Camera: Nikon D80

Lens: Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G

Date: 09 July 2007

Location: Home Studio

 

I "processed" this image using one of the Adobe Lightroom presets, in this case it was the "strong contrast" (or it may have been the "direct positive" which is quite similar). Not something I ordinarily do, but would be interested to hear any feedback or other opinions on Lightroom or other processing alternatives to Photoshop. And if this counts as overtly photoshopping an image, or is this the equivalent of digital developing?

Darci wanted trees for a not-so-overtly-Christmasy quilt with only red & green fabrics

 

Darci - you'll need to add another strip of white on the left side, I ran out!

This is Angela...she a gorgeous, sexy, geeky girl that just happened to be a little tied up at the convention... She is also a friend of mine and I will NOT tolerate ANY derogatory or overtly sexual comments here. So keep it clean folks!

Lennox case update. Defence lawyers have made legal arguments to appeal judge. will have to wait to see what happens. Sorry I've not been around, hope to be fully back in the swing soon.

   

Statement on Lennox by Sarah Fisher

It has been brought to my attention that a small clip of my assessment of Lennox has been put on the

internet. This clip has been taken completely out of context and whilst I have remained relatively

quiet on this case since I spoke in court, I feel that I am now forced to make a statement to clarify

what actually happened during the time I was with Lennox.

Wrongly or rightly many documents and details about this case have been passed onto different

parties. I do not feel it is appropriate for me at this moment to discuss in detail everything that has

been said to me, nor to put forward my own ideas regarding all the statements made, as everyone is

entitled to their own opinion and beliefs. What I am qualified to do however is to discuss behaviour.

My assessments, statements and videos of those assessments have been accepted in other court cases

at Magistrates, County and Crown Courts here in the UK so the field of assessment in cases such as

this is not unknown to me.

I do not care if I am to be criticized by members of the public or even other professional bodies as I

have a wealth of experience handling and working with many breeds of dogs, large and small and I

also work with horses with behavioural issues so do not need to defend the claims that I have little or

no experience of working with powerful animals such as Pit Bull Types. I would however like to

clarify that a Pit Bull Type is often a mix of dogs. Nothing extraordinary happens to the psyche of a

dog when it conforms to certain measurements.

I do care however that Lennox is being portrayed in a poor light through this video clip as my

experience of handling Lennox was thoroughly enjoyable and I now feel the need to explain in greater

detail the truth, as I see it, about my assessment. I know that Victoria Stilwell has been what I would

consider to be a sane voice amidst the madness that surrounds this case and she has seen full video

footage of the assessments carried out by myself and David Ryan plus other documentation.

When the door to the van was first opened Lennox barked. He barked at me three times when I

approached. As I said in my report this is not uncommon behaviour in any dog that is in a confined

situation in a crate, kennel or in a car. He was also shaking like a leaf but this does not come over in

the video that my assistant took of this assessment. He was clearly frightened as he could not have

known what was going to happen to him and again this is not an uncommon behaviour in the dogs

that come to me for help. No one has ever disputed that Lennox can be anxious around some strangers

but I believe the key word some has sadly been overlooked.

I asked for someone that Lennox knew to take him out of the crate to keep his stress levels low. Entry

and exit points can be a source of conflict for any dog. I was told I had to handle Lennox on my own

for the entire assessment and that he had bitten the last person that came to see him. This is the clip

that has been released. Had I had any concerns for my safety or those around me given that I was to

be fully and wholly responsible for a dog that I do not know and that I had been told has bitten, I

would not have continued with the assessment if I believed that dog to be a danger either to myself or

those who were standing in the car park. Lennox gave me a lot of information about his temperament

whilst in the crate. In court however, and therefore under oath, Ms Lightfoot the Dog Warden stated

that in fact Lennox had not bitten anyone so I have to assume on the evidence placed before the court

that the statement made to me at the start of my assessment was untrue. Given the publicity

surrounding this case I am also confident that had Lennox actually bitten anyone whilst in the care of

his family as has been suggested someone would have come forward by now.

I spent approx 15 minutes with Lennox prior to being taken from the crate, working with a clicker and

some treats to see if, even in the environment that was causing him some anxiety, he could still learn

and take direction from a stranger. He could. His eyes were soft and he was friendly. At this point I

would also like to clarify the meaning of the word friendly. It does not mean confident. Was Lennox

anxious? Yes. Hostile? No.

I believe that Lennox would have been totally at ease had I indeed taken him out myself but I also

believe I have a duty of care to reduce stress where possible when handling any animal in a situation

that is causing them distress. No doubt this statement will also be taken out of context by those who

wish to discredit me and to discredit my belief that Lennox is not a danger to the public based on my

experience with him and also based on the video assessment carried out by David Ryan which I have

also seen.

I use food in an assessment to monitor the dogs stress levels and emotions at all times. It is not a

bribe. A habitually aggressive dog will generally seek out conflict in my experience but even these

dogs can often be rehabilitated. No amount of food can disguise this behaviour and giving food to a

dog with aggression issues can be extremely dangerous. The dog may be lured to a person by the

promise of food but once it has taken the food it may panic as the offering of the food has now

brought that dog into close proximity with the threat i.e. a stranger. I have worked with dogs with

aggression issues and whilst some may well take the food, the person delivering the food may not be

able to move once the food has gone as the movement of the person, even the smallest movement of

their arm, may trigger the dog to lunge and bite. I would not hand feed a dog that I deem to be

aggressive. The delivery of the treat must come from the person that the dog knows and trusts - not

the stranger. The dog can learn to approach a threat and then turn back to the person that the dog trusts

for the reward if the approach to the person is appropriate. I use food throughout an assessment to

monitor what is happening with the dog on an emotional and physical level not to make him my best

friend.

Lennox was so gentle with the taking of the food both in the crate and also later in the car park. He

was also appropriate in his behaviour with the games we played. He was also gentle when he jumped

up at me to see if he was allowed the food that I was withholding in my hand. When he realised it

wasn't forthcoming he politely backed off. This would suggest to me that he has been around a family.

Not chained up in a yard as has also been claimed by people who do not know the family or the dog.

Lennox showed excellent impulse control at all times and at no point did he grab me or my own

clothing which many dogs do when getting excited by a game. I have worked with some truly

challenging dogs and some will become increasingly aroused by lead ragging or games with toys and

start seriously mouthing or biting the handlers arms or clothing. This can quickly flip over to more

overt aggression and these dogs can be dangerous particularly if they are being handled by just one

person. It is imperative that dogs with this behaviour are taught a more appropriate way of interacting

with people and responding to the leash and also greater self control. There are many ways to help

dogs that have been encouraged, through mishandling and misunderstanding, to behave in such a

manner. Kicking and beating them is certainly not the answer.

Lennox does rag on the lead but it is very self controlled. He did not exhibit any of the behaviours that

I have mentioned above. Regardless of what some uneducated people may wish to think, it is possible

to glean a lot of information about a dog through games and food as many behaviour counsellors and

trainers will confirm.

I wrote a fifteen page report on my experience with Lennox and my thoughts about the David Ryan

assessment. In this report I state that I have concerns about the appearance of Lennox’s neck. In the

video I explain this too. His ears are unlevel and there was a change in the lay of his coat over the

Atlas in line with the nuchal ligament that is present between T1 and C2 vertebrae. Coat changes

often occur in dogs, cats and horses that have suffered injury or those that are unwell. I have studied

this over seventeen years of handling many animals. In all cases where I referred an animal back to a

vet, whether it was in the care of a shelter, owned by my private clients or students that I teach

changes to the soft tissue or skeleton were noted on further detailed investigation. When I see this

around the neck in a dog I know that it is likely to give the dog cause for concern when someone

unknown to that dog attempts to handle the collar or put on or take off a lead. Coat changes may well

be present where deep bruising has also occurred. Pain and pain memory is a key factor in many

behavioural problems.

Lennox was quite rightly put on Amitriptyline. I do not believe that the Council have failed in their

duty to care for Lennox when it comes to the stress that he has been under and I understand that this

drug is used to treat anxiety and depression. It was with interest, though, that I discovered that this

drug is also used to treat chronic pain in dogs. Again this was mentioned in my written report. This

may explain in part why my experience with Lennox seems to fly in the face of other evidence

presented before the courts. He was not on Amitriptyline when he was assessed by David Ryan.

I would absolutely move on to touch an animal all over its body in any assessment that I do. I may or

may not choose to muzzle a dog that is unknown to me to do this if I have concerns about the body

language that I have seen prior to this part of my assessment. I elected not to stroke Lennox all over

because of my concerns about his neck, the newly forming scabs that were present on his flanks and

the blood that was present around the nail beds around his right hind foot. This decision was made

based on the physical evidence before me not because I felt I would be in danger. I talked about this

in court which was open to the public and at the end of my assessment which is also on film I

explained this to a representative from the BCC Dog Warden team and asked if there was anything

else that she would like me to do with Lennox. She said no.

I cannot comment on what happened when Lennox was seized or measured by Peter Tallack because I

wasn't there. I can explain behaviour though and any frightened animal can be intimidating. I have

recently been in Romania working with traumatised horses and two stallions had not been mucked out

for months as the staff (men) were too scared to go in with them. They called them 'pitbulls' such is

the misguided impression of this type of dog. Hay had been simply thrown over the stable doors and

their water buckets were hanging crushed against the stable wall. I went in with them, not because I

have any desire to be a hero, but because I can read an animal well and within minutes they were

quiet, standing at the end of their stables albeit it pressed up against the walls. I was calm with them

and we took out all the filthy bedding and fetched new water buckets for them too. They didn't attack

anyone. They were simply terrified and they were not provoked. I spent time with one of them on my

own, hand feeding him and was finally able to touch his face. This process probably took less than

half an hour. I was totally absorbed in what I was doing and when I turned to walk out I realised that

one of the Romanian men had been watching me. He raised his eyebrows, gave me the thumbs up and

walked away. Other people could then go in with this magnificent horse too and hand feed him the

fresh sweet grass that we had picked from the surrounding fields so it isn’t simply that I am quiet in

my handling of animals nor possess some extraordinary skill that can make even the most savage lion

behave like a lamb when in my company.

I can perhaps, help an animal that is struggling, gain trust in human beings as many people can. I can

perhaps work with a difficult animal and make it look as though that animal is calm but all the time I

am reading that animal. Every second of the way. I am looking at the eyes if it is safe to do so, I am

watching the respiration, I am studying the movement, the set of the ears and the tail and so on and

my opinions about an animal are based on many years of working in this way. One case that will

always stand out in my mind was a large member of the Bull Breed family. I believe she was two

years old. I won’t go into the details here but I will say that when I worked with her she appeared to

be very good to the member of kennel staff that was watching. At the end of my assessment the

member of staff asked me what I thought. I sadly had to say that I thought the dog should be put to

sleep. The member of staff was horrified and I remember her saying ‘but she’s been so good with

you’. But I had noticed some worrying signs. The shelter ignored my advice and rehomed the dog

who savaged the new owner so badly the owner ended up in the ICU. Of course the dog was

immediately destroyed.

I knew what I was walking into when I agreed to go and assess Lennox for the family. To have to

defend Lennox outside of the court has, however, come as a surprise. I have made this statement to

shed a little more light on what is a distressing case for all those involved, knowing full well that I

will no doubt be subject to further scrutiny and criticism. So be it. I am not afraid. If nothing else this

case has highlighted some important issues about the fears and prejudice concerning dogs, their breed

types and their behaviour. Certainly it highlights the sad truth as Xenephon said so wisely in 400 BC.

Where knowledge ends, violence begins.

AC Greyhound (1959-63) Engine 1971 cc S6 OHV (Bristol engine) Production 83

Registration Number 699 BPX

AC CARS ALBUM

www.flickr.com/photos/45676495@N05/sets/72157623759779024...

 

The AC Greyhound was introduced at the 1959 Earls Court (London), Motorshow as a 2+2 Grand Tourer to compliment the more overtly sporty AC Ace and Aceca sports cars. Carrying over mostof the mechanics of the Ace - Aceca, the Greyhound had a four seater aluminium body and was built on a wheelbase 10 inches longer than its stablemates, with and coil springs in place of a transverse leaf spring at the front:

 

arious straight-six engines were fitted.

1991cc S6 OHC AC engine of 75bhp

1971cc S6 OHV Bristol of 125bhp

2216cc S6 Bristol 105bhp

2553cc S6 Ford Zephyr up to 170bhp

 

In 1961 The Motor magazine tested a 1971cc engined car, recording a top speed of 110 mph, a time of 11.4 seconds for the o-60mph sprint and an overall fuel consumption of 21.8 ,pg, the test car costing £ 3,185 inc. taxes

 

Diolch am 79,962,962 o olygfeydd anhygoel, mae pob un yn cael ei werthfawrogi'n fawr.

 

Thanks for 79,962,962 amazing views, every one is greatly appreciated.

 

Shot 05.01.2020.at Bicester Heritage Centre, Bicester, Oxon 144-655

 

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Modèle / Model : Renault Trucks D18

Affectation / Assignment : Service Départemental d'Incendie et de Secours de Seine-et-Marne (SDIS 77) / Departmental Fire and Rescue Service of Seine-et-Marne

Caserne / Fire station : Centre d'Incendie et de Secours (CIS) de Lognes (LGS 258) / Center of Fire and Rescue of Lognes

Fonction / Function : Fourgon de Secours Routier (FSR) / Truck of Road Rescue

Mise en service / Commissioning : Mars 2017 / March 2017

Équipementier / Maker : Behm

Indicatif / Indicative : 57411

 

Événement / Event : Journée Porte Ouverte du Centre d'Incendie et de Secours de Lognes (77) / Open Day of the Center of Fire and Rescue of Lognes

One quintessential component to any effective military is simply communication. The presence of a robust telecommunications network ensures nearly any armed force is able to mobilize units effectively and therein able to counter the efforts of the enemy. Indeed nearly every element of NATO's order of battle is able to send and receive data in real-time, therein giving the alliance a three-dimensional impression of the battlefield. This ability to rapidly map the combat space has given Western armies a leg up in almost every campaign they've been involved with, including their stabilization efforts in the Balkans and Eastern Europe more broadly.

 

Lacking the funds and diverse domestic electronics industry to create parity with the West's fine-tuned command and control network, Yugoslavia instead focused on manufacturing select technologies to mute NATO's constant data transmissions. The M-104 is one iteration of this effort as it was designed as a terrestrial electronic warfare suite capable of intercepting or otherwise corrupting wireless transmissions from UAVs, radios, and so forth. In effect, NATO's Stabilization Force (SFOR) in Eastern Europe has often found its ISR operations interfered with by unidentifiable sources. For nearly two years the organization was unaware that Yugoslavia possessed the means to inflict such localized information blackouts. After a bout of FININT, however, it was discovered the JNA had shadily purchased rights to West Russian EW technology. This purchase was laundered extensively, so it's no wonder it took some time before NATO was able to discover it.

 

Regardless, the JNA--or more accurately, the Black Cross terror organization--has utilized the Ozhwiena to great effect. During the hotter spells of the conflict in Ukraine, dozens of donated UAVs had their relay components fried and several sorties by piloted SFOR aircraft had to be written off after "substantial external interference compromised targeting and transmission modules" aboard the offending jets. Although NATO has committed a considerable number of clandestine and overt assets to counter the threat to their battlefield information monopoly, the operators of the M-104 are often highly trained and are able to avoid getting blasted thanks to the conservative use of the EW systems and rapid deployment times. It's very uncommon for the same truck to linger in an area for more than a day and even then it often has some sort of anti-aircraft coverage lingering nearby to bite back against confident pilots. If electronic warfare technologies like those found in the Ozhwiena are allowed to proliferate in Eastern Europe--and indeed East Asia as well--then NATO and its allies are likely going to need to re-train themselves in more primitive information conveyance methods. Perhaps the carrier pigeon isn't totally outmoded after all.

After 5 years away from The Sun, I am back shooting football this season—and doing it exactly the way I want. No deadlines, full access and I can overtly cheer for my team from the sidelines.

 

My first 100 or so assignments were shooting high school football for The Leesburg (FL) Commercial back in the early 1980's. Very, very cool to have come full circle back to the beginning after hundreds of prep, college and pro games shot for publication.

 

I am shooting on my own, for the school. My daughter is a freshmen this year, with my son three years behind her. I told them they just got a sports photographer for the next seven years. I couldn't be happier.

 

(Oh, and this one's 10k+ pixels on the long side. It's a six-shot pano.)

I think you all know by now that Maynard James Keenan is one of my all-time favorite musical artists, and one I draw a huge amount of inspiration from. This photo was inspired by his graphically-titled song Prison Sex and it's accompanying video. The song, in brief, is about an abused boy who grows up to become an abuser and the video... oh my, the video. It takes my breath away every single time I see it. It is just beyond brilliant. Most of Tool's videos are the works of guitarist Adam Jones and he has a singularly unique vision.

 

The video tells the story of an abused doll in a way which is at once almost complete metaphor, utterly horrifying, but never, ever graphic. I am a huge fan of those who use metaphor eloquently and Adam Jones is one of the best. As you watch the video, your heart breaks for the poor doll, you understand everything that is happening, but nothing is ever said overtly.

 

I have plans to do a few more shots inspired by the song and video, and this is the first one. I wanted to capture the trapped, helpless, hopeless feeling of the doll. It's amazing how well-done art can make your soul ache for a fictional doll.

  

I'm on Formsprings now... ask me something if you'd like to!

 

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The Portrait of a Musician is an unfinished painting widely attributed to the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1483–1487. Produced while Leonardo was in Milan, the work is painted in oils, and perhaps tempera, on a small panel of walnut wood. It is his only known male portrait painting, and the identity of its sitter has been closely debated among scholars.

Perhaps influenced by Antonello da Messina's introduction of the Early Netherlandish style of portrait painting to Italy, the work marks a dramatic shift from the profile portraiture that predominated in 15th-century Milan. It shares many similarities with other paintings Leonardo executed there, such as the Louvre Virgin of the Rocks and the Lady with an Ermine, but the Portrait of a Musician is his only panel painting remaining in the city, where it has been in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana since at least 1672. One of Leonardo's best preserved paintings, there are no extant contemporary records of the commission. Based on stylistic resemblances to other works by Leonardo, virtually all current scholarship attributes at least the sitter's face to him. Uncertainty over the rest of the painting arises from the stiff and rigid qualities of the body, which are uncharacteristic of Leonardo's work. While this may be explained by the painting's unfinished state, some scholars believe that Leonardo was assisted by one of his students.

The portrait's intimacy indicates a private commission, or one by a personal friend. Until the 20th century it was thought to show Ludovico Sforza, a Duke of Milan and employer of Leonardo. During a 1904–1905 restoration, the removal of overpainting revealed a hand holding sheet music, indicating that the sitter was a musician. Many musicians active in Milan have been proposed as the sitter; Franchinus Gaffurius was the most favored candidate throughout the 20th century, but in the 21st century scholarly opinion shifted towards Atalante Migliorotti. Other notable suggestions include Josquin des Prez and Gaspar van Weerbeke, but there is no historical evidence to substantiate any of these claims. The work has been criticized for its stoic and wooden qualities, but noted for its intensity and the high level of detail in the subject's face. Scholarly interpretations range from the painting depicting a musician mid-performance, to representing Leonardo's self-proclaimed ideology of the superiority of painting over other art forms, such as music.

This painting was executed in oils and perhaps tempera on a small, 44.7 cm × 32 cm walnut wood panel. It depicts a young man in bust length and three-quarter view, whose right hand holds a folded piece of sheet music. The painting is largely unfinished save for the face and hair, but is in good condition overall, with only the bottom right corner suffering damage. The art historian Kenneth Clark noted that out of Leonardo's surviving works, the Musician is perhaps the best preserved, despite the fading of colors over time.

The bottom of the work may have been slightly trimmed. There is a small amount of retouching, especially towards the back of the head; the art historian Frank Zöllner has noted that this retouching introduced the somewhat unsuccessful shading of the neck and the left side of the lips. With its black background, the portrait is reminiscent of Leonardo's later portraits, the Lady with an Ermine and La Belle Ferronnière, but differs from them in that the sitter's body and head face the same direction. The biographer Walter Isaacson has noted that due to the work's unfinished state, the portrait's shadows are overtly harsh, and the portrait itself features fewer of the thin layers of oil paint typically found in Leonardo's paintings.

The sitter has curly shoulder-length hair, wears a red cap, and stares intently at something outside the viewer's field of vision. His stare is intensified by careful lighting that focuses attention on his face, especially on his large glassy eyes. He wears a tight white undershirt. The painting of his black doublet is unfinished and his brownish-orange stole is only underpainted. The colors are faded, probably due to minor repainting and poor conservation. Technical examination of the work has revealed that the doublet was probably originally dark red, and the stole bright yellow.

The mouth hints at a smile, or suggests that the man is about to sing or has just sung. A notable feature of his face is the effect on his eyes from the light outside the frame. The light dilates the pupils of both eyes, but the proper right far more than the left, something that is not possible. Some have argued that this is simply for dramatic effect, so that the viewer feels a sense of motion from the musician's left to right side of his face. The art historian Luke Syson has written that "the eyes are perhaps the most striking feature of the Musician, sight given primacy as the noblest sense and the most important tool of the painter".

The stiffly folded piece of paper, which is held in an odd and delicate manner, is a piece of sheet music with musical notes and letters written on it. Due to the poor condition of the lower part of the painting, the notes and letters are largely illegible. This has not stopped some scholars from hypothesizing what the letters say, often using their interpretations to support their theory of the musician's identity. The partially erased letters can be made out as "Cant" and "An" and are usually read as "Cantum Angelicum", Latin for 'angelic song', although the art historian Martin Kemp notes that it could be "Cantore Angelico", Italian for 'angelic singer'. The notes have offered little clarity into the painting, other than strongly suggesting that the subject is a musician. They are in mensural notation and therefore probably show polyphonic music. Leonardo's surviving drawings of rebuses with musical notation in the Print Room of Windsor Castle do not resemble the music in the painting. This suggests that this musical composition is not by Leonardo, which leaves the composer and the significance of the music unknown.

 

Endowed with the hind quarters and horns of a goat, satyrs and the Greek god Pan have a longstanding association with sex, sometimes violent. Raimondi’s drawing of a screaming satyress is sketch from an ancient sarcophagus that depicts a vicious, aroused satyr behind her. While Pan’s partly covered genitalia in Bonasone’s print calls attention to his lustful nature, Mellan’s enigmatic allegory overtly conceals his satyrs’ sexes.

Modèle / Model : Renault Master III

Affectation / Assignment : Service Départemental d'Incendie et de Secours de Seine-et-Marne (SDIS 77) / Departmental Fire and Rescue Service of Seine-et-Marne

Caserne / Fire station : Centre d'Incendie et de Secours (CIS) de Lognes (LGS 258) / Center of Fire and Rescue of Lognes

Fonction / Function : Véhicule de Secours et d'Assistance aux Victimes (VSAV) / Vehicle of Rescue and Assistance to the Victims

Mise en service / Commissioning : Juin 2015 / June 2015

Équipementier / Maker : Gifa

Indicatif / Indicative : 56872

 

Événement / Event : Journée Porte Ouverte du Centre d'Incendie et de Secours de Lognes (77) / Open Day of the Center of Fire and Rescue of Lognes

Seems like forever since I indulged some narcissistic Avatar focused captures. Playing around with light and shadows a little, my graphics card is not overtly enthused with the pursuit. Went with this. Resolution is kind of sucky. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaa......

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5167/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Atelier Gudenberg, Berlin.

 

Anna May Wong (1905-1961) will become the first Asian American to be on U.S. currency. She was the first Chinese American movie star, and the first Asian American actress to gain international recognition. Frustrated by the stereotypical supporting roles she reluctantly played in Hollywood, Wong left for Europe, where she starred in such classics as Piccadilly (1929). The U.S. Mint will begin shipping coins featuring Anna May Wong on Monday 23 October 2022.

 

Anna May Wong (Chinese: 黃柳霜; pinyin: Huáng Liǔshuāng) was born Wong Liu Tsong (Frosted Yellow Willows) near the Chinatown neighbourhood of Los Angeles in 1905. She was the second of seven children born to Wong Sam Sing, owner of the Sam Kee Laundry in Los Angeles, and his second wife Lee Gon Toy. Wong had a passion for movies. By the age of 11, she had come up with her stage name Anna May Wong, formed by joining both her English and family names. Wong was working at Hollywood's Ville de Paris department store when Metro Pictures needed 300 girl extras to appear in The Red Lantern (Albert Capellani, 1919) starring Nazimova as a Eurasian woman who falls in love with an American missionary. The film included scenes shot in Chinatown. Without her father's knowledge, a friend of his with movie connections helped Anna May land an uncredited role as an extra carrying a lantern. In 1921 she dropped out of Los Angeles High School to pursue a full-time acting career. Wong received her first screen credit for Bits of Life (Marshall Neilan, 1921), the first anthology film, in which she played the abused wife of Lon Chaney, playing a Chinaman. At 17, she played her first leading part, Lotus Flower, in The Toll of the Sea (Chester M. Franklin, 1922), the first Technicolor production. The story by Hollywood's most famous scenarist at the time, Frances Marion, was loosely based on the opera Madame Butterfly but moved the action from Japan to China. Wong also played a concubine in Drifting (Tod Browning, 1923) and a scheming but eye-catching Mongol slave girl running around with Douglas Fairbanks Jr in the super-production The Thief of Bagdad (Raoul Walsh, 1924). Richard Corliss in Time: “Wong is a luminous presence, fanning her arms in right-angle gestures that seem both Oriental and flapperish. Her best scenes are with Fairbanks, as they connive against each other and radiate contrasting and combined sexiness — a vibrant, erotic star quality.” Wong began cultivating a flapper image and became a fashion icon. in Peter Pan (Herbert Brenon, 1924), shot by her cousin cinematographer James Wong Howe, she played Princess Tiger Lily who shares a long kiss with Betty Bronson as Peter. Peter Pan was the hit of the Christmas season. She appeared again with Lon Chaney in Mr. Wu (William Nigh, 1927) at MGM and with Warner Oland and Dolores Costello in Old San Francisco (Alan Crosland, 1927) at Warner Brothers. Wong starred in The Silk Bouquet/The Dragon Horse (Harry Revier, 1927), one of the first US films to be produced with Chinese backing, provided by San Francisco's Chinese Six Companies. The story was set in China during the Ming Dynasty and featured Asian actors playing the Asian roles. Hollywood studios didn't know what to do with Wong. Her ethnicity prevented US filmmakers from seeing her as a leading lady. Frustrated by the stereotypical supporting roles as the naïve and self-sacrificing ‘Butterfly’ and the evil ‘Dragon Lady’, Wong left for Europe in 1928.”

 

In Europe, Anna May Wong became a sensation in the German film Schmutziges Geld/Show Life (Richard Eichberg, 1928) with Heinrich George. The New York Times reported that Wong was "acclaimed not only as an actress of transcendent talent but as a great beauty (...) Berlin critics, who were unanimous in praise of both the star and the production, neglect to mention that Anna May is of American birth. They mention only her Chinese origins." Other film parts were a circus artist on the run from a murder charge in Großstadtschmetterling/City Butterfly (Richard Eichberg, 1929), and a dancer in pre-Revolutionary Russia in Hai-Tang (Richard Eichberg, Jean Kemm, 1930). In Vienna, she played the title role in the stage operetta 'Tschun Tschi' in fluent German. Wong became an inseparable friend of the director, Leni Riefenstahl. According to Wikipedia, her close friendships with several women throughout her life, including Marlene Dietrich, led to rumors of lesbianism which damaged her public reputation. London producer Basil Dean bought the play 'A Circle of Chalk' for Wong to appear in with the young Laurence Olivier, her first stage performance in the UK. Her final silent film, Piccadilly (Ewald André Dupont, 1929), caused a sensation in the UK. Gilda Gray was the top-billed actress, but Variety commented that Wong "outshines the star", and that "from the moment Miss Wong dances in the kitchen's rear, she steals 'Piccadilly' from Miss Gray." It would be the first of five English films in which she had a starring role, including her first sound film The Flame of Love (Richard Eichberg, Walter Summers, 1930). American studios were looking for fresh European talent. Ironically, Wong caught their eye and she was offered a contract with Paramount Studios in 1930. She was featured in such films as Daughter of the Dragon (Lloyd Corrigan, 1931) as the vengeful daughter of Fu Manchu (Warner Oland), and with Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg, 1932). Wong spent the first half of the 1930s travelling between the United States and Europe for film and stage work. She repeatedly turned to the stage and cabaret for a creative outlet. On Broadway, she starred in the drama 'On the Spot', that ran for 167 performances and which she would later film as Dangerous to Know (Robert Florey, 1938).

 

Anna May Wong became more outspoken in her advocacy for Chinese American causes and for better film roles. Because of the Hays Code's anti-miscegenation rules, she was passed over for the leading female role in The Son-Daughter (Clarence Brown, 1932) in favour of Helen Hayes. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer deemed her ‘too Chinese to play a Chinese’ in the film, and the Hays Office would not have allowed her to perform romantic scenes since the film's male lead, Ramón Novarro, was not Asian. Wong was scheduled to play the role of a mistress to a corrupt Chinese general in The Bitter Tea of General Yen (Frank Capra, 1933), but the role went instead to Toshia Mori. Her British film Java Head (Thorold Dickinson, J. Walter Ruben, 1934), was the only film in which Wong kissed the lead male character, her white husband in the film. In 1935 she was dealt the most severe disappointment of her career when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer refused to consider her for the leading role of the Chinese character O-Lan in the film version of Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth (Sidney Franklin, 1937). Paul Muni, an actor of European descent, was to play O-lan's husband, Wang Lung, and MGM chose German actress Luise Rainer for the leading role. Rainer won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. Wong spent the next year touring China, visiting her father and her younger brothers and sister in her family's ancestral village Taishan and studying Chinese culture. To complete her contract with Paramount Pictures, she starred in several B movies, including Daughter of Shanghai (Robert Florey, 1937), Dangerous to Know (Robert Florey, 1938), and King of Chinatown (Nick Grinde, 1939) with Akim Tamiroff. These smaller-budgeted films could be bolder than the higher-profile releases, and Wong used this to her advantage to portray successful, professional, Chinese-American characters. Wong's cabaret act, which included songs in Cantonese, French, English, German, Danish, Swedish, and other languages, took her from the U.S. to Europe and Australia through the 1930s and 1940s. She paid less attention to her film career during World War II but devoted her time and money to helping the Chinese cause against Japan. Wong starred in Lady from Chungking (William Nigh, 1942) and Bombs over Burma (Joseph H. Lewis, 1943), both anti-Japanese propaganda made by the poverty row studio Producers Releasing Corporation. She donated her salary for both films to United China Relief. She invested in real estate and owned a number of properties in Hollywood.

 

Anna May Wong returned to the public eye in the 1950s in several television appearances as well as her own detective series The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong (1951-1952), the first US television show starring an Asian-American series lead. After the completion of the series, Wong's health began to deteriorate. In late 1953 she suffered an internal hemorrhage, which her brother attributed to the onset of menopause, her continued heavy drinking, and financial worries. In the following years, she did guest spots on television series. In 1960, she returned to film playing housekeeper to Lana Turner in the thriller Portrait in Black (Michael Gordon, 1960). She was scheduled to play the role of Madame Liang in the film production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song (Henry Koster, 1961) when she died of a heart attack at home in Santa Monica in 1961. Anna May Wong was 56. For decades after her death, Wong was remembered principally for the stereotypical sly ‘Dragon Lady’ and demure ‘Butterfly’ roles that she was often given. Matthew Sweet in The Guardian: “And this is the trouble with Anna May Wong. We disapprove of the stereotypes she fleshed out - the treacherous, tragic daughters of the dragon - but her performances still seduce, for the same reason they did in the 1920s and 30s.” Her life and career were re-evaluated by three new biographies, a meticulous filmography, and a British documentary about her life called Frosted Yellow Willows. Wikipedia: “Through her films, public appearances, and prominent magazine features, she helped to ‘humanize’ Asian Americans to white audiences during a period of overt racism and discrimination. Asian Americans, especially the Chinese, had been viewed as perpetually foreign in U.S. society but Wong's films and public image established her as an Asian-American citizen at a time when laws discriminated against Asian immigration and citizenship.” Anna May Wong never married, but over the years, she was the rumored mistress of several prominent film men: Marshall Neilan (14 years older, supposedly Wong's lover when she was 15), director Tod Browning (23 years older, when she was 16) and Charles Rosher (Mary Pickford's favorite cinematographer, who was nearly 20 years older, when Wong was 20). But no biographer can say for sure that any of the affairs occurred.

 

Sources: Richard Corliss (Time), Matthew Sweet (The Guardian), Jon C. Hopwood (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

Much of the church is as it was in medieval times, and there is little in the way of overt Victorianisation. The church was originally built in the early 12th. century and dedicated to St. Andrew, but about 1400 it was rededicated to St. Mary. The church was connected to Carrow Abbey from 1248 until the Benedictine nunnery was dissolved by Henry VIII.

The tower is over 60 feet high. It was probably commenced in 1470, several bequests were made around that date, and was completed in 1500. The full peal of bells has not been rung since 1806, when a young man, James Coleman, dislodged one of the bells, which brought him and the bell crashing to the floor below. Rather grimly he is buried on the spot where he died.

The nave and chancel are both of Saxon-Norman origin and incorporate Roman tiles The Tudor porch over the south door was built with money from a bequest of 1443.

The vicar at Swardeston from 1863 to 1909 the Reverend Frederick Cavell (1824 to 1910) He and his wife, Louisa, had four children, the eldest being Edith who was bought up in the village and lived with her family in the vicarage.

Edith was a nurse in Belgium during WW1. She died for her country on 12th. October 1915, aged 49 years, being shot by order of a German Court Martial in Brussels, for helping British, French, and Belgian soldiers to escape into neutral Holland.

The east window of the church is the Edith Cavell memorial window, commissioned by her family and designed by Ernest Heasman. It was installed in 1917, before the end of the War.

The church received Grade: II* listed building status on 2nd. October 1951. (English Heritage Legacy ID: 226987).

   

“’Two Plumbers’ is among the most overtly comedic images the artist created for the publication. Here Rockwell depicts two rough-and-tumble plumbers sent to attend to the pipes in an unseen bathroom. Dressed for the task at hand and still holding the tools of their trade, the plumbers have discovered a frilly boudoir, ornately decorated in a symphony of ruffles and shades of pink. Intrigued by the array of the unfamiliar yet tantalizing objects on the table, their curiosity gets the best of them and—professionalism thrown aside—one sprays his partner with what is undoubtedly expensive perfume. The owner of the home has not yet returned but the room is guarded by a small lapdog that watches the intruders suspiciously, reinforcing the idea that they have happened upon a place where they truly do not belong.” [From Sotheby’s Auction Catalog]

 

“Two Plumbers” sold for nearly $15 million in 2017. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

 

[Note: Laurel & Hardy comes to mind]

 

MKSG The X-Men: Survival - Issue #9

X-Mansion - 2 a.m.

 

It’s getting late, and Sean can’t sleep. He’s worried about the Purifiers, about his missing Brother, about Mutants in general. He’s restless. He thinks maybe he should’ve gone with the older kids; Kitty and Peter, and their friends, but he didn't feel quite up to it yet.

 

Earlier in the day, Kitty had introduced him to her friends, who were around their age, and a few years older than Sean. Their names are Benjamin Hamill, Sooraya Qadir and Angel Salvadore, also known as Match, Dust and Tempest. They all made up their 'code-names' years ago, hoping to use them when they one day join the X-Men. Peter's is 'Colossus', and Kitty's is 'Shadowcat'. He still doesn’t feel like he fits in here yet, even with his own code-name: Banshee.

 

Sean is alone in his room. His roommates were Colossus and Match, as well as a kid his own age called Beak. His real name was Barnell Bohusk, but he went by ‘Beak’. Going looking for him, Sean makes his way out of his room, and sneaks downstairs and into the Living Room. There he finds Peter’s younger sister, Illyana, and Beak, watching cartoons. It’s Phineas and Ferb, by the looks of it.

 

“Hey guys, can I join you? I can’t sleep...” Sean says, nervously.

 

They turn to him suddenly, as if he startled them.

 

“Oh dude! We thought you were Mr. Drake or Mr. Wagner! Of course you can, the first few nights are always rough,” Beak laughs. His voice is somewhat bizarre, coming from a literal beak, but it’s honestly one of the least weird things about this place, given there is a literal superhero team operating from the basement, who are also their school teachers.

 

“So what are you guys doing up so late?” Sean asks, getting comfy on the couch.

 

“I’m staying up for my brother. I guess I just worry he’ll get hurt out there… I wish he wouldn’t go...” Illyana replies.

 

“And I keep her company” Beak says, grinning overtly.

 

“Well there must be something around here to do that beats cartoons. Any suggestions?” Sean proposes.

 

“Well… There is this one place...” says Beak, cracking another smile.

 

The trio make their way cautiously across the corridor. Illyana says she has memorised a path across the floorboards that doesn’t make them creak, so Beak and Sean follow behind her. None of them want to wake up any of the Professors, although Mr. Summers, AKA Cyclops, and Ms. Munroe, AKA Storm, aren’t here tonight. They’ve gone into the city for some kind of TV appearance on ‘The Stryker Show’. Sean hated that show…

 

They travel across the main hall, then into the corridor with all of the staff offices in. At the end of this corridor is a short flight of stairs, heading downwards. At the base of the stairs, is an irregular round metal door, almost bunker like, with a large X symbol across it. Beside it, a number pad, which Illyana quickly puts a 6 number code into, something else she must’ve memorised.

 

“Quickly! Before Kurt or Bobby hear us!” she says urgently, in a hushed voice, as the door unlocks quickly.

 

After they’ve stepped inside, the door automatically re-locks with a loud *KAKRANG!*

 

“I’m guessing this place is what I think it is...” Sean says, in amazement.

 

“Yep. The X-Men headquarters.” Illyana announces.

 

A long, silvery corridor with rows of doors either side. It looks pristine, but also like it was designed about 20 years ago. The doors have several signs above them; The Danger Room, Observation Deck, The Lab, The Blackbird, The Armoury, and more. At the end of the corridor, as sign reads ‘Cerebro’, whatever that means.

 

“Come on, this way!” She adds, leading us into The Armoury.

 

The room is messy inside, with lots of boxes and equipment lying around. But most noticeably, on their own plinths, are The X-Men’s Uniforms.

 

“Woah!” Sean says, admiring the uniforms of the current X-Men; Storm, Iceman, Nightcrawler and Cyclops. In-between them, other uniforms. Sean recognises Phoenix’s and Professor X’s wheelchair, and also sees other names, like Angel and Beast. However, their costumes are missing.

 

“This one is my favourite…” Illyana says, holding up a red, black and yellow costume that looks brand-new. On the box, it reads: Colossus.

 

Suddenly, Beak starts to flap his arms about. They hear the loud *KAKRANG!* of the main door again.

 

“Someone’s coming!” he shrieks.

 

They panic! Beak, Sean and Illyana run and hide behind a stack of other costume boxes, hoping they don’t get caught as they can hear distant voices approaching.

 

“It can’t be true, Kurt! We have to check it out! I refuse to believe they’re dead until I see for myself!” Bobby Drake shouts to Kurt Wagner as the pair enter The Armoury in a hurry.

 

“Well ze police seemed to confirm it! If it’z true… If Scott and Ororo are really gone...” Kurt responds, getting into uniform.

 

“Well they aren’t! Not until I see! Now let’s get a move on!” Bobby snaps, pulling on his purple trench coat.

 

With a sudden *BAMF!* the pair then disappear. Illyana, Sean and Beak come out of hiding, unsure how to process the information they just absorbed.

 

“What… What do we do?” Sean asks, unsure what else to do.

 

“I… I dunno, man. Damn...” Beak says, completely shook.

 

“We hold the fort, that’s what.” Illyana interject.

 

“With Nightcrawler and Iceman gone, and my brother and Kitty away with their friends, there’s no one else here to hold down X-Mansion. We should do it, just in case something happens, right…?” she says.

 

With her leading them, the trio go back upstairs into the main hallway. They grab chairs and pull them into the main hall, and sit in a triangle, facing away from each other, not really sure what else to do. They’re there for at least an hour, and Sean falls asleep at some point. Suddenly, he is awoke.

 

“Sean, Illyana, I can hear something!” Beak whispers loudly, waking them up.

 

Then, all of a sudden, a large dart bursts through a window and lands right in Beak’s chest, and he collapses off his chair.

 

“Run, Sean!” Illyana shouts, before she too is tranquillised.

 

Sean, sure his fate is sealed, does the only thing he can do to warn the other mutants in the Mansion.

 

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeEEE!” he sonic-screams, at the top of his lungs, until a few darts hit him directly in the chest.

 

The last thing he sees before passing out is Purifier soldiers descending from the ceiling windows above him, with their dart guns drawn, storming the Mansion.

 

Last week, Alan & I headed North to Sacramento to meet up with our family, and then North again to the Sonoma/Mendicino coast to stay for 5 days at the Sea Ranch.

 

My husband used to vacation here as a child, and it's where we spent our honeymoon. This time, we gathered to celebrate the lives of my husband's grandparents, both of whom passed away in the last couple of years.

 

The Sea Ranch has a unique beauty because when the land was purchased in 1963, the architect/designer planned the community to have as little impact on the area as possible, and as a result, the houses must blend in to their surroundings. The new houses all have timber siding, some of the older ones have wooden shingles, and some of them even have a lawn on their roof. As overtly 60s/70s as some of the architecture is, you hardly notice them when you're looking at the landscape.

 

This scene in particular was from our last night there. I was dead set on capturing a sunset and then some night shots because with the nearest town, Gualala, being at least 5 miles away, there was no light pollution. Unfortunately a layer of fog rolled in, obscuring the sunset and the stars. On the way back, however, the full moon was brightly shining through the fog and down on cliffs near the cormorant nesting area.

:-)

Simon

 

Thank you to Jessica for letting me use her photo in this image.

 

faestock.deviantart.com/

A wonderful memory of my first meeting with Fiona. We had a wonderful time this day and have struck up a very lovely friendship. She lives too far away to see often but not so far that we can never meet. You will find quite a few more images from this and another shoot we've done in her album here on Flickr.

 

I am often trying to find some bodyscape detail that is interesting without being overtly sexual. This is an example of what I am trying for. This is not quite what I have in mind but it's close, close enough that I am happy to share it online.

In LACMA. Definitely see Large

Paul Cadmus (1904-1999)

In the gorgeous, occasionally garish, always gratifying works of the great American artist Paul Cadmus, sailors and sunbathers, models and mannequins, nitwits and nudes all are suffused with a sensuality born equally of idyllic splendor and urban squalor, natural grace and graceful artifice. Active since the 1930s as a renderer of pretty boys and ugly ploys, Cadmus has spent many remarkable decades honing a singularly complex style of idealized sexuality and vivid displeasure in justly celebrated paintings, drawings and etchings of nude figures, fantastical scenes and supercharged allegories.

 

While often working quite deliberately in the genres of social satire and community critique, Cadmus is just as compelling when exploring the personal and political proclivities of bodies in rest and motion. Male bodies, that is. More than most artists of his substantial stature, Cadmus has detailed with exquisite tenderness and unblinking bluntness the manner in which gay males--and the gay male gaze--represent the polemics of aesthetics.

 

Think of it this way: Cadmus's nudes--and, to a lesser yet still relevant extant, his studies of societal strata--offer us an opportunity to consider that beauty, though woundingly, agonizingly, deliciously seductive, also can be a ruthless guise, a four-letter word, an escape from Alcatraz, and a narcissistic, velvet-lined trap. Beauty, in fact, is everything your parents told you was bad for you as a child. Cadmus, to our enormous benefit, understands that beauty is bodies, brains, buttocks, bathtubs, bicycles, Bach, bravado and bad behavior; beauty is all things B.

 

Born in New York City in 1904, Cadmus was encouraged by his parents (artists both) to pursue his creative desires. After abandoning a career in advertising, Cadmus studied fine art and traveled throughout Europe in the early 1930s with his lover and fellow painter, Jared French. While gallivanting about Mallorca in an expatriate fever dream, Cadmus learned much from French, who tolerated his pal's slavish devotion to the means and methods of the Old Masters yet also encouraged him--quite wisely--to transcend the trappings of art-historical tradition and hone his own unique style.

 

What should we call it, this strangely anachronistic blend of neoclassical composition, Renaissance brush strokes (a la Luca Signorelli), figurative verisimilitude and surreal displacement? Cadmus's style is peculiar: his technique is exacting, his figures are elongated or oddly foreshortened, he's equally adept with charcoal and egg tempera, and his tableaux reflect realities of the wrong side of the tracks and fantasies of the right side. He's also, I'd venture, a leftist.

 

So what do we call Cadmus's style? Let's continue to ponder as we follow him back from Europa to the U.S., where he signed on as an employee of the federally funded Public Works of Art Project. His first major work for the PWAP was the infamous "The Fleet's In!," which answers the musical question: what can you do with a drunken sailor? In this extraordinary canvas, a gaggle of randy sailors on leave strike deals with hookers, ogle t and a, and get a little too friendly with each other, all while wearing (or planning to strip out of) unusually tight trousers.

 

When a certain uptight Admiral Hugh Rodman ordered the removal of the painting from an exhibition of government -sponsored paintings at the Corcoran Gallery of Art--where, fifty years later, Mr. Mapplethorpe's pictures suffered the same indignity--on the grounds of obscenity, Cadmus's name was splashed across newspaper headlines as savvy critics rallied behind him. With faux-naïve self-effacement, Cadmus did his best to appear nonplused by the brouhaha, though in retrospect it seems that he basked in the scandal and recognized it as a kick-start to his career as a serious artist. All this for an image of sailors who had never heard of--and never would have heeded--the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

 

Continuing to play the role of observer rather than participant, Cadmus gained confidence as an arbiter of moral judgment with his "Aspects of Suburban Life" series, commissioned in 1936 by the Treasury Relief Art Project as murals for a post office in the tony Long Island suburb of Port Washington. Not surprisingly, given their ruthless critique of noblesse oblige slumming and socioeconomic inequality, the murals were deemed "unsuitable for a federal building" and Cadmus was politely shown the door. "Hinky Dinky Parley Voo," in which the dregs of society drink to the dregs around a bar, didn't exactly endear Cadmus to the no-nothings, either.

 

But if the government wouldn't have him, friends and lovers were plentiful and uniformly supportive. Writer Monroe Wheeler and photographer George Platt Lynes were close associates of Cadmus's for years, as were E.M. Forster, Tennessee Williams, Christopher Isherwood and George Ballanchine. Excursions to Fire Island were not uncommon. Once there, Cadmus utilized his close-knit group as subject matter for portraiture. Sometimes they'd pose for him in the modest glory of their soft skin.

 

From the 1930s on, Cadmus steadfastly has painted the male nude within a milieu in which, as he says, "heterosexuality has always ruled." Given his clear-cut understanding of this identity-based power dynamic, perhaps the queerest thing about Cadmus and his work is his (and its) reluctance to fully acknowledge the queer content that appears so overt to contemporary viewers who know all the insider signs. While Cadmus always has been "out,' his reluctance to speak at length regarding the recognizably gay aspects of his oeuvre stems, I think, both from his reluctance to be pigeonholed and from the fact that he came of age among a generation of gay men who typically didn't have "we're here, we're queer, get used to it" tattooed on their foreheads.

 

As much as some younger artists would like to see Cadmus adopt the persona of nonagenarian poster boy for Gay Y2K, he's generally content to let his images speak for themselves. That's his choice to make; more perplexing, frankly, is the majority of critical writing on Cadmus that blatantly ignores his gay perspective and homoerotic imagery. Lincoln Kirstein, founding director of the New York City Ballet and the artist's self-defined bisexual brother-in-law (married to Cadmus's sister, Fidelma), wrote the "definitive" Cadmus monograph with nary a mention of the artist's crucial homoeroticism, preferring to tiptoe around the truth with statements like, "As for sexual factors, he has without ostentation or polemic long celebrated somatic health in boys and young men for its symbolic range of human possibility. His addiction to aspects of physical splendor has never been provocative, sly, nor ambitious to proselytize."

 

I wish Kirstein had taken a more careful look at the slender lad sporting a box kite and a noticeable bulge in "Aviator," or the mine's-bigger-than-yours posturing and relentless cruising on display in "Y.M.C.A. Locker Room". Even more telling is "Manikins," in which two small artist's models lovingly do the nasty atop a copy of Corydon, André Gide's plea for queer rights. Never before or since has the body politic been represented so charmingly.

 

Despite what Kirstein and others have--or haven't--said, Cadmus's work clearly has been heavily informed by his sexuality; his male nudes and satiric swipes exude a coolly palpable sensuality. Cadmus isn't homogenic, however. In "Sunday Sun," a hetero couple seek out precious rays of light amid the Dickensian grime of their oppressive urban sprawl.

 

In "Subway Symphony," Cadmus trains his compassionate yet keenly wicked eye on a sideshow of grotesques, from ridiculous hippies to religious zealots, all of whom are having a bad hair day. While some viewers object to Cadmus's cruel reduction of the masses to broad stereotypes, the artist insists on his secular humanitarianism: "Will it be said that I am anti-Semitic, anti-black, anti-white, anti-hard hat, anti-ALL, anti-people? I am NOT. I am anti a society that makes people this way, that makes humanoids of humans, an environment that causes this…I am FOR human beings as individuals."

 

One human being in particular who Cadmus has been for as an individual is Jon Andersson, a cabaret singer with whom the artist has been linked for more than thirty years. In "The Haircut," Andersson snips his older partner's distinguished white locks. In an ongoing series of chalk and crayon drawings, Cadmus depicts Andersson as muse, thinker, sleeper, lover and Beauty incarnate.

 

Recalling portraits by Michelangelo, Ingres and Degas, Cadmus's images of Andersson illustrate his comment on the drawing process: "I specialize in male nudes. I've done many more males than females. I like to do females too, but they're sort of harder to come by in a way. And they don't generally pose as well as men. They have a tendency to faint. I think--and I don't know whether this is just my own idea--that men are vainer than women in that they work harder at their posing. Maybe women think that they're so lovely that they don't have to pose well, I'm not sure." In any event, the subtle highlighting of genitals, hands and feet in Cadmus's portraits of Andersson suggest that male beauty is a mystery that the artist never truly desires to solve.

 

Paul Cadmus has plumbed the depths of this mystery throughout his long and illustrious career, producing canvases slowly but steadily at a rate of two or three per year.

 

Beautifully written by Steven Jenkins

The genus Argiope includes rather large and spectacular spiders that have often a strikingly coloured abdomen. These are well distributed throughout the world, and most countries in temperate or warmer climates have one or more species, which look similar.

 

There is a signature like pattern on the web and hense the name .

 

In North America, Argiope aurantia is commonly known as the "black and yellow garden spider", "Corn Spider" or "writing spider," because of the similarity of the web stabilimenta to writing.

 

In England, Argiope bruennichi, where it is found only on the southern coast, and in other parts of Europe, including Germany, is also known as the wasp spider. The East Asian species Argiope amoena is known in Japan as kogane-gumo. In Australia, Argiope keyserlingi and A. aetherea are known as St. Andrew's Cross spiders, for their habit of resting in the web with legs outstretched in the shape of an X, the cross of St. Andrew. The large white zigzag in the centre of its web is called the stabilimentum or web decoration.

 

In the Philippines, it is known as "gagambang ekis", which translates to "X spider"

 

WEB

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The average orb web is practically invisible, and it is easy to blunder into one and end up covered with a sticky web. The very easily visible pattern of banded silk made by Argiope is pure white, and some species make an "X" form, or a zigzag type of web (often with a hollow center). The spider then aligns one pair of its legs with each of the four lines in the hollow "X," making a complete "X" of white lines with a very eye-catching spider colored bright yellow on a field of black or variegated red white and yellow stripes forming its center. The white patterns are called stabilimentum and reflect UV light. They have been shown to play a role in attracting prey to the web, and possibly to prevent its destruction by large animals. Their centers of their large webs are often just under 1 meter above the ground, so they are too low for anything much larger than a rabbit to walk under. The overtness of the spider and its web thus has been speculated to prevent larger creatures from accidentally destroying the web and possibly crushing the spider underfoot.

 

Other studies suggest that as the stabilimenta may actually lead predators to the spider, species such as A. keyserlingi place their web predominantly in closed, complex habitats such as among sedges. As Argiope sit in the center of their web during the day, they have developed several other responses to predators, such as dropping off the web, retreating to the periphery of the web, or even rapidly pumping the web in bursts of up to 30 seconds, similar to the motion done by the unrelated Pholcus phalangioides.

 

Reproduction

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

 

The male spider is much smaller than the female, and unassumingly marked. When it is time to mate, he spins a companion web alongside the female's. After mating, the female lays her eggs, placing her egg sac into the web. The sac contains between 400 and 1,400 eggs. These eggs hatch in autumn, but the spiderlings overwinter in the sac and emerge during the spring. The egg sac is composed of multiple layers of silk and designed to protect its contents from damage; however, many species of insects have been observed to parasitise the egg sacs

 

In the photo, you can see some thing like the egg sac, but I am not sure, Some one please clarify.

 

[EXPLORED]

An image of a big, highway-cruising motorcycle is chiseled into the top of a tombstone in our local public cemetery. Presumably it memorializes the deceased man’s abiding passion.

 

Interestingly, for a country that generally has lots of rules, almost any kind of tombstone seems permissible in our cemetery.

 

For example, there are stones with overtly Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, and Islamic themes, plus ones like this that defy categorization. There are big stones, small stones, upright stones, horizontal stones, and non-stones; e.g. markers made of wrought iron.

 

For me, all of this adds a nice note of inclusion and community in what is otherwise, of course, a somber place. In addition, almost all the graves have pretty ca. 1m x 0.5m displays of carefully-tended, in-ground flowering plants. This is also highly individual and varied, although begonias are very popular every summer.

 

Location: Gottesacker, Riehen BS Switzerland.

In my album: Roaming Riehen.

I was thumbing through the archives, I found this pic, and wondered why the heck I clicked the shutter. Then it came to me:

 

The men on far left are painting a sign. The guy on the ladder who is furthest away is starting to catch the oncoming female out of the corner of his eye. As she passes his observation becomes aggressively overt and he drops a paint can that splashes all over the woman's clothes and luggage. She immediately launches into a very loud and extended diatribe with many expletive-deleted's thrown in for dramatic effect. The guy in the van pulling onto the street is startled by all of this and rams his van into the small car in front of him which throws an already over-cafeneited morning driver into a violent bit of road rage. Tempers flare, fists are thrown, horns are blaring, and the street descends into frantic pandemonium.

 

Meanwhile the guy walking down the street sees the aggrieved lady and hurries to help her. He gives the voyeur painter the old one-two and steps toward the damsel in distress., Sirens are starting to sound in the distance, as he bends over to to assist her. Their eyes meet, sparks fly, and that casual walker who had only stepped out for a cup of coffee, suddenly finds himself thrown into a life changing relationship. And that my friends is how a top grossing Chick Flick is born. It''s sure to star Jennifer Aniston and Ben Stiller in what will most likely be Academy Award winning roles.

 

I'm sending in the screen play tomorrow.

 

Linz, Austria

 

Posted from a little hotel in Inverness, CA

Bit of a controversial production from MKULTRA and myself! Awesome jam none the less, thanks a tonne Smeagol for the shout! Too legend. But yeah, kids overt yours eyes! R18

Enrico Baj (October 31, 1924 – June 15, 2003) was an Italian artist and writer on art. Many of his works show an obsession with nuclear war. He created prints, sculptures but especially collage. He was close to the surrealist and dada movements, and was later associated with CoBrA. As an author he has been described as a leading promoter of the avant-garde. He worked with Umberto Eco among other collaborators. He had a long interest in the pseudo-philosophy 'pataphysics’.

He was born in Milan into a wealthy family, but left Italy in 1944 having upset the authorities and to avoid conscription. He studied at the Milan University law faculty and the Brera Academy of Art.

In 1951 he founded the ‘arte nucleare’ movement with Sergio Dangelo, which unlike abstract art was overtly political. Baj himself was aligned with the anarchist movement. His most well-known pieces are probably the series of "Generals": absurd characters made from found objects such as belts or medals.

 

In 1972 public display of a major work, ‘Funeral Of The Anarchist Pinelli’ (a reference to Carlo Carrà's painting The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli of 1911), was banned after the murder of the police officer believed to be responsible for Giuseppe Pinelli's death in custody. However his work continued to be political. In 1989 he designed thirty marionettes for ‘Le Bleu-blanc-rouge et le noir’, an opera by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero to a libretto by Anthony Burgess, written for the bicentenary of the French Revolution. In his last years he created a series of paintings in protest at the election of Silvio Berlusconi. He died in Vergiate, (Varese) Italy.

 

Existing outcrops of rock have been modified into similar form all within a 60km radius. These sites are currently under the category of medieval fruit press or sacrificial stone.

 

Left: Grandmont "pressoir" near Lodeve.

Centre: "Pierre de Sacrifice" du Causse de Lunas.

Right: Haut-Languedoc "medieval village of monoliths".

 

I propose to remove elements in inverted commas and group the three sites into a commonality. With granite deposits nearby and the skills to surface menhirs; and with all of the sites being in areas known for megalithic activity - or even with high adjacent megalithic activity - I am going to look at these sites from the chronological optic either side of the first age of metal, so either side of the copper age or Chalcolithic - late Neolithic to early bronze age.

 

If there is too much flat surface for a fruit-press, and not enough local fruit, and if the opposite edges are not aligned or showing the correct wear marks of a fruit press's weight, and if sacrificial stones might struggle to provide so much local wear and edge detail (grooves, curve wear, cups and short ledges all appearing 'episodic' rather being from repeat ritualised behaviours), the question should be asked: what was the reason behind taking the time to carve so large a surface?

 

Water for drinking, water for cooking and water for making.

 

Cisterns tend to be much deeper and in summer months, when water is most required on these mid to upper altitude sites, just such a depth would evaporate at speed. The storms of summer months could be collected in just such a structure, and distributed via the lips into large pots for reserves of fresh water - as seen in the prehistoric village of Cambous for example (a site from a similar time scale and not so far away). But, a well run croft should have leather sheeting or abutting huts with loze and gutter management for water collection - again as alluded to in Cambous, so the question remains, why make a water capture surface in stone when sheets and ground holes and managed roofs can all be repeated and replicated in a third of the time? Carving into hard sandstone (probably close to a millstone grit) is a labour intensive prospect and water collection alone does not explain the 'episodic' edge variations.

 

Maybe there is a detail missing. Each of the three above sites has at least one output lip, and blocking these outputs would either allow water to collect or water to be added to form a shallow pool. In summer months the stone would expose in the sun and quickly heat the water to an agreeable temperature. Removing encircling trees would allow for a simple test of experimental archaeology. Warm water in winter is simply a matter of adding river stones to a fire and then transferring them into the waiting water. If the water gets dirty then the plug can be removed and the procedure started once more.

 

A shallow pool of warm water is attractive to mothers and babies, children and even adults, and the ludique side of being clean or bathing aching legs does not need to be explained. Late prehistoric sweat rooms and saunas are suspected in sites from Ireland to Spain. Getting up onto the flat top surface 'basin' would need a simple construction of wooden platform and step, and assuring that this does not 'sheer' and fall may be attained by carving mortise trenches into the heavily used "entrance point". These are clearly visible on two examples, with a platform not required on the above left example which is largely close to the ground.

 

A young toddler may still find the basin's edge too high from the upper wooden platform, and this may explain the diagonal clearly visible on the far side of the centre example.

 

Now, just such a shallow pool of water can be created aside a river or with an oiled leather 'sheet' wrapped into an indent, so the great effort to carve the stone is still in need of explanation and gravitas.

 

Riversides have fish and ease all sorts of craft production, and being near to a river is enjoyed by man (apart from, floods, insects, morning frost and less sunlight). Moving uphill to exploit resources of grazing, pigment, shrub and wood has the disadvantage of moving away from the guaranteed flows of water especially if springs are lower down the valley. Providing an upper valley community with a solid point of water may attract a larger crofting population base. Imagine a shallow pool of water and steps and see people positioned around the edge in their regular spaces, shaping their dissect of the monolith's perimeter with their idiosyncratic style and action.

 

Imagine now that it is not 'playtime', and although there is a baby splashing in the centre, most of the people assembled around the edge are softening sapling and reed bundles in the warm water and are busy weaving baskets, wicker toy animals, roof forms, chicken pens, masks, fish-traps and rug-wacks to keep the village clean of dust. The water is still getting warmer and was only changed late afternoon. Before that, the same "monolithic water-warmer" was being used to soak acorns that had been pounded in a smaller basin - soaked to take out some of their tannin for a future exchange of finest dried acorn flour at the local barter. Now the assembled group has a 'medium' amount of time, as there are men working aside another monolith and others who will put their goats up for the night and will all want to light an oil flame in a couple of the cups that are found around the edge, and have some quality time relaxing for a chat. Other uses of the tough monolithic space pepper their weeks - cleaning, "winnowing" and softening as the seasons come and go, and the people who took the time to convert the stone often say that it was an effort, but worth it in the long run. Now, rather than being at the end of an explanation, this may be the point of a 'dome' when the last stone of explanation is dropped into place...

 

Of the three sites, there is one detail that is of great interest. The central site has a 'cross bar' carved over the basin space (just visible here but clear in associated posts). It's difficult to see how this can greatly improve the basin (a shallow half basin to warm in winter sun and a specific rinse side?), and rather than being functional, the cross bar may be an example of representation.

 

The three sites are within a radius of 60km, but 60km of rolling hills, so far from being neighbours - and yet the function and three above examples of model seems so similar and worn into place. Used and used and used. With a solid scattering of neolithic crofts far higher than the three above sites, surely such a good idea for higher crofts away from riverbanks would be taken up elsewhere? Suitable outcrops of sandstone are not available for all crofts, and the stone carving skills of menhir workers were perhaps also a slight speciality, but more to the point, it is perhaps the case that other crofts had the same facility for pools of warm water but simply not in stone, and that the stone versions are representations of structures common at the time, but long faded from the archaeological record. Now the crossbar of the central example may come into light.

 

The first migrants into the hill will have been met by a landscape of cold humid winters and hot dry summers. Cold winters and big shepherds cloaks (visible in the statue menhirs) and dry summers with flocks often away from overt water. Sleeping under small semi portable leather covered tents of wood frame. In the summer months, the heavy winter cloaks may have been stuffed around the edge of the inner frame of the tent, almost by accident making a rim so that storm rain could be captured into water pots with a smile of happenstance. At this point you can almost hear the conversations: 'I don't mind you using the 'roof pool' for the babies, but I don't want the kids up there as they are too big and will damage the leather as it rubs against the frame" ... And then the same children playing when the father is out with their flock to a point where he decides to make them a stone 'tent' so that nothing can be damaged, with the cross bar being the cross bar of the tent and the lumpy edges being the cloaks stuffed under the leather tarp. "A lot of work, but when you see the smiles and the productivity it was worth it." Other water collection pools and warm water basins may have been apart from tent/huts and lower to the ground and each croft would not bother that someone in the future may need to think through their day to day.

 

There is an example in recent history that maps a similar visual story of copycat function-style. The very first cars looked like carts without horses as they directly emulated their adjacent world before moving away to perfect new lines apt for the greater subject.

 

Perhaps second; third, fourth... generation of new rural crofters made this monolithic innovation, which would take the date right back into the neolithic and prior to ideas of Gaul and Celt and in parallel with adjacent menhir and dolmen culture and cups and canals witnessed on the central example.

 

Rites associated with the site can sit aside the day to day functionality, in the flexible and yet serious way that a school entrance hall can have a jumble sale, an election booth, an art show, an assembly and an informal meeting of parents. One of the rites may include the sacrifice of an animal to a God (although special stones on overlooking hills may have been more adapted). My own feeling is that this 'potential' sub element would give the wrong impression of a years activity, which is why I prefer to call this idea "warm water forms" (a term wide enough to include projected summer hut design and lower tarp models) rather than "Pierre des Sacrifices".

 

AJM 14.05.20

  

I came across this still frame today. It captures me in my first month of cross-dressing back in November 2000. It was an emotive period as I had come out to my family as a transvestite but had not cross-dressed for over twenty years. There was a lot going on in my head coping with the release and the desire to look female. I was experimenting with learning how to apply make-up and with hair styles and outfits.

 

I have always adored femininity and wished I could emulate it. I also love make-up and was very keen to wear it. I will admit I felt vulnerable and exposed as I began to explore my inner feelings of wanting to be a woman so I think I unconsciously created a barrier.

 

I can see this in the picture as I was bother terrified and elated. My facial expression captures my vulnerability as I look off camera and fear anyone causing me harm by discovering I cross-dress as a female. I also buttoned my woman's shirt at the throat as a kind of protection as I felt if I was prim and elusive I would be safe.

 

It was a period of mixed emotions, I wanted to be a woman yet I was frightened to dress as one. The collision of emotions resulted in this buttoned up fearful distant woman.

 

Recently I have been infected by fears and doubts and yet new desires and ambitions for my female alter-ego are growing within me. I would like to return Helene to being a bit more prim and distant as I know I can never truly be her so the illusion must maintain a distance for me. I would like to wear my women's shirts buttoned all the way up to the throat in combination with stylish skirts, high heels and well applied make-up with a nice contemporary hair style. I really do think Helene is a prim woman that enjoys being feminine and wishes to present herself in a more womanly way. I also think this way I can present her as an understated feminine lady who may be a tad sexy. I do find the combination of prim with good make-up such as nicely made-up eyes and red glossy lipstick set against the buttoned up collar of a tailored white female shirt more classy and sexy than dressing in an overtly revealing way.

 

I am intrigued how in 2013 I am considering a return to this early approach I had to cross-dressing but hopefully carried off in a manner a lot better than my obviously amateur efforts in this picture. I did not have a digital camera back then so I used to use a DV video camera and take still frames from the recordings. The resolution was low so I have enlarged the image for this picture which of course causes a drop in image quality.

 

I just wanted to express my thoughts and I needed an outlet and so (once again) Flickr has provided me with that outlet. Cross-dressing is an emotional experience, indeed indulgence, for me and I'm regretful I spent a whole adult lifetime repressing these emotions. I now just want to talk openly about them eve if I am ridiculed for expressing them.

 

Helene x

  

I know things have been slow in terms of getting new photos up. Part of the problem is that I've gone through pretty much every outfit I own and I hate repeating myself. So I've come up with a way to combat this.

 

I've created a publicly accessible Amazon wishlist. On it I've selected 100 items in a wide range of theme and price. Everything from heels to full costumes to temporary tattoos, anything that I think would be fun to do a shoot in. For those unfamiliar with how a wishlist works, you can purchase items from it and have them sent to me directly through Amazon.

 

So here's the deal, I pledge that any items purchased will be featured in a new set of pictures. Nothing will simply sit idle in my closet. I'll also gladly take requests from those who purchase items on how to feature them in photos (assuming the requests are not of an overtly pornographic nature, because that's just not happening.) If anybody has additional suggestions they can send them to verawylde@gmail.com and I may add them to the wishlist.

 

Photo by my wife Laura.

Tuyet the Oathbreaker

 

The woman who would spawn an empire…

 

My entry to the DuckBricks Fanon Contest.

 

My take on Tuyet has remained pretty constant over the years. I’ve always believed that Tuyet (and the other Toa Mangai by extension) should correspond with the design language of Lhikan despite coming from different backgrounds in-story. If Tuyet were to have been released in set form then she would not have been excessively custom so I have balanced this consideration with my entry. I also believe that she should not appear overtly evil with spiky or gratuitous black armor. Tuyet was, after all, a trusted Toa Mangai and legendary defender of Metru Nui. That said, there are also a few stylized modifications to the default build to give her more visual impact.

 

The Barbed Broadsword (let’s not take a vague line of description too literally) is a design I’ve been using for almost a decade now. It couples the Brutaka blade with Tahu Mistika’s Rotating Shield Blades as a hilt. By attaching two pins, I’ve also been able to emulate the dual-weapon functionality seen in the Toa Nuva and Toa Metru sets, allowing the sword to also work as a surfboard. This is an alternate option for anyone wanting additional play features from this model. It also allows for some really dynamic poses.

 

I first designed a version of Tuyet back in 2008, at which point I used the mask that came with the Vezok canister as a Kanohi. Over the years, she hasn’t changed much beyond this.

 

The 3D printed mask is KhingK’s Mask of Intangibility (www.thingiverse.com/thing:3396873). While there have been other mask models released since, KhingK’s captures the genuine feel of a new Kanohi mold.

 

This particular mask was printed by @dj_makes_stuff. For the same of full transparency, my painting method for Metru blue is to mix Winsor & Newton’s Prussian Blue with any brand of white acrylic. Give it a try, it’s a really close match!

 

Instructions: brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=584308

 

I've been wanting to make this "beer map of the world" since about three years ago; I'm happy to have finally gotten enough beer caps from around the world to do so.

 

Notes about this picture:

 

- THIS MAP IS BY NO MEANS POLITICALLY CHARGED OR MOTIVATED; please do not comment with overtly political comments if your country/region was not included, or if by your political beliefs you believe that I have included a country/region which you do not believe has sovereignty. Political comments not relating to the subject of this photo (beer caps from around the world) will be deleted.

 

- Since Greenland is technically an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, Danish beer caps were placed in Greenland.

 

- Due to restrictions against alcoholic beverages for countries in the Middle East, some malt beverages were substituted for beer instead. Also, the lack of caps from the Middle East in the picture above stems from the same reason.

 

- Beer caps may not correspond exactly to the geographical region that they are from. I tried to get as close as possible, but the caps presented here are representative only of the ones that are feasible to obtain from the US. For example, a cap from Zimbabwe is almost impossible to procure in the US, so one from Tanzania resides in the geographical location of Zimbabwe on the map. Also, for non beer-producing regions of a certain country (like Melville Island in Canada), a generic beer cap widely available in that country would be placed there (i.e. Labatt Blue).

 

- All the caps in this picture are tagged. Scroll over to determine which cap is from where.

Meeting people online is always interesting.

 

It can be the best place to meet people and, simultaneously, the worst. And, sometimes, it's just average.

 

I met some of my closest and most valued friends through social media before it was called that. Some of my lovers who have since become good friends I also met that way.

 

I've always seen it as an equally valid way of meeting people, like dancing with and talking to someone at a club or a bar. Meeting them at a gig or meeting them through a friend. Just that you can have a more involved conversation without shouting into each other's ears…

 

Dating apps are no different, though the intent is generally more overt.

 

I mean, I always went into meeting anyone from Friendster or Myspace with the view of meeting them as friends. Even if it ended up that we became more than that.

 

If you go into meeting people through dating apps with that same thinking, I think you're seen as disingenuous.

 

I'd rarely claim I was "in a relationship" with someone I met in a club less than two months after we met but starting from friendship seems "the wrong way of using a dating app" to some.

 

There are potentially many "wrong ways" to use a dating app. Finding clients. Finding Instagram followers. But, to be honest, even none of those are "wrong", in my view.

 

The only thing "wrong" is being dishonest with yourself and others about why you're using the app.

 

I currently have multiple professional and personal interactions with people I've met through dating apps across the spectrum of "why".

 

I know why I'm on those apps, but I'm open to why others are and don't impose my reasons on them. I just choose which connections I make.

 

And, worst-case scenario: I make some new friends along the way to finding a life partner, or I spend time (virtually or in-person) with someone that might not be a good match.

 

Do I honestly think I'll find a life partner on a dating app?

 

I'm sure I'll tell you if I do.

 

[The self-portrait accompanying this post is a newly-edited outtake from day 104 of my 365 days project completed in 2007/08, addiction.]

 

I posted this early access for my Patreon patrons a week ago.

 

Become a patron.

#1: Thee Silver Mt. Zion: 13 Blues For Thirteen Moons(Montréal, Canada)

 

Though my brother in law may cringe at this, without a doubt, Thee Silver Mt. Zion put out the best album this year. I know they aren't for everyone but when Efrim Menuck sings, his sense of passion and desperation...the way he communicates devastation speaks to me in a way that makes me think...this, this is the reason why music is here.

 

I know some have criticized Thee Silver Mt. Zion as pretentious but as someone who has been following Efrim Menuck from Godspeed You! Black Emperor to this point, I feel more than anything it's disarming and also...well, honest. Every time I put on this record, I feel a storm of emotion inside of me waiting to pour out. It startles me but I can't help it. When Efrim sings "Some hearts are true," it's the most hopeful moment. When Efrim sings "One Million Died to Make This Sound," my body was meant for collapse. He's singing my thoughts. He's singing my fears, my prayers. All that is in me is coming out of that dear man's throat.

 

And let's not forget the strength of the instrumentation and the joint choral effect (of the tra la la band) the album and live performance takes on. It creates the sense we're all in this together and we're all feeling it together. We may each have 13 blues for thirteen moons but we're sharing it together and, in a way, that redeems this pitiful life.

  

It's true that Thee Silver Mt. Zion, particularly because of Efrim's pained vocal delivery, is an acquired taste. If, like me, you acquire it, you'll probably never let it go.

 

www.myspace.com/silvermtzion

  

#2 Karkwa: Le Volume du Vent

(Montréal, Canada)

 

Yes, another band from Montréal but this one sings in French! Ok, I literally first heard this band for the first time yesterday...skeptical? How 'bout if I told you that they are at times like, as Bill Pearis ( soundbites.typepad.com/soundbites/) aptly describes , a French Canadian Radiohead?

 

The album begins with a real intensity with Le Compteur before settling down into tracks like Oubile Pas, Le Frimas, and Le Temps Mort later on.

 

Well, anyhow, I'm in love with this record. It's passionate but also very melodic and urgent at the same time. Sort of like being simultaneously heavy and ethereal. Too bad they won't accept my American money but you can buy this most recent album on itunes. Have a listen...if melodramatic songs are your thing, I think you'll be pleased:

 

www.myspace.com/karkwa

  

#3 Portishead: Third

(Bristol, UK)

 

I know there were many who were disappointed with this album but, if you're like me, you're grasping for just about every last scrap Beth Gibbons will give you

 

Now, I know this one is a little unpredictable and I know it's also a bit inconsistent. The album starts out with a startling track, "Silence" that builds in a completely hypnotizing way (especially if you are listening to it for the fourth time that night whilst editing photos at around 3:30 am when you begin to realize the next day is coming.) It cuts you off just as you truly sense the overall motion of it, though and the jarring effect is a testament to just how effective the song is.

 

"Machine Gun" has a similar overall feel and I think it could be said that it's Beth Gibbons at her most overtly powerful. But, we must also try to appreciate the random unpredictability of the album overall which I feel Beth Gibbons makes work in a very atypical way. Quite a few of the tracks are those that cannot be easily taken out of context and they are also the kinds of songs you need to give some extra time to. In a way, it feels like we see a portrait of a woman in all of her moods and this feels not only right but very honest. Just listen to "The Rip" as the day starts to peak through the dark curtain of night and you'll see what I mean.

 

www.myspace.com/portisheadalbum3

  

#4 The High Dials: Moon Country

(Montréal, Canada)

 

If you were to ask me what genre of music I love the most, above all others, I would look at you and say, without any hesitation: Psychedelic. It's something within me that I can't describe. Oh, shoegaze is wonderful and punk has it's place but it's the psychedelic music that speaks to me most. Without it, life is a very bleak place indeed.

 

That said, The High Dials have put out their third full length double album, Moon Country, and it is magnificent. What amazes me every time I hear the band on album or see them play is how utterly talented every member is. I feel most alive by listening and, even though they are playing songs in the genre that made bands like The Pretty Things and Love great, every time I listen to The High Dials, it seems so fresh to me. In other words, even though the influences peaked so long ago, there's such a joy and bliss renewed that comes to me. It's like I was experiencing it for the first time and it's wonderful. This album as well as 2005's War of the Wakening Phantoms are stellar and if you get a chance to see them live, do whatever you can not to miss it. As I told lead singer Trevor Anderson recently when I saw him play a show in Chicago, "I swear, if aliens were to land on this planet and hold everyone hostage, demanding even just one reason why the entire human race shouldn't be obliterated, I would play them your music."

 

"How can you be so sure, " he said, "that the aliens wouldn't like reggae dub better?"

 

www.myspace.com/thehighdials

  

#5 Spiritualized: Songs in A&E

(Rugby, England)

  

I really thought Spiritualized had lost it. Seriously! I felt 2003's Amazing Grace was just an album full of rehashed melodies from previous albums and that, frankly, Jason Pierce was starting to lose his magic. Then, another proper full length live album took five years to emerge. In that time, Pierce was going through so many issues including a serious hospital stay. No doubt he did some soul searching to produce this brilliant album, complete with tracks that suggest the power and energy of "Electricity" such as "You Lie You Cheat" but with a delicateness that suggest a fallen angel as in "Sweet Talk." Don't tell me I'm the only one that cries every time I hear "Death take your fiddle."

 

Needless to say, the gospel choir Pierce chose to back him up both live and on album was one of the best musical decisions he's ever made. Jason, you set my soul on fire.

 

profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile...

  

#6 Juana Molina: Un Dia

(Buenos Aires, Argentina)

 

Dear Juana,

 

You make my days complete...how could anyone be so complex and yet so soothing. I listen to you in my darkest hour and you are so comforting and at the same time incredibly intriguing as a songwriter...your compositions of songs work in a way no American songwriter that I know of can come close to. You are the reason why music will never die. In this modern age, you can be innovative and still provide a sense of stability somehow to this ever changing world. For that, no words seem to do you justice. You are creative in a way that mere syllables strung together seem almost wrong to describe as they are not enough.

 

Your devoted listener,

Kirstie

 

www.myspace.com/juanamolina

  

#7 The Magnetic Fields: Distortion

(Boston and NYC)

 

It probably comes to some of you as no surprise that I am a fan of Stephin Merritt's wry and insightful lyrics...his way of analyzing relationships and intimacy in a way that few can. I have such a history with this band, beginning so long ago when I was a college student. I loved all of Merritt's stories and even his lyrics when he was most jaded. I couldn't settle for one disc of the 69 Lovesongs...I had to have all three.

 

Distortion is not without a great deal of classic Merritt wit but the great guitar fuzz effect on much of the album makes it even more engaging to listen to. In a way the feedback and lo fi quality of it makes it seem dated but it's the kind of dates that got you through many of your years so far.

 

It's always interesting to me how live they tend to strip this down into an acoustic set. Both have their Merritt but I greatly prefer to hear the songs in this way with their full energy realized and without the strange personality of Stephin's making me feel more than slightly uncomfortable.

 

www.myspace.com/themagneticfields

  

#8 Orouni: Jump Out the Window

(Paris, France)

 

Orouni came out with his/their second full length album this year and the only way I'd like these magical songs better is if they were sung in French. Instead, they are sung in English but with a rather enchanting accent.

 

The cello arrangements are really lovely and so are the beautiful backup vocals of Mina Tindle, Mlie, and Emma. There's a real depth that Orouni has reached at times lyrically and some don't strike you at first but get stuck in your head with the accompanying melody line. There's an odd sense of innocence to the songs, especially the melodies, that make them all the more endearing like a bunch of comforting friends.

 

www.myspace.com/orouni

  

#9 Clinic: Do It!

(Liverpool, England)

 

Ok, you know those times when it's 8am, your parents are visiting in less than 24 hours and you've slept only about five in the last three days???? Well, you may be crawling to the shower and broom but, before that, do yourself a favor and put on Clinic's Do It! It's the get yourself in gear and get some work done type of album. Oh, and also, you might have to take some breaks to dance. Though I found Clinic's live show a little shticky with the surgical masks and the Hawaiian shirts, their live sound even more so brought out these gems.

 

Even though it's really upbeat overall and just gives me so much more artificial energy, I think Clinic is probably more of an acquired taste, especially relative to more typical music in all three genres of rock, pop, and even dance. Mainly, it's the overly nasal vocals that might turn some off again.

 

Funny thing about Clinic, when Walking With Thee hit the independent radiowaves back in 2002, I was so repulsed with the sound of it. I literally couldn't stand it and the college radio station in Chicago (WLUW) played it to death! I got to the point where I was changing the radio station any time the title track was played. I HATED Clinic. I wanted to scream how much I hated them! Why were they taking up space on the airwaves, I wanted to know!?!?!

 

Then, one day I woke up. It was still 2002 and it was on a Sunday. I looked out of the window and it was pouring rain. I turned on the radio but that didn't have what I was looking for. What did I want? Need? Crave with every fiber of my being? That's right! I had to have Walking With Thee and I would travel across the city at warp speed during a thunderstorm just to have it. I tell you this story just so if you're turned off for the first time, realize those songs you listen to might somehow come back to haunt you...they have very strange powers.

 

www.myspace.com/clinicvoot

  

#10 Lost Wisdom

(Washington and Canada)

 

A joint venture between Phil Elverum of Mount Eerie fame and Julie Doiron has led to such lush and beautiful melodies that really resonate. The chemistry and dynamics of their two voices work together so well it recalls the harmony and beauty of the way Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel sang together so long ago at times, only if Art was a female. Hmmm...imagine the possibilities that might have brought!

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Wisdom

         

This image is in a book this year-

"The One Word Project' by JT Kirkland.

I haven't seen it yet but I have a whole page.

The words 'love' and 'lust' translated into 26 global languages

 

Meaning include :I love to have sex, I like you, lust for food, etc. It is funny as some are a tad explicit. I had this bracelet in a few shows and at one a woman spoke a few of the laguages at that the more 'overt' translations were in. Otherwise they are hidden in foreigness.

 

* Photo was in Explore

 

Playing footsie is a common flirtatious practice that many individuals engage in. Playing footsie can range from a mild flirtation to a sexual come-on depending on how it's done. A few easy steps can make you a pro at playing footsie.

 

1. Pick the right person. Because footsie is an overtly flirtatious act, you should be careful about who you play it with. If you play footsie with someone you're unsure of or not interested in, you could lead the person on.

 

2. Choose the appropriate time. The most common place to play footsie is under the table at a meal. However, other suitable times for playing footsie might include lounging on the couch, sitting on a bench or laying on the beach. Choose a quiet moment when you and your date are close together, relaxed and in the mood to flirt.

 

3. Be gentle. Footsie is played by removing the shoes and rubbing your foot against another's foot or up her leg. You can gently stroke your date's foot with your own, or if you really want to flirt, hook your ankles together. To crank footsie up a notch and communicate a sexual interest, slide your foot up your date's leg and toward her genitals.

 

4. Be natural. Playing footsie is an easy, low-pressure way to flirt and initiate physical contact, so try to relax. Gently touch your partner at first, and depending on his reaction, be more aggressive. Don't worry about your technique or how it feels to your partner because footsie is a relatively innocent act unless you make it otherwise.

 

5. Maintain eye contact and observe. Watch your date's reaction to your touch and react appropriately. If she doesn't seem to mind, keep going. If she looks taken aback or pulls away, you'll know that the time is not right.

~thank you Cindy for taking this lovely photo!

 

100_2429

20 May 11

The brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) is a small pelican found in the Americas. It is one of the best known and most prominent birds found in the coastal areas of the southern and western United States. It is one of only three pelican species found in the Western Hemisphere. The brown pelican is one of the only two pelican species which feeds by diving into the water. [...].

 

The head is white but often gets a yellowish wash in adult birds. The bill is grayish overall in most birds, though breeding birds become reddish on the underside of the throat. The back, rump, and tail are streaked with gray and dark brown, sometimes with a rusty hue. In adult pelicans, the breast and belly are a blackish-brown and the legs and feet are black. The juvenile is similar but has a brownish-gray neck and white underparts.[...].

 

Pelicans are very gregarious birds; they live in flocks of both sexes throughout the year. They are exceptionally buoyant due to the internal air sacks beneath their skin and in their bones, and as graceful in the air as they are clumsy on land. In level flight, pelicans fly in groups, with their heads held back on their shoulders, the bills resting on their folded necks. They may fly in a "V", but usually in regular lines or single file, often low over the water's surface.

 

These birds nest in colonies, often on islands and/or in mangroves. Male pelicans pick out the nesting sites and perform an "advertising" display which attracts the females. Once a pair forms a bond, overt communication between them is minimal. Pelican nesting peaks during March and April; nests are in colonies either in trees, bushes, or on the ground (the latter usually on islands that terrestrial predators cannot access). Those placed in trees are rather flimsy and made of reeds, grasses, straw, and sticks; if on the ground, nests consist of a shallow scrape lined with feathers and a rim of soil built 10–26 cm (3.9–10.2 in) above the ground. Their young are hatched in broods of about 2–3 and are naked and helpless upon hatching. Incubation is roughly 28–30 days. Both parents actively care for the young. Young pelicans start to walk independently at about 35 days old in ground nest, but do not leave treetop nests for up to 68–88 days. In the 8–10 month period they are cared for, the nestling pelicans are fed by regurgitation around 70 kg (150 lb) of fish. The younger birds reach sexual maturity (and full adult plumage) at anywhere from two to five years of age.

Wikipedia

Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).

 

Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions

 

"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".

 

The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.

 

The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.

 

Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.

 

Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:

 

Wet with cool dew drops

fragrant with perfume from the flowers

came the gentle breeze

jasmine and water lily

dance in the spring sunshine

side-long glances

of the golden-hued ladies

stab into my thoughts

heaven itself cannot take my mind

as it has been captivated by one lass

among the five hundred I have seen here.

 

Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.

 

Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.

 

There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.

 

Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.

 

The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.

 

In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:

 

During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".

 

Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.

 

While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’

 

Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.

 

An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.

 

Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983

 

Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture

Main article: Commercial graffiti

With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.

 

In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".

 

Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.

 

Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.

 

Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.

 

Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.

 

There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.

 

The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.

 

Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.

 

Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis

 

Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.

 

Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.

 

Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"

 

Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal

 

In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.

 

Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.

 

Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.

 

Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.

 

With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.

 

Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.

 

Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.

 

Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.

 

Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.

 

Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.

 

Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.

 

Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.

 

The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.

 

I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.

 

The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.

 

Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.

 

Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.

 

In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".

 

There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.

 

Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.

 

A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.

By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.

 

Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.

 

In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.

 

A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.

 

From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

 

In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.

 

Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.

 

Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.

 

Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.

  

In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.

 

Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.

 

In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.

 

In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."

 

In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.

 

In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.

 

In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.

 

In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.

 

In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.

 

The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.

 

To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."

 

In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.

 

In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.

 

Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".

 

Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)

In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.

 

Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.

 

Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.

 

In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.

 

Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.

 

Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.

 

To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.

 

When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara

 

The Sahara (/səˈhɑːrə/, /səˈhærə/) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of 9,200,000 square kilometres (3,600,000 sq mi), it is the largest hot desert in the world and the third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Arctic.

 

The name "Sahara" is derived from Arabic: صَحَارَى, romanized: ṣaḥārā /sˤaħaːraː/, a broken plural form of ṣaḥrā' (صَحْرَاء /sˤaħraːʔ/), meaning "desert".

 

The desert covers much of North Africa, excluding the fertile region on the Mediterranean Sea coast, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb, and the Nile Valley in Egypt and the Sudan.

 

It stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, where the landscape gradually changes from desert to coastal plains. To the south it is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna around the Niger River valley and the Sudan region of sub-Saharan Africa. The Sahara can be divided into several regions, including the western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Aïr Mountains, the Ténéré desert, and the Libyan Desert.

 

For several hundred thousand years, the Sahara has alternated between desert and savanna grassland in a 20,000-year cycle caused by the precession of Earth's axis (about 26,000 years) as it rotates around the Sun, which changes the location of the North African monsoon.

 

Geography

The Sahara covers large parts of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and Tunisia. It covers 9 million square kilometres (3,500,000 sq mi), amounting to 31% of Africa. If all areas with a mean annual precipitation of less than 250 mm (9.8 in) were included, the Sahara would be 11 million square kilometres (4,200,000 sq mi). It is one of three distinct physiographic provinces of the African massive physiographic division. Sahara is so large and bright that, in theory, it could be detected from other stars as a surface feature of Earth, with near-current technology.

 

The Sahara is mainly rocky hamada (stone plateaus); ergs (sand seas – large areas covered with sand dunes) form only a minor part, but many of the sand dunes are over 180 metres (590 ft) high. Wind or rare rainfall shape the desert features: sand dunes, dune fields, sand seas, stone plateaus, gravel plains (reg), dry valleys (wadi), dry lakes (oued), and salt flats (shatt or chott). Unusual landforms include the Richat Structure in Mauritania.

 

Several deeply dissected mountains, many volcanic, rise from the desert, including the Aïr Mountains, Ahaggar Mountains, Saharan Atlas, Tibesti Mountains, Adrar des Iforas, and the Red Sea Hills. The highest peak in the Sahara is Emi Koussi, a shield volcano in the Tibesti range of northern Chad.

 

The central Sahara is hyperarid, with sparse vegetation. The northern and southern reaches of the desert, along with the highlands, have areas of sparse grassland and desert shrub, with trees and taller shrubs in wadis, where moisture collects. In the central, hyperarid region, there are many subdivisions of the great desert: Tanezrouft, the Ténéré, the Libyan Desert, the Eastern Desert, the Nubian Desert and others. These extremely arid areas often receive no rain for years.

 

To the north, the Sahara skirts the Mediterranean Sea in Egypt and portions of Libya, but in Cyrenaica and the Maghreb, the Sahara borders the Mediterranean forest, woodland, and scrub eco-regions of northern Africa, all of which have a Mediterranean climate characterized by hot summers and cool and rainy winters. According to the botanical criteria of Frank White and geographer Robert Capot-Rey, the northern limit of the Sahara corresponds to the northern limit of date palm cultivation and the southern limit of the range of esparto, a grass typical of the Mediterranean climate portion of the Maghreb and Iberia. The northern limit also corresponds to the 100 mm (3.9 in) isohyet of annual precipitation.

 

To the south, the Sahara is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of dry tropical savanna with a summer rainy season that extends across Africa from east to west. The southern limit of the Sahara is indicated botanically by the southern limit of Cornulaca monacantha (a drought-tolerant member of the Chenopodiaceae), or northern limit of Cenchrus biflorus, a grass typical of the Sahel. According to climatic criteria, the southern limit of the Sahara corresponds to the 150 mm (5.9 in) isohyet of annual precipitation (this is a long-term average, since precipitation varies annually).

 

Important cities located in the Sahara include Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania; Tamanrasset, Ouargla, Béchar, Hassi Messaoud, Ghardaïa, and El Oued in Algeria; Timbuktu in Mali; Agadez in Niger; Ghat in Libya; and Faya-Largeau in Chad.

 

Climate

The Sahara is the world's largest hot desert. It is located in the horse latitudes under the subtropical ridge, a significant belt of semi-permanent subtropical warm-core high pressure where the air from the upper troposphere usually descends, warming and drying the lower troposphere and preventing cloud formation.

 

The permanent absence of clouds allows unhindered light and thermal radiation. The stability of the atmosphere above the desert prevents any convective overturning, thus making rainfall virtually non-existent. As a consequence, the weather tends to be sunny, dry and stable with a minimal chance of rainfall. Subsiding, diverging, dry air masses associated with subtropical high-pressure systems are extremely unfavorable for the development of convectional showers. The subtropical ridge is the predominant factor that explains the hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWh) of this vast region. The descending airflow is the strongest and the most effective over the eastern part of the Great Desert, in the Libyan Desert: this is the sunniest, driest and the most nearly "rainless" place on the planet, rivaling the Atacama Desert, lying in Chile and Peru.

 

The rainfall inhibition and the dissipation of cloud cover are most accentuated over the eastern section of the Sahara rather than the western. The prevailing air mass lying above the Sahara is the continental tropical (cT) air mass, which is hot and dry. Hot, dry air masses primarily form over the North-African desert from the heating of the vast continental land area, and it affects the whole desert during most of the year. Because of this extreme heating process, a thermal low is usually noticed near the surface, and is the strongest and the most developed during the summertime. The Sahara High represents the eastern continental extension of the Azores High, centered over the North Atlantic Ocean. The subsidence of the Sahara High nearly reaches the ground during the coolest part of the year, while it is confined to the upper troposphere during the hottest periods.

 

The effects of local surface low pressure are extremely limited because upper-level subsidence still continues to block any form of air ascent. Also, to be protected against rain-bearing weather systems by the atmospheric circulation itself, the desert is made even drier by its geographical configuration and location. Indeed, the extreme aridity of the Sahara is not only explained by the subtropical high pressure: the Atlas Mountains of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia also help to enhance the aridity of the northern part of the desert. These major mountain ranges act as a barrier, causing a strong rain shadow effect on the leeward side by dropping much of the humidity brought by atmospheric disturbances along the polar front which affects the surrounding Mediterranean climates.

 

The primary source of rain in the Sahara is the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a continuous belt of low-pressure systems near the equator which bring the brief, short and irregular rainy season to the Sahel and southern Sahara. Rainfall in this giant desert has to overcome the physical and atmospheric barriers that normally prevent the production of precipitation. The harsh climate of the Sahara is characterized by: extremely low, unreliable, highly erratic rainfall; extremely high sunshine duration values; high temperatures year-round; negligible rates of relative humidity; a significant diurnal temperature variation; and extremely high levels of potential evaporation which are the highest recorded worldwide.

 

Temperature

The sky is usually clear above the desert, and the sunshine duration is extremely high everywhere in the Sahara. Most of the desert has more than 3,600 hours of bright sunshine per year (over 82% of daylight hours), and a wide area in the eastern part has over 4,000 hours of bright sunshine per year (over 91% of daylight hours). The highest values are very close to the theoretical maximum value. A value of 4300 hours (98%) of the time would be[clarification needed] recorded in Upper Egypt (Aswan, Luxor) and in the Nubian Desert (Wadi Halfa). The annual average direct solar irradiation is around 2,800 kWh/(m2 year) in the Great Desert. The Sahara has a huge potential for solar energy production.

 

The high position of the Sun, the extremely low relative humidity, and the lack of vegetation and rainfall make the Great Desert the hottest large region in the world, and the hottest place on Earth during summer in some spots. The average high temperature exceeds 38 to 40 °C (100.4 to 104.0 °F) during the hottest month nearly everywhere in the desert except at very high altitudes. The world's highest officially recorded average daily high temperature[clarification needed] was 47 °C (116.6 °F) in a remote desert town in the Algerian Desert called Bou Bernous, at an elevation of 378 metres (1,240 ft) above sea level, and only Death Valley, California rivals it.

 

Other hot spots in Algeria such as Adrar, Timimoun, In Salah, Ouallene, Aoulef, Reggane with an elevation between 200 and 400 metres (660 and 1,310 ft) above sea level get slightly lower summer average highs, around 46 °C (114.8 °F) during the hottest months of the year. Salah, well known in Algeria for its extreme heat, has average high temperatures of 43.8 °C (110.8 °F), 46.4 °C (115.5 °F), 45.5 °C (113.9 °F) and 41.9 °C (107.4 °F) in June, July, August and September respectively. There are even hotter spots in the Sahara, but they are located in extremely remote areas, especially in the Azalai, lying in northern Mali. The major part of the desert experiences around three to five months when the average high strictly[clarification needed] exceeds 40 °C (104 °F); while in the southern central part of the desert, there are up to six or seven months when the average high temperature strictly[clarification needed] exceeds 40 °C (104 °F). Some examples of this are Bilma, Niger and Faya-Largeau, Chad. The annual average daily temperature exceeds 20 °C (68 °F) everywhere and can approach 30 °C (86 °F) in the hottest regions year-round. However, most of the desert has a value in excess of 25 °C (77 °F).

 

Sand and ground temperatures are even more extreme. During daytime, the sand temperature is extremely high: it can easily reach 80 °C (176 °F) or more. A sand temperature of 83.5 °C (182.3 °F) has been recorded in Port Sudan. Ground temperatures of 72 °C (161.6 °F) have been recorded in the Adrar of Mauritania and a value of 75 °C (167 °F) has been measured in Borkou, northern Chad.

 

Due to lack of cloud cover and very low humidity, the desert usually has high diurnal temperature variations between days and nights. However, it is a myth that the nights are especially cold after extremely hot days in the Sahara.[citation needed] On average, nighttime temperatures tend to be 13–20 °C (23–36 °F) cooler than in the daytime. The smallest variations are found along the coastal regions due to high humidity and are often even lower than a 10 °C (18 °F) difference, while the largest variations are found in inland desert areas where the humidity is the lowest, mainly in the southern Sahara. Still, it is true that winter nights can be cold, as it can drop to the freezing point and even below, especially in high-elevation areas.[clarification needed] The frequency of subfreezing winter nights in the Sahara is strongly influenced by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), with warmer winter temperatures during negative NAO events and cooler winters with more frosts when the NAO is positive. This is because the weaker clockwise flow around the eastern side of the subtropical anticyclone during negative NAO winters, although too dry to produce more than negligible precipitation, does reduce the flow of dry, cold air from higher latitudes of Eurasia into the Sahara significantly.

 

Precipitation

The average annual rainfall ranges from very low in the northern and southern fringes of the desert to nearly non-existent over the central and the eastern part. The thin northern fringe of the desert receives more winter cloudiness and rainfall due to the arrival of low pressure systems over the Mediterranean Sea along the polar front, although very attenuated by the rain shadow effects of the mountains and the annual average rainfall ranges from 100 millimetres (4 in) to 250 millimetres (10 in). For example, Biskra, Algeria, and Ouarzazate, Morocco, are found in this zone. The southern fringe of the desert along the border with the Sahel receives summer cloudiness and rainfall due to the arrival of the Intertropical Convergence Zone from the south and the annual average rainfall ranges from 100 millimetres (4 in) to 250 millimetres (10 in). For example, Timbuktu, Mali and Agadez, Niger are found in this zone.

 

The vast central hyper-arid core of the desert is virtually never affected by northerly or southerly atmospheric disturbances and permanently remains under the influence of the strongest anticyclonic weather regime, and the annual average rainfall can drop to less than 1 millimetre (0.04 in). In fact, most of the Sahara receives less than 20 millimetres (0.8 in). Of the 9,000,000 square kilometres (3,500,000 sq mi) of desert land in the Sahara, an area of about 2,800,000 square kilometres (1,100,000 sq mi) (about 31% of the total area) receives an annual average rainfall amount of 10 millimetres (0.4 in) or less, while some 1,500,000 square kilometres (580,000 sq mi) (about 17% of the total area) receives an average of 5 millimetres (0.2 in) or less.

 

The annual average rainfall is virtually zero over a wide area of some 1,000,000 square kilometres (390,000 sq mi) in the eastern Sahara comprising deserts of: Libya, Egypt and Sudan (Tazirbu, Kufra, Dakhla, Kharga, Farafra, Siwa, Asyut, Sohag, Luxor, Aswan, Abu Simbel, Wadi Halfa) where the long-term mean approximates 0.5 millimetres (0.02 in) per year.[25] Rainfall is very unreliable and erratic in the Sahara as it may vary considerably year by year. In full contrast to the negligible annual rainfall amounts, the annual rates of potential evaporation are extraordinarily high, roughly ranging from 2,500 millimetres (100 in) per year to more than 6,000 millimetres (240 in) per year in the whole desert. Nowhere else on Earth has air been found as dry and evaporative as in the Sahara region. However, at least two instances of snowfall have been recorded in Sahara, in February 1979 and December 2016, both in the town of Ain Sefra.

 

Desertification and prehistoric climate

One theory for the formation of the Sahara is that the monsoon in Northern Africa was weakened because of glaciation during the Quaternary period, starting two or three million years ago. Another theory is that the monsoon was weakened when the ancient Tethys Sea dried up during the Tortonian period around 7 million years ago.

 

The climate of the Sahara has undergone enormous variations between wet and dry over the last few hundred thousand years, believed to be caused by long-term changes in the North African climate cycle that alters the path of the North African Monsoon – usually southward. The cycle is caused by a 41,000-year cycle in which the tilt of the earth changes between 22° and 24.5°. At present, we are in a dry period, but it is expected that the Sahara will become green again in 15,000 years. When the North African monsoon is at its strongest, annual precipitation and subsequent vegetation in the Sahara region increase, resulting in conditions commonly referred to as the "green Sahara". For a relatively weak North African monsoon, the opposite is true, with decreased annual precipitation and less vegetation resulting in a phase of the Sahara climate cycle known as the "desert Sahara".

 

The idea that changes in insolation (solar heating) caused by long-term changes in Earth's orbit are a controlling factor for the long-term variations in the strength of monsoon patterns across the globe was first suggested by Rudolf Spitaler in the late nineteenth century, The hypothesis was later formally proposed and tested by the meteorologist John Kutzbach in 1981. Kutzbach's ideas about the impacts of insolation on global monsoonal patterns have become widely accepted today as the underlying driver of long-term monsoonal cycles. Kutzbach never formally named his hypothesis and as such it is referred to here as the "Orbital Monsoon Hypothesis" as suggested by Ruddiman in 2001.

 

During the last glacial period, the Sahara was much larger than it is today, extending south beyond its current boundaries. The end of the glacial period brought more rain to the Sahara, from about 8000 BCE to 6000 BCE, perhaps because of low pressure areas over the collapsing ice sheets to the north. Once the ice sheets were gone, the northern Sahara dried out. In the southern Sahara, the drying trend was initially counteracted by the monsoon, which brought rain further north than it does today. By around 4200 BCE, however, the monsoon retreated south to approximately where it is today, leading to the gradual desertification of the Sahara. The Sahara is now as dry as it was about 13,000 years ago.

 

Lake Chad is the remnant of a former inland sea, paleolake Mega-Chad, which existed during the African humid period. At its largest extent, sometime before 5000 BCE, Lake Mega-Chad was the largest of four Saharan paleolakes, and is estimated to have covered an area of 350,000 km2.

 

The Sahara pump theory describes this cycle. During periods of a wet or "Green Sahara", the Sahara becomes a savanna grassland and various flora and fauna become more common. Following inter-pluvial arid periods, the Sahara area then reverts to desert conditions and the flora and fauna are forced to retreat northwards to the Atlas Mountains, southwards into West Africa, or eastwards into the Nile Valley. This separates populations of some of the species in areas with different climates, forcing them to adapt, possibly giving rise to allopatric speciation.

 

September 2020, it was reported that the GGW had only covered 4% of the planned area.

It is also proposed that humans accelerated the drying-out period from 6000 to 2500 BCE by pastoralists overgrazing available grassland.

 

Evidence for cycles

The growth of speleothems (which requires rainwater) was detected in Hol-Zakh, Ashalim, Even-Sid, Ma'ale-ha-Meyshar, Ktora Cracks, Nagev Tzavoa Cave, and elsewhere, and has allowed tracking of prehistoric rainfall. The Red Sea coastal route was extremely arid before 140 and after 115 kya (thousands of years ago). Slightly wetter conditions appear at 90–87 kya, but it still was just one tenth the rainfall around 125 kya. In the southern Negev Desert speleothems did not grow between 185 and 140 kya (MIS 6), 110–90 (MIS 5.4–5.2), nor after 85 kya nor during most of the interglacial period (MIS 5.1), the glacial period and Holocene. This suggests that the southern Negev was arid-to-hyper-arid in these periods.

 

During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) the Sahara was more extensive than it is now with the extent of the tropical forests being greatly reduced, and the lower temperatures reduced the strength of the Hadley Cell. This is a climate cell which causes rising tropical air of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) to bring rain to the tropics, while dry descending air, at about 20 degrees north, flows back to the equator and brings desert conditions to this region. It is associated with high rates of wind-blown mineral dust, and these dust levels are found as expected in marine cores from the north tropical Atlantic. But around 12,500 BCE the amount of dust in the cores in the Bølling/Allerød phase suddenly plummets and shows a period of much wetter conditions in the Sahara, indicating a Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) event (a sudden warming followed by a slower cooling of the climate). The moister Saharan conditions had begun about 12,500 BCE, with the extension of the ITCZ northward in the northern hemisphere summer, bringing moist wet conditions and a savanna climate to the Sahara, which (apart from a short dry spell associated with the Younger Dryas) peaked during the Holocene thermal maximum climatic phase at 4000 BCE when mid-latitude temperatures seem to have been between 2 and 3 degrees warmer than in the recent past. Analysis of Nile River deposited sediments in the delta also shows this period had a higher proportion of sediments coming from the Blue Nile, suggesting higher rainfall also in the Ethiopian Highlands. This was caused principally by a stronger monsoonal circulation throughout the sub-tropical regions, affecting India, Arabia and the Sahara.[citation needed] Lake Victoria only recently became the source of the White Nile and dried out almost completely around 15 kya.

 

The sudden subsequent movement of the ITCZ southwards with a Heinrich event (a sudden cooling followed by a slower warming), linked to changes with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation cycle, led to a rapid drying out of the Saharan and Arabian regions, which quickly became desert. This is linked to a marked decline in the scale of the Nile floods between 2700 and 2100 BCE.

 

Ecoregions

The Sahara comprises several distinct ecoregions. With their variations in temperature, rainfall, elevation, and soil, these regions harbor distinct communities of plants and animals.

 

The Atlantic coastal desert is a narrow strip along the Atlantic coast where fog generated offshore by the cool Canary Current provides sufficient moisture to sustain a variety of lichens, succulents, and shrubs. It covers an area of 39,900 square kilometers (15,400 sq mi) in the south of Morocco and Mauritania.

The North Saharan steppe and woodlands is along the northern desert, next to the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub ecoregions of the northern Maghreb and Cyrenaica. Winter rains sustain shrublands and dry woodlands that form a transition between the Mediterranean climate regions to the north and the hyper-arid Sahara proper to the south. It covers 1,675,300 square kilometers (646,840 sq mi) in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia.

The Sahara desert ecoregion covers the hyper-arid central portion of the Sahara where rainfall is minimal and sporadic. Vegetation is rare, and this ecoregion consists mostly of sand dunes (erg, chech, raoui), stone plateaus (hamadas), gravel plains (reg), dry valleys (wadis), and salt flats. It covers 4,639,900 square kilometres (1,791,500 sq mi) of: Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Sudan.

The South Saharan steppe and woodlands ecoregion is a narrow band running east and west between the hyper-arid Sahara and the Sahel savannas to the south. Movements of the equatorial Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) bring summer rains during July and August which average 100 to 200 mm (4 to 8 in) but vary greatly from year to year. These rains sustain summer pastures of grasses and herbs, with dry woodlands and shrublands along seasonal watercourses. This ecoregion covers 1,101,700 square kilometres (425,400 sq mi) in Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Sudan.

In the West Saharan montane xeric woodlands, several volcanic highlands provide a cooler, moister environment that supports Saharo-Mediterranean woodlands and shrublands. The ecoregion covers 258,100 square kilometres (99,650 sq mi), mostly in the Tassili n'Ajjer of Algeria, with smaller enclaves in the Aïr of Niger, the Adrar Plateau of Mauritania, and the Adrar des Iforas of Mali and Algeria.

The Tibesti-Jebel Uweinat montane xeric woodlands ecoregion consists of the Tibesti and Jebel Uweinat highlands. Higher and more regular rainfall and cooler temperatures support woodlands and shrublands of date palm, acacias, myrtle, oleander, tamarix, and several rare and endemic plants. The ecoregion covers 82,200 square kilometres (31,700 sq mi) in the Tibesti of Chad and Libya, and Jebel Uweinat on the border of Egypt, Libya, and Sudan.

The Saharan halophytics is an area of seasonally flooded saline depressions which is home to halophytic (salt-adapted) plant communities. The Saharan halophytics cover 54,000 square kilometres (21,000 sq mi) including: the Qattara and Siwa depressions in northern Egypt, the Tunisian salt lakes of central Tunisia, Chott Melghir in Algeria, and smaller areas of Algeria, Mauritania, and the southern part of Morocco.

The Tanezrouft is one of the Sahara's most arid regions, with no vegetation and very little life. A barren, flat gravel plain, it extends south of Reggane in Algeria towards the Adrar des Ifoghas highlands in northern Mali.

Flora and fauna

The flora of the Sahara is highly diversified based on the bio-geographical characteristics of this vast desert. Floristically, the Sahara has three zones based on the amount of rainfall received – the Northern (Mediterranean), Central and Southern Zones. There are two transitional zones – the Mediterranean-Sahara transition and the Sahel transition zone.

 

The Saharan flora comprises around 2800 species of vascular plants. Approximately a quarter of these are endemic. About half of these species are common to the flora of the Arabian deserts.

 

The central Sahara is estimated to include five hundred species of plants, which is extremely low considering the huge extent of the area. Plants such as acacia trees, palms, succulents, spiny shrubs, and grasses have adapted to the arid conditions, by growing lower to avoid water loss by strong winds, by storing water in their thick stems to use it in dry periods, by having long roots that travel horizontally to reach the maximum area of water and to find any surface moisture, and by having small thick leaves or needles to prevent water loss by evapotranspiration. Plant leaves may dry out totally and then recover.

 

Several species of fox live in the Sahara including: the fennec fox, pale fox and Rüppell's fox. The addax, a large white antelope, can go nearly a year in the desert without drinking. The dorcas gazelle is a north African gazelle that can also go for a long time without water. Other notable gazelles include the rhim gazelle and dama gazelle.

 

The Saharan cheetah (northwest African cheetah) lives in Algeria, Togo, Niger, Mali, Benin, and Burkina Faso. There remain fewer than 250 mature cheetahs, which are very cautious, fleeing any human presence. The cheetah avoids the sun from April to October, seeking the shelter of shrubs such as balanites and acacias. They are unusually pale. The other cheetah subspecies (northeast African cheetah) lives in Chad, Sudan and the eastern region of Niger. However, it is currently extinct in the wild in Egypt and Libya. There are approximately 2000 mature individuals left in the wild.

 

Other animals include the monitor lizards, hyrax, sand vipers, and small populations of African wild dog, in perhaps only 14 countries and red-necked ostrich. Other animals exist in the Sahara (birds in particular) such as African silverbill and black-faced firefinch, among others. There are also small desert crocodiles in Mauritania and the Ennedi Plateau of Chad.

 

The deathstalker scorpion can be 10 cm (3.9 in) long. Its venom contains large amounts of agitoxin and scyllatoxin and is very dangerous; however, a sting from this scorpion rarely kills a healthy adult. The Saharan silver ant is unique in that due to the extreme high temperatures of their habitat, and the threat of predators, the ants are active outside their nest for only about ten minutes per day.

 

Dromedary camels and goats are the domesticated animals most commonly found in the Sahara. Because of its qualities of endurance and speed, the dromedary is the favourite animal used by nomads.

 

Human activities are more likely to affect the habitat in areas of permanent water (oases) or where water comes close to the surface. Here, the local pressure on natural resources can be intense. The remaining populations of large mammals have been greatly reduced by hunting for food and recreation. In recent years development projects have started in the deserts of Algeria and Tunisia using irrigated water pumped from underground aquifers. These schemes often lead to soil degradation and salinization.

 

Researchers from Hacettepe University have reported that Saharan soil may have bio-available iron and also some essential macro and micro nutrient elements suitable for use as fertilizer for growing wheat.

 

History

People lived on the edge of the desert thousands of years ago, since the end of the last glacial period. In the Central Sahara, engraved and painted rock art were created perhaps as early as 10,000 years ago, spanning the Bubaline Period, Kel Essuf Period, Round Head Period, Pastoral Period, Caballine Period, and Cameline Period. The Sahara was then a much wetter place than it is today. Over 30,000 petroglyphs of river animals such as crocodiles survive, with half found in the Tassili n'Ajjer in southeast Algeria. Fossils of dinosaurs, including Afrovenator, Jobaria and Ouranosaurus, have also been found here. The modern Sahara, though, is not lush in vegetation, except in the Nile Valley, at a few oases, and in the northern highlands, where Mediterranean plants such as the olive tree are found to grow. Shifts in Earth's axis increased temperatures and decreased precipitation, which caused an abrupt beginning of North Africa desertification about 5,400 years ago.

 

Kiffians

The Kiffian culture is a prehistoric industry, or domain, that existed between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago in the Sahara, during the Neolithic Subpluvial. Human remains from this culture were found in 2000 at a site known as Gobero, located in Niger in the Ténéré Desert. The site is known as the largest and earliest grave of Stone Age people in the Sahara. The Kiffians were skilled hunters. Bones of many large savannah animals that were discovered in the same area suggest that they lived on the shores of a lake that was present during the Holocene Wet Phase, a period when the Sahara was verdant and wet. The Kiffian people were tall, standing over six feet in height. Craniometric analysis indicates that this early Holocene population was closely related to the Late Pleistocene Iberomaurusians and early Holocene Capsians of the Maghreb, as well as mid-Holocene Mechta groups. Traces of the Kiffian culture do not exist after 8,000 years ago, as the Sahara went through a dry period for the next thousand years. After this time, the Tenerian culture colonized the area.

 

Tenerians

Gobero was discovered in 2000 during an archaeological expedition led by Paul Sereno, which sought dinosaur remains. Two distinct prehistoric cultures were discovered at the site: the early Holocene Kiffian culture, and the middle Holocene Tenerian culture. The post-Kiffian desiccation lasted until around 4600 BCE, when the earliest artefacts associated with the Tenerians have been dated to. Some 200 skeletons have been discovered at Gobero. The Tenerians were considerably shorter in height and less robust than the earlier Kiffians. Craniometric analysis also indicates that they were osteologically distinct. The Kiffian skulls are akin to those of the Late Pleistocene Iberomaurusians, early Holocene Capsians, and mid-Holocene Mechta groups, whereas the Tenerian crania are more like those of Mediterranean groups. Graves show that the Tenerians observed spiritual traditions, as they were buried with artifacts such as jewelry made of hippo tusks and clay pots. The most interesting find is a triple burial, dated to 5300 years ago, of an adult female and two children, estimated through their teeth as being five and eight years old, hugging each other. Pollen residue indicates they were buried on a bed of flowers. The three are assumed to have died within 24 hours of each other, but as their skeletons hold no apparent trauma (they did not die violently) and they have been buried so elaborately – unlikely if they had died of a plague – the cause of their deaths is a mystery.

 

Tashwinat Mummy

Uan Muhuggiag appears to have been inhabited from at least the 6th millennium BCE to about 2700 BCE, although not necessarily continuously. The most noteworthy find at Uan Muhuggiag is the well-preserved mummy of a young boy of approximately 2+1⁄2 years old. The child was in a fetal position, then embalmed, then placed in a sack made of antelope skin, which was insulated by a layer of leaves. The boy's organs were removed, as evidenced by incisions in his stomach and thorax, and an organic preservative was inserted to stop his body from decomposing. An ostrich eggshell necklace was also found around his neck. Radiocarbon dating determined the age of the mummy to be approximately 5600 years old, which makes it about 1000 years older than the earliest previously recorded mummy in ancient Egypt. In 1958–59, an archaeological expedition led by Antonio Ascenzi conducted anthropological, radiological, histological and chemical analyses on the Uan Muhuggiag mummy. The team claimed that the mummy was a 30-month-old child of uncertain sex. They also found a long incision on the specimen's abdominal wall, which indicated that the body had been initially mummified by evisceration and later underwent natural desiccation. The team also stated that the mummy possessed "Negroid features." However, modern genetics has since proven that the final claim is unscientific and not supported by evidence. A more recent publication referenced a laboratory examination of the cutaneous features of the child mummy in which the results verified that the child possessed a dark skin complexion. One other individual, an adult, was found at Uan Muhuggiag, buried in a crouched position. However, the body showed no evidence of evisceration or any other method of preservation. The body was estimated to date from about 7500 BP.

 

Nubians

During the Neolithic Era, before the onset of desertification around 9500 BCE, the central Sudan had been a rich environment supporting a large population ranging across what is now barren desert, like the Wadi el-Qa'ab. By the 5th millennium BCE, the people who inhabited what is now called Nubia were full participants in the "agricultural revolution", living a settled lifestyle with domesticated plants and animals. Saharan rock art of cattle and herdsmen suggests the presence of a cattle cult like those found in Sudan and other pastoral societies in Africa today. Megaliths found at Nabta Playa are overt examples of probably the world's first known archaeoastronomy devices, predating Stonehenge by some 2,000 years. This complexity, as observed at Nabta Playa, and as expressed by different levels of authority within the society there, likely formed the basis for the structure of both the Neolithic society at Nabta and the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Archaeological evidence has attested that population settlements occurred in Nubia as early as the Late Pleistocene era and from the 5th millennium BC onwards, whereas there is "no or scanty evidence" of human presence in the Egyptian Nile Valley during these periods, which may be due to problems in site preservation.

 

Egyptians

By 6000 BCE predynastic Egyptians in the southwestern corner of Egypt were herding cattle and constructing large buildings. Subsistence in organized and permanent settlements in predynastic Egypt by the middle of the 6th millennium BCE centered predominantly on cereal and animal agriculture: cattle, goats, pigs and sheep. Metal objects replaced prior ones of stone. Tanning of animal skins, pottery and weaving were commonplace in this era also. There are indications of seasonal or only temporary occupation of the Al Fayyum in the 6th millennium BCE, with food activities centering on fishing, hunting and food-gathering. Stone arrowheads, knives and scrapers from the era are commonly found. Burial items included pottery, jewelry, farming and hunting equipment, and assorted foods including dried meat and fruit. Burial in desert environments appears to enhance Egyptian preservation rites, and the dead were buried facing due west. Several scholars have argued that the African origins of the Egyptian civilisation derived from pastoral communities which emerged in both the Egyptian and Sudanese regions of the Nile Valley in the fifth millennium BCE.

 

By 3400 BCE, the Sahara was as dry as it is today, due to reduced precipitation and higher temperatures resulting from a shift in Earth's orbit. As a result of this aridification, it became a largely impenetrable barrier to humans, with the remaining settlements mainly being concentrated around the numerous oases that dot the landscape. Little trade or commerce is known to have passed through the interior in subsequent periods, the only major exception being the Nile Valley. The Nile, however, was impassable at several cataracts, making trade and contact by boat difficult.

 

Tichitt culture

In 4000 BCE, the start of sophisticated social structure (e.g., trade of cattle as valued assets) developed among herders amid the Pastoral Period of the Sahara. Saharan pastoral culture (e.g., fields of tumuli, lustrous stone rings, axes) was intricate. By 1800 BCE, Saharan pastoral culture expanded throughout the Saharan and Sahelian regions. The initial stages of sophisticated social structure among Saharan herders served as the segue for the development of sophisticated hierarchies found in African settlements, such as Dhar Tichitt. After migrating from the Central Sahara, proto-Mande peoples established their civilization in the Tichitt region of the Western Sahara[88] The Tichitt Tradition of eastern Mauritania dates from 2200 BCE[89][90] to 200 BCE. Tichitt culture, at Dhar Néma, Dhar Tagant, Dhar Tichitt, and Dhar Walata, included a four-tiered hierarchal social structure, farming of cereals, metallurgy, numerous funerary tombs, and a rock art tradition At Dhar Tichitt and Dhar Walata, pearl millet may have also been independently tamed amid the Neolithic. Dhar Tichitt, which includes Dakhlet el Atrouss, may have served as the primary regional center for the multi-tiered hierarchical social structure of the Tichitt Tradition, and the Malian Lakes Region, which includes Tondidarou, may have served as a second regional center of the Tichitt Tradition. The urban Tichitt Tradition may have been the earliest large-scale, complexly organized society in West Africa, and an early civilization of the Sahara, which may have served as the segue for state formation in West Africa.

 

As areas where the Tichitt cultural tradition were present, Dhar Tichitt and Dhar Walata were occupied more frequently than Dhar Néma. Farming of crops (e.g., millet) may have been a feature of the Tichitt cultural tradition as early as 3rd millennium BCE in Dhar Tichitt.

 

As part of a broader trend of iron metallurgy developed in the West African Sahel amid 1st millennium BCE, iron items (350 BCE – 100 CE) were found at Dhar Tagant, iron metalworking and/or items (800 BCE – 400 BCE) were found at Dia Shoma and Walaldé, and the iron remnants (760 BCE – 400 BCE) found at Bou Khzama and Djiganyai. The iron materials that were found are evidence of iron metalworking at Dhar Tagant. In the late period of the Tichitt Tradition at Dhar Néma, tamed pearl millet was used to temper the tuyeres of a oval-shaped low shaft furnace; this furnace was one out of 16 iron furnaces located on elevated ground. Iron metallurgy may have developed before the second half of 1st millennium BCE, as indicated by pottery dated between 800 BCE and 200 BCE. At Dhar Walata and Dhar Tichitt, copper was also used.

 

After its decline in Mauritania, the Tichitt Tradition spread to the Middle Niger region (e.g., Méma, Macina, Dia Shoma, Jenne Jeno) of Mali where it developed into and persisted as Faïta Facies ceramics between 1300 BCE and 400 BCE among rammed earth architecture and iron metallurgy (which had developed after 900 BCE). Thereafter, the Ghana Empire developed in the 1st millennium CE.

 

Phoenicians

The people of Phoenicia, who flourished from 1200 to 800 BCE, created a chain of settlements along the coast of North Africa and traded extensively with its inhabitants. This put them in contact with the people of ancient Libya, who were the ancestors of people who speak Berber languages in North Africa and the Sahara today.

 

The Libyco-Berber alphabet of the ancient Libyans of north Africa seems to have been based on Phoenician, and its descendant Tifinagh is still used today by the (Berber) Tuareg of the central Sahara.

 

The Periplus of the Phoenician navigator Hanno, who lived sometime in the 5th century BC, claims that he founded settlements along the Atlantic coast of Africa, possibly including the Western Sahara. The identification of the places discussed is controversial, and archeological confirmation is lacking.

 

Greeks

By 500 BCE, Greeks arrived in the desert. Greek traders spread along the eastern coast of the desert, establishing trading colonies along the Red Sea. The Carthaginians explored the Atlantic coast of the desert, but the turbulence of the waters and the lack of markets caused a lack of presence further south than modern Morocco. Centralized states thus surrounded the desert on the north and east; it remained outside the control of these states. Raids from the nomadic Berber people of the desert were of constant concern to those living on the edge of the desert.

 

Garamantes

An urban civilization, the Garamantes, arose around 500 BCE in the heart of the Sahara, in a valley that is now called the Wadi al-Ajal in Fezzan, Libya. The Garamantes built a prosperous empire in the heart of the desert. The Garamantes achieved this development by digging tunnels far into the mountains flanking the valley to tap fossil water and bring it to their fields. The Garamantes grew populous and strong, conquering their neighbors, and capturing and enslaving many individuals who were forced to work by extending the tunnels. The ancient Greeks and the Romans knew of the Garamantes and regarded them as uncivilized nomads. However, they traded with them, and a Roman bath has been found in the Garamantes' capital of Garama. Archaeologists have found eight major towns and many other important settlements in the Garamantes' territory. The Garamantes' civilization eventually collapsed after they had depleted available water in the aquifers and could no longer sustain the effort to extend the tunnels further into the mountains.

 

Between the first century BCE and the fourth century CE, several Roman expeditions into the Sahara were conducted by groups of military and commercial units of Romans.

 

Islamic and Arabic expansion

Main articles: Trans-Saharan trade and Islamization of Sudan

The Byzantine Empire ruled the northern shores of the Sahara from the 5th to the 7th centuries. After the Muslim conquest of Arabia, specifically the Arabian peninsula, the Muslim conquest of North Africa began in the mid-7th to early 8th centuries and Islamic influence expanded rapidly on the Sahara. By the end of 641 all of Egypt was in Muslim hands. Trade across the desert intensified, and a significant slave trade crossed the desert. It has been estimated that from the 10th to 19th centuries some 6,000 to 7,000 slaves were transported north each year.

 

The Beni Ḥassān and other nomadic Arab tribes dominated the Sanhaja Berber tribes of the western Sahara after the Char Bouba war of the 17th century. As a result, Arabian culture and language came to dominate, and the Berber tribes underwent some Arabization.

 

Ottoman Turkish era

In the 16th century the northern fringe of the Sahara, such as coastal regencies in present-day Algeria and Tunisia, as well as some parts of present-day Libya, together with the semi-autonomous kingdom of Egypt, were occupied by the Ottoman Empire. From 1517 Egypt was a valued part of the Ottoman Empire, ownership of which provided the Ottomans with control over the Nile Valley, the east Mediterranean and North Africa. The benefit of the Ottoman Empire was the freedom of movement for citizens and goods. Traders exploited the Ottoman land routes to handle the spices, gold and silk from the East, manufactured goods from Europe, and the slave and gold traffic from Africa. Arabic continued as the local language and Islamic culture was much reinforced. The Sahel and southern Sahara regions were home to several independent states or to roaming Tuareg clans.

 

European colonialism

European colonialism in the Sahara began in the 19th century. France conquered the regency of Algiers from the Ottomans in 1830, and French rule spread south from French Algeria and eastwards from Senegal into the upper Niger to include present-day Algeria, Chad, Mali then French Sudan including Timbuktu (1893), Mauritania, Morocco (1912), Niger, and Tunisia (1881). By the beginning of the 20th century, the trans-Saharan trade had clearly declined because goods were moved through more modern and efficient means, such as airplanes, rather than across the desert.

 

The French took advantage of long-standing animosity between the Chaamba Arabs and the Tuareg. The newly raised Méhariste camel corps were originally recruited mainly from the Chaamba nomadic tribe. In 1902, the French penetrated the Hoggar mountains and defeated Ahaggar Tuareg in the battle of Tit.

 

The French Colonial Empire was the dominant presence in the Sahara. It established regular air links from Toulouse (HQ of famed Aéropostale), to Oran and over the Hoggar to Timbuktu and West to Bamako and Dakar, as well as trans-Sahara bus services run by La Compagnie Transsaharienne (est. 1927). A remarkable film shot by famous aviator Captain René Wauthier in 1933 documents the first crossing by a large truck convoy from Algiers to Tchad, across the Sahara.

 

Egypt, under Muhammad Ali and his successors, conquered Nubia in 1820–22, founded Khartoum in 1823, and conquered Darfur in 1874. Egypt, including Sudan, became a British protectorate in 1882. Egypt and Britain lost control of the Sudan from 1882 to 1898 as a result of the Mahdist War. After its capture by British troops in 1898, the Sudan became an Anglo-Egyptian condominium.

 

Spain captured present-day Western Sahara after 1874, although Rio del Oro remained largely under Sahrawi influence. In 1912, Italy captured parts of what was to be named Libya from the Ottomans. To promote the Roman Catholic religion in the desert, Pope Pius IX appointed a delegate Apostolic of the Sahara and the Sudan in 1868; later in the 19th century his jurisdiction was reorganized into the Vicariate Apostolic of Sahara.

 

Egypt became independent of Britain in 1936, although the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936 allowed Britain to keep troops in Egypt and to maintain the British-Egyptian condominium in the Sudan. British military forces were withdrawn in 1954.

 

Most of the Saharan states achieved independence after World War II: Libya in 1951; Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia in 1956; Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger in 1960; and Algeria in 1962. Spain withdrew from Western Sahara in 1975, and it was partitioned between Mauritania and Morocco. Mauritania withdrew in 1979; Morocco continues to hold the territory (see Western Sahara conflict).

 

Tuareg people in Mali rebelled several times during the 20th century before finally forcing the Malian armed forces to withdraw below the line demarcating Azawad from southern Mali during the 2012 rebellion. Islamist rebels in the Sahara calling themselves al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have stepped up their violence in recent years.

 

In the post–World War II era, several mines and communities have developed to use the desert's natural resources. These include large deposits of oil and natural gas in Algeria and Libya, and large deposits of phosphates in Morocco and Western Sahara. Libya's Great Man-Made River is the world's largest irrigation project. The project uses a pipeline system that pumps fossil water from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System to cities in the populous Libyan northern Mediterranean coast including Tripoli and Benghazi.

 

A number of Trans-African highways have been proposed across the Sahara, including the Cairo–Dakar Highway along the Atlantic coast, the Trans-Sahara Highway from Algiers on the Mediterranean to Kano in Nigeria, the Tripoli – Cape Town Highway from Tripoli in Libya to N'Djamena in Chad, and the Cairo – Cape Town Highway which follows the Nile. Each of these highways is partially complete, with significant gaps and unpaved sections.

 

People, culture, and languages

A 19th-century engraving of an Arab slave-trading caravan transporting black African slaves across the Sahara

The people of the Sahara are of various origins. Among them the Amazigh including the Tuareg, various Arabized Amaziɣ groups such as the Hassaniya-speaking Sahrawis, whose populations include the Znaga, a tribe whose name is a remnant of the pre-historic Zenaga language. Other major groups of people include the: Toubou, Nubians, Zaghawa, Kanuri, Hausa, Songhai, Beja, and Fula/Fulani (French: Peul; Fula: Fulɓe). The archaeological evidence from the Holocene period has shown that Nilo-Saharan speaking groups had populated the central and southern Sahara before the influx of Berber and Arabic speakers, around 1500 years ago, who now largely populate the Sahara in the modern era.

 

Arabic dialects are the most widely spoken languages in the Sahara. Arabic, Berber and its variants now regrouped under the term Amazigh (which includes the Guanche language spoken by the original Berber inhabitants of the Canary Islands) and Beja languages are part of the Afro-Asiatic or Hamito-Semitic family.[citation needed] Unlike neighboring West Africa and the central governments of the states that comprise the Sahara, the French language bears little relevance to inter-personal discourse and commerce within the region, its people retaining staunch ethnic and political affiliations with Tuareg and Berber leaders and culture. The legacy of the French colonial era administration is primarily manifested in the territorial reorganization enacted by the Third and Fourth republics, which engendered artificial political divisions within a hitherto isolated and porous region.[113] Diplomacy with local clients was conducted primarily in Arabic, which was the traditional language of bureaucratic affairs. Mediation of disputes and inter-agency communication was served by interpreters contracted by the French government, who, according to Keenan, "documented a space of intercultural mediation," contributing much to preserving the indigenous cultural identities in the region.

I let the dog (the one in the preceding photo) out this morning, and this remnant of fall was sitting on the snow outside...appropriate, I guess, for the closing day of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

 

These Olympics started off on a low note ~ the untimely and tragic death of the young Georgian bobsledder, the malfunction of the Olympic cauldron, the balmy non-winter temperatures ~ and drew the criticism of many. However, over the course of the past two weeks, they came into their own ~ not only did Canada start winning medals in record numbers, but the entire country seemed to get swept up in rare showings of overt patriotism ~ not exactly characteristic of my countrymen. But I'm really only paraphrasing what Stephen Brunt so eloquently expresses in this stirring video essay...(worth a look no matter where you're from).

 

I'm well aware there are many other serious and immediate issues facing the world today, and that the value/importance of the Olympics can be the target of much criticism and debate. But to my mind (and yes, this will sound corny), an event that brings the countries and people of the world together in a positive way, that gives us all a chance to wave our flags and celebrate the diversity of our world at the same time, can't be all bad.

 

Thank you Vancouver, for playing gracious host, and congratulations to all the athletes who gave it their best! (And good luck to both Canada and the U.S. in today's hockey game!) :)

Ever since I came back to SL, I’ve wanted to find a Mary Marvel costume, based on her original innocent incarnation, not the overt sexualized heroines all over the media and SL. I couldn’t find a costume or 1940s/50s A-Line dress I could use “as-is”. I saw some VERY nice dresses with lovely mesh details. But they had buttons, bows, polka-dots and stuff I couldn’t hide.

 

So I searched the Market Place and found a VERY nice full-perm and VERY basic A-Line dress mesh. The mesh is incredibly simple. I wish it had more structural-detail to play with. I tried to make up for it with hack and slash painting texture work. 22 attempts is the charm I guess, and a silk material I found on MP. hahaha…

 

Since I’m building again, this project was actually practice-work to get me ready to create brand new BoM stuff again.

 

Shot at Alexandria:

 

maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sun%20Isle/144/177/36

Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).

 

Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions

 

"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".

 

The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.

 

The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.

 

Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.

 

Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:

 

Wet with cool dew drops

fragrant with perfume from the flowers

came the gentle breeze

jasmine and water lily

dance in the spring sunshine

side-long glances

of the golden-hued ladies

stab into my thoughts

heaven itself cannot take my mind

as it has been captivated by one lass

among the five hundred I have seen here.

 

Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.

 

Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.

 

There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.

 

Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.

 

The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.

 

In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:

 

During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".

 

Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.

 

While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’

 

Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.

 

An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.

 

Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983

 

Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture

Main article: Commercial graffiti

With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.

 

In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".

 

Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.

 

Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.

 

Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.

 

Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.

 

There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.

 

The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.

 

Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.

 

Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis

 

Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.

 

Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.

 

Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"

 

Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal

 

In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.

 

Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.

 

Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.

 

Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.

 

With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.

 

Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.

 

Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.

 

Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.

 

Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.

 

Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.

 

Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.

 

Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.

 

The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.

 

I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.

 

The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.

 

Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.

 

Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.

 

In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".

 

There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.

 

Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.

 

A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.

By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.

 

Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.

 

In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.

 

A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.

 

From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

 

In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.

 

Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.

 

Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.

 

Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.

  

In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.

 

Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.

 

In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.

 

In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."

 

In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.

 

In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.

 

In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.

 

In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.

 

In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.

 

The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.

 

To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."

 

In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.

 

In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.

 

Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".

 

Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)

In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.

 

Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.

 

Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.

 

In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.

 

Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.

 

Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.

 

To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.

 

When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.

I'm not overt about it, but I do try to make my presence known

 

and wearing a hat and a bright yellow dress will do just that :)

Let me say, first, that i know nothing of these two fellows, and do not know what their relationship was. They seem quite friendly. Isn't that enough?

 

But allow me, if you will, to use this occasion for a bit of personal reminiscence. As a boy, and as a young man, I got hit on a lot, or at least a fair amount, by other men. I'd like to think that was because I was at least a little bit good-looking, but I'll let other people be the judge. Oftentimes, those encounters were less than pleasant. It was often dark, late at night, in a park, or at the bus station, or i was hitch-hiking. Alone. Perhaps vulnerable (perhaps more exposed than I knew, or care to think about now). I was determined to reject such advances (which sometimes were crudely expressed), but I didn't understand why they were directed at me. I don't think my response was ever inappropriate or overtly homophobic, but i won't say the encounters weren't very troubling. Why were other men attracted to me, I wondered? Why, when what i wanted was (well, there's a word for it), why weren't girls, of all shapes and sizes, throwing themselves at my feet, and making themselves completely available. I had a girlfriend, a very pretty, bright, industrious young thing, but she was, ahem, incompletely available.

 

But anyway, I would say that my repressed homophobia persisted well into adulthood. It only began to wane when I learned that one of my very good friends was rather flagrantly, and vocally, bisexual, and i met other people, men mostly, who were gay, out, and rather likeable fellows. In a word, like everybody else.

 

So now, at this point in my life, i feel like i've arrived at a place much closer to where God intended me to be. Tolerant. Accepting. Nay, Celebrating. Love is love, folks, as somebody said on here the other day. If your hearts are not completely open, open them a little wider. We all can do that.

 

I am so glad that I bought this photograph. I've had it for a long time. I guess I was just waiting for the right time to post it. The one guy looks like that actor on Spin and Marty, if you remember that long ago Disney serial from the Mickey Mouse Club.

 

cheers. johnny

The Postcard

 

A postally unused carte postale published by F. Chapeau of Nantes.

 

Although the card was not posted, someone has written a date on the back:

 

"5. 12. 32".

 

Le Château des Ducs de Bretagne

 

Le Château des Ducs de Bretagne is a large castle located in the city of Nantes in the Loire-Atlantique département of France.

 

It is located on the right bank of the Loire, which formerly fed its ditches. It was the residence of the Dukes of Brittany between the 13th. and 16th. centuries, subsequently becoming the Breton residence of the French Monarchy.

 

The castle has been listed as a Monument Historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1862.

 

Restoration of the Château

 

Starting in the 1990's, the town of Nantes undertook a massive programme of restoration and repairs to return the site to its former glory as an emblem of the history of Nantes and Brittany.

 

Following 15 years of works and three years of closure to the public, it was reopened on the 9th. February 2007, and is now a popular tourist attraction. Night-time illuminations at the castle further reinforce the revival of the château.

 

The restored edifice now includes the new Nantes History Museum, installed in 32 of the castle rooms. The museum presents more than 850 objects of interest with the aid of multimedia devices.

 

The château and its museum try to offer a modern vision of the heritage by presenting the past, the present and the future of the city.

 

The 500-metre round walk on the fortified ramparts provides views not just of the castle buildings and courtyards but also of the town.

 

The Sale of Liquor

 

So what else happened on Monday the 5th. December 1932?

 

Well, on that day, a joint resolution was introduced to the U.S. Congress repealing the Eighteenth Amendment, and turning the regulation of liquor over to the individual states.

 

British War Debts

 

Also on that day, the British government suggested issuing bonds to cover its war debts to the United States.

 

'Jane'

 

Also on that day, the comic strip 'Jane' by Norman Pett first appeared in the British tabloid newspaper the Daily Mirror.

 

Little Richard

 

The 5th. December 1932 also marked the birth, in Macon, Georgia, of Little Richard.

 

Richard Wayne Penniman, known professionally as Little Richard, was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades.

 

Described as the "Architect of Rock and Roll", Richard's most celebrated work dates from the mid-1950's, when his charismatic showmanship and dynamic music, characterized by frenetic piano playing, pounding back beat and raspy shouted vocals, laid the foundation for rock and roll.

 

Richard's innovative emotive vocalizations and uptempo rhythmic music also played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk.

 

He influenced numerous singers and musicians across musical genres from rock to hip hop, and his music helped shape rhythm and blues for generations.

 

"Tutti Frutti" (1955), one of Richard's signature songs, became an instant hit, crossing over to the pop charts in both the United States and the United Kingdom. His next hit single, "Long Tall Sally" (1956), hit No. 1 on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues Best-Sellers chart, followed by a rapid succession of fifteen more hits in less than three years.

 

Richard's performances during this period resulted in integration between the white Americans and black Americans in his audience.

 

In 1962, after a five-year period during which Richard abandoned rock and roll music for born again Christianity, concert promoter Don Arden persuaded him to tour Europe.

 

During this time, the Beatles opened for Richard on some tour dates. Richard advised the Beatles on how to perform his songs, and taught Paul McCartney his distinctive vocalizations.

 

Richard is cited as one of the first crossover black artists, reaching audiences of all races. His music and concerts broke the color line, drawing black and white people together despite attempts to sustain segregation.

 

Many of his contemporaries, including Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran, recorded covers of his works.

 

Impressed by Richard's music and style, and personally covering four of Richard's songs on his own two breakthrough albums in 1956, Presley told Richard in 1969 that his music was an inspiration to him, and that he was "the greatest".

 

Richard was honored by many institutions. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of its first group of inductees in 1986. He was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

 

Richard was the recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from The Recording Academy and the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.

 

In 2015, Richard received a Rhapsody & Rhythm Award from the National Museum of African American Music for his key role in the formation of popular music genres, and for helping to bring an end to the racial divide on the music charts and in concerts in the mid-1950's.

 

"Tutti Frutti" was included in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2010, which stated that:

 

"Richard's unique vocalizing over the

irresistible beat announced a new era

in music".

 

Little Richard - The Early Years

 

Richard Wayne Penniman was the third of twelve children of Leva Mae (née Stewart) and Charles "Bud" Penniman. His father was a church deacon and a brick mason, who sold bootlegged moonshine on the side, and who also owned a nightclub called the Tip In Inn. Richard's mother was a member of Macon's New Hope Baptist Church.

 

Initially, his first name was supposed to have been "Ricardo", but an error resulted in "Richard" instead. In childhood, he was nicknamed "Lil' Richard" by his family because of his small and skinny frame.

 

The Penniman children were raised in a neighborhood of Macon called Pleasant Hill. A mischievous child who played pranks on neighbors, he began singing in church and taking piano lessons at a young age.

 

Possibly as a result of complications at birth, Richard had a slight deformity that left one of his legs shorter than the other. This produced an unusual gait, and he was mocked for his allegedly effeminate appearance.

 

Richard's family were very religious, and joined various A.M.E., Baptist, and Pentecostal churches, with some family members becoming ministers. He enjoyed the Pentecostal churches the most, because of their charismatic worship and live music.

 

Richard later recalled that people in his neighborhood sang gospel songs throughout the day during segregation to keep a positive outlook, because:

 

"There was so much poverty, so

much prejudice in those days".

 

He had observed that:

 

"People sing to feel their connection

with God, and to wash their trials and

burdens away."

 

Gifted with a loud singing voice, he recalled that:

 

"I was always changing the key upwards,

and I was once stopped from singing in

church for screaming and hollering so loud.

My singing gave me the nickname "War Hawk".

 

Richard recalled that:

 

"As a child, I would beat on the steps

of the house, and on tin cans and pots

and pans, or whatever, while I was

singing, and this used to annoy the

neighbors."

 

Richard's initial musical influences were gospel performers such as Brother Joe May, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson, and Marion Williams.

 

Joe May, a singing evangelist who was known as "The Thunderbolt of the Middle West" because of his phenomenal range and vocal power, inspired Richard to become a preacher. He credited the Clara Ward Singers for one of his distinctive hollers.

 

Richard attended Macon's Hudson High School, where he was a below-average student. He eventually learned to play alto saxophone, joining the school's marching band while in fifth grade.

 

While still in high school, Richard got a part-time job at Macon City Auditorium for local secular and gospel concert promoter Clint Brantley. He sold Coca-Cola to crowds during concerts of star performers of the day such as Cab Calloway, Lucky Millinder, and his favorite singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

 

Little Richard's Music Career

 

(a) 1947–1955: Beginnings

 

In October 1947, Sister Rosetta Tharpe overheard the fourteen-year-old Richard singing her songs before a performance at the Macon City Auditorium, and she invited him to open her show.

 

After the show, Tharpe paid Richard, inspiring him to become a professional performer. Richard stated that his piano style was greatly influenced by Ike Turner's piano intro on "Rocket 88".

 

In 1949, Richard began performing in Doctor Nubillo's traveling show. He was inspired to wear turbans and capes in his career by Nubillo, who also:

 

"Carried a black stick and exhibited

something he called 'the devil's child'—

supposedly the dried-up body of a

baby, with claw feet like a bird, and

horns on its head."

 

Nubillo told Richard:

 

"You're gonna be famous, but you'll

have to go where the grass is greener".

 

Before entering the tenth grade, Richard left his family home and joined Hudson's Medicine Show in 1949, performing Louis Jordan's "Caldonia". Richard recalled that the song was the first secular R&B song he learned, since his family had strict rules against playing R&B music, which they considered "devil music".

 

Little Richard was influenced by Jordan. In fact, the whoop sound on Jordan's record "Caldonia" sounds eerily like the vocal tone Little Richard adopted, in addition to the "Jordan-style pencil-thin mustache".

 

Richard also performed in drag during this time, performing under the name "Princess LaVonne".

 

In 1950, Richard joined his first musical band, Buster Brown's Orchestra, where Brown gave him the name Little Richard. Performing in the minstrel show circuit, Richard, in and out of drag, performed for various vaudeville acts such as Sugarfoot Sam from Alabam, the Tidy Jolly Steppers, the King Brothers Circus, and Broadway Follies.

 

Having settled in Atlanta at this point, Richard began listening to rhythm and blues, and frequented Atlanta clubs, including the Harlem Theater and the Royal Peacock, where he saw performers such as Roy Brown and Billy Wright onstage.

 

Richard was further influenced by Brown's and Wright's flashy style of showmanship, and was even more influenced by Wright's flamboyant persona. Inspired by Brown and Wright, he decided to become a rhythm-and-blues singer, and after befriending Wright, began to learn how to be an entertainer from him.

 

Richard began to sport a pompadour hairdo similar to Wright's, as well as a pencil mustache, using Wright's brand of facial pancake makeup and wearing flashier clothes.

 

Impressed by his singing voice, Wright put him in contact with Zenas Sears, a local D. J. Sears recorded Richard at his station, backed by Wright's band. The recordings led to a contract that year with RCA Victor. Richard recorded a total of eight sides for RCA Victor, including the blues ballad, "Every Hour", which became his first single, and a hit in Georgia.

 

The release of "Every Hour" improved his relationship with his father, who began regularly playing the song on his nightclub jukebox. Shortly after the release of "Every Hour", Richard was hired to front Perry Welch and His Orchestra, and played at clubs and army bases for $100 a week.

 

Richard left RCA Victor in February 1952 after his records for the label failed to chart; the recordings were marketed with little promotion from RCA Victor, although ads for the records showed up in Billboard Magazine.

 

After his father´s death in 1952, Richard began to find success, RCA Victor re-issued the recordings on the budget RCA Camden label. He continued to perform during this time, and Clint Brantley agreed to manage Richard's career.

 

Moving to Houston, he formed a band called the Tempo Toppers, performing as part of blues package tours in Southern clubs such as Club Tijuana in New Orleans, and Club Matinee in Houston.

 

Richard signed with Don Robey's Peacock Records in February 1953, recording eight sides, including four with Johnny Otis and his band that were unreleased at the time. Like Richard's venture with RCA Victor, none of his Peacock singles charted, despite Richard getting knocked out by Robey during a scuffle.

 

Disillusioned by the record business, Richard returned to Macon in 1954. Struggling with poverty, he settled for work as a dishwasher for Greyhound Lines.

 

While in Macon, he met Esquerita, whose flamboyant onstage persona and dynamic piano playing deeply influenced Richard's approach to performance. That year, he disbanded the Tempo Toppers, and formed a harder-driving rhythm and blues band, the Upsetters, which included drummer Charles Connor and saxophonist Wilbert "Lee Diamond" Smith.

 

In 1954, Richard signed on to a Southern tour with Little Johnny Taylor. The band supported R&B singer Christine Kittrell on some recordings, then began to tour successfully, even without a bass guitarist, forcing drummer Connor to thump "real hard" on his bass drum in order to get a "bass fiddle effect". Around this time, Richard signed a contract to tour with fellow R&B singer Little Johnny Taylor.

 

At the suggestion of Lloyd Price, Richard sent a demo to Price's label, Specialty Records, in February 1955. Months passed before Richard got a call from the label. Finally, in September of that year, Specialty owner Art Rupe loaned Richard money to buy out of his Peacock contract, and set him to work with producer Robert "Bumps" Blackwell.

 

Upon hearing the demo, Blackwell felt that Richard was Specialty's answer to Ray Charles. However, Richard told him that he preferred the sound of Fats Domino. Blackwell sent him to New Orleans, where he recorded at Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studios, recording there with several of Domino's session musicians, including drummer Earl Palmer and saxophonist Lee Allen.

 

Richard's recordings that day failed to produce much inspiration or interest (although Blackwell saw some promise). Frustrated, Blackwell and Richard went to relax at the Dew Drop Inn nightclub. According to Blackwell, Richard then launched into a risqué dirty blues he titled "Tutti Frutti".

 

Blackwell felt that the song had hit potential, and hired songwriter Dorothy LaBostrie to replace some of Richard's sexual lyrics with less controversial ones. He also changed the microphone placement, and pushed Richard's voice forward.

 

Recorded in three takes in September 1955, "Tutti Frutti" was released as a single that November, and became an instant hit, reaching No. 2 on Billboard magazine's Rhythm and Blues Best-Sellers chart and crossing over to the pop charts in both the United States and the United Kingdom. It reached No. 21 on the Billboard Top 100 in America, and No. 29 on the British singles chart, eventually selling a million copies.

 

(b) 1956–1962: Initial Success and Conversion

 

Richard's next hit single, "Long Tall Sally" (1956), hit number one on the R&B chart and number thirteen on the Top 100 while reaching the top ten in Great Britain. Like "Tutti Frutti", it sold over a million copies.

 

Following his success, Richard built up his backup band, The Upsetters, with the addition of saxophonists Clifford "Gene" Burks and leader Grady Gaines, bassist Olsie "Baysee" Robinson and guitarist Nathaniel "Buster" Douglas.

 

Richard began performing on package tours across the United States. Art Rupe described the differences between Richard and a similar hitmaker of the early rock and roll period by stating that:

 

"While the similarities between Little Richard

and Fats Domino for recording purposes were

close, Richard would sometimes stand up at

the piano while he was recording and onstage,

whereas Domino was plodding, and very slow,

Richard was very dynamic, completely uninhibited,

unpredictable, and wild. So the band took on

the ambience of the vocalist."

 

Richard's performances, like most early rock and roll shows, resulted in integrated audience reaction during an era where public places were divided into "white" and "colored" domains. In these package tours, Richard and other artists such as Fats Domino and Chuck Berry would enable audiences of both races to enter the building, albeit still segregated (e.g. blacks on the balcony and whites on the main floor).

 

As his later Producer H. B. Barnum, explained, Richard's performances enabled audiences to come together to dance. Despite broadcasts on television from local supremacist groups such as the North Alabama White Citizens Council warning that rock and roll "brings the races together", Richard's popularity was helping to shatter the myth that black performers could not successfully perform at "white-only venues", especially in the South where racism was most overt.

 

Richard's high-energy antics included lifting his leg while playing the piano, climbing on top of his piano, running on and off the stage and throwing souvenirs to the audience. He also began using capes and suits studded with multi-colored stones and sequins. Richard said he began to be more flamboyant onstage so that no one would think he was "after the white girls".

 

Little Richard recalled:

 

"A lot of songs I sang to crowds first

to watch their reaction. That's how I

knew they'd hit."

 

Richard claims that a show at Baltimore's Royal Theatre in June 1956 led to some women throwing their panties onstage at him, resulting in other female fans repeating the action, saying that it was "the first time" that had happened to any artist.

 

Richard's show stopped several times that night due to fans being restrained from jumping off the balcony and then rushing to the stage to touch him.

 

Overall, Richard produced seven singles in the United States alone in 1956, with five of them also charting in the UK, including "Slippin' and Slidin'", "Rip It Up", "Ready Teddy", "The Girl Can't Help It" and "Lucille".

 

Immediately after releasing "Tutti Frutti", which was then protocol for the industry, "safer" white recording artists such as Pat Boone covered the song, sending the song to the top twenty of the charts, several positions higher than Richard's.

 

His fellow rock and roll peers Elvis Presley and Bill Haley also recorded his songs later that same year. Befriending Alan Freed, Richard was given a role in "rock and roll" movies such as Don't Knock the Rock, and Mister Rock and Roll.

 

Richard was given a larger singing role in the 1956 film, The Girl Can't Help It starring Jayne Mansfield. That year, he scored more hit successes with songs such as "Jenny, Jenny" and "Keep A-Knockin,'" the latter becoming his first top ten single on the Billboard Top 100.

 

By the time he left Specialty in 1959, Richard had scored a total of nine top 40 pop singles and seventeen top 40 R&B singles.

 

Richard performed at the famed twelfth Cavalcade of Jazz held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles on the 2nd. September 1956.

 

Also performing that day were Dinah Washington, The Mel Williams Dots, Chuck Higgins' Orchestra, Bo Rhambo, Willie Hayden & Five Black Birds, The Premiers, Gerald Wilson and his 20-Piece Recording Orchestra, and Jerry Gray and his Orchestra.

 

Shortly after the release of "Tutti Frutti", Richard relocated to Los Angeles. After achieving success as a recording artist and live performer, Richard moved into a wealthy, formerly predominantly white neighborhood, living close to black celebrities such as boxer Joe Louis.

 

Richard's first album, Here's Little Richard, was released by Specialty in March 1957, and peaked at number thirteen on the Billboard Top LPs chart. Similar to most albums released during that era, the album featured six released singles and a number of "filler" tracks.

 

In October 1957, Richard embarked on a package tour in Australia with Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran. During the middle of the tour, he shocked the public by announcing that he intended to follow a life in the ministry.

 

Richard claimed in his autobiography that during a flight from Melbourne to Sydney, his plane was experiencing some difficulty, and he claimed to have seen the plane's red hot engines, and felt that angels were "holding it up".

 

At the end of his Sydney performance, Richard saw a bright red fireball flying across the sky above him, and claimed that he was "deeply shaken". Though he was eventually told that it was the launching of the first artificial Earth satellite Sputnik 1, Richard took it as a "sign from God" to repent from performing secular music and his wild lifestyle at the time.

 

Returning to the States ten days earlier than expected, Richard later read that the flight he had originally planned to take had crashed into the Pacific Ocean, He regarded this as a further sign to "do as God wanted".

 

After a "farewell performance" at the Apollo Theater and a "final" recording session with Specialty later that month, Richard enrolled at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, to study theology.

 

Despite his claims of spiritual rebirth, Richard admitted his reasons for leaving were more monetary. During his tenure at Specialty, despite earning millions for the label, Richard complained that he was unaware that Speciality had reduced the percentage of royalties he was to earn from his recordings.

 

In early 1958, Specialty released Richard's second album, Little Richard, which didn't chart.

 

Specialty continued to release Richard's recordings, including "Good Golly, Miss Molly" and his unique version of "Kansas City", until 1960. Finally ending his contract with the label, Richard agreed to relinquish any royalties for his material.

 

In 1958, Richard formed the Little Richard Evangelistic Team, traveling across the country to preach. A month after his decision to leave secular music, Richard met Ernestine Harvin, a secretary from Washington, D.C., and the couple married on the 11th. July 1959.

 

Richard ventured into gospel music, first recording for End Records, before signing with Mercury Records in 1961, where he eventually released King of the Gospel Singers, in 1962, produced by Quincy Jones, who later remarked that Richard's vocals impressed him more than any other vocalist that he had worked with.

 

Richard's childhood heroine, Mahalia Jackson, wrote in the notes of the album that:

 

"Richard sings gospel the

way it should be sung".

 

While Richard was no longer charting in the U.S. with pop music, some of his gospel songs such as "He's Not Just a Soldier" and "He Got What He Wanted", and "Crying in the Chapel", reached the pop charts in the U.S. and in the UK.

 

(c) 1962–1979: Return to Secular Music

 

Mick Jagger said of Richard:

 

"I heard so much about the audience

reaction, I thought there must be some

exaggeration. But it was all true.

He drove the whole house into a

complete frenzy ... I couldn't believe

the power of Little Richard onstage.

He was amazing."

 

In 1962, concert promoter Don Arden persuaded Little Richard to tour Europe after telling him his records were still selling well there.

 

With soul singer Sam Cooke as an opening act, Richard, who featured a teenage Billy Preston in his gospel band, figured it was a gospel tour and, after Cooke's delayed arrival forced him to cancel his show on the opening date, performed only gospel material during the show. This led to boos from the audience, who were expecting Richard to sing his rock and roll hits.

 

The following night, Richard viewed Cooke's well-received performance. Bringing back his competitive drive, Richard and Preston warmed up in darkness before launching into "Long Tall Sally", resulting in frenetic, hysterical responses from the audience.

 

A show at Mansfield's Granada Theatre ended early after fans rushed the stage. Hearing of Richard's shows, Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles, asked Don Arden to allow his band to open for Richard on some tour dates, to which he agreed.

 

The first show for which the Beatles opened was at New Brighton's Tower Ballroom that October. The following month they, along with Swedish singer Jerry Williams and his band The Violents, opened for Richard at the Star-Club in Hamburg.

 

During this time, Richard advised the group on how to perform his songs, and taught Paul McCartney his distinctive vocalizations.

 

Back in the United States, Richard recorded six rock and roll songs with his 1950's band, the Upsetters for Little Star Records, under the name "World Famous Upsetters", hoping this would keep his options open in maintaining his position as a minister.

 

In the fall of 1963, Richard was called by a concert promoter to rescue a sagging tour featuring The Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley and the Rolling Stones. Richard agreed, and helped to save the tour from flopping.

 

At the end of that tour, Richard was given his own television special for Granada Television titled The Little Richard Spectacular. The special became a ratings hit, and after 60,000 fan letters, was rebroadcast twice.

 

In 1964, now openly re-embracing rock and roll, Richard released "Bama Lama Bama Loo" on Specialty Records. Due to his UK exposure, the song reached the top twenty there, but only climbed to number 82 in the U.S.

 

Later in the year, he signed with Vee-Jay Records, then on its dying legs, to release his "comeback" album, Little Richard Is Back. Due to the arrival of the Beatles and other British bands as well as the rise of soul labels such as Motown and Stax Records and the popularity of James Brown, Richard's new releases were not well promoted, nor well received by radio stations.

 

In November 1964, Jimi Hendrix joined Richard's Upsetters band as a full member.

 

In December 1964, Richard brought Hendrix and childhood friend and piano teacher Eskew Reeder to a New York studio to re-record an album's worth of his greatest hits. He went on tour with his new group the Upsetters to promote the album.

 

In early 1965, Richard took Hendrix and Billy Preston to a New York studio where they recorded the Don Covay soul ballad, "I Don't Know What You've Got (But It's Got Me)", which became a number 12 R&B hit.

 

Three other songs were recorded during the sessions, "Dance a Go Go" aka "Dancin' All Around the World", "You Better Stop", and "Come See About Me." However "You Better Stop" was not issued until 1971, and "Come See About Me" has yet to see official release.

 

Around this time, Richard and Jimi appeared in a show starring Soupy Sales at the Brooklyn Paramount, New York. Richard's flamboyance and drive for dominance reportedly got him thrown off the show.

 

Hendrix and Richard clashed over the spotlight, as well as Hendrix's tardiness, wardrobe and stage antics. Hendrix also complained over not being properly paid by Richard. In early July 1965, Richard's brother Robert Penniman "fired" Jimi. However, Jimi wrote to his father, Al Hendrix, that he quit Richard because:

 

"You can't live on promises when

you're on the road, so I had to cut

that mess aloose".

 

Hendrix had not been paid for five-and-a-half weeks, and was owed 1,000 dollars. Hendrix then rejoined the Isley Brothers' band, the IB Specials.

 

Richard later signed with Modern Records, releasing a modest charter, "Do You Feel It?" before leaving for Okeh Records in early 1966.

 

His former Specialty labelmate Larry Williams produced two albums for Richard on Okeh - the studio release The Explosive Little Richard, which utilised a Motown-influenced sound and produced the modest charters "Poor Dog" and "Commandments of Love." Secondly Little Richard's Greatest Hits: Recorded Live! which returned him to the album charts.

 

Richard was later scathing about this period, declaring Larry Williams "the worst producer in the world". In 1967, Richard signed with Brunswick Records, but after clashing with the label over musical direction, he left the label the following year.

 

Richard felt that producers on his labels failed to promote his records during this period. Later, he claimed they kept trying to push him to record in a style similar to Motown, and felt he wasn't treated with appropriate respect.

 

Richard often performed in dingy clubs and lounges with little support from his label. While Richard managed to perform at huge venues in England and France, in the U.S. Richard had to perform on the Chitlin' Circuit.

 

Richard's flamboyant look, while a hit during the 1950's, failed to help his labels to promote him to more conservative black record buyers. Richard later claimed that his decision to "backslide" from his ministry, led religious clergymen to criticise his new recordings.

 

Making matters worse, Richard said, was his insistence on performing in front of integrated audiences at the time of the black liberation movement shortly after the Watts riots and the formation of the Black Panthers. This caused many black radio disk jockeys in certain areas of the country, including Los Angeles, to choose not to play his music.

 

By then acting as his manager, Larry Williams convinced Richard to focus on his live shows. By 1968, he had ditched the Upsetters for his new backup band, the Crown Jewels, performing on the Canadian TV show, "Where It's At".

 

Richard was also featured on the Monkees' TV special 33⅓ Revolutions per Monkee in April 1969.

 

Williams booked Richard shows in Las Vegas casinos and resorts, leading Richard to adopt a wilder, flamboyant, and androgynous look, inspired by the success of his former backing guitarist Jimi Hendrix.

 

Richard was soon booked at rock festivals such as the Atlantic City Pop Festival, where he stole the show from headliner Janis Joplin. Richard produced a similar show stealer at the Toronto Pop Festival with John Lennon as the headliner.

 

These successes brought Little Richard to talk shows such as the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and the Dick Cavett Show, making him a major celebrity again.

 

Responding to his reputation as a successful concert performer, Reprise Records signed Richard in 1970, and he released the album, The Rill Thing, with the philosophical single, "Freedom Blues", becoming his biggest charted single in years.

 

In May 1970, Richard made the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Despite the success of "Freedom Blues", none of Richard's other Reprise singles charted, with the exception of "Greenwood, Mississippi", a swamp rock original by guitar hero, Travis Wammack, who incidentally played on the track.

 

It charted only briefly on the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box pop chart, also on the Billboard Country charts; it made a strong showing on WWRL in New York, before disappearing.

 

Richard became a featured guest instrumentalist and vocalist on recordings by acts such as Delaney and Bonnie, Joey Covington and Joe Walsh, and was prominently featured on Canned Heat's 1972 hit single, "Rockin' with the King".

 

To keep up with his finances and bookings, Richard and three of his brothers formed a management company, Bud Hole Incorporated. On American TV, Richard announced that he would appear in a Rock Hudson motion picture, playing "The Insane Minister". (The appearance has never seen the light of day.)

 

Richard also mentioned a new project involving Mick Jagger and Joe Cocker, celebrating his 20 years in show business, though it was never realized.

 

By 1972, Richard had entered the rock and roll revival circuit, and that year, he co-headlined the London Rock and Roll Show at Wembley Stadium with his musical peer Chuck Berry, Richard would come on stage and announce himself as "The King of Rock and Roll", fittingly also the title of his 1971 album with Reprise, and told the packed audience there to "let it all hang out".

 

Richard, however, was booed during the show when he climbed on top of his piano and stopped singing; he also seemed to ignore much of the crowd. To make matters worse, he showed up with just five musicians, and struggled through low lighting and bad microphones.

 

When the concert film documenting the show came out, his performance was considered generally strong, though his fans noticed a drop in energy and vocal artistry. Two songs he performed did not make the final cut of the film.

 

The following year, he recorded a charting soul ballad, "In the Middle of the Night", released with proceeds donated to victims of tornadoes that had caused damage in twelve states.

 

Richard did no new recordings in 1974, although two "new" albums were released. In the summer, came a major surprise for fans, "Talkin' 'bout Soul", a collection of released and unreleased Vee Jay recordings, all never before on a domestic LP. Two tracks were new to the world: the title tune and "You'd Better Stop", both uptempo.

 

Later that year came a set recorded in one night, early the previous year, called "Right Now!", and featuring "roots" material, including a vocal version of an unreleased Reprise instrumental "Mississippi", released in 1972 as "Funky Dish Rag"; his third try at his gospel-rock "In the Name"; and a 6 minute plus rocker, "Hot Nuts", based upon a 1936 song by Li'l Johnson ("Get 'Em From The Peanut Man").

 

1975 was a big year for Richard, with a world tour, and acclaim over high energy performances throughout England and France. His band was perhaps his best to date. He cut a top 40 single (US and Canada), with Bachman-Turner Overdrive, "Take It Like a Man".

 

Richard worked on new songs with sideman, Seabrun "Candy" Hunter. He told Dee-Jay, Wolfman Jack, that he planned on releasing a new album with Sly Stone, but it never materialized.

 

In 1976, he decided to retire again, being physically and mentally exhausted, having experienced family tragedy and the drug culture. He was talked into once again re-cutting his greatest hits, for Stan Shulman in Nashville. This time, they did not use new arrangements, but stuck to the original arrangements.

 

Richard re-recorded eighteen of his classic rock and roll hits for K-Tel Records, in high-tech stereo recreations, with a single featuring the new versions of "Good Golly Miss Molly" and "Rip It Up," with both tracks reaching the UK singles chart.

 

Richard later admitted that he was heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol. By 1977, worn out from years of drug abuse and wild partying, as well as a string of personal tragedies, Richard quit rock and roll again and returned to evangelism, releasing one gospel album, God's Beautiful City, in 1979.

 

At the same time, while touring once again as a minister and returning to talk shows, a controversial album was released by the discount label, Koala, taken from a 1974 concert.

 

It includes an 11 minute discordant version of "Good Golly, Miss Molly". The performances are widely panned as subpar, and the album has gained some notoriety amongst record collectors.

 

(d) 1984–1999: Comeback

 

In 1984, Richard filed a $112 million lawsuit against Specialty Records, Art Rupe and his publishing company, Venice Music, and ATV Music for not paying royalties to him after he left the label in 1959. The suit was settled out of court in 1986.

 

According to some reports, Michael Jackson allegedly gave him monetary compensation for his work, which he co-owned with Sony-ATV, songs by the Beatles and Richard.

 

In September 1984, Charles White released the singer's authorized biography, Quasar of Rock: The Life and Times of Little Richard, which put Richard back in the spotlight. Richard returned to show business in what Rolling Stone referred to as "a formidable comeback" following the book's release.

 

Reconciling his roles as evangelist and rock and roll musician for the first time, Richard stated that the genre could be used for good or evil. After accepting a role in the film Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Richard and Billy Preston penned the faith-based rock and roll song "Great Gosh A'Mighty" for its soundtrack.

 

Richard won critical acclaim for his film role, and the song found success in the American and British charts. The hit led to the release of the album Lifetime Friend (1986) on Warner Bros. Records, with songs deemed "messages in rhythm", including a gospel rap track.

 

In addition to a version of "Great Gosh A'Mighty", cut in England, the album featured two singles that charted in the UK, "Somebody's Comin,'" and "Operator".

 

Richard spent much of the rest of the decade as a guest on television shows and appearing in films, winning new fans with what was referred to as his "unique comedic timing."

 

In 1988, he surprised fans with a serious tribute to Otis Redding at his Rock and Roll of Fame induction ceremony, singing several Redding songs, including "Fa Fa Fa (sad song)", "These arms of mine", and "Dock of the Bay ".

 

He told Otis' story, and explained how his 1956 tune "All Around the World" was Redding's reference on his 1963 side, "Hey, Hey Baby".

 

In 1989, Richard provided rhythmic preaching and background vocals on the extended live version of the U2–B.B. King hit "When Love Comes to Town". That same year, Richard returned to singing his classic hits following a performance of "Lucille" at an AIDS benefit concert.

 

In 1990, Richard contributed a spoken-word rap on Living Colour's hit song, "Elvis Is Dead", from their album Time's Up. That same year he appeared in a cameo for the music video of Cinderella's "Shelter Me".

 

In 1991, he was one of the featured performers on the hit single and video "Voices That Care" that was produced to help boost the morale of U.S. troops involved in Operation Desert Storm.

 

The same year, he recorded a version of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" for the Pediatric AIDS Foundation benefit album For Our Children. The album's success led to a deal with Walt Disney Records, resulting in the release of a hit 1992 children's album, Shake It All About.

 

In 1994, Richard sang the theme song to the award-winning PBS Kids and TLC animated television series The Magic School Bus based on the book series created by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen. He also opened Wrestlemania X from Madison Square Garden on the 20th. March that year, miming to his reworked rendition of "America the Beautiful".

 

Throughout the 1990's, Richard performed around the world and appeared on TV, film, and tracks with other artists, including Jon Bon Jovi, Elton John and Solomon Burke.

 

In 1992 he released his final album, Little Richard Meets Masayoshi Takanaka, featuring members of Richard's then current touring band.

 

(e) 2000–2020: The Later years

 

In 2000, Richard's life was dramatized for the biographical film Little Richard, which focused on his early years, including his heyday, his religious conversion and his return to secular music in the early 1960's.

 

Richard was played by Leon Robinson, who earned an NAACP Image Award nomination for his performance.

 

In 2002, Richard contributed to the Johnny Cash tribute album, Kindred Spirits: A Tribute to the Songs of Johnny Cash. In 2004–2005, he released two sets of unreleased and rare cuts, from the Okeh label 1966/67 and the Reprise label 1970/72. Included was the full Southern Child album, produced and composed mostly by Richard, scheduled for release in 1972, but shelved.

 

In 2006, Little Richard was featured in a popular advertisement for the GEICO brand. A 2005 recording of his duet vocals with Jerry Lee Lewis on a cover of the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There" was included on Lewis's 2006 album, Last Man Standing.

 

The same year, Richard was a guest judge on the TV series Celebrity Duets. Richard and Lewis performed alongside John Fogerty at the 2008 Grammy Awards in a tribute to the two artists considered to be cornerstones of rock and roll by the NARAS.

 

That same year, Richard appeared on radio host Don Imus' benefit album for sick children, The Imus Ranch Record. In June 2010, Richard recorded a gospel track for an upcoming tribute album to songwriting legend Dottie Rambo.

 

In 2009, Richard was Inducted into The Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame in a concert in New Orleans, attended by Fats Domino.

 

Throughout the first decade of the new millennium, Richard kept up a stringent touring schedule, performing primarily in the United States and Europe. However, sciatic nerve pain in his left leg and then replacement of the involved hip began affecting the frequency of his performances by 2010.

 

Despite his health problems, Richard continued to perform to receptive audiences and critics. Rolling Stone reported that at a performance at the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C., in June 2012:

 

"Richard was still full of fire, still a master

showman, his voice still loaded with deep

gospel and raunchy power."

 

Richard performed a full 90-minute show at the Pensacola Interstate Fair in Pensacola, Florida, in October 2012, at the age of 79, and headlined at the Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas during Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend in March 2013.

 

In September 2013, Rolling Stone published an interview with Richard who said that he would be retiring from performing. He told the magazine:

 

"I am done, in a sense, because I don't

feel like doing anything right now.

I think my legacy should be that when I

started in showbusiness there wasn't no

such thing as rock'n'roll.

When I started with 'Tutti Frutti', that's

when rock really started rocking."

 

Richard performed one last concert in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 2014.

 

In June 2015, Richard appeared before a benefit concert audience, clad in sparkly boots and a brightly colored jacket at the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville to receive the Rhapsody & Rhythm Award from and raise funds for the National Museum of African American Music.

 

He charmed the crowd by reminiscing about his early days working in Nashville nightclubs. In May 2016, the National Museum of African American Music issued a press release indicating that Richard was one of the key artists and music industry leaders that attended its third annual Celebration of Legends Luncheon in Nashville.

 

In 2016, a new CD was released on Hitman Records, California (I'm Comin') with released and previously unreleased material from the 1970's, including a cappella version of his 1975 single release, "Try to Help Your Brother".

 

On the 6th. September 2017, Richard participated in a long television interview for the Christian Three Angels Broadcasting Network, appearing in a wheelchair, clean-shaven, without make-up, dressed in a blue paisley coat and tie, where he discussed his lifelong Christian faith.

 

On the 23rd. October 2019, Richard addressed the audience after appearing to receive the Distinguished Artist Award at the 2019 Tennessee Governor's Arts Awards at the Governor's Residence in Nashville, Tennessee.

 

Little Richard's Personal Life

 

(i) Relationships and Family

 

Around 1956, Richard became involved with Audrey Robinson, a sixteen-year-old college student, originally from Savannah, Georgia. Richard and Robinson quickly got acquainted, despite Robinson not being a fan of rock and roll music.

 

Richard said in his 1984 autobiography that he invited other men to have sexual encounters with her, including Buddy Holly, although Audrey denied those statements.

 

Richard proposed marriage to Robinson, but she refused. Robinson later became known under the name Lee Angel as a stripper and socialite. Richard re-connected with Robinson in the 1960's, though she left him again after his drug abuse worsened.

 

Robinson was interviewed for Richard's 1985 documentary on The South Bank Show, and denied Richard's statements. According to Robinson, Richard would use her to buy food in whites-only fast food stores, as he could not enter any, due to the color of his skin.

 

Richard met his only wife, Ernestine Harvin, at an evangelical rally in October 1957. They began dating that year, and wed on the 12th. July 1959 in California. According to Harvin, she and Richard initially enjoyed a happy marriage with "normal" sexual relations.

 

When the marriage ended in divorce in 1964, Harvin said it was due to her husband's celebrity status, which had made life difficult for her. Richard said the marriage fell apart due to his being a neglectful husband and because of his sexuality.

 

Both Robinson and Harvin denied Richard's statements that he was gay, and Richard believed they did not know it because:

 

"I was such a pumper

in those days".

 

During the marriage, Richard and Harvin adopted a one-year-old boy, Danny Jones, from a late church associate. Richard and his son remained close, with Jones often acting as one of his bodyguards. Harvin later married McDonald Campbell in Santa Barbara, California, on the 23rd. March 1975.

 

(ii) Little Richard's Sexuality

 

In 1984, Richard said that he just played with girls as a child, and was subjected to homosexual jokes and ridicule because of his manner of walking and talking. His father brutally punished him whenever he caught him wearing his mother's makeup and clothing.

 

The singer said he had been sexually involved with both sexes as a teenager. Because of his effeminate mannerisms, his father kicked him out of their family home when he was fifteen. In 1985, on The South Bank Show, Richard explained:

 

"My daddy put me out of the house.

He said he wanted seven boys, and

I had spoiled it, because I was gay."

 

Richard got involved in voyeurism in his early twenties. A female friend would drive him around picking up men who would allow him to watch them having sex in the backseat of cars.

 

Richard's activity caught the attention of the Macon police in 1955, and he was arrested after a gas station attendant reported sexual activity in a car Richard was occupying with a heterosexual couple. Cited on a sexual misconduct charge, he spent three days in jail, and was temporarily banned from performing in Macon.

 

In the early 1950's, Richard became acquainted with openly gay musician Billy Wright, who helped in establishing Richard's look. Billy advised Richard to use pancake makeup, and to wear his hair in a long-haired pompadour style similar to his.

 

As Richard got used to the makeup, he ordered his band, the Upsetters, to wear makeup too, in order to gain entry into predominantly white venues. He later stated:

 

"I wore the make-up so that white

men wouldn't think I was after the

white girls.

It made things easier for me, plus

it was colorful too."

 

In 2000, Richard told Jet magazine:

 

"I figure if being called a sissy would

make me famous, let them say what

they want to."

 

Richard's look, however, still attracted female audiences, who would send him naked photos and their phone numbers.

 

During Richard's heyday, his obsession with voyeurism and group sex continued, with his girlfriend Audrey Robinson participating. Richard wrote that Robinson would have sex with men while she sexually stimulated Richard.

 

Despite saying he was "born again" after leaving rock and roll for the church in 1957, Richard left Oakwood College after exposing himself to a male student. The incident was reported to the student's father, and Richard withdrew from the college.

 

In 1962, Richard was arrested for spying on men urinating in toilets at a Trailways bus station in Long Beach, California. However he still participated in orgies, and continued to be a voyeur.

 

On the 4th. May 1982, on Late Night with David Letterman, Richard said:

 

"God gave me the victory. I'm not gay

now, but, you know, I was gay all my

life. I believe I was one of the first gay

people to come out.

But God let me know that he made

Adam be with Eve, not Steve.

So, I gave my heart to Christ."

 

In his 1984 book, while demeaning homosexuality as "unnatural" and "contagious", he told Charles White that he was "omnisexual".

 

In 1995, Richard told Penthouse that he always knew he was gay, saying "I've been gay all my life". In 2007, Mojo Magazine referred to Richard as "bisexual".

 

In October 2017, Richard once again denounced homosexuality in an interview with the Christian Three Angels Broadcasting Network, stating that:

 

"Homosexual and transgender identity

is an unnatural affectation that goes

against the way God wants you to live."

 

(iii) Little Richard's Drug Use

 

During his initial heyday in the 1950's rock and roll scene, Richard was a teetotaler, abstaining from alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs. Richard often fined bandmates for drug and alcohol use during this era.

 

By the mid-1960's, however, Richard began drinking large amounts of alcohol, as well as smoking cigarettes and marijuana. By 1972, he had developed an addiction to cocaine. He later lamented that period:

 

"They should have called me

Lil Cocaine, I was sniffing so

much of that stuff!"

 

By 1975, he had developed addictions to both heroin and PCP, otherwise known as "angel dust". His drug and alcohol misuse began to affect his professional career and personal life. He later recalled:

 

"I lost my reasoning."

 

Of his cocaine addiction, Richard said that he did whatever he could to use cocaine. Richard admitted that his addictions to cocaine, PCP and heroin were costing him as much as $1,000 a day.

 

In 1977, longtime friend Larry Williams once showed up with a gun and threatened to kill Richard for failing to pay his drug debt. Richard said that this was the most fearful moment of his life; Williams' own drug addiction made him wildly unpredictable.

 

Richard did acknowledge that he and Williams were "very close friends," and when reminiscing about the drug-fueled clash, he recalled thinking:

 

"I knew he loved me—

I hoped he did!"

 

Within that same year, Richard had several devastating personal experiences, including his brother Tony's death from a heart attack, the accidental shooting of his nephew whom he loved like a son, and the murder of two close personal friends – one a valet at "the heroin man's house."

 

These experiences convinced the singer to give up drugs and alcohol, along with rock and roll, and return to the ministry.

 

(iv) Little Richard and Religion

 

Richard's family had deep evangelical (Baptist and African Methodist Episcopal) Christian roots, including two uncles and a grandfather who were preachers. He also took part in Macon's Pentecostal churches, which were his favorites, mainly due to their music, charismatic praise, dancing in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues.

 

At the age of ten, influenced by Pentecostalism, he would go around saying that he was a faith healer, singing gospel music to people who were feeling sick, and touching them.

 

He later recalled that they would often say that they felt better after he prayed for them, and would sometimes give him money. Richard had aspirations of being a preacher due to the influence of singing evangelist Brother Joe May.

 

After he was born again in 1957, Richard enrolled at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, a mostly black Seventh-day Adventist college, to study theology. It was also at this time that he became a vegetarian.

 

Richard returned to secular music in the early 1960's. He was eventually ordained a minister in 1970, and resumed evangelical activities in 1977. Richard represented Memorial Bibles International, and sold their Black Heritage Bible, which highlighted the Book's many black characters.

 

As a preacher, he evangelized in anything from small churches to packed auditoriums of 20,000 or more. His preaching focused on uniting the races, and bringing lost souls to repentance through God's love.

 

In 1984, Richard's mother, Leva Mae, died following a period of illness. Only a few months prior to her death, Richard promised her that he would remain a Christian.

 

During the 1980's and 1990's, Richard officiated at celebrity weddings. In 2006, in one ceremony, Richard wedded twenty couples who had won a contest.

 

Richard used his experience and knowledge as an elder statesman of rock and roll to preach at funerals of musical friends such as Wilson Pickett and Ike Turner.

 

At a benefit concert in 2009 to raise funds to help rebuild children's playgrounds that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, Richard asked guest of honor Fats Domino to pray with him and others. His assistants handed out inspirational booklets at the concert, a common practice at Richard's shows.

 

Richard told a Howard Theatre, Washington, D.C. audience in June 2012:

 

"I know this is not Church, but

get close to the Lord. The world

is getting close to the end. Get

close to the Lord."

 

In 2013, Richard elaborated on his spiritual philosophies, stating:

 

"God talked to me the other night.

He said He's getting ready to come.

The world's getting ready to end,

and He's coming, wrapped in flames

of fire with a rainbow around His

throne."

 

Rolling Stone reported that Richard's apocalyptic prophesies generated snickers from some audience members as well as cheers of support. He responded to the laughter by stating:

 

"When I talk to you about Jesus, I'm

not playing. I'm almost 81 years old.

Without God, I wouldn't be here."

 

Little Richard's Health Problems and Death

 

In October 1985, having finished his album Lifetime Friend, Richard returned from England to film a guest spot on the show Miami Vice. Following the taping, he accidentally crashed his sports car into a telephone pole in West Hollywood. He suffered a broken right leg, broken ribs and head and facial injuries.

 

Richard's recovery from the accident took several months, preventing him from attending the inaugural Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony in January 1986 where he was one of several inductees. He instead supplied a recorded message.

 

In 2007, Richard began having problems walking due to sciatica in his left leg, requiring him to use crutches. In November 2009, he entered hospital to have replacement surgery on his left hip.

 

Despite returning to performing the following year, Richard's problems with his hip continued, and he was brought onstage in a wheelchair, only being able to play sitting down.

 

On the 30th. September 2013, he revealed to CeeLo Green at a Recording Academy fundraiser that he had suffered a heart attack at home the week before. Taking aspirin and having his son turn on the air conditioner saved his life, according to his doctor. Richard stated:

 

"Jesus had something for me.

He brought me through."

 

On the 28th. April 2016, Richard's friend Bootsy Collins stated on his Facebook page that:

 

"Richard is not in the best of

health, so I ask all the Funkateers

to lift him up."

 

Reports began being posted on the internet stating that Richard was in grave health, and that his family were gathering at his bedside. On the 3rd. May 2016, Rolling Stone issued a rebuttal by Richard and his lawyer. Richard stated:

 

"Not only is my family not gathering

around me because I'm ill, but I'm still

singing. I don't perform like I used to,

but I have my singing voice, I walk

around, I had hip surgery a while ago,

but I'm healthy.'"

 

His lawyer said:

 

"He's 83. I don't know how many

83-year-olds still get up and rock

it out every week, but in light of

the rumors, I wanted to tell you

that he's vivacious and conversant

about a ton of different things, and

he's still very active in a daily routine."

 

Though Richard continued to sing into his eighties, he kept away from the stage.

 

On the 9th. May 2020, after a two month illness, Richard died at the age of 87 at his home in Tullahoma, Tennessee, from a cause related to bone cancer. His brother, sister, and son were with him at the time.

 

Richard received tributes from many popular musicians, including Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, John Fogerty, Elton John, and Lenny Kravitz, as well as many others, such as film director John Waters, who were influenced by Richard's music and persona.

 

Richard was laid to rest at Oakwood University Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Huntsville, Alabama.

 

Little Richard's Legacy

 

Richard claimed to be "The Architect of Rock and Roll", and history would seem to bear out his boast. More than any other performer—save, perhaps, for Elvis Presley, Little Richard blew the lid off the Fifties, laying the foundation for rock and roll with his explosive music and charismatic persona.

 

On record, he made spine-tingling rock and roll. His frantically charged piano playing and raspy, shouted vocals on such classics as "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally" and "Good Golly, Miss Molly" defined the dynamic sound of rock and roll.

 

Richard's music and performance style had a pivotal effect on the sound and style of popular music genres of the 20th. century. As a rock and roll pioneer, Richard embodied its spirit more flamboyantly than any other performer.

 

Richard's raspy shouting style gave the genre one of its most identifiable and influential vocal sounds, and his fusion of boogie-woogie, New Orleans R&B and gospel music blazed its rhythmic trail.

 

Richard's innovative emotive vocalizations and uptempo rhythmic music also played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk.

 

He influenced numerous singers and musicians across musical genres from rock to hip hop; his music helped shape rhythm and blues for generations to come.

 

Combining elements of boogie, gospel, and blues, Richard introduced several of rock music's most characteristic musical features, including its loud volume and vocal style emphasizing power, and its distinctive beat and innovative visceral rhythms.

 

He departed from boogie-woogie's shuffle rhythm, and introduced a new distinctive rock beat, where the beat division is even at all tempos. He reinforced the new rock rhythm with a two-handed approach, playing patterns with his right hand, with the rhythm typically popping out in the piano's high register.

 

His new rhythm, which he introduced with "Tutti Frutti" (1955), became the basis for the standard rock beat, which was later consolidated by Chuck Berry.

 

"Lucille" (1957) foreshadowed the rhythmic feel of 1960's classic rock in several ways, including its heavy bassline, slower tempo, strong rock beat played by the entire band, and verse–chorus form similar to blues.

 

Richard's voice was able to generate croons, wails, and screams unprecedented in popular music. He was cited by two of soul music's pioneers, Otis Redding and Sam Cooke, as contributing to the genre's early development.

 

Redding stated that most of his music was patterned after Richard's, referring to his 1953 recording "Directly From My Heart To You" as the personification of soul, and that:

 

"Richard has done a lot for

me and my soul brothers

in the music business."

 

Cooke said in 1962 that:

 

"Richard has done so

much for our music".

 

Cooke had a top 40 hit in 1963 with his cover of Richard's 1956 hit "Send Me Some Loving".

 

James Brown and others credited Richard and his mid-1950's backing band, The Upsetters, with having been the first to put funk in the rock beat. This innovation sparked the transition from 1950's rock and roll to 1960's funk.

 

Richard's hits of the mid-1950's, such as "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally", "Keep A-Knockin'" and "Good Golly, Miss Molly", were generally characterized by playful lyrics with sexually suggestive connotations.

 

AllMusic writer Richie Unterberger stated that:

 

"Little Richard merged the fire of

gospel with New Orleans R&B,

pounding the piano and wailing

with gleeful abandon. While other

R&B greats of the early 1950's had

been moving in a similar direction,

none of them matched the sheer

electricity of Richard's vocals.

With his high-speed deliveries,

ecstatic trills, and the overjoyed

force of personality in his singing,

he was crucial in upping the voltage

from high-powered R&B into the

similar, yet different, guise of rock

and roll."

 

Emphasizing the folk influences of Richard, English professor W. T. Lhamon Jr. wrote:

 

"His songs were literally good

booty. They were the repressed

stuff of underground lore.

And in Little Richard they found

a vehicle prepared to bear their

chocked energy, at least for his

capsulated moment."

 

Ray Charles introduced him at a concert in 1988 as:

 

"A man that started a kind of music

that set the pace for a lot of what's

happening today."

 

Richard's contemporaries, including Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Pat Boone, the Everly Brothers, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran, all recorded covers of his works.

 

As they wrote about him for their Man of the Year – Legend Category in 2010, GQ magazine stated that:

 

"Richard is, without question, the

boldest and most influential of the

founding fathers of rock'n'roll."

 

Little Richard's Influence on Society

 

In addition to his musical style, Richard was cited as one of the first crossover black artists, reaching audiences of all races. His music and concerts broke the color line, despite attempts to sustain segregation.

 

As H. B. Barnum explained in Quasar of Rock:

 

"Little Richard opened the door.

He brought the races together."

 

Barnum described Richard's music as follows:

 

"It wasn't boy-meets-girl-girl-meets-boy,

they were fun records, all fun. And they

had a lot to say sociologically in our

country and the world."

 

Barnum also stated that:

 

"Richard's charisma was a whole

new thing to the music business.

He would burst onto the stage

from anywhere, and you wouldn't

be able to hear anything but the

roar of the audience. He might

come out and walk on the piano.

He might go out into the audience."

 

Barnum also stated that Richard was innovative in that he would wear colorful capes, blouse shirts, makeup and suits studded with multi-colored stones and sequins, and that he also brought flickering stage lighting from his show business experience into performance venues where rock and roll artists performed.

 

In 2015, the National Museum of African American Music honored Richard for helping to shatter the color line on the music charts and changing American culture for ever.

 

Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister of the heavy metal band Motörhead spoke highly of Little Richard, stating:

 

"Little Richard was always my main

man. How hard must it have been

for him: gay, black and singing in

the South? But his records are a

joyous good time from beginning

to end."

 

The Influence of Little Richard

 

Richard influenced generations of performers across musical genres. Quincy Jones stated that:

 

"Richard was an innovator whose

influence spans America's musical

diaspora from Gospel, the Blues &

R&B, to Rock & Roll, & Hip-Hop."

 

James Brown and Otis Redding both idolized him. Brown allegedly came up with the Famous Flames debut hit, "Please, Please, Please", after Richard had written the words on a napkin.

 

Redding started his professional career with Richard's band, The Upsetters, and first entered a talent show performing Richard's "Heeby Jeebies", winning for fifteen consecutive weeks.

 

Ike Turner claimed that most of Tina Turner's early vocal delivery was based on Richard, something Richard reiterated in the introduction to Turner's autobiography, Takin' Back My Name.

 

Bob Dylan first performed covers of Richard's songs on piano in high school with his rock and roll group, the Golden Chords; in 1959 when leaving school, he wrote in his yearbook under "Ambition": "to join Little Richard".

 

Jimi Hendrix was influenced in appearance (clothing and hairstyle/mustache) and sound by Richard. He was quoted in 1966 saying:

 

"I want to do with my guitar what

Little Richard does with his voice."

Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).

 

Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions

 

"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".

 

The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.

 

The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.

 

Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.

 

Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:

 

Wet with cool dew drops

fragrant with perfume from the flowers

came the gentle breeze

jasmine and water lily

dance in the spring sunshine

side-long glances

of the golden-hued ladies

stab into my thoughts

heaven itself cannot take my mind

as it has been captivated by one lass

among the five hundred I have seen here.

 

Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.

 

Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.

 

There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.

 

Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.

 

The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.

 

In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:

 

During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".

 

Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.

 

While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’

 

Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.

 

An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.

 

Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983

 

Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture

Main article: Commercial graffiti

With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.

 

In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".

 

Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.

 

Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.

 

Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.

 

Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.

 

There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.

 

The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.

 

Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.

 

Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis

 

Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.

 

Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.

 

Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"

 

Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal

 

In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.

 

Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.

 

Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.

 

Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.

 

With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.

 

Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.

 

Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.

 

Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.

 

Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.

 

Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.

 

Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.

 

Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.

 

The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.

 

I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.

 

The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.

 

Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.

 

Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.

 

In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".

 

There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.

 

Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.

 

A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.

By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.

 

Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.

 

In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.

 

A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.

 

From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

 

In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.

 

Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.

 

Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.

 

Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.

  

In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.

 

Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.

 

In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.

 

In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."

 

In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.

 

In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.

 

In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.

 

In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.

 

In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.

 

The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.

 

To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."

 

In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.

 

In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.

 

Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".

 

Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)

In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.

 

Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.

 

Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.

 

In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.

 

Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.

 

Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.

 

To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.

 

When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.