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Less than one week for the exams (nerves, nerves!). I have already resigned myself: math is a lost fight. But at least I'll get a good mark in English. Looking forward to a birthday party tomorrow. We all need to switch off a little u.u
#21: I'll need a new school bag because mine got broken today. Strangely enough, it did so on the last day and the last hour, because our revision lessons finished today.
CN local L581 with a more than less desirable leader heads north at Knowlton over a contributory water way of the Wisconsin River on the railroads Valley Sub.
Added the fins. Gravity proved a worthy opponent. Had to make them a little lighter = less details, but at least now they attach :D
Added the nose too and now it's finally starting to look like something..
October is the month to see such burning sky. This was before the rainstorm morning. This moment lasts less than 5 minutes.
Thanks for looking!
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#sf #sanfrancisco #burningsky #sunrise #三藩市
The inspired hill of Vézelay
The Burgundy hill of Vézelay, which French writer Paul Claudel named “eternal”, has been drawing hundreds of thousands of pilgrims (nowadays more likely tourists) since time immemorial. It has also drawn strife, battles and pillage: the big monastery was no less than six times destroyed by fire, and always rebuilt. Here, the Second Crusade was preached on Easter Day of 1146 by Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, whom King Louis VII of France had summoned to be lectured on the sort of penance his royal person should submit to to atone for his many sins: Bernard chose the Crusade. Crusaders congregated here as well for the Third one, in 1190.
The history of Vézelay began around 850, when Count Girard de Roussillon founded a nunnery at the foot of the hill, in the locale now occupied by the village of Saint-Père-sous-Vézelay. Fifteen years later, the nuns had been replaced by monks for reasons that never reached us. What we know is that further to a Viking raid on Burgundy in 887, the monks took refuge at the top of the hill, in the remnants of a Roman oppidum, and never went down again.
Originally dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the monastery they built on the hilltop was placed in 1050 under the patronage of Mary Magdalene, further to the claimed transport of her bones from the Holy Land by a monk named Badillon. This so-called “transposition” was validated by the Pope, but the people of Provence rebelled fiercely against that ruling: it had indeed always been well known that the saint, who had been the very first, even before the apostles, to see Christ resuscitated, had left the Holy Land and come to France where she finished her life in the mountains of the Sainte- Baume, which were named after her. Her bones had been kept in the basilica of Saint-Maximin, the largest church in the whole of Provence.
Thus sanctioned by the Pope, and confirmed yet again by Pascal II in 1103, the claim of the Vézelay monks drew immense crowds (and brought enormous riches). The fact that they also claimed to have the bones of Martha and Lazarus were not for nothing in the considerable attraction the abbey had on a pilgrimage-hungry Christendom. However, the Provençal people were victorious in the end, when they revealed that the bones of the Magdalene, which had been hidden during the 900s as the Saracens drew nearer, were opportunely re-discovered in 1279. This time, Pope Boniface VIII found in their favor and that ruling was never overturned: the pilgrimage to Vézelay was dead, even though the big church kept its dedication.
The rest of the history of Vézelay is a long downhill walk. In 1537, the Benedictine monks are replaced by canons. In 1568, the Protestants seize the church and burn it again. Finally, in 1819, lightning strikes and sets the church aflame for the last time. When architect Viollet-le-Duc, mandated by Minister Prosper Mérimée, arrives on-site in 1840, the abbey church of Vézelay is but a gutted carcass, ready to collapse. That same year, the church was put on the first list of French Historic Landmarks (“Monuments historiques”) and restoration works were undertaken urgently; they were to last until 1861, and many other such works have been undertaken since.
The church was granted basilica status in 1920, and in 1979 it was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, as it is the starting point of one of the major Paths to Compostela, the Via Lemovicensis, so-named because it runs through the large city of Limoges.
On that day of June 2024 I went to Vézelay as a side trip during a photographic expedition for the Fondation pour la Sauvegarde de l’Art Français, one of the non-profit heritage organizations I work for as a pro bono photographer, it was raining. Therefore, I took no photo of the outside, but instead concentrated on the inside. Furthermore, a lot of what can be seen on the outside, including the façade and the tympanum, are re-creations of the 19th century by Viollet-le-Duc, and thus much less interesting for our purpose.
This photograph is a good starting point to describe more in detail the famous tympanum of Vézelay.
First, it is installed in the narthex (there was another one on the façade [gable wall] of the church, but it hasn’t reached us; the mediocre one that can be seen there today was invented by Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th century), i.e., the part of the church that is indoors, but yet not in the nave proper. It is a sort of antechamber to which certain people were restricted because they couldn’t attend Mass inside: non-baptized persons, or followers of other religions not yet converted. The narthex marks the separation between the profane world outside and the sacred world within.
The tympanum has a general fantail shape; a semi-circular archivolt crowns it. At the bottom, the lintel rests on two sculpted jambs and a central trumeau that delimit the twin doors. Built between 1120 and 1140, the tympanum is 9 meters long and 5.25 meters tall. It is sculpted in high relief; some figures are even done in ronde-bosse, or “in the round” in English, meaning that the stone has been hollowed all the way behind the subject to make it stand out more.
The central scene depicted on the tympanum is very original, and probably even unique in all of the Romanesque sculpture. It seems to bring together the themes of Ascension and Pentecost, two important Christian holidays that are only separated by ten days in the yearly calendar. Jesus Christ occupies the whole height of the tympanum and appears to ascend, as His head pierces the arch that is above the central part of the tympanum. The multiple folds in His vestments appear stirred by the wind, reinforcing the impression of upward movement. As a reminder, the Ascension is the holiday that commemorates the last meeting of Jesus with His disciples and His being called to God’s side.
However, Christ is also depicted here inside a mandorla, an almond-shaped symbol (mandorla is Italian for almond) used to describe a person already in the Heavens. One then talks about Christ en gloire, i.e., “Christ in Glory” or “Christ in Majesty” (Lat. Maiestas Domini), and indeed He is seated on a throne, which is a posture not generally used when depicting the Ascension... Therefore, this main scene on the tympanum is usually associated with the Pentecost, or the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, fifty days after Easter. This interpretation is reinforced by the rays emanating from Jesus’s hands.
Around Christ are the apostles, Peter on His right holding a key, and Paul (peering out of the lintel) also bearing a key, as both are regarded as founders of the Church. The fact that Paul seems to have been included as an afterthought in a space where he was not supposed to be (all the faces have been hacked off during the French Revolution) is not the only disturbing element in this composition. Indeed, some of the apostles are to the right of Christ under a harmless cloud and with their books open (normal), while the others are on His left (sinistra), under a stormy cloud and with their books closed (most definitely not normal). The reason for this arrangement has caused many debates among Mediævalists. Some seem to lean towards the fact that this represents what awaits those who do not believe: damnation after the Last Judgment. Others (apparently a majority) prefer to see an evocation of the power Christ confers upon the apostles: that of forgiving sins —although personally I am hard put to construe what I see here in that manner. Finally, some others believe it is an allusion to the symbolic closure of the Old Testament, replaced by the New one.
All apostles look in various directions towards the peoples of the Earth, depicted in the semi-circular register above the main scene. The eight representations show symbolic scenes about the benefits of the Christian faith. I will not explain them all in order not to make this caption lengthier than it already is, but I am ready to answer any question about them.
Finally, the archivolt above shows a Zodiac, i.e. a representation of each sign, associated with the corresponding month’s labor (say, pruning of trees in March and harvesting of crops in July), with the addition of the solstices and equinoxes. Those 29 small motifs make up the most comprehensive Mediæval Zodiac I have ever seen.
I have ordered a new camera and lens so hopefully in a week or so I will have brand new images to share. Learning a new camera and lens and new computer system will be challenging but if you do not make your mind work it will only get harder later on.
I've been kicking myself for not chasing the AAPRCO special across the IC back in the early 2010s so I decided that I was going to take today off and chase it down the Spine Line. The weather was less than cooperative and the trees and power lines seem to be almost everywhere. Couple that with the general lack of train traffic and the difficulty of chasing because of adjacent roads and it's no wonder why the Spine Line at least between Nevada and KC is sparsely foamed.
Stew Buck and I were the only 2 chasing it between Nevada and Des Moines, and after each of us snagged it once in Des Moines, we got caught in traffic. We both expected a crew change at Easton, but it rolled straight through. Getting out of Des Moines, as anyone familiar will know, is a slow task and we thought that we might have lost the race south.
Nevertheless, we persisted and at Carlisle I opted to roll into town and check out the signals while Stew continued south. The signal was lined for a southbound so I alerted Stew and looked for a spot in town to shoot just to be safe. I settled on this curve shot that would have been absolute tits if the sun had been out but was decent without it.
Trying for a wee bit more natural look.Just a little foundation and lippy, might even feel confident stepping out like this ❤️
In March 1943, about 1,000 international people living in Shanghai were interned in Chapei Civil Assembly Centre by the Japanese. As the war progressed, food rations became smaller and less varied. Many people living in the camp were helped by people living in Shanghai from countries which were neutral during WWII, like Sweden. Also Chinese employees from foreign companies sent their former colleagues food.
This photo shows a label of such a food aid package, sent by the Swedish family Asker, to the Dutch family Hennus. Mr. C.G.C. Asker worked for the Maritime Customs Service of China (as per Records of the Maritime Customs Service of China 1854 –1949 Part Three: Semi-Official Correspondence from Selected Ports by Professor Robert Bickers, University of Bristol).
The text reads:
"DONOR: Mr C G C Asker, Swedish ...
1300 Rue Lafayette
CONTENTS:
Milk powder, 12 ozs
Jam, 1 tin 12 ozs
Sugar, 2 lbs
Margarine 1 lb
Peanuts 2 lbs
Tomato sauce, 1 bot
Cocao cubes 1 pkt
Fruit drops, 3 pkt
BENEFICIARY:
Master M F Hennus, Netherlands, C.829
CHAPEI CIVIL ASSEMBLY CENTRE
4th Febr. 1944"
Chapei Civil Assembly Centre was liberated on 15 August 1945, 76 years ago today.
California Digital Newspaper Collection, Vestkusten, Number 39, 28 September 1944:
"SWEDEN PRAISED FOR ASSISTANCE IN BRINGING AID TO WAR PRISONERS. By Dr. I). A. Davis, Associate Executive Director, Y. M. C. A. Worlds Committee,
Sweden and Switzerland, spared the horrors of warfare, are doing their share to lighten the burden of war victims. These two neutral countries are cooperating with the War Prisoners Aid of the Y. M. C. A., with headquarters in Geneva and New York, in sending material aid to war prisoners and civilian internees in Europe and the Far East. The rights and privileges of more than 6,000,000 prisoners of war confined behind barbed wire throughout the world are protected by the treaty called “The Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War,” signed by 47 nations on July 27, 1920. Among other things the Geneva Convention specifies that various welfare organizations may have access to war prison camps to render certain services to prisoners; thus War Prisoners Aid, under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A. World’s Committee carries on its stimulating programs of educational, recreational and religious activities among war prisoners, regardless of race, creed or nationality. The role that Sweden plays in this important services are manifold, for giving financial support as well as supplying materials for leisure-time activities. They provide also a large percentage of the personell necessary. From Sweden comes books, writing materials, lumber and other materials hardly found now in other european countries and piany of the neutral secretaries are permitted to visit war prison and internment camps. “We sail never forget what your Swedish colleague, Hoffman, did for us in England,” said a German prisoner of war to Gunnar Celander, Swedish representative of War Prisoners Aid, during a recent prisoner of war exchange between Germany and England, through Sweden. Boatloads of German prisoners from Canada, U. S. and .England, and British prisoners from Germany, docked at Trelleborg and Goteborg, while they transferred to boats waiting to take them home.
The Swedish Y. M. C. A. and Red Cross Lottas, Swedish rail roads and welfare organizations assumed a large portion of the responsibility of looking after these men— most of whom were invalided and blind during their short stay in the country. Food, travel facilities, reading matter, games, gramophones supplied with records of German and British music were made available to make the men comfortable. Crown princess Louise visited the prisoners, with representatives of the Swedish government, who officially welcomed them. Mr. Celander reported “We Swedes are happy that it was the privilege of our country to arrange this exchange of prisoners in the spirit of conciliation and kindness in the midst of the fire of conflict. I longed to share with the entire Y. M. C. A. and its secretaries the memory of the happy faces these homeward-bound prisoners and their many proofs of gratitude. All these men can testify that we were able to serve them in of their liberation. That is the highest reward and greatest encouragement for our work.” In Stockholm a War Prisoners Aid office is under the able leader their capacity as well as in' these days ship of Hugo Cedergren, Associate Director of Y. M. C. A., and National Secretary of the Swedish Y. M. C. A. Mr. Cedergren, who has visited prisoners in Europe, U. S. and Canada, said recently in America: “The spirit of prisoners is excellent. I can say that honestly from my own experience. The treatment they are receiving is correct and good.” Mrs Ceder gren is the daughter of Prince Oscar Bernadotte, brother of King Gustaf. He is honorary president of the Swedish Y. M. C. A. Pastor Carl-Erik Wenngren of the Stockholm Diocese, Associated National .Secretary of the Swedish Y. M. C. A., is now in U. S. as a neutral representative of the Ecumenical Commission for Chaplaincy Service to prisoners of war, of the World Council of Churches, and as a representative of War Prisoners Aid of the Y. M. C. A. He is visiting camps throughout America carrying the message of the church, especially to German prisoners, conducting services and other functions of a minister. Gunnar Celander, Henry Soderberg, Gunnar Janssen, O, M. Carlman and Erik Berg have been recruited from Sweden to visit war prison camps in Germany, while Bengt Hoffman carries War Prisoners Aid service to allied fliers detained in Sweden in compliance with neutrality laws. Civilan internment camps in France ares visited by mr. and Mrs. Hemming Andermo. The Swedish representative in India is Fredrik Franklin. (In the Philippine Islands, aid to prisoners of war and civilian internees is carried on under a neutral committee of Swiss, Irish, Danish, French, Belgian and Norwegian citizens, headed by Swedish Ex-Consul Helge A. Jansson, in Manila, and appointed by W. J. K. Bagge, Swedish Minister to Japan, since July 1942, chairman of neutral citizens, responsible for Y. M. C. A. services to prisoners and internees in Japan and Japanese-controlled areas. All contact between War Prisoners Aid and Japanese government are made through Stockholm. Through Minister Bagge, War Prisoners’ Aid received the first complete information about aid work in the Philippines. Final permission was given by the Japanese for the YMCA to purchase monthly in the Philippines sorely needed relief supplies for shipment to camps there in which Allied prisoners are interned. War Prisoners’ Aid service to allied war prisoners and civilian internees in Japan and Japan-held territory other than the Philippines is headed by I. P. Troedsson, Swedish Consul to Japan, assisted by N. E. Ericson of the Swedish Legation in Tokyo, under supervision of Minister Bagge. Swedish representatives of War Prisoners’ Aid make regular visits to camps in Japan are B. Gawell, John Anderson, A. Swensson and O. Pettersson, C. G. C. Asker works in Shanghai, and in Thailand, War Prisoners’ Aid service is carried to prisoners of war by F. Ehnstedt, Swedish Consul there. N. Arne Bendtz, with headquarters in Chungking, is in charge of War Prisoners Aid Services in Free China. He was responsible for taking aid not long ago to the more than two hundred German and Italian Catholic Fathers who had been interned for more than a year in the Honan Province. Traveling hundreds of miles over famine-stricken war-ridden country by car, rickshaw and on foot, climbing bleak, rugged hills, fording gushing streams, enduring scorching heat, mud and a plague of locusts, Bendtz finally reached his destination and found that the missionaries were living in dilapidated buildings, lacked essential food and clothing and faced grave financial difficulties. “For about three weeks I lived among these Catholic missionaries sharing their daily life, which I shall never forget,” wrote Bendtz in his report to Geneva. “They had suffered a lot during the past year and we came, as one said, “like an angel from Heaven, to soothe and comfort their sorrowful hearts.” “They had not met another foreigner since internment, and the concerts and speeches made in honor of the War Prisoners’ Aid representative were visible tokens of their gratitude.” Solutions to many problems facing War Prisofters’ Aid of the YMCA, a participating agency of the National War Fund, in its service to prisoners and civilian internees in Europe and the Far East, are greatly facilitated by the cooperation of Sweden.
Swedish representative of Y. M. C. A. War Prisoners’ Aid, Henry Soderberg (center), talks with prisoner and German camp official in war prison camp somewhere in Germany."
Courtesy Hennus family archives
pointless camera pointing - if I didnt have Flickr it would be even less pointless ...to the point where I probably wouldnt have done it
Fire Engines - Candy Skin
On its second day in service, Nottingham City Transport Scania N280UD / Enviro 400 City 426 - YP17 UFJ is captured in West Bridgford working route 6 to City. These super environmentally friendly bio-gas buses will reduce Co2 emissions by up to 84% compared to an equivalent brand new diesel double deck bus.
Park Point has three backcountry sites, two on the lake and one inland. The inland one is between this wetland (bugs!) and a meadow (more bugs!) with less breeze than the (buggy!) shoreline sites. Good wildlife viewing across the meadow, though.
There's a small ford just south of this point.
Finally i find a mesh head looking adult , less teenage fat face =P
I like the little lips and tan and funny part, its a gift group from genesis...
Just saying the package is not complete, but i did find one of my old skin from curio for match whit the tan call toffee and I made alpha alpha =P
Eyes not blink but shrug I dont mind it. Probably less script.
The livery styles adopted by both Strathtay and Kelvin certainly broke the stuffy, conservative livery application hitherto followed by the Scottish Bus Group. Strathtay Tiger (the last TC body registered) leads a Kelvin Routemaster outside the GVVT.
I thought that I wasn't scheduled to work this day, but then I got called in with less than an hour to get ready. Once I had my makeup on I had very little time to select an outfit.
Sometimes stress actually makes things work better and this was an example of that. I think the outfit I so hurriedly chose works pretty well!
19/100 Still Life
And 66/119 - Less is more
I've seen other people do shots like this. I am really not OCD enough!!
Lucy knocked at the door, Jack just tried to open it himself! A bit of a different style edit, less fairytale, more vintage.
I am back after a 7 day outing in the coffee districts of India where it was cool crisp and delightful and it was a welcome break from the oppressive heat that seems to pervade every aspect of existence in the vast plains of India.
This is a shot of a racing boat picking up its racing rhythm at the Champakara Boat Race that is held as a part of the Onam celebrations in Kerala.
DSC_0964 copy Le Tfm sel Cu 172pxl sh HPL
EDIT - Replaced with a less saturated imageat 2121 IST
[polski opis poniżej]
EU07-195 in an old livery, with a container train, is about to pass the Czarlin passenger stop, and then heads towards the Tczew freight bypass at the Górki junction. March 7, 2020.
The mileage plate visible on the left side is quite unique - because the train reaches the end of the longest railway line in Poland (number 131 Chorzów Batory - Tczew), such high mileage values cannot be seen anywhere else in the country.
And one more fact - the EU07 series is slowly disappearing from PKP Cargo's inventory. This locomotive from this photo is no longer operating, it was put aside after coming to mileage limit to a major overhaul. Of the non-modernized EU07 locomotives, only three are currently running and each has a heritage livery. Only modernized EU07, numbered upwards from 1501 have standard PKP Cargo livery.
Photo by Jarek / Chester
EU07-195 w starszym schemacie malowania, z pociągiem kontenerowym zaraz minie przystanek osobowy Czarlin, by niedaleko potem skierować się na posterunku odgałęźnym Górki w stronę towarowej obwodnicy Tczewa. 7 marca 2020 roku.
Widoczna z lewej strony tabliczka z kilometrażem (zwanym fachowo pikietażem) jest w pewnym sensie unikatowa - ponieważ pociąg dojeżdża do końca najdłuższej w Polsce linii kolejowej (numer 131 Chorzów Batory - Tczew), tak wysokie wartości kilometrów nie da się zobaczyć gdzieś indziej w kraju.
I jeszcze jedna ciekawostka - seria EU07 powoli nam znika z rozporządzalnego inwentarza PKP Cargo. Ta lokomotywa ze zdjęcia już nie jeździ, odstawiona została po "wyjeżdżeniu" kilometrów do większej naprawy okresowej. Z niezmodernizowanych lokomotyw EU07 aktualnie jeżdżą tylko trzy sztuki (dwie typu 4E i jedna 303E) i każda ma niezakładowe malowanie. W barwach PKP Cargo zobaczyć można jedynie EU07 o numeracji od 1501 wzwyż.
Fot. Jarek / Chester