The difficulty with sunset is that the light changes second by second and it is difficult to pick the one to post. For me, this one has that special light when the sun has disappeared and paints the clouds from behind the mountains.

For a mix of difficulty finishing these and distraction with other projects (like Birthday Brickheadz... and playing a lot of Warframe), it's been a bit. But hey, for once, I'm posting a pair of standard and Prime that I've actually owned (technically I own both Nekroses, but I didn't when I posted). But it feels like a real achievement since Zephyr Prime is also the first Prime I grinded out myself... and it sucked.

 

Zephyr, or as I affectionately call her, "birb gal," was first built for her ability to quickly fly across the large open worlds, but I ended up using her Turbulence ability far more often. Just blowing away all the bullets from the Heavy Gunners and turrets is a Voidsend out there. Plus, I like having a birb gal on the team, which now you've seen all of.

I now know the difficulties of photographing a Black dolly.

You can't really see her features... (her lips, mainly, which is why I want to gloss them)

Although, I like that, for some reason, the face paint job didn't turn as shiny as I expected. I don't know why (what did I do wrong now!!! LOL!).

I like shiny. But in dark skin tones, shine can make photography even more difficult, so I'm grateful I messed up the paint to be.. what? semi-shiny? (i was going to say semi-matte.. but I felt semi-shiny fits better here).

 

Please read Pepita's description in her flickr set, for info about her skin and hair.

Restoration Safaris

Goodmorning :)

May you all have wonderful days!....remember to not let these difficulties put you down - whatever they might be.

 

This is a picture from yesterday...have been making paper boats again....

...and just made a new garlad in a slightly new concept from the previous one

...this time they are seeing the shelves of the shop ( here comes a "yay"!)

...I' ve been making pictures of them throughout the weekend

...still I think the nicest ones were made just....this morning, when gorgeous light shined!

...I'll take some time during the day to process them and then decide which ones I like the most to display at the shop.

 

It's a heavenly blessed day here, with crisp fresh air and so unusual for this time of the year strong sunshine and clear blue skies. As already said, I'm wishing you all to find ways in spending this day in a positive manner....but before you do, let's have a look at this corner of our home and see what do we thank Ikea for:

 

~ the floor lamp

~ the mini shelf adjusted in the corner

~ the ceramic vase from the PS collection designed by.....Hella Jongerius (however I adore her name, I must always double check before writing it)

~ the ceramic pot that holds the Ivy plant

~ the Ivy plant itself

~ the blanket acting as a temporary curtain here

~ the narrow and long mirror

~ the pure wool, off white carpet

~ the black & white patterned pillow

~ the simple, trasparent vase the roses are held

 

....well that's it....and it's just a tiny corner ;-)

 

P.S...those of you who are friends here might have noticed a later apperance of mine than I used to. This is due to the fact that I've returned to practising almost daily yoga & meditation, which brings a different pace in my day and an overall exposure to the Internet isn't wished.

There's a lot of information to be sorted out and I try to spend my day doing the things that are important and serve my life choices.

This doesn't mean that I do not miss spending generous amounts of time on your streams! I do. I just have to do it in a more monitored way.

As at the same time, a very important to me person, pointed out that I might be preferring my online friends than his company and this is under no circumstances true and neither is it right, that I alloewed it to reach to this point.

 

So, please do keep in my mind that I'll go on happily visiting you as often as I can, with lots of care and attention!

Finally at the same time, I have been working on a few projects simmultaneously and honestly flickr is a great addiction! Unlike many women, I do not like to do many things at the same time. It's my choice to concentrate on whichever job I perform, even if the only boss I have above my head is....myself!

I find this to be alsmost impossible if I try to meticulously catch up with all the comments on my stream and pay extended visits to all the people whose work I love.

So, I'll be popping in throughout the day hoping to be always catching up with as much of your wonderful work as possible!

 

Always warmest of wishes for all things best,

Ivy xx

Difficulty looking at the Urban sunrise this morning such a beauty of the sunburst through the trees.

 

Whitby Park Ellesmere Port Cheshire. 188/365

I was back at the river bed just before 1100 and quite a few skippers were around. None are ones I see often.

I always like this 'type' of skipper but can not sort them at all. So many look very similar to me though from various genera.

Even experts seem to have difficulty sorting out this genus so almost always the exact species is unknown from a photo.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to everyone who celebrates this special day today!

 

What a mess Flickr was last night! I had difficulty adding titles to my uploaded images, comments didn't save and, after I had added a description to each of the 20 photos, the descriptions all disappeared. When I opened Flickr this morning, there was still no sign of them. Then, suddenly, they re-appeared.

 

My photos taken at the National Butterfly Centre, Mission, South Texas, have now come to an end, so you can sigh a huge sigh of relief : ) After that, I have just a few photos taken at another place that we called in at later in the afternoon. Unfortunately, we only had an hour there before closing time, but how glad we were that we found this place. The highlight there was watching 25 Yellow-crowned Night-Herons coming in to roost for the night in the trees, right where we were standing! What a great sight this was, and we were lucky enough to have a good, close view of these gorgeous birds. We also saw some Purple Martins and their circular, hanging nest "gourds".

 

On Day 6 of our birding holiday in South Texas, 24 March 2019, we left our hotel in Kingsville, South Texas, and started our drive to Mission, where we would be staying at La Quinta Inn & Suites for three nights. On the first stretch of our drive, we were lucky enough to see several bird species, including a Golden-fronted Woodpecker, Hooded Oriole, Red-tailed Hawk, Crested Caracara, Harris's Hawk, Pyrrhuloxia male (looks similar to a Cardinal) and a spectacular Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. I'm not sure if this stretch is called Hawk Alley.

 

We had a long drive further south towards Mission, with only a couple of drive-by photos taken en route (of a strangely shaped building that turned out to be a deserted seed storage building). Eventually, we reached our next planned stop, the National Butterfly Centre. This was a great place, my favourite part of it being the bird feeding station, where we saw all sorts of species and reasonably close. Despite the name of the place, we only saw a few butterflies while we were there. May have been the weather or, more likely, the fact that I was having so much fun at the bird feeding station. We also got to see Spike, a giant African Spurred Tortoise. All the nature/wildlife parks that we visited in South Texas had beautiful visitor centres and usually bird feeding stations. And there are so many of these parks - so impressive!

 

nationalbutterflycenter.org/nbc-multi-media/in-the-news/1...

 

"Ten years ago, the North American Butterfly Association broke ground for what has now become the largest native plant botanical garden in the United States. This 100-acre preserve is home to Spike (who thinks he is a butterfly) and the greatest volume and variety of wild, free-flying butterflies in the nation. In fact, USA Today calls the National Butterfly Center, in Mission, Texas, 'the butterfly capitol of the USA'." From the Butterfly Centre's website.

 

The Centre is facing huge challenges, as a result of the "Border Wall". The following information is from the Centre's website.

 

www.nationalbutterflycenter.org/about-nbc/maps-directions...

 

"No permission was requested to enter the property or begin cutting down trees. The center was not notified of any roadwork, nor given the opportunity to review, negotiate or deny the workplan. Same goes for the core sampling of soils on the property, and the surveying and staking of a “clear zone” that will bulldoze 200,000 square feet of habitat for protected species like the Texas Tortoise and Texas Indigo, not to mention about 400 species of birds. The federal government had decided it will do as it pleases with our property, swiftly and secretly, in spite of our property rights and right to due process under the law."

 

"What the Border Wall will do here:

1) Eradicate an enormous amount of native habitat, including host plants for butterflies, breeding and feeding areas for wildlife, and lands set aside for conservation of endangered and threatened species-- including avian species that migrate N/S through this area or over-winter, here, in the tip of the Central US Flyway.

 

2) Create devastating flooding to all property up to 2 miles behind the wall, on the banks of the mighty Rio Grande River, here.

 

3) Reduce viable range land for wildlife foraging and mating. This will result in greater competition for resources and a smaller gene pool for healthy species reproduction. Genetic "bottlenecks" can exacerbate blight and disease.

 

IN ADDITION:

 

4) Not all birds can fly over the wall, nor will all butterfly species. For example, the Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, found on the southern border from Texas to Arizona, only flies about 6 ft in the air. It cannot overcome a 30 ft vertical wall of concrete and steel.

 

5) Nocturnal and crepuscular wildlife, which rely on sunset and sunrise cues to regulate vital activity, will be negatively affected by night time flood lighting of the "control zone" the DHS CBP will establish along the wall and new secondary drag roads. The expansion of these areas to vehicular traffic will increase wildlife roadkill.

 

6) Animals trapped north of the wall will face similar competition for resources, cut off from native habitat in the conservation corridor and from water in the Rio Grande River and adjacent resacas. HUMANS, here, will also be cut off from our only source of fresh water, in this irrigated desert.

“The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increasing clearness on your path.”

Jim Rohn

 

Textures thanks to JoesSistah for Is2 :)

Creator: H. Cooper (original photograph), Strabane & District Camera Club (modern image)

 

Date: c.1912 & September 2015

 

Original Format: Glass plate negative

 

Description: Strabane flood, motor in difficulties.

 

PRONI Ref (of archival image): D1422/A/4/15/98

 

Copying and copyright:

Please see www.proni.gov.uk/index/research_and_records_held/copying_...

 

For Copy Orders, contact:

Email: proni@dcalni.gov.uk

For fees and charges see: www.proni.gov.uk/index/about_proni/are_there_any_fees_and...

via Instagram ift.tt/2ixfJbQ

"I'll put all difficulties under your heels so the smile remains on your face."

 

Photographer's profile

 

I am Fatima. I am 19 years old. I am from Al-Ghotta, Syria. I have three children and I love sewing. I stopped studying but want to go back to school. I also love photography.

 

Background

 

More than a million Syrian children have been forced to flee the conflict in their homeland.

 

Growing up in exile, sometimes orphaned or separated from loved ones, they are often haunted by violence and loss – but also resilient enough to envision better days ahead.

 

"Do You See What I See" let young refugees – now living in Jordan and Lebanon – shine a light on their world and share it with others.

 

Through workshops led by photojournalist Brendan Bannon and organised by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, they learnt to capture their observations in a striking photograph.

 

In these words and images they reveal loss and longing, hope and fear, simple pleasures and complex emotions.

 

Do you see what they see? See all the photos and find out more about the project at: refugee-photo-project.unhcr.org

 

These images are presented as part of the Supporting Syria and the Region conference on 4 February 2016, co-hosted by the UK, Germany, Kuwait, Norway, and the United Nations. Find out more at www.supportingsyria2016.com

 

Picture © Fatima/UNHCR. All rights reserved.

 

Based in Za'atari Camp, Jordan.

REFORD GARDENS | LES JARDINS DE METIS

 

Beautiful flowers at Reford Gardens.

 

From Wikipedia:

 

Iris versicolor is also commonly known as the blue flag, harlequin blueflag, larger blue flag, northern blue flag, and poison flag, plus other variations of these names, and in Britain and Ireland as purple iris.

 

It is a species of Iris native to North America, in the Eastern United States and Eastern Canada. It is common in sedge meadows, marshes, and along streambanks and shores. The specific epithet versicolor means "variously coloured".

 

It is one of the three Iris species in the Iris flower data set outlined by Ronald Fisher in his 1936 paper "The use of multiple measurements in taxonomic problems" as an example of linear discriminant analysis.

 

Visit: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_versicolor

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

REFORD GARDENS | LES JARDINS DE METIS

 

Visit : www.refordgardens.com/

 

From Wikipedia:

 

Elsie Stephen Meighen - born January 22, 1872, Perth, Ontario - and Robert Wilson Reford - born in 1867, Montreal - got married on June 12, 1894.

 

Elsie Reford was a pioneer of Canadian horticulture, creating one of the largest private gardens in Canada on her estate, Estevan Lodge in eastern Québec. Located in Grand-Métis on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, her gardens have been open to the public since 1962 and operate under the name Les Jardins de Métis and Reford Gardens.

  

Born January 22, 1872 at Perth, Ontario, Elsie Reford was the eldest of three children born to Robert Meighen and Elsie Stephen. Coming from modest backgrounds themselves, Elsie’s parents ensured that their children received a good education. After being educated in Montreal, she was sent to finishing school in Dresden and Paris, returning to Montreal fluent in both German and French, and ready to take her place in society.

 

She married Robert Wilson Reford on June 12, 1894. She gave birth to two sons, Bruce in 1895 and Eric in 1900. Robert and Elsie Reford were, by many accounts, an ideal couple. In 1902, they built a house on Drummond Street in Montreal. They both loved the outdoors and they spend several weeks a year in a log cabin they built at Lac Caribou, south of Rimouski. In the autumn they hunted for caribou, deer, and ducks. They returned in winter to ski and snowshoe. Elsie Reford also liked to ride. She had learned as a girl and spent many hours riding on the slopes of Mount Royal. And of course, there was salmon-fishing – a sport at which she excelled.

 

In her day, she was known for her civic, social, and political activism. She was engaged in philanthropic activities, particularly for the Montreal Maternity Hospital and she was also the moving force behind the creation of the Women’s Canadian Club of Montreal, the first women club in Canada. She believed it important that the women become involved in debates over the great issues of the day, « something beyond the local gossip of the hour ». Her acquaintance with Lord Grey, the Governor-General of Canada from 1904 to 1911, led to her involvement in organizing, in 1908, Québec City’s tercentennial celebrations. The event was one of many to which she devoted herself in building bridges with French-Canadian community.

 

During the First World War, she joined her two sons in England and did volunteer work at the War Office, translating documents from German into English. After the war, she was active in the Victorian Order of Nurses, the Montreal Council of Social Agencies, and the National Association of Conservative Women.

 

In 1925 at the age of 53 years, Elsie Reford was operated for appendicitis and during her convalescence, her doctor counselled against fishing, fearing that she did not have the strength to return to the river.”Why not take up gardening?” he said, thinking this a more suitable pastime for a convalescent woman of a certain age. That is why she began laying out the gardens and supervising their construction. The gardens would take ten years to build, and would extend over more than twenty acres.

 

Elsie Reford had to overcome many difficulties in bringing her garden to life. First among them were the allergies that sometimes left her bedridden for days on end. The second obstacle was the property itself. Estevan was first and foremost a fishing lodge. The site was chosen because of its proximity to a salmon river and its dramatic views – not for the quality of the soil.

 

To counter-act nature’s deficiencies, she created soil for each of the plants she had selected, bringing peat and sand from nearby farms. This exchange was fortuitous to the local farmers, suffering through the Great Depression. Then, as now, the gardens provided much-needed work to an area with high unemployment. Elsie Reford’s genius as a gardener was born of the knowledge she developed of the needs of plants. Over the course of her long life, she became an expert plantsman. By the end of her life, Elsie Reford was able to counsel other gardeners, writing in the journals of the Royal Horticultural Society and the North American Lily Society. Elsie Reford was not a landscape architect and had no training of any kind as a garden designer. While she collected and appreciated art, she claimed no talents as an artist.

 

Elsie Stephen Reford died at her Drummond Street home on November 8, 1967 in her ninety-sixth year.

 

In 1995, the Reford Gardens ("Jardins de Métis") in Grand-Métis were designated a National Historic Site of Canada, as being an excellent Canadian example of the English-inspired garden.(Wikipedia)

 

Visit : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsie_Reford

 

Visit : www.refordgardens.com

 

LES JARDINS DE MÉTIS

 

Créés par Elsie Reford de 1926 à 1958, ces jardins témoignent de façon remarquable de l’art paysager à l’anglaise. Disposés dans un cadre naturel, un ensemble de jardins exhibent fleurs vivaces, arbres et arbustes. Le jardin des pommetiers, les rocailles et l’Allée royale évoquent l’œuvre de cette dame passionnée d’horticulture. Agrémenté d’un ruisseau et de sentiers sinueux, ce site jouit d’un microclimat favorable à la croissance d’espèces uniques au Canada. Les pavots bleus et les lis, privilégiés par Mme Reford, y fleurissent toujours et contribuent , avec d’autres plantes exotiques et indigènes, à l’harmonie de ces lieux.

 

Created by Elsie Reford between 1926 and 1958, these gardens are an inspired example of the English art of the garden. Woven into a natural setting, a series of gardens display perennials, trees and shrubs. A crab-apple orchard, a rock garden, and the Long Walk are also the legacy of this dedicated horticulturist. A microclimate favours the growth of species found nowhere else in Canada, while the stream and winding paths add to the charm. Elsie Reford’s beloved blue poppies and lilies still bloom and contribute, with other exotic and indigenous plants, to the harmony of the site.

 

Commission des lieux et monuments historiques du Canada

Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.

Gouvernement du Canada – Government of Canada

 

© Copyright

This photo and all those in my Photostream are protected by copyright. No one may reproduce, copy, transmit or manipulate them without my written permission.

   

April 23, 2015 on our trip to the blipmeet at Wanaka, Central Otago in New Zealand. www.polaroidblipfoto.com/browse/me

 

Our first morning in Cromwell. We woke to heavy fog which took a while to lift. We have arrived at Mt Difficulty Estate Winery so John can do some tasting.

 

The unique microclimate of the Bannockburn area is partially created by the presence of Mount Difficulty which overlooks the southern Cromwell basin, and is the namesake of Mt Difficulty Wines. Mount Difficulty is integral in providing low rainfall and humidity for the region. Bannockburn enjoys hot summers, a large diurnal temperature variation and long cool autumns; conditions which bring the best out of the Pinot Noir grapes. These conditions, along with soils which are ideal for viticulture, provide an excellent basis not only for Pinot Noir, but also for Pinot Gris, Riesling, and Chardonnay. The soils are a mix of clay and gravels, but all feature a high pH level; grapes produce their best wines on sweet soils.

For More Info and photos: www.mtdifficulty.co.nz/aboutus/ourstory.html

Chassis n° V8C0L15040

 

Zoute Sale - Bonhams

Estimated : € 150.000 - 200.000

Sold for € 166.750

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2021

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2021

 

Aston Martin had always intended the DBS to house its new V8 engine, but production difficulties meant that the car first appeared with the DB6's 4.0-liter six. Bigger and more luxuriously appointed than the DB6, the heavyweight DBS disappointed some by virtue of its slightly reduced performance, but there were no complaints when the V8 finally arrived in 1969. With an estimated 315bhp available from its 5,340cc four-cam engine, the DBS V8 could reach 160km/h in under 14 seconds, running on to a top speed of 250km/h, a staggering performance in those days and one which fully justified the claim that it was the fastest production car in the world. After Aston Martin's acquisition by Company Developments in 1972, production resumed with the Series 2, now known as the Aston Martin V8 and distinguishable by a restyled front end recalling the looks of earlier Astons. The most successful Aston Martin ever, the V8 survived the changes of ownership and financial upheavals of the 1970s, enjoying a record-breaking production run lasting from 1969 to 1988, with 2,919 cars sold.

 

Described by former Aston Martin Chairman Victor Gauntlett as 'a stylish thoroughbred, beautifully built, luxurious, fast and immensely safe,' the V8 was built in several variants, one of the most exclusive being the Volante Convertible. Introduced in response to customer demand for such a car, the Volante first appeared in June 1978. Arguably the ultimate in soft-top luxury, the newcomer boasted a lined, power-operated top which, when erected, endowed the walnut embellished interior with all the solidity and refinement associated with the saloon version. Although its open-car aerodynamics meant that top speed suffered with the top down, the Volante's 240km/h maximum nevertheless ranked it among the world's fastest convertibles. V8 Volante and Vantage Volante chassis numbers ran from '15001' to '15849', a total of 849 cars.

  

The motorcar offered :

 

According to copies of Aston Martin's factory build records, this elegant V8 Volante was hand built at Aston Martin's Newport Pagnell plant during the fall of 1978 and is titled as 1979. The car received the final inspections in January 1979, and then shipped from the UK to its destination, the US. The car was equipped with left-hand-drive steering and the desirable 5-speed manual transmission. It was finished in Cambridge Blue over a Natural coloured leather interior, Onslow brown carpeting, just as it appears today. It was the 40th V8 Volante built and as such an early example it received the elegant chrome bumpers, neatly fitted tightly to the Volante body. It is believed that only a maximum of 10 of these 40 early cars were fitted with the desirable manual transmission.

 

The car's first owner was a FedEx executive and from the 1990s until 2016 the car was retained by Aston Martin enthusiast Mr. Jack Miller of Pittsburg, PA, who would display the beautiful V8 Volante at various Aston Martin gatherings. The car's extensive history and maintenance file includes much service work performed during Mr. Miller's ownership, including the installment of a new exhaust by renowned Aston Martin shop Steel Wings and a rebuilt braking system.

 

Today this well restored Aston Martin on a highly original basis shows less than 25,000 miles on the odometer, a figure that is indeed believed to be original and can be traced in the history file. Acquired by the vendor in 2017 the car was imported to Europe where restoration work for a total of approximately CHF100,000 was carried out on mechanicals, the body and paint, new trim and was recently fitted with a new convertible top in dark blue, with the work done to exacting factory standards. A solid and very well cared for car, close inspection of the V8 reveals many original finishes throughout. Complete with jack and tools, an owner's handbook with an original warranty booklet and a history file containing correspondence with Aston Martin and copies of the factory build records, this fine V8 Volante must be considered well-pedigreed. The car is EU duty paid and comes with its US title and EU duty paid import certificate. Bonhams recommends close inspection of this fine example of a true drophead V8 'British Bulldog'.

Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky (Russian: Владимир Семёнович Высоцкий, IPA: [vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr sʲɪˈmʲɵnəvʲɪtɕ vɨˈsotskʲɪj]; 25 January 1938 – 25 July 1980), was a Soviet singer-songwriter, poet, and actor who had an immense and enduring effect on Soviet culture. He became widely known for his unique singing style and for his lyrics, which featured social and political commentary in often humorous street-jargon. He was also a prominent stage- and screen-actor. Though the official Soviet cultural establishment largely ignored his work, he was remarkably popular during his lifetime, and to this day exerts significant influence on many of Russia's musicians and actors.

 

Vysotsky was born in Moscow at the 3rd Meshchanskaya St. (61/2) maternity hospital. His father, Semyon Volfovich (Vladimirovich) (1915–1997), was a colonel in the Soviet army, originally from Kiev. Vladimir's mother, Nina Maksimovna, (née Seryogina, 1912–2003) was Russian, and worked as a German language translator.[3] Vysotsky's family lived in a Moscow communal flat in harsh conditions, and had serious financial difficulties. When Vladimir was 10 months old, Nina had to return to her office in the Transcript bureau of the Soviet Ministry of Geodesy and Cartography (engaged in making German maps available for the Soviet military) so as to help her husband earn their family's living.

 

Vladimir's theatrical inclinations became obvious at an early age, and were supported by his paternal grandmother Dora Bronshteyn, a theater fan. The boy used to recite poems, standing on a chair and "flinging hair backwards, like a real poet," often using in his public speeches expressions he could hardly have heard at home. Once, at the age of two, when he had tired of the family's guests' poetry requests, he, according to his mother, sat himself under the New-year tree with a frustrated air about him and sighed: "You silly tossers! Give a child some respite!" His sense of humor was extraordinary, but often baffling for people around him. A three-year-old could jeer his father in a bathroom with unexpected poetic improvisation ("Now look what's here before us / Our goat's to shave himself!") or appall unwanted guests with some street folk song, promptly steering them away. Vysotsky remembered those first three years of his life in the autobiographical Ballad of Childhood (Баллада о детстве, 1975), one of his best-known songs.

 

As World War II broke out, Semyon Vysotsky, a military reserve officer, joined the Soviet army and went to fight the Nazis. Nina and Vladimir were evacuated to the village of Vorontsovka, in Orenburg Oblast where the boy had to spend six days a week in a kindergarten and his mother worked for twelve hours a day in a chemical factory. In 1943, both returned to their Moscow apartment at 1st Meschanskaya St., 126. In September 1945, Vladimir joined the 1st class of the 273rd Moscow Rostokino region School.

 

In December 1946, Vysotsky's parents divorced. From 1947 to 1949, Vladimir lived with Semyon Vladimirovich (then an army Major) and his Armenian wife, Yevgenya Stepanovna Liholatova, whom the boy called "aunt Zhenya", at a military base in Eberswalde in the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany (later East Germany). "We decided that our son would stay with me. Vladimir came to stay with me in January 1947, and my second wife, Yevgenia, became Vladimir's second mother for many years to come. They had much in common and liked each other, which made me really happy," Semyon Vysotsky later remembered. Here living conditions, compared to those of Nina's communal Moscow flat, were infinitely better; the family occupied the whole floor of a two-storeyed house, and the boy had a room to himself for the first time in his life. In 1949 along with his stepmother Vladimir returned to Moscow. There he joined the 5th class of the Moscow 128th School and settled at Bolshoy Karetny [ru], 15 (where they had to themselves two rooms of a four-roomed flat), with "auntie Zhenya" (who was just 28 at the time), a woman of great kindness and warmth whom he later remembered as his second mother. In 1953 Vysotsky, now much interested in theater and cinema, joined the Drama courses led by Vladimir Bogomolov.[7] "No one in my family has had anything to do with arts, no actors or directors were there among them. But my mother admired theater and from the earliest age... each and every Saturday I've been taken up with her to watch one play or the other. And all of this, it probably stayed with me," he later reminisced. The same year he received his first ever guitar, a birthday present from Nina Maksimovna; a close friend, bard and a future well-known Soviet pop lyricist Igor Kokhanovsky taught him basic chords. In 1955 Vladimir re-settled into his mother's new home at 1st Meshchanskaya, 76. In June of the same year he graduated from school with five A's.

 

In 1955, Vladimir enrolled into the Moscow State University of Civil Engineering, but dropped out after just one semester to pursue an acting career. In June 1956 he joined Boris Vershilov's class at the Moscow Art Theatre Studio-Institute. It was there that he met the 3rd course student Iza Zhukova who four years later became his wife; soon the two lovers settled at the 1st Meschanskaya flat, in a common room, shielded off by a folding screen. It was also in the Studio that Vysotsky met Bulat Okudzhava for the first time, an already popular underground bard. He was even more impressed by his Russian literature teacher Andrey Sinyavsky who along with his wife often invited students to his home to stage improvised disputes and concerts. In 1958 Vysotsky's got his first Moscow Art Theatre role: that of Porfiry Petrovich in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. In 1959 he was cast in his first cinema role, that of student Petya in Vasily Ordynsky's The Yearlings (Сверстницы). On 20 June 1960, Vysotsky graduated from the MAT theater institute and joined the Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre (led by Boris Ravenskikh at the time) where he spent (with intervals) almost three troubled years. These were marred by numerous administrative sanctions, due to "lack of discipline" and occasional drunken sprees which were a reaction, mainly, to the lack of serious roles and his inability to realise his artistic potential. A short stint in 1962 at the Moscow Theater of Miniatures (administered at the time by Vladimir Polyakov) ended with him being fired, officially "for a total lack of sense of humour."

 

Vysotsky's second and third films, Dima Gorin's Career and 713 Requests Permission to Land, were interesting only for the fact that in both he had to be beaten up (in the first case by Aleksandr Demyanenko). "That was the way cinema greeted me," he later jokingly remarked. In 1961, Vysotsky wrote his first ever proper song, called "Tattoo" (Татуировка), which started a long and colourful cycle of artfully stylized criminal underworld romantic stories, full of undercurrents and witty social comments. In June 1963, while shooting Penalty Kick (directed by Veniamin Dorman and starring Mikhail Pugovkin), Vysotsky used the Gorky Film Studio to record an hour-long reel-to-reel cassette of his own songs; copies of it quickly spread and the author's name became known in Moscow and elsewhere (although many of these songs were often being referred to as either "traditional" or "anonymous"). Just several months later Riga-based chess grandmaster Mikhail Tal was heard praising the author of "Bolshoy Karetny" (Большой Каретный) and Anna Akhmatova (in a conversation with Joseph Brodsky) was quoting Vysotsky's number "I was the soul of a bad company..." taking it apparently for some brilliant piece of anonymous street folklore. In October 1964 Vysotsky recorded in chronological order 48 of his own songs, his first self-made Complete works of... compilation, which boosted his popularity as a new Moscow folk underground star.

 

In 1964, director Yuri Lyubimov invited Vysotsky to join the newly created Taganka Theatre. "'I've written some songs of my own. Won't you listen?' – he asked. I agreed to listen to just one of them, expecting our meeting to last for no more than five minutes. Instead I ended up listening to him for an entire 1.5 hours," Lyubimov remembered years later of this first audition. On 19 September 1964, Vysotsky debuted in Bertolt Brecht's The Good Person of Szechwan as the Second God (not to count two minor roles). A month later he came on stage as a dragoon captain (Bela's father) in Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time. It was in Taganka that Vysotsky started to sing on stage; the War theme becoming prominent in his musical repertoire. In 1965 Vysotsky appeared in the experimental Poet and Theater (Поэт и Театр, February) show, based on Andrey Voznesensky's work and then Ten Days that Shook the World (after John Reed's book, April) and was commissioned by Lyubimov to write songs exclusively for Taganka's new World War II play. The Fallen and the Living (Павшие и Живые), premiered in October 1965, featured Vysotsky's "Stars" (Звёзды), "The Soldiers of Heeresgruppe Mitte" (Солдаты группы "Центр") and "Penal Battalions" (Штрафные батальоны), the striking examples of a completely new kind of a war song, never heard in his country before. As veteran screenwriter Nikolay Erdman put it (in conversation with Lyubimov), "Professionally, I can well understand how Mayakovsky or Seryozha Yesenin were doing it. How Volodya Vysotsky does it is totally beyond me." With his songs – in effect, miniature theatrical dramatizations (usually with a protagonist and full of dialogues), Vysotsky instantly achieved such level of credibility that real life former prisoners, war veterans, boxers, footballers refused to believe that the author himself had never served his time in prisons and labor camps, or fought in the War, or been a boxing/football professional. After the second of the two concerts at the Leningrad Molecular Physics institute (that was his actual debut as a solo musical performer) Vysotsky left a note for his fans in a journal which ended with words: "Now that you've heard all these songs, please, don't you make a mistake of mixing me with my characters, I am not like them at all. With love, Vysotsky, 20 April 1965, XX c." Excuses of this kind he had to make throughout his performing career. At least one of Vysotsky's song themes – that of alcoholic abuse – was worryingly autobiographical, though. By the time his breakthrough came in 1967, he'd suffered several physical breakdowns and once was sent (by Taganka's boss) to a rehabilitation clinic, a visit he on several occasions repeated since.

 

Brecht's Life of Galileo (premiered on 17 May 1966), transformed by Lyubimov into a powerful allegory of Soviet intelligentsia's set of moral and intellectual dilemmas, brought Vysotsky his first leading theater role (along with some fitness lessons: he had to perform numerous acrobatic tricks on stage). Press reaction was mixed, some reviewers disliked the actor's overt emotionalism, but it was for the first time ever that Vysotsky's name appeared in Soviet papers. Film directors now were treating him with respect. Viktor Turov's war film I Come from the Childhood where Vysotsky got his first ever "serious" (neither comical, nor villainous) role in cinema, featured two of his songs: a spontaneous piece called "When It's Cold" (Холода) and a dark, Unknown soldier theme-inspired classic "Common Graves" (На братских могилах), sung behind the screen by the legendary Mark Bernes.

 

Stanislav Govorukhin and Boris Durov's The Vertical (1967), a mountain climbing drama, starring Vysotsky (as Volodya the radioman), brought him all-round recognition and fame. Four of the numbers used in the film (including "Song of a Friend [fi]" (Песня о друге), released in 1968 by the Soviet recording industry monopolist Melodiya disc to become an unofficial hit) were written literally on the spot, nearby Elbrus, inspired by professional climbers' tales and one curious hotel bar conversation with a German guest who 25 years ago happened to climb these very mountains in a capacity of an Edelweiss division fighter. Another 1967 film, Kira Muratova's Brief Encounters featured Vysotsky as the geologist Maxim (paste-bearded again) with a now trademark off-the-cuff musical piece, a melancholy improvisation called "Things to Do" (Дела). All the while Vysotsky continued working hard at Taganka, with another important role under his belt (that of Mayakovsky or, rather one of the latter character's five different versions) in the experimental piece called Listen! (Послушайте!), and now regularly gave semi-official concerts where audiences greeted him as a cult hero.

 

In the end of 1967 Vysotsky got another pivotal theater role, that of Khlopusha [ru] in Pugachov (a play based on a poem by Sergei Yesenin), often described as one of Taganka's finest. "He put into his performance all the things that he excelled at and, on the other hand, it was Pugachyov that made him discover his own potential," – Soviet critic Natalya Krymova wrote years later. Several weeks after the premiere, infuriated by the actor's increasing unreliability triggered by worsening drinking problems, Lyubimov fired him – only to let him back again several months later (and thus begin the humiliating sacked-then-pardoned routine which continued for years). In June 1968 a Vysotsky-slagging campaign was launched in the Soviet press. First Sovetskaya Rossiya commented on the "epidemic spread of immoral, smutty songs," allegedly promoting "criminal world values, alcoholism, vice and immorality" and condemned their author for "sowing seeds of evil." Then Komsomolskaya Pravda linked Vysotsky with black market dealers selling his tapes somewhere in Siberia. Composer Dmitry Kabalevsky speaking from the Union of Soviet Composers' Committee tribune criticised the Soviet radio for giving an ideologically dubious, "low-life product" like "Song of a Friend" (Песня о друге) an unwarranted airplay. Playwright Alexander Stein who in his Last Parade play used several of Vysotsky's songs, was chastised by a Ministry of Culture official for "providing a tribune for this anti-Soviet scum." The phraseology prompted commentators in the West to make parallels between Vysotsky and Mikhail Zoschenko, another Soviet author who'd been officially labeled "scum" some 20 years ago.

 

Two of Vysotsky's 1968 films, Gennady Poloka's Intervention (premiered in May 1987) where he was cast as Brodsky, a dodgy even if highly artistic character, and Yevgeny Karelov's Two Comrades Were Serving (a gun-toting White Army officer Brusentsov who in the course of the film shoots his friend, his horse, Oleg Yankovsky's good guy character and, finally himself) – were severely censored, first of them shelved for twenty years. At least four of Vysotsky's 1968 songs, "Save Our Souls" (Спасите наши души), "The Wolfhunt" (Охота на волков), "Gypsy Variations" (Моя цыганская) and "The Steam-bath in White" (Банька по-белому), were hailed later as masterpieces. It was at this point that 'proper' love songs started to appear in Vysotsky's repertoire, documenting the beginning of his passionate love affair with French actress Marina Vlady.

 

In 1969 Vysotsky starred in two films: The Master of Taiga where he played a villainous Siberian timber-floating brigadier, and more entertaining Dangerous Tour. The latter was criticized in the Soviet press for taking a farcical approach to the subject of the Bolshevik underground activities but for a wider Soviet audience this was an important opportunity to enjoy the charismatic actor's presence on big screen. In 1970, after visiting the dislodged Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at his dacha and having a lengthy conversation with him, Vysotsky embarked on a massive and by Soviet standards dangerously commercial concert tour in Soviet Central Asia and then brought Marina Vlady to director Viktor Turov's place so as to investigate her Belarusian roots. The pair finally wed on 1 December 1970 (causing furore among the Moscow cultural and political elite) and spent a honeymoon in Georgia. This was the highly productive period for Vysotsky, resulting in numerous new songs, including the anthemic "I Hate" (Я не люблю), sentimental "Lyricale" (Лирическая) and dramatic war epics "He Didn't Return from the Battle" (Он не вернулся из боя) and "The Earth Song" (Песня о Земле) among many others.

 

In 1971 a drinking spree-related nervous breakdown brought Vysotsky to the Moscow Kashchenko clinic [ru]. By this time he has been suffering from alcoholism. Many of his songs from this period deal, either directly or metaphorically, with alcoholism and insanity. Partially recovered (due to the encouraging presence of Marina Vladi), Vysotsky embarked on a successful Ukrainian concert tour and wrote a cluster of new songs. On 29 November 1971 Taganka's Hamlet premiered, a groundbreaking Lyubimov's production with Vysotsky in the leading role, that of a lone intellectual rebel, rising to fight the cruel state machine.

 

Also in 1971 Vysotsky was invited to play the lead in The Sannikov Land, the screen adaptation of Vladimir Obruchev's science fiction,[47] which he wrote several songs for, but was suddenly dropped for the reason of his face "being too scandalously recognisable" as a state official put it. One of the songs written for the film, a doom-laden epic allegory "Capricious Horses" (Кони привередливые), became one of the singer's signature tunes. Two of Vysotsky's 1972 film roles were somewhat meditative: an anonymous American journalist in The Fourth One and the "righteous guy" von Koren in The Bad Good Man (based on Anton Chekov's Duel). The latter brought Vysotsky the Best Male Role prize at the V Taormina Film Fest. This philosophical slant rubbed off onto some of his new works of the time: "A Singer at the Microphone" (Певец у микрофона), "The Tightrope Walker" (Канатоходец), two new war songs ("We Spin the Earth", "Black Pea-Coats") and "The Grief" (Беда), a folkish girl's lament, later recorded by Marina Vladi and subsequently covered by several female performers. Popular proved to be his 1972 humorous songs: "Mishka Shifman" (Мишка Шифман), satirizing the leaving-for-Israel routine, "Victim of the Television" which ridiculed the concept of "political consciousness," and "The Honour of the Chess Crown" (Честь шахматной короны) about an ever-fearless "simple Soviet man" challenging the much feared American champion Bobby Fischer to a match.

 

In 1972 he stepped up in Soviet Estonian TV where he presented his songs and gave an interview. The name of the show was "Young Man from Taganka" (Noormees Tagankalt).

 

In April 1973 Vysotsky visited Poland and France. Predictable problems concerning the official permission were sorted after the French Communist Party leader Georges Marchais made a personal phone call to Leonid Brezhnev who, according to Marina Vlady's memoirs, rather sympathized with the stellar couple. Having found on return a potentially dangerous lawsuit brought against him (concerning some unsanctioned concerts in Siberia the year before), Vysotsky wrote a defiant letter to the Minister of Culture Pyotr Demichev. As a result, he was granted the status of a philharmonic artist, 11.5 roubles per concert now guaranteed. Still the 900 rubles fine had to be paid according to the court verdict, which was a substantial sum, considering his monthly salary at the theater was 110 rubles. That year Vysotsky wrote some thirty songs for "Alice in Wonderland," an audioplay where he himself has been given several minor roles. His best known songs of 1973 included "The Others' Track" (Чужая колея), "The Flight Interrupted" (Прерванный полёт) and "The Monument", all pondering on his achievements and legacy.

 

In 1974 Melodiya released the 7" EP, featuring four of Vysotsky's war songs ("He Never Returned From the Battle", "The New Times Song", "Common Graves", and "The Earth Song") which represented a tiny portion of his creative work, owned by millions on tape. In September of that year Vysotsky received his first state award, the Honorary Diploma of the Uzbek SSR following a tour with fellow actors from the Taganka Theatre in Uzbekistan. A year later he was granted the USSR Union of Cinematographers' membership. This meant he was not an "anti-Soviet scum" now, rather an unlikely link between the official Soviet cinema elite and the "progressive-thinking artists of the West." More films followed, among them The Only Road (a Soviet-Yugoslav joint venture, premiered on 10 January 1975 in Belgrade) and a science fiction movie The Flight of Mr. McKinley (1975). Out of nine ballads that he wrote for the latter only two have made it into the soundtrack. This was the height of his popularity, when, as described in Vlady's book about her husband, walking down the street on a summer night, one could hear Vysotsky's recognizable voice coming literally from every open window. Among the songs written at the time, were humorous "The Instruction before the Trip Abroad", lyrical "Of the Dead Pilot" and philosophical "The Strange House". In 1975 Vysotsky made his third trip to France where he rather riskily visited his former tutor (and now a celebrated dissident emigre) Andrey Sinyavsky. Artist Mikhail Shemyakin, his new Paris friend (or a "bottle-sharer", in Vladi's terms), recorded Vysotsky in his home studio. After a brief stay in England Vysotsky crossed the ocean and made his first Mexican concerts in April. Back in Moscow, there were changes at Taganka: Lyubimov went to Milan's La Scala on a contract and Anatoly Efros has been brought in, a director of radically different approach. His project, Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, caused a sensation. Critics praised Alla Demidova (as Ranevskaya) and Vysotsky (as Lopakhin) powerful interplay, some describing it as one of the most dazzling in the history of the Soviet theater. Lyubimov, who disliked the piece, accused Efros of giving his actors "the stardom malaise." The 1976 Taganka's visit to Bulgaria resulted in Vysotskys's interview there being filmed and 15 songs recorded by Balkanton record label. On return Lyubimov made a move which many thought outrageous: declaring himself "unable to work with this Mr. Vysotsky anymore" he gave the role of Hamlet to Valery Zolotukhin, the latter's best friend. That was the time, reportedly, when stressed out Vysotsky started taking amphetamines.

 

Another Belorussian voyage completed, Marina and Vladimir went for France and from there (without any official permission given, or asked for) flew to the North America. In New York Vysotsky met, among other people, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Joseph Brodsky. In a televised one-hour interview with Dan Rather he stressed he was "not a dissident, just an artist, who's never had any intentions to leave his country where people loved him and his songs." At home this unauthorized venture into the Western world bore no repercussions: by this time Soviet authorities were divided as regards the "Vysotsky controversy" up to the highest level; while Mikhail Suslov detested the bard, Brezhnev loved him to such an extent that once, while in hospital, asked him to perform live in his daughter Galina's home, listening to this concert on the telephone. In 1976 appeared "The Domes", "The Rope" and the "Medieval" cycle, including "The Ballad of Love".

 

In September Vysotsky with Taganka made a trip to Yugoslavia where Hamlet won the annual BITEF festival's first prize, and then to Hungary for a two-week concert tour. Back in Moscow Lyubimov's production of The Master & Margarita featured Vysotsky as Ivan Bezdomny; a modest role, somewhat recompensed by an important Svidrigailov slot in Yury Karyakin's take on Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Vysotsky's new songs of this period include "The History of Illness" cycle concerning his health problems, humorous "Why Did the Savages Eat Captain Cook", the metaphorical "Ballad of the Truth and the Lie", as well as "Two Fates", the chilling story of a self-absorbed alcoholic hunted by two malevolent witches, his two-faced destiny. In 1977 Vysotsky's health deteriorated (heart, kidneys, liver failures, jaw infection and nervous breakdown) to such an extent that in April he found himself in Moscow clinic's reanimation center in the state of physical and mental collapse.

 

In 1977 Vysotsky made an unlikely appearance in New York City on the American television show 60 Minutes, which falsely stated that Vysotsky had spent time in the Soviet prison system, the Gulag. That year saw the release of three Vysotsky's LPs in France (including the one that had been recorded by RCA in Canada the previous year); arranged and accompanied by guitarist Kostya Kazansky, the singer for the first time ever enjoyed the relatively sophisticated musical background. In August he performed in Hollywood before members of New York City film cast and (according to Vladi) was greeted warmly by the likes of Liza Minnelli and Robert De Niro. Some more concerts in Los Angeles were followed by the appearance at the French Communist paper L’Humanité annual event. In December Taganka left for France, its Hamlet (Vysotsky back in the lead) gaining fine reviews.

 

1978 started with the March–April series of concerts in Moscow and Ukraine. In May Vysotsky embarked upon a new major film project: The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed (Место встречи изменить нельзя) about two detectives fighting crime in late 1940s Russia, directed by Stanislav Govorukhin. The film (premiered on 11 November 1978 on the Soviet Central TV) presented Vysotsky as Zheglov, a ruthless and charismatic cop teaching his milder partner Sharapov (actor Vladimir Konkin) his art of crime-solving. Vysotsky also became engaged in Taganka's Genre-seeking show (performing some of his own songs) and played Aleksander Blok in Anatoly Efros' The Lady Stranger (Незнакомка) radio play (premiered on air on 10 July 1979 and later released as a double LP).

 

In November 1978 Vysotsky took part in the underground censorship-defying literary project Metropolis, inspired and organized by Vasily Aksenov. In January 1979 Vysotsky again visited America with highly successful series of concerts. That was the point (according to biographer Vladimir Novikov) when a glimpse of new, clean life of a respectable international actor and performer all but made Vysotsky seriously reconsider his priorities. What followed though, was a return to the self-destructive theater and concert tours schedule, personal doctor Anatoly Fedotov now not only his companion, but part of Taganka's crew. "Who was this Anatoly? Just a man who in every possible situation would try to provide drugs. And he did provide. In such moments Volodya trusted him totally," Oksana Afanasyeva, Vysotsky's Moscow girlfriend (who was near him for most of the last year of his life and, on occasion, herself served as a drug courier) remembered. In July 1979, after a series of Central Asia concerts, Vysotsky collapsed, experienced clinical death and was resuscitated by Fedotov (who injected caffeine into the heart directly), colleague and close friend Vsevolod Abdulov helping with heart massage. In January 1980 Vysotsky asked Lyubimov for a year's leave. "Up to you, but on condition that Hamlet is yours," was the answer. The songwriting showed signs of slowing down, as Vysotsky began switching from songs to more conventional poetry. Still, of nearly 800 poems by Vysotsky only one has been published in the Soviet Union while he was alive. Not a single performance or interview was broadcast by the Soviet television in his lifetime.

 

In May 1979, being in a practice studio of the MSU Faculty of Journalism, Vysotsky recorded a video letter to American actor and film producer Warren Beatty, looking for both a personal meeting with Beatty and an opportunity to get a role in Reds film, to be produced and directed by the latter. While recording, Vysotsky made a few attempts to speak English, trying to overcome the language barrier. This video letter never reached Beatty. It was broadcast for the first time more than three decades later, on the night of 24 January 2013 (local time) by Rossiya 1 channel, along with records of TV channels of Italy, Mexico, Poland, USA and from private collections, in Vladimir Vysotsky. A letter to Warren Beatty film by Alexander Kovanovsky and Igor Rakhmanov. While recording this video, Vysotsky had a rare opportunity to perform for a camera, being still unable to do it with Soviet television.

 

On 22 January 1980, Vysotsky entered the Moscow Ostankino TV Center to record his one and only studio concert for the Soviet television. What proved to be an exhausting affair (his concentration lacking, he had to plod through several takes for each song) was premiered on the Soviet TV eight years later. The last six months of his life saw Vysotsky appearing on stage sporadically, fueled by heavy dosages of drugs and alcohol. His performances were often erratic. Occasionally Vysotsky paid visits to Sklifosofsky [ru] institute's ER unit, but would not hear of Marina Vlady's suggestions for him to take long-term rehabilitation course in a Western clinic. Yet he kept writing, mostly poetry and even prose, but songs as well. The last song he performed was the agonizing "My Sorrow, My Anguish" and his final poem, written one week prior to his death was "A Letter to Marina": "I'm less than fifty, but the time is short / By you and God protected, life and limb / I have a song or two to sing before the Lord / I have a way to make my peace with him."

 

Although several theories of the ultimate cause of the singer's death persist to this day, given what is now known about cardiovascular disease, it seems likely that by the time of his death Vysotsky had an advanced coronary condition brought about by years of tobacco, alcohol and drug abuse, as well as his grueling work schedule and the stress of the constant harassment by the government. Towards the end, most of Vysotsky's closest friends had become aware of the ominous signs and were convinced that his demise was only a matter of time. Clear evidence of this can be seen in a video ostensibly shot by the Japanese NHK channel only months before Vysotsky's death, where he appears visibly unwell, breathing heavily and slurring his speech. Accounts by Vysotsky's close friends and colleagues concerning his last hours were compiled in the book by V. Perevozchikov.

 

Vysotsky suffered from alcoholism for most of his life. Sometime around 1977, he started using amphetamines and other prescription narcotics in an attempt to counteract the debilitating hangovers and eventually to rid himself of alcohol addiction. While these attempts were partially successful, he ended up trading alcoholism for a severe drug dependency that was fast spiralling out of control. He was reduced to begging some of his close friends in the medical profession for supplies of drugs, often using his acting skills to collapse in a medical office and imitate a seizure or some other condition requiring a painkiller injection. On 25 July 1979 (a year to the day before his death) he suffered a cardiac arrest and was clinically dead for several minutes during a concert tour of Soviet Uzbekistan, after injecting himself with a wrong kind of painkiller he had previously obtained from a dentist's office.

 

Fully aware of the dangers of his condition, Vysotsky made several attempts to cure himself of his addiction. He underwent an experimental (and ultimately discredited) blood purification procedure offered by a leading drug rehabilitation specialist in Moscow. He also went to an isolated retreat in France with his wife Marina in the spring of 1980 as a way of forcefully depriving himself of any access to drugs. After these attempts failed, Vysotsky returned to Moscow to find his life in an increasingly stressful state of disarray. He had been a defendant in two criminal trials, one for a car wreck he had caused some months earlier, and one for an alleged conspiracy to sell unauthorized concert tickets (he eventually received a suspended sentence and a probation in the first case, and the charges in the second were dismissed, although several of his co-defendants were found guilty). He also unsuccessfully fought the film studio authorities for the rights to direct a movie called The Green Phaeton. Relations with his wife Marina were deteriorating, and he was torn between his loyalty to her and his love for his mistress Oksana Afanasyeva. He had also developed severe inflammation in one of his legs, making his concert performances extremely challenging.

 

In a final desperate attempt to overcome his drug addiction, partially prompted by his inability to obtain drugs through his usual channels (the authorities had imposed a strict monitoring of the medical institutions to prevent illicit drug distribution during the 1980 Olympics), he relapsed into alcohol and went on a prolonged drinking binge (apparently consuming copious amounts of champagne due to a prevalent misconception at the time that it was better than vodka at countering the effects of drug withdrawal).

 

On 3 July 1980, Vysotsky gave a performance at a suburban Moscow concert hall. One of the stage managers recalls that he looked visibly unhealthy ("gray-faced", as she puts it) and complained of not feeling too good, while another says she was surprised by his request for champagne before the start of the show, as he had always been known for completely abstaining from drink before his concerts. On 16 July Vysotsky gave his last public concert in Kaliningrad. On 18 July, Vysotsky played Hamlet for the last time at the Taganka Theatre. From around 21 July, several of his close friends were on a round-the-clock watch at his apartment, carefully monitoring his alcohol intake and hoping against all odds that his drug dependency would soon be overcome and they would then be able to bring him back from the brink. The effects of drug withdrawal were clearly getting the better of him, as he got increasingly restless, moaned and screamed in pain, and at times fell into memory lapses, failing to recognize at first some of his visitors, including his son Arkadiy. At one point, Vysotsky's personal physician A. Fedotov (the same doctor who had brought him back from clinical death a year earlier in Uzbekistan) attempted to sedate him, inadvertently causing asphyxiation from which he was barely saved. On 24 July, Vysotsky told his mother that he thought he was going to die that day, and then made similar remarks to a few of the friends present at the apartment, who begged him to stop such talk and keep his spirits up. But soon thereafter, Oksana Afanasyeva saw him clench his chest several times, which led her to suspect that he was genuinely suffering from a cardiovascular condition. She informed Fedotov of this but was told not to worry, as he was going to monitor Vysotsky's condition all night. In the evening, after drinking relatively small amounts of alcohol, the moaning and groaning Vysotsky was sedated by Fedotov, who then sat down on the couch next to him but fell asleep. Fedotov awoke in the early hours of 25 July to an unusual silence and found Vysotsky dead in his bed with his eyes wide open, apparently of a myocardial infarction, as he later certified. This was contradicted by Fedotov's colleagues, Sklifosovsky Emergency Medical Institute physicians L. Sul'povar and S. Scherbakov (who had demanded the actor's immediate hospitalization on 23 July but were allegedly rebuffed by Fedotov), who insisted that Fedotov's incompetent sedation combined with alcohol was what killed Vysotsky. An autopsy was prevented by Vysotsky's parents (who were eager to have their son's drug addiction remain secret), so the true cause of death remains unknown.

 

No official announcement of the actor's death was made, only a brief obituary appeared in the Moscow newspaper Vechernyaya Moskva, and a note informing of Vysotsky's death and cancellation of the Hamlet performance was put out at the entrance to the Taganka Theatre (the story goes that not a single ticket holder took advantage of the refund offer). Despite this, by the end of the day, millions had learned of Vysotsky's death. On 28 July, he lay in state at the Taganka Theatre. After a mourning ceremony involving an unauthorized mass gathering of unprecedented scale, Vysotsky was buried at the Vagankovskoye Cemetery in Moscow. The attendance at the Olympic events dropped noticeably on that day, as scores of spectators left to attend the funeral. Tens of thousands of people lined the streets to catch a glimpse of his coffin.

 

According to author Valery Perevozchikov part of the blame for his death lay with the group of associates who surrounded him in the last years of his life. This inner circle were all people under the influence of his strong character, combined with a material interest in the large sums of money his concerts earned. This list included Valerii Yankelovich, manager of the Taganka Theatre and prime organiser of his non-sanctioned concerts; Anatoly Fedotov, his personal doctor; Vadim Tumanov, gold prospector (and personal friend) from Siberia; Oksana Afanasyeva (later Yarmolnik), his mistress the last three years of his life; Ivan Bortnik, a fellow actor; and Leonid Sul'povar, a department head at the Sklifosovski hospital who was responsible for much of the supply of drugs.

 

Vysotsky's associates had all put in efforts to supply his drug habit, which kept him going in the last years of his life. Under their influence, he was able to continue to perform all over the country, up to a week before his death. Due to illegal (i.e. non-state-sanctioned) sales of tickets and other underground methods, these concerts pulled in sums of money unimaginable in Soviet times, when almost everyone received nearly the same small salary. The payouts and gathering of money were a constant source of danger, and Yankelovich and others were needed to organise them.

 

Some money went to Vysotsky, the rest was distributed amongst this circle. At first this was a reasonable return on their efforts; however, as his addiction progressed and his body developed resistance, the frequency and amount of drugs needed to keep Vysotsky going became unmanageable. This culminated at the time of the Moscow Olympics which coincided with the last days of his life, when supplies of drugs were monitored more strictly than usual, and some of the doctors involved in supplying Vysotsky were already behind bars (normally the doctors had to account for every ampule, thus drugs were transferred to an empty container, while the patients received a substitute or placebo instead). In the last few days Vysotsky became uncontrollable, his shouting could be heard all over the apartment building on Malaya Gruzinskaya St. where he lived amongst VIP's. Several days before his death, in a state of stupor he went on a high speed drive around Moscow in an attempt to obtain drugs and alcohol – when many high-ranking people saw him. This increased the likelihood of him being forcibly admitted to the hospital, and the consequent danger to the circle supplying his habit. As his state of health declined, and it became obvious that he might die, his associates gathered to decide what to do with him. They came up with no firm decision. They did not want him admitted officially, as his drug addiction would become public and they would fall under suspicion, although some of them admitted that any ordinary person in his condition would have been admitted immediately.

 

On Vysotsky's death his associates and relatives put in much effort to prevent a post-mortem being carried out. This despite the fairly unusual circumstances: he died aged 42 under heavy sedation with an improvised cocktail of sedatives and stimulants, including the toxic chloral hydrate, provided by his personal doctor who had been supplying him with narcotics the previous three years. This doctor, being the only one present at his side when death occurred, had a few days earlier been seen to display elementary negligence in treating the sedated Vysotsky. On the night of his death, Arkadii Vysotsky (his son), who tried to visit his father in his apartment, was rudely refused entry by Yankelovich, even though there was a lack of people able to care for him. Subsequently, the Soviet police commenced a manslaughter investigation which was dropped due to the absence of evidence taken at the time of death.

 

Vysotsky's first wife was Iza Zhukova. They met in 1956, being both MAT theater institute students, lived for some time at Vysotsky's mother's flat in Moscow, after her graduation (Iza was 2 years older) spent months in different cities (her – in Kiev, then Rostov) and finally married on 25 April 1960.

 

He met his second wife Lyudmila Abramova in 1961, while shooting the film 713 Requests Permission to Land. They married in 1965 and had two sons, Arkady (born 1962) and Nikita (born 1964).

 

While still married to Lyudmila Abramova, Vysotsky began a romantic relationship with Tatyana Ivanenko, a Taganka actress, then, in 1967 fell in love with Marina Vlady, a French actress of Russian descent, who was working at Mosfilm on a joint Soviet-French production at that time. Marina had been married before and had three children, while Vladimir had two. They were married in 1969. For 10 years the two maintained a long-distance relationship as Marina compromised her career in France to spend more time in Moscow, and Vladimir's friends pulled strings for him to be allowed to travel abroad to stay with his wife. Marina eventually joined the Communist Party of France, which essentially gave her an unlimited-entry visa into the Soviet Union, and provided Vladimir with some immunity against prosecution by the government, which was becoming weary of his covertly anti-Soviet lyrics and his odds-defying popularity with the masses. The problems of his long-distance relationship with Vlady inspired several of Vysotsky's songs.

 

In the autumn of 1981 Vysotsky's first collection of poetry was officially published in the USSR, called The Nerve (Нерв). Its first edition (25,000 copies) was sold out instantly. In 1982 the second one followed (100,000), then the 3rd (1988, 200,000), followed in the 1990s by several more. The material for it was compiled by Robert Rozhdestvensky, an officially laurelled Soviet poet. Also in 1981 Yuri Lyubimov staged at Taganka a new music and poetry production called Vladimir Vysotsky which was promptly banned and officially premiered on 25 January 1989.

 

In 1982 the motion picture The Ballad of the Valiant Knight Ivanhoe was produced in the Soviet Union and in 1983 the movie was released to the public. Four songs by Vysotsky were featured in the film.

 

In 1986 the official Vysotsky poetic heritage committee was formed (with Robert Rozhdestvensky at the helm, theater critic Natalya Krymova being both the instigator and the organizer). Despite some opposition from the conservatives (Yegor Ligachev was the latter's political leader, Stanislav Kunyaev of Nash Sovremennik represented its literary flank) Vysotsky was rewarded posthumously with the USSR State Prize. The official formula – "for creating the character of Zheglov and artistic achievements as a singer-songwriter" was much derided from both the left and the right. In 1988 the Selected Works of... (edited by N. Krymova) compilation was published, preceded by I Will Surely Return... (Я, конечно, вернусь...) book of fellow actors' memoirs and Vysotsky's verses, some published for the first time. In 1990 two volumes of extensive The Works of... were published, financed by the late poet's father Semyon Vysotsky. Even more ambitious publication series, self-proclaimed "the first ever academical edition" (the latter assertion being dismissed by sceptics) compiled and edited by Sergey Zhiltsov, were published in Tula (1994–1998, 5 volumes), Germany (1994, 7 volumes) and Moscow (1997, 4 volumes).

 

In 1989 the official Vysotsky Museum opened in Moscow, with the magazine of its own called Vagant (edited by Sergey Zaitsev) devoted entirely to Vysotsky's legacy. In 1996 it became an independent publication and was closed in 2002.

 

In the years to come, Vysotsky's grave became a site of pilgrimage for several generations of his fans, the youngest of whom were born after his death. His tombstone also became the subject of controversy, as his widow had wished for a simple abstract slab, while his parents insisted on a realistic gilded statue. Although probably too solemn to have inspired Vysotsky himself, the statue is believed by some to be full of metaphors and symbols reminiscent of the singer's life.

 

In 1995 in Moscow the Vysotsky monument was officially opened at Strastnoy Boulevard, by the Petrovsky Gates. Among those present were the bard's parents, two of his sons, first wife Iza, renown poets Yevtushenko and Voznesensky. "Vysotsky had always been telling the truth. Only once he was wrong when he sang in one of his songs: 'They will never erect me a monument in a square like that by Petrovskye Vorota'", Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov said in his speech.[95] A further monument to Vysotsky was erected in 2014 at Rostov-on-Don.

 

In October 2004, a monument to Vysotsky was erected in the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica, near the Millennium Bridge. His son, Nikita Vysotsky, attended the unveiling. The statue was designed by Russian sculptor Alexander Taratinov, who also designed a monument to Alexander Pushkin in Podgorica. The bronze statue shows Vysotsky standing on a pedestal, with his one hand raised and the other holding a guitar. Next to the figure lies a bronze skull – a reference to Vysotsky's monumental lead performances in Shakespeare's Hamlet. On the pedestal the last lines from a poem of Vysotsky's, dedicated to Montenegro, are carved.

 

The Vysotsky business center & semi-skyscraper was officially opened in Yekaterinburg, in 2011. It is the tallest building in Russia outside of Moscow, has 54 floors, total height: 188.3 m (618 ft). On the third floor of the business center is the Vysotsky Museum. Behind the building is a bronze sculpture of Vladimir Vysotsky and his third wife, a French actress Marina Vlady.

 

In 2011 a controversial movie Vysotsky. Thank You For Being Alive was released, script written by his son, Nikita Vysotsky. The actor Sergey Bezrukov portrayed Vysotsky, using a combination of a mask and CGI effects. The film tells about Vysotsky's illegal underground performances, problems with KGB and drugs, and subsequent clinical death in 1979.

 

Shortly after Vysotsky's death, many Russian bards started writing songs and poems about his life and death. The best known are Yuri Vizbor's "Letter to Vysotsky" (1982) and Bulat Okudzhava's "About Volodya Vysotsky" (1980). In Poland, Jacek Kaczmarski based some of his songs on those of Vysotsky, such as his first song (1977) was based on "The Wolfhunt", and dedicated to his memory the song "Epitafium dla Włodzimierza Wysockiego" ("Epitaph for Vladimir Vysotsky").

 

Every year on Vysotsky's birthday festivals are held throughout Russia and in many communities throughout the world, especially in Europe. Vysotsky's impact in Russia is often compared to that of Wolf Biermann in Germany, Bob Dylan in America, or Georges Brassens and Jacques Brel in France.

 

The asteroid 2374 Vladvysotskij, discovered by Lyudmila Zhuravleva, was named after Vysotsky.

 

During the Annual Q&A Event Direct Line with Vladimir Putin, Alexey Venediktov asked Putin to name a street in Moscow after the singer Vladimir Vysotsky, who, though considered one of the greatest Russian artists, has no street named after him in Moscow almost 30 years after his death. Venediktov stated a Russian law that allowed the President to do so and promote a law suggestion to name a street by decree. Putin answered that he would talk to Mayor of Moscow and would solve this problem. In July 2015 former Upper and Lower Tagansky Dead-ends (Верхний и Нижний Таганские тупики) in Moscow were reorganized into Vladimir Vysotsky Street.

 

The Sata Kieli Cultural Association, [Finland], organizes the annual International Vladimir Vysotsky Festival (Vysotski Fest), where Vysotsky's singers from different countries perform in Helsinki and other Finnish cities. They sing Vysotsky in different languages and in different arrangements.

 

Two brothers and singers from Finland, Mika and Turkka Mali, over the course of their more than 30-year musical career, have translated into Finnish, recorded and on numerous occasions publicly performed songs of Vladimir Vysotsky.

 

Throughout his lengthy musical career, Jaromír Nohavica, a famed Czech singer, translated and performed numerous songs of Vladimir Vysotsky, most notably Песня о друге (Píseň o příteli – Song about a friend).

 

The Museum of Vladimir Vysotsky in Koszalin dedicated to Vladimir Vysotsky was founded by Marlena Zimna (1969–2016) in May 1994, in her apartment, in the city of Koszalin, in Poland. Since then the museum has collected over 19,500 exhibits from different countries and currently holds Vladimir Vysotsky' personal items, autographs, drawings, letters, photographs and a large library containing unique film footage, vinyl records, CDs and DVDs. A special place in the collection holds a Vladimir Vysotsky's guitar, on which he played at a concert in Casablanca in April 1976. Vladimir Vysotsky presented this guitar to Moroccan journalist Hassan El-Sayed together with an autograph (an extract from Vladimir Vysotsky's song "What Happened in Africa"), written in Russian right on the guitar.

 

In January 2023, a monument to the outstanding actor, singer and poet Vladimir Vysotsky was unveiled in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, in the square near the Rodina House of Culture. Author Vladimir Chebotarev.

 

After her husband's death, urged by her friend Simone Signoret, Marina Vlady wrote a book called The Aborted Flight about her years together with Vysotsky. The book paid tribute to Vladimir's talent and rich persona, yet was uncompromising in its depiction of his addictions and the problems that they caused in their marriage. Written in French (and published in France in 1987), it was translated into Russian in tandem by Vlady and a professional translator and came out in 1989 in the USSR. Totally credible from the specialists' point of view, the book caused controversy, among other things, by shocking revelations about the difficult father-and-son relationship (or rather, the lack of any), implying that Vysotsky-senior (while his son was alive) was deeply ashamed of him and his songs which he deemed "anti-Soviet" and reported his own son to the KGB. Also in 1989 another important book of memoirs was published in the USSR, providing a bulk of priceless material for the host of future biographers, Alla Demidova's Vladimir Vysotsky, the One I Know and Love. Among other publications of note were Valery Zolotukhin's Vysotsky's Secret (2000), a series of Valery Perevozchikov's books (His Dying Hour, The Unknown Vysotsky and others) containing detailed accounts and interviews dealing with the bard's life's major controversies (the mystery surrounding his death, the truth behind Vysotsky Sr.'s alleged KGB reports, the true nature of Vladimir Vysotsky's relations with his mother Nina's second husband Georgy Bartosh etc.), Iza Zhukova's Short Happiness for a Lifetime and the late bard's sister-in-law Irena Vysotskaya's My Brother Vysotsky. The Beginnings (both 2005).

 

A group of enthusiasts has created a non-profit project – the mobile application "Vysotsky"

 

The multifaceted talent of Vysotsky is often described by the term "bard" (бард) that Vysotsky has never been enthusiastic about. He thought of himself mainly as an actor and poet rather than a singer, and once remarked, "I do not belong to what people call bards or minstrels or whatever." With the advent of portable tape-recorders in the Soviet Union, Vysotsky's music became available to the masses in the form of home-made reel-to-reel audio tape recordings (later on cassette tapes).

 

Vysotsky accompanied himself on a Russian seven-string guitar, with a raspy voice singing ballads of love, peace, war, everyday Soviet life and of the human condition. He was largely perceived as the voice of honesty, at times sarcastically jabbing at the Soviet government, which made him a target for surveillance and threats. In France, he has been compared with Georges Brassens; in Russia, however, he was more frequently compared with Joe Dassin, partly because they were the same age and died in the same year, although their ideologies, biographies, and musical styles are very different. Vysotsky's lyrics and style greatly influenced Jacek Kaczmarski, a Polish songwriter and singer who touched on similar themes.

 

The songs – over 600 of them – were written about almost any imaginable theme. The earliest were blatnaya pesnya ("outlaw songs"). These songs were based either on the life of the common people in Moscow or on life in the crime people, sometimes in Gulag. Vysotsky slowly grew out of this phase and started singing more serious, though often satirical, songs. Many of these songs were about war. These war songs were not written to glorify war, but rather to expose the listener to the emotions of those in extreme, life-threatening situations. Most Soviet veterans would say that Vysotsky's war songs described the truth of war far more accurately than more official "patriotic" songs.

 

Nearly all of Vysotsky's songs are in the first person, although he is almost never the narrator. When singing his criminal songs, he would adopt the accent and intonation of a Moscow thief, and when singing war songs, he would sing from the point of view of a soldier. In many of his philosophical songs, he adopted the role of inanimate objects. This created some confusion about Vysotsky's background, especially during the early years when information could not be passed around very easily. Using his acting talent, the poet played his role so well that until told otherwise, many of his fans believed that he was, indeed, a criminal or war veteran. Vysotsky's father said that "War veterans thought the author of the songs to be one of them, as if he had participated in the war together with them." The same could be said about mountain climbers; on multiple occasions, Vysotsky was sent pictures of mountain climbers' graves with quotes from his lyrics etched on the tombstones.

 

Not being officially recognized as a poet and singer, Vysotsky performed wherever and whenever he could – in the theater (where he worked), at universities, in private apartments, village clubs, and in the open air. It was not unusual for him to give several concerts in one day. He used to sleep little, using the night hours to write. With few exceptions, he wasn't allowed to publish his recordings with "Melodiya", which held a monopoly on the Soviet music industry. His songs were passed on through amateur, fairly low quality recordings on vinyl discs and magnetic tape, resulting in his immense popularity. Cosmonauts even took his music on cassette into orbit.

 

Musically, virtually all of Vysotsky's songs were written in a minor key, and tended to employ from three to seven chords. Vysotsky composed his songs and played them exclusively on the Russian seven string guitar, often tuned a tone or a tone-and-a-half below the traditional Russian "Open G major" tuning. This guitar, with its specific Russian tuning, makes a slight yet notable difference in chord voicings than the standard tuned six string Spanish (classical) guitar, and it became a staple of his sound. Because Vysotsky tuned down a tone and a half, his strings had less tension, which also colored the sound.

 

His earliest songs were usually written in C minor (with the guitar tuned a tone down from DGBDGBD to CFACFAC)

 

Songs written in this key include "Stars" (Zvyozdy), "My friend left for Magadan" (Moy drug uyekhal v Magadan), and most of his "outlaw songs".

 

At around 1970, Vysotsky began writing and playing exclusively in A minor (guitar tuned to CFACFAC), which he continued doing until his death.

 

Vysotsky used his fingers instead of a pick to pluck and strum, as was the tradition with Russian guitar playing. He used a variety of finger picking and strumming techniques. One of his favorite was to play an alternating bass with his thumb as he plucked or strummed with his other fingers.

 

Often, Vysotsky would neglect to check the tuning of his guitar, which is particularly noticeable on earlier recordings. According to some accounts, Vysotsky would get upset when friends would attempt to tune his guitar, leading some to believe that he preferred to play slightly out of tune as a stylistic choice. Much of this is also attributable to the fact that a guitar that is tuned down more than 1 whole step (Vysotsky would sometimes tune as much as 2 and a half steps down) is prone to intonation problems.

 

Vysotsky had a unique singing style. He had an unusual habit of elongating consonants instead of vowels in his songs. So when a syllable is sung for a prolonged period of time, he would elongate the consonant instead of the vowel in that syllable.

 

The Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky Statue is a prominent monument located in Voronezh, Russian Federation, dedicated to the legendary Russian singer-songwriter, actor, and poet Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky. This statue stands as a tribute to Vysotsky's immense contributions to Russian culture and his enduring legacy.

 

Vladimir Vysotsky was born on January 25, 1938, in Moscow, Russia. He quickly gained recognition for his unique artistic style, characterized by his powerful voice, poetic lyrics, and charismatic stage presence. Vysotsky's songs captured the essence of the Soviet era, addressing social issues, human emotions, and political satire. His music resonated deeply with the masses, and he became an iconic figure in Russian popular culture.

 

The idea of erecting a statue in Voronezh to honor Vladimir Vysotsky was conceived to commemorate his connection to the city. Vysotsky had a special relationship with Voronezh, as he spent a significant portion of his early career performing in local theaters and interacting with the local artistic community. The statue serves as a reminder of this bond and celebrates his artistic contributions.

 

The Vysotsky Statue was unveiled on November 18, 2009, in front of the Voronezh Academic Drama Theater, where Vysotsky performed numerous times. The monument was created by renowned Russian sculptor Grigory Pototsky. Standing at approximately 5 meters tall, the bronze statue captures Vysotsky in a dynamic pose, holding a guitar and singing passionately.

 

The sculpture depicts Vysotsky in mid-performance, capturing his energy and intensity on stage. The attention to detail in the statue is remarkable, with intricate facial features, flowing hair, and realistic clothing. The sculptor aimed to convey Vysotsky's passion and charisma through the artwork, and the statue successfully embodies these qualities.

 

The location of the statue, in front of the Voronezh Academic Drama Theater, is significant. It symbolizes Vysotsky's strong ties to the theater and his impact on the performing arts. The statue serves as a meeting point for admirers of Vysotsky's work, attracting locals and tourists alike. It has become an iconic landmark in Voronezh, attracting visitors who come to pay their respects and celebrate Vysotsky's artistic legacy.

 

The statue's unveiling was accompanied by a grand ceremony, attended by government officials, artists, and Vysotsky's fans. The event highlighted the significance of Vysotsky's artistic contributions and celebrated his enduring influen

One of the difficulties in trying to do urban sketching whilst on holiday is invariably you're with other people who have little interest in spending long amounts of time sitting around waiting for you to finish a drawing. I'm always amazed by the people who manage to fill sketchbooks while on holiday - do they go on their own? how do they find the time? Share your secrets with me, please!

This particular location was magical, the light and ambience and the unusual scenery really made for a fantastic composition - and I would have loved to spend a good hour here doing a proper full on drawing of it, but unfortunately I was allowed only 15 minutes by my long suffering girlfriend - so I turned it into a challenge and set the alarm to see what I could capture in that timeframe.

Photoshop colour added at home, and it doesn't look too bad, although I'd still love to go back and do it properly.

University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton

 

Falmer House, 2016. I saw the Pogues play in this building in 1984.

 

It was my daughter's Applicants' Day at the University of Sussex, so we headed down to Brighton. It is more than thirty years since I was a student there, and I haven't set foot on the campus since, until yesterday.

 

The University was one of the dozen or so new campus universities of the 1960s, mostly set in the grounds of former Big Houses (in Sussex's case, Stanmer Park) and designed by leading architects of the day. At Sussex this was Sir Basil Spence, who had recently completed Coventry Cathedral. The idea was a red brick Italianate hill village, climbing up into the South Downs, designed for about 2,500 students, though there are probably four times that many now.

 

I was never really very happy at Sussex, although as Philip Larkin observed of Coventry, it's not the place's fault after all. I was a post-graduate education student, and I had done my first degree in the centre of lovely, friendly Sheffield. I had partly chosen the University because the family of a girlfriend of the time had recently moved to Brighton (the University's high reputation was no doubt secondary). As you will no doubt have guessed, the relationship had ended before I arrived at Sussex.

 

Everybody seems to love Brighton, and they can't understand it when I say that I don't, but I was too miserable there. Brighton, for me, will be forever associated with debt, and with the transience of being a student. There has never been a time in my life, before or since, when I have been so poor. And then, extraordinarily, a brief, doomed relationship, a love affair, became the one vivid thing, a brief, sweet memory of my year in that brash town.

 

How narrow was the single bed we shared, how intense those brief few weeks. And she loved me more than I could possibly have loved her, for I had already met the woman who would become my wife. And so it was messy, and then it ended. My most dramatic memory of our time together is of leaving her flat shortly before daylight on an October morning and cycling back to my own house only to be stopped by a police roadblock, because the IRA had bombed the Grand Hotel half an hour earlier.

 

The University campus has expanded since I was there, but is still entirely graspable. The wide-open spaces and reflections of water under arches that Basil Spence aimed at are now overwhelmed by blocks in the same red brick but without any life to them whatsoever. I thought it was a shame. And yet, the campus still has the intensely intellectual vibe of a major University sequestered in the hills, the thrill of promise and the energy of youth. In some ways it was good to be back.

20121220 - "The Greatest Trial"

“Our most significant opportunities will be found in times of greatest difficulty.” -Thomas S. Monson

 

-Get up, stand up, believe and have the courage. Hardships are made to make you better, trials are given to make you stronger, walk the path and become the best as you can be.

We did something silly. We went to the 2015 Moon lantern festival in Adealide. We should have known something was up when it took 1 hour to travel 1 km by car.

People everywhere. I kept saying, all these people can't be going to the same place, surely. It seems like a long way to walk for a festival of lanterns.

Turns out, 50,000 people went to a party designed for 20,000. It was chaos. Not enough food (The lines went on into the distance, wait time around 2 hours). Not enough toilets and even the parade could not follow the selected path. There were so many people that you had to walk shoulder to shoulder. Not good for kids.

 

From the local news paper, "The Advertiser"

www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/adelaides-riv...

Adelaide’s riverbanks light up for 2015 Moon Lantern fest, featuring the mother of all dragons

 

A HUGE crowd turned out in glorious Spring weather Sunday night to see thousands of magnificent coloured lanterns on parade in Elder Park for the annual Moon Lantern Festival. Thousands of people lined the riverbank lawns to watch the spectacle. The annual Moon Lantern Festival, within the heart of the OzAsia celebrations, is Australia’s largest parade of its kind.

 

This year there was a bounty of never-before-seen creations, including the largest lantern ever paraded. More than 40 people, including Adelaide Festival Centre staffer Anna Chan, were needed to carry the giant Hong Kong Dragon lantern made of 150m of festooning, 200m of fabric, 300m of tassels, 8 litres of paint, 5 litres of glue, 10,000 cable ties and a massive 2.6km of wire.

 

Another 38 large lanterns were carried by more than 1100 people, including school students, and more than 1500 vivid and pretty display and floating lanterns lit up the riverside site.

Ms Chan, who is from Hong Kong, was excited about the event “We have similar events at home, but this is the largest lantern I have ever seen,” she said of the dragon.

 

Event director Joseph Mitchell said it was perfect weather after two years of rain hindering activities.

He said the event provided “wonderful balance” to all the OzAsia activities.

Other activities included Bollywood dancing, martial arts demonstrations, Cirkidz roving performances, and a Lion Dance.

Celebrations ended with fireworks lighting the sky and water.

 

Some people took to social media afterwards to complain about long queues at the event and transport and parking difficulties.

 

Jane Bell wrote on The Advertiser’s Facebook page: “Extremely packed. We also had to stand to see and barely saw the tops of the items in the parade Didn’t bother with the food as the queues were huge. Transport home was ridiculous. No extra trains trams or buses were put on. The buses also were rerouted with no information. More work to be done to make this event worth going back to!”

 

But others, such as Tammy Thornhill, said they had a great time.

 

She wrote on Facebook: “We had a great time, got there about 4pm, couldn’t get food but luckily we sent one of our group up to O’Connell street to get fish n chips.. Didn’t have an issue with small kids & the toilet, loved the parade & the fireworks, the line up for the tram was long but we ended up getting friends to take us back to our car at the entertainment centre. We would definitely go again!”

 

Canon EOS 5D

 

2015

 

_MG_3479

Google+ | Twitter | Facebook

Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5999. Photo: Ifuk Verleih / Delog Film. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

 

Blond, German actress Charlotte Susa (1898-1967), was a major operetta star of the German-speaking world, and also a popular femme fatale of the German silent and early sound film.

 

Charlotte Susa (sometimes written as Suza) was born Charlotta Wegmüller near Memel, Germany (now Klaipeda, Lithuania). In 1915, she first appeared at a stage in Tilsit. She chose her mother's maiden name, Susa, as her stage name and began a successful career as a singer and actress at different German Opera and Operetta stages. She was as well a superior singer as a competent dramatic actress. In 1926, director Richard Eichberg spotted her for the cinema. Susa made her film debut in the German silent film Der Prinz und die Tänzerin/The Prince and the Dancer (Richard Eichberg, 1926) opposite Hans Albers. More silent films followed like Arme kleine Colombine/Poor Little Columbine (Franz Seitz, 1927), Die Pflicht zu schweigen/The Obligation to Remain Silent (Carl Wilhelm, 1928), and Du sollst nicht stehlen/Thou Art Not Steal (Victor Janson, 1928). Susa became famous for her roles as a femme fatale in films like Sünde und Moral/Sin and Morals (Erich Kober, 1929), and Erotikon/Seduction (Gustav Machatý, 1929).

 

With her trained voice Charlotte Susa didn't have any difficulties to make the transition to the sound era in films like Der Tiger/The Tiger Murder Case (Johannes Meyer, 1930)), Zwei Menschen/Two Humans (Erich Waschneck, 1930), and Der Greifer/The Snatcher (Richard Eichberg, 1930). She had again great successes with Die Pranke/The Paw (Hans Steinhoff, 1931), and Unter falscher Flagge/Under False Colours (Johannes Meyer, 1932). Susa played mostly lighthearted Femme Fatales and was popular enough for MGM to offer her a contract in 1932. She remained in Hollywood until 1934 but failed to appear in a single feature film. Back in Germany she made films like Henker, Frauen und Soldaten/Hangmen, Women and Soldiers (Johannes Meyer, 1935), and Wasser für Canitoga/Water for Canitoga (Herbert Selpin, 1939) at Hans Albers' side. Hans J. Wollstein at AllMovie: "Her return to Germany was highly anticipated but she ran afoul of Joseph Goebbels, the infamous Nazi minister of propaganda, and was banned from screen work in 1941." Her last film part was a minor role in the comedy Der Gasmann/The Gas Meter Reader (Carl Froelich, 1941) starring Heinz Rühmann and Anny Ondra. This film was her last work for the screen. Charlotte Susa was married to Paul Cablin, Fritz Malkowsky, and from 1939 on to actor Andrews Engelmann. After the war, she acted again for the theatre, often at Engelmann's side. Charlotte Susa died in Basel, Switzerland, aged 78.

 

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Hans J. Wollstein (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

I could go on writing pages about this photo not because of the technical difficulties I faced as a photographer and photo editor, but because of the personal meaning this verse has to me.

 

This photo is an HDR image with the Orton effect added to it. I chose those colours, a bit reddish, because it makes the figurine looks like a figurine—I didn’t want it to look like a real person—since the bride is supposed to be symbolic of my future wife.

 

You might be wondering why I chose this verse when the Bible is full of verses about purity, marriage, and love!

 

Well, for a long time now it has been my heart’s desire to get married to the woman God has meant for me, according to His timing. Second to only knowing Jesus more and more and become more like Him and fulfilling His purpose for my life, having my own family has been my biggest dream. However, waiting has not been an easy task, especially few years ago when I knew what God’s will was from reading the Bible, but I didn’t have enough faith to live a worry free life in Christ—simply put, I knew He was faithful but I didn’t trust Him fully all the time.

 

I think about two years ago I felt so lonely and saw how everyone around me has someone, whether according to God’s will or not, and so I went to pray and started crying out to Him. I was so troubled in my heart that I opened the Bible to show Him 1 Corinthians 7 where Paul talks about ‘marriage’. (I know it might sound silly to show God where in His Word He said this or that, but I also know it is better to wrestle with God, like Jacob did, and find His will rather than just pretend everything is “fine” and not know His will.) As I was looking for 1 Corinthians I passed Romans where in few seconds I passed over a page in Romans that I felt God wanted me to read, but I was in such a hurry that I passed it by! Then I sensed God telling me to stop and go back two pages, to the page I had skipped, so I stopped and went back to it. The page is divided by two columns and I had read it before and underlined some verses and circled some words, etc. However, God told me to look down the first column, which was not touched by a pen, and to start reading it. It was Romans 8:24-25:

 

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

 

I kept reading it over and over again, because I knew it was God telling me two things:

 

1) He knows where in His Word He said so and so, just as He knows everything else!

2) If I want to get married according to His way and timing, my future wife and I have to be ready, and that takes time and in the meantime we have to allow God to make us ready.

 

So now it is the most romantic verse to me! Ever since then until now God has confirmed this promise to me through other scripture and answer of prayers. I would like to mention that this promise is a conditional promise: if I would wait PATIENTLY then God will keep His promise—getting married to the woman He has in mind for me according to His timing. In other words, I cannot live according to the way of the world and then expect to get the blessing of God.

 

Another thing I have decided is not to create a mental image of her, because that will put restrictions on God’s will which will make it hard for me to be single minded with Him and harder to accept His will and obey Him. (The people who lived in Jesus' days on earth created a mental image of the promised Saviour, a mental image that did not fit God's description in His Word of the promised Saviour, so when He finally came they could not accept Him--instead they crucified Him.)

 

I am also learning to accept myself, whether the way He created my physical body, personality, my talents, and the place and family I grew up in. The only thing I desire He changes is my character and make it like the character of His Son, Jesus Christ. (This is especially has not been easy because I grew up in a culture where everybody is constantly being compared to everyone else. And your worth is determined by a class system based on human standards.)

 

I have prayed what some (especially ‘men’) would call “outrageous” prayers, however if the fulfillment of those prayers is what it takes to conform me to the likeness of my Lord Jesus Christ then so be it. And believe me God has answered those prayers and as hard as God’s sanctifying process has been I wouldn’t chose to do it any other way. (I just hope my future wife won't be upset with me when she will know I've included her in those prayers too! After all, He has to prepare her too!)

 

However, God’s most important lesson in this time is: to be happy, and emotionally wholesome simply because I know Him. I truly believe if God can’t make a person happy and content a husband and wife won’t be able to. This will introduce a lot of strains into the marriage as it stresses the partner whose emotional and spiritual needs are not being met, and the other partner who can’t meet needs that only God can. (Even though for this lesson to start I had to go through hardest time of my life, but I am trusting that the God who created the universe and everything in it so magnificently and who loved me so much as to die on the cross for me, knows what He is doing and He is doing it for my best and my future wife’s best.)

 

Lastly and more importantly, I am learning to live for Him and focus on Him and trust that He is faithful and can take care of fulfilling His promise. I am learning to delight myself in the Lord and in due time He will fulfill my heart second desire (Psalm 37:4; Matthew 6:33). And if I won't ever get married, that's ok too as long as I have Him and it is His will for my lfe.

 

I would like to add one more comment to whoever made it this far! Being a Christian does not mean we are perfect. It does not mean life around us is perfect either. We cry, we weep, we feel rejected and heartbroken, and we get scared and worry. We give up sometimes, get confused, and disillusioned (even with God!). But as Paul put it in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9:

 

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;

persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

 

PS: One day, as I was working alone I was telling Him about my future wife and I came up for a nickname for her, and He seemed to like it. So now everyone who is close to me knows her nickname! I just hope she will like it!

 

(Orton effect. HDRI. Toronto, ON; winter 2008.)

 

www.clickconnectgo.com/sector-29-leisure-valley-place-party/

[caption id="attachment_1335" align="alignleft" width="225"] Sector 29, Leisure Valley[/caption]

 

Sector 29, Leisure Valley in Gurgaon has emerged as a happening place to drink & dine. It is a great place to party. What differentiates Sector 29, Gurgaon is the abundance of restaurants, hotels, and pubs right at the centre. There are two big parking lots surrounded by loads of eating joints. You can choose to sit outside on the terrace of some of the pubs, enjoying the nice evening breeze or stay indoors and experience the wonderful ambience and classy interiors while munching food and sipping beer.

 

Sector 29 Market is located just 5 minutes away from the Huda City Centre metro station in Leisure Valley. You can hire an auto from the Metro station for not more than Rs.40

 

Restaurants

 

 

 

There is a plethora of restaurants here, be it Indian, Chinese, Korean, American fast food, Thai, Italian, there is something for every type of foodie. The many restaurants & pubs in a relatively smaller area give an amazing look to the place. This Market in Leisure Valley is a concentration of lights and liveliness at one place.

 

If you are a traveller looking for an accommodation, Sector 29 is a good choice as many 3 & 4 Star Hotels are located here. Some of the Hotels are:

 

Lemon Tree

Sarovar Portico

Pllazio

Vista Park

Central Blue Stone

Asian Suites

Fern Residency

Citrus Hotel

 

The Sector 29 market is an excellent choice for travellers from other cities. Choose from any of the Hotels in the vicinity and you can have access to not only this amazing market but also the very grand Kingdom of Dreams in Sector 29, Leisure Valley. This is a very strategic location for any kind of food business.

 

What to check out when you are at Sector 29 market?

 

Well, too much of glitter can pose a difficulty in choosing the right kind of restaurant or your kind of restaurant. Here are a few suggestions based on my experience which could help you with a perfect evening.

 

“Desi people and no desi food” How can that be? A big Bikanerwala outlet welcomes you on the front side of the parking lot. Here you can try a variety of sweets on the ground floor & sit and dine on the floor above. www.zomato.com/ncr/bikanervala-sector-29-gurgaon

 

On the same lane is Pind Baluchi, which looks like a Punjabi village from inside. Their Mushroom Kurkure, Dahi Kabab, Tandoori Chicken are simply not to be missed. Drinks are available too. Dining plates and glasses are heavy brass and give you the feel of Punjab. Some part of it also resembles a cave. Park Balluchi, adjacent to it is known to host engagement functions.

 

www.pindballuchi.com/gallery.html

 

www.pindballuchi.com/menu.html

 

Beer Beer Beer!

 

[caption id="attachment_1336" align="alignleft" width="222"] Bronx, Sector 29, Leisure Valley[/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_1337" align="alignleft" width="225"] Boombox, Sector 29, Leisure Valley[/caption]

 

Beer lovers, Sector 29, Leisure Valley is THE place for you. There are quite a few options for you. The best ones are Bronx & Downtown if you prefer the brewery beer. What is nice about these two places is that you can sit at the terrace, enjoy the weather and overlook the market. Downtown also has a virtual bowling game on the ground floor. The music played by the DJ is a mix of 90’s and contemporary pop and will make you nostalgic for they play your childhood numbers. Molecule is again a nice place to hang out. Hops n Brew has its own brewery but this is just an average place. Brix offers regular Beer but their Chicken wings in BBQ sauce are just awesome and the portion is large too.

 

21 Gun Salute is good place for corporate outing or a large gathering. The ambience overpowers the food though.

 

21gunsalute.co.in/

 

Try Chinese at Mainland China, Korean at Gung The palace. American fast food lovers can try Wendy’s . Some more options are Boombox, Feel (Karoke Lounge), Mamagoto.

 

Helpful tips:

 

Stroll the Sector 29, Market to get the feel of the place.

Bikanerwala serves hot Kesar milk in earthen pots during winters. Do try.

Love Chicken? - Brix serves the best BBQ Chicken wings.

Bronx has the best Beer and music.

Ensure to lock your car as vehicles have been reported stolen from this area.

Street vendors sell mineral water bottles, ice creams, Pan etc.

Do make a point to see the Kingdom of Dreams. It looks beautiful at night.

 

 

 

 

I had some difficulty choosing the subject, partly because we're new to the South Bay area of Los Angeles. Initially, I considered some obvious choices but my thoughts began to dwell on the qualities that first attracted us to our city, such as its laid-back, casual atmosphere. I started thinking about people who might represent that quality, and then I thought of Chef Hiro.

 

Chef Hiro owns Sun & Moon Cafe, a sushi bar that serves Japanese fusion cuisine just a block from the beach. The bar is a well-known hangout among locals. The first time we went to his bar, I saw all the eclectic, somewhat chaotic decor, with Japanese umbrellas and daruma dolls beside drawings of surfboards. I thought it was a little wacky but cool in a down-to-earth way, which reflected the personality of Chef Hiro.

 

When I asked him for an appointment for a portrait, I introduced myself and offered to shake his hand. He offered me a fist bump instead. That's Chef Hiro. He has bragging rights for having been an Iron Chef in Japan but you'd never know it by talking to him because he's entirely unassuming, and the first time you meet him, he already makes you feel like you've been buddies for years.

 

That's what I want to show about our community. It is one of the most affluent cities in the whole country, and there are plenty of wealthy residents, but generally, most of them don't flaunt their wealth and most people are warm and congenial, just like Chef Hiro.

 

For Chef Hiro's portrait, I wanted to show the sushi bar in the background because it shows his personality. It's a very busy background and it would have been easier to select a clean background, but it wouldn't do justice to Chef's colorful restaurant or character. To make the background less of a distraction and more supportive to the portrait, I thought of some solutions such as a low-key portrait where a shaft of light illuminated only part of the background. However, I thought that the low-key portrait didn't suit Chef Hiro's cheerful disposition. Instead I decided to use a background light to draw the viewer's attention to Chef Hiro.

 

For the light on Chef Hiro himself, it was going to be simple and natural -- a reflection of his personality. I used the ambient light from a large window, then used a reflector as fill.

 

The gesture I captured here is 100% Chef Hiro. I didn't 'direct' him or anything, although that's exactly how I imagined he would look (partly why I chose a wide focal length - to exaggerate the gesture that I expected).

 

In post-processing, I applied a radial blur with a layer mask to keep the viewer's attention on Chef Hiro.

 

Nikon D300 + Tamron 17-50 VC @ 17mm. ISO 1600, f/2.8, 1/125.

Lighting info: SB-800 gelled, aimed at background, triggered via Radiopopper JrX. Large window as key, reflector as fill.

Giraffe at Brookfield Zoo (Chicago). Giraffes have very long tongues - they are even able to lick their ears. Their tongues are rough and they use them to feed on acacia trees which have two inch thorns - they are able to eat and chew them without difficulty.

Evidence and Mystery

 

God created the world out of nothing; this is the teaching of the Semitic theologies, and by it they answer the following difficulty: if God had made the world out of a preexisting substance, that substance must be either itself created, or else Divine. The creation is not God, it cannot therefore emanate from Him; there is an unbridgeable hiatus between God and the world, neither can become the other; the orders of magnitude or of reality, or of perfection, are incommensurable.

 

The main concern of this reasoning is not a disinterested perception of the nature of things, but the safeguarding of a simple and unalterable notion of God, while making allowance for a mentality that is more active than contemplative. The aim is therefore to provide, not a metaphysical statement that does not engage the will or does not appear to do so, but a key notion calculated to win over souls rooted in willing and acting rather than in knowing and contemplating; the metaphysical limitation is here a consequence of the priority accorded to what is effective for the governing and saving of souls. That being so, one is justified in saying that Semitic religious thought is by force of circumstances a kind of dynamic thought with moral overtones, and not a static thought in the style of the Greek or Hindu wisdom.

 

From the point of view of the latter, the idea of emanation, in place of creatio ex nihilo, in no way compromises either the transcendence or the immutability of God; between the world and God there is at once discontinuity and continuity, depending on whether our conception of the Universe is based on a scheme of concentric circles or on one of radii extending outward from the center to the periphery: according to the first mode of vision, which proceeds from the created to the Uncreated, there is no common measure between the contingent and the Absolute; according to the second mode of vision, which proceeds from the Principle to its manifestation, there is but one Real, which includes everything and excludes only nothingness, precisely because the latter has no reality whatsoever. The world is either a production drawn from the void and totally other than God, or else it is a manifestation "freely necessary" and "necessarily free" of Divinity or of Its Infinitude, liberty as well as necessity being Divine perfections.

 

As tor the contention that the creationist concept is superior to the so-called emanationist or pantheistic concepts because it is Biblical and Christ-given, and that the Platonic doctrine cannot be right because Plato cannot be superior either to Christ or the Bible, this has the fault of leaving on one side the real fundamentals of the problem.

 

First, what is rightly or wrongly called "emanationism" is not an invention of Plato, it can be found in the most diverse sacred texts; second, Christ, while being traditionally at one with the creationist thesis, nevertheless did not teach it explicitly and did not deny the apparently opposed thesis. The message of Christ, like that of the Bible, is not a priori a teaching of metaphysical science; it is above all a message of salvation, but one that necessarily contains, in an indirect way and under cover of an appropriate symbolism, metaphysics in its entirety. The opposition between the Divine Bible and human philosophy, or between Christ and Plato, therefore has no meaning so far as the metaphysical truths in question are concerned; that the Platonic perspective should go farther than the Biblical perspective brings no discredit on the Bible, which teaches what is useful or indispensable from the point of view of the moral or spiritual good of a particular humanity, nor does it confer any human superiority on the Platonists, who may be mere thinkers just as they may be saints, according to how much they assimilate of the Truth they proclaim.

 

For the Platonists it is perfectly logical that the world should be the necessary manifestation of God and that it should be without origin; if the monotheistic Semites believe in a creation out of nothing and in time, it is evidently not, as some have suggested, because they think that they have the right or the privilege of accepting a "supralogical" thesis that is humanly absurd; for the idea of creation appears to them on the contrary as being the only one that is reasonable and therefore the only one that is capable oflogical demonstration,as is proved precisely by tlfe method of argumentationused in theology.

 

Starting from the axiom that God created the worldout of nothing, the Semites reason thus, grosso modo: since God alone has Being, the world could not share it with Him; there had there fore to be a time when the world did not exist; it is God alone who could give it existence. On the religious plane, which so far as cosmology is concerned demands no more than the minimum necessary or useful for salvation, this idea of creation is fully sufficient, and the logical considerations which support it are perfectly plausible within the framework of their limitation; for they at least convey a key truth that allows a fuller understanding of the nature of God, as it is pleased to reveal itself in the monotheistic religions.

 

More than once we have had occasion to mention the following erroneous argument: if God creates the world in response to an inward necessity, as is affirmed by the Platonists, this must mean that He is obliged to create it, and that therefore He is not free; since this is impossible, the creation can only be a gratuitous act. One might as well say that if God is One, or if He is a Trinity, or if He is all-powerful, or if He is good, He must be obliged to be so, and His nature is thus the result of a constraint, quod absit.

 

It is always a case of the same incapacity to conceive of antinomic realities, and to understand that if liberty, the absence of constraint, is a perfection, necessity, the absence of arbitrariness, is another.

 

If, in opposition to the Pythagorean-Platonic perspective, the concept is put forward of an Absolute which is threefold in its very essence, therefore devoid of the degrees of reality that alone can explain the hypostatic polarizations - an Absolute which creates without metaphysical necessity and which in addition acts without cause or motive - and if at the same time the right is claimed to a sacred illogicality in the name of an exclusive "Christian supernaturalism'', then an explanation is due of what logic is and what human reason is; for if our intelligence, in its very structure, is foreign or even opposedto Divine Truth, what then is it, and why did God give it to us? Or to put it the other way round, what sort of Divine message is it that is opposed to the laws of an intelligence to which it is essentially addressed, and what does it signify that man was created "in the image of God"?

 

[According to Genesis "God created man in his own image" and "male and female created He them." Now according to one Father of the Church, the sexes are not made in the image of God; only the features that are identical in the two sexes resemble God, for the simple reason that God is neither man nor woman. This reasoning is fallacious because, although it is evident that God is not in Himself a duality, He necessarily comprises the principia! Duality in His Unity, exactly as He comprises the Trinity or the Quaternity; and how can one refuse to admit that the Holy Virgin has a prototype in God not only as regards her humanity but also as regards her femininity?]

 

And what motive could induce us to accept a message that was contrary, not to our earthly materialism or to ourpassion, but to the very substance of our spirit? For the "wisdom according to the flesh" of Saint Paul does not embrace every form of metaphysics that does not know the Gospels, nor is it logic as such, for the Apostle was logical; what it denotes is the reasonings whereby worldly men seek to prop up their passions and their pride, such as Sophism and Epicureanism and, in our days, the current philosophy of the world. "Wisdom according to the flesh" is also the gratuitous philosophy that does not lead us inwards and which contains no door opening on to spiritual realization; it is philosophy of the type of"art for art's sake” which commits one to nothing and is vain and pernicious for that very reason.

 

The incomprehension by theologians of Platonic and Oriental emanationism arises from the fact that monotheism puts in parenthesis the notion, essential metaphysically, of Divine Relativity or Maya; it is this parenthesis, or in practice this ignorance, which inhibits an understanding of the fact that there is no incompatability whatever between the "absolute Absolute", Beyond-Being, and the "relative Absolute", creative Being, and that this distinction is even crucial.

 

The Divine Maya, Relativity, is the necessary consequence of the very Infinitude of the Principle: it is because God is infinite that He comprises the dimension of relativity, and it is because He comprises that dimension that He manifests the world. To which it should be added: it is because the world is manifestation and not Principle that relativity, which at first was only determination, limitationand manifestation, gives rise to that particular modality constituting "evil". It is neither in the existence of evil things that evil lies nor in their existential properties nor in their faculties of sensation and of action, if it be a question of animate beings, nor even in the act insofar as it is the manifestation of a power; evil resides only in whatever is privative or negative with respect to good, and its function is to manifest in the world its aspect of separation from the Principle, and to play its part in an equilibrium and a rhythm necessitated by the economy of the created Universe.

 

In this way evil (wholly evil though it be when looked at in isolation) attaches itself to a good and is dissolved qua evil when one looks at it in its cosmic context and in its universal function.

 

Platonists feel no need whatever to try to fill the gap which might seem to exist between the pure Absolute and the determination and creative Absolute; it is precisely because they are aware of relativity in divinis and of the Divine cause of that relativity that they are emanationists.

 

In other words, the Hellenists, if they did not have a word to express it, nevertheless possessed in their own way the concept of Maya, and it is their doctrine of emanation that proves it.

  

In 1871 under the stewardship of the Swiss industrialist Alfred Escher, who had created the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt in 1856, the Gotthard Railway Company was founded. Despite initial difficulties to finance the project, and resulting costs of about 11% over budget, the financing was shared among private and public investors from Switzerland (20M CHF), Italy (45M CHF) and the German Empire (20M CHF). The bidding war between an engineering company from Geneva and Italy was fought viciously, and finally, the Swiss engineer Louis Favre won the project with an estimated cost of 2830 Swiss francs per meter. Because of his low bid, and the extra costs during construction, Favre increasingly found himself at odds with Swiss politicians and investors alike.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

s304 6409 Vienac1880 Gotthard Pass Switzerland Svetogothardski podrov kod Airola Dr. B. Š.: Podrov sveto–gothardski. XII. 19. 299–301 –čl [Anonimno]: Južni ulaz u svetogothardski podrov kod Airola; Put kroz svetogothardski klanac. XII. 19. 305 –il Zabavi i pouci Tečaj XII. Uredjuje ga August Šenoa, a izdaje dionička tiskara 1880. u Zagrebu Tisak dioničke tiskare a

--------------------------------

Podrov sveto-gothardski. (Sa slikom.)

Italiju razstavljaju od ostale Evrope, po imenu od Švajcarske, visoke planine Alpe, kojim je glava do blizu 15.000 stopa visoki Montblank. Alpe sve nisu doduše jednako visoke, nisu sve vječnim sniegom i ledom zastrte; ima ondje dosta sleka i uvala (Einsattelung), al i te se vrlo visoko penju, ponajviše 6-7000 stopah visoko. Ako ondje i kopni po ljetu snieg i led, al to kopnjenje traje samo koji mjesec; inače je sve sniegom zavaljeno. Zato je obćenje medju Italijom i preko-alpinskimi zemljami jošt i danas vrlo mučno, akoprem sada ima 18 izvrstnih i skupocjenih drumova preko Alpa. No kud i kamo tegotnije bijaše to obćenje u staro doba. Zato pripoviedaju stari pisci s nekim užasom o strahotah Hanibalova prielaza s vojskom preko Alpa ; pa i prielazi Julija Caesara, Napoleona, Suvarova smatraju se kao vanredni dogodjaji. Kako nebi, kad ondje do njih nije bilo prava puta, nego samo staza za ljude a putanja za natovarene konje i mazge. Ovako bijaše i u srednjem vieku. Kad je njemački car Henriko IV. putovao sa suprugom u Canossu, da pokoru čini pred papom, te je morao preko velikoga Bernharda, putovanje je bilo tako opasno, a staze tako vrletne i presrtne, da su caricu u kravljoj koži niz brda spuštali, a konji su se sputani kao denjak robe na daskah i vlačugah niza strmen plazali. Stoprv u naše doba sagradjeni su pomenuti drumovi; al nit ovi nisu potrebam udovoljavali, jer . se onuda sporo putuje, tako n. pr. put preko sv. Gotharda trajao je čitav dan, a po zimi jedva se mogla ta planina poradi prevelika sniega i leda kako prevaliti; samo se je onda pošta s velikom mukom prevlačila, Kako je Švajcarska zemlja obrtna, al slabo rodna, te mora plodine od drugud dovoziti; sjeverna pako Italija obiluje plodinami , al neima dosta rukotvorina: od davna se je očitovala vruća želja za lakšim uzajamnim obćenjem obijuh zemalja. Al dok nije bilo željeznica, nije se moglo naći bolje obćilo nego što su pomenuti drumovi. Stoprv pokle se je uza željeznice počela podrivati i ovelika brda, smisliše, da bi se onako .podrovati mogla čitava planina, te s.e napokon zbilja probije planina Mont-Cenis i ondašnjim tunelom sveza se Francezka s Italijom. Živa želja Švajcarske postade sada jošte življa, pokle se je tako očevidno dokazala mogućnost probušiti Alpe. Nu eto nove biede! Svaki švajcarski kanton je zahtievao, da se ta željeznica povede kroz njegovu zemlju: tako su jedni iskali, da se podrije Simplon, drugi su potrebovali, da se probuši Splügen , a treći da Gothard. Borba ova trajala je do 15 godina; napokon se je većina izjavila za Gothard, stranom zato, što ovaj leži u sredini Švajcarske i od prilike jednako razdaleko od Brennera, preko kojega se je već povila željeznica, i od Mont-Cenisa , koji se je uprav onda bio probušio, s druge strane zato, što je gothardski podrov naišao na krepče i vještije zatočnike. Za to su se iztočni i zapadni kantoni švajcarski osvetili, jer jim je pošlo za rukom zapriečiti, da nesudjeluje kod rovljenja Gotharda svakolika Švajcarska. Tim je postalo izvedenje toga posla vrlo dvojbeno ; jer ono nekoliko kantona, koji su to želili, nebi namakli tolikih novaca, što jih trebaše za ovakov ogroman posao. Srećom je jošt i drugim dvima državama vrlo mnogo za tim stalo, da se Gothard probuši, i to Njemačkoj i Italiji. Dva su tomu razloga: prvi, vojnički, da si osiguraju neposredno obćenje kroz neutralnu švajcarsku državu; drugi, trgovački, da umnože zamjenit promet na korist naroda i talijanskoga i njemačkoga. S ovoga gledišta motreć stvari učini jim se podrov Gotharda tako znamenit, te su odlučili priskočiti u pomoć dotičnomu željezničkomu društvu golemom svotom od 65 miliuna franaka, od koje svote je Njemačka preuzela 45 milijuna, a Italija 20 milijuna; srednjo-švajcarski kautoni priložili su takodjer 20 milijuna, a samo društvo sabralo je 34 milijuna, tako da se je svega skupilo do 120 miliuna franaka.

Pošto se je ovako potrebita glavnica namakla, latiše se posla. Godine 1871. probušen bje Mont-Cenis, a godine 1872, mjeseca rujna počeše rovati Gothard. Ravnateljem svega bio je ženialni a neumorni genevski Švajcar Louis Favre, izprva tesar, a do skora na glasu podhvatnik gradnje željeznica. Već prva zadaća bila je neizmjerno mučna. Da se djelo prije svrši, trebaše kopati sa strane talijanske i švajcarske zajedno; jer da se samo s jedne strane kopa, trebalo bi jedno 25 godina. Al kako da se osieče, gdje bi trebalo s obje strane započeti, i kako na svakoj strani roviti, da se oba rova (Stollen) upravo sastanu? To je bio doista tvrd orah. Jer osjeći pravac (t. j. upravu crtu) na 2 i pol milje daleko, zadaje puno truda i na ravnici, gdje se sve na daleko vidi: kud i kamo mučnije pako je osjeći pravac preko onako dugačke, nepristupnimi stienami i vrletnimi dolinami izpresiecane, ponajviše sniegom i ledom zastrte planine kao što je sv. Gothard ! Tu je trebalo neizmjernom pomnjom pomoću trigonometrije opet i . opet sve mjeriti i računati, dok se je napokon osjeklo, gdje treba motikom _ zakopati, naime na švajcarskoj strani kod sela Goschenena, a na talijanskoj kod varošice Airola. Al sad eto nove muke: kako da se u podzemnom tavniku drži pravac, gdje se na daleko nevidi? A nije se tu radilo samo o tom, da se rov goni na pravac, nego i u odlučenoj strmini, jer kopati trebaše ne posve ravno, nego malko uz brdo. Sada da se promaši osječen pravac i smjer, pa da se bušeć s obje strane radnici gdje u sredini razminu i neznajuć za to; da jedni probuše pol planine puno više ili niže od drugih, ili da zastrane lievo, desno, pa da se nesastanu u samoj utrobi Gotharda - zaludo jim sav trud i trošak; treba iznova početi, - Lasno će se dakle svatko domisliti, kolikom brigom i nestrpljivosti su dotični inžeuiri izgledali o naj čas, gdje će se osjeći, valja li jim posao, to jest hoće li se švajcarski i talijanski radnici na pravome mjestu sastati. Nevještaku činilo se je to nemoguće; al inženiri su se uzdali u znanost i da joj osiguraju uspjeh izumiše i osobite sprave (n. p. Universal-Dreifuss). Tako se je u toj neizviestnosti radilo sedam godina; napokon održa znanost i njezini svećenici iuženiri sjajnu pobjedu nad toliki mi zaprekami : oba rova švajcarski i talijanski sastaše se II pravom pravcu u jednakoj visini i to gotovo do dlake (razlika je bila samo nekoliko centimetara).

Na ovim umnim pogodjenjem pravca, kojim da se Gotharda probuši, bila je svršeua samo prva zadaća: sad je trebalo planinu sagradjenu ponajviše od pretvrda kamena doista bušiti. Eto nove zagonetke znanosti! - Izprva se je samo rukom radilo, to jest po dva radnika bušila su rupe u kamen i to ovako: jedan je držao i ravnao šiljastu dugačku motku od tvrda, ocila, a drugi je udarao batom li motku, dok se ovako nije izdubila dovoljna rupa, a kad jih se je više izdubilo, nabiše jih dinamitom, uzmakoše i zapališe lagum (mine), te je dinamit razkrhao kamen, koji se je onda na polje vozio. Buduć da je prvotni rov samo :2 do 2 ½ metra širok, to. su ovako mogla u isto vrieme raditi samo 4 radnika bušeća dvie rupe. Ovi su radeć dan i noć (dakako na izmjenu) na vrtali danomice recimo deset rupa; kada bi bio uz ovakov postupak tunel gotov, kad se sada znade, da je zanj trebalo 320.000 takovih rupa? - Da se dakle djelo pospješi, trebalo je osobitih strojeva, koji rade brže od čovječje ruke, pa je zbilja izumljeno bušilo, koje je u isti čas četiri do pet rupa neizmjernom brzinom dubilo, ta ko da je podrov svaki dan poprieko 3 metra i više napredovao.

Pitat će tko: kakva je sila ovo bušilo kretala? - Para nije mogla, pa nijedna sila, kojoj ognja treba; jer oguj u se hoće zraka, pravo govoreć uzduha (annosfera}: a toga u podrovu bijaše vrlo malo, tako malo, da bi se ondje morala za kratko svaka životinja ugušiti. Kako se je pako doskočilo ovoj nestašici zraka? Evo ovako!

Blizu Gotseheueua teče riečica Reuss; a kod Airola druga riečica; na ovih riekah sagradiše vodenice na mutvu ili vrtaljku (čigru; Turbiue), ne da okreće žrvanj, nego da utiskuje uzduh u ciev, koja se uzduž podrova oteže, Na kraju cievi stoji pomenuto bušilo. Stisnut uzdah tjera mjesto bata njegove motke u kamen, onako kako para, pa se onda uzduh razalazi po podrovu, da radnici imaju zraka za disanje. Bušilo je na kolih, tako da se može prema potrebi napried ili natrag potisnuti.

Uz nestašicu zraka jošte je i druga neprilika radnike mučila, naime vrućina. Što su dublje prođirali u planinu, to je bila veća toplina, koja je naj poslje do 37 stupnjeva (po Celsiju) narasla: ljudi su bili pola goli, pa su se opet znojili, a u ovakvom stanju, u tom zagušljivom zraku morali su jošt i raditi: nije čudo, što jih je ondje vrlo mnogo iznemoglo ili baš zaglavilo. Malo jih je preživilo cielo vrieme radnje, baš niti sam glavni ravnatelj Favre, kojemu je lani mjeseca srpnja, dok je bio u podrovu, valjda od ornare i sparine, kaplja pala. Još više je od nje nastradala tegleća marva, po imenu konji, koji su u podrovu kola vukli, kažu da je od njih cielu dobu grad nje preživi lo samo jedno malo kljuse.

Dok se je u podrovu najvećim naporom radilo - eto jada iznenada! Nadinženir Hellwag izračuna, da skupljenu, glavnica od 120 milijuna franaka neće doteći za gradjenje, već da će još trebati 102 milijuna, ako se želi sva osnova izvesti. To je bio doista grom iz vedra neba, za koji se je već mislilo, da će raztepsti svekoliko liepo i uspješno započeto djelo. Napokon se je prvotna osnova što se je više moglo stegla i onda je trebalo samo jošte 40 milijuna franaka. Ovi budu srećno skuckani, pošto je Njemačka i Italija nadoplatila svaka po 10 miliuna fran., 4 miliuna srednjo-švajcarski kantoni, isto toliko švajcarska republika, a 12 mil. fran. pribralo je društvo za gothardsku željeznicu.

Sad se je počelo pomladjenorn snagom raditi, pa na izmaku mjeseca veljače ove godine već su radnici jedne pole čuli pucanje laguma u drugoj poli. Inžiniri i težaci bili su svejednako u grozničavoj nestrpljivosti, hlepteć upravo za časom, kad će bušeća motka probušiti sav pretin, koji je preostao. Da se taj čas pospješi, upotrebiše 5 metara dugačke motke za bušenje rupa; napokon 28. veljače prodre jedna motka s talijanske strane u sam podrov švajcarski, a sutra dan, to jest na sam prestupni dan, bude onda razvaljen dinamitom ostatak stiene, koji je razstavljao švajcarske radnike od talijanskih, te su jedni drugim pohrlili u naručaj ; a veselje bijaše obćenito ne samo po svoj Švajcarskoj i Italiji, već se može kazati, da se je sav obrazovani sviet iskreno radovao ovoj novoj pobjedi znanosti; jer znanost je svjetska stečevina.

Planina Gothard je dakle probušena. Zanimat će štioce "Vienca" nekoliko podataka, iz kojih . se razabire ogromnost toga djela. Savkolik podrov dugačak je 14.920 metara (od prilike dvie milje); ovo je dakle za sada najdulji tunel ovoga svieta ;" jer je podrov Mont-Cenisa samo 12333 metra dugačak (dakle je gothardski za jedno 2700 metara dulji od ujega), pa je opet za podrov Mont Cenisa trebalo 13 godina, a dulji gothardski tunel dovršen je za 7 godina i 5 mjeseci. Evo koliko je. od onda napredovala inženirska znanost i vještina. - Kod bušenja rupa za lagume potrošilo se je 1,650.000 svrdlova (t. j. pomenutih zaoštrenih šibaka) i 490.000 kilograma dinamita ; za izvoženje razvaljena dinamitom kamena trebalo je 1,450.000 vezova. Poprieko je 3400 težaka za sve vrieme gradnje dnevice radilo.

---------------------

morton1905.blogspot.hr/2018/04/podrov-sveto-gothardski.html

--------------------------------

www.facebook.com/historia.hr/posts/1965149026866498

 

Allhart and I spent a pleasant morning at the Audubon Center at Strawberry Plains a couple of weeks ago. My external flash was giving trouble and the light was poor. Changing positions, I caught this white breasted nuthatch hanging upside down on a large tree limb with the sky as a background. I'll just say it is an artsy shot, not a good one! LOL

What a mess Flickr was the night before last! I had difficulty adding titles to my uploaded images, comments didn't save and, after I had added a description to each of the 20 photos, the descriptions all disappeared. When I opened Flickr next morning, there was still no sign of them. Then, suddenly, they re-appeared. I also discovered that all the hundreds of photos from this trip that I added to the map are no longer on the map!!! Someone on the Help Forum told someone else to refresh a page and the map will appear again - and it works. Now, I can't add photos to albums - it looks like they are added, but when I check the album, some of yesterda's photos had not appeared. Suddenly, now appeared. Also, my descriptions appeared in duplicate! Today, 13 May 2019, everything I try to do on Flickr takes a long time to do.

 

My photos taken at the National Butterfly Centre, Mission, South Texas, have now come to an end, so you can sigh a huge sigh of relief : ) Today I added 22 photos taken at another place that we called in at later in the afternoon, the Valley Nature Centre. Unfortunately, we only had an hour there before closing time, but how glad we were that we found this place. The highlight there was watching 25 Yellow-crowned Night-Herons coming in to roost for the night in the trees, right where we were standing! What a great sight this was, and we were lucky enough to have a good, close view of these gorgeous birds, though in very poor light. We also saw some Purple Martins and their circular, hanging nesting "gourds".

 

On Day 6 of our birding holiday in South Texas, 24 March 2019, we left our hotel in Kingsville, South Texas, and started our drive to Mission, where we would be staying at La Quinta Inn & Suites for three nights. On the first stretch of our drive, we were lucky enough to see several bird species, including a Golden-fronted Woodpecker, Hooded Oriole, Red-tailed Hawk, Crested Caracara, Harris's Hawk, Pyrrhuloxia male (looks similar to a Cardinal) and a spectacular Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. This stretch is called Hawk Alley.

 

We had a long drive further south towards Mission, with only a couple of drive-by photos taken en route (of a strangely shaped building that turned out to be a huge, deserted seed storage building). Eventually, we reached our next planned stop, the National Butterfly Centre. This was a great place, my favourite part of it being the bird feeding station, where we saw all sorts of species and reasonably close. Despite the name of the place, we only saw a few butterflies while we were there. May have been the weather or, more likely, the fact that I was having so much fun at the bird feeding station. We also got to see Spike, a giant African Spurred Tortoise. All the nature/wildlife parks that we visited in South Texas had beautiful visitor centres and usually bird feeding stations. And there are so many of these parks - so impressive!

 

Tomorrow, I will be able to start sorting and editing images taken on Day 7 of our 13-day trip!

KOM League

Flash Report

For

August 3, 2019

 

The Flash Report is posted on Flickr at: www.flickr.com/photos/60428361@N07/48153832902/ Going to that site will leave you with a “fawn” memory.

 

Note: Due to technical difficulties with Google three previous attempts at transmitting this report using “bcc” have failed. This transmission is being sent using “cc.” I trust this will not be an inconvenience to anyone. Hopefully, this problem won’t be of a lasting nature.

 

Second note: Great angst is being experienced in getting this report delivered. Try this link again and if the report is still not available, let me know. www.flickr.com/photos/60428361@N07/48153832902/

 

At precisely 1:11 p.m. Central Daylight Savings Time on August 2, 2019 I sat down at my computer having done nothing during the week to include in a report. So, this will be a report without form and void.

 

If this forum was for late breaking news it could be reported that in the early morning hours the news of the death of Harley Race came over the radio. Less than 2% of the readership would even recognize that name but he was known as “Handsome” Harley Race when he was on the professional wrestling cards around the Midwest.

 

Never was I a “wrasslin” fan but I had heard Race’s name mentioned a few times and during my last years in the “rat race” of working for a living, many a day was spent at Eldon, Missouri. Lunch options in Eldon (aka Petticoat Junction) were sparse and many a meal was a tenderloin sandwich was served to me by none other than “Handsome Harley” and his much more attractive wife, Beverley. To show I have so little baseball news to share you might want to learn about or take a refresher course on the deceased. search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?hspart=avast&hsimp=yhs-se...

______________________________________________________________________________

Number of known living former KOM Leaguers drops to 224 with the death of Robert E. Lee

 

Robert "Bob" E. Lee, 93, loving husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather passed away on July 22, 2019. He was born on January 29, 1926 in Topeka, the son of Willis H. and Rill Eva Lee. He was educated in Topeka, attending Roosevelt Junior High and graduating from Topeka High School in 1944. In April of 1944 he joined the United States Marine Corps where he served until April of 1946. He served in the South Pacific on the Marshall Islands, Carolina Islands, and Ryukyu Islands in Okinawa, Japan.

 

In 1946, Bob enrolled at Washburn University where he was on the football team and track teams. In 1947, he started a professional baseball career with the Joplin Minors in the Western Association League. He played professional baseball in the minor leagues through the 1951 season with the Topeka Owls.

 

Bob was very active at Washburn University, serving as their baseball coach in 1960. He also served on the Washburn Board of Regents, Ichabod Board, Alumni Association, Lincoln Society, Washburn University Foundation, and he and his wife, Sallee, started the Robert E. and Sallee Lee Athletic Scholarship. In 1984, the basketball arena at Washburn was named after them, and Bob was also given the President's "W" Award.

 

Professionally, Bob was realtor, developer, appraiser, starting Lee Realtors in 1955, and later Lee and Bueltel Realtors and Lee and Bueltel Construction Company. He also served as president of the Topeka Board of Realtors, Topeka Multiple Listing Exchange, Society of Real Estate Appraisers and American Society of Appraisers, and he was the first Kansan to receive the CAE (certified assessment evaluator) certification.

 

In 1971, he was a partner in Cablevision of Topeka, the company that first brought cable TV to Topeka.

 

Throughout his professional life, Bob had a slogan on his desk that read "Luck is the crossroads of where planning and opportunity meet."

 

Bob also served on multiple boards in Topeka including the YMCA, American Red Cross, St. Francis Hospital foundation, Urban Renewal Advisory Board, Family Guidance Center, Rotary Club, Topeka Capitals, Topeka Recreation Commission, Human Relations Commission, and served as the president of the 20-30 Club and Cosmopolitan Club.

 

Bob was an avid sports fan enjoying baseball, softball, golf and tennis. He managed and sponsored multiple baseball and slow pitch softball teams, his 1982 Lee and Bueltel softball team won the USSSA Kansas State Championship and finished 9th in the ASA Major Men's Nationals in Parma, Ohio.

 

Mr. Lee is survived by his wife, Sallee, and their three children, Gregory A. Lee (Jenny), Topeka, Dr. David Lee, Houston, TX, and Debbie Florence (Stacy), Topeka; four grandchildren, Emily Dore, (Jim) Overland Park, Amy Nohl, (Brent) Prairie Village, Bobby Florence, (Jazmin) Lawrence, LeKeevis Lee (preceded him in death) and six great grandchildren.

 

Memorial contributions can be made to Washburn University Athletics Fund, 1700 SW College, Topeka, KS, 66604 or Prince of Peace Church, 3625 SW Wanamaker, Topeka, KS, 66614.

 

A memorial service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Friday, August 2, 2019 at Faith Lutheran Church, 1716 SW Gage Blvd, Topeka.

 

To leave a message for the family online, please visit www.PenwellGabelTopeka.com Robert E. Lee.

 

Ed comment:

 

At some juncture, over the past 25 years, Robert Lee attended a KOM league event basically for the sole purpose of visiting with some former buddies of his, from Topeka. Although Lee played for the 1946 Bartlesville Oilers he didn’t want to admit it. For whatever reason he had for not wanting to confess being a former KOM leaguer, he was.

______________________________________________________________________________

Wife of former Pittsburg Brown, Ray Lindquist, passes

 

Mary Virginia (nee Pangborn) Lindquist passed away on January 4, 2019, surrounded by family. She was 87 years old. A breast cancer survivor, twice, Mary spent the last fifteen years battling Parkinson's disease. Born in Detroit, Mary was the granddaughter of a Michigan senator, Samuel H. Pangborn and Michigan District Court Judge Xenophon A. Boomhower, both of Bad Axe, Michigan, and the daughter of Willard and Florence Pangborn. Mary graduated from Cleveland Heights High School, in Ohio, and Michigan State University, and was the second generation to pledge Delta Delta Delta. After graduation, she taught elementary education within the Cleveland Heights district and married Dartmouth graduate and professional baseball player, Raymond Lindquist.

 

They, and their growing family eventually settled in South Euclid, Ohio, where Mary served as a president of Adrien Elementary PTA and taught Sunday school at the former First Presbyterian Church of East Cleveland. She was a den mother for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and a 'baseball mom' for her sons' Little League teams. After the family moved to Buffalo, New York, Mary became the president of the Eden Garden Club and won awards for her floral arrangements. She played golf, tennis, and bridge.

 

She was also an avid knitter, passing on the tradition started by her aunt, Leta Pangborn Shere, by creating over one hundred blue-ribbon Christmas stockings for extended family and friends. She and Ray retired to Gulf Harbor, in Fort Myers, Florida, where Mary continued to be an active golfer and Tri Delta member. She and Raymond traveled often, enjoying trips to Europe, Asia, and New Zealand. Mary is survived by her sister, Mrs. Barbara Doren of La Jolla, California and Dr. Willard Pangborn of Long Beach, California, as well as her son, Robert, a businessman and graduate of West Point Academy, Eric, a graduate of Tufts University and Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, Catherine, a graduate of SUNY Buffalo's John Lord O'Brian School of Law, and William, a graduate of Trinity College and Michigan Ross, the University of Michigan's business school. Mary will remain beloved by each of her grandchildren—Raymond, Matthias, Paige, Anna, Erin, Haley, Kyle, Ryan, and Sydney, their spouses, and her friends. A memorial service will be held Aug. 3, 11 a.m., at Colfax Cemetery, 598 N. Barrie Road, Bad Axe, Michigan, 48413.

Published in Huron Daily Tribune on July 30, 20

 

Ed comment:

 

2009 was the last time I spoke with Ray Lindquist. I recall, vividly, him talking about the political pedigree of his wife’s family and the place in Michigan from which they came. Bad Axe would have to be one of my favorite names for a town. Ray will celebrate his 90th birthday on Sept. 30. Ray was born in Cleveland, attended Dartmouth College and is still living in Ft. Myers.

______________________________________________________________________________

Alex Muirhead, Elvis and Reagan

 

Last week the readers were promised a few paragraphs regarding a former Ponca City Dodger shortstop by the name of Alex Muirhead. He was born in Libertyville, Ill. in 1927 and had played in the Piedmont league in 1945 with the Roanoke, Red Sox. He was there a month and was drafted into the Army.

 

He joined the Ponca City Dodgers for the 1948 season and spent one year there and retired from baseball at the age of 21 and that is when his life began. He worked four years with the California Department of Justice and then began his 30-year career with the California Highway Patrol. He attained the rank of captain and served as an area commander for 11 of those 30 years.

 

Like most law enforcement officers he came across many situations but two stood out as we sat on my back deck one afternoon and relived some of his life’s highlights. During the stage in the life of Elvis Presley when he was interested into martial arts and guns, his contingent pulled into the parking lot of the patrol office and asked to speak with the captain in charge.

 

Muirhead recalled that Presley seemed to be genuinely interested in law enforcement and paid rapt attention as he was told how the patrol operated. When he arrived Presley was carrying two pearl handle revolvers which he displayed for Muirhead. After Presley and the Memphis Mafia

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFwRiPj_pLw departed one of the members of Muirhead’s staff entered his office and said that Elvis had given him the pearl handled revolvers. Muirhead explained that it was not legal to accept gifts and that he’d have to return them the next time Presley was in the area. (The URL mentioned in this paragraph will provide many hours of gtrsy viewing if you are interested in the security that surrounded Presley.)

 

When Presley next appeared in the area the deputy made a trip to see him to return the gift. Muirhead said that in thinking back that move was risky. He said his deputy asked for a meeting with Elvis without telling his bodyguards the nature of the visit and he was carrying those two weapons, concealed. Muirhead mused that carrying those guns to meet with one of the best guarded men in America wasn’t a very smart thing to do.

 

While serving as the area commander for the California Highway Patrol at Sacramento, Muirhead was surprised when the governor’s limousine pulled up to the station and out came Ronald Reagan. He recalled the governor was in some distress and asked “May I use your restroom.” After doing his “business” Reagan came out and posed for a photo with Capt. Muirhead which never got much attention until it was published in my of my non-bestselling books. If you have the second edition of Majoring in The Minors you’ll find it on page 133.

 

That and more regarding the life and times of Alex Muirhead is in that book and a story about how he suffered his most serious injury in his law enforcement career. It was meted out by a Chihuahua/ Toy Fox mixture. If the stories about Presley and Reagan didn’t live up to the hype maybe you’d like to hear the dog story, next time.

 

There were a lot of other items I wanted to share regarding Muirhead so maybe that will happen at another time.

 

For those wishing to see a photo of Reagan and Muirhead it was posted in this forum in 2015 and it can be viewed by clicking here: www.flickr.com/photos/60428361@N07/20581119710/

 

Another link shows Muirhead’s billfold that was a gift from the 1948 team. He gave me the billfold sans any money. www.flickr.com/photos/60428361@N07/20581106198/

______________________________________________________________________________

Two paths crossed in Wichita and Ponca City

 

In 1952 the Ponca City Dodgers had two players who were natives of Wichita, Kansas. Elbert Jarvis played first base for that club and Clyde Girrens did the catching. Three years later Jarvis was married and Girrens was an usher at that event.

 

Just three short years later, tragedy struck and this time Girrens was attending the funeral of his friend.

 

Elbert Jarvis Ponca City, 1952- www.findagrave.com/memorial/93405814/elbert-dean-jarvis

 

Wichita Eagle, Saturday, May 31, 1958

 

Ex-Wichita Ball Player Drowns--Fishing in Pond Near Ponca City

 

A former Wichitan, Elbert D. (Dean) Jarvis, 27, (Ed note: He was 25) Ponca City, Okla., drowned Friday afternoon in a private pond five miles northeast of Ponca City.

 

He was the son of Mrs. Esta Pearl Jarvis, 1221 Larimer. He graduated from North High School and attended the University of Wichita.

 

He and his wife, Jackie, and his mother-in-law, Mrs. William L. Troup, Ponca City, were fishing in the pond on the M. M. Acton farm about 1:30 p.m.

 

After stripping off his shirt and pants, he dived into the water after something, possibly his hat which had blown off.

 

A man who resides at the farm, Charles Johnson, heard the women screaming and called the Ponca City fire department. The fire department manned four boats at the scene.

 

The police department and Kay County, Okla., Sheriff Forrest Walker and Undersheriff Norman Coffelt also helped to search the water for an hour.

 

The body was found about 20 feet from shore in about 20 feet of water. Mr. Jarvis apparently had cramped. Firemen worked a resuscitator, but without success.

 

A Ponca City physician was treating Mrs. Jarvis for shock when the body was pulled out. The body was taken to Miles Funeral Home, Ponca City.

 

Mr. Jarvis played baseball with the Newport News, Va. Farm Club of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and later was first baseman for the Ponca City Cubs, a class D farm club of the Chicago Cubs.

 

Wichita Eagle, Sunday, June 1, 1958

 

ELBERT D. JARVIS

 

A resident of Ponca City, Okla. he commuted to Oklahoma State University at Stillwater, Okla. He was born June 4, 1932, in Wichita.

 

He graduated from North High School in 1950. He was a letterman in football, basketball and baseball. He had played on a farm club for the Brooklyn Dodgers, for the Shawnee, Okla., Hawks, and for the Cedar Rapids, Iowa Three I league.

 

Mr. Jarvis drowned while on a picnic with his wife and her parents. He and his wife had begun to fish some distance from where her parents had just finished eating.

 

He dived from the shore after his hat which had blown off. He retrieved the hat and was swimming back pushing the hat in front of him when his wife heard him call for help.

 

Survivors, besides his mother and his. wife, Sarah Ann (Jackie), include two brothers, Kile, Tucson, Ariz., and Gerald, 1444 S. Hydraulic; and two sisters, Mrs. C. O. Avery, 1319 N. Main, and Mrs. H. J. Valko, 1661 Jeanette.

 

Trout Funeral Home, Ponca City, is in charge of arrangements.

 

Fifty eight years later this story appeared regarding Clyde Girrens

 

North Central-Flint Hills Area Agency on Aging--July 25, 2016 ·

www.facebook.com/ncfhaaa/posts/clyde-girrens-86-of-wichit... A photo of Clyde Girrens at age 86 in a Kansas City Royals hat is on this link.

 

Clyde Girrens, 86, of Wichita, Kansas will be honored as Keeping Seniors in the Game! First Pitcher on Saturday, July 30, 2016 at the 7 p.m. feature game of the National Baseball Congress (NBC) World Series.

 

Clyde grew up in St. Marks, Kansas and has lived in Wichita since 1982. He and his wife Patricia have three children -- Clyde Jr., Phil, and Tom.

 

From a very young age Clyde loved baseball. At 15, he was a catcher on the St. Marks team. When his team played in the 1945 Kansas State NBC Tournament, he was the youngest player in that tournament. In 1949 he played in the NBC World Series with the Cessna Bobcats and the Bobcats won the national championship that year. In 1950, Clyde signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Everyone knew that when Clyde was the catcher, if someone was starting to steal second, the pitcher needed to get out of the way because Clyde had a great arm. He played for the Dodgers five years and then was drafted in the Army and served in Korea.

 

After Korea, he returned to Wichita and made NBC's All-tournament team a record four times playing for the Wichita Weller Indians, Service Auto Glass and Bob Moore Oldsmobile. He earned MVP honors in 1959 and in 1963. His favorite baseball memory happened in l963 when The Rapid Transit Dreamliners won NBC's National Championship after defeating the Ponchatoula, Louisiana Athletics. He played with the Dreamliners for 17 years--until 1987.

 

In 1980 he was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame. These days Clyde enjoys spending quality time with Patricia and gardening.

 

Clyde was nominated for the Keeping Seniors in the Game SM honor by the Central Plains Area Agency on Aging. This group serves seniors and caregivers in Sedgwick, Butler and Harvey counties.

 

"We are delighted to work with the NBC to recognize the contributions that Clyde Girrens and other older Kansans make to our country, our hometowns and our communities," said Julie Govert Walter, Executive Director of the North Central-Flint Hills Area Agency on Aging who leads the Keeping Seniors In The Game!SM initiative.

 

Ed comment:

 

According to the late Bob Dellinger who was the Ponca City Dodger sportswriter for most of its time in the KOM league, he cited Clyde Girrens as being the best catching prospect to ever wear Dodger blue in that town.

 

One regret I have is not being able to spend more time conversing with Girrens but fate has dealt that a cruel blow. In 1994 I met Girrens at a reunion of former Ponca City Angels, Dodgers and Cubs. Without any exaggeration he was the guy most sought out by the attendees for the purpose of engaging in conversation.

 

Girrens had a long career in Wichita amateur baseball after five years in the Brooklyn Dodger organization beginning in 1950. There have been 80 ballplayers named as the MVP of the National Baseball Congress (NBC) Tournament in Wichita. Some of those names are Satchel Paige, Ellis “Cot” Deal, Chris Chambliss, Daryl Spencer and Lance Berkman who all played major league baseball. Of course, Girrens is one of 80 players to win that honor. He did it the year his team only advanced as far as the quarterfinals of the tournament.

 

A Hall of Fame for the NBC tournament exists that includes nearly 110 names. Included in that group are: Bob Boone, Joe Carter, Ron Guidry, Whitey Herzog, Ralph Houk, Billy Martin, Rick Monday, Satchel Paige, Allie Reynolds, Tom Seaver, Ozzie Smith, Roger Clemens, Daryl Spencer, Harry “The Hat” Walker, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, Tony Gwynn, Kirk Gibson, Dave Kingman and of course, Clyde Girrens.

 

Clyde’s brother, John, pitched for the Bartlesville, Oklahoma Pirates in 1948.

 

Girrens played professional baseball from 1950, sans 1951, through 1955 and then decided upon a life making more money playing for industry teams in Wichita. However, the Los Angeles Angels coaxed him out of retirement, in 1964 and as a 34-year old catcher he was sent to the Hawaii Islanders of the Pacific Coast league. Following that stint in Hawaii he continued to play semi-pro ball for another 23 years making him 57 years of age when he finally hung up his spikes.

 

Why I came upon the names of Jarvis and Girrens for this report baffles me, it wasn’t planned. It is a story about how things work out. Jarvis left this world at age 25 and Girrens is still going at age 89. But, it is great that both are being remembered. I’m sure one reader of this report will recall Jarvis. He was a young, good looking member of the Ponca City Dodgers and the less than 10-year daughter of the team’s manager had a crush on him.

______________________________________________________________________________

Leftover from last week

 

Last time around there was a listing of former players never located or fate determined.

 

Steve Smith has researched ballplayers who were with Keokuk, Iowa for many years. When he notices Keokuk or other Central Association players who had experience in the KOM league he gets interested. He had a photo from the April 24, 1948 edition of the Moline, Ill. Dispatch. In that photo was a played listed as John Moore.

 

He commented “As always your reports are interesting. I looked at your list and of course the ever elusive John Moore is on it. I have found a picture of Mr. Moore which is attached. You may already have it. Moore was from Philly. I have tried to find his high school career but so far no luck. There were too many John Moore’s in Philly.”

 

With the foregoing input from Mr. Smith these were my observations. “Here is something to consider. There is a U. S. Baseball Questionnaire that a John Moore filled out for Bill Weiss in 1950. Here are the comments Moore made. Born June 28, 1928 in Philadelphia. Lived at 1803 67th Ave. in Philly in 1950. Nickname was Jackie. Was 5' 10" and weighed 170. Threw and batted right handed. Graduated from North East High in Philly in 1945. Played at Welch, WVA in 1947 and Portsmouth, Ohio in 1948 and played in some town in North Carolina in 1949. Maybe he felt his time in the KOM and wasn't significant enough to mention or his time in Moline, same thing. Of course, this might not be our guy.”

 

He claimed to have served one year in the Marine Corps by 1950. He stated in his questionnaire that he loved to play golf.. This same John Moore attended LaSalle Univ. from 1947-49 and was a member of the golf team. His name appears in the LaSalle yearbook. I can't find any information where this person has passed on. Just some things to mull over.

 

Another former player never found—William Ruel Waggener

 

This fellow was signed by the St. Louis Browns and sent to Pittsburg, Kansas in 1946. He was soon on his way to Bartlesville. During the off-season he attended Kansas State Teachers College in Pittsburg. He was back with Bartlesville to start the 1947 season but maintained his home in Pittsburg during the winter where he continued to attend classes in pursuing his major in civil engineering.

 

On Dec. 31, 1947 he and his wife welcomed a son they named Michael Stephen. Many references are made to Waggener in the Jacksonville, Ill. Daily Journal and they usually centered on the news he was visiting his parents at Christmas time. The last such reference was from 1972 and by that time he was living in Peoria. I believe he now resides in a nursing home in Peoria.

 

As you have probably guessed I’ll keep looking for any word on this man.

______________________________________________________________________________

Well, I’m done. Seventeen hours ago this report was started. Things went just fine for about two of them and then I shut down for the day. After what passes as a night of sleeping like a baby I arose and remembered there was a Flash Report still in the oven. I pulled it out to check how done it was and figured it was time to slice and serve it.

 

Hopefully, your piece of the report was done satisfactorily. If not, return the unconsumed portion for a full refund of its listed price on the menu.

  

We wanted to be a part of history in the making, so we attended the first day of the International Convention in Detroit June 6th, 2014. We had been in Christian Conventions in Detroit before with over 60,000 in attendance but we were much younger back then and did not notice the walking as much. This one in Detroit was attended by 35,000 the first day, and they said the attendance with the other ten sites added in was 98,000, (we were all tied in together with some of the talks given at Detroit).

We arrived there early and we still had to park in a handicap area that must have been at least ¾ of a mile from the stadium. We were blessed to be able to get on one of the golf carts the brothers had running to carry in the elderly. We were put in line to get into the stadium at about 7:15AM and the lines from the north and south were both at least 1000feet long of brothers and sisters. When the doors opened at 8:00AM it still took a long time to get in because each person had to go through a security bag check.

After entering, we traversed half-way around the entire football stadium just to find out that the meager portion of handicap seating was already taken. I finally helped Pam down a few steps and got her to a seat and just found a place to park her walker. The brothers were very kind and helped the handicap all they could despite not having enough wheelchair space. By the time the session was over, there must have been a dozen other walkers piled on top of Pam’s because we did not have enough room. Despite all that, the fellowship and joy was wonderful. Seeing and talking with the International delegates along with the wonderful talks made everything very worthwhile. The seats we had were right beside some wonderful delegates from Germany and there were small television monitors right above us. This made it easier to see even though they had the program projected on the high definition large stadium screens, since we were way back in the far end zone opposite the stage.

For some reason though when the session was over, there were so many buses that they would not let them park to load very close to the stadium. We hiked back to the car, over a mile from our seats, and we still saw thousands of brothers, sisters, and elderly hiking another mile further to their buses. Even though we had finally made it to our car so we could sit down, the crowds of friends were so thick that we could not move if we wanted to. A brother finally came over and said we have to help you out of here because they need the parking for a ballgame; so he helped us get out very slowly and safely, as other cars for a ballgame were coming in. We just felt so heartbroken for so many friends walking so far. Some of the buses had to be at least two miles from the stadium entrance. Pam’s leg was so swollen when we got home she could not even get her shoe off. But again, we were happy to be there, as the talks were encouraging and wonderful, and we were part of history in the making. The love of the brothers and sisters moving around in such a respectful, peaceful and orderly crowd was so wonderful. The drama was so very good and instructional for true Christians. Jehovah blessed all despite the difficulties, and our joy felt great.

 

The Bicycle Chronicles Chapter Four Part Four of The Flyte

In truth I had not anticipated the degree of excitement this 1939 CCM Flyte would ignite in some folks who attend the shop on a regular basis. That phrase The Holy Grail is an apt description for some, actually for many steeped in bicycle lore than myself. As mentioned my interests in bicycles is a relatively new thing, having been about ten years give or take since I first began tinkering. When I look back on the history of this small home based shop called Lumpy Bikes it marvels me how far my knowledge has grown and how many folks I have met in that period of time. If I have not said so prior in these writings, “it is the people one meets in this game that make it what it is, and for the most part the people are awesome.”

The very next day at the usual time, 1PM sharp (which is when I open) I pulled the Flyte out of the Honda Element where it had spent the night. It sure looked like a pile of poorly painted metal pieces, as the scratches on the frame to me were like the war wounds of a well travelled soldier. Lying there in the back of the truck I was reminded of a horse in a way that was quite arthritic and had difficulty in getting up on its legs. We have had lots of old bikes here at the shop, the first was also a 1939 double bar CCM that my friends Don Schmidt and Carol Trainor had given me in the early years of Lumpy Bikes, I was proud of that bike also as it was one of the first vintage bikes to go on display above the shop entrance, I fitted it with a period correct childs rear carrier and a front full size butchers basket, the original saddle though worn and torn was made of leather, the silver four corner badge was intact. It was a sad day when I phoned my friend Mario in Vaughan to see if he would purchase the bike as we had run into some financial difficulty that best remain secret. When Don owned the bike he used it to drive around the campus at Buffalo University, then he took the bike to Washington DC where he had one of his first high school teaching jobs, a lifes historical patina shrouded that bike in memories and you could feel it.

Later in the afternoon my friend Pat Johnston wandered over, he was about the only person who knew I had gone to get the Flyte in Quebec. With our grandson Mackenzies assistance we hoisted the bike up to the wooden mounting pegs at the shop entrance for all to see, my heart pumped in doing so as I am sure did the hearts of Pat and Mac. There was a steady parade of onlookers over the next few days to see the famous bike. Some clients didn’t quite get it, so every time someone came I would re tell the story of the bike, the history behind it and point out the curved forks and chainstays that were only found on this bike. Putting the bike on display was my intention all along, I don’t recall if I had planned to do anymore with it, I do know that I realized it had much more value than what I paid for it, which was $400. Though we must take into consideration my expense to get the bike, give or take $175, if you include my sandwiches and packed lunch. As well we need to put a value on the time required to fetch the bike in Quebec, and that is where I often argue with those who put a monetary value on their time, like an hourly wage. I don’t do that, I place no value on my time in that sense, but I do place a great value in non monetary terms in the pleasure derived from these pursuits.

Years back an old acquaintance was always, still is today, pre occupied with the word profit. Julie and I sold a small property near Hastings once and he had to know to the penny what we sold it for, how much the real estate fees were, how much the township charged for transfer fees and how much the lawyer charged to administer the sale. It would have been easy for me to tell him where to go, but I was diplomatic, and I told him all the numbers and he said, “well you only made $5,000 dollars on the property in two years after all those deductions.” To which I replied, ‘we lived in this beautiful area along this fine historic river in this historic town for two years, we entertained hundreds of people had rave like corn roasts, caught bushels of fish, behaved like madmen and women as the campfires burned weekend after weekend you cannot put a price on this joy, if we profited somewhat that is fine but it was not our intention, our intention was to enjoy life.’

He doesn’t quiz me much these days on my personal matters. Though I am reminded of another time, we had bought our first Toronto house and it needed a lot of work which was somewhat challenging for a man who previously had never owned a hammer. That summer we took a holiday up to the Wawa area, using an old Chevy station wagon sold to me by Verns cousin Ronnie, that car burned more oil than gas! Besides the wagon we pulled along a 16 foot cedar strip boat we had traded a car for in Hastings, it had an old brown coloured Johnson Seahorse 18HP motor that was easy enough to start and pushed the boat along at a good enough pace once the boat planed out. We camped up on the French River where one morning as the haze left the water I saw a fourty pound Muskie jump into the air right at the tip of the island Julie and I were camping on, what a sight. Endless casts did not produce a strike, We did see some Americans trolling for pickerel near Schells camp and they pulled up a pair of ten pounders to show us. We packed up and headed north where we discovered at Blind River that we had left the tent Octopus joint, the joint that all the tent poles stick into at the Island so we made our way to the Sault where we grabbed a motel for the night along with a spaghetti dinner and a tent store provide the piece we needed to go on to a cottage less lake just south of Wawa in a provincial park, the names will come to me. We camped there for three days, now I remember, Lake Michipicoten, and we could not get the boat out of the water with the wagon. No wonder our luggage was quite heavy, Gisele my mom had given us a matched six piece set of tan vinyl luggage for our first wedding anniversary and we hauled our stuff around in it like tourists, the luggage in the boat, thankfully two guys with a 4X4 truck hooked up to our trailer hitch and pulled the heavy boat out or we would still be there. We headed home as I recall via a town in the interior of Ontario called Chapleau, as we passed through the place we remarked to each other how desolate it was, upon leaving the town after a small gander we were about a mile out of town on a highway heading south when we noticed a car stopped in the middle of the road up ahead and something spread out on the pavement. Well, if it wasn’t a man taking a nap, and he was really out, turns out he was more drunk than sleepy and we urged him up and off the road along with his car.

We arrived back at our little home in Toronto’s hardscrabble Mount Dennis area, our second car a patched up late 60s Ford Falcon wagon was in the driveway, my friend was in the house smoking a cigar, our big german shepherd named Zorba greeted us. My buddy told me they almost lost the dog on a trip he took with the wagon up to Georgian Bay, the dog got away, but they eventually found him, they were not supposed to use the car except in an emergency. Then my buddy, my good friend told me that I only had $5,200 in my bank account. I said to him, “how do you know that?” to which he replied, “your bank book must have fallen out of your dresser drawer in the spare bedroom.” I was not impressed, I didn’t say anything at the time, nor have I ever but I never forgot that intrusion on our privacy and what I perceived to be a jealousy of my good fortune to be able to save some money at that time in life.

Getting back to the CCM Flyte. Without the help of Pat Johnston that bike would still be a pile of rubble. On the Tuesday afternoon August 21 Pat and I put the bike on the mechanics stand and Pat used sandpaper and a file to scratch the paint away to reveal the serial number which is 2C7461. The placement of the letter C designates this bike to have been manufactured in 1939 as per the charts issued by CCM. At that time the idea to restore the bike was spoken by Pat and I, I recall having to give this a lot of thought as I had a shop to run and not a lot of spare time to being a restoration this time of year, the freshness of the bike also came into play, I can say that the enthusiasm in Pat about the restoration idea was far greater than mine. We discussed colour ideas something that regardless of the project is a difficult subject for me as I do not visualize very well. I mean, I can put an idea in my head to a degree but I have known for some time that it takes time for the idea to set in so that my mind has a clear idea of what lies ahead. Over the next few days, I spent quite some time thinking about how the bike could look in different colours and different colour combinations. In the meantime, the regulars came by to look at the bike, CCM Dave was pretty impressed with it, I even tinkered with the idea of going partners on the bike with him, but we disagreed right off the bat about what colour it should or could be when restored and that kaboshed the partnership idea. It was Daves wife Charmaine who had whispered in my ear at the Lang Transportation Day bike show that “Dave would love a Flyte” and I think in a subliminal way those words influenced me in my hasty decision to go to Quebec for the Flyte in the first place. My notes show me that we did not put the bike up until August 25, I recall grandson Mackenzie assisting Pat and I to raise it onto the shop canopy where bikes are hung for display. That Saturday a big collector of vintage road bikes dropped over to check out my goods Jeff Lackey who lives in Lindsay, his bikes are too die for. He looked at the Flyte up there, he knew I had been looking for one for some time and he said, “I wouldn’t touch it, it’s beautiful the way it is, just leave it like that.” His point was not lost on me however, still early in the game I was having thoughts of my own about what to do with the Flyte and how to manage the restoration during a busy time of the bike season. The most difficult thoughts were the ones about choosing a colour or colour scheme to use on the bike. In the meantime, Pat had taken an old fork of mine to the Flashfire powder coat company in Courtice to have it powder coated in their chrome colour. We had to do this in order to determine for ourselves how the chrome on the bike which included the handlebars, curved fork, stem, crank and crank arms would look. My colour ideas were all over the place, my thoughts went from mauve with cream white fenders, to fire engine red with black fenders and chainguard, I couldn’t sleep at night thinking about the colours. Finally when the fork came back from the powder coaters looking OK, it looked more aluminum coloured than chrome to me not great but much better than it had looked before coating. Having parts chromed is a sport for the wealthy, recently Pat told me about a friend of his who had two rims and a handlebar chromed for the restoration of his vintage Raleigh Robin Hood bicycle, the cost was $500…OUCH! So you can see the economy I had in mind for restoring the bike came into play. The estimate from the coating company to sandblast and coat the bike was in the $200 range which included the chrome parts done their way, I figured that was something I could afford. In keeping with the tradition of the last owner of the Flyte, the priest in Quebec City I decided to have it painted jet black except the chrome parts and the chainguard which would be close to chrome in colour. All along I had seen this bike as a classic example of Design Art in which the object became available in this instance in the 1930s and I may be wrong but I think the design by Harvey Peace was ahead of its time. The unfinished Flytes that I had seen were quite drab looking, I didn’t like them at all. I knew I could improve on the look of the bike by the use of a dynamic colour, the one I chose was Jet Black.

I approached Pat with the idea of him taking the bike apart and reassembling it for a fee of $100. He agreed and said “I would have done it for nothing” I knew that Pat was capable of the job as well he was very enthusiastic about the restoration. The bike came down after only being up there a week where it had been admired by several shoppers, it did not draw crowds though just the folks who would have stopped by in any case to look at our wares. There is a photograph taken on September 7 of the Flyte in pieces sitting on one of my work tables at the outdoor shop. Pat took the bike to his house and broke it down. While doing so he discovered that a part of the crank side crank arm was broken, it was a critical piece that protruded into the crank ring to turn the crank mechanisim. Not to worry he hand made a replacement piece of steel on his lathe and took the pieces to a company that had done lots of work for him in the past Bruce Fabricating, the new repair was out of site and probably better than new. How the bike managed to function without this piece can only be explained by thinking the crank arm and crank were so tightly attached that the two pieces in a way welded into each other forming a bond and allowing the crank to turn the chain which in turn caused the back wheel to turn. Some proof of that statement lies in the fact that Pat had to take the crank to a reputable shop in downtown Peterborough called Spokes and Pedals where the owner a man who has worked on bikes steadily for over fourty years Dave Friese found the proper tool and long pry bar to remove the inner nut on the crank. That crank problem was one of the biggest surprises encountered in the process. I took the frame to the powder coating factory in Courtice on the edge of Oshawa and was told it would be up to two weeks before it would be ready. In the meantime I had time to go over the rims and well I must say I was quite surprised, but I should not have been given the amount of rust found on the rear rim to discover that the rim itself had rotted through in three or four places at the juncture with the spokes, probably the area of the rim that had sat in the snow while attached to that church fence for some years in Quebec City. Rims of this style are not readily available. Earlier that season I had given a bike to a street person to use an old CCM with rough paint and a decent set of rims. I located that person and persuaded them to give me the bike back and trade for a more modern mountain bike with gears in good condition. The trade was advantageous to both of us and I was very pleased to have the correct rims to complete the Flyte build with. The rims are chrome plated Westwood style with a red pinstripe in the middle, I will know better next time a pair comes in and set them aside for a special build. Earlier that summer myself and Little Ronnie Williams had spent some hours cleaning that pair of rims up of the rust that had accumulated on them over the years, condition wise they looked in eight out of ten shape. I recalled CCM Dave seeing those rims being cleaned, they came off a 30s CCM ladies bike that no one wanted to give me $75 for. I told Dave that he could have bought the entire bike for less than a hundred dollars, that old bike had sat there in the side storage area for over a year as it had been donated along with others by Mario the collector from King City who had become my benefactor. Besides the rims a proper head badge came from another of Marios bikes that we used on the Flyte rebuild. Things were falling in place, the rims, the crank repair, the colour of the bike and the chrome, cream coloured tires were ordered, we took the red mini crystal ball tail light off of a vintage 1938 Eatons Glider, a set of nice clean Gibson style pedals were found. The frame and parts were glowing when we picked them up at the powder coaters. The fellow who did the powder coating told me he had worked extra to get the bike parts to look as good as possible considering the degree of pitting he found on the handlebars. That same day Pat came over and admired the painted parts and took everything to his house for reassembly. I can’t say enough about the care and thoughtfulness displayed by Pat in this regard, he worked on this build as if it was his own. He used many parts form his arsenal of shiny nuts and bolts to attach the fenders and chain guard to the frame that now looked like a million dollars. Not only did he clean the hubs he took them apart and serviced them with new grease ensuring that they would work like new. On September 23 I got a call from Pat to come pick the bike up, it was ready. Wide smiles grace our faces the day his wife Mary took photos of the two of us with the refurbished bicycle in the back yard area of he and his wife Marys home we were pleased with the outcome, I slid the bike into my truck and took it home. The next day CCM Dave came by and he got to ride the bike, I told him to take it downtown and show it off, his smile was wide as well. The bike he said rode OK, it pulled a bit to one side and we found the front rim to need a bit of truing. On Sept 26 John Cisco the man who was second to point out the bike to me in Quebec City came by to exchange some vintage pedals, he posed with the bike, he said “Velos Roy, the shop you bought it from have been very helpful to me with my old bike ever since you bought the Flyte.” That was nice to hear.

For finishing touches on the Flyte I chose the 700c size Cream Schwalbe tires, they looked outstanding. For grips I used a pair of bullet style Bell black grips found at a discount price at a Winners store. The original Mesinger brand leather saddle was set aside for future restoration, I chose to use a new black leather Brooks B17 with a matching Brooks black leather tool bag attached to the back of the saddle. I believe the colour coordination, the use of black in the accessories was key to the overerall finished look of the bike. I was quite pleased.

A couple of times Pat and I discussed having a custom Lumpy Bikes sign made to fit between inside the frame of the bicycle. I had done this before with a Pashley Butchers Bike that I used as an advertisement for the shop some years back. I had thought to have the words lumpy bikes put on the sign, a short description of the bike, its age 1939, the manufacturer CCM, and words stating the restoration was done by Pat Johnston and myself. That never got off the ground, October is a busy month at this shop as we are prone to start thinking about moving downstairs to the indoor shop. Every day for two weeks or so I would pull the Flyte out from behind the garage where it was safely covered and put it out in the driveway for all to see myself in particular. Folks would drop over to look at bikes, to talk about bikes and I would have my words honed to share with them about the history of this bike. Mike Taylor the photographer also a bike mechanic was keen to take photos of me dressed as a Jesuit priest wearing a wide brimmed clergy had over by the black wrought iron fences of the Little Lake Cemetery. At night I would carefully put the bike back to its sleeping area and make darn sure the gate was locked at night. There is more work than I care to think about to make the shift downstairs, it is overwhelming. Our grandson Mackenzie is a god send in that he hauls the boxes of parts and cleaners box after box of tools and parts and what not down there for me and I take a day to set the new shop up, happy to know I can still work on bikes everyday in the cooler months. I would not say the Flyte was ignored as it had been brought into the house and installed above the desk replacing a $5,000 bike that had been bought as Industrial ART a Giant XTC Team bike with exquisite parts such as hydraulic disc brakes, Mavic Crossmax Rims, a bike that was strictly Eye Candy that had been built by a professional mechanic in Belleville at Dougs Bikes to be used as a commuter. I had seen the bike for sale on Kijiji and put an offer in right away and to my surprise another offer faltered and I found myself driving to Port Hope to meet the owner/builder and bring the bike home, it was in mint condition and was as Bling a bike as I had seen. The XTC went into the locked garage and the fabled CCM Flyte went above the office desk, this was October 26.

When the colder weather sets in here in Ontario it is normal for the bike trade to slow down as well. Sales that may run in the 25-35 bikes a month sold in the months of May to September slow down as well to maybe ten bikes in October and if you are lucky five bikes in November and fewer in December. With this your cashflow also stops, money just stops coming in and any smart bike seller will have salted some coins away to pay himself a wage in the down months from November to March while continuing to build bikes for the upcoming season. I never could figure out a winter gig to compensate when the bikes stop. Other shops I have run like the restaurant slowed down in the winter but there was still some trade from the locals. The Gange business ran year round. At one time I was offered to purchase a complete ice skate sharpening line of equipment at a very fair price. This would have entailed me renovating the garage to accommodate the equipment and providing a room for customers to wait while I sharpened the skates as some will want to wait. I never took the idea, I gave it lots of thought I just did not feel interested in this sideline and I knew that two shops in town did this in the winter and I witness the cash register singing at one of the shops run by my friend Ben Logan of Fontaine Source for Sports. These days, ideally I would be spending my winters in Thailand or some other exotic location, my feet in a hammock, sipping on long cool drinks through paper straws while girls in colourful sarongs wave palm leaves over my body to keep me cool. We just don’t make enough cash to enable such a change of life. Now that Julia is retired we could discuss liquidating some assets and changing our lifestyle by taking up residence in a less expensive area and this area Peterborough is half the expense of living in our home city of Toronto. Cape Breton comes to mind from time to time, but like some friends have pointed out, “you will miss your family” and they are right.

I try to understand the circumstances around the eventual sale of the Flyte on January 7, 2019. I know my books showed that the winter season was unusually quiet, that from the end of October to the 7th of January I had only moved 7 pieces one of which was a used Park Tool Stand. An email came in from my friend Dale Mcillmoyle who is a retired OPP seargeant and a fellow bike nut/mechanic who lives with his wife Cindy near Campbellford, Ontario. Dale said in his note that a friend of his Tom Huehn was interested in my Flyte as Dale had forwarded him photos of the finished bike some months back. By surprise I got a phone call on Jan 7 from Tom who said he wanted to come look at the bike, this was around 9:30 in the morning, I politely asked him to come back around 11:30 to give me some time to get dressed. Promptly at that time a knock on the door signalled Toms arrival, Benson the little dog barked as he is prone to do, we greeted, shook hands , I brought Tom into the office where he asked me an assortment of questions about the bike. I showed him the bikes history via photos on the computer, photos of every stage of the rebuild, of the trip to Quebec, the reception when the bike was brought home, by the end of the photo essay he knew as much about the Flyte as I did. Tom asked if we could bring the bike down from where it hung which we did together, he did not care for what he called Powder Coat Chrome, but he knew that was an economic measure that we undertook to keep our costs down on the build. Besides I would casually say to him, ‘the new owner can have that redone if he likes when he purchases the bike’. An offer was made that was to low and I actually think I could have pushed things higher had I felt like it but I was not in a great position to turn down $1,700.00 on a cold day in January from out of the blue. We shook hands on the deal, Tom added a $50 referral fee for Dale which Dale shared with me this spring. So I call the price we sold it for $1,750.00. If I wished I could go over the numbers as to what the bike took to get, to restore, to pay Pat the pittance of $100 for his efforts. I think I came out on top in the $650 range and I can tell you, that is one hell of a profit on a bicycle. My friend Mario who owns by the way 15 Flytes had shown some interest in the bike told me what it was worth and I have to go along with what an expert tells me on these matters. Is Tom happy with the bike? I don’t know, Dale had mentioned he might take it to one of the big American shows to sell, but what I have to say about that is “when you purchase something it is your prerogative to do with it as you wish” and I wish Tom all the best in his choices.

Do I miss the Flyte, I miss it more for my friends Pat Johnston and CCM Dave than I miss it for myself. I always have neat, old romantic looking bikes around here, what I do miss is the thrill of the buy, the pursuit of the bike, how it was revealed to me in of all places from a fellow bike lover in Britain and then a day or two later by someone whom I know from this shop. Someday, I feel in my bones that another Flyte will come my way and I will be given the opportunity to make it as beautiful as this one.

On the day Tom came to buy the Flyte two friends happened to be driving by the house and they saw me bring the CCM down the stairs to wait for Tom who had gone to the bank. The friends were Gene whose Mercedes EBike I had helped locate after it had been stolen in the fall and he was with CCM Dave, they both posed with the bike on the bench, Dave knew I had sold the bike, what other reason would it have been outside that cold day in January. It took me a bit of time to let Pat Johnston know I sold the bike, I am quite sure he was choked up when he heard the news as I would be…we both have friends with deep pockets and storage areas where they can show their trophies off. Over the years there have been at least ten stellar bikes that I would love to have today, the CCM Flyte was unique for its day and remains unique today, I wonder why no other manufacturer has duplicated the style, are patents holding others back from replicating it? Thanks for your time, hope you enjoyed this ride!

 

I had difficulty translating the names of the saints from the Russian script in the mosaic.

 

I believe the saint on the left is St. Peter. That's consistent with the translation and with the church he's holding, which symbolizes St. Peter's role as the founder of the Christian church.

 

The name of the saint on the right contains archaic letters that prevented me from translating the name using Google translate. If anyone can translate it, I'd appreciate it.

 

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Tallinn, Estonia.

With major difficulties at their birth, the Tugs got off to a troubled start to their lives.

 

Along came new 'parents', who apparently told untruths about their capabilities and displaced them with a family of sheds.

 

The Americans early days were in complete contrast to their British counterparts, with no health issues or complications.

 

In 2013 there was some rejoicing following the 'super sixty' event and around thirty were given major surgery. The next decade would be their finest, during which time they were considered 'top of the class'.

 

Sadly the option to prolong their lives was not taken, and ten of the Americans were chosen for changes that would mean heightened interest from the grim reaper.

 

2024 will be a year of change, with a further ten given the X of doom on their cabs, while on the other side of the line twenty of their red and silver sisters are feeling nervous.

 

60094 'Rugby Flyer' RIP and 66651, the first of the DB 66/6 locos at Toton.

 

The original title would have been 'Scrap Metal?', but I did not know at the time the identity of the loco in the background, or that a further ten tugs had been chosen for scrapping.

Read what difficulties i had with this in my Blog

 

My Blog | My website | My Challenge | London Lovers | My 500px Flow

 

A glass of wine and a meal at Mt Difficulty Vineyard Central Otago New Zealand

The difficulties of fitting a quart into a pint pot...

The railway overbridge disguises the entrance to a small 'storage area' in which to park trams 'offstage'. The common term fiddle yard seems extravagant, as no 'fiddling' as such is envisaged!

Today I rebuilt the bridge at a different angle, which increased the span and meant that another bridge had to be provided! The Ferodo one seen in previous views, has been replaced, but will doubtless reappear somewhere else in due course.

Whilst the storage area is divided from the layout by a skyboard, it is lit by natural light which has meant that a printed backscene works reasonably well here, seen behind the STL and Walls ice cream van. Must do something about the underside of the bridge deck though!

The small area to the left is problematic.Perhaps some sort of of single floor building used as a shop? Possibly just a bit of wasteground behind some advertisement hoardings - we shall see.

The site presents unusual difficulties in gardening. First, its soil is composed almost entirely of diatomaceous earth. Second, because of the diverse nature and thickness of the fill, settling rates vary throughout the garden resulting in frequent irrigation system breakage. Third, heat is caused by decomposition of organic matter below the soil surface, and it is accompanied by the production of gases, primarily carbon dioxide and methane.

 

A remake of the "Crying Indian" public service ad by Keep America Beautiful, featuring the late Iron Eyes Cody, was filmed at South Coast Botanical Gardens. Aired from 1975 to 1978, Cody was riding a horse instead of paddling a canoe as in the original version filmed in the San Francisco Bay area in 1970. The transcript from the commercial, where Cody was on top of the hill looking at the freeway, was:

The first Americans love the land and the spirit remains true today! This is South Coast Botanical Gardens in California. Once a dump, community leaders clean and reclaimed it! However we got a long way to go! So get involved now! Write to Keep America Beautiful, 99 Park Avenue, New York! People start pollution, people can stop it! (Cody showing a tear to the camera.)

 

South Coast Botanic garden. California.

Something a little bit different from me, heading more in an abstract direction thanks to the difficulty of working out the scale. Here I've placed the sun behind one of the rocks sticking up above the Blue Lagoon to create a semi-silhouette.

 

Click here to see more of my Iceland photos :

www.flickr.com/photos/darrellg/sets/72157650886963062

 

From Wikipedia : "The Blue Lagoon (Icelandic: Bláa lónið) geothermal spa is one of the most visited attractions in Iceland. The spa is located in a lava field in Grindavík on the Reykjanes Peninsula, southwestern Iceland. Bláa lónið is situated approximately 20 km (12 mi) from the Keflavík International Airport and 39 km (24 mi) from the capital city of Reykjavík, roughly a 20 minute drive from the airport and a 50 minute drive from Reykjavík.

 

The warm waters are rich in minerals like silica and sulfur and bathing in the Blue Lagoon is reputed to help some people suffering from skin diseases such as psoriasis. The water temperature in the bathing and swimming area of the lagoon averages 37–39 °C (99–102 °F). The Blue Lagoon also operates a research and development facility to help find cures for other skin ailments using the mineral-rich water.

 

The lagoon is a man-made lagoon which is fed by the water output of the nearby geothermal power plant Svartsengi and is renewed every two days. Superheated water is vented from the ground near a lava flow and used to run turbines that generate electricity. After going through the turbines, the steam and hot water passes through a heat exchanger to provide heat for a municipal water heating system. Then the water is fed into the lagoon for recreational and medicinal users to bathe in."

 

My Website : Twtter : Facebook

This river tour is highly recommended and anyone that I spoke to during the trip down and up the Liffey really enjoyed themselves and all were impressed by the attractive river taxi. I would be inclined to go at high tide rather then low tide if you are interested in photography.

 

The ‘Spirit of Docklands’, the Liffey Voyage [original business name] tour boat, was officially named at a special ceremony on Wednesday, 29th June 2005, in Dublin’s Docklands. The ‘Spirit of Docklands’ was built in Sweden by the builders, Westers Mekaniska. The ‘Spirit of Docklands’ is a 52-seat low profile boat, 23 metres long and capable of travelling at 9.5 knots.

 

In recent years, the only regular traffic on the river within the city centre of Dublin is the Dublin Discovered Boat Tours

service, which runs guided tours along the River Liffey through Dublin City centre. Departing from the boardwalk downstream of the Ha’Penny bridge, the Spirit of the Docklands runs under O'Connell Bridge, Butt Bridge and the Talbot Memorial Bridge on a journey downstream, passing the Custom House before turning at the Grand Canal Basin and back up stream.

 

The boat, has variable ballast tanks (like a submarine) and an exceptionally low air draught which means that at low tide it can float high, but at high tide it can ride low and pass below the Liffey Bridges.

CIE Provincial Services / Bombardier/ Expressway

 

CIE "expressway" route between Limerick and Galway had a regular Sunday double deck service in the early 1980s. In July 1984 Limerick based Bombardier KD193 leaves Galway railway station for Limerick. One can only speculate that the city double deck must have had difficulty in maintaining the timetable!

Mattel Great Villains Maleficent Doll (1998)

I was attempting to undress her, but ran into two major difficulties. Here are the steps I took.

 

1. In order to remove her robe, first I had to unsnap the straps fastening the front and back parts to each other near her waist.

 

2. Then I found that the only opening in the robe was one for the neck, and that was very small and inflexible, with no way to widen it.

 

3. Therefore, the only way I could remove the robe was to remove her head.

 

4. Pulling and twisting the head finally allowed the head to come apart from the neck articulation (joint). Fortunately, both the joint and the head were fairly flexible and very tough.

 

5. I could then lift the robe off the doll over the neck.

 

6. Then I found that the dark pink (magenta) satin dress underneath was sewn permanently together. There was no way to get it off the doll's body without ripping the seams apart, or cutting it off. That was very disappointing. It means that she cannot be fitted with another outfit, and that her outfit cannot be put on another doll.

 

7. I put her head back on, and took a couple of photos with just her dress on. Without her robe, Maleficent looks a lot less threatening. She reminds me of Lady Tremaine.

Your difficulties stem from the fact that you are not aware of the full gravity of the human condition, and you are not aware of this because nothing in your habitual surroundings—the world you live in—suggests it, to say the least. It is finally a question of imagination; I am not saying you are directly responsible for this, but you are in any case its victim, and you are not alone in being so.

 

In the Middle Ages the whole civilization was structured in such a way as to give a person at least some sense of his cosmic situation; today we live in a kind of misleading “extraterritoriality,” in opaque back rooms that hide reality. Nonetheless God touches us everywhere, for there is no empty space and no respite. He is “the First” and “the Last,” “the Outward” and “the Inward” (al-Awwalu wal-Ākhiru wal-Zāhiru wal-Bātin); man is like the point of intersection of the “divine dimensions.”

 

You must detach your life from an awareness of the multiple and reduce it to a geometrical point before God. You have but one life, and it is not just anything; this life is everything for you, and it owes its greatness to its divine origin and goal. The human condition is something great because its foundation is God; the modern error is to believe we are small, that we are biological accidents, that we are entitled to be lukewarm—that we are free to be small, apathetic, mediocre. In reality we are condemned to greatness, if I may express it this way, and we find this greatness in spiritual smallness before the divine Greatness. It is God who is great, but we must open ourselves up to this Greatness, knowing that there is only He, that we are bound to Him, that we cannot escape Him; knowing this we must resign ourselves to our human and personal condition—to the fact that the sacred is everywhere—and we must repose in trust.

 

F. Schuon

 

-----

 

Image:

 

Beato of Liébana: The Codex of Fernando I and Doña Sancha.

 

Illustration of Rev 20:11-15

 

"Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire."

 

www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_10639/?sp=7&st=gallery

   

chapter 2.

 

objective : Kill the murderer.

 

conflict : the murderer wants to kill the detective too.

 

"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." - Winston Churchill.

 

p/s : to all friends & haters, thanks for visiting.

This elderly man was fantastic...................sooooooo determined! He had great difficulty walking (a snails pace really) yet he didn't give up! I watched this man over a period of time while I was out and about in Southport! He walked all the way from Morrisons Superstore which is in the Winter Gardens Commercial Area nr. Kingsway right the way along Lord Street (the full length of it) which for those who don't know, is a very long street!

 

They don't make 'em like that anymore!!..................the real meaning of 'true grit'...........I tip my hat to you Sir!!

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V4LSf0E1Yw

          

Please view large large, press L on your keyboard.

www.flickr.com/photos/51789932@N02/8752726661/sizes/l/in/...

       

Copyright © 2013 Ray Wood. All Rights Reserved.

 

www.fluidr.com/photos/51789932@N02

 

www.flickriver.com/photos/51789932@N02/popular-interesting/

 

en.flickeflu.com/photos/51789932@N02

Choirs of Equal Voices - Difficulty Level II