne remarks caustically.
“Aunt Egg!” Lettice looks askance at her aunt.
“Fortunate for us both, dear Eglantyne.” Sir John replies, pulling Lettice a little closer to him.
“I never took you for the marrying kind, John.” Eglantyne opines.
“Well,” Sir John bristles. “I didn’t take you as being a woman who put such faith in society gossip, Eglantyne.”
“Eglantyne!” Lady Sadie echoes Lettice’s admonishment.
“I was merely making an observation.” Eglantyne retorts, raising her bejewelled gnarled hands in defence, sending a trail of curling cigarette smoke into the air as she does. “I meant no offence.”
“Well, your opinions on the institution of marriage are well known, Eglantyne.” Lady Sadie quips, shaking her head slightly at her sister-in-law as she eyes her with an inscrutable look with hard eyes. “So let that be an end to it!”
“I shall say no more.” Eglantyne replies, withdrawing and standing next to Leslie.
“The main thing is, I proposed.” Sir John says defiantly.
“And I accepted, willingly.” Lettice says with a sudden steeliness in her voice. “And” She looks earnestly into her father’s face. “I hope you will give us your blessing, Pappa. Will you?”
Everyone in the drawing room suddenly looks at the Viscount as he stands in silence before his daughter. His look is indecipherable as he stares at her, his eyes sparkling with the unshed tears he holds back. His hands tremble almost imperceptibly at his side. The silence is palpable, and the longer it goes on, only broken by the gentle ticking on the clock on the mantle, the more awkward everyone becomes.
“Cosmo?” Lady Sadie asks uncertainly, gently reaching out and grasping his slumping shoulder.
“Pappa?” Lettice asks tentatively, her eyes filling with tears that threaten to spill at any moment.
He doesn’t reply at first, seemingly frozen in his stance as he gazes with a questioning look at his daughter. The unanswered question by his daughter finally reaches into the Viscount’s consciousness and breaks his silence. He coughs and stammers. “Well… well, your mother has said it already, but this news..” He pauses. “This welcome news..” he corrects. He lets out a shuddering breath as he speaks the two words. “Has come upon us rather suddenly. But you are of age, Lettice, so you do not need my permission. You may marry whomever you wish.”
“Indeed!” pipes up Lady Sadie. “You certainly took your time about it, Lettice. You aren’t getting any younger. You’re twenty-four now.”
“But will you give us your blessing, Pappa?” Lettice asks again, wrapping her left hand in Sir John’s right hand and squeezing it. When he squeezes it comfortingly in return Lady Sadie’s eyes to widen slightly and she shudders again at their obvious intimacy, which she is not used to.
“Are you happy with your choice, Lettice?” the Viscount asks.
Lettice doesn’t answer for a moment. Her mind is awash with a mixture of emotions: anger and resentment for Lady Zinnia, heartbreak and disappointment for Selwyn at his betrayal of her, gratefulness to Sir John for his proposal of marriage and his willingness to be truthful to her. “Of course I am, Pappa!” she finally answers with steeliness in her voice, chuckling as she finishes speaking. “We both are, aren’t we, John darling?” She turns to her fiancée.
“Indeed we are, Lettice.” he agrees, nodding his assent.
“Then we must open some champagne to celebrate!” the Viscount replies, blinking and smiling brightly at his daughter. “After all it isn’t every day that my youngest daughter announces her engagement, is it?” He opens his arms welcomingly to her.
“Oh Pappa!” Lettice exclaims with relief, releasing the pent-up breath she didn’t even realise that she was holding on to.
“Thank you!”
As Lettice falls into her father’s arms, burying her head into his shoulder she lets the tears of happiness and relief fall from her eyes as she closes them and inhales the familiar scent of her father, a mixture of musky eau de cologne and the scent of books. What she does not notice is the Viscount’s own tears and the trace of concern in his face and eyes as he pulls her close to him.
“Are you really sure, Lettice.” he whispers quietly in her ear.
“I am, Pappa.” she answers back in equally hushed tones, tightening her closed lids and smiling.
Releasing her from his embrace, the Viscount approaches Sir John. Sniffing he blusters, “Well, what is it they say, Sir John? I’m not losing a daughter, but gaining a son.” He reaches out his big hand and firmly shakes Sir John’s, slapping him firmly on the upper arm in a chummy way. “Isn’t that right?”
“Indeed it is, Lord Chetwynd,” Sir John says with a sigh of relief, not quite yet feeling comfortable or familiar enough to release the formality and call him, Cosmo.
“Congratulations!” the Viscount says with a half-smile, shaking Sir John’s hand.
“Yes, congratulations.” Lady Sadie echoes her husband, smiling politely at Sir John before allowing her gaze to dart back to her youngest child.
“Well!” the Viscount booms. “We must celebrate! Sadie! Ring for Bramley!” He claps his hands. “We must have champagne!”
A short while later Bramley and Moira the head parlourmaid arrive, as instructed, with two bottles of the finest champagne from the Viscount’s cellars in silver coolers and a tray of champagne flutes on a silver tray. They place them upon the ornate galleried gilded rococo table placed in the centre of the cluster of sofas and chairs.
“If I may wish you and Sir John my heartiest congratulations, My Lady.” the old retainer says to Lettice.
“Thank you, Bramley.” Lettice replies with a satisfied smile. “If you’d be good enough to share the news with all the staff below stairs, I’d appreciate it.”
“Certainly, My Lady.”
Amid the hubbub of slightly subdued chatter around the table, the Viscount pops the cork of one of the bottles and fills several of the glasses, draining the bottle before opening the second and filling the remaining flutes and passing the glasses around.
“A toast!” the Viscount announces, clearing his throat.
“Oh, it’s a shame that Lally and Charles aren’t here for this.” Blurts out Arabella.
“Well, we’ll just have to have another round when they get back from their visit to Bowood**************.” Leslie says. “Won’t we?”
“A toast!” the Viscount says again, raising his flute of sparking champagne and smiling at Lettice. “To the marriage of my lovely youngest daughter, Lettice and her fiancée, our friend and neighbour, Sir John. Nettleford-Hughes”
He, Lady Sadie, Leslie, Arabella and even Eglantyne, albeit a little begrudgingly, toast the newly engaged couple. “To Lettice and Sir John.” As the party sip their congratulatory champagne, Lady Sadie cannot help but shudder again as she watches Lettice’s and Sir John’s lips meet in a chaste kiss.
The company then break up into smaller groups and chatter animatedly as they sip their champagne. Sir John talks with Eglantyne on one of the sofas, their faces serious and their conversation animated. The Viscount and Leslie mill next to the drawing room’s impressive chinoiserie screen discussing the fact that it is now unlikely that they will get to Willow Wood Farm today. Lady Sadie wanders around, never quite settling, joining the fray of conversations, but then moving on, going from one armchair or sofa to another until she finishes her glass of champagne and quietly slips out of the drawing room. Arabella and Lettice put their heads together conspiratorially, giggling girlishly.
“Oh Tice!” Arabella sighs. “That is such a stunning engagement ring!”
“It was John’s mother’s ring.” Lettice answers. “His younger sister, Clemance has been keeping it safely aside for him.”
“I didn’t know Sir John had a sister, Tice.” Arabella admits.
“John, Bella my dear.” Lettice corrects her sister-in-law.
“Yes, of course: John!” Arabella replies, blushing as she does.
“John actually has quite a number of siblings, Bella, but I think Clemence is his favourite. She lived with her husband abroad for many years, in Paris mostly, but when he died last year, she returned to England, which is probably why you’ve never heard of her. She lives in London now, so when he announced our engagement, she gave him the ring, saying that she had kept it safely for him until he finally found the right young lady to give it to.”
“And that was you, Tice! You!” Arabella laughs.
“You are a hopeless romantic, Bella!” Lettice laughs, grateful to have at least one member of her family happy about her engagement. “Quite hopeless!”
“You know me, Tice!” Arabella giggles in response. “How delightful Sir… I mean, John’s sister sounds.”
“Oh, Clemance is lovely, Arabella. I’m sure you’ll like her when you meet her.”
“Just look at the way that emerald sparkles!” Arabella adds, lifting Lettice’s hand, causing the stones to wink and sparkle. “It’s magnificent.” she breathes with excitement. “It speaks of exotic climes and thrilling adventures.”
“Do you know, Bella, that emeralds are purported to be the revealer of truths?” Lettice asks her sister-in-law, speaking loudly enough for her father to hear. When Arabella shakes her head, Lettice goes on, “Emeralds reputedly could cut through all illusions and spells, including the truth or falsity of a lover's oath. Some believed it could also dampen lust. However, that is contrary to what they thought in ancient Greece and Rome, where emeralds were said to be the gemstone of the goddess Venus, purveyor of love and hope.”
“Who told you that, my clever girl?” the Viscount interrupts, drawing up alongside his daughter and daughter-in-law, his half empty glass of champagne in his hand.
“The language tutor you engaged to teach me French, Pappa.” Lettice laughs.
“What has the meaning of emeralds in ancient times to do with French?” the Viscount retorts in surprise, guffawing as he does.
“Nothing, but I did find that Monsieur Bertrand did have a secret passion for allegory as we took our lessons.”
“Not so secret, evidently, Tice.” giggles Arabella.
“Well, I hope he taught you about allegory in French, my dear.” the Viscount chortles.
“Bien sûr, Pappa!” Lettice laughs, the joyous sound making her father smile sadly.
“I’m so happy for you, Tice my dear!” Arabella enthuses again. “Sir John really is quite the catch.”
Father, daughter and daughter-in-law chuckle for a moment before the Viscount says, “My dear, I’m sorry to intrude on your conversation with Arabella, but I have a word with you?”
“Of course, Pappa.”
“In private.” he adds.
“Of course, Pappa.” Lettice says, nodding as she gives her sister-in-law an apologetic look.
“Please excuse us, Arabella my dear.” the Viscount apologises as he leads Lettice away from the cluster of his family gathered in clusters around the gilded galleried table, to a sofa further away where they can have a discussion without the fear of being eavesdropped upon. “Please.” He indicates for her to sit.
“This is all rather cloak and dagger, isn’t it Pappa?” Lettice titters as she does as she is bidden, and sinks down upon the soft gold satin upholstery with figured patterns upon it.
“This is no laughing matter, Lettice.” the Viscount acknowledges, his crumpled and wrinkled face looking dark. “Now this is serious, my dear. I want to talk to you.”
“Pappa!” Lettice’s face clouds as she sips her half empty flute of champagne. “You’re worrying me.”
“No need to be worried, my girl.” The Viscount takes a mouthful of champagne before continuing. “However, I do need to ask you something.”
“Yes,” Lettice replies, instantly taking a more dour stance. “What is it, Pappa?”
“Now, you know that I’m not one who is very good with expressing my emotions,” the Viscount blusters awkwardly. “But I hope that you do know I love you. Don’t you, my girl?”
“Oh Pappa!” Lettice scoffs, waving her hand, the emerald catching the Viscount’s eye as it and the surrounding diamonds winks and sparkle. “Of course I do!”
“And that I only want the very best for you.” He wags his index finger at her.
“Of course, Pappa.”
“Then please understand that what I’m about to ask and say, only comes from my love and concern for you and your happiness?”
“Goodness!” Lettice exclaims with a mixture of trepidation and frustration. “What on earth is this about Pappa?”
“Well,” the Viscount confesses. “I just want to make sure that you are quite certain.”
“Of marrying John?”
“Of marrying Sir John.” he agrees.
“Oh really Pappa!” Lettice mutters. “You must start calling him John, if we are to be engaged. You can’t very well call my husband Sir John all our married life.”
“Yes, quite. Err… John.” he coughs awkwardly. He pauses and takes another mouthful of champagne, swilling the fizzy liquid around in his mouth. Sighing he adds, “This is all very sudden, Lettice.”
“I knew you’d say that, Pappa, but it’s been long enough, and I’ve made up my mind,” Lettice replies defiantly. “No matter what you and Aunt Egg may think.”
“Now, now. Don’t be too hard on us, my girl. It’s just that this has all come as rather a shock to us. You mustn’t expect hearty congratulations when we had no idea this arrangement between the two of you was even a possibility.”
“Why do you call it an arrangement, Pappa?” Lettice asks hotly.
The Viscount doesn’t answer straight away. “No reason my girl. A poor choice of words on my part. An understanding then.” he concedes. “Anyway, you can hardly expect your aunt to be pleased no matter who you choose to marry. You know she’s a free spirit and doesn’t conform to society like the rest of us.” He looks across at Eglantyne as she talks with Sir John on the sofa. “I mean, Eglantyne wasn’t exactly thrilled when Leslie announced he was marrying Arabella,” He chuckles. “And we’d been voicing that possibility within her earshot for years before he finally asked her to marry him.”
“Well, she seemed a little happier about Leslie’s engagement than mine.” Lettice sulks. “She needn’t have been quite so openly hostile.”
“You’re her protégée, my girl, and you are my favourite daughter.” The Viscount chuckles again. “Just don’t tell Lally that by the way.” He wags a finger at Lettice. “We just want to be sure that you are happy, and that this isn’t something you are just rushing into. Give us both time. Eh?”
“Alright Pappa.” Lettice acquiesces.
“Good girl.” The Viscount smiles at his daughter before going on. “He’s a lot older than you, isn’t he? Sir John, I mean.” the Viscount continues. “He’s closer to my age than he is yours.”
“You’re concerned about the age difference between us?” Lettice asks.
The Viscount bites the inside of his bottom lip in concern. He’s felt for a long time now that Sir John was quite a lecherous man, paying undue attention to younger women at the social functions he and the Viscount attended in the district at the same time. Then there were the whiffs of scandal, implying that he may have gone off with one or two of them. There was even the rumour that he went home with a much younger partygoer at the 1922 Hunt Ball held at Glynes, purportedly because Lettice had spurned his attentions that evening, preferring those of Selwyn Spencely. All this whilst uncomfortable to think about, was at least at arm’s length when Sir John had his life, and the Viscount and his family had theirs, yet now the two have been catapulted together with the announcement of Lettice’s engagement to Sir John. These circumstances have brought the Viscount’s disparaging thoughts and the rumours about Sir John to the front of his mind. He stares at his daughter: a young lady yes, but still such an innocent as she looks at him with her defiant gaze. Does he share his concerns with her?
“Well, I…” he stammers. “Well it’s just that…”
“Pappa?”
“I just don’t want you feeling that you have to get married. I… I mean… I mean your mother and I want you to marry of course, and marry well.” he huffs. “And I know… John is a most eligible bachelor, but that doesn’t mean I want you to settle for Sir… err John, just because…”
“Settle?” Lettice interrupts.
“I want to make sure that that there is no undue influence, I mean. You know,” He gesticulates in the space between them. “Upon your decision, I mean, to marry him.”
“Undue influence?” Lettice looks at her father in surprise. “What on earth does that mean?”
“Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear!” The Viscount sighs heavily as he rubs his big hand over his wrinkled and weathered face. “This isn’t coming out quite the way I wanted it, my girl.” He pauses and tries again. “You know words are not my strongest suit. Look, let me speak plainly.”
“I wish you would, Pappa.”
“I know back in twenty-two, your mother saw Sir John as a good match, and I know that you had your reservations about him being… well, being too old and stuffy. Of course you were attracted to young Spencely with all his charms.”
“What on earth has this to do with undue influence, Pappa?” Lettice asks. “This makes no sense.”
The Viscount lowers his voice. “I just want to make sure that you haven’t changed your mind about Sir John, because of something,” He turns and glances over his shoulder, unable to see his wife, who still hasn’t returned since he saw her deposit her empty champagne flute on the silver tray before quietly leaving the room with her head bowed in concern. He turns back to Lettice. “Something your mother might have said, or suggested, after young Spencely ended your engagement so suddenly.”
“Well, Mamma has hardly hidden her displeasure at my current status of remaining unmarried, Pappa at twenty-four. When I announced the understanding between Selwyn and I, it was obviously a relief to her.”
“I know your mother has put a great deal of emphasis on you being out in society for a while now, and anxious about you being stuck on the shelf. But I…”
“Pappa, please stop.” Lettice sets her now empty champagne glass aside and holds up her hands. “I can assure you that there was no undue pressure or influence from Mamma, or you in my decision.”
“No! No of course not.” he stammers in reply. Sighing he continues, “Well, that’s a relief. And.. and John?”
“Well, aside from him making his proposal at the Portland Gallery, which would weigh heavily on any girl’s conscience, there has been no pressure from him to decide.”
“It does seem a little bit odd, don’t you think?” the Viscount shakes his head as he screws up his face in distaste.
“Odd, Pappa?”
“Yes. It seems a rather rum business*************** what with him making the proposition to you as he did at the gallery, and then shortly after, Lady Zinnia announcing that Selwyn is marrying that horrible Antipodean**************** heiress in Durban.”
“Kitty Avendale” Lettice sighs heavily.
“Is that her name?”
“Yes.” Lettice answers laconically, focussing her attention on her toe of her shoe as she uses it to rub the pile of the Oriental carpet beneath it distractedly.
“Ghastly name, for a ghastly girl. “Treacherous trollop!”
Lettice allows herself a sad chuckle before going on. “Well,” she sighs. “I shan’t disagree with you about her name Pappa, but no, I don’t believe that John and Lady Zinnia are in any way conspiring. When John offered his proposal of sorts, he knew perfectly well that Selwyn and I were planning to get married upon his return from Durban.”
“Are you quite sure about that?”
“What are you implying, Pappa?”
“Nothing, my girl. I just want to make sure that you’re sure, and that… that this isn’t a result of some arrangement between Zinnia and John. She never wanted you to marry young Spencely, and wanted to end your romantic involvement with him, no matter what the cost, and Sir… err John and his proposal seems the perfect solution, if she knew that John was interested in you.”
The Viscount’s words hang between father and daughter.
“No, Pappa.” Lettice says resolutely. “John is not contriving with Lady Zinnia. He even encouraged me to hold onto hope that Selwyn was coming back to me. He said that I should only consider his offer if circumstances between Selwyn and I changed,” She sighs heavily. “And that is exactly what has happened, Pappa. Circumstances have changed, and none of them have to do with any scheming from John or Lady Zinnia. I’m quite sure of it. John was quite content to remain unmarried.”
“That’s what I mean, my dear girl!” His eyes light up. “Pardon me for saying this, but it seems so incredibly at odds with his behaviour to date.”
“But why should John wish to enter into a marriage he doesn’t want for Lady Zinnia’s ends, Pappa? It makes no sense that he would do that.”
“I concede, I can’t answer that.”
“Has it ever occurred to you, Pappa, that I might be the one who stirred his heart?”
“Well, of course it has, my dear!” he assures her hurriedly. “I think there are a great many men whose hearts you could stir”
“You’re so kind Pappa.” Lettice lowers her gaze. “I promise you that John says that he admires me for far more than my beauty, and her certainly isn’t a fortune hunter.”
“I’m quite aware of the latter, my dear. He is richer than Croesus*****************.”
“He admires me for my mind, my wit, and my business acumen. As he says, he’s a businessman at heart, so he wants to marry someone with a similar mind. We’ve already discussed the difference in age between us, and what that means for both of us. You also may be surprised, and hopefully pleased, to hear that he has no wish to stop me from continuing my endeavours in my interior design business.”
The Viscount’s face shows his pleased amazement. “I must confess that does surprise me.”
“That’s what I mean by John being a businessman at heart, Pappa. He has remarked, on a number of occasions, that the last kind of woman he wishes to attach himself to is one who is bord and bone idle.”
“I see.”
“Or one who becomes jealous if he has to go away on business trips. He admires industry and fruitfulness. His offer is a very generous one. I am able to enjoy being Lady Nettleford-Hughes and all the status and wealth that accompanies the title. I shall be chatelaine of his properties and enjoy them. He will even allow me to hang what he calls my ‘daubs’ on the walls of his houses if it so pleases me.”
The Viscount chuckles at Sir John’s adroit term for the style of modern paintings Lettice has a preference for.
“And all the while I will still have my own business to run: a business he not only supports, but encourages.” Lettice goes on.
“And you’re quite sure that the understanding between you and Selwyn is ended, my girl?” the Viscount asks seriously, lowering his head. “I mean, quite sure?”
“I am Pappa.” Lettice replies adamantly. “He’s engaged. That feels like a very definite action in order for him to end things with me. If he’d really wanted to marry me, now the year of separation imposed upon us by Lady Zinnia is at an end, he could have communicated it with me. They do have a telephone exchange in Durban, even if he was delayed in sailing back to me. But I’ve heard nothing from him at all. His silence speaks volumes.”
“I see.” the Viscount lowers his eyes momentarily. “No chance then?”
“Pappa!” Lettice gasps with exasperation. “How many times must I tell you before you believe me? Yes, I’m quite sure it is done with Selwyn and there is no chance for us. I saw the proof for myself: a whole cache of newspaper articles and clippings showing Selwyn and Miss Avendale smiling together with headlines emblazoned beneath them touting their engagement. What more proof do I need?” She holds up a hand. “And before you say it, Pappa, I will not suffer the indignity of hearing it directly from him. I would die of shame and embarrassment.”
“No of course not, Lettice.” He pauses for a moment and then adds. “But these wretched newspaper men often mistake their facts in an effort to get their stories out quickly. And,” he continues. “Such things as newspapers can be forged you know, especially for a woman as wealthy and influential as Zinnia is.”
“I know Pappa, and in my heart of hearts, I did consider it.”
“And I wouldn’t put anything past that scheming Zinnia. She’s a horrible, ghastly and despicable woman with eyes only for intrigues and forwarding her own interests!”
“You are kind to defend me Pappa, and I don’t disagree with your frank observations of her, which I adore. Lady Zinnia is no friend to me. Please forgive me for saying this Pappa, and for being so frank, but,” She smiles sadly. “It does sound rather like you are a drowning man clutching at straws.”
The Viscount looks his daughter earnestly in the face. “When did you grow up to be such a wise young lady, Lettice? You know me so well, my dear.” The Viscount chuckles sadly. “It is true that both your mother and I had high hopes for the match with young Spencely. He… well, he seemed like such a good match for you. It seemed perfect. He’s handsome. You are similar in age. He comes from an excellent family, Lady Zinnia and her intrigues notwithstanding. Even the fact that he designed houses made the whole thing seem preordained. He could have designed the houses and you could have decorated them.”
“I agree, Pappa.” The pain of Selwyn’s betrayal bursts within her like a blossom blooming, filling her heart with pain, and her eyes well with tears she is determined not to shed. She gulps before continuing. “Selwyn seemed to be the perfect match, but evidently it wasn’t, if he has decided to marry Miss Avendale.”
“I didn’t expect of him what has transpired. He seemed like a very decent fellow with a good character.”
“I don’t disagree with you, Pappa. As you know, I’m as surprised and upset by it as anyone, as I think as the jilted party, I have the right to be.”
“Oh of course you do, my dear! Of course!”
“And Gerald, who of course knows him from the club they both share, said the same thing as you. I cannot explain it, other than he fell in love with Miss Avendale.” She lets out a remorseful sigh. “For a little while after I received the news of Selwyn’s engagement from Lady Zinnia, I must confess that I held out a candle for Selwyn. I hoped that he would contact me and tell me that it was all some mistake, or a fabrication of some kind by his mother,” She looks seriously up at her father. ‘But he didn’t, did he?”
“Well, then I suppose there is very little left to be said on the matter, is there?” the Viscount says resignedly.
“Don’t be so downhearted, Pappa. Be happy for me. Be happy for both of us. John is a good man. Yes, he’s older that Selwyn, and no, he’s not perfect, but he’s good, and most importantly he isn’t lying to me, Pappa.” It is her turn to look her father squarely in the face. “I won’t be dissuaded from this marriage, Pappa. I intend to marry him.”
“As long as you are sure, my girl.”
“I am.” Lettice replies resolutely. “Quite sure, Pappa.”
“And he makes you happy, Lettice? You know that your happiness in paramount to me, whatever your mother may feel about titles and social standing.”
“He does Pappa.”
“Well then, I guess there is little more to say on that matter, either.”
“Where is Mamma, by the way?” Lettice looks over her shoulder where Eglantyne and Sir John are still engaged in their conversation, whilst Leslie and Arabella share a confidence together, standing by the galleried table, heads down and giggling together.
“I saw her leave a little while ago.” the Viscount states. “Is she not back?” He looks and still can’t see her. “Perhaps she went to shed her tears of joy at your engagement in private. You know how your mother feels about showing too much emotion…” He pauses and then adds, “In public anyway. I shall go and find her, and then, Lettice my dear, we will open another bottle of champagne. After all, it isn’t every day that my youngest daughter announces her engagement.”
“Then you are happy for me, Pappa?” Lettice asks hopefully.
“Your happiness is all that matters, my dear. So, if you are happy, I will be happy for you. Although it will take a little while for me to get used to having a son-in-law who is the same age as me, you have my blessing.”
“Oh Pappa!” Lettice leaps out of her seat and embraces her father gratefully. “Thank you!”
The Viscount lingers for a while, enjoying the moment of intimacy with his favourite child before he releases her, and holds her at arm’s length, smiling at her. “I’ll be back with your mother shortly.” he says, excusing himself.
*Dating back to the fourth century, many Christians have observed the Twelfth Night — the evening before the Epiphany — as the ideal time to take down the Christmas tree and festive decorations. Traditionally, the Twelfth Night marks the end of the Christmas season, but there's reportedly some debate among Christian groups about which date is correct. By custom, the Twelfth Night falls on either January 5 or January 6, depending on whether you count Christmas Day as the first day. The Epiphany, also known as Three Kings' Day, commemorates the visit of the three wise men to baby Jesus in Bethlehem.
**A sautoir is a French term for a long necklace that suspends a tassel or other ornament.
***The Delphos gown is a finely pleated silk dress first created in about 1907 by French designer Henriette Negrin and her husband, Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo. They produced the gowns until about 1950. It was inspired by, and named after, a classical Greek statue, the Charioteer of Delphi. It was championed by more artistic women who did not wish to conform to society’s constraints and wear a tightly fitting corset.
****Horse and Hound is the oldest equestrian weekly magazine of the United Kingdom. Its first edition was published in 1884. The magazine contains horse industry news, reports from equestrian events, veterinary advice about caring for horses, and horses for sale.
*****Shepherd’s check is a popular pattern for a rather sturdy tweed, commonly worn in the country. Coming in various colours and pattern styles, the small check version in black and white is commonly known as Pepita check in Germanic countries.
******Introduced in 1922, the Type 30 was the first production Bugatti to feature an Inline-8. Nicknamed the “Torpedo” because of its similar look to the wartime munition, at the time Bugatti opted to move to a small two-litre engine to make the car more saleable, lighter and cheap. The engine capacity also made the Type 30 eligible for Grand Prix racing, which was a new direction for the marque. Despite the modest engine capacity, the power output was still remarkable thanks to the triple-valve arrangement. Also benefiting the Type 30 was good road handling, braking and steering which was common throughout the marque. The Type 30 was also the first Bugatti to have front brakes.
*******Tatler was introduced on the 3rd of July 1901, by Clement Shorter, publisher of The Sphere. It was named after the original literary and society journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709. Originally sold occasionally as The Tatler and for some time a weekly publication, it had a subtitle varying on "an illustrated journal of society and the drama". It contained news and pictures of high society balls, charity events, race meetings, shooting parties, fashion and gossip, with cartoons by "The Tout" and H. M. Bateman.
********We are all familiar with the phrase “ten to the dozen’” which means someone who talks fast. However, the original expression is actually “nineteen to the dozen”. Why nineteen, you ask? Many sources say we simply don’t know, but there are other sources that claim it goes back to the Cornish tin and copper mines, which regularly flooded. With advancements in steam technology, the hand pumps they used to pump out this water were replaced by beam engines that could pump 19,000 gallons of water out for every twelve bushels of coal burned (much more efficient than the hand pumps!)
*********Jermyn Street is a one-way street in the St James's area of the City of Westminster in London. It is to the south of, parallel, and adjacent to Piccadilly. Jermyn Street is known as a street for high end gentlemen's clothing retailers and bespoke tailors in the West End.
**********The first diamond engagement ring can be traced back to 1477 when Archduke Maximillian of Austria proposed to Mary Burgundy. This exchange began a tradition that caught on in elite societies. However, engagement rings didn’t become popular among the masses until the mid-1900s. In 1947, British-owned diamond company, De Beers, premiered a new advertising campaign. This campaign featured the slogan, “A diamond is forever,” and helped diamond engagement rings to soar in popularity. Within three years of the launch of this campaign, diamond engagement ring sales increased by fifty percent and the numbers continued to skyrocket. In fact, in 1939, only about ten percent of engagement rings included diamonds. Thus, Lettice’s Victorian engagement ring, taken from Sir John’s mother’s collection of jewellery featuring an emerald as the predominant stone, would not have been unusual.
**********In more socially conscious times it was traditional to wish the bride-to-be happiness, rather than saying congratulations as we do today. Saying congratulations to a bride in past times would have implied that she had won something – her groom. The groom on the other hand was to be congratulated for getting the lady to accept his marriage proposal.
************Gaining popularity by the younger upper-class set between the wars, “old bean” was a phrase used as a friendly reference to a man. It arose in the trenches of the Great War, used by the Tommies, but was always tinged with upper-class stuffiness, which is possibly why it caught on more with the upper-classes of society.
*************The Balkan Sobranie tobacco business was established in London in 1879 by Albert Weinberg (born in Romania in 1849), whose naturalisation papers dated 1886 confirm his nationality and show that he had emigrated to England in the 1870s at a time when hand-made cigarettes in the eastern European and Russian tradition were becoming fashionable in Europe. Sobranie is one of the oldest cigarette brands in the world. Throughout its existence, Sobranie was marketed as the definition of luxury in the tobacco industry, being adopted as the official provider of many European royal houses and elites around the world including the Imperial Court of Russia and the royal courts of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Spain, Romania, and Greece. Premium brands include the multi-coloured Sobranie Cocktail and the black and gold Sobranie Black Russian.
**************Bowood is a Grade I listed Georgian country house in Wiltshire, that has been owned for more than two hundred and fifty years by the Fitzmaurice family. The house, with interiors by Robert Adam, stands on extensive grounds which include a garden designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown. It is adjacent to the village of Derry Hill, halfway between Calne and Chippenham. The greater part of the house was demolished in 1956.
***************Rum is a British slang word that means odd (in a negative way) or disreputable.
**************** Antipodean is a term relating to Australia or New Zealand (used by inhabitants of the northern hemisphere).
*****************The idiom “richer than Croesus” means very wealthy. This term alludes to Croesus, the legendary King of Lydia and supposedly the richest man on earth. The simile was first recorded in English in 1577.
This grand Georgian interior may appear like something out of a historical stately country house, but it is in fact part of my 1:12 miniatures collection and includes items I have collected as an adult, as well as one that was especially made for me.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The gilt Louis Quatorze chairs and sofa, the gilded Rococo chinoiserie central table and the gilt swan round tables and matching pedestal are made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.
The gilt high backed salon chair in the foreground to the left is also made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq, but what is particularly special about it is that it has been covered in antique Austrian floral micro petite point by V.H. Miniatures in the United Kingdom, which makes this a one-of-a-kind piece. The artisan who made this says that as one of her hobbies, she enjoys visiting old National Trust Houses in the hope of getting some inspiration to help her create new and exciting miniatures. She saw some beautiful petit point chairs a few years ago in one of the big houses in Derbyshire and then found exquisitely detailed petit point that was fine enough for 1:12 scale projects. She also made the footstool you see in the right foreground. In addition, she also painted the Bespaq chest of drawers you can see in the background to the far right of the photo. She has painted an idyllic English school Eighteenth Century picnicking scene on its front, making it a very special one of a kind.
The beautiful gold and bronze decorated black chinoiserie screen in the background is a very special 1:12 miniature screen created especially for me, and there is no other like it anywhere else in the world. It was handmade and decorated over a twelve month period for me as a Christmas gift two years ago by miniature artisan Tim Sidford as a thanks for the handmade Christmas baubles I make him every year. Tim’s miniature works are truly amazing! You can see some of his handmade decorated interiors using upcycled Playmobil, found objects and 1:12 miniatures here: www.flickr.com/photos/timsidford/albums/72157624010136051/
The elegant ornaments that decorate the surfaces of the Chetwynd’s palatial drawing room very much reflect the Eighteenth Century spirit of the room.
On the pedestal to the left of the screen stands a blue and white hand painted vase which I acquired from Kathleen Knights Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom. Standing on the hand painted set of drawers to the right of the photo stand are two miniature diecast lead Meissen figurines: the Lady with the Canary and the Gentleman with the Butterfly, made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces, The pair have been hand painted and gilded by me. Also on the chest of drawers stand two large lidded urns and a pedestal bowl. These three pieces were made by M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany, who specialise in making high quality porcelain miniatures. All the pieces in the cabinet in the background are also made by M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik.
The silver champagne bucket, wine cooler and tray on the central chinoiserie tea table, have been made with great attenti
Wohnteil eines Einfirsthofs, heute Wohnhaus, zweigeschossiger, giebelständiger Fachwerkbau mit Ziermotiven, Dachstuhl erneuert, wohl um 1690. Denkmal.
Der oft als einfacher "Consumer-Film" geschmähte Kodak UltraMax 400 ist ein wunderbarer Farbzeichner und nimm so schnell keine Fehlbeleuchtung übel.
Residential part of a first courtyard, today residential building, two-storey, gable-independent half-timbered building with ornamental motifs, roof structure renewed, probably around 1690. Monument.
The Kodak UltraMax 400, often denigrated as a simple "consumer film", is a wonderful color drawer and does not resent incorrect lighting so quickly.
Olympus 35 RC - Kodak Ultra Max 400
from ift.tt/2kjK3Zb
Having grown up in Alabama, I understand that bigots will go to extraordinary lengths to justify their rage and their hate. When I have supported groups like Black Lives Matter, I have been accused of only having sex with black men. When I supported marriage equality, I was labeled a lesbian. So I guess that it makes sense that my support of rights for transgender/non-binary people means that, drumroll please, I am a man.
No, you didn’t read that wrong. In the middle of the night last night, a stranger accused me of having male privilege. I cackled as I read it. Who knew that I’m a dude?! I would have expected my parents or my gynecologists over the years to have told me if I was a dude. I’m especially disappointed that the gynecologist who performed the hysteroscopy/uterine biopsy and D&C didn’t say, “Uh. This procedure can’t be performed on you.”
My family and doctors didn’t call me a dude because…
I’m not one.
Whether you subscribe to trans-exclusionary feminism’s1 reductive view of gender as being based on body parts or the inclusive view I subscribe to that admits gender & sex are not one in the same, this conclusion that I have male privilege makes no sense. I don’t have the body parts of a dude. I don’t feel I am a dude. Therefore:
A dude I am not.
In case you can’t speak Yoda, let’s try the standard English:
I’m not a dude/man/guy/boy/male.
I doubt I can put it any more clearly than that, but I’m sure that that won’t satisfy some of these individuals.
Calling me a guy because I disagree with what you feel a woman should believe is as hysterical as it is sad. But it’s not the first time that a TERF has gone this route. I would bet that if any woman spends any length of time debating them or disagreeing with them that TERFs would start questioning their biological sex. Or if they don’t question the sex of the person, they start saying that she is somehow incapable of thinking for herself and that men must have brainwashed her. The internalized misogyny is strong with TERFs.
How are they “liberating” women2 by denigrating women that don’t agree with them and suggesting that they are somehow unable to use their cognitive processes to come to their own opinions? It’s almost like their own version of a savior complex. They feel the need to “rescue” the poor little women who disagree with them from making informed decisions about their own lives and making conclusions about the things that they believe based on their own experiences. That’s not liberation. That’s oppression.
You can’t replace one form of oppressive system with another.
That just doesn’t work.
Or, more correctly, it doesn’t actually liberate anyone.
Also, misrepresenting what people say so that you can perpetuate hatred and encourage a pile-on is not the action of those intent on liberating. The original angst fest by this “liberation” force began after I defended a male friend on Twitter after a female follower of mine said something about him being harmful because he uses the term TERF to describe people who are, well, TERFs. This was the tweet that was being responded to:
It’s becoming blatantly obvious where the adage “separate the artist from the art” came from, and we probably should stop using it.
— Soyter Krampus (@petercoffin) November 5, 2017
I cannot share the text of the tweet that I responded to as the user was reported3 to Twitter several tweets later for threatening to dox multiple individuals. But it is the threat to dox that alarmed me so much about this particular group of TERFs. I tried pointing out what was going on to Helen, which led to the response4 by Juniper that I have male privilege. Helen and other TERFs had insisted that their ilk couldn’t be behind the doxing threats or the ableism, racism, and other vitriol that I had seen while conversing with them. When Juniper came along, she decided that my outrage was due to my either having a penis or a feeling that I should have one. I’m really not sure how a person who has never been a man and who never wanted to be a man somehow has male privilege, so I asked.
I think one of the reasons is because you stated that you would fight to get a man who posts picture after picture of his come covered cock into safe spaces for women and girls because he says the magic words ‘I am a woman’.
— helen staniland (@helenstaniland) December 2, 2017
The tweets that Helen was referencing were from a different Twitter user who had offended her sensibilities by posting, on her own timeline, nude pictures and video. Helen encouraged a mob of individuals to report Meisha, even though Meisha’s posts do not violate the Twitter rules. She had already given me a hard time for pointing out to another individual that reporting Meisha would only lead to that person being punished by Twitter.
No. women don’t post pictures of their come covered flaccid cock. What mental gymnastics do you have to go through to tell yourself he’s a woman? Would you fight for him to be in spaces with women and girls?
— helen staniland (@helenstaniland) December 1, 2017
When Helen had discovered the tweet she dislikes so, she had made sure that all of her followers could join in on her hate. Anyone who didn’t had to be shamed. I just didn’t want to play that game with her, so she went full-on with the faux outrage against me and even challenged my gender and biological sex because I supported a person who she didn’t like & who she was simply using to gain prominence amongst her TERFy peers.5 I was familiar with her technique because of the past disagreements with her,6 so I told her to leave me alone. Repeatedly. She thought that that was an invitation to harass me.7
I haven’t heard from her in almost 24 hours, which should bring me some level of happiness and relief, right?
Her posse has continued in her stead. And they have encouraged some more bizarre conspiracy theories about my not ditching Meisha for the tweet they didn’t approve of. Or for ditching her for sending a tweet featuring a heart emoji to me.
@janersm thanks for the follow, and all of your support today!! It really means the world to me!! You’re a wonderful person!!
— Meisha Dixon (@Meisha_TS) December 1, 2017
You’re welcome. I’m sorry that those people were giving you such a hard time. You didn’t deserve any of their hate.
— Janet Morris (@janersm) December 1, 2017
Helen thought I was the one going down a rabbit hole8 here? Oh, that’s cute. My behavior is apparently an encouragement to cannibals. Not literal cannibals, the metaphorical type. She and her friends think that my being okay with a heart emoji from a transwoman means that I’m going to end up getting raped by frat boys and football stars.
Not only do I not think that Meisha is a man,9 I don’t think Meisha has any intention to rape me. Even if she was in the same town as me, I wouldn’t think that Meisha was going to rape me.
And I seriously do not think that receiving a tweet with 3 emojis is some kind of sign that I’m going to end up being raped by anyone. Are there rapists out there that have a signature of sending tweets with heart emojis to their future victims? I’m pretty sure there aren’t, but I haven’t seen a lot of Investigation Discovery lately, so I could be a bit behind on the MOs of recent or historical sexual predators.
I could be wrong.10
…
…
…
…
…
But I’m not.
I already knew I couldn’t take Witchy very seriously.
Back in November, when she and Lise were discussing my genitalia and gender identity, I made the “mistake” of disagreeing with her. That kept her up all night, which she then blamed on me and she told me that the only reason that I have been diagnosed with multiple illnesses is that I am a “snowflake” and I broke my issues down into an awful thing: symptoms. I thought that anyone who went to a doctor did that. I almost wondered if I was doing the whole getting-treated-for-being-sick thing wrong. After a while, I realized that she was just a very unusual person.
I have the disease with the lowest quality of life of any tested. I have terrible insomnia but if I don't get enough sleep EVERY day, I get an infection. Thanks for upsetting me&keeping me up, oh, Janet the Empath
— Witchy Womyn (@Harpbe_Nimble) November 9, 2017
BULLSHIT!! Every person I've ever met could be diagnosed with something!! Every person!! If you MAKE LAWS that violate my boundaries, DO NOT expect me to tiptoe around yours. You're not more important than me, or anyone else. t.co/HHD1E1S5Tb
— Witchy Womyn (@Harpbe_Nimble) November 9, 2017
Trans activists NEVER answer the simplest questions. They either disappear or they talk about feelings–but only their own&trans feelings matter–NOT the feelings of actually marginalized people. Fuck your feelings til you consider the rights of others. Welcome to adulting. t.co/8sTZD5u2yQ
— Witchy Womyn (@Harpbe_Nimble) November 9, 2017
Women&girls are screaming out "we are in danger" and the rest are dead already. You choose to plug your ears. I followed yrs ago bc I was looking for *actual* disabled ppl & I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE 100% bad til now.
— Witchy Womyn (@Harpbe_Nimble) November 9, 2017
(Maybe Katy Perry and I should be friends, since I’m apparently the kind of person who would be a straight-up enemy.)1112
I would have all those too if I were tested & if I were raised to be into having diagnosis. I only mention the ONE which debilitates me. I don't break it down into SYMPTOMS & name them all like you snowflakes t.co/G2AXajpjKl
— Witchy Womyn (@Harpbe_Nimble) November 10, 2017
As for the other folks? Well, I hate to generalize anyone, but if they’re all feeding into this sort of hysterical thinking, then I’m not going to take any of them seriously. I know that there are dudes out there who rape women. I know there are ones who play the role of nice guy to lure them in, but I am not so afraid of reality that I make up narratives in my head that any person who has a penis or who had one is going to rape me or is going to take advantage of me. If I let myself live in that kind of state, I would never be able to deal with my life. Being cautious is one thing, but being so terrified that you can’t even handle an emoji is just beyond reason.
As a woman and as a human being,13 I know that there’s a possibility that I could be a victim of sexual violence, but I’m not going to suspect random members of a marginalized group of being the potential perpetrator. That is ridiculous and it is bigoted. It’s not just the belief of someone who is a “meanie”, it’s the belief of someone who is so filled with hate and intolerance that they choose to lash out and punish people who they don’t know for something they haven’t even done. Maybe it’s because I’ve grown up in Alabama or because I’ve grown up with parents who have taught me right from wrong and to show love not hate to other people and other groups or because I’m not a shit-person. Who knows?! But I know that if not harboring this vitriol is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.14
P.S. I’m still a chick.
P.P.S. Debating someone’s genitalia, gender identity, or suggesting that they are living in the predatory fantasies of a hallucinogenic author for supporting the rights of transgender individuals is fucking wrong, assholes.15
TERFs ↩
TERFs don’t like the idea of feminism being about bringing about equality between men and women. It’s about liberating women. ↩
by me ↩
almost a month later ↩
Gross. ↩
It took days for us to eventually realize we would never agree and I thought that she would never contact me again, but she later went looking through the threads to find tweets she hadn’t responded to to harass me. ↩
Gross. ↩
I almost wish someone would explain to her how rife with sexual predation a Lewis Carroll/Alice in Wonderland reference is. ↩
No transwoman is a man. All transwomen are women. No transmen are women. All transmen are men. ↩
Take note: I almost never say that. ↩
I’m kidding. ↩
#swifty ↩
I’m assuming that the next claim this group might say is that I’m a robot. ↩
Rim-shot, please? ↩
If you didn’t realize it before now, you’re definitely deserving of the ‘asshole’ moniker. ↩
Related Posts:
A Dialogue With My 86-year-old Grandmother About LGBT Rights March 6, 2012
Male Entitlement as Motive May 24, 2014
Sexism Sucks March 19, 2014
That Awkward Moment When… November 14, 2012
The Other F Word July 3, 2014
Pearl Honneycutt - Pullip Nanachan
Bonjour ma chère famille,
Vous devez savoir que mon insertion dans la salons mondains de Paris est laborieuse mais se fait en douceur. En revanche je me trouve ébranlée des doutes que vous placez en ma personne, sachez le ! Car j'ai eut l'opportunité récemment de coudre pour quelques grandes dames. Quant à votre décision de ce contrat calomnieux réalisé à mon insu, j'en suis outrée...D'ailleurs, faites en sorte de prévenir Griffith. Il devra s'armer de patience et courage. Je ne suis pas un simple pion à manipuler à votre bon gré. Mes plus beaux effets seront de sortis, je serais charmante mais aussi insoumise qu'à pu l'être Milady de Winter d'après les historiens... N'attendez pas de nouvelles de ma part avant un bon moment. Et ne vous avisez même pas de me dénigrer auprès de mes soeurs. Cette bataille est entre vous et moi, père, mère.
Hello my dear family,
You have to know that my insertion in the social parlors of Paris is laborious but is done smoothly. On the other hand, I find myself shaken by doubts that you place in my person, know it! For I had the opportunity recently to sew for some great ladies. As for your decision of this slanderous contract realized without my knowledge, I am outraged ... Moreover, make sure to prevent Griffith. He must arm himself with patience and courage. I am not a simple pawn to manipulate to your liking. My finest effects will have come out, I would be charming but as unconcerned as could be Milady de Winter according to historians ... Do not wait for news from me before a long time. And do not even tell me to denigrate myself with my sisters. This battle is between you and me, father, mother.
Right and left of the house are the two old wells by Josef Gasser. They represent opposing worlds. On your left, it depens on your position: "music, dance, joy, levity", right: "Loreley, sadness, love, revenge". This one stands for music...
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
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The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
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Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
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State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
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Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth and Ireland), also aquarelle from French, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle. The term "watercolor" refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork. The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper; other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood, and canvas. Watercolors are usually transparent, and appear luminous because the pigments are laid down in a relatively pure form with few fillers obscuring the pigment colors. Watercolor can also be made opaque by adding Chinese white. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns. India, Ethiopia and other countries also have long traditions. Fingerpainting with watercolor paints originated in China.Although watercolor painting is extremely old, dating perhaps to the cave paintings of paleolithic Europe, and has been used for manuscript illumination since at least Egyptian times but especially in the European Middle Ages, its continuous history as an art medium begins in the Renaissance. The German Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) who painted several fine botanical, wildlife and landscape watercolors, is generally considered among the earliest exponents of the medium. An important school of watercolor painting in Germany was led by Hans Bol (1534–1593) as part of the Dürer Renaissance.Despite this early start, watercolors were generally used by Baroque easel painters only for sketches, copies or cartoons (full-scale design drawings). Among notable early practitioners of watercolor painting were Van Dyck (during his stay in England), Claude Lorrain, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and many Dutch and Flemish artists. However, Botanical illustrations and those depicting wildlife are perhaps the oldest and most important tradition in watercolor painting. Botanical illustrations became popular in the Renaissance, both as hand tinted woodblock illustrations in books or broadsheets and as tinted ink drawings on vellum or paper. Botanical artists have always been among the most exacting and accomplished watercolor painters, and even today watercolors—with their unique ability to summarize, clarify and idealize in full color—are used to illustrate scientific and museum publications. Wildlife illustration reached its peak in the 19th century with artists such as John James Audubon, and today many naturalist field guides are still illustrated with watercolor paintings. Many watercolors are more vibrant in pigment if they are higher quality. Some British market watercolors can be found in many craft stores In America and in other countries too.Materials
Paint
Watercolor paint consists of four principal ingredients:
pigments, natural or synthetic, mineral or organic;
gum arabic as a binder to hold the pigment in suspension and fix the pigment to the painting surface;
additives like glycerin, ox gall, honey, preservatives: to alter the viscosity, hiding, durability or color of the pigment and vehicle mixture; and
solvent, the substance used to thin or dilute the paint for application and that evaporates when the paint hardens or dries.
The term "watermedia" refers to any painting medium that uses water as a solvent and that can be applied with a brush, pen or sprayer; this includes most inks, watercolors, temperas, gouaches and modern acrylic paints.
The term watercolor refers to paints that use water soluble, complex carbohydrates as a binder. Originally (16th to 18th centuries) watercolor binders were sugars and/or hide glues, but since the 19th century the preferred binder is natural gum arabic, with glycerin and/or honey as additives to improve plasticity and dissolvability of the binder, and with other chemicals added to improve product shelf life.
Bodycolor refers to paint that is opaque rather than transparent, usually opaque watercolor, which is also known as gouache.[2] Modern acrylic paints are based on a completely different chemistry that uses water soluble acrylic resin as a binder.
Commercial watercolors
Watercolor painters before c.1800 had to make paints themselves using pigments purchased from an apothecary or specialized "colourman"; the earliest commercial paints were small, resinous blocks that had to be wetted and laboriously "rubbed out" in water. William Reeves (1739–1803) set up in business as a colorman about 1766. In 1781 he and his brother, Thomas Reeves, were awarded the Silver Palette of the Society of Arts, for the invention of the moist watercolor paint-cake, a time-saving convenience the introduction of which coincides with the "golden age" of English watercolor painting.
Modern commercial watercolor paints are available in two forms: tubes or pans. The majority of paints sold are in collapsible metal tubes in standard sizes (typically 7.5, 15 or 37 ml.), and are formulated to a consistency similar to toothpaste. Pan paints (actually, small dried cakes or bars of paint in an open plastic container) are usually sold in two sizes, full pans (approximately 3 cc of paint) and half pans (favored for compact paint boxes). Pans are historically older but commonly perceived as less convenient; they are most often used in portable metal paint boxes, also introduced in the mid 19th century, and are preferred by landscape or naturalist painters.
Among the most widely used brands of commercial watercolors today are Daler Rowney, Daniel Smith, DaVinci, Holbein, Maimeri, M. Graham. Reeves, Schmincke, Sennelier, Talens, and Winsor & Newton.
Thanks to modern industrial organic chemistry, the variety, saturation (brilliance) and permanence of artists' colors available today is greater than ever before. However, the art materials industry is far too small to exert any market leverage on global dye or pigment manufacture. With rare exceptions, all modern watercolor paints utilize pigments that were manufactured for use in printing inks, automotive and architectural paints, wood stains, concrete, ceramics and plastics colorants, consumer packaging, foods, medicines, textiles and cosmetics. Paint manufacturers buy very small supplies of these pigments, mill (mechanically mix) them with the vehicle, solvent and additives, and package them.
Color names
Many artists are confused or misled by labeling practices common in the art materials industry. The marketing name for a paint, such as "indian yellow" or "emerald green", is often only a poetic color evocation or proprietary moniker; there is no legal requirement that it describe the pigment that gives the paint its color. More popular color names are "viridian hue" and " chinese white"
To remedy this confusion, in 1990 the art materials industry voluntarily began listing pigment ingredients on the paint packaging, using the common pigment name (such as "cobalt blue" or "cadmium red"), and/or a standard pigment identification code, the generic color index name (PB28 for cobalt blue, PR108 for cadmium red) assigned by the Society of Dyers and Colourists (UK) and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (USA) and known as the Colour Index International. This allows artists to choose paints according to their pigment ingredients, rather than the poetic labels assigned to them by marketers. Paint pigments and formulations vary across manufacturers, and watercolor paints with the same color name (e.g., "sap green") from different manufacturers can be formulated with completely different ingredients.
Transparency
Watercolor paints are customarily evaluated on a few key attributes. In the partisan debates of the 19th-century English art world, gouache was emphatically contrasted to traditional watercolors and denigrated for its high hiding power or lack of "transparency"; "transparent" watercolors were exalted. Paints with low hiding power are valued because they allow an underdrawing or engraving to show in the image, and because colors can be mixed visually by layering paints on the paper (which itself may be either white or tinted). The resulting color will change depending on the layering order of the pigments. In fact, there are very few genuinely transparent watercolors, neither are there completely opaque watercolors (with the exception of gouache); and any watercolor paint can be made more transparent simply by diluting it with water.
"Transparent" colors do not contain titanium dioxide (white) or most of the earth pigments (sienna, umber, etc.) which are very opaque. The 19th-century claim that "transparent" watercolors gain "luminosity" because they function like a pane of stained glass laid on paper[citation needed] – the color intensified because the light passes through the pigment, reflects from the paper, and passes a second time through the pigment on its way to the viewer—is false: watercolor paints do not form a cohesive paint layer, as do acrylic or oil paints, but simply scatter pigment particles randomly across the paper surface; the transparency consists in the paper being directly visible between the particles.[3] Watercolors appear more vivid than acrylics or oils because the pigments are laid down in a more pure form with no or fewer fillers (such as kaolin) obscuring the pigment colors. Furthermore, typically most or all of the gum binder will be absorbed by the paper, preventing it from changing the visibility of the pigment.[3] Even multiple layers of watercolor do achieve a very luminous effect without fillers or binder obscuring the pigment particles.
Pigments characteristics
Staining is a characteristic assigned to watercolor paints: a staining paint is difficult to remove or lift from the painting support after it has been applied or dried. Less staining colors can be lightened or removed almost entirely when wet, or when rewetted and then "lifted" by stroking gently with a clean, wet brush and then blotted up with a paper towel. In fact, the staining characteristics of a paint depend in large part on the composition of the support (paper) itself, and on the particle size of the pigment. Staining is increased if the paint manufacturer uses a dispersant to reduce the paint milling (mixture) time, because the dispersant acts to drive pigment particles into crevices in the paper pulp, dulling the finished color.
Granulation refers to the appearance of separate, visible pigment particles in the finished color, produced when the paint is substantially diluted with water and applied with a juicy brush stroke; pigments notable for their watercolor granulation include viridian (PG18), cerulean blue (PB35), cobalt violet (PV14) and some iron oxide pigments (PBr7).
Flocculation refers to a peculiar clumping typical of ultramarine pigments (PB29 or PV15). Both effects display the subtle effects of water as the paint dries, are unique to watercolors, and are deemed attractive by accomplished watercolor painters. This contrasts with the trend in commercial paints to suppress pigment textures in favor of homogeneous, flat color.
Grades
Commercial watercolor paints come in three grades: "Artist" (or "Professional"), "Student", and "Scholastic".
Artist Watercolors contain a full pigment load, suspended in a binder, generally natural gum arabic. Artist quality paints are usually formulated with fewer fillers (kaolin or chalk) which results in richer color and vibrant mixes. Conventional watercolors are sold in moist form, in a tube, and are thinned and mixed on a dish or palette. Use them on paper and other absorbent surfaces that have been primed to accept water-based paint.
Student grade paints have less pigment, and often are formulated using two or more less expensive pigments. Student Watercolors have working characteristics similar to professional watercolors, but with lower concentrations of pigment, less expensive formulas, and a smaller range of colors. More expensive pigments are generally replicated by hues. Colors are designed to be mixed, although color strength is lower. Hues may not have the same mixing characteristics as regular full-strength colors.
Scholastic watercolors come in pans rather than tubes, and contain inexpensive pigments and dyes suspended in a synthetic binder. Washable formulations feature colors that are chosen to be non-staining, easily washable, suitable for use even by young children with proper supervision. They are an excellent choice for teaching beginning artists the properties of color and the techniques of painting.
Reserves
As there is no transparent white watercolor, the white parts of a watercolor painting are most often areas of the paper "reserved" (left unpainted) and allowed to be seen in the finished work. To preserve these white areas, many painters use a variety of resists, including masking tape, clear wax or a liquid latex, that are applied to the paper to protect it from paint, then pulled away to reveal the white paper. Resist painting can also be an effective technique for beginning watercolor artists. The painter can use wax crayons or oil pastels prior to painting the paper. The wax or oil mediums repel, or resist the watercolor paint. White paint (titanium dioxide PW6 or zinc oxide PW4) is best used to insert highlights or white accents into a painting. If mixed with other pigments, white paints may cause them to fade or change hue under light exposure. White paint (gouache) mixed with a "transparent" watercolor paint will cause the transparency to disappear and the paint to look much duller. White paint will always appear dull and chalky next to the white of the paper; however this can be used for some effects.
Brushes
A brush consists of three parts: the tuft, the ferrule and the handle.
The tuft is a bundle of animal hairs or synthetic fibers tied tightly together at the base;
The ferrule is a metal sleeve that surrounds the tuft, gives the tuft its cross sectional shape, provides mechanical support under pressure, and protects from water wearing down the glue joint between the trimmed, flat base of the tuft and the handle;
The lacquered wood handle, which is typically shorter in a watercolor brush than in an oil painting brush, has a distinct shape—widest just behind the ferrule and tapering to the tip.
When painting, painters typically hold the brush just behind the ferrule for the smoothest brushstrokes.
Hairs and fibers
Brushes hold paint (the "bead") through the capillary action of the small spaces between the tuft hairs or fibers; paint is released through the contact between the wet paint and the dry paper and the mechanical flexing of the tuft, which opens the spaces between the tuft hairs, relaxing the capillary restraint on the liquid. Because thinned watercolor paint is far less viscous than oil or acrylic paints, the brushes preferred by watercolor painters have a softer and denser tuft. This is customarily achieved by using natural hair harvested from farm raised or trapped animals, in particular sable, squirrel or mongoose. Less expensive brushes, or brushes designed for coarser work, may use horsehair or bristles from pig or ox snouts and ears.
However, as with paints, modern chemistry has developed many synthetic and shaped fibers that rival the stiffness of bristle and mimic the spring and softness of natural hair. Until fairly recently, nylon brushes could not hold a reservoir of water at all so they were extremely inferior to brushes made from natural hair. In recent years, improvements in the holding and pointing properties of synthetic filaments have gained them much greater acceptance among watercolorists.
There is no market regulation on the labeling applied to artists' brushes, but most watercolorists prize brushes from kolinsky (Russian or Chinese) sable. The best of these hairs have a characteristic reddish brown color, darker near the base, and a tapering shaft that is pointed at the tip but widest about halfway toward the root. Squirrel hair is quite thin, straight and typically dark, and makes tufts with a very high liquid capacity; mongoose has a characteristic salt and pepper coloring. Bristle brushes are stiffer and lighter colored. "Camel" is sometimes used to describe hairs from several sources (none of them a camel).
In general, natural hair brushes have superior snap and pointing, a higher capacity (hold a larger bead, produce a longer continuous stroke, and wick up more paint when moist) and a more delicate release. Synthetic brushes tend to dump too much of the paint bead at the beginning of the brush stroke and leave a larger puddle of paint when the brush is lifted from the paper, and they cannot compete with the pointing of natural sable brushes and are much less durable. On the other hand they are typically much cheaper than natural hair, and the best synthetic brushes are now very serviceable; they are also excellent for texturing, shaping, or lifting color, and for the mechanical task of breaking up or rubbing paint to dissolve it in water.
A high quality sable brush has five key attributes: pointing (in a round, the tip of the tuft comes to a fine, precise point that does not splay or split; in a flat, the tuft forms a razor thin, perfectly straight edge); snap (or "spring"; the tuft flexes in direct response to the pressure applied to the paper, and promptly returns to its original shape); capacity (the tuft, for its size, holds a large bead of paint and does not release it as the brush is moved in the air); release (the amount of paint released is proportional to the pressure applied to the paper, and the paint flow can be precisely controlled by the pressure and speed of the stroke as the paint bead is depleted); and durability (a large, high quality brush may withstand decades of daily use).
Most natural hair brushes are sold with the tuft cosmetically shaped with starch or gum, so brushes are difficult to evaluate before purchasing, and durability is only evident after long use. The most common failings of natural hair brushes are that the tuft sheds hairs (although a little shedding is acceptable in a new brush), the ferrule becomes loosened, or the wood handle shrinks, warps, cracks or flakes off its lacquer coating.
Shapes
Natural and synthetic brushes are sold with the tuft shaped for different tasks. Among the most popular are:
Rounds. The tuft has a round cross section but a tapering profile, widest near the ferrule (the "belly") and tapered at the tip (the "point"). These are general purpose brushes that can address almost any task.
Flats. The tuft is compressed laterally by the ferrule into a flat wedge; the tuft appears square when viewed from the side and has a perfectly straight edge. "Brights" are flats in which the tuft is as long as it is wide; "one stroke" brushes are longer than their width. "Sky brushes" or "wash brushes" look like miniature housepainting brushes; the tuft is usually 3 cm to 7 cm wide and is used to paint large areas.
Mops (natural hair only). A round brush, usually of squirrel hair and, decoratively, with a feather quill ferrule that is wrapped with copper wire; these have very high capacity for their size, especially good for wet in wet or wash painting; when moist they can wick up large quantities of paint.
Filbert (or "Cat's Tongue", hair only). A hybrid brush: a flat that comes to a point, like a round, useful for specially shaped brush strokes.
Rigger (hair only). An extremely long, thin tuft, originally used to paint the rigging in nautical portraits.
Fan. A small flat in which the tuft is splayed into a fan shape; used for texturing or painting irregular, parallel hatching lines.
Acrylic. A flat brush with synthetic bristles, attached to a (usually clear) plastic handle with a beveled tip used for scoring or scraping.
A single brush can produce many lines and shapes. A "round" for example, can create thin and thick lines, wide or narrow strips, curves, and other painted effects. A flat brush when used on end can produce thin lines or dashes in addition to the wide swath typical with these brushes, and its brushmarks display the characteristic angle of the tuft corners.
Every watercolor painter works in specific genres and has a personal painting style and "tool discipline", and these largely determine his or her preference for brushes. Artists typically have a few favorites and do most work with just one or two brushes. Brushes are typically the most expensive component of the watercolorist's tools, and a minimal general purpose brush selection would include:
4 round (for detail and drybrush)
8 round
12 or 14 round (for large color areas or washes)
1/2" or 1" flat
12 mop (for washes and wicking)
1/2" acrylic (for dissolving or mixing paints, and scrubbing paints before lifting from the paper)
Major watercolor brush manufacturers include DaVinci, Escoda, Isabey, Raphael, Kolonok, Robert Simmons, Daler-Rowney, Arches, and Winsor & Newton. As with papers and paints, it is common for retailers to commission brushes under their own label from an established manufacturer. Among these are Cheap Joe's, Daniel Smith, Dick Blick and Utrecht.
Sizes
The size of a round brush is designated by a number, which may range from 0000 (for a very tiny round) to 0, then from 1 to 24 or higher. These numbers refer to the size of the brass brushmakers' mould used to shape and align the hairs of the tuft before it is tied off and trimmed, and as with shoe lasts, these sizes vary from one manufacturer to the next. In general a #12 round brush has a tuft about 2 to 2.5 cm long; tufts are generally fatter (wider) in brushes made in England than in brushes made on the Continent: a German or French #14 round is approximately the same size as an English #12. Flats may be designated either by a similar but separate numbering system, but more often are described by the width of the ferrule, measured in centimeters or inches.
Watercolor pencil
Watercolor pencil is another important tool in watercolors techniques. This water-soluble color pencil allows to draw fine details and to blend them with water. Noted artists who use watercolor pencils include illustrator Travis Charest.[4] A similar tool is the watercolor pastel, broader than watercolor pencil, and able to quickly cover a large surface.
Paper
Most watercolor painters before c.1800 had to use whatever paper was at hand: Thomas Gainsborough was delighted to buy some paper used to print a Bath tourist guide, and the young David Cox preferred a heavy paper used to wrap packages. James Whatman first offered a wove watercolor paper in 1788, and the first machinemade ("cartridge") papers from a steam powered mill in 1805.
All art papers can be described by eight attributes: furnish, color, weight, finish, sizing, dimensions, permanence and packaging. Watercolor painters typically paint on paper specifically formulated for watermedia applications. Fine watermedia papers are manufactured under the brand names Arches, Bockingford, Cartiera Magnani, Fabriano, Hahnemühle, Lanaquarelle, The Langton, The Langton Prestige, Millford, Saunders Waterford, Strathmore, Winsor & Newton and Zerkall; and there has been a recent remarkable resurgence in handmade papers, notably those by Twinrocker, Velke Losiny, Ruscombe Mill and St. Armand.
Watercolor paper is essentially Blotting paper marketed and sold as an art paper, and the two can be used interchangeably, as watercolor paper is more easily obtainable than blotter and can be used as a substitute for blotter. Lower end watercolor papers can resemble heavy paper more while higher end varieties are usually entirely cotton and more porous like blotter. Watercolor paper is traditionally torn and not cut.
Furnish
The traditional furnish or material content of watercolor papers is cellulose, a structural carbohydrate found in many plants. The most common sources of paper cellulose are cotton, linen, or alpha cellulose extracted from wood pulp. To make paper, the cellulose is wetted, mechanically macerated or pounded, chemically treated, rinsed and filtered to the consistency of thin oatmeal, then poured out into paper making moulds. In handmade papers, the pulp is hand poured ("cast") into individual paper moulds (a mesh screen stretched within a wood frame) and shaken by hand into an even layer. In industrial paper production, the pulp is formed by large papermaking machines that spread the paper over large cylinders—either heated metal cylinders that rotate at high speed (machinemade papers) or wire mesh cylinders that rotate at low speed (mouldmade papers). Both types of machine produce the paper in a continuous roll or web, which is then cut into individual sheets.
Weight
The basis weight of the paper is a measure of its density and thickness. It is described as the gram weight of one square meter of a single sheet of the paper, or grams per square meter (gsm). Most watercolor papers sold today are in the range between 280gsm to 640gsm. (The previous Imperial system, expressed as the weight in pounds of one ream or 500 sheets of the paper, regardless of its size, obsolete in some areas, is still used in the United States. The most common weights under this system are 300 lb (heaviest), 200 lb 140 lb, and 90 lb.) Heavier paper is sometimes preferred over lighter weight or thinner paper because it does not buckle and can hold up to scrubbing and extremely wet washes. Watercolor papers are typically almost a pure white, sometimes slightly yellow (called natural white), though many tinted or colored papers are available. An important diagnostic is the rattle of the paper, or the sound it makes when held aloft by one corner and shaken vigorously. Papers that are dense and made from heavily macerated pulp have a bright, metallic rattle, while papers that are spongy or made with lightly macerated pulp have a muffled, rubbery rattle.
Finish
All papers obtain a texture from the mold used to make them: a wove finish results from a uniform metal screen (like a window screen); a laid finish results from a screen made of narrowly spaced horizontal wires separated by widely spaced vertical wires. The finish is also affected by the methods used to wick and dry the paper after it is "couched" (removed) from the paper mold or is pulled off the papermaking cylinder.
Watercolor papers come in three basic finishes: hot pressed (HP), cold press (CP, or in the UK "Not", for "not hot pressed"), and rough (R). These vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Rough papers are typically dried by hanging them like laundry ("loft drying") so that the sheets are not exposed to any pressure after they are couched; the wove finish has a pitted, uneven texture that is prized for its ability to accent the texture of watercolor pigments and brushstrokes.
Cold pressed papers are dried in large stacks, between absorbent felt blankets; this acts to flatten out about half of the texture found in the rough sheets. CP papers are valued for their versatility.
Hot pressed papers are cold pressed sheets that are passed through heated, compressing metal cylinders (called "calendering"), which flattens almost all the texture in the sheets. HP papers are valued because they are relatively nonabsorbent: pigments remain on the paper surface, brightening the color, and water is not absorbed, so it can produce a variety of water stains or marks as it dries.
These designations are only relative; the CP paper from one manufacturer may be rougher than the R paper from another manufacturer. Fabriano even offers a "soft press" (SP) sheet intermediate between CP and HP.
Sizing
Watercolor papers are traditionally sized, or treated with a substance to reduce the cellulose absorbency. Internal sizing is added to the paper pulp after rinsing and before it is cast in the paper mould; external or "tub" sizing is applied to the paper surface after the paper has dried. The traditional sizing has been gelatin, gum arabic or rosin, though modern synthetic substitutes (alkyl ketene dimers such as Aquapel) are now used instead. The highly absorbent papers that contain no sizing are designated waterleaf.
Dimensions
Most art papers are sold as single sheets of paper in standard sizes. Most common is the full sheet (22" x 30"), and half sheets (15" x 22") or quarter sheets (15" x 11") derived from it. Larger (and less standardized) sheets include the double elephant (within an inch or two of 30" x 40") and emperor (40" x 60"), which are the largest sheets commercially available. Papers are also manufactured in rolls, up to about 60" wide and 30 feet long. Finally, papers are also sold as watercolor "blocks"—a pad of 20 or so sheets of paper, cut to identical dimensions and glued on all four sides, which provides high dimensional stability and portability, though block papers tend to have subdued finishes. The painter simply works on the exposed sheet and, when finished, uses a knife to cut the adhesive around the four sides, separating the painting and revealing the fresh paper underneath.
Right and left of the house are the two old wells by Josef Gasser. They represent opposing worlds. On your left, it depens on your position: "music, dance, joy, levity", right: "Loreley, sadness, love, revenge". This one stands for music...
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
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The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
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Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
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State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
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Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
French postcard in the Collection Artistique de Vin Désiles series by Ruckert & Cie. Photo: P. Berger.
Yvonne de Bray (1887-1954) was a French stage and screen actress, famous for her role as Sophie in Jean Cocteau's film Les parents terribles (1948).
Born Yvonne Laurence Blanche de Bray, on 12 May 1887 in Paris, already as a child, Yvonne de Bray started on stage alongside famous monstres sacrés of the French stage, Gabrielle Réjane, and Sarah Bernhardt. When she was 15, she married a journalist but the marriage lasted only 3 years. Her real stage debut she had in 1907 in Le Ruisseau by Pierre Wolf. After that, she played in comedies such as Trains de luxe by Abel Hermand in 1909 and Papa by the fashionable duo Flers and Caillavet in 1911. The same year, she met poet and playwright Henry Bataille (1872-1922) and was struck by lightning. For ten years they remained a couple, living in Rueil-Malmaison. She performed on stage in tailor-made plays by her husband (e.g. La Phalène, 1913; La Tendresse, 1921; and La Possession, 1921). As Daniel Chocron writes on the site CinéArtistes, while afterward denigrated, Bataille's plays had underneath their lightness a serious critique of society and morality regarding the situation of women versus men in the world of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy In 1922, De Bray left the stage, devastated after the death of her husband.
For several years De Bray would be the lover of the former sports champion Violette Morris (1893-1944), who helped De Bray with her dipsomaniac alcoholism. In 1938, Jean Cocteau managed to convince De Bray to go back on stage to perform in his play Les Parents Terribles the role of Sophie, which he had written especially for her. A health problem prevented her from performing, so Germaine Dermoz got the part. Instead, in 1948, she would be Sophie in Cocteau's film adapted from the play, opposite Jean Marais as Michel, Josette Day as Madeleine, and Gabrielle Dorziat as Léo. In 1939, De Bray and her partner invited Jean Cocteau, whose lover Marais was then mobilized, to stay with them at their houseboat docked at Pont de Neuilly. There he wrote the three-act play Les Monstres sacrés in which De Bray and Morris would act in 1940. The play was a success, so De Bray stepped out of her isolation. But during the war, the relation with Morris collapsed and the latter, deluded in life, would collaborate with the Nazi's and would be shot by the French Resistance in 1944 (even if no proof of Morris' collaboration has ever resurfaced in archives).
From 1943 De Bray acted in film, including Jean Delannoy's L'Éternel Retour (1943), Cocteau's L'Aigle à deux têtes (1948), Gigi (1948) and Olivia (1950) by Jacqueline Audry, Chéri (1950) by Pierre Billon, Nous sommes tous des assassins by André Cayatte (1952) and Quand tu liras cette lettre (1953) by Jean-Pierre Melville. Already in 1901-1911, De Bray had acted in two shorts, Les Fiancés de Miss Maggy (SCAGL, 1909) and Le Poison du Professeur Rouff (Pathé, 1911), but there may have been more. At the theatre, De Bray performed not only with Cocteau but also e..g. in Jean Giraudoux's Pour Lucrèce (1953). Yvonne de Bray died on 1 February 1954 in Paris. She was buried at the cemetery of Père-Lachaise.
Sources: Ciné-Ressources (French), L'encinémathèque (French), CinéArtistes (French), L'info sans masque (French), Wikipedia (French and English), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
so yesterday, i had a full day of picking, first up to the Webb Road Flea Market (and maybe more on that later) and then a slow drive down 29\70 to Concord, where i ended up at The Depot @ Gibson Mill, which is an enormous antique mall laid out in a not much changed old mill. The antique mall only occupies a portion of the old mill, and still it is one of the largest malls I've ever been in. It's big like the Brass Armadillo outside Kansas City, that kind of big.
well, in the past, i have denigrated this mall. it's kind of for amateurs, and there's a whole lot of chaff mixed in, new stuff, kitsch, yard sale claptrap, stuff that no one above the Mason\Dixon line would ever contemplate putting in an antique store and maintaining a straight face. and the damn place is so big, to find the itty-bitty scraps of wheat mixed in with the chaff is sorta not worth the effort.
i like all shapes and sizes and flavors and forms of pie (well, with the exception of banana cream pie, and chocolate pie, though i can imagine a chocolate pie i might like. i can't imagine a banana cream pie i might like). one pie i don't cotton to too much is humble pie, so i'm not gonna eat it. but i will say that yesterday, i found quite a bit of wheat mixed in with the chaff. and this little tin immediately struck my fancy. it's clean, and the young lad has a self-contained, thoughtful look about him. i can imagine him being kind to all he met, and respectful to the women folks.
there was one amusing occurrence @ The Depot (i probably spent a couple of hours there). there were lots of whole families walking around, grandma and grandpa, ma & pa, kids, infants. one grouping had a baby in a stroller they were pushing along. i guess the mother had found something she wanted to buy, and she stashed it in the stroller with the baby.
they were kind of blocking the aisle where i was standing, so i couldn't help but overhear. and the mother says, in a voice of mild dismay, "he ate the tag."
and they gather round the baby, and yes, there's no other explanation, the baby has eaten the tag off the item. the mother says she remembers the price of the item, but in a mall with hundreds of dealers, how are they gonna know whose item it was?
that was the sum total of my afternoon's entertainment.
“I Will Survive” ― @gloria.gaynor
www.loc.gov/concerts/disco/disco-danceparty.html
“The president cannot be trusted. He cannot be believed. He has denigrated the news media, not for its manifest imperfections but for its routine and obligatory search for the truth. He has turned on the judiciary for its fidelity to the law and, once, for the ethnic heritage of a judge. Trump corrupts just about everything he touches.” ―Richard Cohen
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-doesnt-embody-whats...
Adriene had this silver necklace made for my birthday. She appreciates my attempts to reclaim this word. When I was in college, I became sick and infuriated when hearing men call other men "pussys" for not being a "real man." But even more untolerable was hearing other women call other men "pussys" for failing at "manhood."
Whenever I heard "pussy" used in such a condescending way, I would always say "excuse me? those are my genitals you are referring to and my Pussy is POWERFUL, not weak. So if you are going to de-masculinize a man, you can de-phallasize him, you can call him an ass asshole, you can call him a dick, a bastard, but never give him the power of your pussy."
After giving that speech once every week I decided something had to be done, women needed to reclaim the word "pussy" and in effect reclaim their own pussies. So I coined the term "pussy power kunt control." Pussy Power stuck while kunt control fell to the wayside. I made buttons with the word "Pussy Power" and I passed it out to women who honored their pussies by referring to it as celebratory word, not a hurtful word.
Adriene has known me for about 10 years now and I think she has heard me give that speech so many times. Finally I have a beautiful necklace for my birthday from one of my best friends! thank you Adriene! you TOO have the power of the Pussy!
We will reclaim an identity that we allowed to be taken away from and reclaim the responsibilities that comes along with it. If YOU have Pussy Power, NEVER let a man or boy and most importantly another woman call another male a pussy in a hurtful or denigrating way. Those are YOUR genitals. PUSSY POWER!
Now on a separate note - Several friends commented on how they were so amazed I could post these photos about Adriene's pussy power necklace gift for me openly on flickr. My birthday was back in April - and those few comments made me pause before posting this on my blog. So here are my thoughts on this matter.
so when my friends told me that I was brave to openly post these- I ask them why exactly should I have been embarrassed or afraid? They would say well you know you get google searched for jobs and grants and people might think that you are a liability or they may judge you before they get to meet you. Academic colleagues have said well your students are going to find it and you're never going to get tenured for posting this or what happens if your professor sees this online? Well duh - I always googled people before I would interview, hire or even meet someone. I would like to remind everyone that I was openly doing internet searches on potential dates and hirings back in the late 1900's and early 2000's before Google even existed ok?
So of COURSE I understand that this public internet posting will be potentially seen by my past, current and future colleagues and/or students. But I don't think I am doing anything wrong or embarrassing when I insist that women not allow the word "pussy" to be used in a derogatory way. I am not using it in a nasty way - so how is that a liability? What I find offensive is when people remain quiet when something offensive is said. And worse off I find it offensive when people judge others for unsubstantiated reasons. To be anymore hush-hush with pussy feeds into larger schemas of patriarchy and misogyny.
I stand behind my attempts to un-dirty the word in a fashionable way. For too long (not in all communities) women's reproductive organs have been considered to be profane and unworthy of equal respect to the phallus. The sexuality associated with vaginas have been seen as a threat and rituals are created to take away the power from their vaginas. The menstrual cycles that women go through are seen as filthy - requiring physical separation of women from the community. I find it problematic that although we have formal gender equality, this is not always reflected in our vernacular. The heavy association of the word "pussy" is too weighted on the side of the "nasty" or as lacking a cock which means lacking power. So powerful and normalized is the cock that we celebrate and laugh at the word. Even when a male is called a "cock" - like "he's such a cock," he's a cock precisely because of his unwarranted use of power. We laugh at jokes about "dicks' - such as Justin Timberlake's Dick in a Box - but the word pussy is so nasty and weak that it can't even be intellectualized or comedized (I made this word up) in popular culture. My point is that the verbal representitive use of genitals reflects underlying real world inequalities and tensions between males and femals.
I simply will not be embarassed by the names of female genitals - And if this prevents me from being hired - then I certainly don't belong at that organization, institution or company. And if students can't take me seriously after reading this, then they need to grow up. Really. and if Professors find this and are horrified then I am sure glad that they aren't working with me.
When we make a claim to an identity, it's not just about claiming rights or something abstract like belonging - but it's about claiming responsibility to that identity. So in claims that I make - like I claim I am Chinese-American or I claim that I am from the U.S. or that I live in Brooklyn or that I a female- then I take a responsibility in those claims to act and to practice what I claim.
And hopefully future colleagues who do come upon this will see that this is a sign of character - that I am not afraid to stand behind someone or something. Now I am not some militant gender freak - so I feel no need to parade my thoughts or beat up people for calling men pussies. Nor do I lack the sense to wear this necklace when I interview someone or when I am being interviewed - or at some funding meeting or my dissertation defense or even at any professional meetings. I don't believe in drawing unnecessary attention to myself and detracting from the larger goals or messages in professional situations because I do understand wearing this necklace entails the burden of explaining the message - which I embrace in moments when I want to teach people about pussy power. BUT I will wear it when I find see fit and fashionable! And if after reading this explanation and you still find my pussy power offensive, horrific or distasteful then it's time to bring in some humor into your life and chillll out! Go turn on Prince and Mozart and watch some South Park.
european institute for progressive cultural policies
Aleksandr Zelenskii, Advertisement for Sappho cigarettes, 1924. From “Into Production!”:
"Into Production!”: The Socialist Objects of Russian Constructivism
Christina Kiaer
"In contrast to the dreamy, art-deco woman in the earlier Red October ad, and in contrast to the swooning “Sappho,” the Red October girl could be described as a “conscious” female subject. Of course this strange, jokey figure of a girl is not meant to actually represent the newly conscious woman emancipated by Bolshevism. But she functions as a sign for the discourse of female consciousness and emancipation, which was bound up within Constructivism with a set of ideas about new, active objects that can transform everyday life. Rodchenko’s wife Stepanova was his frequent model for this conscious Soviet woman, in photographs and photomontages published on book covers and in mass journals, such as his cover design for a book called The New Everyday. Life and Art (Novyi byt i iskusstvo), in which a confident Stepanova in a worker’s headscarf grins out at us much like the Red October girl.[22] Women and the novyi byt were connected, in Rodchenko’s imagination as much as in the Bolshevik discourse of women’s emancipation. But this connection did not lead him, like the Bolsheviks, to denigrate or attempt to eradicate byt."
While the role of shoeshiner or boot polisher is denigrated in much of Western civilization (Jim’s smile suggests otherwise), shining shoes remains an important source of income for many children and families throughout the world. Some well-known people started their working life as shoeshiners, including singers and presidents. Among the well-known are: James Brown, the Godfather of Soul; Malcolm X, who worked as a shoeshine boy at a Lindy Hop nightclub in New York City; Willy Brown, San Francisco Mayor and Speaker of the California Assembly; and Sammy Sosa, former Dominican baseball player for the Chicago Cubs. [Source: Wikipedia]
It is arguably claimed that tattooing has existed since 12,000 years BC. The purpose of tattooing has varies from culture to culture and its place on the time line. But there are commonalties that prevail form the earliest known tattoos to those being done on college students on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley.
Tattoos have always had an important role in ritual and tradition. In Borneo, women tattooed their symbols on their forearm indicating their particular skill. If a woman wore a symbol indicating she was a skilled weaver, her status as prime marriageable material was increased. Tattoos around the wrist and fingers were believed to ward away illness. Throughout history tattoos have signified membership in a clan or society. Even today groups like the Hells Angels tattoo their particular group symbol. TV and movies have used the idea of a tattoo indication membership in a secret society numerous times. It has been believed that the wearer of an image calls the spirit of that image. The ferocity of a tiger would belong to the tattooed person. That tradition holds true today shown by the proliferation of images of tigers, snakes, and bird of prey.
In recorded history, the earliest tattoos can be found in Egypt during the time of the construction of the great pyramids (It undoubtedly started much earlier). When the Egyptians expanded their empire, the art of tattooing spread as well. The civilizations of Crete, Greece, Persia, and Arabia picked up and expanded the art form. Around 2000 BC tattooing spread to China.
The Greeks used tattooing for communication among spies. Markings identified the spies and showed their rank. Romans marked criminals and slaves. This practice is still carried on today. The Ainu people of western Asia used tattooing to show social status. Girls coming of age were marked to announce their place in society, as were the married women. The Ainu are noted for introducing tattoos to Japan where it developed into a religious and ceremonial rite. In Borneo, women were the tattooists. It was a cultural tradition. They produced designs indicating the owners station in life and the tribe he belonged to. Kayan women had delicate arm tattoos which looked like lacy gloves. Dayak warriors who had "taken a head" had tattoos on their hands. The tattoos garnered respect and assured the owners status for life. Polynesians developed tattoos to mark tribal communities, families, and rank. They brought their art to New Zealand and developed a facial style of tattooing called Moko which is still being used today. There is evidence that the Mayan, Incas, and Aztecs used tattooing in the rituals. Even the isolated tribes in Alaska practiced tattooing, their style indicating it was learned from the Ainu.
In the west, early Britons used tattoos in ceremonies. The Danes, Norse, and Saxons tattooed family crests (a tradition still practiced today). In 787 AD, Pope Hadrian banned tattooing. It still thrived in Britain until the Norman Invasion of 1066. The Normans disdained tattooing. It disappeared from Western culture from the 12th to the 16th centuries.
While tattooing diminished in the west, it thrived in Japan. At first, tattoos were used to mark criminals. First offenses were marked with a line across the forehead. A second crime was marked by adding an arch. A third offense was marked by another line. Together these marks formed the Japanese character for "dog". It appears this was the original "Three strikes your out" law. In time, the Japanese escalated the tattoo to an aesthetic art form. The Japanese body suit originated around 1700 as a reaction to strict laws concerning conspicuous consumption. Only royalty were allowed to wear ornate clothing. As a result of this, the middle class adorned themselves with elaborate full body tattoos. A highly tattooed person wearing only a loin cloth was considered well dressed, but only in the privacy of their own home.
William Dampher is responsible for re-introducing tattooing to the west. He was a sailor and explorer who traveled the South Seas. In 1691 he brought to London a heavily tattooed Polynesian named Prince Giolo, Known as the Painted Prince. He was put on exhibition , a money making attraction, and became the rage of London. It had been 600 years since tattoos had been seen in Europe and it would be another 100 years before tattooing would make it mark in the West.
In the late 1700s, Captain Cook made several trips to the South Pacific. The people of London welcomed his stories and were anxious to see the art and artifacts he brought back. Returning form one of this trips, he brought a heavily tattooed Polynesian named Omai. He was a sensation in London. Soon, the upper- class were getting small tattoos in discreet places. For a short time tattooing became a fad.
What kept tattooing from becoming more widespread was its slow and painstaking procedure. Each puncture of the skin was done by hand the ink was applied. In 1891, Samuel O'Rtiely patented the first electric tattooing machine. It was based on Edison's electric pen which punctured paper with a needle point. The basic design with moving coils, a tube and a needle bar, are the components of today's tattoo gun. The electric tattoo machine allowed anyone to obtain a reasonably priced, and readily available tattoo. As the average person could easily get a tattoo, the upper classes turned away from it.
By the turn of the century, tattooing had lost a great deal of credibility. Tattooists worked the sleazier sections of town. Heavily tattooed people traveled with circuses and "freak Shows." Betty Brodbent traveled with Ringling Brothers Circus in the 1930s and was a star attraction for years.
The cultural view of tattooing was so poor for most of the century that tattooing went underground. Few were accepted into the secret society of artists and there were no schools to study the craft. There were no magazines or associations. Tattoo suppliers rarely advertised their products. One had to learn through the scuttlebutt where to go and who to see for quality tattoos.
The birthplace of the American style tattoo was Chatham Square in New York City. At the turn of the century it was a seaport and entertainment center attracting working-class people with money. Samuel O'Riely cam from Boston and set up shop there. He took on an apprentice named Charlie Wagner. After O'Reily's death in 1908, Wagner opened a supply business with Lew Alberts. Alberts had trained as a wallpaper designer and he transferred those skills to the design of tattoos. He is noted for redesigning a large portion of early tattoo flash art.
While tattooing was declining in popularity across the country, in Chatham Square in flourished. Husbands tattooed their wives with examples of their best work. They played the role of walking advertisements for their husbands' work. At this time, cosmetic tattooing became popular, blush for cheeks, coloured lips, and eyeliner. With world war I, the flash art images changed to those of bravery and wartime icons.
In the 1920s, with prohibition and then the depression, Chathma Square lost its appeal. The center for tattoo art moved to Coney Island. Across the country, tattooists opened shops in areas that would support them, namely cities with military bases close by, particularly naval bases. Tattoos were know as travel markers. You could tell where a person had been by their tattoos.
After world war II, tattoos became further denigrated by their associations with Marlon Brando type bikers and Juvenile delinquents. Tattooing had little respect in American culture. Then, in 1961 there was an outbreak of hepatitis and tattooing was sent reeling on its heels.
Though most tattoo shops had sterilization machines, few used them. Newspapers reported stories of blood poisoning, hepatitis, and other diseases. The general population held tattoo parlors in disrepute. At first, the New York City government gave the tattoos an opportunity to form an association and self- regulate, but tattooists are independent and they were not able to organize themselves. A health code violation went into effect and the tattoo shops at Times Square and Coney Island were shut down. For a time, it was difficult to get a tattoo in New York. It was illegal and tattoos had a terrible reputation. Few people wanted a tattoo. The better shops moved to Philadelphia and New Jersey where it was still legal.
In the late 1960s, the attitude towards tattooing changed. Much credit can be given to Lyle Tuttle. He is a handsome, charming, interesting and knows how to use the media. He tattooed celebrities, particularly women. Magazines and television went to Lyle to get information about this ancient art form.
Toady, tattooing is making a strong comeback. It is more popular and accepted than it has ever been. All classes of people seek the best tattoo artists. This rise in popularity has placed tattoists in the category of "fine artist". The tattooist has garnered a respect not seen for over 100 years. Current artists combine the tr5adition of tattooing with their personal style creating unique and phenomenal body art. With the addition of new inks, tattooing has certainly reached a new plateau.
Tombstone of historian Goldwin Smith and his wife. St. James Cemetery, Toronto, Canada. Spring afternoon, 2021. Pentax K1 II.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwin_Smith
Goldwin Smith (13 August 1823 – 7 June 1910) was a British historian and journalist, active in the United Kingdom and Canada. In the 1860s he also taught at Cornell University in the United States.
Life and career
Early life and education
Smith was born at Reading, Berkshire. He was educated at Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford, and after a brilliant undergraduate career he was elected to a fellowship at University College, Oxford. He threw his energy into the cause of university reform with another fellow of University College, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley. On the Royal Commission of 1850 to inquire into the reform of the university, of which Stanley was secretary, Smith served as assistant-secretary; and he was then secretary to the commissioners appointed by the act of 1854. His position as an authority on educational reform was further recognised by a seat on the Popular Education Commission of 1858. In 1868, when the question of reform at Oxford was again growing acute, he published a pamphlet, entitled The Reorganization of the University of Oxford.
In 1865, he led the University of Oxford opposition to a proposal to develop Cripley Meadow north of Oxford railway station for use as a major site of Great Western Railway (GWR) workshops. His father had been a director of GWR. Instead the workshops were located in Swindon. He was public with his pro-Northern sympathies during the American Civil War, notably in a speech at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester in April 1863 and his Letter to a Whig Member of the Southern Independence Association the following year.
Besides the Universities Tests Act 1871, which abolished religious tests, many of the reforms suggested, such as the revival of the faculties, the reorganisation of the professoriate, the abolition of celibacy as a condition of the tenure of fellowships, and the combination of the colleges for lecturing purposes, were incorporated in the act of 1877, or subsequently adopted by the university. Smith gave the counsel of perfection that "pass" examinations ought to cease; but he recognised that this change "must wait on the reorganization of the educational institutions immediately below the university, at which a passman ought to finish his career." His aspiration that colonists and Americans should be attracted to Oxford was later realised by the will of Cecil Rhodes. On what is perhaps the vital problem of modern education, the question of ancient versus modern languages, he pronounced that the latter "are indispensable accomplishments, but they do not form a high mental training" – an opinion entitled to peculiar respect as coming from a president of the Modern Language Association.
Oxford years
He held the regius professorship of Modern History at Oxford from 1858 to 1866, that "ancient history, besides the still unequalled excellence of the writers, is the 'best instrument for cultivating the historical sense." As a historian, indeed, he left no abiding work; the multiplicity of his interests prevented him from concentrating on any one subject. His chief historical writings – The United Kingdom: a Political History (1899), and The United States: an Outline of Political History (1893) — though based on thorough familiarity with their subject, make no claim to original research, but are remarkable examples of terse and brilliant narrative.
He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1865.
The outbreak of the American Civil War proved a turning point in his life. Unlike most of the ruling classes in England, he championed the cause of the North, and his pamphlets, especially one entitled Does the Bible Sanction American Slavery? (1863), played a prominent part in converting English opinion. Visiting America on a lecture tour in 1864, he received an enthusiastic welcome, and was entertained at a public banquet in New York. Andrew Dickson White, president of Cornell University at Ithaca, N.Y., invited him to take up a teaching post at the newly founded institution. But it was not until a dramatic change in Smith's personal circumstances that led to his departure from England in 1868, that he took up the post. He had resigned his chair at Oxford in 1866 in order to attend to his father, who had suffered permanent injury in a railway accident. In the autumn of 1867, when Smith was briefly absent, his father took his own life. Possibly blaming himself for the tragedy, and now without an Oxford appointment, he decided to move to North America.
Cornell years
Smith's time at Cornell was brief, but his impact there was significant. He held the professorship of English and Constitutional History in the Department of History at Cornell University from 1868 to 1872. The addition of Smith to Cornell's faculty gave the newly opened university "instant credibility." Smith was something of an academic celebrity, and his lectures were sometimes printed in New York newspapers.
During Smith's time at Cornell he accepted no salary and provided much financial support to the institution. In 1869 he had his personal library shipped from England and donated to the university. He lived at Cascadilla Hall among the students, and was much beloved by them.
In 1871 Smith moved to Toronto to live with relatives, but retained an honorary professorship at Cornell and returned to campus frequently to lecture. When he did, he insisted on staying with the students at Cascadilla Hall rather than in a hotel. Smith bequeathed the bulk of his estate to the University in his will.
Smith's abrupt departure from Cornell was credited to several factors, including the Ithaca weather, Cornell's geographic isolation, Smith's health, and political tensions between Britain and America.[13] But the decisive factor in Smith's departure was the university's decision to admit women. Goldwin Smith told White that admitting women would cause Cornell to "sink at once from the rank of a University to that of an Oberlin or a high school" and that all "hopes of future greatness" would be lost by admitting women.
Goldwin Smith Hall
On June 19, 1906 Goldwin Smith Hall was dedicated, at the time Cornell's largest building and its first building dedicated to the humanities, as well as the first home to the College of Arts and Sciences. Smith personally laid the cornerstone for the building in October 1904 and attended the 1906 dedication. The Cornell Alumni News observed on the occasion, "To attempt to express even in a measure the reverence and affection which all Cornellians feel for Goldwin Smith would be attempting a hopeless task. His presence here is appreciated as the presence of no other person could be."
Toronto
In Toronto, Smith he edited the Canadian Monthly, and subsequently founded the Week and the Bystander, and where he spent the rest of his life living in The Grange manor.
In 1893, Smith was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society. In his later years he expressed his views in a weekly journal, The Farmer's Sun, and published in 1904 My Memory of Gladstone, while occasional letters to the Spectator showed that he had lost neither his interest in English politics and social questions nor his remarkable gifts of style. He died at his residence in Toronto, The Grange.
Political views
He continued to take an active interest in English politics. As a Liberal, he opposed Benjamin Disraeli, and was a strong supporter of Irish Disestablishment, but refused to follow Gladstone in accepting Home Rule. He expressly stated that "if he ever had a political leader, his leader was John Bright, not Mr Gladstone." Causes that he powerfully attacked were Prohibition, female suffrage and state socialism, as he discussed in his Essays on Questions of the Day (revised edition, 1894). He also published sympathetic monographs on William Cowper and Jane Austen, and attempted verse in Bay Leaves and Specimens of Greek Tragedy. In his Guesses at the Riddle of Existence (1897), he abandoned the faith in Christianity that he had expressed in his lecture of 1861, Historical Progress, in which he forecast the speedy reunion of Christendom on the "basis of free conviction," and wrote in a spirit "not of Agnosticism, if Agnosticism imports despair of spiritual truth, but of free and hopeful inquiry, the way for which it is necessary to clear by removing the wreck of that upon which we can found our faith no more."
Anglo-Saxonism
Smith was considered a devout Anglo-Saxonist, deeply involved with political and racial aspects of English nationhood and British colonialism. He believed the Anglo-Saxon "race" excluded Irish people but could extend to Welsh and Lowland Scots within the context of the United Kingdom's greater empire. Speaking in 1886, he referred to his "standing by the side of John Bright against the dismemberment of the great Anglo-Saxon community of the West, as I now stand against the dismemberment of the great Anglo-Saxon community of the East." These words form the key to his views of the future of the British Empire and he was a leading light of the anti-imperialist "Little Englander" movement.
Smith thought that Canada was destined by geography to enter the United States. In his view, separated as it is by north–south barriers, into zones communicating naturally with adjoining portions of the United States, it was an artificial and badly-governed nation. It would break away from the British Empire, and the Anglo-Saxons of the North American continent would become one nation. These views are most fully stated in his Canada and the Canadian Question (1891). Donald Creighton writes that Smith was most ably rebutted by George Monro Grant in the Canadian Magazine.
British imperialism
Smith identified as an anti-imperialist, describing himself as "anti-Imperialistic to the core," yet he was deeply penetrated with a sense of the greatness of the British race. Of the British empire in India he said that "it is the noblest the world has seen... Never had there been such an attempt to make conquest the servant of civilization. About keeping India there is no question. England has a real duty there." His fear was that England would become a nation of factory-workers, thinking more of their trade-union than of their country. He was also opposed to Britain granting more representative government to India, expressing fear that this would lead to a "murderous anarchy."
His opinion of British activity in the Transvaal was well voiced in the Canadian press and in his book In The Court of History: An Apology of Canadians Opposed to the Boer War (1902). This work is a fascinating articulation of pacifist opposition to the Second Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902. It is important because it is amongst the few expressions of opposition toward from the perspective of an Anglo-colonial settler. His anti-imperialism was intensified and made manifest in his Commonwealth or Empire? (1902), a warning to the United States against the assumption of imperial responsibilities.
Antisemitism
Smith had virulently anti-Jewish views. Labelled as "the most vicious anti-Semite in the English-speaking world", he referred to Jews as "parasites" who absorb "the wealth of the community without adding to it". Research by Glenn C. Altschuler and Isaac Kramnick has studied Smith's writings, which claimed that Jews were responsible for a form of "repulsion" they provoked in others, due to his assertion of their "peculiar character and habits", including a "preoccupation with money-making", which made them "enemies of civilization". He also denigrated brit milah, or circumcision, as a "barborous rite", and proposed assimilating Jews or deporting them to Palestine as a solution to the "Jewish problem".
Smith wrote, "The Jewish objective has always been the same, since Roman times. We regard our race as superior to all humanity, and we do not seek our ultimate union with other races, but our final triumph over them." He had a strong influence on William Lyon Mackenzie King and Henri Bourassa.
He proposed elsewhere that Jews and Arabs were of the same race. He also believed that Islamic oppression of non-Muslims was for economic factors.
In December 2020, the Cornell University Board of Trust voted to remove Smith's name from the honorific titles of twelve professors at Cornell. The Board took this action in recognition of Smith's published misogynistic, racist, and anti-Semitic views. The Board declined to rename Goldwin Smith Hall.
Legacy
Goldwin Smith is credited with the quote "Above all nations is humanity," an inscription that was engraved in a stone bench he offered to Cornell in May 1871. The bench sits in front of Goldwin Smith Hall, named in his honour. This quote is the motto of the University of Hawaii and other institutions around the world (for example, the Cosmopolitan Club at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign).
Another stone bench inscribed with the motto, sits on the campus of Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. It sits with a clear view down onto the city.
After his death, a plaque in his memory was erected outside his birthplace in the town centre of Reading. This still exists, outside the entrance to the Harris Arcade.
www.biographi.ca/en/bio/smith_goldwin_13E.html
SMITH, GOLDWIN, writer, journalist, and controversialist; b. 13 Aug. 1823 in Reading, England, son of Richard Pritchard Smith, an Oxford-educated physician and railway promoter and director, and Elizabeth Breton, and the only one of their seven children to survive to adulthood; d. 7 June 1910 in Toronto.
After attending a private school and Eton College, Goldwin Smith in 1841 went to Christ Church and then in 1842 to Magdalen College, both at Oxford. He was awarded a first class in literae humaniores and obtained a ba in 1845 and an ma in 1848. He also carried off a series of prizes in classical studies, including one for a Latin essay on the position of women in ancient Greece. He both translated and wrote Latin verse, interests he would retain throughout his life. His education was intended as a preparation for the law and in 1842 his name had been entered at Lincoln’s Inn. He was called to the bar in 1850 but he never pursued a legal career.
When Smith was at Oxford the university was racked with religious controversy which focused on John Henry Newman and the Oxford Movement. Smith apparently admired Newman’s style but he was repelled by the movement’s ritualistic tendencies and its affinities with Roman Catholicism. Although he was a member of the Church of England, as was required of all Oxford students at the time, his mother’s Huguenot background may have contributed to his developing religious liberalism and dislike of clericalism. He would remain interested in religious issues until the end of his life, but his knowledge of theology was superficial. In addition, his understanding of the scientific controversies that were beginning to arise in pre-Darwinian Oxford was modest and was probably gained at the geological lectures of William Buckland, who upheld William Paley’s view that God’s existence was demonstrated by design in nature. Although Smith would come to accept a version of evolution and to realize, as he wrote in 1883, that it had “wrought a great revolution,” he never fully understood Charles Darwin’s hypothesis.
Smith spent the late 1840s in London and in travels on the Continent with Oxford friends. His growing interest in liberal reforms, especially in reducing the privileged status of the Church of England, was stimulated by events and personalities at home and abroad, though he quickly joined the side of authority during the Chartist disturbances in 1848. His first reformist thrusts were directed at Oxford. A fellow in civil law at University College from 1846, he joined in a demand for a reduction in clerical control over the university. Partly as a result of the agitation, which included letters from Smith to the Times of London in 1850, a royal commission, with Smith as assistant secretary, was struck in that year to investigate the university. The commission reported in 1852 and the Oxford University Act two years later relaxed but did not abolish religious tests.
During his years with the royal commission Smith widened his contacts in the political and intellectual world and turned to journalism, which was to be his permanent vocation. In 1850 he began contributing to the Morning Chronicle and in 1855 to the Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, both published in London, reviewing poetry and advocating university reform. In 1858 he was made a member of a new royal commission, chaired by the Duke of Newcastle, to examine Britain’s educational system, and he wrote part of the report which appeared in 1862. Meanwhile, also in 1858, the Conservative government of Lord Derby appointed Smith regius professor of modern history at Oxford. This post carried such prestige that Smith, who was only 35, might have been expected to settle into it for the rest of his life. In 1861 he indicated his intention to withdraw from active journalism and devote himself to his new profession as an historian. He apparently planned to write some serious scholarly works, but this goal proved incompatible with his intense interest in contemporary affairs. Lack of detachment was the most prominent characteristic of Smith’s historical writing. He always knew which side was right. For him history was not an arid, scientific search for objective accuracy. “History,” he argued, “without moral philosophy, is a mere string of facts; and moral philosophy, without history, is apt to become a dream.”
Smith used his chair largely to engage in controversies over political and religious questions. Although he was undoubtedly a stimulating and devoted lecturer and tutor, he showed no interest in original research and published nothing of scholarly merit. His later historical publications and literary biographies, including histories of the United States and the United Kingdom and studies on William Cowper and Jane Austen, were little more than a reworking of secondary sources usually spiced up with a dose of his principles and prejudices. He was a man of letters, not a research scholar, and he also published travel books and Latin and Greek authors in translation. His first book was typical. Of his five Lectures on modern history (1861), three dealt with religious controversies related to rationalism and agnosticism, another with the idea of progress, and only one with a historical topic, the founding of the American colonies. Though denying that history was a science, Smith was quite prepared to draw moral laws from his reading of the past. In the first place, he considered “the laws of the production and distribution of wealth . . . the most beautiful and wonderful of the natural laws of God. . . . To buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market, the supposed concentration of economical selfishness, is simply to fulfil the commands of the Creator.” These laws, discovered by Adam Smith, whom he viewed as a prophet, expressed a tenet of political economy from which he would never deviate: a market economy guided by the “hidden hand” was divinely sanctioned and if faithfully observed would lead to a just social order. Secondly, Smith’s reading of history convinced him that religion provided the cement holding the social order in place. “Religion,” he warned those who contended that progress had made Christianity obsolete, “is the very core, centre, and vital support of our social and political organization; so that without a religion the civil tie would be loosened, personal would completely prevail over public motives, selfish ambition and cupidity would break loose in all directions, and society and the body politic would be in danger of dissolution.”
To these lessons of history Smith added a third which would serve as a permanent guide to his judgements on the way of the world, a conviction that “colonial emancipation” should take place as rapidly as possible because it was – except for India and Ireland – inevitable. This conclusion appeared in a series of articles published in the London Daily News in 1862–63 and then in pamphlet form as The empire in 1863. There he presented a distillation of the opinions of his friends John Bright, Richard Cobden, and others of the so-called Manchester school who believed that Britain’s economic power, under free trade, was so great that the formal, political empire could be disbanded without economic loss. The lesson of the American revolution, for Smith a disaster which had divided the Anglo-Saxon people, was simply that colonies should be allowed to grow naturally into nations. Once they were freed of the yoke of dependency, “something in the nature of a great Anglo-Saxon federation may, in substance if not form, spontaneously arise out of affinity and mutual affection.” Though condemned by the Times and attacked by Benjamin Disraeli as one of the “prigs and pedants” who should make way for statesmen, Smith clung tenaciously to his anti-imperial faith.
A drastic alteration in Smith’s personal circumstances led to his departure from England in 1868. He had resigned his chair at Oxford in 1866 in order to attend to his father, who had suffered permanent injury in a railway accident. In the autumn of 1867, when Smith was briefly absent, his father took his own life. Doubtless blaming himself for the tragedy – and now without an Oxford appointment – he decided to travel to North America, which he had previously visited in 1864, when Andrew Dickson White, president of Cornell University at Ithaca, N.Y., invited him to take up a teaching post at the newly founded institution. Smith was attracted by the determination of its founder, Ezra Cornell, to organize a university that was non-sectarian and open to all classes of society, though he had no sympathy for its commitment to coeducation. He remained at Cornell on a full-time basis for only two years but his connection with the university, which in 1906 named a building after him, continued for life. Whether it was the climate or the presence of women, admitted in 1869, that caused Smith to leave, he decided in 1871 to move to Toronto and to be near some relatives. Four years later that move became permanent as a consequence of his marriage in Toronto on 3 Sept. 1875 to William Henry Boulton*’s widow, Harriet Elizabeth Mann, née Dixon, who was two years his junior, an American by birth, and possessor of a significant fortune which included the estate named the Grange. Smith settled into a late-blooming marital bliss and the Grange’s affluent surroundings with ease: “a union for the afternoon and evening of life,” he told his American friend Charles Eliot Norton. He was, as he remarked after Harriet died in 1909, “finally bound to Canada by the happiest event of my life.”
The marriage, a personal healing of the unfortunate breach of 1776, was an extremely successful one. After years of transiency and a life seemingly limited to male friendships, Smith had found a perfect mate. His new wife was socially sophisticated and apparently utterly devoted to her austere husband who, in contrast to her first, spent his waking hours in reading, writing, and good talk. His circle of friends and visitors, the intellectual élite of the English-speaking world, joined local celebrities and politicians in the drawing-room of the Grange. “Here one is suddenly set down in an old English house,” Albert Venn Dicey wrote, “surrounded by grounds, with old four-post beds, old servants, all English, and English hosts . . . an English mansion in some English county.” For the remaining 35 years of his life, Smith lived in Canada, but he was never quite of it. From his “English mansion,” this talented and acerbic political and literary critic would hurl his jeremiads at a world that irritatingly deviated from the Manchester liberal faith in which he was steeped.
The move to Canada and marriage and domestic tranquillity did nothing to diminish Smith’s intellectual energy or his eagerness to improve public morality. Indeed, what he viewed as the underdeveloped, overly partisan state of Canadian public discussion spurred him on to greater effort. No sooner had he arrived in Toronto than he began reviewing for the Globe, but he quickly fell out with George Brown*, the paper’s proprietor, whose dogmatic righteousness brooked no competition. Smith soon turned to a series of attempts to establish independent organs, though independence usually meant agreement with Smith. First, he assisted Graeme Mercer Adam* in the founding of the Canadian Monthly and National Review (Toronto), where in February 1872 he adopted the nom de plume that would become his most characteristic signature, A Bystander. It was intended to imply that he was an outsider and therefore detached and analytical. In fact, it was soon obvious enough to readers that the author was a committed, often fierce, partisan, even if somewhat of an outsider. When the supporters of the Canada First movement launched the Nation in Toronto in 1874, Smith signed on as one of the principal contributors, both financially and as a writer. Then, in April 1876, he participated in a more ambitious project, the establishment, with John Ross Robertson* as publisher, of the Evening Telegram, a daily to compete with Brown’s Globe. It soon developed Conservative sympathies and Smith departed.
In June 1878 Smith returned to Toronto following an 18-month sojourn with Harriet in England more convinced than ever that the country needed the benefit of his intellectual guidance. Within a year he opened his own one-man show, the Bystander, subtitled “A monthly review of current events, Canadian and general.” The performance was a breathtaking one. For three years Smith’s outpourings filled its pages with brilliant, opinionated comment on virtually every political, cultural, and intellectual development in Europe and North America. He was determined to broaden the mental horizons of Canadians and by 1880 was pleased to admit that “the great questions of religious philosophy are beginning to engage a good many Canadian minds.” He expounded Adam Smith’s political economy, denounced women’s suffrage as a threat to the family, warned of the dangers of Herbert Spencer’s social Darwinism, castigated Bismarck, expatiated on the Eastern Question, and sniped at Disraeli. He even found space, when Sarah Bernhardt visited Canada in 1881, to agree with Bishop Édouard-Charles Fabre* and the Presbyterian (Montreal) in condemning her for her unsanctified liaisons. The Bystander’s suspicious eye frequently detected clerical power in Quebec and Ireland, and Jewish control over the European press. When Smith decided to give his active pen a rest in June 1881, he had established himself as a vigorous intellectual voice in Canada. A second series of the Bystander, this time published quarterly from January to October 1883, began after his return from another lengthy stay in England. The third and final series appeared between October 1889 and September 1890. In the interim he lent his support to another new journal, the Week, edited by Charles George Douglas Roberts*, which began publication in December 1883. Smith’s final venture in Canadian journalism came in 1896 when he acquired a controlling interest in the faltering Canada Farmers’ Sun (Toronto), a paper which, under George Weston Wrigley, had actively supported such radical causes as the political insurgency of the Patrons of Industry. The Bystander promptly put the paper back on orthodox rails by calling for free trade, retrenchment, and opposition to Canadian participation in the South African War. All of this activity still left time for a flood of articles in the international press: the Fortnightly Review, the Contemporary Review, and the Nineteenth Century, a Monthly Review in London, the Atlantic Monthly in Boston, and the Sun, the Nation, and the Forum in New York. Indeed, he published in any daily or monthly that would print his articles, reviews, and letters. His output was prodigious, the writing crisp and often epigrammatic.
Smith’s activities were not confined to intellectual labour. A public-spirited person, he devoted both money and energy to a variety of causes. Civic affairs especially concerned him for he believed that local governments should take greater responsibility for the welfare of citizens than was the case in Toronto. He chaired a citizens’ reform committee, advocated the commission system for city government, fought for the preservation and extension of parks for public recreation, campaigned for Sunday streetcars, and opposed free public lending libraries. (“A novel library,” he told Andrew Carnegie, “is to women mentally pretty much what the saloon is physically to men.”) He was distressed by problems of urban unemployment and poverty, and contributed generously to such charities and benevolent societies as the Associated City Charities of Toronto, which he founded, and the St Vincent de Paul Society. He also supported the building of a synagogue. For two decades he urged the appointment of a city welfare officer to supervise grants to social agencies, a cause that succeeded in 1893 only after Smith agreed to pay the officer’s salary for the first two years. Underlying these and other humanitarian endeavours was a philosophy of noblesse oblige, the Christian duty of the fortunate towards their weaker brethren. He feared that the failure of Christian voluntary charity would increase the popularity of those who advocated radical social programs. “Care for their own safety, then, as well as higher considerations, counsels the natural leaders of society to be at the post of duty,” Smith told a conference of the combined charities of Toronto in May 1889.
Education was another concern which Smith brought with him to Canada. In 1874 he was elected by Ontario teachers to represent them on the Council of Public Instruction and he was subsequently chosen president of the Ontario Teachers’ Association. But once again, university reform captured his deepest interest, and as in so many things, he advocated reforms that revealed his Oxford connections. Almost from the time of his arrival he proposed the federation of Ontario’s scattered universities on an Oxford model. He followed progress towards that federation in the 1880s and 1890s, regularly participating in University of Toronto functions and advocating university autonomy. In 1905 he accepted membership on, but not the chair of, a royal commission on the University of Toronto. One outcome was a new act in 1906 establishing a board of governors for the university, to which Smith was appointed. Among the many honorary degrees which Smith received from the great universities of the English-speaking world he must have particularly savoured the one conferred on him in 1902 by the University of Toronto; six years earlier he had withdrawn his name from nomination for a degree in the face of the furious opposition of George Taylor Denison* and other imperial federationists who protested against the granting of the degree to a “traitor.”
For all of his breadth of knowledge and interest, Smith’s overriding concern was the contemporary world. His reputation rests on that collection of ideas which he regularly, and with remarkable consistency, applied to the issues of his time. Though he has most often been categorized as a “Victorian liberal,” it is not his liberal principles but rather his faith in the superiority of Anglo-Saxon civilization that is his most striking trait. That faith not only frequently contradicted his liberalism, but also, in its application to Canada, limited his ability to understand and sympathize with the aspirations of the people among whom he had chosen to take up residence.
Smith’s liberalism expressed itself most fulsomely in his commitment to free market economics, the secularization of public life, and opposition to empire. Though a firm believer in individualism and parliamentary government, Smith showed no special interest in civil liberties, except in his criticism of clericalism, and he favoured neither universal manhood nor women’s suffrage. He distrusted democracy and pronounced the French revolution (an event admired by most liberals) “of all the events in history, the most calamitous.” Inequality, he believed, was mankind’s permanent condition. While he repeatedly professed sympathy for labour and supported trade unions, he abhorred strikes and denounced as “chimeras” those reforms – single tax, currency inflation, public ownership, the regulation of hours of work – which labour radicals began to advocate in the late 19th century; progress he thought possible, but “there is no leaping into the millennium.” Although limited government intervention in the economy might sometimes be justified (he reluctantly supported Sir John A. Macdonald*’s arguments for a National Policy), collectivism and socialism were anathema. He opposed income tax, old-age pensions, and even publicly financed education. In his introduction to Essays on questions of the day (1893), he summed up his social philosophy by confessing that “the opinions of the present writer are those of a Liberal of the old school as yet unconverted to State Socialism, who looks for further improvement not to an increase of the authority of government, but to the same agencies, moral, intellectual, and economical, which have brought us thus far, and one of which, science, is now operating with immensely increased power.” Clearly, it was not just “state socialism” that had failed to convert the master of the Grange; the new social liberalism of Thomas Hill Green and Leonard Trelawney Hobhouse was equally heretical to him. Indeed, by the late Victorian era one of Smith’s own adages could reasonably be applied to its author: “There is no reactionary,” the Bystander informed the readers of the Week in 1884, “like the exhausted Reformer.”
Had Smith’s social philosophy become threadbare merely as a result of the passage of time, then he might none the less rank as a significant liberal, if only of the “old school.” But the limits of his liberalism are even more evident when placed in the context of his nationalism – his belief in Anglo-Saxon superiority. In common with most 19th-century political thinkers, especially liberals, Smith believed that “nations” were “an ordinance of nature, and a natural bond.” Like John Stuart Mill, and in contrast to Lord Acton, he defined a nation in terms of the concept of cultural homogeneity. And although he opposed imperialism, he was nevertheless utterly at one with those imperialists who believed that the Anglo-Saxon cultural community, centred in Great Britain with branches around the world, was a superior civilization. Its political institutions, economic system, morality, and culture were all signs of its primacy in a world of diverse nations. In his first, and most famous, critique of the empire, he gave voice to his own form of nationalism, one which verged on cultural imperialism. “I am no more against Colonies than I am against the solar system,” he wrote in The empire. “I am against dependencies, when nations are fit to be independent. If Canada were made an independent nation she would still be a Colony of England, and England would still be her Mother Country in the full sense in which those names have been given to the most famous examples of Colonization in history. Our race and language, our laws and liberties, will be hers.”
For Smith the great failure, even tragedy, of Anglo-Saxon history was the American revolution. “Before their unhappy schism they were one people,” and the healing of that schism through the “moral, diplomatic and commercial union of the whole English-speaking race throughout the world” became the goal to which all else was secondary. He shared that goal with those Canadians who advocated imperial federation – Denison, George Monro Grant, George Robert Parkin* – but because his chosen route began with the annexation of Canada to the United States he found himself in permanent head-to-head combat with those same men.
Smith’s convictions about the superiority of Anglo-Saxon values are most strikingly illustrated in his attitude towards “lesser breeds without the Law.” His advocacy of colonial freedom was limited to those colonies which had English majorities. India, a conquered territory, was exempt; for Britain to relinquish what he called this “splendid curse” would be to abdicate its responsibility and leave the subcontinent to certain anarchy. If India troubled Smith, Ireland infuriated him. He mistrusted Roman Catholicism everywhere; in Ireland he despised it. As an ethnic group the Irish were an “amiable but thriftless, uncommercial, saint-worshipping, priest-ridden race.” He fought Home Rule as though his very life depended upon its defeat. “Statesmen might as well provide the Irish people with Canadian snowshoes,” he declaimed sarcastically, “as extend to them the Canadian Constitution.” His one-time associate William Ewart Gladstone was denounced as “an unspeakable old man” when he took up the Irish cause.
Other non-Anglo-Saxon groups fared little better. Though Smith occasionally expressed sympathy for “the wild-stocks of humanity” – the people of Africa, for example – he saw no reason to lament the oppressed state of the native North American. The doomed state of the native people was not the fault of the British who “had always treated [them] with humanity and justice”; with their disappearance, “little will be lost by humanity,” he concluded callously.
For the Jewish people, Smith reserved a special place in his catalogue of “undesirables.” The critical problem with the Jews was what Smith saw as their stubborn unwillingness to assimilate, to give up their religious beliefs and cultural practices, to become “civilized.” He regularly stereotyped them as “tribal,” “usurious,” “plutopolitans,” incapable of loyalty to their country of residence. The Talmud, the Bystander affirmed, “is a code of casuistical legalism . . . of all reactionary productions the most debased, arid, and wretched.” If the Jews would not assimilate they should be returned to their homeland. In a sentence that reeked with racist arrogance he declared that “two greater calamities perhaps have never befallen mankind than the transportation of the negro and the dispersion of the Jews.” Smith’s extreme ethnocentricity in the case of the Jewish people, as Gerald Tulchinsky has shown, can only be described as anti-Semitism.
Smith’s belief in Anglo-Saxon superiority and the importance that he attached to the reunification of the “race” provided him with both his questions and his answers when he analysed “Canada and the Canadian question.” On his arrival in Toronto Smith had discovered a nascent nationalist movement. He threw his support behind this amorphous group of young men whose platform was set out in William Alexander Foster*’s pamphlet Canada First; or, our new nationality: an address (Toronto, 1871), which called for the promotion of a national sentiment and the clarification of Canada’s status in the empire as well as for a number of political reforms. While Smith believed that the movement would promote Canadian independence, others favoured some form of equal partnership with the other members of the empire. For a time the movement attracted the sympathy of the prominent Liberal party intellectual Edward Blake*, but by the mid 1870s it had disintegrated, and its organ, the Nation, disappeared in 1876. This brief experience apparently convinced Smith that Canada could never become a genuine nation and that its destiny lay in union with the United States. In 1877 he set out these conclusions in an article for the Fortnightly Review and then in the Canadian Monthly, conclusions which he would repeat over the remainder of his life and which found their most famous expression in his Canada and the Canadian question in 1891. At the heart of his case was the claim that Canada could not be a nation because it lacked cultural homogeneity. The principal obstacle to nationhood was Quebec, composed as it was of an “unprogressive, religious, submissive, courteous, and, though poor, not unhappy people. . . . They are governed by the priest, with the occasional assistance of the notary. . . . The French-Canadians . . . retain their exclusive national character.” Confederation had failed to meld the competing “races” and regions into a single community and only political corruption, bribes to the regions, and the vested interests which benefited from the protective tariff kept this artificial country from collapsing. “Sectionalism,” he had written in 1878, “still reigns in everything, from the composition of a Cabinet down to that of a Wimbledon Rifle team.” In Smith’s mind the natural geographical and economic forces of North America worked against the unnatural political and sentimental opinions of Canadians. Like the United States, Canada was a North American nation and once this fact was recognized the two communities would achieve their destiny in unity. “The more one sees of society in the New World, the more convinced one is that its structure essentially differs from that of society in the Old World, and that the feudal element has been eliminated completely and forever.” Everything pointed towards “an equal and honorable alliance like that of Scotland and England” between Canada and her southern neighbour, “Canadian nationality being a lost cause.”
Over the years Smith’s conviction about Canada’s destiny intensified, his observation of French Canada hardening his hostility to that community. By 1891 he was willing to state emphatically that one of the principal benefits of union with the United States would be the final solution of the French Canadian problem. “Either the conquest of Quebec was utterly fatuous or it is to be desired that the American Continent should belong to the English tongue and to Anglo-Saxon civilisation.” Though the opposition of French Canadians to the South African War moderated these sentiments somewhat – Smith even considered joining forces with Henri Bourassa* in an anti-imperialist movement – he continued to fear, as he told Bourassa in 1905, “the connexion of your national aspirations with those of an ambitious and aggressive priesthood.” His ideal of cultural homogeneity left no room for a political nationality based on cultural diversity, the cornerstone of confederation. For him the call of race was irresistible: “In blood and character, language, religion, institutions, laws and interests, the two portions of the Anglo-Saxon race on this continent are one people.”
In all of his pronouncements on politics, economics, and Canada’s destiny, Smith seemed a self-confident, even dogmatic, pundit. But underneath that confidence was a profoundly uneasy man. The unease arose not only from Smith’s personal religious uncertainty but even more from his anxiety about the future of society in an age of religious scepticism. Though Smith does not seem to have experienced that typical Victorian “crisis of faith,” Darwinism and the higher criticism of the Bible certainly left him with little more than a thin deism and a vague humanism founded on Christian ethics. Throughout his life he struggled with religious questions, and his inconclusive answers were recorded in his Guesses at the riddle of existence (1897). But it was always to the social implications of the decline of faith that he returned. In an essay entitled “The prospect of a moral interregnum,” published in 1879, he observed: “That which prevails as Agnosticism among philosophers and the highly educated prevails as secularism among mechanics, and in that form is likely soon to breed mutinous questionings about the present social order among those who get the poorer share, and who can no longer be appeased by promises of compensation in another world.” For 30 years he repeated this gloomy theme, revealing his forebodings about the decline and fall of practically everything he accepted as eternal verities. Everywhere “prophets of unrest” loomed – Karl Marx, Henry George, Edward Bellamy, assorted socialists and anarchists, and the leaders of “the revolt of women” – questioning the established order, no longer satisfied by the opiate of religion. His increasingly shrill polemics signified his alienation from a world that had passed him by. He was simply too set in his ways to admit, as he was urged to do by Alphonse Desjardins*, the leader of the Quebec cooperative movement, “that improvements can be got by recognizing that the old liberal school of Political Economy has not discovered everything.”
Harriet Smith died at the Grange on 9 Sept. 1909. The following March the old man slipped and broke his thigh. He died on 7 June 1910 and was buried in St James cemetery. The Grange, which remained his wife’s property, was willed by her to the city of Toronto to serve as a public art gallery. The £20,000 Smith had inherited from his father had grown to more than $830,000 by the time of his death. He left his excellent library to the University of Toronto. Most of his fortune and his private papers went to Cornell University as a mark, Smith’s will revealingly declared, of his “attachment as an Englishman to the union of the two branches of our race on this continent with each other, and with their common mother.”
Ramsay Cook
[...]
Glorious it is in death
to share the lot with godlike
To preserve true freedom
and to protect the truth
under protection without
haggling the prize
Justice is art
and unity the most beautiful
jewellery
The happiness of life in prudence
In harsh judgement
Presumption is sentenced
Constant learning,
even in old age and
practicing fine ethics
Standing up for moderation
With the high laws
love enthrones in unition
The righteous may not live long
and not without heartache
But if listening to
the inner constitution
The agreement blesses
every under-earth bed
Most of the harbingers
were misunderstood and
denigrated
Speaker of a new order
Your kingdom is perfect
It commands forgiveness and
not punishment
[Translation and excerpt of my poem 'Antigone']
French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 23. Photo: Manuel Frères.
Yvonne de Bray (1887-1954) was a French stage and screen actress, famous for her role as Sophie in Jean Cocteau's film Les parents terribles (1948).
Born Yvonne Laurence Blanche de Bray, on 12 May 1887 in Paris, already as a child, Yvonne de Bray started on stage alongside famous monstres sacrés of the French stage, Gabrielle Réjane, and Sarah Bernhardt. When she was 15, she married a journalist but the marriage lasted only 3 years. Her real stage debut she had in 1907 in Le Ruisseau by Pierre Wolf. After that, she played in comedies such as Trains de luxe by Abel Hermand in 1909 and Papa by the fashionable duo Flers and Caillavet in 1911. The same year, she met poet and playwright Henry Bataille (1872-1922) and was struck by lightning. For ten years they remained a couple, living in Rueil-Malmaison. She performed on stage in tailor-made plays by her husband (e.g. La Phalène, 1913; La Tendresse, 1921; and La Possession, 1921). As Daniel Chocron writes on the site CinéArtistes, while afterward denigrated, Bataille's plays had underneath their lightness a serious critique of society and morality regarding the situation of women versus men in the world of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy In 1922, De Bray left the stage, devastated after the death of her husband.
For several years De Bray would be the lover of the former sports champion Violette Morris (1893-1944), who helped De Bray with her dipsomaniac alcoholism. In 1938, Jean Cocteau managed to convince De Bray to go back on stage to perform in his play Les Parents Terribles the role of Sophie, which he had written especially for her. A health problem prevented her from performing, so Germaine Dermoz got the part. Instead, in 1948, she would be Sophie in Cocteau's film adapted from the play, opposite Jean Marais as Michel, Josette Day as Madeleine, and Gabrielle Dorziat as Léo. In 1939, De Bray and her partner invited Jean Cocteau, whose lover Marais was then mobilized, to stay with them at their houseboat docked at Pont de Neuilly. There he wrote the three-act play Les Monstres sacrés in which De Bray and Morris would act in 1940. The play was a success, so De Bray stepped out of her isolation. But during the war, the relation with Morris collapsed and the latter, deluded in life, would collaborate with the Nazi's and would be shot by the French Resistance in 1944 (even if no proof of Morris' collaboration has ever resurfaced in archives).
From 1943 De Bray acted in film, including Jean Delannoy's L'Éternel Retour (1943), Cocteau's L'Aigle à deux têtes (1948), Gigi (1948) and Olivia (1950) by Jacqueline Audry, Chéri (1950) by Pierre Billon, Nous sommes tous des assassins by André Cayatte (1952) and Quand tu liras cette lettre (1953) by Jean-Pierre Melville. Already in 1901-1911, De Bray had acted in two shorts, Les Fiancés de Miss Maggy (SCAGL, 1909) and Le Poison du Professeur Rouff (Pathé, 1911), but there may have been more. At the theatre, De Bray performed not only with Cocteau but also e..g. in Jean Giraudoux's Pour Lucrèce (1953).
Yvonne de Bray died on 1 February 1954 in Paris. She was buried at the cemetery of Père-Lachaise.
Sources: French and English Wikipedia, IMDB, www.cineressources.net/recherche_t_r.php?type=PNP&pk=..., encinematheque.fr/polvere/P089/index.php, www.cineartistes.com/fiche-Yvonne+de+Bray.html?PHPSESSID=, infosansmasque.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/violette-morris-o...
Are we worthy of an invite please please please.
Selfie denigration times three. Three images are my own and the dragon fire is courtesy of Pixabay.
All put together via Juxtaposer app and final embellishments in Snapseed app.
Right and left of the house are the two old wells by Josef Gasser. They represent opposing worlds. On your left, it depens on your position: "music, dance, joy, levity", right: "Loreley, sadness, love, revenge". This one stands for music...
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
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Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)
Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)
State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)
Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
Q: What Is A Syndicate Quiz?
A: A general knowledge quiz for teams of up to 6 people. You write the answer on a piece of paper and take it to the 'command table' run by the entertainment team. The winning team each evening gets a bottle of P&O wine (which is denigrated by the staff). Winners get deducted a point next time they play. It can get very competitive- histrionics and sulking ;p
Trivia games or quizzes are a cruise ship staple that Niccy and I both enjoy. We can hold our own for the most part, occasionally winning and always having a good time. They're usually a pretty civil affair but we did get a shock on P&O.
Seems that the P&O crowd takes these things quite seriously. Kind of like taking the SATs here in the US, the GCSE for my UK brethren. Don't talk, don't laugh, don't step out of line or you'll be called on it. C'mon people, it's just a game!
The "prize" for winning the quiz is a bottle of P&O branded plonk, probably the leftovers from Ernest and Julio Gallo after they've filled all the boxes at the factory. Not something you'd bring to a dinner and certainly not something you'd brag about.
Needless to say Niccy and I failed miserably for the most part since the questions were very UK centric which we should have expected. Oh well, we're gearing up for our next trip on Holland America where we plan to dominate!
BTW, we were on our own every night, no one wanted to team up with us. We both used deodorant and toothpaste so we don't understand why? ;-)
History of the Vienna State Opera
132 years house on the Ring
(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901
About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.
The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .
State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903
The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.
1869 - 1955
On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.
However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.
In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.
Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.
Technique: Lithography
from www.aeiou.at
In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.
staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)
The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.
The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.
But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.
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Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.
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State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak
1955 to 1992
The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:
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Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.
Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher
After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.
It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.
The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)
After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.
His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.
State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA
Image : Vienna State Opera
In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).
Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).
At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.
more...
Directors since 1869
Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870
Opening 5/25/1869
Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875
Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880
Director College:
Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and
Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880
Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897
Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907
Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911
Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918
Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919
Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924
Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929
Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934
Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936
Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940
Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941
Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941
Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943
Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945
Alfred Jerger,
State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945
Franz Salmhofer,
State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955
Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956
Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962
Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963
Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964
Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968
Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972
Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982
Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984
Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986
Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991
Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992
Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010
Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010
Opera world premieres
Abbreviations:
Od = the Odeon
Ron = Ronacher
TW = the Theater an der Wien
1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba
1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede
1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade
15.12. Brüller Bianca
1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold
21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin
1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria
1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana
4:10 . Hager Marffa
19.11. Goldmark Merlin
1887 03:04. Harold pepper
1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King
4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth
1891 19:02. Mader Refugees
1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman
16.02. Massenet Werther
19.11. Bulk Signor Formica
1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam
1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth
1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war
1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once
1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon
1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor
1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale
1910 12:04. The musician Bittner
18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen
1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake
1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite
1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess
1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame
1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)
1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise
1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten
1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School
1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin
1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens
1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum
27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna
1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae
1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless
1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta
08.12. Bittner The violet
1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream
1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement
17.04. Frank The strange woman
18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein
1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko
1939 02:02. Will King ballad
1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk
1956 17.06. Martin The Storm
1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady
1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue
1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)
1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)
1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)
26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo
2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld
2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree
2010 28.02. Reimann Medea
2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton
The Haw Pha Bang (Ho Pha Bang), Royal or Palace Chapel, is located at the northeastern corner of the grounds of the Royal Palace Museum. Although it is a new structure, it is built in the traditional style and is tied directly to the history and traditions of this World Heritage City. The Haw Pha Bang has been designed as the permanent home/shrine for the Pha (or Pra) Bang, Luang Prabang's namesake and most sacred image. The image, brought to Luang Prabang in 1359, earlier had places of honor in various city wats (including Wisunalat and Mai). Most recently it has been on display in the Royal Palace Museum from which location it is carried to Wat Mai for ritual cleansing during the city's New Year's celebration. Work on this permanent resting place for the Pha Bang began in 1963 during the reign of Sisavang Vatthana (1959-1975). Originally to be funded by small contributions from all over the country, construction of the shrine was interrupted by invasions, wars, revolution and the end of the monarchy. The accession of the communist Lao People's Revolutionary Party, popularly known as the Pathet Lao, to power in 1975 led to attacks on Buddhism and the monarchy; it also led to the denigration of the Pha Bang that was identified with the royalist tradition. But government policies and practices changed dramatically, at least toward Theravada Buddhism and Lao folk religion. Currently state officials take part in the New Year's and other celebrations that embody the historic Lao religious traditions.
Scanned from the August 1998 Omnibus Bulletin and understood be be a June 1998 B42F rebuild of DB7172 1966 Bedford SB3 6810987 NZMB B37D (ex ARA No. 706, orig. PTC No. 6), for Wanoa Coachlines, Kaiaua, seen here after a new NDNZ chassis had been married on to the body of the rebuilt Wanoa vehicle. The completed bus is outside the Wanoa workshop at Mangatangi.
The firm's trademark stylised W is applied over a distinctive base colour, which varies from vehicle to vehicle in the fleet. Photo: W. Wanoa.
www.businfo.nz/index.php?R=948
V & W Wanoa Coachlines Ltd., Kaiaua, South Auckland
By 1988; Liquidated 3/2002
School bus and charter services
CARJAM DETAILS:
Year: 1998
Make: NISSAN DIESEL
Model: RBS500
Colour: Orange
Second Colour: Purple
Submodel: 4X2
Body Style: Self Propelled Caravan
VIN: 7B2RBS500W0K09158
Plate: XD8262
Engine No: 6BDI-359967
Vehicle Type: Motor Caravan
Seats: 3
CC rating: 5,785cc
Fuel Type: Diesel
Power: 118kW
Assembly Type: NZ Assembled/Built
Country of Origin: New Zealand
Gross Vehicle Mass: 13,500kg
Tare Weight: 6,180kg
Maximum Rated Towed Mass:
2,000kg braked trailer
Axle Type: 2-Axle
Axles: 2
Wheelbase: 5,500
Front Axle Group Rating: 5,560
Rear Axle Group Rating: 9,200
Plates History:
AFL459 – 10 September 2001
XD8262 - 29 June 1998
Registration Status:
Plate: XD8262
Replacement Plate: AFL459
Origin: NZ New
Used as: Exempt Class A (EA) vehicle
Cause of Latest Registration: New
NZ First Registration: 29 June 1998
Cancellation Date Of Registration: 15 February 2015
Was Registered Overseas? No
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE REBUILDING OF BUSES .....
Nissan Diesel New Zealand has drawn criticism from some quarters of the bus and coach industry over the prototype used for the development of the school bus replacement exercise. It has been interesting to note that some of these comments come from BCA members whose livelihood is not derived from the operation of a school bus fleet.
It has also been suggested that the use of such a vehicle undermines the "pride" of the industry. With NZ being regarded overseas as the dumping ground of the Pacific "pride" could hardly be considered a component in providing a service to the Education Dept. School bus operators I'm sure, would gladly welcome additional recompense if this was an additional reward to the already meagre returns.
It has been suggested that the level of work done to the Wanoa vehicle was insufficient to justify classifying the bus as remanufactured. To clarify this, I note the following:
In the case of the body it was entirely stripped down, inspected and approved by the local VSR inspector, given rollover approval and reskinned. One wonders how many operators of imported buses go through this procedure before putting them into service. After aU the reason these vehicles are making their way to NZ is because they are failing to gain M.I.T.I. approval and are approaching the end of their economical 12 year domestic life. And the reason for replacement - corrosion within the monocoque frame and/or body unacceptable to local Regulations.
The chassis is made of 450 grade steel, plasma profile cut and folded to NDNZ design and assembled to suit the particular wheelbase and componentry being used. As the latter varies from vehicle to vehicle the design is changed accordingly. In order to satisfy the regulations axles and steering componentry is crack tested and issued with the appropriate certificates and items such as shackle pins and bushes, wheel bearings and brake linings and the like all replaced with genuine new parts.
Taking the above into consideration it has nevertheless been expressed by some that the particular vehicle used denigrated the industry and undermined the image the association felt was its due. During the presentation of the vehicle at the Palmerston North Seminar, we were at pains to invite members present not to look at the product but to consider the concept. In hindsight it might have been more prudent to have exhibited the vehicle with a new fibreglass front and made it more cosmetically acceptable. If we could be held to account it was perhaps our injudicious use of the particular vehicle in question. However for the purposes of the exercise there was little point in using a later model bus as the impact and intricacies of the work involved and procedures required to be followed would not have had such a dramatic effect.
One wonders who it was in the association who came up with this years conference theme "Thinking outside the square" when a novel approach to an increasing problem is offered as a viable and cost effective alternative and is met with such immediate criticism from within. - Sourced from The Omnibus Bulletin, August 1998.
Dutch flyer, part 2. Charles Laughton, Fredric March, Elissa Landi and Claudette Colbert in The Sign of the Cross (Cecil B. DeMille, 1932).
In Cecil B. De Mille's lavish historical epic The Sign of the Cross (1932), a Roman soldier becomes torn between his love for a Christian woman and his loyalty to Emperor Nero. The outstanding cast is one of the film's strongest points. Fredric March is stalwart as the Roman official who falls in love with a sweet Christian girl, played by Elissa Landi. But they are upstaged by the villains, Charles Laughton and Claudette Colbert playing Emperor Nero and his wife Empress Poppaea. The Sign of the Cross (1932) is the third and last in DeMille's biblical trilogy with The Ten Commandments (1923) and The King of Kings (1927).
In 1932 – at the height of the depression, Paramount was in financial straits and Hollywood's output was mostly limited to small-scale dramas and bedroom comedies. However, Cecil B. DeMille decided to make an epic. Against all odds, he carried the torch for grandeur and spectacle and produced and directed one of his best films, The Sign of the Cross (1931), a vivid retelling of the struggles of the first Christians. The Roman Empire - First Century A. D. After burning Rome, Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar (Charles Laughton) decides to blame the Christians and issues the edict that they are all to be caught and sent to the arena. The mad Emperor and his vile Empress engage in every sort of vice and degradation. Wanton cruelty becomes a spectator sport and virtue and innocence are denigrated. Two old Christians are caught, and about to be hauled off, when Prefect Marcus Superbus (Fredric March), the highest military official in Rome, comes upon them. When he sees their stepdaughter Mercia (Elissa Landi), he instantly falls in love with her and frees them. Marcus pursues Mercia, which gets him into trouble with the Emperor for being easy on the Christians and with Empress Poppaea (Claudette Colbert), who loves him and is jealous. When Landi's Mercia's friends are marched off to the arena to die, she wants to join them. Marcus sacrifices his career by demanding that the emperor spares her life. Nero agrees, but only if she renounces her faith... So, which will eventually triumph - the might of Imperial Rome, or the gentle ones who follow The sign of the cross? Steffi-P at IMDb: "The acting in Sign of the Cross is a bit of a mixed bag, although it is of a higher standard than many of the DeMille talkies. Charles Laughton is hammily brilliant, laying down a blueprint for Emperor Nero which Peter Ustinov would follow to a well-deserved Oscar-nomination in Quo Vadis (1951). However Laughton's part is fairly small, and the screenplay makes Claudette Colbert the real villain. Colbert is fantastic, playing the Empress as an ancient world vamp, giving by far the best performance of the bunch. It's almost a shame that It Happened One Night re-invented her as a major romantic lead because she really was at her best when she played villains." Martin Kukuczka at IMDb adds: "Except for the cruel arena sequence, which is still entertaining in some way, any viewer will be surprised at one scene: Poppaea's famous milk bath. That's a moment that everyone should consider while watching the film. Her sexual bath is one of the best made moments that cinema has ever seen. It is totally filled with desire and sexuality. And all thanks to the great performance by Ms. Colbert. No surprise Cecil B DeMille cast her to play Cleopatra two years later, in 1934." As with many other pre-Code films that were reissued after the Motion Picture Production Code was strictly enforced in 1934, The Sign of the Cross (1932) has a history of censorship. In the original version, Marcus is unsuccessful in his desire to seduce Mercia. He then urges Ancaria (Joyzelle Joyner) to perform the erotic 'Dance of the Naked Moon' that will "warm her into life". This 'lesbian dance' was cut from the negative for a 1938 reissue but was restored by MCA/Universal for its 1993 video release. Some gladiatorial combat footage was also cut for the 1938 reissue, as were arena sequences involving naked women being attacked by crocodiles and a gorilla. These were also restored in 1993.
Sources: Steffi-P (IMDb), Martin Kukuczka (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
THE DEBATE:
Ron Harris (atheist)
Stated in common sense, plain language, the salvation story is pure nonsense.
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7tenths (atheist)
Well said...pure man-made fiction...by ignorant men.
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budderflyman (atheist)
I was actually told by a priest who later became an archbishop that the Church believes Mary was 12 when she became impregnated. Now, either Joseph, God, or the angel Gabriel was a child molester. Or, more likely, the whole story was made up.
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Truth in science (theist)
Atheism revealed as false- why God MUST exist
www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/15818838060
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budderflyman (atheist) reply to Truth in science (theist)
How can atheism be revealed as "false"? Atheism is very much real. It is a belief in the non existence of any gods. It is a true belief system.
Where is your evidence for a prime mover?
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Truth in science (theist) reply to budderflyman (atheist)
Logic, natural law and fundamental principles of science prove that atheism is false.
The law of cause and effect (which is the premier law, basic to all science and applicable to all natural entities) demonstrates that God (the supernatural first cause) must exist. That law alone exposes atheism as false, illogical nonsense.
Consider this simple, short chain of causes and effects:
A causes B, - B causes C, - C causes D, - D causes E.
‘A, B, C & D’ are all causes and may all look similar, but they are not, there is an enormous and crucial difference.
Causes B, C & D are fundamentally different from cause ‘A’. Why?
Because ‘A’ is the very first cause and thus had no previous cause. It exists without a cause. It doesn't rely on anything else for its existence, it is completely independent of causes - while B, C & D would not exist without ‘A’. They are entirely dependent on ‘A’.
The causes; B, C & D are also effects, whereas ‘A’ is not an effect, only a cause. So we can say that the first cause ‘A’ is both self-existent and necessary. It is necessary because the rest of the chain of causes and effects could not exist without it. We can also say that the subsequent causes and effects B, C, D & E are all contingent. That is; they are not self-existent they all depend entirely on other causes to exist. We must also say that ‘A’ is eternally self-existent, i.e. it has always existed, it had no beginning.
Why?
Because if ‘A’ came into being at some point, there must have been something other than itself that brought it into being, which would mean ‘A’ was not the first cause (‘A’ could not create ‘A’). The something that brought ‘A’ into being would be the first cause. In which case, ‘A’ would be contingent and no different from B, C, D & E. We also have to say that ‘A’ has to be adequate to produce all the properties of B, C, D & E.
Why?
Well, in the case of E, we can see that it relies entirely on D for its existence.
E can in no way be superior to D, because D had to contain within itself everything necessary to produce E.
The same applies to D, it cannot be superior to C. Furthermore neither E or D can be superior to C, because both rely on C for their existence, and C had to contain everything necessary to produce D & E.
Likewise with B, which is responsible for the existence of C, D & E.
As they all depend on ‘A’ for their existence and for all their properties, abilities and potentials, none can be superior to ‘A’ whether singly or combined.
‘A’ had to contain everything necessary to produce B, C, D & E, including all their properties, abilities and potentials.
Thus we deduce that; nothing in the universe can be superior in any way to the very first cause of the universe. Because the whole universe, and all material things that exist, depend entirely on the abilities and properties of the first cause to produce them.
Conclusion… A first cause must be uncaused, must have always existed, and cannot be in any way inferior to all subsequent causes and effects. In other words, the first cause of the universe must be eternally, self-existent and omnipotent (greater than anything that exists).
Natural law and fundamental principles of science tell us; that NO ‘natural’ entity can possibly have those attributes.
That is why a Supernatural, Creator God MUST exist - and atheism is revealed as false.
In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
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Ron Harris (atheist) reply to Truth in science (theist)
How is causality a "chain"? At best you can trace back some necessary conditions for a given event that seems chainlike. Without a chain of causes you cannot have "superior" causes.
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Truth in science (theist) reply to Ron Harris (atheist)
The law of cause and effect, which is the fundamental principle behind scientific research, tells us that every natural effect/event/entity has to have an adequate cause.
Therefore we must be able to trace every effect and its cause/s back through time (however long the chain of causes and effects) to an original first cause.
If you believe in the big bang, for example, the initial explosion would have caused the expansion of matter, which was subsequently caused (presumably by gravity) to coalesce into cosmic bodies, and so on through numerous other causes - one or more causes leading to other cause/s in a chain right up to the origin of the Earth and first life - and (if you believe in evolution) then through a chain of causes right up to human life. Whether there is one or more chains of causes happening at the same time, or even causes that combine or overlap, doesn't make any difference. At some stage they all originate from an original, first cause, and science tells us that nothing that follows the first cause can be superior to it. The effect cannot be greater than the cause.
So the first cause has to embody everything we see in the universe, all properties, powers, qualities and potentialities.
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Ron Harris (atheist) reply to Truth in science (theist)
An "adequate" cause? Do you mean the cause must be sufficient for its effect? If so, that has nothing to do with tracing back along a chain of necessary conditions to the earliest necessary condition.
"The effect cannot be greater than the cause. So the first cause has to embody everything we see in the universe, all properties, powers, qualities and potentialities."
What do you mean by the effect not being greater than its cause? In what respect must a cause be greater than any of its effects? Must a cause be greater than any of its effects in every way? What about those ways that are not comparable? Have you taken into account "emergence"? For example, the momentum of the particles of a gas colliding with the walls of its container generates (causes) pressure. So is the momentum of the particles greater than the pressure they generate in all important respects? These are incommensurable properties: how can you compare them for this lesser/greater relation?
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Truth in science (theist) reply to Ron Harris (atheist)
You wrote:
What do you mean by the effect not being greater than its cause? In what respect must a cause be greater than any of its effects?
I didn't say a cause must be greater than its effects. It is the other way round. An effect cannot be greater than its cause/s.
Most effects we see today, are not due to a single cause, they have a combination of several causes. Included in those causes are the inherent properties of the entity involved, which are described by natural laws.
If an apple falls off a tree, for example, there are many causes, some are inherent properties of the tree and of matter. The causes range from the tree growing from an original seed which has landed on the ground, being watered and nourished by rain and soil, its flowers being pollinated, forming a fruit (apple) and when ripe, being caused by gravity to fall to the ground.
Probably a better example would be the act of striking a match and causing a forest fire.
It could be said that the effect, i.e. the forest fire is far greater than the act of striking a match. But, of course, it isn't that simple, because the match is not the only cause.
The inflammable material has been formed over many years of the trees growing and building up a store of energy from the Sun and soil. The match is simply a trigger which causes the energy stored in all the trees to be released in a forest fire.
When we talk about the very first cause, that is a completely different matter, because it is a single cause that is solely responsible for every effect that follows it..
It is the cause of everything, even the inherent properties of natural entities, such as natural laws, which can eventually act as contributing causes themselves.
So nothing in the universe can ever be greater than the first cause, because it is the only cause responsible for the whole universe. The cause of its properties, its structure, its laws, its qualities, its powers, its potentialities and even of time.
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Ron Harris (atheist) reply to Truth in science (theist)
"When we talk about the very first cause, that is a completely different matter, because it is a single cause that is solely responsible for every effect that follows it..
It is the cause of everything, even the inherent properties of natural entities, such as natural laws, which can eventually act as causes themselves."
Pure speculation.
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Truth in science (theist) reply to Ron Harris (atheist)
It is not speculation it is a logical conclusion.
If you don't agree that the first cause is responsible for everything it causes.
Then tell me why you don't agree with it?
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Ron Harris (atheist) reply to Truth in science (theist)
But you are making an exception by claiming that there is a first cause and that that first cause is different from other causes. How do you know that there is a first cause and that it is different from other causes? If all you use is the cosmological argument, you are still making an exception of the first cause.
Regarding that argument, you wrote earlier: "At some stage they all originate from an original, first cause, and science tells us that nothing that follows the first cause can be superior to it. The effect cannot be greater than the cause."
I still don't get how you can justify the claim that "science tells us that nothing that follows the first cause can be superior to it." Really?! Science shows this? You need to show why this is so and not pure speculation.
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Truth in science (theist) reply to Ron Harris (atheist)
You asked:
"How do you know that there is a first cause and that it is different from other causes?"
Because everything in the natural realm is contingent. Every natural entity/event/effect has to have an adequate or sufficient cause. Contingency is an inherent property of ALL natural things.
It is summed up in the law of cause and effect which is the fundamental principle of the scientific method.
There is no such thing as an autonomous, non-contingent natural entity, to suggest that goes against scientific principles.
So, obviously, as all natural entities are contingent (they all rely on causes), if we trace back all causes in the universe we must eventually reach a first cause, however long the chain of causes, it must have a beginning, at some stage, in a very first cause.
The very fist cause cannot be contingent, it has no cause, if it did it wouldn't be the first cause. So it is uncaused, and therefore cannot be a natural entity. It has to be unique, there is no other cause like it, It is autonomous and is not dependant on any cause for its existence. Thus we can say it is self-existent and has always existed.
You wrote:
"I still don't get how you can justify the claim that "science tells us that nothing that follows the first cause can be superior to it." Really?! Science shows this? You need to show why this is so and not pure speculation."
An effect cannot be greater than its cause/s.
That is a fundamental principle of the scientific method also summed up in the law of cause and effect.
The very first cause is the cause of everything in the natural world, and has to be entirely adequate for the purpose of producing everything in the natural world. So nothing in the natural world can be greater or superior to that initial cause of everything. If it was, it would be a violation of the law of cause and effect and a fundamental principle of science.
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Ron Harris (atheist) reply to Truth in science (theist)
You wrote: "There is no such thing as an autonomous, non-contingent natural entity, to suggest that goes against scientific principles."
What scientific principles?
By "autonomous" do you mean that the being is able to function wholly independent of the rest of the universe? Or do you mean something more limited?
"So, obviously, as all natural entities are contingent (they all rely on causes), if we trace back all causes in the universe we must eventually reach a first cause..."
Something is "contingent" simply because it is caused? Why? Because the cause need not have been? So the return of Hailey's comet in 2061 or thereabouts is not fully determined by forces external to it because those forces need not operate?
From your last paragraph:
"An effect cannot be greater than its cause/s.
That is a fundamental principle of the scientific method also summed up in the law of cause and effect."
In response to that paragraph, I repeat what I wrote before: I still don't get how you can justify the claim that "science tells us that nothing that follows the first cause can be superior to it." Really?! Science shows this? You need to show why this is so and not pure speculation.
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Truth in science (theist) reply to Ron Harris (atheist)
I wrote:
"There is no such thing as an autonomous, non-contingent natural entity, to suggest that goes against scientific principles."
You asked?
"What scientific principles?"
The fundamental principle of science is the law of cause and effect. All scientific research depends on it.
The modus operandi of the scientific method is looking for adequate causes for EVERY natural occurrence.
An autonomous or non-contingent, natural entity violates that principle. All natural entities, effects and events rely on a preceding cause or causes.
Which means a non-contingent natural entity is impossible as far as science is concerned.
To suggest an autonomous or non-contingent natural entity or occurrence is like harking back to pre-scientific (pagan) times, when people believed in the vagaries of nature. The belief that natural things could simply act autonomously and independently without any apparent preceding cause or causes.
You wrote:
"By "autonomous" do you mean that the being is able to function wholly independent of the rest of the universe? Or do you mean something more limited?"
Natural entities cannot be autonomous because they limited by natural laws that are based on their respective, inherent properties. And being contingent they are entirely dependent on that which causes them.
I wrote:
"So, obviously, as all natural entities are contingent (they all rely on causes), if we trace back all causes in the universe we must eventually reach a first cause..."
You answered :
"Something is "contingent" simply because it is caused? Why? Because the cause need not have been? So the return of Hailey's comet in 2061 or thereabouts is not fully determined by forces external to it because those forces need not operate?"
I don’t understand what you mean by that. The velocity and trajectory of Haley’s comet is entirely subject to causes, it doesn’t act independently or autonomously.
I wrote:
"An effect cannot be greater than its cause/s.
That is a fundamental principle of the scientific method also summed up in the law of cause and effect."
You answered:
"In response to that paragraph, I repeat what I wrote before: I still don't get how you can justify the claim that "science tells us that nothing that follows the first cause can be superior to it." Really?! Science shows this? You need to show why this is so and not pure speculation."
An effect cannot be greater than its cause/s.
That is an absolutely fundamental principle of science.
The very first cause is responsible for EVERY cause and effect that follows it. So it is obvious that no effect, arising anywhere in the chain of causes and effects that follows the first cause, can ever be greater, in any respect, than that which ultimately caused it and the rest of the chain of causes and effects.
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budderflyman (atheist) reply to Truth in science (theist)
You have no idea what happens when a star implodes, for example. We don't know if the known laws of physics apply to black holes or to other universes. You have no evidence at all for any god, gods, or other entities being the "very first" cause of anything. BTW, "very first" is redundant. It's either the first or it isn't. And there is no reason to believe there has to have been a first cause. There may always have been something, as I have said before. You cannot prove me wrong about this.
It's been a pleasant three weeks without reading your B.S.
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Truth in science (theist) reply to budderflyman (atheist)
Oh! you're back with your mumbo jumbo and pseudoscience.
You wrote:
"We don't know if the known laws of physics apply to black holes or to other universes"
There you go again, challenging natural laws, because they don't suit your ideology.
What we definitely DO KNOW - is that science only operates by looking for ADEQUATE CAUSES for EVERY natural occurrence. Science can't look for NON-CAUSES or INADEQUATE CAUSES which is precisely what your naturalistic ideology requires.
You wrote:
"BTW, "very first" is redundant. It's either the first or it isn't. And there is no reason to believe there has to have been a first cause"
I said 'VERY' first, because it seems atheists don't understand what 'FIRST' actually means. They keep on asking the same old, stupid question - what caused the first cause? They obviously think something has to precede something which is FIRST.
The word 'VERY' is there to emphasise the fact that if something is First nothing can precede it - I use it for the sake of atheists, who apparently find simple concepts such as the word FIRST actually meaning FIRST, rather difficult to grasp. So if you have an issue with the term 'very first' you need to discuss what 'first' actually means with your fellow atheists. When atheists stop asking the ridiculous question of what caused the first cause? Then I will stop using the term 'very' first.
You wrote:
"There may always have been something, as I have said before"
You're right, there was always something.
The first cause, by virtue of being VERY first, had no preceding cause and therefore has always existed, It is eternally self-existent and NON-CONTINGENT.
Which means the first cause (or whatever you like to call that which has always existed) cannot be something NATURAL, because ALL natural entities are CONTINGENT ...
That is not according to ME - it is according to SCIENCE, which you choose to dispute.
So your dispute is with the fundamental principles of science, not with me.
There probably are no atheists - So choose your god?
www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/15875116723
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budderflyman (atheist) reply to Truth in science (theist)
All you write is "mumbo jumbo". And please stop inserting those hideous posters or whatever the hell they are. They interrupt the flow of this page, a page, btw, which does NOT belong to YOU. I would write on YOUR Flickr pages, but you have me blocked from doing so.
Look, you can rant all you want, but the fact of the matter is that you cannot prove that your god was the first cause of everything. Your god was invented by Jewish rabbis about 6,000 years ago. They got together and wrote the Old Testament. They did the best they could to account for the creation of the world. We are now in the year 2015. We realize the OT is filled with stories with little if any science.
If I had a colorful banner that said "Creationists are Ignorant of Science" I would place it here, but, unfortunately, I don't childishly keep such things around the house.
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Truth in science (theist) reply to budderflyman (atheist)
You wrote:
"If I had a colorful banner that said "Creationists are Ignorant of Science" I would place it here,"
You are the one who disputes natural laws and basic scientific principles - you have no defence for that.
Your only defence is to rant about the Bible.
I am sorry, but as I said before, your dispute is with natural laws and scientific principles, not with me, not with the Bible, not with creationists. You simply target those things to divert attention from the fact that you and your atheist cult are anti-science.
Atheism is simply the naturalist religion (which was debunked centuries ago) re-invented. You can try all you like to give it a 21st century gloss, but it is still the unscientific nonsense it always was.
I support natural laws and scientific principles, you denigrate them, and then masquerade as a champion of science. Atheism is based on lies and deceit, not science. You don't like my images because (with the description attached) they expose the lies, hypocrisy and unscientific nature of atheism.
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budderflyman (atheist) reply to Truth in science (theist)
You are hilarious. Typical right wing creationist trying to put a spin on science in his favor, yet is anti-science. Anyone who believes in sky hooks and sky fairies could not possibly know much about science.
Atheism is not a form of the ancient religion known as naturalism. Atheism has no belief system in anything religious or theistic. It's that simple. Most atheists tend to support science. I am sure there must be some out there who do not, but it has nothing to do with religion. I get tired of having to repeat myself, but the point is, we simply do not know what happened before the Big Bang. There is no evidence for any gods, however. And that is where my argument with you and the Bible rests. There is no evidence that your god said "Let there be light" or any other words in any other language. It is convenient to make up creation stories, just as some Hindus believe that the earth sits on the back of a giant turtle and that turtle sits on another world, and there is another turtle beneath that world, ad infinitum. It's conjecture, story telling, fable, myth, call it what you like, but do not call it "truth" because it is not.
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Truth in science (theist) reply to budderflyman (atheist)
You wrote:
"It is convenient to make up creation stories, just as some Hindus believe that the earth sits on the back of a giant turtle and that turtle sits on another world, and there is another turtle beneath that world, ad infinitum. It's conjecture, story telling, fable, myth, call it what you like, but do not call it "truth" because it is not."
It is you who believes in unscientific fables and creation stories -such as: a universe creating itself from nothing, or a universe being created by "eternal, non-contingent alien species", or a universe which can rewind itself, or the spontaneous generation of life, or an uncaused natural first cause, or natural laws that magically don't apply, or an infinite number of universes, etc. There is not one scrap of evidence for any of your made-up creation stories, they are all unscientific nonsense, they are not only nonsense, they are ridiculous and ludicrous anti-science nonsense. They are every bit as ludicrous and unscientific as the giant turtle creation story.
You wrote:
"Atheism is not a form of the ancient religion known as naturalism"
Oh, so you deny that you believe in a natural, origin scenario for everything that exists, do you?
A natural origins scenario that defies natural laws and scientific principles is the essence of pagan naturalism.
That is what atheists believe in. But they think they can hoodwink the public by claiming that discredited idea is scientific.
Sorry to have to inform you, but the atheist tactic of resurrecting pagan naturalism in a different guise, has been sussed.
There is nothing 'scientific' about naturalism, it remains as it always was, illogical and unscientific nonsense.
You wrote:
"Anyone who believes in sky hooks and sky fairies could not possibly know much about science."
I see you are referring to your old, worn, dog-eared and well distressed, 'atheist responses handbook' again, you know the one that says: When the going gets tough, either rant about the Bible or use the good old standby of the sky fairy jibe. Not much originality there then!
BTW - could you please explain what a sky fairy is?
Because I don't know of any theist who believes in either sky fairies or sky hooks, or who even knows what they are supposed to be.
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budderflyman (atheist) reply to Truth in science (theist)
The Sky Fairy is how most Christians describe their god. A fairy is a mythical creature, such as an angel or god, who floats around "the heavens" and somehow keeps it eye on everyone and everything in the world (yet apparently allows evil, disease, accidents, early death, etc to occur despite heavy prayer on the part of the victims and their families and friends). The sky hook is just what it is, some invisible hook that keeps the fairies and angels suspended.
All I wrote was that most atheists do not believe in the age old religion of naturalism, which is the truth. Atheists have no religion. I know that it must be difficult for you to wrap your washed brain around this concept.
Your B.S. is old and worn. You are the one who makes extraordinary claims about a creator god, not I. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence and you or anyone else has yet to present any.
Now, go back under your bridge, troll.
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Truth in science (theist) reply to budderflyman (atheist)
You wrote:
"All I wrote was that most atheists do not believe in the age old religion of naturalism, which is the truth. Atheists have no religion. I know that it must be difficult for you to wrap your washed brain around this concept."
Yes, that is what you would like everyone to believe, anything to avoid having to justify your illogical belief in naturalism. Unfortunately for you, that little ruse has been exposed as bogus.
Naturalism = your belief, and that of the atheist cult, that 'nature' is responsible for the existence of everything - i.e. that nature (or Mother Nature) is a non-contingent, autonomous, all powerful entity - it is a belief that credits nature with all the attributes of a god.
Atheist naturalism is no different from pagan naturalism, naturalism per se IS a religious belief.
You can dress it up all you like, but the Emperor is revealed to have no clothes.
If you believe that nature created everything - and has the non-contingent, autonomous, eternally self-existent qualities that are attributed to a supernatural first cause - you effectively deify nature and matter.
Furthermore, because such beliefs demand that you disregard natural laws and scientific principles, they are based entirely on blind faith.
You wrote
"Your B.S. is old and worn. You are the one who makes extraordinary claims about a creator god, not I. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence and you or anyone else has yet to present any."
You make the extraordinary claim that laws of nature and scientific principles did not apply to your naturalist version of the origin of the universe. That is an extraordinary claim par excellence.
You have presented no evidence whatsoever for that claim, it is all complete hogwash. All you can keep repeating is that it is the scientific viewpoint, which is absolute rubbish. It is the opposite of a scientific view, to dispute natural laws and scientific principles is ANTI-SCIENCE.
"Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence and you or anyone else has yet to present any."
Where then, is your evidence for the extraordinary claim that natural laws and fundamental principles of science didn't apply to the origin of the universe?
You wrote:
"The Sky Fairy is how most Christians describe their god. A fairy is a mythical creature, such as an angel or god, who floats around "the heavens" and somehow keeps it eye on everyone and everything in the world (yet apparently allows evil, disease, accidents, early death, etc to occur despite heavy prayer on the part of the victims and their families and friends). The sky hook is just what it is, some invisible hook that keeps the fairies and angels suspended. "
So the sky fairy and sky hook are both just more fantastical figments of the fertile, atheist imagination - based on their jaundiced and erroneous understanding of the supernatural first cause.
You wrote:
"A fairy is a mythical creature, such as an angel or god"
No, a fairy is a mythical creature based on so-called spirits of NATURE.
They are more akin to paganism and the naturalist religion which atheists subscribe to.
A modern version of the fairies myth, would be the (magical) mythological, non-contingent, alien species (space fairies?), which atheists believe could have created life on Earth.
Fairies have nothing to do with monotheism. In fact, belief in such things as nature spirits, is forbidden by most monotheistic religions, especially Judeo Christian monotheism.
chronicle.uchicago.edu/050714/doctorsfaith.shtml
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budderflyman (atheist) reply to Truth in science (theist)
You're joking, right? Atheism is not a cult. It is simply the disbelief in any god or gods. I also disbelieve in unicorns. Does that make me a member of a cult?
Sorry, chum, but the whole concept of angels is connected to the belief in fairies. You see, it is called the belief in the supernatural. And you can add your devil to it, also, since he is supposedly a "fallen angel." It's all craziness. It's what the human mind conceived of to try to explain things it could not comprehend. Humans started belief systems and created mythical creatures. They do not exist, the same as the 700 pound green fart that floats over your head.
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Truth in science (theist) reply to budderflyman (atheist)
You wrote:
"Atheism is not a cult. It is simply the disbelief in any god or gods. I also disbelieve in unicorns. Does that make me a member of a cult?"
Atheism effectively deifies nature by transferring the creative, godlike powers, properties and qualities (that theists attribute to God), to nature or matter.
So atheism makes a god of nature, which means it is similar to pagan, naturalist religions.
Theists attribute the creation of everything in the universe to a supernatural cause.
Atheists attribute the creation of everything in the universe to a natural cause.
So the theist God is a supernatural, causal entity or creator, and the atheist god is a natural, causal entity or creator.
They are both religious viewpoints.
Not believing in unicorns doesn't require any alternative belief, whereas not believing in a supernatural first cause, demands belief in a natural first cause. So the comparison with unicorns is stupid.
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budderflyman (atheist) reply to Truth in science (theist)
Nice try, but you are wrong (as usual). Atheism does not deify anything. That's the point. There are no deities.
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Truth in science (theist) reply to budderflyman (atheist)
Of course atheists aren't going to admit it.
But if you believe that nature or a natural first cause is the originator of everything, you credit nature (or matter) with a godlike status. You simply replace the Creator God of theism with Mother Nature or an all-powerful god of nature.
Religion really is based on worshipping that which is greater than ourselves - worshipping that which is the cause of our existence. If you believe that cause is nature, then you are a nature worshipper and naturalism is your religion.
It is all based on belief, because you cannot prove that nature is an all powerful creator.
In fact, the evidence from natural law and scientific principles rules it out.
So atheism is an entirely faith-based creed, it has nothing to do with science, logic or reason. It has all the hallmarks of a religion, and if we compare it to pagan naturalism, there is very little to distinguish it.
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budderflyman (atheist) reply to Truth in science (theist)
I like the way evangelists twist words and definitions to suit their needs. I also like the way they try to figure out the universe starting with the Bible. And then they attack science and nature and those who live their lives by science and nature (rather than by some weird interpretation of life that fits a religious point of view).
Stop trying to tell me how I think. I don't want some knuckle dragger interpreting my life for me, thank you. And don't tell me I am anti-science when it is you who cannot bring himself to admit that evolution is the cornerstone of biology.
I am finished playing your stupid games. Go troll someone else.
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Truth in science (theist) reply to budderflyman (atheist)
You wrote:
"And then they attack science and nature and those who live their lives by science and nature"
I don't attack science I defend it against dogmatic atheists who undermine it with their anti-scientific fantasy of a natural, first cause. And I don't attack nature, I simply recognise its limitations defined by natural laws and scientific principles. In fact I support and defend the laws of nature against attacks on them by atheists, who see them as an obstacle to their ideology.
And atheists don't live their lives by science, they are quite willing to distort and pervert scientific principles simply to suit their ideological beliefs. There is no scientific evidence for the atheist cult. It is based purely on faith in the godlike powers of nature to do or create everything, regardless of the fact that logic, natural laws and science, all say the opposite.
You wrote:
"And don't tell me I am anti-science when it is you who cannot bring himself to admit that evolution is the cornerstone of biology."
Progressive evolution is the greatest mistake and greatest hoax in history, it is destined for the dustbin of history when the public finally realise how they have been hoodwinked and treated as fools.
SEE: The Great Mistake.
www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/15650423453
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had a nice chat with this gentleman farmer, assuring that I was there to document, not denigrate... dude, you're feeding me, Thank You! ;-)
please also view → flic.kr/p/mv5VaE → disc & bales
Several thousand of Muslim demonstrators gathered in Chater Garden for a rally to denounce an anti-Islam film made in the US.
They prayed while facing in the direction of Mecca, then listened to speeches and held up placards condemning the film, which denigrates the prophet Mohammed, and demanding that the American government take action against those who made it. The film has sparked protests, some violent, in more than 20 countries.
An anti-establishment view or belief is one which stands in opposition to the conventional social, political, and economic principles of a society. The term was first used in the modern sense in 1958, by the British magazine New Statesman to refer to its political and social agenda. Antiestablishmentarianism (or anti-establishmentarianism) is an expression for such a political philosophy.
In the UK anti-establishment figures and groups are seen as those who argue or act against the ruling class. Having an established church, in England, a British monarchy, an aristocracy, and an unelected upper house in Parliament made up in part by hereditary nobles, the UK has a clearly definable[citation needed] Establishment against which anti-establishment figures can be contrasted. In particular, satirical humour is commonly used to undermine the deference shown by the majority of the population towards those who govern them. Examples of British anti-establishment satire include much of the humour of Peter Cook and Ben Elton; novels such as Rumpole of the Bailey; magazines such as Private Eye; and television programmes like Spitting Image, That Was The Week That Was, and The Prisoner (see also the satire boom of the 1960s). Anti-establishment themes also can be seen in the novels of writers such as Will Self.
However, by operating through the arts and media, the line between politics and culture is blurred, so that pigeonholing figures such as Banksy as either anti-establishment or counter-culture figures can be difficult. The tabloid newspapers such as The Sun, are less subtle, and commonly report on the sex-lives of the Royals simply because it sells newspapers, but in the process have been described as having anti-establishment views that have weakened traditional institutions. On the other hand, as time passes, anti-establishment figures sometimes end up becoming part of the Establishment, as Mick Jagger, the Rolling Stones frontman, became a Knight in 2003, or when The Who frontman Roger Daltrey was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 in recognition of both his music and his work for charity.
Anti-establishment in the United States began in the 1940s and continued through the 1950s.
Many World War II veterans, who had seen horrors and inhumanities, began to question every aspect of life, including its meaning. Urged to return to "normal lives" and plagued by post traumatic stress disorder (discussing it was "not manly"), in which many of them went on to found the outlaw motorcycle club Hells Angels. Some veterans, who founded the Beat Movement, were denigrated as Beatniks and accused of being "downbeat" on everything. Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote a Beat autobiography that cited his wartime service.
Citizens had also begun to question authority, especially after the Gary Powers U-2 Incident, wherein President Eisenhower repeatedly assured people the United States was not spying on Russia, then was caught in a blatant lie. This general dissatisfaction was popularized by Peggy Lee's laconic pop song "Is That All There Is?", but remained unspoken and unfocused. It was not until the Baby Boomers came along in huge numbers that protest became organized, who were named by the Beats as "little hipsters".
"Anti-establishment" became a buzzword of the tumultuous 1960s. Young people raised in comparative luxury saw many wrongs perpetuated by society and began to question "the Establishment". Contentious issues included the ongoing Vietnam War with no clear goal or end point, the constant military build-up and diversion of funds for the Cold War, perpetual widespread poverty being ignored, money-wasting boondoggles like pork barrel projects and the Space Race, festering race issues, a stultifying education system, repressive laws and harsh sentences for casual drug use, and a general malaise among the older generation. On the other side, "Middle America" often regarded questions as accusations, and saw the younger generation as spoiled, drugged-out, sex-crazed, unambitious slackers.
Anti-establishment debates were common because they touched on everyday aspects of life. Even innocent questions could escalate into angry diatribes. For example, "Why do we spend millions on a foreign war and a space program when our schools are falling apart?" would be answered with "We need to keep our military strong and ready to stop the Communists from taking over the world." As in any debate, there were valid and unsupported arguments on both sides. "Make love not war" invoked "America, love it or leave it."
As the 1960s simmered, the anti-Establishment adopted conventions in opposition to the Establishment. T-shirts and blue jeans became the uniform of the young because their parents wore collar shirts and slacks. Drug use, with its illegal panache, was favored over the legal consumption of alcohol. Promoting peace and love was the antidote to promulgating hatred and war. Living in genteel poverty was more "honest" than amassing a nest egg and a house in the suburbs. Rock 'n roll was played loudly over easy listening. Dodging the draft was passive resistance to traditional military service. Dancing was free-style, not learned in a ballroom. Over time, anti-establishment messages crept into popular culture: songs, fashion, movies, lifestyle choices, television.
The emphasis on freedom allowed previously hushed conversations about sex, politics, or religion to be openly discussed. A wave of radical liberation movements for minority groups came out of the 1960s, including second-wave feminism; Black Power, Red Power, and the Chicano Movement; and gay liberation. These movements differed from previous efforts to improve minority rights by their opposition to respectability politics and militant tone. Programs were put in place to deal with inequities: Equal Opportunity Employment, the Head Start Program, enforcement of the Civil Rights Act, busing, and others. But the widespread dissemination of new ideas also sparked a backlash and resurgence in conservative religions, new segregated private schools, anti-gay and anti-abortion legislation, and other reversals. Extremists[clarification needed] tended to be heard more because they made good copy for newspapers and television.[citation needed] In many ways, the angry debates of the 1960s led to modern right-wing talk radio and coalitions for "traditional family values".
As the 1960s passed, society had changed to the point that the definition of the Establishment had blurred, and the term "anti-establishment" seemed to fall out of use.
In recent years, with the rise of the populist right, the term anti-establishment has tended to refer to both left and right-wing movements expressing dissatisfaction with mainstream institutions. For those on the right, this can be fueled by feelings of alienation from major institutions such as the government, corporations, media, and education system, which are perceived as holding progressive social norms, an inversion of the meaning formerly associated with the term. This can be accounted for by a perceived cultural and institutional shift to the left by many on the right. According to Pew Research, Western European populist parties from both sides of the ideological spectrum tapped into anti-establishment sentiment in 2017, "from the Brexit referendum to national elections in Italy." Sarah Kendzior of QZ opines that "The term "anti-establishment" has lost all meaning," citing a campaign video from then candidate Donald Trump titled "Fighting the Establishment." The term anti-establishment has tended to refer to Right-wing populist movements, including nationalist movements and anti-lockdown protests, since Donald Trump and the global populist wave, starting as far back as 2015 and as recently as 2021.
British postcard by Real Photographs Co. Ltd., Southport. Photo: Columbia British. Tom Walls in This Man Is Mine (Marcel Varnel, 1946).
English actor Tom Walls (1883-1949) was a popular character player on stage and in films, and also worked as a film director. He is indelibly associated with the popular Aldwych Theatre farces of the 1920s and 1930s and was one of the most influential figures in British comedy.
Tom Kirby Walls was born in Kingsthorpe, Northampton, England in 1883. He was the son of a plumber and was educated at Northampton County School. After leaving school, he spent a year in Canada. On his return, he was he worked for a brief time as a busker (street entertainer), a jockey, and an officer in the Metropolitan Police Force. After these false starts, he settled on a stage career. In 1905 he made his debut in the pantomime Aladdin in Glasgow. He toured America in 1906 and 1907 and on his return to England he made his London debut at The Empire Theatre in Sir Roger de Coverley (1907). He remained at the Empire (as well as touring) in musical comedy for the next two years. By 1912 he was firmly established as a West End star. He had a principal role in the musical 'Kissing Time' (1919) and in 'Whirled into Happiness' (1922). In 1922, Walls also co-produced with Leslie Henson the farce Tons of Money at the Shaftesbury Theatre. The farce, in which he also starred, ran for two years at the Shaftesbury Theatre. He made an early foray into the cinema co-producing the film version of Tons of Money (Frank Hall Crane, 1924), though he didn't reprise his role. For their next project, It Pays to Advertise, they moved to the Aldwych Theatre. Thus they inaugurated the Aldwych Farce series of comedies in which silly upper-class twits become entangled with inconvenient young ladies just as all the suspicious wives, battle-axe mothers-in-law, and henpecked husbands show up at once. Gary Brumburgh at IMDb: “ As the star and producer of a succession of witty spoofs typically denigrating society's upper crust, he often played the slick cad. Written expertly by Ben Travers and in tandem with fellow comic extraordinaires Ralph Lynn and Robertson Hare, the shows were chock full of sight gags, puns, double entendres, and slapstick.”The farces featured an ensemble cast that also included Leslie Henson, Yvonne Arnaud, Mary Brough, Winifred Shotter, Claude Hulbert, and others.
When the sound film arrived, Tom Walls moved his focus away from the theatre and into films. He functioned as both star and director in the first Aldwych-produced farce transferred to the cinema, Rookery Nook (Tom Walls, 1930) co-starring Ralph Lynn and Winifred Shotter. The madcap nonsense was a smash box-office success. So several of their classic stage shows were filmed, including Plunder (Tom Walls, 1931), A Night Like This (Tom Walls, 1932), Thark (Tom Walls, 1932), Turkey Time (Tom Walls. 1933), A Cuckoo in the Nest (Tom Walls, 1933), Dirty Work (Tom Walls, 1934) and A Cup of Kindness (Tom Walls, 1934). More or less all of them were presented as photographed plays. Walls directed seventeen films till 1938 and acted in most of them. In 1937 he and Ralph Lynn were voted the seventh most popular British stars by local exhibitors. He directed his last film towards the end of the 1930s, Old Iron (Tom Walls, 1938) with Eva Moore. When the economics of the industry changed with the new Cinematography Act, Walls went back to the theatre. He returned to films as an actor only. His career waned following the decade, but he was still seen in a number of films, both comedic and touchingly dramatic. In the war film Undercover (Sergei Nolbandov, 1943), he played the father of a guerrilla resistance leader (John Clements) in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. Walls continued to act as a character actor until his death, essaying a variety of twinkle-eyed old scoundrels. His final film was the thriller The Interrupted Journey (Daniel Birt, 1949) starring Valerie Hobson. His great passion outside of show business was horses. His productions had made him very rich and by 1927 he had his own racing stable. He moved to Ewell, Epsom, home of The Epsom Derby, and triumphed there in 1932 with his colt April the Fifth which he trained himself. In all, he trained about 150 winners (total wins) up until 1948. He was also a regular rider with his local foxhounds. However this expensive hobby took its toll and by the time of his death he was insolvent At 66, Tom Walls passed away in 1949 in his home near Edwell, England. He was married to Hilary Edwards. With their son, Tom Walls Jr., he made two on-screen appearances, Spring in Park Lane (Herbert Wilcox, 1948) and Maytime in Mayfair (Herbert Wilcox, 1949), both starring Anna Neagle and Michael Wilding.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), David Absalom (British Pictures), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
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