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her story : She is Valeria's sister and despite her innocent look , she is much more perceptive than her sister who let herself be drawn into the cult of Lucifer.
"amarri" is also a Wiccan and a vegetarian ♥
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[...] In his book The Master Game takes Robert De Ropp perceptive analysis on various games, he would like to point out that
Life games reflect life goals and that the games played by people deliberately allow conclusions to be drawn not only to their type, but also on the degree of their internal development ... We can classify the games in games and games.
Object games can be viewed as games in order to obtain material things, especially money and and the objects that can be bought for money.
Meta-game will be played by intangibles such as knowledge about and around the .
[...] It is the ultimate goal that we recognize our deepest and the very own nature, and fuse with it and that we get from our own direct experience to realize that these natural is divine. Different traditions press this inherently different, but the core content is the same. [...]
De Ropp writes further:
The idea behind all major religions is that man is asleep, that he lives in dreams and illusions that he was cut off from the universal consciousness ... and has withdrawn into the shell of the personal ego. Again, come out from this shell to rejoin to the universal awareness to get out of the darkness of the ego-centered illusion into the light of the non-ego - this was the real aim of religion game, as have practice the great teachers, Jesus, Gautama, Krishna, Mahavira, Lao-tse and the Platonic Socrates.
This re-emergence, this unification and enlightenment is the goal of the game master. [...]
De Ropp states that:
It remains the most ambitious and difficult of all games, and just play in our society. The contemporary man mesmerized by his technical Glitter toy has little contact with his inner world, it deals with space, not with its interior.
But the Masters is played exclusively in the inner world, a vast and complex field, of which the person knows very little. The goal of the game is the real awakening, in the full development of man in the dormant powers.
it can be played only by people who have come from observations of themselves and others at a conclusion, namely that the normal state of consciousness of man, his so-called waking state, not the highest level of consciousness is, of which he is capable. This condition is true revival but so far away that he can rightly be called a kind of somnambulism, a "awake sleep". [...]
Source: Roger N. Walsh - "Der Geist des Schamanismus"
Simply look with perceptive eyes at the world about you, and trust to your own reactions and convictions. Ask yourself: "Does this subject move me to feel, think and dream? Can I visualize a print - my own personal statement of what I feel and want to convey - from the subject before me?" ~ Ansel Adams
P.S. This is a non-HDR processed image. Taken with a hand-held black card to control the exposure.
Interestingly, both of the Boston area Banksy pieces are on Essex St:
• F̶O̶L̶L̶O̶W̶ ̶Y̶O̶U̶R̶ ̶D̶R̶E̶A̶M̶S̶ CANCELLED (aka chimney sweep) in Chinatown, Boston
• NO LOITRIN in Central Square, Cambridge.
Does that mean anything? It looks like he favors Essex named streets & roads when he can. In 2008, he did another notable Essex work in London, for example, and posters on the Banksy Forums picked up & discussed on the Essex link as well.
Is there an Essex Street in any of the other nearby towns? It looks like there are several: Brookline, Charlestown, Chelsea, Gloucester, Haverhill, Lawrence, Lynn, Medford, Melrose, Quincy, Revere, Salem, Saugus, Somerville, Swampscott, and Waltham. Most of these seem improbable to me, other than maybe Brookline, or maybe Somerville or Charlestown. But they start getting pretty suburban after that.
But, again, why "Essex"? In a comment on this photo, Birbeck helps clarify:
I can only surmise that he's having a 'dig' at Essex UK, especially with the misspelling of 'Loitering'. Here, the general view of the urban districts in Essex: working class but with right wing views; that they're not the most intellectual bunch; rather obsessed with fashion (well, their idea of it); their place of worship is the shopping mall; enjoy rowdy nights out; girls are thought of as being dumb, fake blonde hair/tans and promiscuous; and guys are good at the 'chit chat', and swagger around showing off their dosh (money).
It was also the region that once had Europe's largest Ford motor factory. In its heyday, 1 in 3 British cars were made in Dagenham, Essex. Pay was good for such unskilled labour, generations worked mind-numbing routines on assembly lines for 80 years. In 2002 the recession ended the dream.
• • • • •
This photo appeared on the Banksy forums.
• • • • •
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Banksy
• Birth name
Unknown
• Born
1974 or 1975 (1974 or 1975), Bristol, UK[1]
• Nationality
• Field
• Movement
Anti-Totalitarianism
Anti-War
• Works
Naked Man Image
One Nation Under CCTV
Anarchist Rat
Ozone's Angel
Pulp Fiction
Banksy is a pseudonymous[2][3][4] British graffiti artist. He is believed to be a native of Yate, South Gloucestershire, near Bristol[2] and to have been born in 1974,[5] but his identity is unknown.[6] According to Tristan Manco[who?], Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s."[7] His artworks are often satirical pieces of art on topics such as politics, culture, and ethics. His street art, which combines graffiti writing with a distinctive stencilling technique, is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris and members of the anarcho-punk band Crass who maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Tube System in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His art has appeared in cities around the world.[8] Banksy's work was born out of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians.
Banksy does not sell photos of street graffiti.[9] Art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder.[10]
Banksy's first film, Exit Through The Gift Shop, billed as "the world's first street art disaster movie", made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.[11] The film was released in the UK on March 5.[12]
Contents
• 1 Career
•• 1.1 2000
•• 1.2 2002
•• 1.3 2003
•• 1.4 2004
•• 1.5 2005
•• 1.6 2006
•• 1.7 2007
•• 1.8 2008
•• 1.9 2009
•• 1.10 2010
Career
Banksy started as a freehand graffiti artist 1992–1994[14] as one of Bristol's DryBreadZ Crew (DBZ), with Kato and Tes.[15] He was inspired by local artists and his work was part of the larger Bristol underground scene. From the start he used stencils as elements of his freehand pieces, too.[14] By 2000 he had turned to the art of stencilling after realising how much less time it took to complete a piece. He claims he changed to stencilling whilst he was hiding from the police under a train carriage, when he noticed the stencilled serial number[16] and by employing this technique, he soon became more widely noticed for his art around Bristol and London.[16]
Stencil on the waterline of The Thekla, an entertainment boat in central Bristol - (wider view). The image of Death is based on a 19th century etching illustrating the pestilence of The Great Stink.[17]
Banksy's stencils feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans. The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist or anti-establishment. Subjects often include rats, monkeys, policemen, soldiers, children, and the elderly.
In late 2001, on a trip to Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, he met up with the Gen-X pastellist, visual activist, and recluse James DeWeaver in Byron Bay[clarification needed], where he stencilled a parachuting rat with a clothes peg on its nose above a toilet at the Arts Factory Lodge. This stencil can no longer be located. He also makes stickers (the Neighbourhood Watch subvert) and sculpture (the murdered phone-box), and was responsible for the cover art of Blur's 2003 album Think Tank.
2000
The album cover for Monk & Canatella's Do Community Service was conceived and illustrated by Banksy, based on his contribution to the "Walls on fire" event in Bristol 1998.[18][citation needed]
2002
On 19 July 2002, Banksy's first Los Angeles exhibition debuted at 33 1/3 Gallery, a small Silverlake venue owned by Frank Sosa. The exhibition, entitled Existencilism, was curated by 33 1/3 Gallery, Malathion, Funk Lazy Promotions, and B+.[19]
2003
In 2003 in an exhibition called Turf War, held in a warehouse, Banksy painted on animals. Although the RSPCA declared the conditions suitable, an animal rights activist chained herself to the railings in protest.[20] He later moved on to producing subverted paintings; one example is Monet's Water Lily Pond, adapted to include urban detritus such as litter and a shopping trolley floating in its reflective waters; another is Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, redrawn to show that the characters are looking at a British football hooligan, dressed only in his Union Flag underpants, who has just thrown an object through the glass window of the cafe. These oil paintings were shown at a twelve-day exhibition in Westbourne Grove, London in 2005.[21]
2004
In August 2004, Banksy produced a quantity of spoof British £10 notes substituting the picture of the Queen's head with Princess Diana's head and changing the text "Bank of England" to "Banksy of England." Someone threw a large wad of these into a crowd at Notting Hill Carnival that year, which some recipients then tried to spend in local shops. These notes were also given with invitations to a Santa's Ghetto exhibition by Pictures on Walls. The individual notes have since been selling on eBay for about £200 each. A wad of the notes were also thrown over a fence and into the crowd near the NME signing tent at The Reading Festival. A limited run of 50 signed posters containing ten uncut notes were also produced and sold by Pictures on Walls for £100 each to commemorate the death of Princess Diana. One of these sold in October 2007 at Bonhams auction house in London for £24,000.
2005
In August 2005, Banksy, on a trip to the Palestinian territories, created nine images on Israel's highly controversial West Bank barrier. He reportedly said "The Israeli government is building a wall surrounding the occupied Palestinian territories. It stands three times the height of the Berlin Wall and will eventually run for over 700km—the distance from London to Zurich. "[22]
2006
• Banksy held an exhibition called Barely Legal, billed as a "three day vandalised warehouse extravaganza" in Los Angeles, on the weekend of 16 September. The exhibition featured a live "elephant in a room", painted in a pink and gold floral wallpaper pattern.[23]
• After Christina Aguilera bought an original of Queen Victoria as a lesbian and two prints for £25,000,[24] on 19 October 2006 a set of Kate Moss paintings sold in Sotheby's London for £50,400, setting an auction record for Banksy's work. The six silk-screen prints, featuring the model painted in the style of Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe pictures, sold for five times their estimated value. His stencil of a green Mona Lisa with real paint dripping from her eyes sold for £57,600 at the same auction.[25]
• In December, journalist Max Foster coined the phrase, "the Banksy Effect", to illustrate how interest in other street artists was growing on the back of Banksy's success.[26]
2007
• On 21 February 2007, Sotheby's auction house in London auctioned three works, reaching the highest ever price for a Banksy work at auction: over £102,000 for his Bombing Middle England. Two of his other graffiti works, Balloon Girl and Bomb Hugger, sold for £37,200 and £31,200 respectively, which were well above their estimated prices.[27] The following day's auction saw a further three Banksy works reach soaring prices: Ballerina With Action Man Parts reached £96,000; Glory sold for £72,000; Untitled (2004) sold for £33,600; all significantly above estimated values.[28] To coincide with the second day of auctions, Banksy updated his website with a new image of an auction house scene showing people bidding on a picture that said, "I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit."[6]
• In February 2007, the owners of a house with a Banksy mural on the side in Bristol decided to sell the house through Red Propeller art gallery after offers fell through because the prospective buyers wanted to remove the mural. It is listed as a mural which comes with a house attached.[29]
• In April 2007, Transport for London painted over Banksy's iconic image of a scene from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, with Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta clutching bananas instead of guns. Although the image was very popular, Transport for London claimed that the "graffiti" created "a general atmosphere of neglect and social decay which in turn encourages crime" and their staff are "professional cleaners not professional art critics".[30] Banksy tagged the same site again (pictured at right). This time the actors were portrayed as holding real guns instead of bananas, but they were adorned with banana costumes. Banksy made a tribute art piece over this second Pulp Fiction piece. The tribute was for 19-year-old British graffiti artist Ozone, who was hit by an underground train in Barking, East London, along with fellow artist Wants, on 12 January 2007.[31] The piece was of an angel wearing a bullet-proof vest, holding a skull. He also wrote a note on his website, saying:
The last time I hit this spot I painted a crap picture of two men in banana costumes waving hand guns. A few weeks later a writer called Ozone completely dogged it and then wrote 'If it's better next time I'll leave it' in the bottom corner. When we lost Ozone we lost a fearless graffiti writer and as it turns out a pretty perceptive art critic. Ozone - rest in peace.[citation needed]
Ozone's Angel
• On 27 April 2007, a new record high for the sale of Banksy's work was set with the auction of the work Space Girl & Bird fetching £288,000 (US$576,000), around 20 times the estimate at Bonhams of London.[32]
• On 21 May 2007 Banksy gained the award for Art's Greatest living Briton. Banksy, as expected, did not turn up to collect his award, and continued with his notoriously anonymous status.
• On 4 June 2007, it was reported that Banksy's The Drinker had been stolen.[33][34]
• In October 2007, most of his works offered for sale at Bonhams auction house in London sold for more than twice their reserve price.[35]
• Banksy has published a "manifesto" on his website.[36] The text of the manifesto is credited as the diary entry of one Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin, DSO, which is exhibited in the Imperial War Museum. It describes how a shipment of lipstick to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp immediately after its liberation at the end of World War II helped the internees regain their humanity. However, as of 18 January 2008, Banksy's Manifesto has been substituted with Graffiti Heroes #03 that describes Peter Chappell's graffiti quest of the 1970s that worked to free George Davis of his imprisonment.[37] By 12 August 2009 he was relying on Emo Phillips' "When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised God doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and prayed for forgiveness."
• A small number of Banksy's works can be seen in the movie Children of Men, including a stenciled image of two policemen kissing and another stencil of a child looking down a shop.
• In the 2007 film Shoot 'Em Up starring Clive Owen, Banksy's tag can be seen on a dumpster in the film's credits.
• Banksy, who deals mostly with Lazarides Gallery in London, claims that the exhibition at Vanina Holasek Gallery in New York (his first major exhibition in that city) is unauthorised. The exhibition featured 62 of his paintings and prints.[38]
2008
• In March, a stencilled graffiti work appeared on Thames Water tower in the middle of the Holland Park roundabout, and it was widely attributed to Banksy. It was of a child painting the tag "Take this Society" in bright orange. London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham spokesman, Councillor Greg Smith branded the art as vandalism, and ordered its immediate removal, which was carried out by H&F council workmen within three days.[39]
• Over the weekend 3–5 May in London, Banksy hosted an exhibition called The Cans Festival. It was situated on Leake Street, a road tunnel formerly used by Eurostar underneath London Waterloo station. Graffiti artists with stencils were invited to join in and paint their own artwork, as long as it didn't cover anyone else's.[40] Artists included Blek le Rat, Broken Crow, C215, Cartrain, Dolk, Dotmasters, J.Glover, Eine, Eelus, Hero, Pure evil, Jef Aérosol, Mr Brainwash, Tom Civil and Roadsworth.[citation needed]
• In late August 2008, marking the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the associated levee failure disaster, Banksy produced a series of works in New Orleans, Louisiana, mostly on buildings derelict since the disaster.[41]
• A stencil painting attributed to Banksy appeared at a vacant petrol station in the Ensley neighbourhood of Birmingham, Alabama on 29 August as Hurricane Gustav approached the New Orleans area. The painting depicting a hooded member of the Ku Klux Klan hanging from a noose was quickly covered with black spray paint and later removed altogether.[42]
• His first official exhibition in New York, the "Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill," opened 5 October 2008. The animatronic pets in the store window include a mother hen watching over her baby Chicken McNuggets as they peck at a barbecue sauce packet, and a rabbit putting makeup on in a mirror.[43]
• The Westminster City Council stated in October 2008 that the work "One Nation Under CCTV", painted in April 2008 will be painted over as it is graffiti. The council says it will remove any graffiti, regardless of the reputation of its creator, and specifically stated that Banksy "has no more right to paint graffiti than a child". Robert Davis, the chairman of the council planning committee told The Times newspaper: "If we condone this then we might as well say that any kid with a spray can is producing art". [44] The work was painted over in April 2009.
• In December 2008, The Little Diver, a Banksy image of a diver in a duffle coat in Melbourne Australia was vandalised. The image was protected by a sheet of clear perspex, however silver paint was poured behind the protective sheet and later tagged with the words "Banksy woz ere". The image was almost completely destroyed.[45].
2009
• May 2009, parts company with agent Steve Lazarides. Announces Pest Control [46] the handling service who act on his behalf will be the only point of sale for new works.
• On 13 June 2009, the Banksy UK Summer show opened at Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, featuring more than 100 works of art, including animatronics and installations; it is his largest exhibition yet, featuring 78 new works.[47][48] Reaction to the show was positive, with over 8,500 visitors to the show on the first weekend.[49] Over the course of the twelve weeks, the exhibition has been visited over 300,000 times.[50]
• In September 2009, a Banksy work parodying the Royal Family was partially destroyed by Hackney Council after they served an enforcement notice for graffiti removal to the former address of the property owner. The mural had been commissioned for the 2003 Blur single "Crazy Beat" and the property owner, who had allowed the piece to be painted, was reported to have been in tears when she saw it was being painted over.[51]
• In December 2009, Banksy marked the end of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference by painting four murals on global warming. One included "I don't believe in global warming" which was submerged in water.[52]
2010
• The world premiere of the film Exit Through the Gift Shop occurred at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on 24 January. He created 10 street pieces around Park City and Salt Lake City to tie in with the screening.[53]
• In February, The Whitehouse public house in Liverpool, England, is sold for £114,000 at auction.[54] The side of the building has an image of a giant rat by Banksy.[55]
• In April 2010, Melbourne City Council in Australia reported that they had inadvertently ordered private contractors to paint over the last remaining Banksy art in the city. The image was of a rat descending in a parachute adorning the wall of an old council building behind the Forum Theatre. In 2008 Vandals had poured paint over a stencil of an old-fashioned diver wearing a trenchcoat. A council spokeswoman has said they would now rush through retrospective permits to protect other “famous or significant artworks” in the city.[56]
• In April 2010 to coincide with the premier of Exit through the Gift Shop in San Francisco, 5 of his pieces appeared in various parts of the city.[57] Banksy reportedly paid a Chinatown building owner $50 for the use of their wall for one of his stencils.[58]
• In May 2010 to coincide with the release of "Exit Through the Gift Shop" in Chicago, one piece appeared in the city.
Notable art pieces
In addition to his artwork, Banksy has claimed responsibility for a number of high profile art pieces, including the following:
• At London Zoo, he climbed into the penguin enclosure and painted "We're bored of fish" in seven foot high letters.[59]
• At Bristol Zoo, he left the message 'I want out. This place is too cold. Keeper smells. Boring, boring, boring.' in the elephant enclosure.[60]
• In March 2005, he placed subverted artworks in the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.[61]
• He put up a subverted painting in London's Tate Britain gallery.
• In May 2005 Banksy's version of a primitive cave painting depicting a human figure hunting wildlife whilst pushing a shopping trolley was hung in gallery 49 of the British Museum, London. Upon discovery, they added it to their permanent collection.[62]
Near Bethlehem - 2005
• Banksy has sprayed "This is not a photo opportunity" on certain photograph spots.
• In August 2005, Banksy painted nine images on the Israeli West Bank barrier, including an image of a ladder going up and over the wall and an image of children digging a hole through the wall.[22][63][64][65]
See also: Other Banksy works on the Israeli West Bank barrier
• In April 2006, Banksy created a sculpture based on a crumpled red phone box with a pickaxe in its side, apparently bleeding, and placed it in a street in Soho, London. It was later removed by Westminster Council. BT released a press release, which said: "This is a stunning visual comment on BT's transformation from an old-fashioned telecommunications company into a modern communications services provider."[66]
• In June 2006, Banksy created an image of a naked man hanging out of a bedroom window on a wall visible from Park Street in central Bristol. The image sparked some controversy, with the Bristol City Council leaving it up to the public to decide whether it should stay or go.[67] After an internet discussion in which 97% (all but 6 people) supported the stencil, the city council decided it would be left on the building.[67] The mural was later defaced with paint.[67]
• In August/September 2006, Banksy replaced up to 500 copies of Paris Hilton's debut CD, Paris, in 48 different UK record stores with his own cover art and remixes by Danger Mouse. Music tracks were given titles such as "Why am I Famous?", "What Have I Done?" and "What Am I For?". Several copies of the CD were purchased by the public before stores were able to remove them, some going on to be sold for as much as £750 on online auction websites such as eBay. The cover art depicted Paris Hilton digitally altered to appear topless. Other pictures feature her with a dog's head replacing her own, and one of her stepping out of a luxury car, edited to include a group of homeless people, which included the caption "90% of success is just showing up".[68][69][70]
• In September 2006, Banksy dressed an inflatable doll in the manner of a Guantanamo Bay detainment camp prisoner (orange jumpsuit, black hood, and handcuffs) and then placed the figure within the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride at the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California.[71][72]
Technique
Asked about his technique, Banksy said:
“I use whatever it takes. Sometimes that just means drawing a moustache on a girl's face on some billboard, sometimes that means sweating for days over an intricate drawing. Efficiency is the key.[73]”
Stencils are traditionally hand drawn or printed onto sheets of acetate or card, before being cut out by hand. Because of the secretive nature of Banksy's work and identity, it is uncertain what techniques he uses to generate the images in his stencils, though it is assumed he uses computers for some images due to the photocopy nature of much of his work.
He mentions in his book, Wall and Piece, that as he was starting to do graffiti, he was always too slow and was either caught or could never finish the art in the one sitting. So he devised a series of intricate stencils to minimise time and overlapping of the colour.
Identity
Banksy's real name has been widely reported to be Robert or Robin Banks.[74][75][76] His year of birth has been given as 1974.[62]
Simon Hattenstone from Guardian Unlimited is one of the very few people to have interviewed him face-to-face. Hattenstone describes him as "a cross of Jimmy Nail and British rapper Mike Skinner" and "a 28 year old male who showed up wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a silver tooth, silver chain, and one silver earring".[77] In the same interview, Banksy revealed that his parents think their son is a painter and decorator.[77]
In May 2007, an extensive article written by Lauren Collins of the New Yorker re-opened the Banksy-identity controversy citing a 2004 photograph of the artist that was taken in Jamaica during the Two-Culture Clash project and later published in the Evening Standard in 2004.[6]
In October 2007, a story on the BBC website featured a photo allegedly taken by a passer-by in Bethnal Green, London, purporting to show Banksy at work with an assistant, scaffolding and a truck. The story confirms that Tower Hamlets Council in London has decided to treat all Banksy works as vandalism and remove them.[78]
In July 2008, it was claimed by The Mail on Sunday that Banksy's real name is Robin Gunningham.[3][79] His agent has refused to confirm or deny these reports.
In May 2009, the Mail on Sunday once again speculated about Gunningham being Banksy after a "self-portrait" of a rat holding a sign with the word "Gunningham" shot on it was photographed in East London.[80] This "new Banksy rat" story was also picked up by The Times[81] and the Evening Standard.
Banksy, himself, states on his website:
“I am unable to comment on who may or may not be Banksy, but anyone described as being 'good at drawing' doesn't sound like Banksy to me.[82]”
Controversy
In 2004, Banksy walked into the Louvre in Paris and hung on a wall a picture he had painted resembling the Mona Lisa but with a yellow smiley face. Though the painting was hurriedly removed by the museum staff, it and its counterpart, temporarily on unknown display at the Tate Britain, were described by Banksy as "shortcuts". He is quoted as saying:
“To actually [have to] go through the process of having a painting selected must be quite boring. It's a lot more fun to go and put your own one up.[83]”
Peter Gibson, a spokesperson for Keep Britain Tidy, asserts that Banksy's work is simple vandalism,[84] and Diane Shakespeare, an official for the same organization, was quoted as saying: "We are concerned that Banksy's street art glorifies what is essentially vandalism".[6]
In June 2007 Banksy created a circle of plastic portable toilets, said to resemble Stonehenge at the Glastonbury Festival. As this was in the same field as the "sacred circle" it was felt by many to be inappropriate and his installation was itself vandalized before the festival even opened. However, the intention had always been for people to climb on and interact with it.[citation needed] The installation was nicknamed "Portaloo Sunset" and "Bog Henge" by Festival goers. Michael Eavis admitted he wasn't fond of it, and the portaloos were removed before the 2008 festival.
In 2010, an artistic feud developed between Banksy and his rival King Robbo after Banksy painted over a 24-year old Robbo piece on the banks of London's Regent Canal. In retaliation several Banksy pieces in London have been painted over by 'Team Robbo'.[85][86]
Also in 2010, government workers accidentally painted over a Banksy art piece, a famed "parachuting-rat" stencil, in Australia's Melbourne CBD. [87]
Bibliography
Banksy has self-published several books that contain photographs of his work in various countries as well as some of his canvas work and exhibitions, accompanied by his own writings:
• Banksy, Banging Your Head Against A Brick Wall (2001) ISBN 978-0-95417040-0
• Banksy, Existencilism (2002) ISBN 978-0-95417041-7
• Banksy, Cut it Out (2004) ISBN 978-0-95449600-5
• Banksy, Wall and Piece (2005) ISBN 978-1-84413786-2
• Banksy, Pictures of Walls (2005) ISBN 978-0-95519460-3
Random House published Wall and Piece in 2005. It contains a combination of images from his three previous books, as well as some new material.[16]
Two books authored by others on his work were published in 2006 & 2007:
• Martin Bull, Banksy Locations and Tours: A Collection of Graffiti Locations and Photographs in London (2006 - with new editions in 2007 and 2008) ISBN 978-0-95547120-9.
• Steve Wright, Banksy's Bristol: Home Sweet Home (2007) ISBN 978-1906477004
External links
PLEASE VISIT & SUPPORT:
PHYSICIANS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
THE UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS
NUCLEAR POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
RECOMMENDED: UCS Tutorial on use of Bush's "BUNKER BUSTERS" in Iran
...
"Ladies and gentlemen, when I first went to the Middle East -- on holiday from Belfast, of all places -- 1972, I went to Egypt, and anxious to try and pick up a few first words of Arabic, I had the misfortune of purchasing a very old book produced by the British army in Egypt in the 19th century. I still recall the three principal clauses which you were advised to learn if you were an Englishman: "We shall board the steamship, for there is talk of war," "Help," and "Where is the British embassy?" And I can tell you, I never believed I would actually watch people say these things, as I had to in Lebanon this last summer. There were all the refugees, all the foreigners, boarding the steamships because there was a real war, all wanting help and all demanding to know the way to their national embassies. “So it has come to this,” I thought to myself.
You know, in the last 30 years that I have been in the Middle East, there has been one -- no, two major changes. The first is that Muslims are no longer afraid. When I first went to Lebanon, if the Israelis crossed the border, for example, many, many, many Palestinians who were in the south would be rushing to Beirut. People would flee the south, run away. Whether it was the siege of Beirut in 1982 or not, I don’t know. But now, they do not run away. Muslims do not run away when they’re attacked, when they’re under air attack.
One of the most extraordinary events was the siege of ’82, when over and over again leaflets would fall from the sky. “If you value your loved ones, run away and take them with you.” An attempt to depopulate West Beirut. And I always remember my landlord -- I live on the seafront -- I met him at front door one day, and he was holding a little net full of fish. He had been fishing on the sea. He said, “We don't have to do as we’re told and leave our homes. We can live, you see, Mr. Robert. We can stay here.”
The other big change that has happened in the past 30 years is that when I first went to the Middle East, all the forces which were in conflict with the West were nationalist or socialist or pro-Soviet. Today, without exception, in Afghanistan, in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Iraq, in South Lebanon, all the forces which are in conflict with the West or with Israel are Islamist. That is a change that I don’t think we westerners really understand.
Do we in fact really understand the extent of injustice in the Middle East? When I finished writing my new book, I realized how amazed I was that after the past 90 years of injustice, betrayal, slaughter, terror, torture, secret policemen and dictators, how restrained Muslims had been, I realized, towards the West, because I don't think we Westerners care about Muslims. I don’t think we care about Muslim Arabs. You only have to look at the reporting of Iraq. Every time an American or British soldier is killed, we know his name, his age, whether he was married, the names of his children. But 500,000-600,000 Iraqis, how many of their names have found their way onto our television programs, our radio shows, our newspapers? They are just numbers, and we don't even know the statistic.
Do you remember the time when George Bush was pushed and pushed: what were the figures of the Iraqi dead? At that stage, it was less, and he said, “Oh, 30,000. More or less.” Can you imagine if he had been asked how many Americans had died, and he said "3,000, more or less"? Those words, “more or less,” somehow said it all.
I said earlier on today -- and I’m going to give you the example this time -- that actually, I don't think the Iraq report is going to have any effect, but I think what is meant to have an effect in the United States is the gradual drip-drip idea that the Iraqis are unworthy of us Westerners. This is why and this is how we’re going to get out.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. Here is Ralph Peters, former American Army officer, writing in USA Today. I’m not advising you to read USA Today, but I sometimes get trapped into airplanes for hours and hours and hours coming to talk to people like you. So, here is Ralph Peters writing -- remember this is quoting a mainstream newspaper. He was originally for the invasion. Obviously he needs a get-out clause now. "Our extensive investment in Iraqi law enforcement only produced death squads. Government ministers loot the country to strengthen their own factions. In reality, only a military coup could hold this artificial country together." You see? We’re already planning.
I remember back even in 2003, Daniel Pipes had a long article in which he said that what Iraq needed -- and please do not laugh at this -- what Iraq needed was a democratically minded strongman. Think about that for a moment.
But let me carry on with Ralph Peters. “For all our errors, we did give the Iraqis a unique chance to build a rule-of-law democracy. They preferred to indulge in old hatreds, confessional violence, ethnic bigotry and a culture of corruption.” You see what we’re doing. We’re denigrating and bestializing the people we came allegedly to save. It's their tragedy, not ours, he writes. Iraq -- listen to this, “Iraq was the Arab world’s last chance to board the train to modernity, to give the region a future, not just a bitter past. But now, the violence staining Baghdad’s streets with gore isn’t only a symptom of the Iraqi government’s incompetence,” he says. “It is symbolic of the comprehensive inability of the Arab world to progress in any sphere of organized human endeavor.” Yes, that's what I thought when I read it. No letters to the editor about this. “If they continue to revel” -- revel, get that word -- “to revel in fratricidal slaughter, we must leave.” You see, the ground is being prepared.
Take David Brooks, now, this is the New York Times. This is really mainstream. He’s been reading some history books, remembering how the British occupation of Iraq came to grief in 1920. Pity he didn’t read the history books before he supported the invasion of Iraq. But anyway, he’s getting ’round to reading history now. “Today,” he says, “Iraq is in much worse shape than when the British were there. The most perceptive reports,” he says, “talk not of a civil war, but of complete social disintegration.” We’re already rubbing Iraq like this and turning it to dust, so there’s nothing left to leave. “This latest descent,” he says, “was initiated by American blunders but is exacerbated by” -- wait for it -- “the same old Iraqi demons: greed, bloodlust and a mind-boggling unwillingness to compromise for the common good, even in the face of self-immolation.” This is similar to the Thomas Friedman line of the child-sacrificing Palestinians. “Iraq,” says Brooks, “is teetering on the edge of futility.” What does that mean? “It will be time to effectively end Iraq. It will be time soon,” he says, “to radically diffuse authority down to the only communities that are viable in Iraq: the clan, the tribe or sect.”
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the way in which we are being prepared for what is to happen. This is the grit, which will be laid on the desert floor to help our tanks move. Don't say there were never predictions about the future in the Middle East.
So, but don't say there were no predictions of the future in the Middle East. The record of that 1920 insurgency against the British occupation is a fingerprint-perfect copy of the insurgency against the Americans and the British today. But on the other hand, don't say that no one warned many, many years before here now, before even the Second World War, of what was to happen in Palestine.
I’m going to read you a very brief paragraph by Winston Churchill, not about the Battle of Britain. It is Churchill prophesying the future from 1937, eleven years before the Nakba. This is Winston Churchill writing in a totally forgotten essay. He reflected upon the future and wrote of the impossibility of a partitioned Palestine. And he talked of how, I quote -- this is Winston Churchill in 1937 -- “The wealthy, crowded, progressive Jewish state” -- see, it doesn’t exist yet, but he’s already getting it right -- “lies in the plains and on the sea coast of Palestine. Around it, in the hills and the uplands, stretching far and wide into the illimitable deserts, the warlike Arabs of Syria of Transjordania, of Arabia, backed by the armed forces of Iraq, offer the ceaseless menace of war. To maintain itself,” -- 1937, remember, -- “To maintain itself, the Jewish state will have to be armed to the teeth and must bring in every able-bodied man to strengthen its army. But how long will this process be allowed to continue by the great Arab populations in Iraq and Palestine? Can it be expected that the Arabs would stand by impassively and watch the building up, with Jewish world capital and resources, of a Jewish army, equipped with the most deadly weapons of war until it was strong enough not to be afraid of them? And if ever the Jewish army reached that point, who can be sure,” Churchill asked, “that, cramped within their narrow limits, they would not plunge out into the new undeveloped lands that lay around them?”
“Ouch,” I said when I read that. 1937."
--Robert Fisk, the veteran mid-east reporter for The Independent, addressing the sixth annual convention of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Long Beach, California, December 20, 2006
~~~~
Before he has seen the whole, how unusually perceptive and imaginative the person must be to evolve the entire sequence by meditating on its single, pair, or triplet of essential images.
Minor White
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Es la asimilación conjunta o interferencia de varios tipos de sensaciones diferentes sentidos en un mismo acto perceptivo. Una persona sinestésica puede ver sonidos, oír colores etc. En este caso la mujer puede ver el aroma de la flor.
Con una silueta y simples trazos de color se pueden generar otras ideas y/o sensaciones respecto a la imagen.
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"Sinesthesia"
It is the joint assimilation or interference of several types of different sensations felt in the same perceptive act.A sinesthesical person can see sounds, hear colours etc. In this case the woman can see the scent of the flower.
With a silhouette and simple colour outlines other ideas and / or sensations can be generated regarding to the image.
Austria, Bregenz, lake stage festival theatre, summer festival 2011, “André Chénier”, opera by Umberto Giordano during the French revolution.
Lake Constance as bath tub, director Keith Warner & set designer David Fielding have chosen “The Death of Marat”, an iconic painting by the revolutionary artist Jacques-Louis David, as the symbol & inspiration for their staging of “André Chénier”. It is the first time that a historical painting has served as the basis for a Bregenz stage set, which towers 24 metres high above Lake Constance.
Set against the background of the French Revolution, the opera “André Chénier”, which premiered at “La Scala Milan” in 1896, is a historical drama of sharp perceptivity & a human tragedy of devastating intensity; appealing both as a passionate love story & as a historical thriller.
...Danke, Xièxie 谢谢, Thanks, Gracias, Merci, Grazie, Obrigado, Arigatô, Dhanyavad, Chokrane to you & over
5,8 million visits in my photostream with countless motivating comments
I suppose I ought to regard my Flickr photostream as my "own thing" and post what I like ...after all, it's me who keeps on paying the bloody subscription every year... but I do feel a reponsibility to that élite band of perceptive souls who are my regular visitors. I try to vary the material a little, insofar as any individual's personal obsessions make such a thing possible. "Do they really want another Lodekka so soon after the last?" I ask myself; "ought I, at this point, to perk up my relentless funeral procession of black and white shots with a colour pic?" ...and so on. So I feel a bit diffident when it comes to harping on about film photography and the niceties of home processing ...subjects which, I realise, must be of little interest to most viewers. So most of you can skip the rest but, for the few who are interested, this is a shot from the third of three rolls of Rollei Retro 400S that I "stand" developed. The stand method seems the best way of avoiding ...or at least reducing... the excessive contrast for which this film is known. Such, at least, has been my experience.
During this summer I have re-activated my bicycle. The years of neglect don't seem to have done it any harm. This nondescript scene is fairly representative of the arid, piney, muntjac-infested, region in which I reside. I have devised a couple of circuits that get me out of the house for half an hour or so. Each is lightly uphill outgoing, but downhill in the home-bound direction. This is about the most elevated point of one of these routes: I think of it as Shap Summit. From here it is head down against the wind, ping-ping on the little bell and up into sixth gear, ducking under overhanging branches. I am always slightly wobbly when I dismount. I suppose it's my age.
"Jukka Mäkelä (1949 - 2018) ranks among the leading pioneers of Finnish postmodernism and neo-expressionism. During a career spanning many decades, Mäkelä continually renewed himself, his rich oeuvre varying radically from one period to the next. The recognizable quality shared by all his paintings is the idiosyncratic way they express a strong bond with nature. Mäkelä’s art is inspired by Finnish nature, though his paintings are anything but traditional landscapes. What endows them with their special quality is the play of light and shadow they capture, as well as a palette of colors that can be described as quintessentially Finnish. These qualities – combined with Mäkelä’s spontaneous, expressive brushwork – immediately call to mind the Finnish landscapes.
This exhibition features a pick of Mäkelä’s paintings dating from 1989 to 1995. The 1990s marked a clear watershed in his oeuvre: he started working with charcoal, and new lightness and buoyancy crept into his work. His lines became almost translucent, as if defying gravity with their flightiness, while still retaining a sense of solidity and confidence, always finding the perfect path in the composition. Mäkelä’s lines are not there to enclose or lend contours to forms or colors, rather they are active, autonomous elements that exist unto themselves.
Nature is not confined to the idea of a landscape in Mäkelä’s paintings, which embrace the entire spectrum of the natural world, as evinced by everything from his organic treatment of line to his perceptive use of color. His paintings might take their cue from virtually anything, whether a ray of light or a minuscule detail in an urban setting. The essential point to note is that Mäkelä never regarded himself as something separate from nature – he depicted nature not from the vantage point of an external observer but as an integral part of it.
Jukka Mäkelä received the State Prize in 1977 and 1981 and was awarded the Pro Finlandia medal in 2007. He represented Finland at the 1988 Venice Biennale and exhibited widely at venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Rovaniemi Art Museum, and Oulu Art Museum. His work is represented in notable public collections, including Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, Oslo’s Museum of Contemporary, the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, and the Saastamoinen and the Wihuri Foundation."
Victoria Embankment Gardens, London.
If you are very perceptive you may notice that the ball has been added by me during processing. The actual ball was moving way too fast to appear in the image, but it just looked too weird without it. So I plead artistic licence. And actually I thought it was fun to try and guess the ball's position, like in those football photo puzzles you used to get in the Sunday papers.
TM Travel Optare Solo M850 W288EYG seen climbing away from Ulley Reservoir on the 10:05 ex Rotherham 20.
The 20 is a pleasing rural affair, operating from Rotherham to Dinnington via Whiston, Brampton and Thurcroft before performing a clockwise loop through Firbeck, Letwell, Gildingwells and Woodset and returning to Rotherham the same way as it runs out, repeating this every two hours. It is one of numerous Rotherham-area SYPTE-funded routes TM took over in July 2011 after Veolia decided they would stick with emptying bins. These are currently allocated late-life and rather dishevelled Solos.
The metropolis of Sheffield is easily identifiable in the distance together with its skyline features of the Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield University's Arts Tower, and the ridiculously-named Velocity Tower at the foot of Ecclesall Road. Further magnification also reveals the village of Dungworth on the edge of the Peak District and, for those with perceptive eyesight, traces of snow on Derbyshire's highest peak, Kinder Scout.
Perceptive locals will realise that this is a somewhat old picture. I took it last May when the Austonian building was about 10 floors lower than it is just now. The crane finally came down last weekend and the building is now essentially complete (at least as far as the exterior is concerned). It towers over all the other buildings downtown but is a great addition to the skyline, in my opinion.
I'll try to get some more shots now that the skyline looks more complete though I may have to wait a few more months for the pristine look since we still have a crane or two on the W Hotel building that is going up behind City Hall.
For those interested in technical details, this is a 3 exposure, handheld HDR taken using my Canon Powershot G9 through the windows of the 17th Floor Ballroom of the Hyatt Hotel.
I would greatly appreciate your vote in the 2010 Photoblog Awards. Thanks!
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(Oreothlypis peregrina) Belmont Pond, Kelowna, BC.
Yes, he's still here, surprise, surprise! Thought I saw him yesterday, but wasn't sure. This morning I had another close encounter that lasted over 20 minutes along the south end of the larger pond....
Perceptive viewers will notice a little extra editing on the first two photos in this set....
Horizon Zero Dawn is an action role-playing video game developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Story is set in the 31st century, in a world where humans have regressed to primitive tribal societies as a result of some unknown calamity. Their technologically advanced predecessors are vaguely remembered as the "Old Ones." Large robotic creatures known merely as "machines" now dominate the Earth. For the most part, they peacefully coexist with humans, who occasionally hunt them for parts. However, a phenomenon known as the "Derangement" has caused machines to become more aggressive towards humans, and larger and deadlier machines have begun to appear. There are three tribes that are prominently featured: the Nora, the Carja, and the Oseram. The Nora are fierce hunter-gatherers who live in the mountains and worship nature as the "All-Mother." The Carja are desert-dwelling city builders who worship the Sun. The Oseram are tinkerers known for their metalworking, brewing, and arguing. Aloy was cast out from the Nora tribe at birth, raised by an outcast named Rost (JB Blanc). As a child, she obtained a Focus, a small augmented reality device that gives her special perceptive abilities. After coming of age, Aloy (Ashly Burch) enters a competition called the Proving to win the right to become a Nora Brave, and by extension, a member of the Nora tribe. Aloy wins the competition, but the Nora are suddenly attacked by cultists. Aloy is almost killed by their leader Helis (Crispin Freeman), but is saved by Rost, who sacrifices himself to save Aloy from a bomb. When Aloy awakes, a Matriarch explains that the cultists had gained control of corrupted machines. Aloy also learns that as an infant, she was found at the foot of a sealed door. An Oseram foreigner called Olin (Chook Sibtain) informs Aloy that the cultists are part of a group calling themselves the Eclipse. Olin indicates that the reason Aloy was targeted by the Eclipse was due to her resemblance to an Old World scientist named Dr. Elisabet Sobeck (also voiced by Burch).
The Postcard
A postally unused postkarte that was published by Ottmar Zieher of Munich. The card has a divided back.
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner, who was born on the 22nd. May 1813, was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works.
Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to the drama.
He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Richard's compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, rich harmonies and orchestration. He also used leitmotifs—musical phrases associated with individual characters, places, ideas, or plot elements.
His advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, greatly influenced the development of classical music.
Richard's Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music.
Wagner had his own opera house built, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which embodied many novel design features. Bayreuth is a town on the Red Main river in Bavaria. At its center is the Richard Wagner Museum in the composer's former home, Villa Wahnfried.
The Ring and Parsifal were premiered at the Festspielhaus, and Wagner's most important stage works continue to be performed at the annual Bayreuth Festival, run by his descendants.
Richard's thoughts on the relative contributions of music and drama in opera were to change again, and he reintroduced some traditional forms into his last few stage works, including Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
Until his final years, Wagner's life was characterised by political exile, turbulent love affairs, poverty and repeated flight from his creditors.
His controversial writings on music, drama and politics have attracted extensive comment – particularly since the late 20th. century, where they express antisemitic sentiments.
The effect of his ideas can be traced in many of the arts throughout the 20th. century; his influence spread beyond composition into conducting, philosophy, literature, the visual arts and theatre.
Richard Wagner - The Early Years
Richard Wagner was born to an ethnic German family in Leipzig, who lived at No 3, the Brühl (The House of the Red and White Lions) in the Jewish quarter on the 22nd. May 1813.
He was baptized at St. Thomas Church. He was the ninth child of Carl Friedrich Wagner, who was a clerk in the Leipzig police service, and his wife, Johanna Rosine (née Paetz), the daughter of a baker.
Wagner's father Carl died of typhoid fever six months after Richard's birth. Afterwards, his mother Johanna lived with Carl's friend, the actor and playwright Ludwig Geyer. In August 1814 Johanna and Geyer probably married—although no documentation of this has been found in the Leipzig church registers.
Johanna and her family moved to Geyer's residence in Dresden, and until he was fourteen, Wagner was known as Wilhelm Richard Geyer. He almost certainly thought that Geyer was his biological father.
Geyer's love of the theatre came to be shared by his stepson, and Wagner took part in his performances. In his autobiography Mein Leben, Wagner recalled once playing the part of an angel.
In late 1820, Wagner was enrolled at Pastor Wetzel's school at Possendorf, near Dresden, where he received piano instruction from his Latin teacher. However Richard struggled to play a proper scale at the keyboard, and preferred playing theatre overtures by ear.
Following Geyer's death in 1821, Richard was sent to the Kreuzschule, the boarding school of the Dresdner Kreuzchor, at the expense of Geyer's brother.
At the age of nine he was hugely impressed by the Gothic elements of Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischütz, which he saw Weber conduct.
During this period, Wagner entertained ambitions as a playwright. His first creative effort was a tragedy called Leubald. Begun when he was at school in 1826, the play was strongly influenced by Shakespeare and Goethe.
Wagner was determined to set it to music, and persuaded his family to allow him music lessons.
By 1827, the family had returned to Leipzig. Wagner's first lessons in harmony were taken during 1828–1831 with Christian Gottlieb Müller.
In January 1828 he first heard Beethoven's 7th. Symphony and then, in March, the same composer's 9th. Symphony. Beethoven became a major inspiration, and Wagner wrote a piano transcription of the 9th. Symphony.
Richard was also greatly impressed by a performance of Mozart's Requiem.
Wagner's early piano sonatas and his first attempts at orchestral overtures date from this period.
In 1829 Richard saw a performance by dramatic soprano Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient, and she became his ideal of the fusion of drama and music in opera. In Mein Leben, Wagner wrote:
"When I look back across my entire life
I find no event to place beside this in
the impression it produced on me.
The profoundly human and ecstatic
performance of this incomparable artist
kindled in me an almost demonic fire."
In 1831, Wagner enrolled at Leipzig University, where he became a member of the Saxon student fraternity. He took composition lessons with the Thomaskantor Theodor Weinlig.
Weinlig was so impressed with Wagner's musical ability that he refused any payment for his lessons. He arranged for his pupil's Piano Sonata in B-flat major (which was consequently dedicated to him) to be published as Wagner's Op. 1.
A year later, Wagner composed his Symphony in C major, a Beethovenesque work performed in Prague in 1832 and at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1833.
He then began to work on an opera, Die Hochzeit (The Wedding), which he never completed.
Richard Wagner's Early Career and Marriage (1833–1842)
In 1833, Wagner's brother Albert managed to obtain for him a position as choirmaster at the theatre in Würzburg. In the same year, at the age of 20, Wagner composed his first complete opera, Die Feen (The Fairies).
This work, which imitated the style of Weber, went unproduced until half a century later, when it premiered in Munich shortly after the composer's death in 1883.
Having returned to Leipzig in 1834, Wagner held a brief appointment as musical director at the opera house in Magdeburg during which he wrote Das Liebesverbot (The Ban on Love), based on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure.
The work was staged at Magdeburg in 1836, but closed before the second performance. This, together with the financial collapse of the theatre company employing him, left Richard bankrupt.
Wagner had fallen for one of the leading ladies at Magdeburg, the actress Christine Wilhelmine "Minna" Planer, and after the disaster of Das Liebesverbot he followed her to Königsberg, where she helped him to get an engagement at the theatre.
They married in Tragheim Church on the 24th. November 1836, although In May 1837, Minna left Wagner for another man. This was however only the first débâcle of a tempestuous marriage.
In June 1837, Wagner moved to Riga (then part of the Russian Empire), where he became music director of the local opera; having in this capacity engaged Minna's sister Amalie (also a singer) for the theatre, he resumed relations with Minna during 1838.
By 1839, the couple had amassed such large debts that they fled Riga on the run from creditors. In fact, debts plagued Wagner for most of his life.
Initially they took a stormy sea passage to London, from which Wagner drew the inspiration for his opera Der Fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman), with a plot based on a sketch by Heinrich Heine.
The Wagners settled in Paris in September 1839 and stayed there until 1842. Wagner made a scant living by writing articles and short novelettes such as A pilgrimage to Beethoven, which sketched his growing concept of "music drama", and An end in Paris, where he depicts his own miseries as a German musician in the French metropolis.
Richard also provided arrangements of operas by other composers, largely on behalf of the Schlesinger publishing house. During this stay he completed his third and fourth operas Rienzi and Der Fliegende Holländer.
Richard Wagner in Dresden (1842–1849)
Wagner had completed Rienzi in 1840. With the strong support of Giacomo Meyerbeer, it was accepted for performance by the Dresden Court Theatre (Hofoper) in the Kingdom of Saxony.
In 1842, Wagner moved to Dresden. His relief at returning to Germany was recorded in his "Autobiographic Sketch" of 1842, where he wrote that, en route from Paris:
"For the first time I saw the Rhine—
with hot tears in my eyes, I, poor
artist, swore eternal fidelity to my
German fatherland."
Rienzi was staged to considerable acclaim on the 20th. October 1842.
Wagner lived in Dresden for the next six years, eventually being appointed the Royal Saxon Court Conductor. During this period, he staged there Der Fliegende Holländer (2nd. January 1843) and Tannhäuser (19th. October 1845), the first two of his three middle-period operas.
Wagner also mixed with artistic circles in Dresden, including the composer Ferdinand Hiller and the architect Gottfried Semper.
Wagner's involvement in left-wing politics abruptly ended his welcome in Dresden. Wagner was active among socialist German nationalists there, regularly receiving such guests as the conductor and radical editor August Röckel and the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin.
Richard was also influenced by the ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Ludwig Feuerbach. Widespread discontent came to a head in 1849, when the unsuccessful May Uprising in Dresden broke out, in which Wagner played a minor supporting role.
A warrant for the arrest of Richard Wagner was issued on the 16th. May 1849, along with warrants for other revolutionaries.
Wagner had to flee, first visiting Paris and then settling in Zürich where he at first took refuge with a friend, Alexander Müller.
Richard Wagner In Exile: Switzerland (1849–1858)
Wagner spent the next twelve years in exile from Germany. He had completed Lohengrin, the last of his middle-period operas, before the Dresden uprising, and now wrote desperately to his friend Franz Liszt to have it staged in his absence. Liszt conducted the premiere in Weimar in August 1850.
Wagner was in grim personal straits, isolated from the German musical world and without any regular income. In 1850, Julie, the wife of his friend Karl Ritter, began to pay him a small pension which she maintained until 1859.
With help from her friend Jessie Laussot, this was to have been augmented to an annual sum of 3,000 thalers per year, but the plan was abandoned when Wagner began an affair with Mme. Laussot.
Wagner even plotted an elopement with her in 1850, which her husband prevented. Meanwhile, Wagner's wife Minna, who had disliked the operas he had written after Rienzi, was falling into a deepening depression. Wagner fell victim to ill-health, according to Ernest Newman "Largely a matter of overwrought nerves", which made it difficult for him to continue writing.
Wagner's primary published output during his first years in Zürich was a set of essays. In "The Artwork of the Future" (1849), he described a vision of opera as Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), in which music, song, dance, poetry, visual arts and stagecraft were unified.
"Judaism in Music" (1850) was the first of Wagner's writings to feature antisemitic views. In this polemic Wagner argued, frequently using traditional antisemitic abuse, that Jews had no connection to the German spirit, and were thus capable of producing only shallow and artificial music.
According to him, they composed music to achieve popularity and, thereby, financial success, as opposed to creating genuine works of art.
In "Opera and Drama" (1851), Wagner described the aesthetics of music drama that he was using to create the Ring cycle. Before leaving Dresden, Wagner had drafted a scenario that eventually became Der Ring des Nibelungen.
He initially wrote the libretto for a single opera, Siegfrieds Tod (Siegfried's Death), in 1848. After arriving in Zürich, he expanded the story with Der junge Siegfried (Young Siegfried), which explored the hero's background.
He completed the text of the cycle by writing the libretti for Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) and Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold) and revising the other libretti to conform to his new concept, completing them in 1852.
The concept of opera expressed in "Opera and Drama" and in other essays effectively renounced all the operas he had previously written through Lohengrin. Partly in an attempt to explain his change of views, Wagner published in 1851 the autobiographical "A Communication to My Friends".
This included his first public announcement of what was to become the Ring cycle:
"I shall never write an Opera more. As I have
no wish to invent an arbitrary title for my works,
I will call them Dramas ... I propose to produce
my myth in three complete dramas, preceded
by a lengthy Prelude (Vorspiel).
At a specially-appointed Festival, I propose,
at some future time, to produce those three
Dramas with their Prelude, in the course of
three days and a fore-evening."
Wagner began composing the music for Das Rheingold between November 1853 and September 1854, following it immediately with Die Walküre (written between June 1854 and March 1856).
He began work on the third Ring drama, which he now called simply Siegfried, probably in September 1856, but by June 1857 he had completed only the first two acts.
He decided to put the work aside in order to concentrate on a new idea: Tristan und Isolde, based on the Arthurian love story Tristan and Iseult.
One source of inspiration for Tristan und Isolde was the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, notably his The World as Will and Representation, to which Wagner had been introduced in 1854 by his poet friend Georg Herwegh.
Wagner later called this the most important event of his life. His personal circumstances certainly made him an easy convert to what he understood to be Schopenhauer's philosophy, a deeply pessimistic view of the human condition. He remained an adherent of Schopenhauer for the rest of his life.
One of Schopenhauer's doctrines was that music held a supreme role in the arts as a direct expression of the world's essence, namely, blind, impulsive will.
This doctrine contradicted Wagner's view, expressed in "Opera and Drama", that the music in opera had to be subservient to the drama. Wagner scholars have argued that Schopenhauer's influence caused Wagner to assign a more commanding role to music in his later operas, including the latter half of the Ring cycle, which he had yet to compose.
Aspects of Schopenhauerian doctrine found their way into Wagner's subsequent libretti.
A second source of inspiration was Wagner's infatuation with the poet-writer Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of the silk merchant Otto Wesendonck. Wagner met the Wesendoncks, who were both great admirers of his music, in Zürich in 1852.
From May 1853 onwards Wesendonck made several loans to Wagner to finance his household expenses in Zürich, and in 1857 placed a cottage on his estate at Wagner's disposal, which became known as the Asyl ("asylum" or "place of rest").
During this period, Wagner's growing passion for his patron's wife inspired him to put aside work on the Ring cycle (which was not resumed for the next twelve years) and begin work on Tristan.
While planning the opera, Wagner composed the Wesendonck Lieder, five songs for voice and piano, setting poems by Mathilde. Two of these settings are explicitly subtitled by Wagner as "Studies for Tristan und Isolde".
Among the conducting engagements that Wagner undertook for revenue during this period, he gave several concerts in 1855 with the Philharmonic Society of London, including one before Queen Victoria. The Queen enjoyed his Tannhäuser overture and spoke with Wagner after the concert, writing in her diary that:
"Wagner was short, very quiet, wears
spectacles & has a very finely-developed
forehead, a hooked nose & projecting
chin."
Richard Wagner in Exile: Venice and Paris (1858–1862)
Wagner's uneasy affair with Mathilde collapsed in 1858, when Minna intercepted a letter to Mathilde from him. After the resulting confrontation with Minna, Wagner left Zürich alone, bound for Venice, where he rented an apartment in the Palazzo Giustinian, while Minna returned to Germany.
Wagner's attitude to Minna had changed; the editor of his correspondence with her, John Burk, has said that:
"She was to him an invalid, to be treated
with kindness and consideration, but,
except at a distance, was a menace to
his peace of mind."
Wagner continued his correspondence with Mathilde and his friendship with her husband Otto, who maintained his financial support. In an 1859 letter to Mathilde, Wagner wrote, half-satirically, of Tristan:
"Child! This Tristan is turning into something
terrible. This final act!!!—I fear the opera will
be banned ... only mediocre performances
can save me!
Perfectly good ones will be bound to drive
people mad."
In November 1859, Wagner once again moved to Paris to oversee production of a new revision of Tannhäuser, staged thanks to the efforts of Princess Pauline von Metternich, whose husband was the Austrian ambassador in Paris.
The performances of the Paris Tannhäuser in 1861 were a notable fiasco. This was partly a consequence of the conservative tastes of the Jockey Club, which organised demonstrations in the theatre to protest at the presentation of the ballet feature in act 1 (instead of its traditional location in the second act).
The opportunity was also exploited by those who wanted to use the occasion as a veiled political protest against the pro-Austrian policies of Napoleon III. It was during this visit that Wagner met the French poet Charles Baudelaire, who wrote an appreciative brochure, "Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser à Paris".
The opera was withdrawn after the third performance, and Wagner left Paris soon after. He had sought a reconciliation with Minna during this Paris visit, and although she joined him there, the reunion was not successful, and they again parted from each other when Wagner left.
Richard Wagner's Return and Resurgence (1862–1871)
The political ban that had been placed on Wagner in Germany after he had fled Dresden was fully lifted in 1862. The composer settled in Biebrich, on the Rhine near Wiesbaden.
Here Minna visited him for the last time: they parted irrevocably, though Wagner continued to give financial support to her while she lived in Dresden until her death in 1866.
In Biebrich, Wagner at last began work on Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, his only mature comedy. Wagner wrote a first draft of the libretto in 1845, and he had resolved to develop it during a visit he had made to Venice with the Wesendoncks in 1860, where he was inspired by Titian's painting The Assumption of the Virgin.
Throughout this period (1862–1864) Wagner sought to have Tristan und Isolde produced in Vienna. Despite many rehearsals, the opera remained unperformed, and gained a reputation as being "impossible" to sing, which added to Wagner's financial problems.
Wagner's fortunes took a dramatic upturn in 1864, when King Ludwig II succeeded to the throne of Bavaria at the age of 18. The young king, an ardent admirer of Wagner's operas, had the composer brought to Munich.
The King, who was homosexual, expressed in his correspondence a passionate personal adoration for the composer, and Wagner in his responses had no scruples about feigning reciprocal feelings.
Ludwig settled Wagner's considerable debts, and proposed to stage Tristan, Die Meistersinger, the Ring, and the other operas Wagner planned.
Wagner also began to dictate his autobiography, Mein Leben, at the King's request. Wagner noted that his rescue by Ludwig coincided with news of the death of his earlier mentor (but later supposed enemy) Giacomo Meyerbeer. Wagner wrote:
"I regretted that this operatic master,
who had done me so much harm,
should not have lived to see this day."
After grave difficulties in rehearsal, Tristan und Isolde premiered at the National Theatre Munich on the 10th. June 1865, the first Wagner opera premiere in almost 15 years. (The premiere had been scheduled for the 15th. May, but was delayed by bailiffs acting for Wagner's creditors, and also because the Isolde, Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld, was hoarse and needed time to recover.)
The conductor of this premiere was Hans von Bülow, whose wife, Cosima, had given birth in April that year to a daughter, named Isolde, a child not of Bülow but of Wagner.
Cosima was 24 years younger than Wagner and was herself illegitimate, the daughter of the Countess Marie d'Agoult, who had left her husband for Franz Liszt.
Liszt initially disapproved of his daughter's involvement with Wagner, though nevertheless, the two men were friends. The indiscreet affair scandalised Munich, and Wagner also fell into disfavour with many leading members of the court, who were suspicious of his influence on the King.
In December 1865, Ludwig was finally forced to ask the composer to leave Munich. He apparently also toyed with the idea of abdicating to follow his hero into exile, but Wagner quickly dissuaded him.
Ludwig installed Wagner at the Villa Tribschen, beside Switzerland's Lake Lucerne. Die Meistersinger was completed at Tribschen in 1867, and premiered in Munich on the 21st. June the following year.
At Ludwig's insistence, "special previews" of the first two works of the Ring, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, were performed at Munich in 1869 and 1870. However Wagner retained his dream, first expressed in "A Communication to My Friends", of presenting the first complete cycle at a special festival in a new, dedicated, opera house.
Not everyone was impressed by Wagner's work at the time; on the cover of the 18th. April 1869 edition of L'Éclipse, André Gill suggested that Wagner's music was ear-splitting. He produced a cartoon showing a misshapen figure of a man with a tiny body below a head with prominent nose and chin standing on the lobe of a human ear. The figure is hammering the sharp end of a crochet symbol into the inner part of the ear as blood pours out.
Minna died of a heart attack on the 25th. January 1866 in Dresden. Wagner did not attend the funeral. Following Minna's death Cosima wrote to Hans von Bülow several times asking him to grant her a divorce, but Bülow refused to concede this.
He consented only after she had two more children with Wagner; another daughter, named Eva, after the heroine of Meistersinger, and a son Siegfried, named for the hero of the Ring.
The divorce was finally sanctioned, after delays in the legal process, by a Berlin court on the 18th. July 1870. Richard and Cosima's wedding took place on the 25th. August 1870.
On Christmas Day of that year, Wagner arranged a surprise performance (its premiere) of the Siegfried Idyll for Cosima's birthday. The marriage to Cosima lasted to the end of Wagner's life.
Wagner, settled into his new-found domesticity, turned his energies towards completing the Ring cycle. However he had not abandoned polemics: he republished his 1850 pamphlet "Judaism in Music", originally issued under a pseudonym, under his own name in 1869.
He extended the introduction, and wrote a lengthy additional final section. The publication led to several public protests at early performances of Die Meistersinger in Vienna and Mannheim.
Richard Wagner in Bayreuth (1871–1876)
In 1871, Wagner decided to move to Bayreuth, which was to be the location of his new opera house. The town council donated a large plot of land—the "Green Hill"—as a site for the theatre.
The Wagners moved to the town the following year, and the foundation stone for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus ("Festival Theatre") was laid.
Wagner initially announced the first Bayreuth Festival, at which for the first time the Ring cycle would be presented complete, for 1873, but since Ludwig had declined to finance the project, the start of building was delayed, and the proposed date for the festival was deferred.
To raise funds for the construction, "Wagner societies" were formed in several cities, and Wagner began touring Germany conducting concerts. By the spring of 1873, only a third of the required funds had been raised; further pleas to Ludwig were initially ignored, but early in 1874, with the project on the verge of collapse, the King relented and provided a loan.
The full building programme included the family home, "Wahnfried", into which Wagner, with Cosima and the children, moved from their temporary accommodation on the 18th. April 1874. Wagner was ultimately laid to rest in the Wahnfried garden; in 1977 Cosima's ashes were placed alongside Wagner's body. The grave is shown in the photograph.
The theatre was completed in 1875, and the festival scheduled for the following year. Commenting on the struggle to finish the building, Wagner remarked to Cosima:
"Each stone is red with
my blood and yours".
For the design of the Festspielhaus, Wagner appropriated some of the ideas of his former colleague, Gottfried Semper, which he had previously solicited for a proposed new opera house at Munich.
Wagner was responsible for several theatrical innovations at Bayreuth; these included darkening the auditorium during performances, and placing the orchestra in a pit out of view of the audience.
The Festspielhaus finally opened on the 13th. August 1876 with Das Rheingold, at last taking its place as the first evening of the complete Ring cycle. The 1876 Bayreuth Festival therefore saw the premiere of the complete cycle, performed as a sequence as the composer had intended.
The 1876 Festival consisted of three full Ring cycles (under the baton of Hans Richter). At the end, critical reactions ranged between that of the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, who thought the work "divinely composed", and that of the French newspaper Le Figaro, which called the music "The dream of a lunatic".
The disillusioned included Wagner's friend and disciple Friedrich Nietzsche, who, having published his eulogistic essay "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth" before the festival as part of his Untimely Meditations, was bitterly disappointed by what he saw as Wagner's pandering to increasingly exclusivist German nationalism; his breach with Wagner began at this time.
The festival firmly established Wagner as an artist of European, and indeed world, importance: attendees included Kaiser Wilhelm I, the Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, Anton Bruckner, Camille Saint-Saëns and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Wagner was far from satisfied with the Festival; Cosima recorded that months later, his attitude towards the productions was:
"Never again, never again!"
Moreover, the festival finished with a deficit of about 150,000 marks. The expenses of Bayreuth and of Wahnfried meant that Wagner still sought further sources of income by conducting or taking on commissions such as the Centennial March for America, for which he received $5000.
Richard Wagner - The Final Years (1876–1883)
Following the first Bayreuth Festival, Wagner began work on Parsifal, his final opera. The composition took four years, much of which Wagner spent in Italy for health reasons.
From 1876 to 1878 Wagner also embarked on the last of his documented emotional liaisons, this time with Judith Gautier, whom he had met at the 1876 Festival.
Wagner was also much troubled by problems of financing Parsifal, and by the prospect of the work being performed by other theatres than Bayreuth. He was once again assisted by the liberality of King Ludwig, but was still forced by his personal financial situation in 1877 to sell the rights of several of his unpublished works (including the Siegfried Idyll) to the publisher Schott.
Wagner wrote several articles in his later years, often on political topics, and often reactionary in tone, repudiating some of his earlier, more liberal, views.
These include "Religion and Art" (1880) and "Heroism and Christianity" (1881), which were printed in the journal Bayreuther Blätter, published by his supporter Hans von Wolzogen.
Wagner's sudden interest in Christianity at this period, which infuses Parsifal, was contemporary with his increasing alignment with German nationalism, and required on his part, and the part of his associates, "the rewriting of some recent Wagnerian history", so as to represent, for example, the Ring as a work reflecting Christian ideals.
Many of these later articles, including "What is German?" (1878, but based on a draft written in the 1860's), repeated Wagner's antisemitic preoccupations.
Wagner completed Parsifal in January 1882, and a second Bayreuth Festival was held for the new opera, which premiered on the 26th. May.
Wagner was by this time extremely ill, having suffered a series of increasingly severe angina attacks.
During the sixteenth and final performance of Parsifal on the 29th. August, he entered the pit unseen during act 3, took the baton from conductor Hermann Levi, and led the performance to its conclusion.
After the festival, the Wagner family journeyed to Venice for the winter. Wagner died of a heart attack at the age of 69 on the 13th. February 1883 at Ca' Vendramin Calergi, a 16th.-century palazzo on the Grand Canal.
The legend that the attack was prompted by argument with Cosima over Wagner's supposedly amorous interest in the singer Carrie Pringle, who had been a Flower-maiden in Parsifal at Bayreuth, is without credible evidence.
After a funerary gondola bore Wagner's remains across the Grand Canal, his body was taken to Germany where it was buried in the garden of the Villa Wahnfried.
Richard Wagner's Works
Wagner's musical output is listed by the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis (WWV) as comprising 113 works, including fragments and projects.
The first complete scholarly edition of his musical works in print was commenced in 1970 under the aegis of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts and the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur of Mainz, and is presently (2023) under the editorship of Egon Voss.
It will consist of 21 volumes (57 books) of music and 10 volumes (13 books) of relevant documents and texts.
Richard Wagner's Early Works (to 1842)
Wagner's earliest attempts at opera were often uncompleted. Abandoned works include a pastoral opera based on Goethe's Die Laune des Verliebten (The Infatuated Lover's Caprice), written at the age of 17, Die Hochzeit (The Wedding), on which Wagner worked in 1832, and the singspiel Männerlist Größer als Frauenlist (Men are More Cunning than Women, 1837–1838).
Die Feen (The Fairies, 1833) was not performed in the composer's lifetime and Das Liebesverbot (The Ban on Love, 1836) was withdrawn after its first performance.
Rienzi (1842) was Wagner's first opera to be successfully staged.
The compositional style of these early works was conventional— the relatively more sophisticated Rienzi showing the clear influence of Grand Opera à la Spontini and Meyerbeer — and did not exhibit the innovations that would mark Wagner's place in musical history.
Later in life, Wagner said that he did not consider these works to be part of his oeuvre; and they have been performed only rarely in the last hundred years, although the overture to Rienzi is an occasional concert-hall piece.
Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot, and Rienzi were performed at both Leipzig and Bayreuth in 2013 to mark the composer's bicentenary.
Richard Wagner's Romantic Operas (1843–1851)
Wagner's middle stage output began with Der Fliegende Holländer (1843), followed by Tannhäuser (1845) and Lohengrin (1850).
These three operas are referred to as Wagner's "romantic operas". They reinforced the reputation, among the public in Germany and beyond, that Wagner had begun to establish with Rienzi.
Although distancing himself from the style of these operas from 1849 onwards, he nevertheless reworked both Der Fliegende Holländer and Tannhäuser on several occasions.
The three operas are considered to represent a significant developmental stage in Wagner's musical and operatic maturity as regards thematic handling, portrayal of emotions and orchestration.
They are the earliest works included in the Bayreuth canon, the mature operas that Cosima staged at the Bayreuth Festival after Wagner's death in accordance with his wishes.
All three (including the differing versions of Der Fliegende Holländer and Tannhäuser) continue to be regularly performed throughout the world, and have been frequently recorded.
They were also the operas by which his fame spread during his lifetime.
Richard Wagner's Music Dramas (1851–1882)
Wagner's late dramas are considered his masterpieces. Der Ring des Nibelungen, commonly referred to as the Ring or "Ring Cycle", is a set of four operas based loosely on figures and elements of Germanic mythology—particularly from the later Norse mythology—notably the Old Norse Poetic Edda and Volsunga Saga, and the Middle High German Nibelungenlied.
Wagner specifically developed the libretti for these operas according to his interpretation of Stabreim, highly alliterative rhyming verse-pairs used in old Germanic poetry.
They were also influenced by Wagner's concepts of ancient Greek drama, in which tetralogies were a component of Athenian festivals, and which he had amply discussed in his essay "Oper und Drama".
The first two components of the Ring cycle were Das Rheingold, which was completed in 1854, and Die Walküre, which was finished in 1856.
In Das Rheingold, with its "relentlessly talky 'realism' and the absence of lyrical 'numbers'", Wagner came very close to the musical ideals of his 1849–1851 essays.
Die Walküre, which contains what is virtually a traditional aria (Siegmund's Winterstürme in the first act), and the quasi-choral appearance of the Valkyries themselves, shows more "operatic" traits, but has been assessed by Barry Millington as:
"The music drama that most satisfactorily
embodies the theoretical principles of
'Oper und Drama'... A thoroughgoing
synthesis of poetry and music is achieved
without any notable sacrifice in musical
expression."
While composing the opera Siegfried, the third part of the Ring cycle, Wagner interrupted work on it, and between 1857 and 1864 wrote the tragic love story Tristan und Isolde and his only mature comedy Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, two works that are also part of the regular operatic canon.
Tristan is often granted a special place in musical history; many see it as the beginning of the move away from conventional harmony and tonality, and consider that it lays the groundwork for the direction of classical music in the 20th. century.
Wagner felt that his musico-dramatical theories were most perfectly realised in this work with its use of "the art of transition" between dramatic elements and the balance achieved between vocal and orchestral lines. Completed in 1859, the work was given its first performance in Munich, conducted by Bülow, in June 1865.
Die Meistersinger was originally conceived by Wagner in 1845 as a sort of comic pendant to Tannhäuser. Like Tristan, it was premiered in Munich under the baton of Bülow, on the 21st. June 1868, and became an immediate success.
Millington describes Meistersinger as:
"A rich, perceptive music drama
widely admired for its warm
humanity."
However its strong German nationalist overtones have led some to cite it as an example of Wagner's reactionary politics and antisemitism.
Completing the Ring
When Wagner returned to writing the music for the last act of Siegfried and for Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), as the final part of the Ring, his style had changed once more to something more recognisable as "operatic" than the aural world of Rheingold and Walküre, though it was still thoroughly stamped with his own originality as a composer and suffused with leitmotifs.
This was in part because the libretti of the four Ring operas had been written in reverse order, so that the book for Götterdämmerung was conceived more "traditionally" than that of Rheingold; still, the self-imposed strictures of the Gesamtkunstwerk had become relaxed.
The differences also result from Wagner's development as a composer during the period in which he wrote Tristan, Meistersinger and the Paris version of Tannhäuser. From act 3 of Siegfried onwards, the Ring becomes more chromatic melodically, more complex harmonically, and more developmental in its treatment of leitmotifs.
Wagner took 26 years from writing the first draft of a libretto in 1848 until he completed Götterdämmerung in 1874.
The Ring takes about 15 hours to perform, and is the only undertaking of such size to be regularly presented on the world's stages.
Parsifal
Wagner's final opera, Parsifal (1882), which was his only work written especially for his Bayreuth Festspielhaus and which is described in the score as a "Bühnenweihfestspiel" ("Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage"), has a storyline suggested by elements of the legend of the Holy Grail.
It also carries elements of Buddhist renunciation suggested by Wagner's readings of Schopenhauer. Wagner described it to Cosima as his "last card".
Parsifal remains controversial because of its treatment of Christianity, its eroticism, and its expression, as perceived by some commentators, of German nationalism and antisemitism.
Despite the composer's own description of the opera to King Ludwig as "this most Christian of works", Ulrike Kienzle has commented that:
"Wagner's turn to Christian mythology,
upon which the imagery and spiritual
contents of Parsifal rest, is idiosyncratic,
and contradicts Christian dogma in
many ways."
Musically, the opera has been held to represent a continuing development of the composer's style, and Millington describes it as:
"A diaphanous score of unearthly
beauty and refinement".
Richard Wagner's Non-Operatic Music
Apart from his operas, Wagner composed relatively few pieces of music. These include a symphony in C major (written at the age of 19), the Faust Overture (the only completed part of an intended symphony on the subject), some concert overtures, and choral and piano pieces.
Richard's most commonly performed work that is not an extract from an opera is the Siegfried Idyll for chamber orchestra, which has several motifs in common with the Ring cycle.
The Wesendonck Lieder are also often performed, either in the original piano version, or with orchestral accompaniment.
More rarely performed are the American Centennial March (1876), and Das Liebesmahl der Apostel (The Love Feast of the Apostles), a piece for male choruses and orchestra composed in 1843 for the city of Dresden.
After completing Parsifal, Wagner expressed his intention to turn to the writing of symphonies, and several sketches dating from the late 1870's and early 1880's have been identified as work towards this end.
The overtures and certain orchestral passages from Wagner's middle and late-stage operas are commonly played as concert pieces. For most of these, Wagner wrote or re-wrote short passages to ensure musical coherence.
The "Bridal Chorus" from Lohengrin is frequently played as the bride's processional wedding march in English-speaking countries.
Richard Wagner's Prose Writings
Wagner was an extremely prolific writer, authoring many books, poems, and articles, as well as voluminous correspondence. His writings covered a wide range of topics, including autobiography, politics, philosophy, and detailed analyses of his own operas.
Wagner planned for a collected edition of his publications as early as 1865; he believed that such a work would help the world to understand his intellectual development and artistic aims.
The first such edition was published between 1871 and 1883, but was doctored to suppress or alter articles that were an embarrassment to him (e.g. those praising Meyerbeer), or by altering dates on some articles to reinforce Wagner's own account of his progress.
Wagner's autobiography Mein Leben was originally published for close friends only in a very small edition (15–18 copies per volume) in four volumes between 1870 and 1880.
The first public edition (with many passages suppressed by Cosima) appeared in 1911; the first attempt at a full edition (in German) appeared in 1963.
There have been modern complete or partial editions of Wagner's writings, including a centennial edition in German edited by Dieter Borchmeyer (which, however, omitted the essay "Das Judenthum in der Musik" and Mein Leben).
The English translations of Wagner's prose in eight volumes by William Ashton Ellis (1892–1899) are still in print, and commonly used, despite their deficiencies.
The first complete historical and critical edition of Wagner's prose works was launched in 2013 at the Institute for Music Research at the University of Würzburg; this will result in at least eight volumes of text and several volumes of commentary, totalling over 5,000 pages.
It was originally anticipated that the Würzburg project will be completed by 2030, although this time frame may need to be extended.
A complete edition of Wagner's correspondence, estimated to amount to between 10,000 and 12,000 items, is under way under the supervision of the University of Würzburg. As of January 2021, 25 volumes have appeared, covering the period up to 1873.
Richard Wagner's Influence on Music
Wagner's later musical style introduced new ideas in harmony, melodic process (leitmotif) and operatic structure.
Notably from Tristan und Isolde onwards, he explored the limits of the traditional tonal system, which gave keys and chords their identity, pointing the way to atonality in the 20th. century.
Some music historians date the beginning of modern classical music to the first notes of Tristan, which include the so-called Tristan chord.
Wagner inspired great devotion. For a long period, many composers were inclined to align themselves with or against Wagner's music. Anton Bruckner and Hugo Wolf were greatly indebted to him, as were César Franck, Henri Duparc, Ernest Chausson, Jules Massenet, Richard Strauss, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Hans Pfitzner and many others.
Gustav Mahler was devoted to Wagner and his music; at the age of 15, he sought Wagner out on his 1875 visit to Vienna. Mahler became a renowned Wagner conductor, and Richard Taruskin has claimed that:
"Mahler's compositions extend
Wagner's maximalization of the
temporal and the sonorous in
music to the world of the
symphony."
The harmonic revolutions of Claude Debussy and Arnold Schoenberg (both of whose oeuvres contain examples of tonal and atonal modernism) have often been traced back to Tristan and Parsifal.
The Italian form of operatic realism known as verismo owed much to the Wagnerian concept of musical form.
Wagner also made a major contribution to the principles and practice of conducting. His essay "About Conducting" (1869) advanced Hector Berlioz's technique of conducting, and claimed that conducting was a means by which a musical work could be re-interpreted, rather than simply a mechanism for achieving orchestral unison.
He exemplified this approach in his own conducting, which was significantly more flexible than the disciplined approach of Felix Mendelssohn; in Wagner's view this also justified practices that would today be frowned upon, such as the rewriting of scores.
Wilhelm Furtwängler felt that Wagner and Bülow, through their interpretative approach, inspired a whole new generation of conductors (including Furtwängler himself).
Among those claiming inspiration from Wagner's music are the German band Rammstein, Jim Steinman, who wrote songs for Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler, Air Supply, Celine Dion and others.
Wagner also influenced the electronic composer Klaus Schulze, whose 1975 album Timewind consists of two 30-minute tracks, Bayreuth Return and Wahnfried 1883.
Joey DeMaio of the band Manowar has described Wagner as:
"The father of heavy metal".
The Slovenian group Laibach created the 2009 suite VolksWagner, using material from Wagner's operas.
Phil Spector's Wall of Sound recording technique was, it has been claimed, heavily influenced by Wagner.
Richard Wagner's Influence on Literature, Philosophy and the Visual Arts
Wagner's influence on literature and philosophy is significant. Millington has commented:
"Wagner's protean abundance meant that
he could inspire the use of literary motif in
many a novel employing interior monologue;
the Symbolists saw him as a mystic hierophant;
the Decadents found many a frisson in his work."
Friedrich Nietzsche was a member of Wagner's inner circle during the early 1870's, and his first published work, The Birth of Tragedy, proposed Wagner's music as the Dionysian "rebirth" of European culture in opposition to Apollonian rationalist "decadence".
Nietzsche however broke with Wagner following the first Bayreuth Festival, believing that Wagner's final phase represented a pandering to Christian pieties, and a surrender to the new German Reich.
Nietzsche expressed his displeasure with the later Wagner in "The Case of Wagner" and "Nietzsche Contra Wagner".
The poets Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine worshipped Wagner.
Édouard Dujardin, whose influential novel Les Lauriers Sont Coupés is in the form of an interior monologue inspired by Wagnerian music, founded a journal dedicated to Wagner, La Revue Wagnérienne.
In a list of major cultural figures influenced by Wagner, Bryan Magee includes D. H. Lawrence, Aubrey Beardsley, Romain Rolland, Gérard de Nerval, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Rainer Maria Rilke and several others.
In the 20th century, W. H. Auden once called Wagner:
"Perhaps the greatest
genius that ever lived."
Thomas Mann and Marcel Proust were heavily influenced by him, and discussed Wagner in their novels. He is also discussed in some of the works of James Joyce, as well as W. E. B. Du Bois, who featured Lohengrin in The Souls of Black Folk.
Wagnerian themes inhabit T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, which contains lines from Tristan und Isolde and Götterdämmerung, and Verlaine's poem on Parsifal.
Many of Wagner's concepts, including his speculation about dreams, predated their investigation by Sigmund Freud. Wagner had publicly analysed the Oedipus myth before Freud was born in terms of its psychological significance, insisting that incestuous desires are natural and normal, and perceptively exhibiting the relationship between sexuality and anxiety. Georg Groddeck considered the Ring as the first manual of psychoanalysis.
Richard Wagner's Influence on the Cinema
Wagner's concept of the use of leitmotifs and the integrated musical expression which they can enable has influenced many 20th. and 21st. century film scores.
The critic Theodor Adorno has noted that:
"The Wagnerian leitmotif leads directly to
cinema music where the sole function of
the leitmotif is to announce heroes or
situations so as to allow the audience to
orient itself more easily".
Film scores citing Wagnerian themes include Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, which features a version of the Ride of the Valkyries, Trevor Jones's soundtrack to John Boorman's film Excalibur, and the 2011 films A Dangerous Method (dir. David Cronenberg) and Melancholia (dir. Lars von Trier).
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's 1977 film Hitler has a visual style and set design that are strongly inspired by Der Ring des Nibelungen, musical excerpts from which are frequently used in the film's soundtrack.
Richard Wagner's Opponents and Supporters
Not all reaction to Wagner was positive. For a time, German musical life divided into two factions, supporters of Wagner and supporters of Johannes Brahms; the latter, with the support of the powerful critic Eduard Hanslick (of whom Beckmesser in Meistersinger is in part a caricature) championed traditional forms, and led the conservative front against Wagnerian innovations.
They were supported by the conservative leanings of some German music schools, including the conservatories at Leipzig under Ignaz Moscheles and at Cologne under the direction of Ferdinand Hiller.
Another Wagner detractor was the French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan, who wrote to Hiller after attending Wagner's Paris concert on the 25th. January 1860. At this concert Wagner conducted the overtures to Der Fliegende Holländer and Tannhäuser, the preludes to Lohengrin and Tristan und Isolde, and six other extracts from Tannhäuser and Lohengrin.
Alkan noted:
"I had imagined that I was going
to meet music of an innovative
kind, but was astonished to find
a pale imitation of Berlioz.
I do not like all the music of Berlioz
while appreciating his marvellous
understanding of certain instrumental
effects ... but here he was imitated
and caricatured ... Wagner is not a
musician, he is a disease."
Even those who, like Debussy, opposed Wagner ("this old poisoner") could not deny his influence. Indeed, Debussy was one of many composers, including Tchaikovsky, who felt the need to break with Wagner precisely because his influence was so unmistakable and overwhelming.
"Golliwogg's Cakewalk" from Debussy's Children's Corner piano suite contains a deliberately tongue-in-cheek quotation from the opening bars of Tristan.
Others who proved resistant to Wagner's operas included Gioachino Rossini, who said:
"Wagner has wonderful moments,
and dreadful quarters of an hour."
In the 20th. century Wagner's music was parodied by Paul Hindemith and Hanns Eisler, among others.
Wagner's followers (known as Wagnerians or Wagnerites) have formed many societies dedicated to Wagner's life and work.
Film and Stage Portrayals of Richard Wagner
Wagner has been the subject of many biographical films. The earliest was a silent film made by Carl Froelich in 1913. It featured in the title role the composer Giuseppe Becce, who also wrote the score for the film (as Wagner's music, still in copyright, was not available).
Other film portrayals of Wagner include:
-- Richard Burton in Wagner (1983).
-- Paul Nicholas in Lisztomania (1975)
-- Trevor Howard in Ludwig (1972)
-- Lyndon Brook in Song Without End (1960)
-- Alan Badel in Magic Fire (1955)
Jonathan Harvey's opera Wagner Dream (2007) intertwines the events surrounding Wagner's death with the story of Wagner's uncompleted opera outline Die Sieger (The Victors).
The Bayreuth Festival
Since Wagner's death, the Bayreuth Festival, which has become an annual event, has been successively directed by his widow, his son Siegfried, the latter's widow Winifred Wagner, their two sons Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner, and, presently, two of the composer's great-granddaughters, Eva Wagner-Pasquier and Katharina Wagner.
Since 1973, the festival has been overseen by the Richard-Wagner-Stiftung (Richard Wagner Foundation), the members of which include some of Wagner's descendants.
Controversies Associated With Richard Wagner
Wagner's operas, writings, politics, beliefs and unorthodox lifestyle made him a controversial figure during his lifetime.
Following his death, debate about his ideas and their interpretation, particularly in Germany during the 20th. century, has continued.
Racism and Antisemitism
A caricature of Wagner by Karl Clic was published in 1873 in the Viennese satirical magazine, Humoristische Blätter. It shows a cartoon figure holding a baton, standing next to a music stand in front of some musicians.
The figure has a large nose and prominent forehead. His sideburns turn into a wispy beard under his chin. The exaggerated features refer to rumours of Wagner's Jewish ancestry.
Wagner's hostile writings on Jews, including Jewishness in Music, correspond to some existing trends of thought in Germany during the 19th century.
Despite his very public views on this topic, throughout his life Wagner had Jewish friends, colleagues and supporters. There have been frequent suggestions that antisemitic stereotypes are represented in Wagner's operas. The characters of Alberich and Mime in the Ring, Sixtus Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger, and Klingsor in Parsifal are sometimes claimed as Jewish representations, though they are not identified as such in the librettos of these operas.
The topic is further complicated by claims, which may have been credited by Wagner, that he himself was of Jewish ancestry, via his supposed father Geyer. However, there is no evidence that Geyer had Jewish ancestors.
Some biographers have noted that Wagner in his final years developed interest in the racialist philosophy of Arthur de Gobineau, notably Gobineau's belief that Western society was doomed because of miscegenation between "superior" and "inferior" races.
According to Robert Gutman, this theme is reflected in the opera Parsifal.
Other biographers however (including Lucy Beckett) believe that this is not true, as the original drafts of the story date back to 1857 and Wagner had completed the libretto for Parsifal by 1877, but he displayed no significant interest in Gobineau until 1880.
Other Interpretations
Wagner's ideas are amenable to socialist interpretations; many of his ideas on art were being formulated at the time of his revolutionary inclinations in the 1840's. Thus, for example, George Bernard Shaw wrote in The Perfect Wagnerite (1883):
"Wagner's picture of Niblunghome under the
reign of Alberic is a poetic vision of unregulated
industrial capitalism as it was made known in
Germany in the middle of the 19th. century by
Engels's book 'The Condition of the Working
Class in England."
Left-wing interpretations of Wagner also inform the writings of Theodor Adorno among other Wagner critics.
Walter Benjamin gave Wagner as an example of "bourgeois false consciousness", alienating art from its social context.
György Lukács contended that the ideas of the early Wagner represented the ideology of the "true socialists" (wahre Sozialisten), a movement referenced in Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto" as belonging to the left-wing of German bourgeois radicalism.
Anatoly Lunacharsky said about the later Wagner:
"The circle is complete. The revolutionary
has become a reactionary. The rebellious
petty bourgeois now kisses the slipper of
the Pope, the keeper of order."
The writer Robert Donington has produced a detailed, if controversial, Jungian interpretation of the Ring cycle, described as "an approach to Wagner by way of his symbols", which, for example, sees the character of the goddess Fricka as part of her husband Wotan's "inner femininity".
Millington notes that Jean-Jacques Nattiez has also applied psychoanalytical techniques in an evaluation of Wagner's life and works.
Nazi Appropriation of Richard Wagner's Work
Adolf Hitler was an admirer of Wagner's music, and saw in his operas an embodiment of his own vision of the German nation; in a 1922 speech he claimed that:
"Wagner's works glorify the heroic
Teutonic nature ... Greatness lies in
the heroic."
Hitler visited Bayreuth frequently from 1923 onwards, and attended productions at the theatre.
There continues to be debate about the extent to which Wagner's views might have influenced Nazi thinking. Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927), who married Wagner's daughter Eva in 1908 but never met Wagner, was the author of the racist book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, approved by the Nazi movement.
Chamberlain met Hitler several times between 1923 and 1927 in Bayreuth, but cannot credibly be regarded as a conduit of Wagner's own views.
The Nazis used those parts of Wagner's thought that were useful for propaganda, and ignored or suppressed the rest.
While Bayreuth presented a useful front for Nazi culture, and Wagner's music was used at many Nazi events, the Nazi hierarchy as a whole did not share Hitler's enthusiasm for Wagner's operas, and resented attending these lengthy epics at Hitler's insistence.
Guido Fackler has researched evidence that indicates that it is possible that Wagner's music was used at the Dachau concentration camp in 1933–1934 to "re-educate" political prisoners by exposure to "national music".
There has been no evidence to support claims, sometimes made, that his music was played at Nazi death camps during the Second World War, and Pamela Potter has noted that Wagner's music was explicitly off-limits in the camps.
Because of the associations of Wagner with antisemitism and Nazism, the performance of his music in the State of Israel has been a source of controversy.
Nikon D50 & Nikon 80-400mm lens
With migrants like these Wheatears in the accompanying photos beginning to arrive, I know it will only be a matter of a week or so before we see the Cuckoo. Often seen before being heard, Cuckoos are usually quiet for a time after they first arrive, and I don't doubt somewhere in the country some may already be here.
The subject of poems and songs, the Cuckoo's appearance is associated traditionally with the arrival of Spring. The male's call must surely be easily the most recognisable bird-call of all in this country. Unmistakable as it echoes across moors or over woodland, few people would associate those familiar notes with the harsh, growling, hissing sounds that males make when confronted by a rival. Those noises bear little resemblance to anything that could be imagined coming from a bird! Even to human ears they sound decidedly angry and intimidating. The contrast between those aggressive noises and the mellifluous 'cuck-oo' call could hardly be more striking.
The female Cuckoo's bubbling call is quite different to that of the male and proves an irresistible attraction to any male in the vicinity who will fly immediately towards the sound – a fact exploited readily by operators of commercial wildlife photography hides who lure birds to perches next to the hide, guaranteeing their clients superb photographs. Any photographer using such hides in the hope of enhancing their reputation as a expert naturalist is, however, likely to be disappointed. The set-up photographs obtained from such hides are just as instantly recognisable as the Cuckoo's call!
Unlike some foreign races of Cuckoo, all Cuckoos in this country are parasitic and will lay in a variety of small birds' nests. Dunnock, Meadow Pipit and Reed Warbler are all 'favourites'. Wren and Robin too. But they have been recorded as laying in the nests of many other species. It is said the female Cuckoo (unlike other species) almost invariably lays her egg in the afternoon. This makes sense for most small birds lay in the morning. It's a strategy that may help prevent (or at least minimise) the chance of possible confrontations with the host birds who, if absent from their nest, may even sometimes not notice the unwelcome intruder.
Studies have also revealed that Cuckoos almost never lay in a nest that already contains a completed clutch of eggs. There is logic at work here too. Most small birds will not start to incubate before the clutch is complete or nearly complete. Laying in a nest where a clutch is complete might mean that the host's eggs may hatch well before that of the Cuckoo. Conversely, laying in a nest that already contains only one or two eggs doesn't disadvantage the female Cuckoo in any way since her egg will start to hatch at more or less the same time as the rest of the clutch; perhaps even before, for the incubation period of a Cuckoo's egg is very short compared to other birds of its size or even that of many smaller birds.
This is somewhat surprising given the fact that the Cuckoo's eggshell is much thicker and heavier than that of a bird like the Skylark whose egg is pretty well identical in size and shape but takes longer to hatch. The thicker eggshell may make it less fragile and less susceptible to damage during the process of laying in some of the more awkwardly situated nests. Some people have even suggested the Cuckoo's egg may already be partially incubated while in the the oviduct, which they claim may account for its short incubation period.
I have little experience of Cuckoos and their ways, but the late Peter Davis who worked for English Nature studied them intensively for a great many years on Exmoor. In his classic study 'The Cuckoo on Exmoor and its Meadow Pipit Host' (now, alas out of print) he goes into wonderfully descriptive detail of every aspect of the birds' behaviour. What a delight this revealing monograph is to read! And how refreshing! Unlike so much of today's sterile ornithological literature, full of unreadable pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo that passes for 'scientific research', Davis's acute observation testifies not only to his tireless dedication but also his considerable skills as a naturalist.
Anyone wishing to embark on a field study of a particular bird would do well to get hold of a copy of Davis's monograph. It is the epitome of the sort of research that IS truly thorough, worthwhile and perceptive. Davis's observations are entirely his own and do not rely merely on quoting 'facts' derived from other literature, some of which, passed on and repeated by successive writers, may in any case be dubious and later prove wrong. Seek to emulate Davis, make careful and personal observations and you won't go too far wrong!
Davis describes in detail how the female Cuckoo often sits quietly for hours in a tree, watching the comings and goings of the Meadow Pipits as they build their nest so that she may later fly straight to it and deposit her egg. She will also spend several hours in a tree beforehand to allow time for the egg to pass down her oviduct. This means that the egg is just ready for laying as she glides down to the nest. Thus laying her egg can be accomplished in seconds and her quick visit to the nest might even pass unnoticed occasionally by the host birds.
Some Cuckoos, Davis reveals, are more adept at nest-finding than others and even after watching the host build, many fail to find the nest straight away. Flying in the direction of the nest but overshooting it, they have to return to their perch where they may have to watch again and try several times before they succeed in pinpointing it accurately enough to fly straight to it. Others may land nearby in the heather and spend some time on the ground searching for the nest, all the while being attacked by the hosts. By following up individual female Cuckoos over a period of years Davis found that their individual nest-finding abilities varied greatly but in all, even the most 'expert' birds, nest-finding ability diminished with age.
Sadly numbers of Cuckoos in my local area seem to have dwindled somewhat in recent years, as have those of Meadow Pipits and I have yet to see a young Cuckoo in a nest or fledged. With their large red gapes they are a target for all sorts of predators, notably Carrion Crows, whose behaviour Davis also studied at length.
He found the Crows discovered Meadow Pipit nests in exactly the same way that he did: that is simply by spending hours sitting watching the female Cuckoo rather than wasting energy searching exhaustively for the nest hidden among heather. Once the Cuckoo had flown to the nest to lay and so pinpointed it for the Crows, the nest was done for.
The only redeeming aspect of the Crows' behaviour was that they appeared not to be able to distinguish a female Cuckoo waiting to lay from one simply watching the Meadow Pipits in the process of nest-building. In attempting to follow individual female Cuckoos that he knew from previous observations were about to lay, Davis failed frequently to locate them when they were hidden from sight among leafy boughs. However, by first searching out pairs of Carrion Crows and scanning the tree they were in, he would often spot the motionless Cuckoo among the branches. Although he used the Crows in this way to find elusive female Cuckoos, he also spent a lot of time and energy trying to deter the persistent Crows, chasing them from the tree in which the Cuckoo was perched only to find they often returned to the same tree even before the Cuckoo had resumed its vigil there.
A friend who spent many years photographing Blackcock at a lek witnessed similar clever corvid behaviour. After a couple of seasons photographing at a lek he began to notice that a Carrion Crow was often to be seen lurking nearby at the edge of the lek. At first he thought the Crow's curiosity had simply been aroused by the lekking antics of the Blackcock and he didn't pay too much attention to it. However, as successive seasons passed, he began to take more careful note and found that a Crow appeared only when the Greyhen started to come to the lek and never when the Blackcock alone were there. While the Greyhen remained at the lek, the Carrion Crow would remain too, but as soon as a Greyhen departed, invariably the Crow would take off after it. Later, following the flight-line of the birds, my friend discovered the Greyhen's sucked eggs – the Crow had simply followed it straight back to its nest!
Crows may be the principal villains on the moor, but foxes and smaller mammals too must account for many Cuckoo chicks whose constant loud clamour as they demand to be fed is bound to attract attention. Grouse shooting ceased long ago on our own local moor and gamekeepers are long gone: no-one now controls vermin there.
For most of the year the moor now lies silent, lifeless and desolate, a mere shadow of its former self. Sadly, there seems, I'm afraid, little future for waders, grouse, Meadow Pipits or Cuckoos on this particular moor . . . . Yet again, 'Sic gloria transit . . . .' an all too familiar story in birdland today!
Will self-proclaimed bird experts and those academics who churn out their 'scientific' ornithological papers, complete with pie charts, equations and graphs help to reverse this trend? It would be nice to think so. But somehow I doubt it!
Meantime Cuckoos hang on and their familiar call continues to echo across the still moors. Long may it continue to do so.
3D red/cyan anaglyph created from glass plate stereograph at Library of Congress - Prints & Photographs Online Catalog at:
LOC Title: Antietam, Md. President Lincoln and Gen. George B. McClellan in the general's tent; another view
Date: Oct. 4, 1862
Photographer: Alexander Gardner (1821 - 1882)
Notes: A familiar image of Lincoln and McClellan, taken by Alexander Gardner, on Oct 4th, 1862, two and a half weeks after the Battle of Antietam. Gardner took two shots of this scene in McClellan's headquarters tent, a single-lens large format, and the stereograph that you see here. The two photos look almost identical but their postures and expressions are slightly different; in this version, McClellan is giving Lincoln more of a hard stare. One might wonder what the General was thinking, as he looked at Lincoln across the table. It was in that oft-quoted letter to his wife, where McClellan expressed his true feelings toward Lincoln: "...The President is nothing more than a well-meaning baboon...."
There were many interesting details in the newspapers about Lincoln's visit to McClellan that are not covered in the standard Civil War histories today. The New York papers provided colorful accounts of Lincoln's extensive tour of Harper's Ferry and all the surrounding ridges - - Bolivar Heights, Loudon Heights, and Maryland Heights, reviewing troops and receiving salutes on each, and the "grand review" of all the troops encamped around Antietam. The papers told of McClellan taking Lincoln on tours of the Antietam and South Mountain battlefields and the New York Herald indicated that the tour of the Antietam battlefield even continued on after dark by moonlight. I was a bit skeptical of this, but the astronomy software Stellarium shows that the moon was a waxing gibbous, 75% to 80% full, on these nights in Oct 1862, and well up in the sky by sunset, so the story seems plausible. There was also an interesting story in various newspapers of Lincoln and McClellan consoling and comforting wounded Confederates in a field hospital at Antietam.
So, to provide some background and setup this photo by Alexander Gardner, taken on Saturday morning, the last day of Lincoln's 4-day visit, below are newspaper accounts of what Lincoln and McClellan did during those first four days in Oct 1862.
-----------------
Wednesday, Oct 1, 1862 (from the New York Daily Tribune of Oct 3rd)
“President Lincoln arrived at Harper’s Ferry on a special train from Washington…..and escorted to Gen. Sumner’s headquarters….At Gen. Sumner’s headquarters he was met by Gen. McClellan. After a cordial interview, the President, accompanied by Gen. McClellan, Gen. Sumner, and a brilliant cavalcade composed of Division and Brigade Generals, with members of their staffs, proceeded to review Gen. Sumner’s splendid army corps on Bolivar Heights. The corps presented a fine appearance, and greeted the President and Gen. McClellan with great enthusiasm. The President also visited the ruins of the railroad bridge and Government buildings at Harper’s Ferry, when he returned to Bolivar, and passed the night with Gen. Sumner.”
---------------------------
Thursday, Oct 2, 1862 (from page 4 of the New York Herald of Oct 7th)
On Maryland and Loudon Heights
“Immediately after breakfast, the President, on horseback, accompanied by Major General Sumner, Brigadier Generals Hancock, Howard, Meagher and Gorman, with their respective staffs, and the gentlemen who composed the Presidential party, left the headquarters of the corps on Bolivar, and rode down to Harper's Ferry, on their way to Loudon Heights, across the Shenandoah. Everyone in town was out to see the President and party as they passed. Crossing the Shenandoah river on a pontoon bridge, the cavalcade commenced the difficult ascent of Loudon Heights. The road, which was full of stones and rocks, led along and up the side of the mountain parallel with the river for a considerable distance, and then bore off to the left through the dense woods away to the highest summit. Up the horses tugged and toiled, over the stones and rocks. At one point during the ascent one of the regiments of the division which holds the Heights was drawn up in line where the road turned to the left. The soldiers presented arms as the President passed.
When the Presidential party reached the summit the troops were found drawn up in line awaiting his arrival. General Augers' old division, now commanded by General Geary, was formed in one long single line of battle on the hill. General Geary, who was wounded some time ago, returned yesterday and took command of the division. He is still compelled to carry his arm in a sling. He received the President just as Mr. Lincoln reached the summit, and immediately conducted him along the division line. The drums were beat and bugles sounded, the ensigns dipped their colors and the troops presented arms. At the same time a light howitzer battery fired the Presidential salute of twenty-one guns The President and party rode through the smoke, which completely enveloped them for a while, in passing to the further end of the division line. Loud and repeated cheers were given for the President as he rode along the line again on his return. This division formed part of General Banks' old command…..
The President was highly pleased to find the soldiers in such a comfortable condition. He said he had not expected to see them looking so well. Alter he had passed along the line the second time the regiments returned to their tents and the President and party, joined by Generals Geary and Green, began the descent of the mountain. Reaching the foot in safety they recrossed the pontoon bridge to Harper's Ferry.
Passing through the town again the company attracted as much attention as before. Without delay they proceeded to the pontoon bridge over the Potomac, near the railroad bridge, which the rebels had destroyed. The Presidential party presented a very picturesque appearance while crossing the river on that splendid pontoon bridge. Having safely landed on this side the President led the party up the Maryland Heights….the messenger which was subsequently sent did not reach the headquarters on the heights in time with the orders for the troops to prepare for review, so that the visit of the President took them completely by surprise. As soon as the President appeared, however, the division under General Gordon was hastily formed at different points on the mountain. One of the batteries, planted so as to command Loudon Heights, from which we had just descended, opened a sudden fire, and belched forth the Presidential salute. The reverberations of the heavy guns went rolling beyond the mountain summits. The President rode post the battery, and the men presented sabres. Thence he went to the other points on the heights, where soldiers were stationed, and while he rode in front of the lines, with hat in hand, the troops loudly cheered him as before.
He had inspected the troops, and was on his way down the mountain when he met General Gordon coming up, when an interchange of civilities took place.
On arriving at the bridge again at Harper's Ferry the President and party remained a while awaiting the arrival of his baggage and the ambulances to convey them to McClellan’s headquarters, eight or ten miles distant. The ambulances soon arrived. General Sumner and the other generals took leave of the President. It was now noon, and, while they returned to their respective headquarters, he proceeded on the Sharpsburg road to McClellan's.
On the Battlefield
After a delightful ride through this picturesque portion of the country, Mr. Lincoln reached Gen McClellan’s headquarters about three o'clock in the afternoon. Lieutenant Colonel Sweitzer conducted him to the General's tent upon the hill. The President had arranged with Gen. McClellan to visit the Antietam battle field during the afternoon. The guests partook of a hasty lunch previous to leaving for the field. Gen. McClellan, with several members of his staff and a number of his generals, and attended by an escort of cavalry, dashed on in front, while the President and the gentlemen with him from Washington rode to the battle field in ambulances. They first proceeded to the commanding hill from which McClellan viewed the battle and directed the operations of the Union army during the engagement. From this hill a splendid view is obtained of the whole surrounding country, embracing within its scope the positions occupied by the hostile armies from the right to the left of the opposing lines…..
It was almost evening when the guests arrived on the immediate battle field, and the limited interval between sundown and dark had to be industriously improved so as to have an opportunity to visit the principal points of interest. The President and General McClellan were still upon the ground after the daylight had disappeared and the moon shone out upon the memorable battle field.
A very pretty and picturesque scene occurred at this time. General McClellan, observing some Sisters of Charity, in their curious costume, and a faithful Father of the Roman Catholic church, following to the grave, amid the suggestive moonlight, the remains of a brave Union soldier who had died in one of the hospitals upon the field, from wounds received in the battle, rode up, took off his hat and held a brief conversation with the principal participators in that solemn scene. The kindly offices of these self -sacrificing sisters are dearly cherished by the wounded and dying soldiers. Those who now occupy the hospitals on the battle field are the most severely wounded, who could not be removed. When a gallant fellow dies of the wounds received in battle he is buried by these Sisters of charity on the field.
The battle field was an object of peculiar interest to the President. Hundreds of dead horses, many of which had been burned, were lying on the field. Hundreds of human graves, where the dead of both armies lay buried, were seen at different points on the ground. The field was still strewn with the clothing of the wounded and the dead. In one place there was a monster grave, over which there was this inscription:-- "Here lies the body of General Anderson and eighty other rebels," and on another mound we could read by the early moonlight:--“Here lie the bodies of sixty rebels. The wages of sin is death. “
The party returned by moonlight to General McClellan's headquarters, where arrangements were made for the President to pass the night in camp. As the President arrived the band struck up "Hail to the Chief.” Dinner was served immediately after their return. At the table the President kept the company in the best of humors by his apt remarks and amusing stories. During the evening he was serenaded by the splendid band of the Second cavalry, which was stationed on the hill. It was playing some fine selections when the President retired to his couch in the tent.”
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Friday, Oct 3, 1862 (spotty extracts below from a huge article on page 5 of the New York Herald of Oct 7th)
“….The grand review to-day commenced with General Burnside's corps, which is encamped near the scene of its sanguinary participation on the left of our lines in the recent battle. After reveille the troops were ordered under arms for review. Early in the morning a heavy haze hung ever the horizon; but just before the President left the camp at headquarters the sun shone out warm and bright. And so the weather was all day. It was nearly ten o'clock when Mr. Lincoln, accompanied by General McClellan, with nearly all the members of his staff, and attended by a squadron of his body guard, went from the headquarters on the hill along the road towards Harper's Ferry to review the different divisions under General Burnside. They were marshalled on the open rolling ground, composed for the most part of clover and corn fields. As we neared the spot a splendid sight burst upon our view--the troops, composing lines and columns in different formations, covering the ground as far as the eye embraced on right and left, from crest to crest, and stretching away to the Antietam. Just as the beauties of this martial scene were unfolding, General Burnside, followed by his extensive staff and a number of his generals, rode out of a field on the right of the road and greeted General McClellan and the President.
The appearance of the cavalcade when the President commenced to review the troops, was unusually brilliant. Mr. Lincoln by his gigantic stature and civilian dress, was easily distinguished from them all. He was attired in plain black with deep crape upon his hat in memory of Willie. His prominent check bones and perceptive faculties could be plainly perceived at a distance without the aid of a field glass. His determination and honesty of purpose were indicated in his countenance…….The contrast in their personal appearance was strikingly perceptible. McClellan, under the ordinary size, as was the great Napoleon; Lincoln, as he says himself, six feet four in his stockings, not counting all the outcome in him.
At this grand review the eyes of everybody present were turned with the greatest interest to these two men. Thousands of the inhabitants of the surrounding country, not from Maryland alone, but from beyond the Pennsylvania border also, had come in carriages, on horseback and afoot, partly to see the army, but principally to see these two leading men….
Just as the grand reviewing column of officers magnificently mounted, was moving towards the right of the division, Captain Dickinson's battery fired the first salute. Twenty-one guns are always fired in honor of the appearance of the President. As the party moved along past the veteran soldiers, the President rode in front of all with head uncovered. The drums rolled, the bugles sounded and the colors drooped. The regimental flags and the Stars and Stripes were completely riddled by the rebel bullets. And the same was seen in each of the old divisions…..
It was early in the afternoon, when the Presidential cavalcade arrived at General Fitz John Porter’s headquarters, in the vicinity of Sharpsburg. Here he was joined by General Porter and staff. No time was to be lost, so the review of this corps was immediately commenced. Leaving the ambulance, Mr. Lincoln mounted his horse again, and resumed the labors of the grand review. Porter's corps was martialled among the hills and hollows of the surrounding lands. The troops had been in position several hours, awaiting the arrival of the President. At length, he now had come..….
….This concluded the review of Fitz John Porter's corps, the reserve batteries not being ordered into position on the field. The corps presented a magnificent appearance, for which it was highly complimented by the President. The review ended, the President and his attendants together with the generals of divisions, sat down to a fine collation at General Porter's headquarters. After the repast a photograph was taken of the President and party standing in front of General Porter's tent. Then Mr. Lincoln and General McClellan with those who accompanied them hither, departed to review the troops composing Hooker's last command…..
Away the party rode at a furious rate until arrived at General Reynold's corps. It is the command which was formerly under McDowell, and latterly under Hooker, who fought so bravely in the recent battle…The President speedily reviewed this consecrated corps, and when he beheld the smallness of some of the regiments, and their blood stained and perforated banners, he could not be otherwise than affected by the sight. After the usual honors had been paid the President and the customary civilities interchanged, the party rode off to the borders of the Antietam battle field, where General McClellan had directed General Pleasanton to form his flying column.
General Franklin’s Corps. General Franklin had dispatched two aids to meet the President and General McClellan, with their party, on the old battle field, and conduct them to the pines where the divisions in his corps were prepared for review. Immediately after the review of Pleasanton’s command, these officers guided the brilliant reviewing column to Fairplay, five miles from Sharpsburg, which had been chosen for the review of General Smith's division…
Conclusion
……He reviewed at least twelve divisions of our army today, in doing which he rode over forty miles. He has pleased the soldiers by his visit, and obtained considerable knowledge from personal observation….With this visit to General Couch's division, which belongs to Keys' corps, but is temporarily assigned to Gen. Franklin's, the President concluded his grand review. The party left the grounds as the shades of evening were gathering around them, and passing down the turnpike in dashing style, soon reached the headquarters of the army, a few miles beyond Sharpsburg.”
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Saturday, Oct 4, 1862
The stereograph by Gardner, posted above in anaglyph form, was taken on Oct 4th, sometime before 10am, which is when the papers reported that Lincoln left Antietam. Before leaving Antietam, Lincoln visited the wounded General Richardson at the Pry House, and then the incident below of Lincoln comforting the wounded Confederate soldiers occurred. This story was carried by many newspapers across the country, even making it into the Richmond newspapers; the account, below, is from the Daily Democrat and News (Davenport Iowa) of Oct 13th.
President Lincoln and Gen. McClellan Among the Rebel Prisoners
“Franc B. Wilkie, the Washington correspondent of the Chicago Times, gives the following incident which transpired during the late trip of President Lincoln to the Army of the Potomac, and vouches for its truth: "After leaving Gen. Richardson, the party passed on until we reached a barn near Gen. R.'s quarters, in which were a large number of Confederate wounded. Seeing some wounded men grouped around the fences in the vicinity, and learning their character, the President remarked to Gen. McClellan that he would like to visit the interior of the building. The cavalcade immediately halted, and the whole party entered the hospital, where a scene was presented such as is always found where a great number of wounded are gathered.
"After looking around him for a few moments, Mr. Lincoln said to some of the Confederates that, if they had no objection, he would be pleased to take them by the hand; that the solemn obligations which we owe to our country and posterity compel the prosecution of this war; that many on both sides must necessarily become victims; but, although they (the wounded Confederates) were our enemies by circumstances that are now uncontrollable, he bore them no malice, and could take them by the hand with as much feeling and sympathy as if they were brothers.
"After this, all of the wounded Confederates who could walk, and who had listened in silence to the remarks of Mr. Lincoln, came forward, and, with downcast countenances, took silently but fervently, each in his turn, the hand of the Chief Magistrate of our nation. When all had come forward, the President and Gen. McClellan passed on to the places of those who were unable to walk; and here the Commander-in-Chief of our army and navy and the Hero of Antietam knelt down beside the unfortunate rebel sufferers, smoothed their aching temples, cheered them in their afflictions, with words of comfort, bade them be of good cheer, and assured them that every possible care should be given them to ameliorate their condition.
"It was a most touching scene. The noble little General was as tender in his consolations as a girl, as also was the President. During the impressive scene there was not a single dry eye among all the lookers-on, either Federal or Confederate."
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Saturday, Oct 4th continued - Lincoln and McClellan leave Antietam for South Mountain (from "The Weekly Pioneer and Democrat," dated October 17, 1862)
“President Lincoln, Gen. McClellan and others left McClellan’s headquarters at 10 o’clock to-day, and visited the battle field of South Mountain. McClellan and staff there took leave of the President, who arrived at Frederick at 5 p. m. He was enthusiastically received, and spoke a few words to the assembled multitude. ......President Lincoln made a call upon the wounded Gen. Hartshuff, and soon after left for Washington amidst the cheering of a throng of citizens and soldiers….”
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Red/Cyan (not red/blue) glasses of the proper density must be used to view 3D effect without ghosting. Anaglyph prepared using red cyan glasses from The Center For Civil War Photography / Civil War Trust. CCWP Link: www.civilwarphotography.org/
Toulouse-Lautrec
Exhibition in the State Gallery Linz at the Upper Austrian State Museums
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) became famous for his provocative and theatrical depictions of Parisian nightlife in and around Montmarte.
The paintings and graphic works by this French artist have often been interpreted as illustrations of the time period from the turn of the century or, in regards to the circumstances of his selected settings, as works that have becoming increasingly significant because of the lighthearted circumstances in which they were created. From an artistic perspective, the exhibition highlights Toulouse-Lautrec’s unique compositions and focuses on little known facts as well as considering new aspects: the accurate portrayal and depiction of people in modern civilization captured in their public and personal lives.
The seventy works on display portray the artist not only as a perceptive observer of these encounters but also portray the perspective of a lone outsider, which presumably stems from his privileged upbringing in the French countryside and dealing with his physical afflictions.
Precisely 100 years after the first monographic exhibition of the artist in Austria, and on the occasion of Linz09 as the European Capital of Culture, his works will be presented in context together with such significant contemporaries as Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele.
Qualifying Statement:
I could not completely fulfill this assignment and write my own fan fiction because my computer’s logic board fried the day this assignment was given. I tried to access the fan fiction site with my work computer, but the internet filter wouldn’t allow me to access fanfiction.net.
I believe, however, I have augmented the assignment, by researching and reading many articles and writing a paper that might help us understand why fan fiction writers compose voluminous prose. I’ve spent at least 15 hours researching and writing this.
In her article, “Muse of the Hemispheres,” Dupree (2004) writes “William Faulkner didn't so much write The Sound and the Fury as erupt with it, pouring out the masterpiece in a matter of weeks, his words and ideas as unstoppable as a flood. ‘That emotion definite and physical yet nebulous to describe,’ he wrote of this creative explosion, ‘that ecstasy, that eager and joyous faith and anticipation of surprise.’ Like Faulkner, many writers have periods of frenzied inspiration. Where does that frenzy originate? It is an interesting question because others like Vincent Van Gogh and Dostoevsky were caught up in a creative frenzy of passion to create. As Flaherty (2003) points out, the same “frenetic” drive that pushed Van Gogh to produce a painting every 36 hours also pushed him to write two long letters a day to his brother, and Dostevsky to produce volumes of books, diary entries, articles. What is it that makes creative writers like John Updike “see a blank sheet of paper as radiant, as the sun rising in the morning?” If we could answer that question, then perhaps we could better understand what motivates fan fiction writers on the internet.
I propose that the motivation that drives creative writers in the fan fiction realm is, to a lesser extent, the same motivation that drove great writers like Earnest Hemmingway and Alexander Dumas. It is in the physiological and cognitive structures of their brains where one might find the matrix of this motivation. Only by identifying and understanding the locus of this motivation can we better design instruction that will foster creative writing in the classroom.
What drives individuals with an obsession to write? Whether they write Tom Clancy novels or volumes of fan fiction blogs, what is the source of their drive? This driving compulsion to write at its extreme is called hypergraphia. Hypergraphia is defined as the “overwhelming urge to write” (2004). The desire to write is so powerful that it can drive one to write on toilet paper or write with one’s own blood. There is no evidence that all creative writers suffer with hypergraphia, but their symptoms are similar to hypergraphia.. For example, Melissa Wilson, a fan fiction writer states the following about her experience when she writes: “the story lines get stuck in my head until I can't concentrate on anything other than a particular plot or scene. In this case, writing is a means of self-defense. It either gets written, or I get carted away by nice folks wearing white.” Could it be that all creative writers suffer from some form of hypergraphia. It seems they at least suffer from some of the symptoms.
Assuming that creative writers suffer from hypergraphia—at least somewhat—what causes it? Alice Weaver Flaherty (2004), a Harvard professor and neurologist purports that temporal and frontal lobe damage will precipitate it. She states the following:
“The temporal lobes are important for producing literature, in part because they are necessary for understanding semantic meaning and also Meaning in its philosophical senses, as in the Meaning of Life. And changes in the temporal lobes can produce hypergraphia. One example of these changes is temporal-lobe epilepsy. Some people with epilepsy stemming from temporal-lobe damage have hypergraphia so strong that they will write on toilet paper or use their own blood for ink if nothing else is at hand.”
Imacura (1992) has also discovered that “Two different neurobehavioural abnormalities have been reported under the term hypergraphia. One has been described in temporal lobe epilepsies and the other in the acute stage of strokes of the right cerebral hemisphere”. Perhaps this is what invoked Dostevsky to go through his bouts of passion to write. Flaherty goes on to say, “Dostoevsky had temporal lobe epilepsy. Some, but not all, people with temporal lobe epilepsy have a group of five personality traits called the Geschwind syndrome, which includes hypergraphia, strong religious or philosophical interests, and wide mood swings. Just before a seizure, Dostoevsky would experience an ecstatic or religious aura in which the world was flooded with meaning.” During his hypergraphic episodes he would write incessantly.
It hardly seems likely that all fan fiction writers, or even a majority, suffer from lobe damage, but at least we know its in the temporal lobe where creativity and drive is contained. Is it possible that the temporal lobe of a fan fiction writer is different from others? If so, how are they different? Furthermore, as fan fictionists write, would brain scans detect wave activity in their frontal and temporal lobes? It seems brain waves in the lobe area of the brain would crackle with different patterns of activity.
Another observation by Flauherty states the following:
“A second region critical for creative writing is the limbic system, the seat of emotion and drive. It gets its name from the fact that it forms a limbus or ring deep under the cortex. It drives many functions we wish we had conscious control over, but don't: for instance, hunger and sexual desire, and the experience of inspiration. The limbic system connects more strongly to the temporal lobes than to any other region of the cortex. This strong connection underlies the importance of emotion and drive to creativity -- factors that are anatomically as well as conceptually distinct from the cognitive contributions of the rest of the cerebral cortex. The limbic system also reflects the importance of mood swings in driving creativity.”
The reason her observation is important to understand the fan fiction phenomena is because the drive to write is largely controlled by the limbic system. Therefore, the drive is “more important than talent in producing creative work. Researchers find that above an IQ of 115, there is essentially no correlation between creativity and intelligence. Rather, in Thomas A. Edison's words, "Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration” (Flauherty, 2003).
There are other avenues of neurology that might account for drive and creativity in fan fiction writers. In Kaufman’s (2002), Dissecting the Golden Goose: Components of Studying Creative Writers, he states that there is a strong relationship between creativity and increased cortical arousal, basal skin conductance, and EEGs. He says, “Results have been promising, with positive correlation found between higher skin conductance and higher arousal and higher measured amounts of creativity”. If a researcher would measure skin conductance and EEG’s of fan fiction writers to that of a control group, would their be a substantial difference?
Perhaps not all fan fiction writers possess certain limbic or lobe anomalies, but do alter their temporal limbic regions through drug use? According to Flauherty, “For a few creative people, drugs have opened the door to inspired hypergraphia. Robert Louis Stevenson reportedly penned ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,’ a 6,000-word book in six days, with the help of cocaine”. Stevenson’s account brings to mind this question: If drugs invoke inspiration, then what percentage of fan fiction writers use drugs? If the drugs really work, which one’s work better and why? Furthermore, if the drug is pinpointed, is there a safe non-addictive drug or herb that would elicit the same creativity? It is hardly unlikely, nevertheless, an interesting thing to ponder.
As mentioned before, what drives fan fiction writers is not entirely neurological, there are cognitive underpinnings as well. Research shows that creativity and ambition to write could be induced by different cognitive needs. These different needs manifest themselves as emotional, intellectual, and social.. When people have unmet needs, they seek for an outlet to fill those needs. When a charged lighting bolt strikes a weather vane, the energy is channeled down a conductive path (copper wire) that provides an outlet for the focused energy. Likewise, unmet needs in a person with a creative writing disposition, is like pent up energy that needs a channel to remove it. Cognitive constructs in the writer’s mind, channel energy through writing. This energy seeking for a path might be a need for praise, positive feelings, understanding, resolution, and identification.
Some creative writers are driven by a voracious appetite for validation and praise. In one such case of Melissa Wilson (2004), a prolific fan fiction writer, she claims that praise is the central dynamic of her motivation. She states:
Really, though, there is one single overriding reason that I and most everyone I know writes fan fiction for the Internet: FAN MAIL! Yes, I will admit to being a slut for fan mail. One letter will put me on Cloud 9 for the entire day, and I've seen the same effect on my associates. Of course we write for the series, and for our own piece of mind, but nothing beats getting a letter in your INBOX stating "This is the best story I've read in ages!" Well, maybe getting a story dedicated to you from a new author who was inspired by your work can qualify, too.
Her motivation flies in the face, however, of Giovonni Moneta that states in his research that “money and praise, in interesting tasks has been systematically found to reduce intrinsic motivation”.
Flauherty also believes also that writing has the efficacy to elicit positive feelings in some people. In quoting another study, she states that there is evidence “that writing, at least on personally chosen subjects, has measurable mood effects. In both students and professional writers, the act of writing both intensified positive emotions and blunted negative ones.
There are also needs that could drive fan fiction writers to seek intellectual understanding. Lynn Chrenka (2004) makes this observation: “Writers can read what they have already written and use it as a springboard to further thinking and writing. Writing, then, may be considered a creative process that can generate thought…It is in writing something down that we may actually discover what we think. ‘How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" E. M. Forster wondered.”
Sometimes, writers will use writing to bring resolution, at least Flauherty did. She suffered from the same compulsion to write as did Dostevsky. Her impulse to write wasn’t invoked, however, by frontal lobe damage but rather, from the trauma associated from giving birth to a set of twins than losing them. In her book, Midnight Disease she shares her experience (The title is another name for hypergraphia.), after losing a set of twins, she said "the sight of a computer keyboard or a blank page gave me the same rush that drug addicts get from seeing their freebasing paraphernalia". In an interview with Houghton Mifflin (2004), she describes her experience:
“Well, it started after I gave birth prematurely to twin boys who died. For ten days I was filled with sorrow. Then suddenly, as if someone had thrown a switch, I was wildly agitated, full of ideas, all of them pressing to be written down. Because I was holed up in my office all the time, my friends worried that I was depressed, but I felt quite the opposite. As a neurologist, I had heard of the phenomenon of hypergraphia and was pretty sure that was what I had. That phase lasted about four months.”
Another reason why creative writers might be motivated to write fan fiction is because they identify with their creative counterparts. Birds of a feather, flock together, is not only true of fowl but perhaps fan fiction writers as well. They, like all people, possess an innate desire to have a sense of belonging whether to a family, friendship, marriage, culture, or country. They want to associate with others of similar values, interests, desires, and needs. In Kaufman’s seminal study on creative writers, he found that writers are a very homogenous group with many similar personality characteristics and backgrounds. In his research, Kaufman supports the idea that creative writers have many similar characteristics. Creative writers tend to be the following:
• Open, impulsive, anxious, driven, hostile, affective, emotionally unstable, less socialized, unconforming (Feist, 1999)
• Tend to suffer from bipolar disorders (Andreason, 1999)
• Are either Extraverted-Intuitive-Feeling-Perceptive or Introverted-Intuitive-thinking-Judging (Hall & MacKinnon, 1969)
• Firstborn children (Roe, 1952; Simonton, 1987)
• Come from non-abusive homes that “does not appreciate or encourage literary interests”
• Experienced an early death of a parent (One study showed a figure of 55% for poets and writers; F. Brown, 1968)
• Had mothers who were not as emotionally involved, self-confident, had higher occupational levels and higher levels of divergent thinking (Runco, 1986)
Perhaps fan fictions writers are motivated to write because they want the association with those they can identify with.
There are many unanswered questions about creative writers, but perhaps neurological and cognitive science might help us find answers to these questions. These answers might not only help us understand great writers of the past like Victor Hugo and Jane Austen, but these answers might help us create great writers for the future—our children.
(Dave, I also found research on what we could do as instructional technologists to harness and focus hypergraphia in our students, but I ran out of time. As it is, I spent at least 15-20 hours researching and answering the first question you asked).
© Stephen B Whatley
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Dolores Fuller (1923-) is the now legendary former leading lady of the early 1950s B-pictures of Hollywood film director Edward D Wood Jr (1924-1978).
'Eddie' Wood never got a true break in Hollywood's mainstream film industry; but between 1953 & 1960, he directed 6 films - horror, sci-fi and thriller themes- that reveal an artistry and utterly unique vision, to those more perceptive viewers who can look beyond the restraints of budget.
Dolores Fuller fell in love with Wood and starred in 3 of his motion pictures: Glen or Glenda (US 1953); Jail Bait (US 1954) and Bride of The Monster (US 1955) - but by 1956, with Wood's devastating wartime scars and disappointments in Hollywood resulting in alcoholism, Dolores felt that she had to pull away. As a model and bit actress on television she had been supporting him financially - and trying to keep him off the bottle- since they had met.
While continuing to appear in small roles in films (including an effective emotional scene in Playgirl, US 1954; with Shelley Winters) and on television (including parts in Superman & Dragnet), Dolores Fuller followed her even more natural talent of song-writing - going on to write 18 hit songs for Elvis Presley; and in the 1960s and 1970s to managing future singing stars such as Johnny Rivers and Tanya Tucker.
By 1980, two years after Edward D Wood Jr had died tragically in abject poverty, ironically in Hollywood, the 'ignored' director received posthumous fame and cult status - as his films wre rediscovered by 'film critics' who wrote books deriding his efforts to bring his ideas to the screen.
So too at this time, the limelight fell on his surviving stars and players - including the beautiful Dolores Fuller. Tim Burton's affectionate biopic 14 years later only increased the interest in this multi-talented lady - who to this day exhudes the Hollywood glamour that eludes contemporary stars. She was in demand on screen; for interviews in documentaries about Ed Wood Jr: The Incredibly Strange Film Show (1988); Look Back In Angora (1994) & The Haunted World of Edward D Wood Jr (1996).
Ever since the mid -1980s artist (& B-movie afficianado) Stephen B Whatley had hoped to locate Ms Fuller, to express his admiration; and in 1996, his research led him to reach her in Las Vegas, NV, to where he sent a cartoon tribute he had created (top left; inspired by her appeareance in a 1994 interview).
Thrilled, Dolores Fuller kept in touch, so kindly sending photographs; and then after she had received another 'cartoon surprise' from the artist in 2003, she wrote asking permission to publish it in her recently published memoirs, A Fuller Life: Hollywood, Ed Wood & Me ( Bearmanor Media Books)
Lower right of the compilation picture above is the colour tribute, owned by Ms Fuller, which has been published in black & white on a full page; below which the star writes touchingly that "my friend...neatly captures my career with this cartoon" Shown here above the cartoon, is the 1995 photograph that inspired the central 'latterday' likeness.
Dolores Fuller's autobiography ( assisted by author Stone Wallace & her devoted husband Philip Chamberlin) is a powerful and fascinating read, punctuated with great humour - about a lady determined to follow her dreams, to succeed with her talent; charting the highs and lows in both her professional and personal life.
Lavishly illustrated with many great black & white photographs, the book reveals a passionate beauty, married several times; who charmed several famous men- including Johnny Carson and Frank Sinatra.
She writes of the tragic lives of her 'Eddie' Wood, her late dearest friend actress Mona McKinnon (who starred in Plan 9 From Outer Space (US 1956)) & the tragic loss of her younger son- with great tenderness (...that is so evident in her eyes, to anyone who has watched her latterday interviews on film & television); before ending on a high note - her dream of getting the musical she has been writing, 'Ed Wood...But I wouldn't' on to Broadway; hopefully with Johnny Depp as lead.
Dolores Fullers most recent public appearance was at an awards ceremony in Los Angeles at which she humbly accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award. As glamorous as ever, she was dressed strikingly in black and swathed in white angora, with a new chic short hairstyle...once a star, always a star!
To get a closer look at the illustration published in this book, please click the link: www.flickr.com/photos/stephenbwhatley/2268366365/in/set-7...
Gare Saint-Lazare,
L'Heure de tous est une œuvre de l'artiste français Arman (1985) située cour du Havre.
L'œuvre est composée d'une accumulation d'horloges en bronzes. Signataire de la Déclaration constitutive du Nouveau Réalisme qui prône de "nouvelles approches perceptives du réel", Arman accumulait des objets usuels, témoins du cycle humain de fabrication en masse, consommation, destruction.
Saint-Lazare railway station
The Hour of all is a work of the French artist Arman ( 1985 ) situated court of Havre.
The work consists of an accumulation of clocks in bronzes. Signatory of the essential Statement(Declaration) of the New Realism which advocates of " new perceptive approaches of the reality ", Arman accumulated everyday objects, witnesses of the human cycle of mass production, consumption, destruction.
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When Fenway was a puppy and I took him to puppy kindergarten there was an exercise we were all suppose to do. It was called “pass the puppy”. It involved each person passing their puppy to the person next to them and then handing them back. I knew the teacher, she was very perceptive and could read dogs really well. We had talked before the class about Fenway’s shyness and she had met him before the class started. He was the only pup in the class that she said not to pass around. She felt it would be too frightening for him. He was great with the other puppies in the class and was very quick and easy to train. He just wasn’t comfortable with people he didn’t know making a fuss over him. We worked so hard to socialize him and expose him to different places and things He did learn to accept affection and treats from people he didn’t know but if you knew him you could see he wasn’t overly comfortable with it.
It’s funny how photos can trigger your memories. While going through my photos of Fenway I found this one of my youngest son, Tom, picking Fenway up and swinging him around. The photo made me remember the story from puppy kindergarten. I think you can tell from his face Fenway had no trouble with his “brother” playing pass the puppy! Tom was off on his own but Fenway still knew he was part of our family. That blur you see in the foreground is Della, who was very jealous!
©JaneBrown2019 All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without explicit written permission
Roxy has been a bit of a puzzle since she started school. For the most part she is very sunny, but occasionally has tears when she goes to school. Abby is perceptive and has already brought the teaching assistant in to help with whatever is going on. It is scarcely a probem - when we collect her from school she is full of the day's happenings - but we all suspect she is finding it difficult finding her niche. At nursery she seemed to play with the boys, but at school they are more boisterous, rougher perhaps and the girls are already in little groups . . . . but one thing for sure, she will find her place, she is feisty!
"Carnelian is a type of chalcedony. I would describe it's texture to resemble milk glass. It is somewhat translucent but it is hazy. The color ranges between red, orange and rusty brown. When tumbled or polished, it's looks and feels like glass.
Carnelian enhances analytical abilities, perceptiveness and awakens hidden talents and gifts. Carnelian is a stone of creativity and inspiration in all forms of art. It awakens curiosity and bolster the courage of shy people also giving one courage and eloquence. Carnelian may help one overcome fear and doubt. Carnelian also helps you to live in the moment. It is a Power Stone."
Thank you Skeletalmess for the use of your texture mask. www.flickr.com/photos/skeletalmess/4960017035/
Hoping everyone had a great weekend!!! And many thank yous for all of your wonderful comments, faves and invites. xoxo
One man's opinion, writing in The Guardian newspaper:
Whoaful … Andy Scott's work The Kelpies has just opened on Forth and Clyde canal.
Scotland has unveiled the latest misbegotten "masterpiece" of public art. It is big. It is bold. And it is rotten.
Glasgow's Andy Scott is the artist responsible for the Kelpies, a sculpture of colossal Clydesdale horse heads that tower 30 metres over Helix Park, Falkirk, near the M9 motorway. What for? For "regeneration", of course. It is claimed the £5m, 300-tonne sculptures will bring in £1.5m a year through guided tours – providing enough people mistake them for a worthwhile work of art.
Leonardo da Vinci once planned to build a colossal bronze horse, but he put imagination and vision into it. He never finished the work, and yet his exquisitely illustrated notes for this unrealised dream statue stimulate the mind. The Kelpies are merely banal and obvious.
It is unfair to compare any artist with Leonardo, but imposing your work on the landscape on this scale suggests you may be lacking in modesty. Scott's horses are neither well observed nor powerfully imagined – they are simply stale equine symbols. Without the precision and originality of Leonardo's obsessive studies of the anatomy and movement of the horse, or similar depictions of equine truth by the likes of Degas or the 18th-century artist George Stubbs, what's the point of portraying horses? The Kelpies is just a kitsch exercise in art "for the people", carefully stripped of difficulty, controversy and meaning.
Does such a bland sculpture even deserve to be called art? It is no longer enough to use the term for something that merely mimics ancient conventions. From Picasso's screaming horse to Franz Marc's wild horses, the 20th century took apart this creature as it took apart everything in nature. To return to them today, artists need fresh eyes.
Figurative art, of course, is not dead. The painter Lucian Freud showed that a figurative depiction of a horse can still be a powerful work of art. That's because he looked at horses with the same clear eye that he cast on people. The honest, perceptive work of an artist such as Freud still shows the poetry of the real world that the old masters did. But so often, when contemporary artists claim to be figurative, all they offer is a tame, unobservant cliche of what "proper" art is supposed to look like. Bad imitations of ageless masterpieces merely reveal how many artistic skills we have lost – hence some of the awful bronze statues you can see around Britain of kissing couples and soccer stars. Hence the Kelpies.
I feel like crying that someone spent £5m on this piece of trash. Imagine the boost that bounty might have given to Falkirk's public libraries. Instead, school kids will bussed to a park to gaze on brainless dreck.
We think we live in an artistic golden age, but these will be our monuments: towering inanities the Victorians would have blushed to build.
Winter came to the North Carolina mountains in a big way this weekend. I attended the proceedings along with just about everybody within about a 150-mile radius who skis. Imagine that. The drive up near the top of Carver's Gap at Roan Mountain was a bit of the white-knuckled variety for me, as I've not experienced much of driving in snow, especially on steep, curvy mountain roads. In the rare instances when it snows at home, I usually stay home until conditions improve to avoid the inevitable crashes often caused by those who do have more experience... tinged with just a sprinkle of overconfidence to cause problems. Thankfully, I met no one of that description as I made my way up that treacherous road. The view from the top made it all worth it, despite having to wait a while before I could pry my fingers from the steering wheel.
I noticed a sign at the Roan Mountain Campground as I drove by that asked "What do snowmen eat for breakfast?" The obvious answer is frosted flakes. I had no idea how perceptive that answer would be until I reached the gap... everything above ground was "frosted" (including me before I left). Those snowmen who like breakfast as much as I do would be quite happy here. That entire area of Roan Mountain, Round Bald, Jane Bald, Grassy Knob, and beyond experienced not just snow(flakes), but also hoarfrost from low clouds in those high regions. It made for a great day with the camera... the snowman and I had a good time! More to come.
This image was taken just beyond the entrance to the Appalachian Trail across from Roan at Carver's Gap, literally on the North Carolina/Tennessee state line. I couldn't pass up this frosted tree against that brilliant sky on the hike up Round Bald. These bushes are standout Catawba rhododendron hunkered down against the harsh weather along with balsam firs, showing a quite different world than that of next June... stay tuned.
Same location as yesterday's, and I'm cheating again.
I have a crop of a detail in comments, because I believe some of them can't be perceptive in the full version.
It's 7am in here, and I'm still up. As usual.
Since that even the Large on Flickr is not large enough, you should see it HERE.
. . . going to be spending some time in this quaint little attic room, so please bear with me . . .
After memory bits have sifted through the sieve and first impressions remain strong, I keep returning here in my thoughts. I know my sister joins me. This was probably the smallest room in the large summer home, but the most intimate. On the other hand, it wasn't one I might have slept in, as the dust mites seem to have taken up residency over the years! But each one had its own story to tell. I spent the most time here, photographing details which I will post during the week. Perhaps this will become my next book, not sure. Anyway, sit back, open up the windows for some salt air, and breathe along with me, the best is yet to be!
“The good writer, the great writer, has what I have called the three S's:
the power to see,
to sense,
and to say.
That is, he is perceptive,
he is feeling,
and he has the power to express in language what he observes and reacts to.”
~ Lawrence Clark Powell ~
“A writer is dear and necessary for us
only in the measure of which he reveals to us
the inner workings of his very soul.”
~ Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy ~
“A writer needs three things,
experience,
observation,
and imagination,
any two of which,
at times any one of which,
can supply the lack of the others.”
~ William Faulkner ~
Here Vernet depicted himself in his studio in Rome after a journey through North Africa. Oriental exotica, the white baggy trousers, a red scarf at the waist, the blue fez, the long pipe, weaponry and carpet, are set against the prosaic details of the interior: the simple chair, the iron stove. Behind Vernet is a large empty canvas, suggesting that the artist is deep in thought, meditating of his next picture. Without being a particularly deep psychological study, this self-portrait provides us with an idea of Vernet's character: his sober, perceptive mind, self-confidence and tendency to show-off.
[Oil on canvas, 47 x 39 cm]
gandalfsgarden.blogspot.com/2011/12/horace-vernet-self-po...
Adapted from: The Colors of Love by John Lee
The Hopeless Romantic [eros]: This lover is very in tune with beauty and appearances. They may be viewed as a fantasizer who has unrealistic views of the world. Often times they see a marriage as a honeymoon that never ends and physical intimacy as the ultimate experience. They often choose partners that are attractive and may occasionally go as far as dismissing the more admirable qualities needed to create a long term relationship. As a result, true hopeless romantics often feel empty and perceptive to their lovers imperfections. The upside to this love style is the sentimental side. This particular lover can find comfort in filling trapped in their fantasy. The downside is eventually the beauty of the situation fades and the danger of living life trapped in fantasy.
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Casanova [ludus]: This type of lover is more in tune with quantity and instead of quality in relationships. They enjoy playing the field and often recover from break ups rather quickly. Lover's of this style are very self-controlled and choose to manage love instead of letting love just run its course. Many times casanova's usually only entertain a partner while they are interesting to them. They often find themselves engaging in "outside" relationship experiences.
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The Maniac [mania]:
This type of love style often has extreme highs and lows. Mania lovers are very intense emotional lovers, who often worry themselves about the loss of the love. They may experience extreme jealousy for what appears to be little reasoning. Manic love is obsessive, and they wants to have their lover completely. They also want their lover to intensely love them in return. Their sense of self worht comes from being loved rather than inner satisfaction. They believe that if there is love nothing else matters.
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The Waiter [storge]:
This type of love style goes on a quest, not for love, but for compatibility. Usually looking to pursue a relationship with someone they are know and share similar interests. They believe love and emotions will come in time....that could be a long time. They may find themselves in situations where it's hard to define where the relationship stands. Physical intimacy usually comes late and has no significant importance.
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Traditional [pragma]:
Those with the traditional love style are interested in realism and seeking a relationship that will work. They look for harmonizing relationships that fulfill their needs. They are more focused on the social aspect of things rather than the personal. For instance, having similar backgrounds and family life. They do not rely much on feelings but on logic. Love is seen asa useful relationship (i.e. can my partner cook?, do they earn a good living? will my family like this person?). Their relationships rarely end because of the careful planning put into it.
Spent an evening out last night taking some pictures
with Sharon, in the fog. I parked on a street near a
park and athletic field... We got our stuff out of my car,
I locked the door and off we went. Took a walk, took some
pictures, ran into a woman who started talking to us and telling
us strange stories.... yeah, odd stories (very odd), but I’m polite... I listened and
asked her questions. All the while, Sharon is shooting me these looks, and finally
says... I think we need to leave, there’s a storm coming. We start walking back to the
car, and she is asking me... Didn’t you see the looks I was giving you?!! I told her, I did... but I
had no clue why (the most perceptive person in the world, I am not) and she proceeded to tell me
that that woman was “not right” and during the walk back to the car, that woman went from
mental patient to Satan “herself” ... and then Sharon was convinced that she had disappeared into
thin air. So, we are discussing where to go get something to eat, because we are both
starving, decided on french fries and pizza....get back to my locked car, sitting along a street, near
athletic fields in a park, with soccer and lacrosse going on, and people walking dogs.... and there is my car...
with the passenger side door... wide open.... as it has been for over an hour.... with all of my camera
equipment sitting on the back seat, Sharon’s pocketbook, some cash.... access to everything in the
trunk.... I’m so glad that I hit the door lock when we walked away, so everything would be... safe and secure. LOL!
Seriously, do these things only happen to me? Nothing was missing... as far as I can tell. So of course we laughed ourselves silly. What else could you do? Guess there
are still honest people in the world. Although it would have been nice if someone had closed the door for us.
(It would have been even better if WE had closed the door...)
And as we drove away.... I pointed the strange woman out to Sharon. She had not disappeared into thin air.
She was still there... standing in the dark... and the fog... and the rain... taking pictures.... of... ???? lol.
THE DIANA CHRONICLES
By Tina Brown.
With “The Diana Chronicles,” Tina Brown breathes new life into the saga of this royal “icon of blondness” by astutely revealing just how powerful, and how marketable, her story became in the age of modern celebrity journalism. Indeed, while Diana named Camilla Parker Bowles as the third party in her unhappy union, she might also have mentioned a fourth: the media. “She was way ahead of her contemporaries in foreseeing a world where celebrity was, so to speak, the coin of the realm,” Brown writes. “An aristocrat herself, Diana knew that the aristocracy of birth was now irrelevant. All that counted now was the aristocracy of exposure.” And Brown offers an insightful, absorbing account of the pas de deux into which, to her eventual peril, Diana joined with the paparazzi.
As the former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, Brown certainly has the authority to examine the Princess of Wales as a creation and a casualty of the media glare. Perhaps not incidentally, Brown’s own years in the spotlight were bookended by Diana’s rise and fall. In July 1981, Brown appeared as a “royalty expert” on the “Today” show’s coverage of the Wales wedding. Then the editor of the British gossip magazine Tatler, Brown recalls that “the wedding did for the sales of Tatler ... what the O. J. Simpson chase did for the ratings of CNN. It put us on the map.”
After Diana’s death in August 1997, Brown again placed the magazine over which she presided — this time, The New Yorker — “in the middle” of what was still “the biggest tabloid story in the world,” by publishing a special issue devoted to the princess’ memory. Brown stressed the dramatic difference between the Windsors’ self-styled identity (“local, modest, unsurprising” guarantors of British tradition) and Diana’s (global superstar, unapologetically “shrewd ... at press relations”). The conflicted relationship between the two had been, the historian Simon Schama noted in the same issue, a “wedding of the past and the future: the Radetzky March meets the Tatler cover girl. ... But, as it turned out, the past and the future couldn’t get along.” What’s more — as Brown’s book demonstrates, and as the recent film “The Queen” has also made clear — the future was bound to win, even if it claimed its own leading avatar in the process.
In fact, Diana’s conquest of the camera was bittersweet from the start. In February 1967, when she was 5, her mother, Frances, began an extramarital liaison that led to her parents’ acrimonious divorce. Diana’s father, Johnnie Spencer, retaliated against Frances by gaining custody of the children. But his stiff-upper-lip reaction to the trauma (“speaking in words of one syllable ... and sitting morosely for hours staring out of the window”) made him ill-suited to handle its effects on his offspring, for whom he was able to show affection only by taking “amateur movies and still photographs” of them. As a result, Brown notes, “Diana grew up associating the camera with love,” and striving to give it what it appeared to want in return. Her brother, Charles, told Sally Bedell Smith, a previous biographer, that when Johnnie was filming Diana, “she would automatically sort of make gestures and strike poses.” Honing her star power became, Brown observes, the bereft little girl’s “own way of surviving.”
In theory, this was useful preparation for her relationship with Prince Charles, which first made it into the newspapers in September 1980. By this time, the British press was in a full-scale backlash against “the culture of deference” that had long dominated its society pages. Since Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of “the prurient News of the World” in 1969 and his reinvigoration, a year later, of The Sun “as a rollicking, up-yours tabloid featuring bare-breasted pinups every day,” England had entered a “racier media age” in which the staid House of Windsor “was acquiring the stale, curdled taste of a British Rail cheese sandwich.” Because “pictures of a middle-aged Princess Margaret churning grandly around the dance floor in her caftan in Mustique hardly moved product” — and Brown should know, having trumpeted that princess’ “Mustique mystique” for The Tatler — “the guessing game of the Prince of Wales’s love life was the sole excitement for the media.” And what excitement it was. The prince was Europe’s most eligible bachelor, and his romantic exploits became fodder for an increasingly rapacious media machine.
Before Diana, Charles had tried to evade the tabloids’ scrutiny by bedding married women, “because the need for secrecy made them ‘safe.’ ” But when he began appearing publicly with Diana — the 19-year-old debutante with a “soft, peachy complexion” and legs that seemed “to extend up to her ears like Bambi” — secrecy ceased to be an option. The paparazzi went wild for the girl who was not only (as an aristocrat, Protestant and self-proclaimed virgin) an ideal royal bride, but also a magnificently photogenic subject. Notwithstanding her “Shy Di” nickname, born of her habit of glancing up coyly at the camera from beneath batting eyelashes, Diana proved “a natural at giving the press what they wanted”: gorgeous pictures. “One by one,” according to Brown, “the hack pack fell in love with her.”
Winning the affection of the press was not, however, the same thing as winning the affection of Prince Charles, as Diana would soon be devastated to learn. One of the more striking revelations in “The Diana Chronicles” is that it was the media just as much as the royal family — ready for Charles to stop dithering and settle down — that propelled him into marriage with a woman he didn’t love. A former royal-watcher for The Sun told Brown: “We really got behind Diana and pushed her towards him. I am absolutely convinced that we the media forced Charles to marry her.”
The prince’s heart belonged to his married girlfriend, Camilla Parker Bowles (now his second wife), but as heir to the throne, he was neither encouraged nor expected to follow his heart. The problem was that the tabloids — and Diana, who consumed them avidly — insisted on a different story line: He’s in Love. Other biographers have attributed the subsequent unraveling of the Waleses’ marriage to Charles’s cruelty (Andrew Morton) or Diana’s mental illness (Sally Bedell Smith), but Brown chalks the disaster up to the bride’s naïve belief in a tabloid fiction. She and the media became partners in ignoring the warning signs from the groom himself, like his now notorious reply when, receiving news of the couple’s engagement in February 1981, a BBC reporter asked Charles if he and his fiancée were in love: “Whatever ‘in love’ means.” Amazingly, Brown points out, “the print press literally erased” the phrase “from their accounts. No one, it seems, wanted to break the spell.” Least of all Diana, who answered the reporter’s “love” question with a giggle: “Of course.”
The bride was in for a rude awakening. And though most of the Waleses’ sordid domestic drama has already been covered at length elsewhere, Brown perceptively highlights the media’s starring role. Once married to Charles, Diana chafed at playing second fiddle not only to Camilla but also to Queen Elizabeth. While still a newlywed, she was deeply offended when Charles offered his mother a drink before her. “I always thought it was the wife first — stupid thought,” she complained afterward. Brown observes that first offering drinks to an older woman — queen or not — “was only basic good manners” and concludes: “Stupid thought, yes, or maybe something worse: the onset of superstar entitlement. ... Six months of adulation from the press had begun to reshape Diana’s worldview.” Offended by the Windsors’ failure to appreciate the qualities everyone else seemed to admire, she turned increasingly to the tabloids to nourish and sustain her.
To that end, Diana became a master of press manipulation, regularly leaking tips and planting stories about both herself and her enemies. She also understood the incomparable power of the image, which led her, at the height of her problems with Charles, to pose for a photograph alone in front of the Taj Mahal, “the monument to marital love.” In one of the book’s many new interviews, John Travolta tells Brown about his legendary dance with Diana at the White House in 1985: “I thought, She not only knows who she is, she knows what this is — and how big this is. She was so savvy about the media impact of it all.”
Yet Diana’s savvy had its limits. For although her public-relations wizardry enabled her repeatedly to upstage and — with the tell-all interviews she did in 1992 and 1995 — humiliate the Windsors, it did more than just give the monarchy an appealing, “human” face. By inviting the press to share in her most intimate experiences, the princess abolished every last vestige of celebrity privacy. And by providing the press with picture after dazzling, salable picture, she stoked “the media’s inexhaustible appetite for celebrity images.” In an extended meteorological conceit, Brown observes: “The sunshine of publicity in which Diana would at first be happy to bask, posing and smiling for the cameras, grew steadily hotter and harsher. As the superheated imperatives of an invasive press bumped up increasingly against the milder human necessity of privacy, scattered rains gave way to drenching gales and then to spectacular and finally lethal hurricanes. ... Diana herself had accelerated the climate change that ended up making her life literally impossible.” Mistakenly, she thought she could “control the genie she had released.”
But the genie pursued her to the end, right into the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris, where a high-speed paparazzi chase culminated in the princess’ death. Lying unconscious and badly wounded in the wreckage of a black Mercedes, Diana continued to inspire the frenzied photographers. As the picture editor of The Sun confessed to Brown, that very evening he initially agreed to pay £300,000 to one of the shutterbugs who had followed the Mercedes into the tunnel for snapshots of its mangled blond occupant. “Even as Diana struggled for life,” Brown writes, “she was being sold as an exclusive.”
What can I say about my fabulous Flickr friend, Jules?! To say these things remind me of her - Oh YES! That, and so much more! We haven't known each other forever, but it feels like it! We have that "old soul" connection, like the jazz that oozes out of Bourbon Street on a sultry summer night! Jules has her feet in Michigan but her heart in New Orleans! She is witty, smart, beautiful, and so perceptive; she leads her challenge group like a modern day Joan of Arc! Fearless- it is what she does so well! We have shared so much here on Flickr, and I am SO thankful to have her as a friend, as a sister in so many respects! I can't wait for the day we are down in NOLA drinking bloody marys and laughing so much we cry, Jules! Thank you for the challenge group you have allowed me to participate in- more like family than an odd band of strangers- that's the best family ever! You have pulled us together here!
LoveYou!
After considering the artistic merits of AI produced art, I decided to give it a try myself. These were produced with a artificial intelligence program called Dall-e 2. I won't bore anyone with the details. I will say there is some creative elements here. Certainly I had to have an idea, then I had to figure out how to instruct the AI engine. It is not difficult, you can generate a lot of similar results or tweak the model to get different effects. You do not have complete control over the outcomes. It feels like taking digital pictures to some degree.
These are the "originals" I have not done any other post production. Emotionally, ethically, these feel like "mine" my work, but that work is almost entirely mental and linguistic rather than physically and perceptive.
Developed originally to serve as a fast light armor asset for quick hit and run tactics as well as integrated reconnaissance fire-support, the Harasser quickly became popular as an all-encompassing multi-role 'mech. Variants ranged from basic front-line squad based units to domestic police law enforcement.
Channeled some Red Spacecat decal goodness and gave printing my own waterslides a try. Worked out reasonably well, although the perceptive will notice some bubbles. As always, fits a fig in a cockpit with a functioning hatch that I forgot to photograph.
This fine image is from my Flickr sister ilsebatten. I wanted to give this wonderful woman a "pop art" treatment. Original text follows... (Explore)
www.flickr.com/photos/12034714@N02/2595088054/in/set-7215...
I have known Pono for the last 30 years during which time she has worked in my garden. There was a time when she simply disappeared for several years but then she reappeared like magic when I needed her most. She is a deaf mute and one of the brightest and most perceptive people I have ever met and she has very green fingers. She also has a fine sense of the dramatic and usually tells us some or other story of murder and mayhem when she arrives on a Thursday. Her stories are transmitted via handsigns and great gestures of drama - think of silent movies with exclamatory noises added.
Water coming from this pump helped teacher Annie Sullivan break through to blind/deaf Helen Keller that the sign language in her hand was the name of the water she felt coming from the pump.
More literary travel in this post on the Perceptive Travel Blog: perceptivetravel.com/blog/2011/01/20/literary-travel-visi...
This series is of the Ruby Throated Hummingbirds that took up residence in and around my back yard and garden this past Summer.
I found it amazing how perceptive these little creatures are. They would fly rite up in front of me and hover when I would enter their space . I think to say please leave my space, or hover and feed within a few feet of were I sat or stood, but point a camera in their direction and poof they were gone. Still I have managed to get a few pics of them . here are a few of my favorites.
Springbok Editions Inc
Contour Jigsaw Puzzle
© 1969
PZL 5002
cardboard
'more than 350 pieces', used and complete
22⅝ x 29⅜ in
2022 piece count: 45,998
puzzle 52
"Finished puzzle is the actual shape of the State of New York."
Map of New York, painted by Charles Fracé.
From the base of the box:
'New York, the most northerly of the Middle Atlantic states and the second most populous state in the nation, encompasses 49,576 square miles of territory and extends for approximately 300 miles from north to south and for 315 miles from east to west. The rose is the state flower, the sugar maple the state tree, and Excelsior ("Ever upward") the state motto. Albany, founded by the Dutch in 1624, has served as the state capital since 1797. There are five major urban centers in the state with New York City being the largest and most important.
The beginnings of New York State are linked with European history and the Age of Exploration. The "discoverer" of New York was the Italian Giovanni da Verrazano who, sailing under a French flag, explored New York harbor in 1524. Of greater historic significance, however, were the explorations of Henry Hudson and Samuel de Champlain in 1609. Hudson, an Englishman in the employ of Holland, sailed his "Half Moon" up the river that was destined to bear his name and laid the basis for the Dutch colony of New Netherland. Champlain explored the valley of the lake later named for him and, in so doing, extended the French imperial influence to New York. The Dutch occupation persisted until 1664, when a British squadron seized the colony and renamed it New York in honor of James Stuart, the Duke of York and Albany, and the brother of King Charles II.
The Province of New York was one of the original thirteen American colonies. During the long struggle for empire between France and Great Britain (1689-1753), her soil was frequently stained with blood. Because the Hudson River and Lakes George and Champlain represented a natural highway between French Canada and British America, New York became a major prize for conquest. New York's strategic location also gave her a transcendent importance during the Revolutionary War. She became the "vital center" of action and main battleground for the British and American forces. Nearly one third (ninety-two) of the engagements of the Revolution were fought on New York soil. It was symbolic propriety that the battle marking the "turning point of the Revolution" (Saratoga, 1777) took place in New York. The peace treaty of 1783 ended 119 years of British rule in New York, and in 1788 New York ratified the Federal Constitution and became the eleventh state to join the Union.
That New York held a special position in the American scheme of things - even before statehood - was recognized by many, including the perceptive George Washington. After touring the Hudson and Mohawk valleys, Washington predicted that New York would someday become the "seat of empire". While absolute proof is lacking, historians believe that Washington's phrase served as the basis for the nickname the state acquired during the early nineteenth century - the "Empire State". It has never been determined who first coined the phrase, but by the 1830's the nickname was well merited. With the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, Middle West agricultural goods flowed steadily into the state and manufactured products flowed steadily back. Within a few decades, the Empire State came to lead the nation in trade, manufacturing, finance, publishing and creative arts. Excelsior became something more than a nickname. It became a guiding principle of life for New Yorkers.
Endowed with an abundance of scenic attractions, New York ranks as one of the nation's leading vacationlands. Niagara Falls, an awesome spectacle, is one of the seven wonders of the world. Both Ausable Canyon and Genesee Gorge are known as the "Grand Canyon of the East." Other notable beauty spots include the Finger Lakes, Lakes George and Champlain, the Hudson, Mohawk and Susquehanna Rivers, the Thousand Islands, and and the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains. Few states can match the grandeur, diversity and quantity of New York's scenic treasures.
A plethora of historic sites reflect the magnitude and richness of New York's growth and development. The Statue of Liberty, the Theodore Roosevelt home on Sagamore Hill, the Franklin D. Roosevelt and Vanderbilt mansions in Hyde Park, Washington Irving's home in Irvington, the Senate House in Kingston, Washington's Headquarters in Newburgh, Fort Ticonderoga, the Schuyler Mansion in Albany, Fort Niagara - these and numerous other historic properties make New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers manifestly aware of the "presence of the past".
New York City adds a special dimension to the New York story. Now the third most populous city in the world, New York City was founded in 1625 as New Amsterdam and became "legal" in 1626 when Governor Peter Minuit purchased the site from the Indians for $24.00 worth of kettles, axes and cloth. This celebrated transaction ranks as the greatest real estate bargain in the history of the world. From its humble origins on the lower tip of Manhattan, the city eventually expanded into into the present-day five-borough urban colossus, into the financial, commercial and cultural capital of the nation. A fortuitous combination of geographic, historic and social factors, in addition to one of the best natural ports on the Atlantic Coast, helped New York City achieve its leap to greatness. The phrase frequently applied to the state - "the state that has everything" - has meaning for the city as well. New York City's assets are indeed bountiful. The Empire State Building, the United Nations, a host of world-famous museums, libraries and cultural organizations, Rockefeller Center, Madison Square Garden, Yankee Stadium, Times Square, Greenwich Village - New York City covers every area of the spectrum of human life, and on a grand scale and in a variety of forms. For these reasons, she belongs not only to the state, but to the nation and to the world as well.'
Louis Leonard Tucker
State Historian of New York
A real vintage Springbok jigsaw puzzle dating from 1969, and complete! 'More than 350 pieces' turned out to actually amount to 360, although for our ongoing piece count I've used the quantity quoted on the box. A very easy 'make', taking only a few hours yesterday evening, but enjoyable all the same.
Pieces are similar to Waddingtons' Vari-pieces of the same vintage, and the cardboard used is the same weight as Waddingtons' Qualitex board. I assume Springbok issued the rest of the states as puzzles in much the same way as the Waddingtons Jig-Maps of the same period.