View allAll Photos Tagged PERCEPTIVE
Today I considered quiting 365days for the first time.... Must be something in the air, because when I logged on to Flickr I found that many people were quiting or considering quiting. I did a reality check... heard the reasons why I shouldn't, but heard the other voices in my head louder.
My youngest son, Joshua, got through to me like no one could when he sang this song to me tonight. OMG kids are so much more perceptive... oh to be that way again... And just let the JUNK go!
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Artist: Kyle
Song: Let It Go
Soundtrack: Jump In
Kyle - Let It Go
Every night I lie awake
My thoughts rolling in
Love is won, love is lost
And loves that might have been
I see the ghost of long lost hope
And shattered broken dreams I know it's time
To carry on It's harder than it seems
I gotta let it go, all the pain and thrive
I gotta let it go, and move on with my life
I gotta let it go, it's time to let it be
I gotta let it go, and then I can be free
The times gone by,
I can't deny
They've left their mark on me
Don't understand the master plan
That only God can see
I need to know, I wanna go
And lock it all inside
I wonder why and say goodbye
And gather up my pride
I gotta let it go, all the pain and thrive
I gotta let it go, and move on with my life
I gotta let it go, it's time to let it be
I gotta let it go, and then I can be free
I know I have the will to carry on
Life's made me strong
I've learned too much to turn my head away
I'm gonna stay
And brick by brick I'll build my life again
And I'll begin
To learn from all of my mistakes
Then let them fly away
I gotta let it go
I got to let it go,
I got to let it go, I got to let it go. ohhh
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Thanks for the emails and comments everyone... I'm going to stay and take this photo by photo... day by day.
PS... That was cutting it close I have yet to miss a day and I had 6 minutes left :) And for a brief shining moment Flickr became fun again with the Simpson shenanigans :)
Kira is a perceptive tall model with an amazing look for the camera. It was great working with her. instagram @kira.olver
Raffael / Raphael / Raffaello Santi, Urbino 1483 - Rom 1520
Der Kardinal – The Cardinal (1510 – 11)
Museo del Prado, Madrid
Since the moment when it was decided that the present work is by Raphael but that the sitter is not Antonio Granvela, art historians have expended considerable efforts on identifying the sitter. The most credible candidates would seem to be Cardinal Bendinello Suardi (painted by Del Piombo (Washington, National Gallery of Art), and even more probably Cardinal Giovanni Alidosi (depicted on a medal and also in the Disputa in the Stanza della Segnatura), due to the latter’s clear resemblance to the present sitter. However, neither can be clearly identified with the features of this cardinal.
Aside from the high quality of the execution, the most striking aspect of this portrait is Raphael’s astonishing natural perceptiveness which results in the definitive and universal image of a Renaissance cardinal (this painting is always referred to as The Cardinal rather than ‘Portrait of a Cardinal’). The artist achieves this, however, without renouncing a depiction of the individual nature of this sitter, using his way of ‘painting people as more real than they are’, in Bembo’s words. This ability to imitate nature derives from the Flemish portrait, which Italian painters of the second half of the Quattrocento studied with enormous interest. Flemish influence is evident in the masterly modelling of the face, for example in the way that Raphael moved the left eye (a pentimento now visible to the naked eye) to achieve a more penetrating gaze through the contrast with the direction of the turn of the head. The bold handling of the textures of the clothes, such as the sheen on the red silk cape, reveals a direct knowledge of Venetian painting. A point of reference may well be Lorenzo Lotto’s presence in the Vatican in 1509, and his influence on Raphael in the portraits of the figures on the right-hand side of The Mass at Bolsena has been noted on various occasions. In addition, the geometrical rigour of Lotto’s portrait of Bernardo de Rossi may have inspired the markedly hieratic nature of the present cardinal.
The painting can be dated to around 1510, the year in which Alidosi died, through its similarity to Raphael’s portrait of Leo X. Its triangular composition clearly derives from Leonardo, in particular the Mona Lisa, evident in the (slightly incorrect) placement of the arm in the foreground whose intention is to diminish the distance between sitter and viewer.The cardinal’s body is reduced to a pyramidal form which acts as a mere support for the head in the manner of Quattrocento Florentine sculpted busts, which do not include arms or other details that detract attention from the face. In this way, and with the figure emerging from a black background that emphasises the sense of his real presence, Raphael imbued his sitter with the solemnity of a statue, creating an unforgettable image in which this individual (as this is, after all, the physical and psychological representation of an individual) becomes the paradigm of the ecclesiastical dignitary that he represents. This is so much the case that art historians attempting to identify the sitter have frequently consulted biographies of cardinals of the day to find one with the refined, astute and impenetrable character of this figure, who certainly corresponds well to Bembo’s description of Cardinal Alidosi:‘for whom faith and religion were never by any means certain, pure or sacred.
Source: Museo del Prado
Lions start to come alive at dusk - trading their lazy energy to one of alertness as they ready themselves for a hunt in the coming night. In this heightened state the lions are extra perceptive to any change in their environment, for they are hungry for a chase - their pupils widen and their nostrils open as they ready themselves for challenges ahead. The saying goes that a lion sees you a hundred times before you see it, making it all the more thrilling to be in their company, photographing them in this exaggerated state.
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.
Osiris Toe Tip and Nail End Freshly Fallen from Isis’s Collection in Glasgow on a trip to a Parking Meter and Back NEVER ask please without recourse to an endless Stellar Shimmering Summer Night from Dusk to Dawn and Some Startling Stark Hours of Winter Solstice Celebration of Dawn to Dusk in a Cromlech, please unless as stipulated it is less traumatic to never ask.
There is an overdose of 11 pictures presented here. Few will see them all and fewer still read this description humbly exhorting you to see some pictures from each of the differing sections as detailed thusly,
2 Distinct Groupings distinctly discovery finely found to be 11 in Total.
5 Toe Pix, 1 in Much Millennia#d Mould-O-visioN.
6 Prettier Pix for your Perceptive Peepers Relief after Toe Trauma.
Of which 6 there being 4 Flowering Formations above The Toe and 2 Perfumery Pictorial Pix revealing the tiny magical elixir that may have triggered The Toe interaction so acting as below images in timeline and in causely effect.
These are not my usual sort of out spurting, well I think not and then I remember that there is some yes to answer along with the no and so also I state that these feature nicely in with some of my edited extravagances.
This both a normal day and as well at the same time not the normal that seems a life away til it returns.
© PHH Sykes 2025
phhsykes@gmail.com
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however Lettice’s drawing room, usually a haven of peaceful gentility, has been given over to a more joyful and exuberant festive atmosphere as Lettice hosts a bottle party* for friends after a wonderful day out at the Henley Regatta**. At a recent dinner at the Savoy Hotel***, Lettice’s beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, has devised a plan to help thwart the plans of his scheming mother, Lady Zinnia, and Uncle Bertrand to marry him off to his cousin, 1923 debutante Pamela Fox-Chavers. Lady Zinnia has been snubbing Lettice, so he and Lettice have arranged for Lettice to attend as many London Season events as possible where Selwyn and Pamela are also in attendance so that Lettice and Selwyn can spend time together, and at the same time make their intentions so well known that Lady Zinnia won’t be able to avoid Lettice for too much longer. So far, they have been seen together at the Derby**** the Fourth of June at Eton*****, the Crystal Palace Horse Show, Ascot Week****** and today the Henley Regatta. The party at Henley consisted of Lettice, Selwyn and Pamela, Lettice’s friends Dickie and Margot Channon, who are part of Lettice’s Embassy Club coterie, her old childhood chum Gerald, also a member of the aristocracy who has tried to gain some independence from his impecunious Wiltshire family by designing gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street, and a young debs delight******* whom Pamela is attracted to, the wealthy son of a banker, Jonty Knollys.
Edith, Lettice’s maid, fled to the relative quiet and safety of the Cavendish Mews kitchen as the party decamped noisily in the drawing room, discarding hats, canes and parasols across available surfaces before collapsing in fits of boisterous laugher into chairs and on the Chinese rug in the middle of the room. Now comfortably ensconced in the comfort of Lettice’s Mayfair drawing room, the party gets underway. Dickie insists on playing his usual role of barman as he relishes making cocktails for his friends with bottles purloined from Lettice’s black japanned cocktail cabinet in the adjoining dining room. Whilst he whips up concoctions for the pleasure of his friends, they all sing along with Gerald as he plays the latest tunes on his new banjo********.
“Yes we have no bananas, we have no bananas today!” the party sing joyously as Gerald concludes ‘Yes! We Have No Bananas’********* before applauding as he ends the song with a flourish.
“Oh, I wish Cyril was here.” sighs Gerald wistfully.
Lettice glances up in alarm from her seat opposite him where she had been toying playfully with the orange ribbons on her apricot dyed wide brimmed straw hat. As her eyes grow wide, Gerald realises his mistake in mentioning his secret lover’s name aloud.
“Who’s Cyril, old boy?” Selwyn asks with piqued interest as he takes a sip of Dickie’s cocktail concoction from his highball glass.
“Oh he’s… he’s…” stutters Gerald.
“He’s a musical chap who lives as a border in the home of Miss Milford, one of Gerald’s and my friends.” Lettice pipes up quickly, covering up Gerald’s awkwardness at trying to formulate a reply. “He’s quite theatrical type; performs in shows on the West End and enjoys a sing-along as a result, doesn’t he, Gerald?”
“Yes, yes he does!” replies her best friend with a look of extreme gratitude on his face.
“Milford?” Margot asks with a slight slur from her seat as she cocks an eyebrow lazily at Lettice. “Isn’t that the same name as your new milliner, Lettice darling?”
“What? Oh yes.” Lettice replies a little awkwardly herself. “She takes in lodgers too.”
“You’re friends with your milliner?” Margot continues with a perplexed air as she tries to piece the story together with a slightly alcohol addled mind. “How frightfully irregular.”
“Well… I… err.” stammers Lettice, glancing down the front of her apricot cotton summer frock.
“Oh Angel!” laughs Selwyn good naturedly. “You really shouldn’t try and cover for Gerald. Telling falsehoods doesn’t suit you, and it gives you away since you are no good at it.”
Both Lettice and Gerald blush with embarrassment.
“You are a black horse, aren’t you Gerald?” Selwyn continues, reaching down and giving him a soft brotherly slap on the back. “So, it isn’t a Gaiety Girl********** you’ve been hiding from us at all! It’s their landlady.”
“I say, Gerald old boy,” pipes up Dickie. “I do hope she doesn’t have a face like the ones you see portrayed in Punch every week!”
“Yes,” giggles Margot, releasing a hiccup amongst her titters. “All fat doughy face and washerwoman’s arms!”
“Or perhaps she is,” adds Selwyn with a conspiratorial wink at Gerald. “And he’s just using her to get to the prettiest of her Gaiety Girls.”
Gerald laughs cheerfully as much with relief at not being found out as being a homosexual for his inadvertent gaffe, as in an effort to go along with Selwyn’s thoughts and encourage the idea that he has a pretty girl cloistered away somewhere. “Well, a gentleman never reveals his secrets, Selwyn.”
“Oh, enough Selwyn!” exclaims Pamela. “Stop being a brute and teasing poor Mr. Bruton. His private affairs are his own!”
“Sorry Pammy.” Selwyn hangs his head in mock shame.
“I should think you are, Selwyn.” Turning to Gerald she addresses him. “Ignore him, Mr. Bruton. Anyone would think him a common labourer’s man rather than a future duke! My cousin can be a charming man, but when he is in a teasing mood, he is relentless.”
“Oh, I know Miss Fox-Chavers.” Gerald replies with a knowing smile. “You forget that I know your cousin well. He and I are members of the same club at St. James’.”
“Which you seldom attend these days” Selwyn points out, enjoying his ability to tease Gerald again. “Evidently because you have a better offer from somewhere, or more to the point, someone else.”
“Selwyn!” admonishes Pamela again.
“Gerald, won’t you play us something to dance to?” Lettice pipes up in an effort to change the subject and draw the attention away from her dear childhood friend who is evidently uncomfortable under Selwyn’s scrutiny. “I should so like to dance. What about you Miss Fox-Chavers?”
“Oh yes!” She looks hopefully at Jonty Knollys sitting next to her.
“Not I,” Margot manages to slur. “I don’t know what you put in these, my dear,” She glances at her husband as he adds a fresh slice of lemon to the lip of a highball glass full of a violent green looking concoction. “But whatever it is, it has gone straight to my head.” She sinks back into her seat and cradles her glass in her hands against her stomach.
“Oh my love, you’ve never had a head for cocktails.” Dickie says with a loving sigh as he shakes his head and looks with affection at his wife.
“How about a two-step?” Gerald asks as he starts searching noisily through the pile of sheet music he has brought with him from the back of his Morris***********.
“That sounds fine to me, Gerald darling!” Lettice enthuses. “You aren’t too overcome by Dickie’s cocktails as well, are you, Selwyn darling?” she adds teasingly.
“Certainly not, my Angel.” Selwyn replies, depositing his half drunk cocktail down onto the black japanned coffee table and offering her his hand chivalrously, helping her to rise from the comfortable white brocade cushions of her rounded tub armchair. “Shall we?”
“Aahh! Here we are!” Gerald says, withdrawing a piece of music with a creamy yellow cover adorned with red writing. He quickly tunes a loose string on his banjo and begins playing the opening bars of the ‘Auto Race’************ two-step.
Lettice falls into the now comfortable feel of Selwyn’s arms as he begins guiding her across the drawing room floor. They move carefully around her furniture as they move in time to the music, whilst also being careful not to bump into Pamela and Jonty who look happily into one another’s eyes as they too move in time to the jolly two-step.
“You know I’ve had such a lovely day today, Selwyn darling.” Lettice confides with a beaming smile as she looks up into her dance partner’s handsome face.
“So have I, my Angel.” he concurs with a purr. “A ripping day.”
“This little plan of yours seems to be working out quite nicely, Selwyn darling.”
“For whom?” Selwyn asks.
“Why for us, of course!” Lettice relies in surprise. “Who else?”
“Well, I don’t think Uncle Bertrand thought it was fearfully ripping when he laid eyes on you sitting next to me, and Jonty Knollys sitting alongside Pammy.”
“Yes,” Lettice muses with a juddering sight as she casts her mind back to earlier in the day on the Thames when Selwyn introduced her to his uncle as Bertrand drew the punt containing he and his second wife Rosalind alongside the punt containing their party. “I did notice the colour rise in his face. I don’t think it was caused by indigestion from their picnic luncheon in the bottom of their punt.”
“How perceptive you are, my Angel.” Selwyn says with a chuckle. “Still this is what we agreed to, wasn’t it?” After Lettice nods, he continues as he carefully guides her around the back of one of her armchairs, “And Zinnia must be aware of you by now. Our photos have appeared in the society pages of all the major newspapers. Uncle Bertrand’s firsthand observations will only add credence to the stories and rumours that are no doubt filtering back to her in Buckinghamshire. She cannot go on ignoring you forever.”
“Selwyn?” Lettice asks a little apprehensively. “Selwyn are you sure we’re going about this the right way?”
“Whatever do you mean, my Angel? I thought we agreed that this was the course of action that we were going to take. You just said yourself that you thought it was working out quite nicely for us, and I agree. You aren’t having misgivings about it are you?”
“Well, a little.” Lettice admits. “I mean, it does smack of rubbing your mother’s and uncle’s noses in it rather, don’t you think?”
“I told you, Zinnia is the best player of ostriches that I know. She happily sticks her head in the sand so she can’t see what she doesn’t want to. We have to get her to see, and Uncle Bertrand too, that you and I are not going to be persuaded to break our involvement. And Pammy deserves a chance to pick a suitor that she likes, not one that Zinnia and Uncle Bertrand have chosen for her. She deserves happiness every bit as much as you and I do. You are happy, aren’t you, may Angel?”
“Oh yes, of course I am, Selwyn darling. And, I’d say we aren’t alone in that happiness,” Lettice nods towards Pamela and Jonty, who only appear to have eyes for one another.
“Indeed yes.” Selwyn agrees in acknowledgement. “He’s one of the good chaps.”
“He seems it. Lovely manners, and he seems to make your cousin happy.”
“Well, I’m pleased because he only fancies Pammy for herself, and not her money.”
“He comes from the banking Knollys, doesn’t he?”
Selwyn nods. “So, he doesn’t need her money, like some of the others buzzing around her do. There are too many young men with ancestral castles and country estates falling into decrepitude who look towards Pammy as a means to restore their fortunes. I’d hate for her to throw away her heart on a cad.”
“You love her very much, don’t you, Selwyn?” Lettice smiles.
“I do.” Selwyn agrees. “She is my cousin after all.” He feels an almost imperceptible change in Lettice as she stiffens slightly in his arms. “But don’t worry, my Angel. I love you more.”
Lettice’s stance eases. “That’s just as well, Selwyn darling, because I love you too.”
The pair move together happily in silence for a little while whilst Gerald’s lively jaunty banjo notes and the sounds of Dickie squirting soda water into a cocktail fill the air around them.
“Have you worked out how you’re going to break the news to Mrs. Hawarden yet?” Gerald calls out to Lettice as she and Selwyn dance near to him.
“No,” Lettice sighs with exasperation. “Not yet.”
“Mrs. Hawarden?” Selwyn queries. “Isn’t she the woman you visited during Ascot week who wants you to redecorate her drawing room?”
“That’s her!” pipes up Gerald.
“And her dining room.” Lettice adds a little despondently. “She wants me to redecorate rooms that I feel should really be left unaltered. They are fine as they are, but she seems to have it in her head to tamper with them and ruin them with inferior fabrics and foolish ideas about what she thinks makes for tasteful redecoration and modernisation.”
“Well, can’t you talk her out of her ideas? I sense some trepidation, my Angel.”
“She won’t be told,” Gerald announces to the room as he continues playing without missing a beat. “So Lettice has decided to turn her down.”
“Not trepidation,” Lettice corrects Selwyn, picking up on his question of her. “Genuine fear.”
“Of what?” Selwyn asks. “Of her? Of saying no to her?”
Lettice nods as they move in time to Gerald’s playing. “She really is very domineering, I’ve discovered, and whenever I make a suggestion that counters her opinion, she just talks more loudly and stridently over the top of me to drown me out. She is convinced that I am the only interior designer who has her vision – even though I don’t. She telephones almost every day in an effort to wear me down. It’s become such an issue that I’ve had to make Edith lie to her and tell her I’m not at home, just so I don’t have to speak with her.”
BBBBRRRINGGG!
As if on cue, the silver and Bakelite telephone suddenly begins to trill loudly.
“Well, thinking of the devil, herself.” Gerald remarks as he continues to play.
“Oh don’t say that, Gerald!” hisses Lettice as Selwyn sweeps her away again.
BBBBRRRINGGG!
“Oh Margot,” Lettice calls from Selwyn’s arms as he continues to lead her in the dance. “Be a brick and answer that will you? Edith doesn’t like answering the telephone at the best of times, so she certainly won’t answer it in front of all of us.”
BBBBRRRINGGG!
Margot sloppily pulls herself up out of her chair and her slight alcoholic stupor and deposits her glass clumsily onto the surface of the low coffee table before her. Leaning over in a rather ungainly way, she grasps the receiver and picks it up just as it is about to ring again. Leaning over the arm of the chair she pulls the long curling black flex towards her and mutters into the receiver over the top of the noise around her, “The hon… honahhrable Lettice Chet… Chetwynd’s residence.” She pauses, her partially smeared lips hanging open as she listens. A distant deep male voice burbles down the line quite loudly and then stops. “Ssshhhh!” she hisses to everyone around her, waving her spare elegantly bejewelled hand in a sign to temper their noise before placing it against her uncovered ear as the burbling voice begins down the line again.
Gerald stops playing and both couples stop dancing abruptly. Dickie holds the soda syphon in his hands, his finger on the trigger, paused to add a dash of soda water to the glass before him. All eyes focus on Margot and the telephone’s receiver.
“Well, it’s not Mrs. Hawarden,” Selwyn notes as he hears the decidedly male voice yelling from his end.
“Ssshhh!” Lettice hushes him, patting his chest with her hands.
Margot leans back into an upright position and smothers the mouthpiece of the telephone with her hand as she takes the receiver away from her ear. She looks up to Lettice. “It’s your father.” she says dully. “He says it’s urgent.”
Lettice pushes herself quickly from Selwyn’s arms and rushes over to the telephone. She takes the receiver from Margot.
“Hullo Pappa.” The distant deep male voice speaks loudly down the line again. “No, no Pappa. That was Margot.” The Viscount blasts something unflattering about Margot at his daughter. “Well, we’ve been having cocktails you see, after our afternoon at Henley.” Lettice closes her eyes and hopes to avoid a rebuke. “I told you that we were going to the regatta today. Remember Pappa.” The Viscount starts talking again at length. “What? Oh, oh no Pappa?” He continues, and as he speaks down the telephone line from Wilshire the bright colour in Lettice’s face drains away. “Well yes of course, Pappa.” More speaking from the Viscount’s end of the line. “Yes, well Gerald’s here too. Of course, we’ll set off straight away.” His distant voice softens as he says goodbye. “Goodbye Pappa.”
Lettice hangs up the receiver which releases a bright tinkle as she replaces it in the cradle of the telephone. She stands still for a moment, staring ahead of her but seeing nothing.
“Lettice?” Gerald asks, but she doesn’t answer.
Suddenly she snaps out of her momentary stupor and walks with purpose into the dining room towards the green baize door that leads to the servant’s part of the flat. “Edith! Edith!”
“Yes Miss?” Edith pops her head around the corner of the door a moment later.
Lettice lowers her voice. “Edith please make us all some coffee and then go and pack me an overnight valise. Please pack my black crepe dress and a few of my more sombre frocks and my pearls will you. Mr. Bruton and I shall be departing for Wiltshire very shortly.”
“Yes Miss!” gaps Edith.
“I’ll explain later, Edith. Just serve the coffee as quickly as you can and then pack for me. You can clean up after we have all left.”
“Yes, Miss.”
Turning back Lettice strides across the dining room and back to the drawing room.
“I’m sorry everyone, but we’ll have to bring this party to an abrupt conclusion, I’m afraid.” Lettice announces shakily.
Margot, Dickie, Pamela and Jonty all groan and complain loudly.
“Whatever is the matter my Angel?” Selwyn asks, walking over and grasping his sweetheart by the shoulders. “You look so pale.”
“Lettice?” Gerald asks again, putting his banjo aside. “You said I was here.” He says softly. “What is it? Is it Mummy?”
Lettice doesn’t answer immediately, stunned once again into silence by shock.
“No,” she says weakly at length, an air of disbelief in her voice. “It’s Uncle Sherbourne.” She references Lord Tyrwhitt, patriarch of the family of the estate adjoining her own family’s estate, and father of her sister-in-law Arabella. “He’s collapsed whilst out on the estate.” She looks at Gerald. “We have to go to home to Wiltshire right now.”
*Bottle parties, a private party to which each guest brings their own liquor, came into vogue during the 1920s and 30s initially especially after prohibition in America and liquor licence restrictions in Britain.
**The Henley Royal regatta is a leisurely “river carnival” on the Thames. It was at heart a rowing race, first staged in 1839 for amateur oarsmen, but soon became another fixture on the London social calendar. Boating clubs competed, and were not exclusively British, and the event was well known for its American element. Evenings were capped by boat parties and punts, the air filled with military brass bands and illuminated by Chinese lanterns. Dress codes were very strict: men in collars, ties and jackets (garishly bright ties and socks were de rigueur in the 1920s) and crisp summer frocks, matching hats and parasols for the ladies.
***The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. The Savoy was the first hotel in Britain to introduce electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as chef de cuisine; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners. The hotel became Carte's most successful venture. Its bands, Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band, became famous. Winston Churchill often took his cabinet to lunch at the hotel. The hotel is now managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. It has been called "London's most famous hotel". It has two hundred and sixty seven guest rooms and panoramic views of the River Thames across Savoy Place and the Thames Embankment. The hotel is a Grade II listed building.
****The Derby Stakes is one of the greatest sporting events of the London Season, and is held in June at Epsom Downs Racecourse every year. It gets its name from its founder, Edward Smith-Stanley, the 12th Earl of Derby, who inaugurated the race as a lark in 1780. It is perhaps the most democratic of all events on the London social season calendar as it was not founded by royalty. It grew in popularity because of the patronage of the Duke of York (later King Edward VII) who found the race to his liking and attended every year, often entering horses from his own stud. As well as being a place of great joy, it also witnessed a tragedy in 1913, when suffragette Emily Davidson threw herself in front of King George V’s horse to draw attention to the plight of women wanting the vote. Sadly, such a heroic act killed her, turning her into one of the most famous martyrs of the suffragette movement.
*****June the fourth is an important day for Eaton College in Windsor. The day is celebrated annually with a tradition known as the “Procession of the Boats” or the “Swan Upping Ceremony”. During the ceremony, the reigning sovereign’s swan marker and his assistants row up the River Thames in traditional skiffs to check on the health of the swan population. Eton College students, dressed in their distinctive black and white uniforms, also participate in the ceremony, riding up and down the river in their own boats, accompanied by the school’s band playing lively tunes. After the ceremony, the town of Eaton and the college celebrate with a variety of festivities including music, food, drink and parties.
******Royal Ascot Week is the major social calendar event held in June every year at Ascot Racecourse in Berkshire. It was founded in 1711 by Queen Anne and is attended every year by the reigning British monarch and members of the Royal Family. The event is grand and showy, with men in grey morning dress and silk toppers and ladies in their best summer frocks and most elaborate hats.
*******A “debs’ delight” is an elegant or attractive young man in high society who is also an eligible bachelor and thus a suitable match for a young debutante.
********Originating out of America during the 1920s the banjo quickly gained popularity in Britain too because it was reasonably cheap as an instrument, portable, easy to learn on and musical duelling matches were played like draughts or chess.
*********"Yes! We Have No Bananas" is an American novelty song by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn published on March the 23rd, 1923. It became a major hit in 1923 when it was recorded by Billy Jones, Billy Murray, Arthur Hall, Irving Kaufman, and others. It was recorded later by Benny Goodman and His Orchestra, Spike Jones & His City Slickers, Kidsongs, and many more. The song became a best-selling sheet music in American history. It inspired a follow-up song, "I've Got the Yes! We Have No Bananas Blues", recorded by Billy Jones and Sam Lanin (with vocals by Irving Kaufman and others) in 1923. Al Jolson recorded on film, an operatic version, in blackface, in the 1930s
**********Gaiety Girls were the chorus girls in Edwardian musical comedies, beginning in the 1890s at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in the shows produced by George Edwardes.
***********Morris Motors Limited was a privately owned British motor vehicle manufacturing company established in 1919. With a reputation for producing high-quality cars and a policy of cutting prices, Morris's business continued to grow and increase its share of the British market. By 1926 its production represented forty-two per cent of British car manufacturing. Amongst their more popular range was the Morris Cowley which included a four-seat tourer which was first released in 1920.
************”Auto Race” is a popular two-step composed in 1908 by American musician Percy Wenrich (1887 – 1952), who is perhaps more famously known for his hit songs like “Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet” and “On Moonlight Bay”.
This 1920s upper-class drawing room party is different to what you may think at first glance, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
Lettice’s tea set is a beautiful artisan set featuring a rather avant-garde Art Deco Royal Doulton design from the Edwardian era. The jam fancies are also artisan miniatures from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. He has a dizzying array of meals which is always growing, and all are made entirely or put together by hand. The glass comport is made of real glass and was blown by hand. It too comes from Beautifully handmade Miniatures.
The books that you see scattered around Lettice’s drawing room are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors, although these are amongst the exception. In some cases, you can even read the words of the titles, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a miniature artisan piece. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
The magazines on the lower shelf of the coffee table were made by hand by Petite Gite Miniatures in the United States.
The very realistic floral arrangements around the room are made by hand by either the Doll House Emporium or Falcon Miniatures in America who specialise in high end miniatures.
Margot’s umbrella comes from an online stockist that specialises in miniatures, whilst her red handbag with its gold chain strap comes from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House in the United Kingdom
Lettice’s drawing room is furnished with beautiful J.B.M. miniatures. The Art Deco tub chairs are of black japanned wood and have removable cushions, just like their life sized examples. To the left of the fireplace is a Hepplewhite drop-drawer bureau and chair of black japanned wood which has been hand painted with chinoiserie designs, even down the legs and inside the bureau. The Hepplewhite chair has a rattan seat, which has also been hand woven. To the right of the fireplace is a Chippendale cabinet which has also been decorated with chinoiserie designs. It also features very ornate metalwork hinges and locks.
On the top of the Hepplewhite bureau stand three real miniature photos in frames including an Edwardian silver frame, a Victorian brass frame and an Art Deco blue Bakelite and glass frame.
The fireplace is a 1:12 miniature resin Art Deco fireplace which is flanked by brass accessories including an ash brush with real bristles.
On the left hand side of the mantle is an Art Deco metal clock hand painted with wonderful detail by British miniature artisan Victoria Fasken.
In the middle of the mantle is a miniature artisan hand painted Art Deco statue on a “marble” plinth. Made by Warwick Miniatures in England, it is a 1:12 copy of the “Theban Dancer” sculpture created by Claire-Jeanne-Roberte Colinet in 1925.
The carpet beneath the furniture is a copy of a popular 1920s style Chinese silk rug, and the geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.
my daughter's comment on seeing this house. very perceptive 7 yr old, I thought.
a very novel construction, should be great in the heavy winds.
for guess where wellington: where am I? suburb, and street.
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).
Second week in February, and I'm posting a Christmas photo. Weird.
More of a notice of sorts, though. I've just completed taking down all of the decorations. We never hurry, but it always has to be done. I took a bunch of final photos before I did the decoration scorched Earth thing. Those photos were just for us...except this one.
The way we decorate, it takes a long time to do. Seems like it takes even longer to de-decorate, and that part isn't particularly enjoyable.
Primarily we've always decorated for ourselves -- our enjoyment -- but have always shared it with others. In times past we would have lots of visitors, even Christmas parties. Many would come to see 'this year's' theme and decorations. That mostly stopped sometime after I retired, which was before Flickr. Some people still come by, but not so many.
For several years we decorated in ways that would please and fascinate our young granddaughters. Animated stuff, musical, singing and talking figures. Great fun for them to run around turning on all of the sound and movement things.
And It would be great fun to share photos on Flickr. Few are obsessive enough to dress their places up like we do for Christmas, so sort of enjoyed our work...without the work.
I would always add a photo after Christmas, adding something like 'Wait until next year' or 'you ain't seen nuttin' yet. And some -- though not so many actually -- WOULD wait and anticipate.
I'm not saying that this year. We had few visitors to enjoy all of the decorating. Our granddaughters are now of an age (pre-teen and pre-pre teen, but both going on 17) that their world is inward, and neck downward towards their phones and tablets. Didn't even notice Christmas...other than all the presents they got.
Flickr is not a great place for any holiday photos, and particularly not Christmas. Groups -- award groups -- both snub and ignore Christmas photos once the day has past, and often even prior to that. Long time contacts say nice things, but heck, photos of dandelions and pest birds get more enthusiastic reception.
**Whining**...so we sort of decided, subject of course to the unpredictability of whim, that this would be our last 'over the top' decorating. Christmas 2017 will be reserved, constrained, a mere shadow of previous glories and bling. A tree or two under which to put presents, maybe a couple of wreaths...and then finis.
If this reads more like a blog entry than a photo description to you...very perceptive. Flickr has always described itself as a photographic blog; that's why newest uploads always show at the front of the stream. I'm 'blogging' about a subject near and dear to my heart, and regretting -- just a bit -- that time and tide do what they do.
This DOES NOT call for any comments; I'm not soliciting any responses. Just taking a few moments to excuse, well in advance, the lack of photos next holiday season.
"...for one brief shining moment...!"
© Stephen B Whatley
Laurie Mitchell is a former Hollywood actress in films and much television from 1954 to 1971.
Long-retired from the screen and now in her 70s, the NYC- born actress has in recent years been a popular guest - which has overwhelmed the humble actress- at Hollywood Celebrity Conventions; due to her cult status as the masked Queen of Venus, in the science-fiction B-movie, Queen of Outer Space (US 1958) - which also starred Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Laurie Mitchell also had roles in the films, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (US 1954), That Touch of Mink (US 1961; with Doris Day) - and Some Like It Hot (US 1959), joining Marliyn Monroe as part of the all-girl orchestra. Her big scene is during the party on the train, with Jack Lemmon & Marilyn; to whom she offers crackers. According to Ms Mitchell, in the UK she is known as the Cracker Girl; through this fun scene.
In 2007, Ms Mitchell was interviewed by NY film historian & author, Tom Weaver on the DVD of Queen of Outer Space, revealing her gentle, sensitive and perceptive nature and memory; and earlier this year was thrilled to receive this surprise cartoon tribute, by Stephen B Whatley - intertwining her present-day appearance with her costume from 1958.
Ink & caran dache on card. 2009
Collection of Laurie Mitchell, Los Angeles, USA.
Julia French, one of the most perceptive observers of the social media space, recently joined Socialtext.
Some of my friends will know that I am fascinated about horses.
These extremely beautiful individuals, often abused and spiritually and emotionally ignored, have so much to offer us, besides only riding.
We all can make a shot of a horse, but one of the hardest challenges in horse photography, is capturing its emotions, these being microsecond minimal facial expressions, subtle interactions that are mostly unseen or ignored...
If we succeed, and are perceptive to this subtle communication, we can find a glimpse of a world we have lost in our human development...
Nikon D2Xs (160ISO) + Sigma 24-70mm F2,8 EX DG DF
She sat curled opposite me, her eyes blazing into mine with a quiet determination softened by compassion. Chin resting on her hands that clasped a cigarette, the smoke lazily drifting between us. I was unsure whether I was impressed or slightly worried that in a city the size of Paris she had managed to track me down to a bar on Rue de Lyon.
I estimated that she had come over on the Eurostar service immediately after the one I had taken to ferry me into the heart of the Parisian bars and cafes. Straight from her office in London, complete with formal attire she had stood by the side of me, her flared flannel skirt emerging from the heavy knitwear coat she had pulled snugly around her body. Briefcase in hand she had slid into the chair opposite me after catching the waiter’s eye and asking for a wine glass in fluent French. Lighting a cigarette and pouring herself a glass of wine from the bottle on the table she now looked only at me, never shifting her gaze while she drew on her cigarette.
I waited for her to say something. Reaching over to the bottle I topped up my own glass never breaking eye contact with her. She flicked her ash to the floor and took large gulps from her glass.
Barman dans le shaker, d'abord de l'élégance
Un trait de Sacré-Coeur et deux doight de Doisneau
Une Piaf, quelques moineaux et Joséphine Baker
And this is how Angel had found me.
Là une de Prévert, mais sans raton-laveur
Prenons un dernier verre pres Bateau lavoir
Une Sinone de Beauvoir et deux singes en hiver
Mettez trois notes de jazz dans un quatier latin
Un menu sur l'ardoise un fond d'un bar-tabac
Et la résille d'un bas sur un genou qu on croise
My French wasn’t that good, I could only guess at that moment when the waiter came over to the table, she quickly dismissed him with a wave of the hand asking for another bottle of wine. All without breaking her eye contact with me. Within a minute he had come sauntering back offering the bottle label to me. For the first time I broke her gaze and nodded to the waiter, he produced his cork screw from his apron and made quick work of opening the bottle and leaving it in the middle of the table. Pausing only to top up her glass and then mine from the first bottle and taking it away empty.
“How long?” she finally asked. Her voice as soft and calm as I knew Angel to be. Not the voice she used when talking to her work colleagues or indeed the waiter just moments earlier.
Stubbing out her cigarette, head cocked to one side she fixed me with a gaze through her sweeping fringe. She unfastened her coat allowing it to fall to her sides revealing a tightly layered cream blouse beneath. She wriggled in her seat to remove the coat from her shoulders and then tossed it on to the chair beside her.
Delving into her coat pocket she produced a sealed packet of Marlboro Lights and her brass Zippo lighter.
She looked eloquent. Angel always looked eloquent, she dressed for the Parisian life even when she was miles away from it physically and culturally. Once again she rested her chin on finely manicured, piano forte fingers while swirling the last of the red wine in her glass. She had got comfortable. I could have said nothing for thirty minutes and she would have remained curled up on her seat like a beautiful panther; smoking her cigarettes and drinking wine.
We were about to have a difficult conversation and she was making sure that everything she needed was to hand. Twisting in her seat she gestured to the garcon. My eyes fell across her tightly twisted blouse, a moments hesitation on her chest before I peered into the dwindling contents of my glass.
“Until Sunday” I replied.
I picked up the second bottle of wine and filled her glass beyond what was probably an acceptable amount. I did exactly the same to mine as if this rash and foolish action underlined the chaos I felt within me. A recklessness that denoted I had reached a limit past caring. Another few gulps of wine, I could see her eyes through the swell of the glass and the rich, deep red of the wine. Her ruby lips a match to the warming liquid in her glass.
“No, I mean how long do you intend to run from whoever it is you are running from?” she asked raising the glass but pausing expectantly of a reply before she drank.
I left her question to hang heavily between us, she was, as always very perceptive. I disliked these conversations only because I knew she was right. What she was going to tell me would make perfect sense and yet deep down there was a part of me that didn’t want to hear any of it for fear that it would shatter a hope that existed without any basis in reality.
Out the back of the café a metal tray dropped and the sound of breaking glass followed by a booming voice. She winced and hunched down into her shoulders, a smile appeared before allowing a giggle to escape. Another voice screamed back in French, I managed to pick up a few words of the quick fired reply, or at least convinced myself I did.
She fixed me again with her grey green eyes, the smile vanishing from her face as she recomposed and waited for my reply. I didn’t have the energy nor the inclination to go up against her or try to deny that I was running from someone, however in the split second it took to annunciate my reply it had changed to a flat denial. This week I had done some pretty stupid things, said some really unbelievably ignorant things, this was just another one to add to the list.
“I’m not running from anyone I just needed to get away as things feel like they are closing in on me.” I said.
The last time I had smoked was in Paris. I had been sitting in a bar opposite Gare du Nord. I had been in Paris for three days and each day had got more hellish. By the third day I had felt totally isolated and somewhat let down by the person I had accompanied. That day I walked out on her never to see her again. I had considered the whole experience to have been an utter nightmare and I was somewhat desperate to find any silver lining. Walking out of the Bastille district that day I had made a phone call back to London to speak to the only person I knew could pull me back from the abyss I was about to willingly cast myself into. While I waited for Angel to arrive in that bar I decided that I would no longer smoke. It was the best silver lining I could find at that time. And that was that.
Over a year later that very same person had tracked me down without me even needing to make a phone call. The truth of the matter was I hadn’t even thought to ring anyone.
She peeled away the cellophane from the cigarettes, popped the lid and tore away the foil. A moment’s pause in deliberation before her hand extended the exposed filter tips towards me. Despite all common sense screaming at me, jumping up and down in my head and banging bin lids I took one. This time I paused as she held her Zippo in front of me, the warmth of the orange perfectly complementing her exquisitely varnished blood red nails.
“You leave a cryptic message on twitter…then delete it moments later and you have travelled to Paris a day earlier at some considerable expense I would imagine….and you are going to try and convince me you’re not running from someone?...” her voice trailing off.
The cigarette felt good. I had blood roaring through my head carrying the alcohol and nicotine giving me what I hoped was a second burst of energy. The whim of high tailing it out of the UK had cost me £180.00, it was expensive but I had wrestled with the cost of the ticket as the train had glided across the Channel and taken me far away from the person I was running from. Despite the physical distance that I had put between us every sip of wine I had swallowed only brought her more to the front of my mind. She had gotten under my skin, become a part of me and despite fierce self-denial I had finally bowed my head and accepted that I missed what we had had.
And it hurt like hell.
It had hurt so much I had instinctively tried to run away from her knowing full well that the cause of my pain was inside me. I gritted my teeth and fought back that urge you get when the futility of your own actions becomes so apparent you just want to weep. The cigarette had burnt right down to my fingers and I hadn’t noticed. She had been watching me, then watching it burn down and then back to watching me again. I thought I was getting nicely drunk, that state of intoxication when it’s just comfortable to enjoy the feeling and warmth it brings. The truth of the matter was I had become numb twenty fours before and despite attempting to throw myself into the distraction of work; nothing had changed. I was cold, shocked and wounded. The irony was I had done this to myself. I would have preferred being drunk.
I couldn’t look at her when I whispered “I can’t do this tonight.”
The waiter reappeared at the table with a bottle of French brandy and two glasses. She nodded and gestured to him to pour the liquor, to leave the bottle and leave us. Looking back I couldn’t tell you whether she had said a single word during this exchange or that the waiter had become perceptive to what was taking place at table ‘huit’.
She picked up a brandy glass and held it out in front of me. “Drink!” she said.
I took the glass and she gently tapped mine with hers, with that she sank the brandy down in one. She watched me with a curious expression as she swallowed. For her I think the entire next few hours, possibly days hinged on that brief moment in time. The willingness and acceptance in coming to terms with why I was there, the searing pain and memories lay oddly enough in that brandy glass. To put the glass down was to opt for more wallowing in self-pity, I was down yes but I didn’t feel I was out of things. Nor was I wanting to endure the platitudes of others who would no doubt attempt to convince me on my return to the UK that ‘these things happen in life and are designed to make us stronger’.
I emptied the glass and she was already pouring more brandy into it before it touched down on the table. We sat saying nothing, drinking brandy and sharing her carton of cigarettes. We had gone outside into the evening air, she was cold, I made inappropriate comments about how cold she was. She laughed, we both laughed. First time that day I had laughed, at that moment through the brandy haze I realised just how lucky I was to have her there.
We had known each other for over thirteen years and in that time we had both changed. We had fought like siblings, laughed and shared experiences as true friends. I had always been there for here during the earlier years when life had been very harsh towards her. Now she had become successful and admired in the position she held. We had bolted to the European cities because we shared a passion for travelling. We had gotten drunk together like hobos, we had danced together like partners. We had shared intimate moments as if we were lovers.
She glanced at her watch.
“Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?” she asked.
Since arriving I hadn't given it much thought. I was planning on checking into the hotel across from Garde du Nord, its cheap and dreary but they always have rooms available and I wasn’t looking to admire the place, it was just somewhere to collapse until morning.
“I haven’t for tonight no” I said. “I didn’t really pay it any mind until now..” I added.
She had moved back out of the illumination of the street light holding herself tightly with cold. Yet in the darkness which surrounded her I could see the sparkle of her eyes. It was a natural thing to do, I pulled her close to me and wrapped my coat around her to benefit the warmth.
“Is that what you did with her, wrap her up in your arms like this and hold her?” she asked me.
The truth is I hadn’t even touched her, not in the physical sense anyway. Trying to explain that to Angel through what was becoming a thick fog of inebriation seemed a daunting task. She pulled away from me and back into the café, she threw her coat over her shoulders and picked up her bag.
Throwing some notes on to the table she shouted “au revoir” and came barrelling out the door into the cold night. A little clumsy on her feet she held out her hand to me to steady her.
At my touch she pulled me in towards her and whispered “come with me, we can get a cab and stay in the Champs Elysées…I know this perfect little hotel where we will be welcome.”
Thinking it will be easier to get a cab from the Bastille monument we begin to walk up the deserted Rue de Lyon.
“You never answered my question, did you hold her like you held me?” she asked again.
“No” I replied. And I recalled back to a conversation I had earlier in the day and the comparison to a bag of Haribo. Made me smile.
Her head fell into the collar of her coat as we neared the square.
“The woman you are running from… does she have a name” she asked. She glanced sideways at me as I searched for a cab. As luck would have it, one came into view and I caught the drivers eye. I was hoping that the welcome arrival of the taxi would have broken her train of thoughts. As I held the door open for her so she could climb inside the cab, she paused, one leg bound warmly with woollen tights hanging out of the car.
“Well….. does she have a name? she asked more persistently this time.
She finally puts her other leg into the cab.
“No she doesn’t” I replied.
“I just called her ‘babe’” I added closing the car door and saw the whole of the moon.
If you enjoy this content, please consider buying me a beer at www.buymeacoffee.com/grifandesqz- Thank you.
For making contact and communicating with a person, effective eye contact is essential to our every day interaction with people, and also to those who want to be effective communicators in the public arena:People say that the eyes are a "window to the soul" - that they can tell us much about a person just by gazing into them. Given that we cannot, for example, control the size of our pupils, body language experts can deduce much of a person's state by factors relating to the eyes.Generally in Western societies and many other cultures, eye contact with a person is expected to be regular but not overly persistent. Constant eye contact is often considered to be an attempt at intimidation, causing the person who's the object of a person's gaze to feel overly studied and uncomfortable.
Even between humans and non-humans, persistent eye contact is sometimes unadvisable: the New Zealand Medical Journal reported that one reason so many young children fall victim to attacks by pet dogs is their over-poweringly regular eye contact with pets, which causes them to feel threatened and defensive.Why do we avoid looking at a person? It may be because we feel ashamed to be looking at them if we're being dishonest of trying to deceive them. However, Scotland's University of Stirling found that, in a question-and-answer study among children, those who maintained eye contact were less likely to come up with the correct answer to a question than those who looked away to consider their response.Eye contact, as a socialising device, can take a surprising amount of effort to maintain when this energy could be spend on calculating, as opposed to perceptive, tasks.Overly persistent eye contact is also a sign of a person's over-awareness of the messages they are emmiting. In the case of a person who is try to deceive someone, they may distort their eye contact so that they're not avoiding it - a widely recognised indicator of lying.Why do we avoid looking at a person? It may be because we feel ashamed to be looking at them if we're being dishonest of trying to deceive them. However, Scotland's University of Stirling found that, in a question-and-answer study among children, those who maintained eye contact were less likely to come up with the correct answer to a question than those who looked away to consider their response.Eye contact, as a socialising device, can take a surprising amount of effort to maintain when this energy could be spend on calculating, as opposed to perceptive, tasks. www.psychologistworld.com/bodylanguage/eyes.php
When a puppy and a baby in a homemade video
Discover each other for the first time,
Or a bird and a kitten with each other are smitten,
No one is more brought to tears, than I'm.
For me, emotional reaction as an art form's objective,
Should be near the top of the list.
After intellectual involvement, opinions expressed,
Or a metaphorical punch in the face with a fist.
No blood, of course, no lesions--
No consciousness fading away,
But an invisible bruise on the encephalic regions,
That throbs in our mind, every day.
Art may move us to question the life choices of others,
Or better yet, question our own.
Not just react like a dog to a Roomba,
Or when he eagerly gnaws on a bone.
Too much art relies on imagination
(To which people with access are few),
For enlightened and perceptive interpretation.
Of course, I'm not referring to you.
Ultimately, we all have our different perspectives,
As we bring to the table what we perceive,
And we draw our conclusions like TV detectives--
Or magicians with nothing up their sleeve.
But really, doesn't that make it all worthwhile?
When to everyone, different meanings emerge.
And while some art may be dismissed with a laugh or a smile,
Or perceived with the critical tools of a child,
Or categorized as enslaved to some overdone style,
Or the inexplicable need for a gastro-intestinal purge.
B. Kite -- 3/16/2023
Understand your aesthetic sense - photographing the nude to help you improve your perceptivity to understand and feel the relation between aesthetics and sensuality. Uncovering hidden facets of yourself. - Ralph Hattersleyn
Middle East Shutter Squad 2010 (Underground Hardcore Photographers)
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.
If Jules' birthday was in March- wait!! It IS! It's TODAY!! :)
Jules is SO more than this eclectic collage can show, though I think it has a lot of "Jules" in it! She is a girl who can have fun playing in the cemetery! She is a real "New Orleans" girl, in spirit, even though she doesn't live there. She is a girlie goth girl- wears cool clothes, cool nailpolish, and goes to hear the cool music at the cool places!! She LOVES a wicked bit of bass guitar- hard rockin', loves Bloody Marys (which I didn't get in here!) and dances to her own tune! She is perceptive and sensitive which makes her a great artist in anything she tries!
Wishing you a VERY Happy March Birthday, Jules! You are one of a kind, Sister!!
While I was exploring the outer temple walls at Fa Xi Jiang Temple, I caught a glimpse of a small Buddha figurine sitting in the sun, well hidden from the eyes of less perceptive passersby.
See some of my favorite images here:
or here:
Credits
Outfit – {Seams Legit} – Blossom
Shoes – TippyTap – Baby FirstSteps: Patterned (Unrigged)
Pacifier – [Starries] – Web Pacifier – Bento/Classic
Paci Design – “Classic Paci Lilac” by Amalie (Chelsea Grigg)
Bracelet – {Seams Legit} – Matchy Heart Bracelet – Purple [Comes with a matching one for the guardian in your life]
Headband – 2PM. – Sweet Candy Hairband (Old Gacha, no longer available, save for resale on MP)
Hair Clip – Little Bubbles – Hair Clip: Fennec Fox (Old Gacha, no longer available, save for resale on MP)
Bunny – Annie’s Armoire. – Girl Bunny Rare (Old Gacha, no longer available, save for resale on MP)
Infant Swing – Muddpuddles – Infant Swing: Forest
Puppy –JIAN – Classic Pitbull Decor: Pillow Pibble
Hair – LullaBeebs – Lucy Hair
Eyes – VerseEye – Blind v2
Skin – { Pity Party } – Rising [Tone 06] Brows (LullaBeebs)
Freckles – { Pity Party } – Cosmetics Pack LullaBeebs
Body – LullaBeebs – LullaBeebs Infant Body
Head: LullaBeebs – LullaBeebs Infant Head – Gemini
Shape and Pose – Custom (Made on my own)
This portrait is the result of a bit of friendly coaxing, as is sometimes the case with our project. I saw her standing with a girlfriend in the midst of a downtown crowd and I was drawn immediately to her interesting and attractive look. There was the hat, the attractive features, and the earrings. I made my 100 Strangers approach and told her I liked her confident and laid-back look and would love to photograph her for my project. She was clearly taken a bit off-balance and asked me to define “laid back.” I scrambled to explain that I just meant relaxed and what I really meant was “photogenic.” She was not committing but she was still engaged so I told her a bit more about the project and said I would do the photos now and on the spot. The contact card with sample photos seemed to tip the balance toward “Ok. If you think so.” Meet Pauleen.
I took a photo in the crowd, then encouraged her to remove the reflective sunglasses. She was reluctant. She’s been travelling (visiting Toronto with her girlfriend from London England) and thought the strain showed in her eyes. I said I know Photoshop and would give her an honest opinion and not use the photo if I thought it was unflattering. Pauleen relented and I’m so glad she did.
There was little opportunity for a background that was not busy so after a couple of middle-of-the-crowd photos, I suggested we move to some booths showing and selling the work of local artists. I posed her just under the opening of the booth with artwork behind her and out of focus – still kind of busy but not bad.
Pauleen was clearly self-conscious about being photographed and I had lots of shots where she was glancing to the side or, if looking at my camera, blinking. I tried to relax her and joked that her modeling career was going to be in jeopardy if she keeps blinking so much. I knew she was struggling a bit with the light and no shades and I truly appreciated her putting up with my request because I think her eyes are really attractive.
Photos taken, we visited for a few minutes and I gave her and her friend a couple of ideas for sightseeing in Toronto. I found out she is 46 and is a Registered Nurse, specializing in Pediatrics. She loves children and it would seem her job is the perfect fit for her. She moved to England at the age of 29 from Trinidad and Tobago to start her career in nursing. When I asked her what her impressions are of Toronto so far she said “Very positive. The people have been really nice to us and we’re enjoying ourselves a lot.” I told her I was glad to hear people were treating them well and said that I’m very proud to be from Toronto. I love the city which is rather expensive, but has many positive features.
As we were exchanging contact information I asked if she was a religious person. She said “Yes, I am.” I bragged about being so perceptive, and then pointed to my ears. “Your earrings were a bit of a hint. I like them.” She laughed and said “Oh, you are SUCH a psychic.” All in all, it was a great encounter and I’m pleased with the photo which I think looks best in monochrome.
Thank you Pauleen for participating in 100 Strangers. You are #803 in Round 9 of my project. It was fun meeting you. I hope you return to London with happy memories of your visit to our city and will enjoy our encounter and this photo as a nice souvenir.
Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by the other photographers in our group at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page.
Follow-up: I received a very nice email from Pauleen telling me how much she enjoyed our encounter and that she loved the write-up. She offered a couple of factual corrections which I have made and said she was interested in following the project in the future. Thank you Pauleen. It's always a treat to hear from someone I met and photographed for my project.
"The Boston Women's Memorial celebrates three important contributors to Boston's rich history - Abigail Adams, Lucy Stone, and Phillis Wheatley. Each of these women had progressive ideas that were ahead of her time, was committed to social change, and left a legacy through her writings that had a significant impact on history"
Born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, Abigail Adams was the wife of the second president of the United States, John Adams and the mother of the sixth John Quincy Adams . Her letters establish her as a perceptive social and political commentator and a strong voice for women's advancement.
Excerpt..."and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation."
-Letter to John Adams, March 31, 1776
This is one of the better books that I was able to read this past summer. It allows for one to feel apart of Einstein as it is direct a translation of his writings. Einstein revealed in these writings a witty, keenly perceptive, with a deep concern for humanity. Einstein believed in the possibility of a peaceful world and in the high mission of science to serve human well-being. As we near the end of a century in which science has come to seem more and more remote from human values, Einstein's perspective is indispensable. Get away from the City and spend sometime without electricity, internet, and so on, and when you do then take this revelation with you.
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Illustrating Roger Zelazny’s short story “A Rose for Ecclesiastes.”
“Roger Zelazny, whose first story for F&SF makes its impressive appearance below, says that he has read SF and Fantasy for as far back as he can remember, and has wanted to write it for almost as long, ‘but did not have much opportunity to do so until early last year when Columbia got around to giving me the M. A. . . .’ Former épée instructor, ex-Nike crewman, Mr. Zelazny is now an OASDI claims examiner with the Social Security Administration, is 25 years old, claims that he is dreadfully lazy and likes beer . . . All the elements of Classical Old-Fashioned Science Fiction are here in this story of a Mars ‘where the sun is a tarnished penny . . . the wind is a whip [and] two moons play at hotrod games’ – but the author’s wide-ranging mind and perceptive pen bring us new lamps for old.” [Editor’s Introduction]
“The story is narrated by a gifted human linguist and poet named Gallinger, who is part of a mission studying Mars. He becomes the first human to learn the ‘high language’ of the intelligent Martians, and to be allowed to read their sacred texts. He comes to believe that Martian culture is essentially fatalistic, following an event in the distant past that left the long-lived Martians sterile . . .” – Wikipedia
“One of the most beautifully written, skillfully composed and passionately expressed works of art to appear anywhere, ever” – Theodore Sturgeon
youtu.be/KcPcJ9ycEu4?t=2m22s Full Feature
Paving for the way for later occult classics like Rosemary’s Baby and The Wicker Man, Night of the Demon is a spooky tale of witchcraft in modern Britain. With Jacques Tourneur’s film opening the BFI’s Monster Weekend, curator Vic Pratt explains why it’s a masterpiece of fright.
Vic Pratt
Wednesday, 21 August 2013
Night of the Demon (1957)
Night of the Demon screens on 29 August as part of the BFI’s Monster Weekend at the British Museum.
Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film is a major four-month film season at BFI Southbank and across the UK from October 2013 to January 2014.
I’ve loved Night of the Demon (1957) since I first watched it on telly many moons ago with my Dad. I was just a kid at the time, and yes, it may have been past my bedtime, so the thrill of staying up late to see it might have meant I enjoyed it all the more. But ever since then, it’s been a firm favourite of mine.
Looking back at it with an adult eye, you can see that it’s a film that belongs on any decent foundation course in cinematic horror. Beautifully constructed and ingeniously fashioned by master film-craftsmen, it remains a haunting, chillingly plausible tale of witchcraft and the occult, and the conflict between rationality and superstition.
But back when I was a fresh-faced child, I didn’t care about that. I was far more interested in the creepy demon of the title. That writhing, nasty-faced, woodcut-like creature – his arrival heralded by strange squealing strains, unsettling jangling noises, smoky footprints, and bizarre star-spangled puffs of smoke – captured my youthful imagination.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the film was directed by a master of spooky, suspenseful, atmospheric cinema, the great Jacques Tourneur. I found out about him later on, as a teenager. Tourneur’s shadowy, moody films – which seemed to mix Gothic themes with film noir-ish imagery – had an immediate appeal.
French born, but later active in the USA, he shot a string of low-budget classics in the 1940s for Val Lewton’s B-picture unit at RKO. If that had been that, and he’d packed it in then, his reputation would already have been assured. The man who’d made Cat People (1942) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943) certainly had nothing to prove. But Tourneur was not a man to rest on his laurels. He carried on, moved into bigger budget productions, and, some years later, shot a Gothic chiller about modern-day witchcraft in England. It was called Night of the Demon. And it might even be the best of the bunch.
The film was adapted from M.R. James’s short story ‘Casting the Runes’ by Hitchcock collaborator Charles Bennett, and it grips from the very beginning. Dana Andrews, playing sceptical American psychologist Holden, scoffs when he’s passed a cursed piece of parchment in the British Museum reading room by genial occultist Dr Karswell (masterfully played by Niall MacGinnis). It means that he’s scheduled to die at the demon’s hand within four days. Holden doesn’t believe it. But – having spotted that monster in the first reel – we viewers know better than the sometimes irritatingly sure-of-himself scientist. And so Holden is dragged ever further into a web of devilry, while perceptive Joanna (the wonderful Peggy Cummins) races against time to convince him that it’s not all just flim-flam.
But you can see why Holden takes some convincing. While Karswell really is the possessor of strange powers, he acts like a show-off schoolboy conjuror spoiling the summer fete. A petulant, overgrown rich-kid know-all who lives with his mother, occasionally dabbling as a children’s entertainer, he’s a modern-day sorcerer who really doesn’t understand the seriousness of the dark forces at his command – and doesn’t much care either.
In one splendid scene, set at his grand country house, merely to demonstrate his powers to the resolutely sceptical Holden, Karswell conjures up a whirlwind out of nowhere, and smiles smugly as terrified children – whom he entertained, dressed as a clown, moments earlier – run screaming across the grounds of his stately pile. “A medieval witch’s speciality: a wind storm,” he gloats. He’s ruined their party.
Shot in broad daylight, this eerie, darkly humorous scene demonstrates that good Gothic doesn’t need to take place at night, or even in a creepy castle; and that Tourneur is a master of mood, whatever the setting. And something tells me our old friend Alfred Hitchcock watched it closely: it foreshadows a somewhat similar silly-sinister sequence in The Birds (1963) where a flap of feathered beasts suddenly dive bomb the children to spoil yet another tea-party on the lawn.
A disrupted children’s party was a million miles away from the censor-shocking, blood-spattered Hammer horrors that were poised to take the world by storm at the end of the 1950s; but this film, though perhaps harking back to an earlier era, was no less brilliant than those.
Despite the monster, Night of the Demon is a cerebral piece: it chills viewers intelligently, slowly, and fills them with an ominous sense of impending dread and looming, inevitable disaster, leavened with dark, dry dashes of humour and irony – tactics that, once again, bring to mind a certain Mr Hitchcock. And what’s more, it makes witchcraft creepily contemporary. Modern-day malevolence of this kind would be the centrepiece of numerous films still to come, such as Night of the Eagle (1962), Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Wicker Man (1973), to name but a few.
Night of the Demon has now been remastered by the BFI National Archive, and the full-length British version now stands ready to be unleashed on cinema screens once more. If you haven’t seen it before, you should. And while that old demon lurking in the shadows at the centre of it all has had some bad press over the years – many critics think we meet him too early, or even that we shouldn’t meet him at all – my childhood self would beg to differ. He had quite an effect on me in my formative years, and my adult self will hear nothing bad said about him. He belongs exactly where he is, forever swirling malevolently in the smoke, at the heart of Night of the Demon.
Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon
Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment
1957/58 / B&W / 1:78 anamorphic 16:9 / 82, 95 min. / Street Date August 13, 2002 / $24.95
Starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham, Athene Seyler
Cinematography Ted Scaife
Production Designer Ken Adam
Special Effects George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers
Film Editor Michael Gordon
Original Music Clifton Parker
Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester from the story Casting the Runes by Montague R. James
Produced by Frank Bevis, Hal E. Chester
Directed by Jacques Tourneur
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Savant champions a lot of genre movies but only infrequently does one appear like Jacques Tourneur's superlative Curse of the Demon. It's simply better than the rest -- an intelligent horror film with some very good scares. It occupies a stylistic space that sums up what's best in ghost stories and can hold its own with most any supernatural film ever made. Oh, it's also a great entertainment that never fails to put audiences at the edge of their seats.
What's more, Columbia TriStar has shown uncommon respect for their genre output by including both versions of Curse of the Demon on one disc. Savant has full coverage on the versions and their restoration below, following his thorough and analytical (read: long-winded and anal) coverage of the film itself.
Synopsis:
Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews), a scientist and professional debunker of superstitious charlatans, arrives in England to help Professor Henry Harrington (Maurice Denham) assault the phony cult surrounding Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall McGinnis). But Harrington has mysteriously died and Holden becomes involved with his niece Joanna (Peggy Cummins), who thinks Karswell had something to do with it. Karswell's 'tricks' confuse the skeptical Holden, but he stubbornly holds on to his conviction that he's " ... not a sucker, like 90% of the human race." That is, until the evidence mounts that Harrington was indeed killed by a demon summoned from Hell, and that Holden is the next intended victim!
The majority of horror films are fantasies in which we accept supernatural ghosts, demons and monsters as part of a deal we've made with the authors: they dress the fantasy in an attractive guise and arrange the variables into an interesting pattern, and we agree to play along for the sake of enjoyment. When it works the movies can resonate with personal meaning. Even though Dracula and Frankenstein are unreal, they are relevant because they're aligned with ideas and themes in our subconscious.
Horror films that seriously confront the no-man's land between rational reality and supernatural belief have a tough time of it. Everyone who believes in God knows that the tug o' war between rationality and faith in our culture has become so clogged with insane belief systems it's considered impolite to dismiss people who believe in flying saucers or the powers of crystals or little glass pyramids. One of Dana Andrews' key lines in Curse of the Demon, defending his dogged skepticism against those urging him to have an open mind, is his retort, "If the world is a dark place ruled by Devils and Demons, we all might as well give up right now." Curse of the Demon balances itself between skepticism and belief with polite English manners, letting us have our fun as it lays its trap. We watch Andrews roll his eyes and scoff at the feeble séance hucksters and the dire warnings of a foolish-looking necromancer. Meanwhile, a whole dark world of horror sneaks up on him. The film's intelligent is such that we're not offended by its advocacy of dark forces or even its literal, in-your-face demon.
The remarkable Curse of the Demon was made in England for Columbia but is gloriously unaffected by that company's zero-zero track record with horror films. Producer Hal E. Chester would seem an odd choice to make a horror classic after producing Joe Palooka films and acting as a criminal punk in dozens of teen crime movies. The obvious strong cards are writer Charles Bennett, the brains behind several classic English Hitchcock pictures (who 'retired' into meaningless bliss writing for schlockmeister Irwin Allen) and Jacques Tourneur, a master stylist who put Val Lewton on the map with Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie. Tourneur made interesting Westerns (Canyon Passage, Great Day in the Morning) and perhaps the most romantic film noir, Out of the Past. By the late '50s he was on what Andrew Sarris in his American Film called 'a commercial downgrade'. The critic lumped Curse of the Demon with low budget American turkeys like The Fearmakers. 1
Put Tourneur with an intelligent script, a decent cameraman and more than a minimal budget and great things could happen. We're used to watching Corman Poe films, English Hammer films and Italian Bavas and Fredas, all the while making excuses for the shortcomings that keep them in the genre ghetto (where they all do quite well, thank you). There's even a veiled resentment against upscale shockers like The Innocents that have resources (money, time, great actors) denied our favorite toilers in the genre realm. Curse of the Demon is above all those considerations. It has name actors past their prime and reasonable production values. Its own studio (at least in America) released it like a genre quickie, double-billed with dreck like The Night the World Exploded and The Giant Claw. They cut it by 13 minutes, changed its title (to ape The Curse of Frankenstein?) and released a poster featuring a huge, slavering demon monster that some believe was originally meant to be barely glimpsed in the film itself. 2
Horror movies can work on more than one level but Curse of the Demon handles several levels and then some. The narrative sets up John Holden as a professional skeptic who raises a smirking eyebrow to the open minds of his colleagues. Unlike most second-banana scientists in horror films, they express divergent points of view. Holden just sees himself as having common sense but his peers are impressed by the consistency of demonological beliefs through history. Maybe they all saw Christensen's Witchcraft through the Ages, which might have served as a primer for author Charles Bennett. Smart dialogue allows Holden to score points by scoffing at the then-current "regression to past lives" scam popularized by the Bridey Murphy craze. 3 While Holden stays firmly rooted to his position, coining smart phrases and sarcastic put-downs of believers, the other scientists are at least willing to consider alternate possibilities. Indian colleague K.T. Kumar (Peter Elliott) keeps his opinion to himself. But when asked, he politely states that he believes entirely in the world of demons! 4
Holden may think he has the truth by the tail but it takes Kindergarten teacher Joanna Harrington (Peggy Cummins of Gun Crazy fame) to show him that being a skeptic doesn't mean ignoring facts in front of one's face. Always ready for a drink (a detail added to tailor the part to Andrews?), Holden spends the first couple of reels as interested in pursuing Miss Harrington, as he is the devil-worshippers. The details and coincidences pile up with alarming speed -- the disappearing ink untraceable by the lab, the visual distortions that might be induced by hypnosis, the pages torn from his date book and the parchment of runic symbols. Holden believes them to be props in a conspiracy to draw him into a vortex of doubt and fear. Is he being set up the way a Voodoo master cons his victim, by being told he will die, with fabricated clues to make it all appear real? Holden even gets a bar of sinister music stuck in his head. It's the title theme -- is this a wicked joke on movie soundtracks?
Speak of the Devil...
This brings us to the wonderful character of Julian Karswell, the kiddie-clown turned multi-millionaire cult leader. The man who launched Alfred Hitchcock as a maker of sophisticated thrillers here creates one of the most interesting villains ever written, one surely as good as any of Hitchcock's. In the short American cut Karswell is a shrewd games-player who shows Holden too many of his cards and finally outsmarts himself. The longer UK cut retains the full depth of his character.
Karswell has tapped into the secrets of demonology to gain riches and power, yet he tragically recognizes that he is as vulnerable to the forces of Hell as are the cowering minions he controls through fear. Karswell's coven means business. It's an entirely different conception from the aesthetic salon coffee klatch of The Seventh Victim, where nothing really supernatural happens and the only menace comes from a secret society committing new crimes to hide old ones.
Karswell keeps his vast following living in fear, and supporting his extravagant lifestyle under the idea that Evil is Good, and Good Evil. At first the Hobart Farm seems to harbor religious Christian fundamentalists who have turned their backs on their son. Then we find out that they're Karswell followers, living blighted lives on cursed acreage and bled dry by their cultist "leader." Karswell's mum (Athene Seyler) is an inversion of the usual insane Hitchcock mother. She lovingly resists her son's philosophy and actively tries to help the heroes. That's in the Night version, of course. In the shorter American cut she only makes silly attempts to interest Joanna in her available son and arranges for a séance. Concerned by his "negativity", Mother confronts Julian on the stairs. He has no friends, no wife, no family. He may be a mass extortionist but he's still her baby. Karswell explains that by exploiting his occult knowledge, he's immersed himself forever in Evil. "You get nothing for nothing"
Karswell is like the Devil on Earth, a force with very limited powers that he can't always control. By definition he cannot trust any of his own minions. They're unreliable, weak and prone to double-cross each other, and they attract publicity that makes a secret society difficult to conceal. He can't just kill Holden, as he hasn't a single henchman on the payroll. He instead summons the demon, a magic trick he's only recently mastered. When Karswell turns Harrington away in the first scene we can sense his loneliness. The only person who can possibly understand is right before him, finally willing to admit his power and perhaps even tolerate him. Karswell has no choice but to surrender Harrington over to the un-recallable Demon. In his dealings with the cult-debunker Holden, Karswell defends his turf but is also attempting to justify himself to a peer, another man who might be a potential equal. It's more than a duel of egos between a James Bond and a Goldfinger, with arrogance and aggression masking a mutual respect; Karswell knows he's taken Lewton's "wrong turning in life," and will have to pay for it eventually.
Karswell eventually earns Holden's respect, especially after the fearful testimony of Rand Hobart. It's taken an extreme demonstration to do it, but Holden budges from his smug position. He may not buy all of the demonology hocus-pocus but it's plain enough that Karswell or his "demon" is going to somehow rub him out. Seeking to sneak the parchment back into Karswell's possession, Holden becomes a worthy hero because he's found the maturity to question his own preconceptions. Armed with his rational, cool head, he's a force that makes Karswell -- without his demon, of course -- a relative weakling. Curse of the Demon ends in a classic ghost story twist, with just desserts dished out and balance recovered. The good characters are less sure of their world than when they started, but they're still able to cope. Evil has been defeated not by love or faith, but by intellect.
Curse of the Demon has the Val Lewton sensibility as has often been cited in Tourneur's frequent (and very effective) use of the device called the Lewton "Bus" -- a wholly artificial jolt of fast motion and noise interrupting a tense scene. There's an ultimate "bus" at the end when a train blasts in and sets us up for the end title. It "erases" the embracing actors behind it and I've always thought it had to be an inspiration for the last shot of North by NorthWest. The ever-playful Hitchcock was reportedly a big viewer of fantastic films, from which he seems to have gotten many ideas. He's said to have dined with Lewton on more than one occasion (makes sense, they were at one time both Selznick contractees) and carried on a covert competition with William Castle, of all people.
Visually, Tourneur's film is marvelous, effortlessly conjuring menacing forests lit in the fantastic Mario Bava mode by Ted Scaife, who was not known as a genre stylist. There are more than a few perfunctory sets, with some unflattering mattes used for airport interiors, etc.. Elsewhere we see beautiful designs by Ken Adam in one of his earliest outings. Karswell's ornate floor and central staircase evoke an Escher print, especially when visible/invisible hands appear on the banister. A hypnotic, maze-like set for a hotel corridor is also tainted by Escher and evokes a sense of the uncanny even better than the horrid sounds Holden hears. The build-up of terror is so effective that one rather unconvincing episode (a fight with a Cat People - like transforming cat) does no harm. Other effects, such as the demon footprints appearing in the forest, work beautifully.
In his Encyclopedia of Horror Movies Phil Hardy very rightly relates Curse of the Demon's emphasis on the visual to the then just-beginning Euro-horror subgenre. The works of Bava, Margheriti and Freda would make the photographic texture of the screen the prime element of their films, sometimes above acting and story logic.
Columbia TriStar's DVD of Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon presents both versions of this classic in one package. American viewers saw an effective but abbreviated cut-down. If you've seen Curse of the Demon on cable TV or rented a VHS or a laser anytime after 1987, you're not going to see anything different in the film. In 1987 Columbia happened to pull out the English cut when it went to re-master. When the title came up as Night of the Demon, they just slugged in the Curse main title card and let it go.
From such a happy accident (believe me, nobody in charge at Columbia at the time would have purposely given a film like this a second glance) came a restoration at least as wonderful as the earlier reversion of The Fearless Vampire Killers to its original form. Genre fans were taken by surprise and the Laserdisc became a hot item that often traded for hundreds of dollars. 6
Back in film school Savant had been convinced that ever seeing the long, original Night cut was a lost cause. An excellent article in the old Photon magazine in the early '70s 5, before such analytical work was common, accurately laid out the differences between the two versions, something Savant needs to do sometime with The Damned and These Are the Damned. The Photon article very accurately describes the cut scenes and what the film lost without them, and certainly inspired many of the ideas here.
Being able to see the two versions back-to-back shows exactly how they differ. Curse omits some scenes and rearranges others. Gone is some narration from the title sequence, most of the airplane ride, some dialogue on the ground with the newsmen and several scenes with Karswell talking to his mother. Most crucially missing are Karswell's mother showing Joanna the cabalistic book everyone talks so much about and Holden's entire visit to the Hobart farm to secure a release for his examination of Rand Hobart. Of course the cut film still works (we loved the cut Curse at UCLA screenings and there are people who actually think it's better) but it's nowhere near as involving as the complete UK version. Curse also reshuffles some events, moving Holden's phantom encounter in the hallway nearer the beginning, which may have been to get a spooky scene in the middle section or to better disguise the loss of whole scenes later. The chop-job should have been obvious. The newly imposed fades and dissolves look awkward. One cut very sloppily happens right in the middle of a previous dissolve.
Night places both Andrews and Cummins' credits above the title and gives McGinnis an "also starring" credit immediately afterwards. Oddly, Curse sticks Cummins afterwards and relegates McGinnis to the top of the "also with" cast list. Maybe with his role chopped down, some Columbia executive thought he didn't deserve the billing?
Technically, both versions look just fine, very sharp and free of digital funk that would spoil the film's spooky visual texture. Night of the Demon is the version to watch for both content and quality. It's not perfect but has better contrast and less dirt than the American version. Curse has more emulsion scratches and flecking white dandruff in its dark scenes, yet looks fine until one sees the improvement of Night. Both shows are widescreen enhanced (hosanna), framing the action at its original tighter aspect ratio.
It's terrific that Columbia TriStar has brought out this film so thoughtfully, even though some viewers are going to be confused when their "double feature" disc appears to be two copies of the same movie. Let 'em stew. This is Savant's favorite release so far this year.
On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon rates:
Movie: Excellent
Footnotes:
Made very close to Curse of the Demon and starring Dana Andrews, The Fearmakers (great title) was a Savant must-see until he caught up with it in the UA collection at MGM. It's a pitiful no-budgeter that claims Madison Avenue was providing public relations for foreign subversives, and is negligible even in the lists of '50s anti-Commie films.
Return
Curse of the Demon's Demon has been the subject of debate ever since the heyday of Famous Monsters of Filmland. From what's on record it's clear that producer Chester added or maximized the shots of the creature, a literal visualization of a fiery, brimstone-smoking classical woodcut demon that some viewers think looks ridiculous. Bennett and Tourneur's original idea was to never show a demon but the producer changed that. Tourneur probably directed most of the shots, only to have Chester over-use them. To Savant's thinking, the demon looks great. It is first perceived as an ominous sound, a less strident version of the disturbing noise made by Them! Then it manifests itself visually as a strange disturbance in the sky (bubbles? sparks? early slit-scan?) followed by a billowing cloud of sulphurous smoke (a dandy effect not exploited again until Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The long-shot demon is sometimes called the bicycle demon because he's a rod puppet with legs that move on a wheel-rig. Smoke belches from all over his scaly body. Close-ups are provided by a wonderfully sculpted head 'n' shoulders demon with articulated eyes and lips, a full decade or so before Carlo Rambaldi started engineering such devices.
Most of the debate centers on how much Demon should have been shown with the general consensus that less would have been better. People who dote on Lewton-esque ambivalence say that the film's slow buildup of rationality-versus demonology is destroyed by the very real Demon's appearance in the first scene, and that's where they'd like it removed or radically reduced. The Demon is so nicely integrated into the cutting (the giant foot in the first scene is a real jolt) that it's likely that Tourneur himself filmed it all, perhaps expecting the shots to be shorter or more obscured. It is also possible that the giant head was a post-Tourneur addition - it doesn't tie in with the other shots as well (especially when it rolls forward rather stiffly) and is rather blunt. Detractors lump it in with the gawd-awful head of The Black Scorpion, which is filmed the same way and almost certainly was an afterthought - and also became a key poster image. This demon head matches the surrounding action a lot better than did the drooling Scorpion.
Savant wouldn't change Curse of the Demon but if you put a gun to my head I'd shorten most of the shots in its first appearance, perhaps eliminating all close-ups except for the final, superb shot of the the giant claw reaching for Harrington / us.
Kumar, played (I assume) by an Anglo actor, immediately evokes all those Indian and other Third World characters in Hammer films whose indigenous cultures invariably hold all manner of black magic and insidious horror. When Hammer films are repetitious it's because they take eighty minutes or so to convince the imagination-challenged English heroes to even consider the premise of the film as being real. In Curse of the Demon, Holden's smart-tongued dismissal of outside viewpoints seems much more pigheaded now than it did in 1957, when heroes confidently defended conformist values without being challenged. Kumar is a scientist but also probably a Hindu or a Sikh. He has no difficulty reconciling his faith with his scientific detachment. Holden is far too tactful to call Kumar a crazy third-world guru but that's probably what he's thinking. He instead politely ignores him. Good old Kumar then saves Holden's hide with some timely information. I hope Holden remembered to thank him.
There's an unstated conclusion in Curse of the Demon: Holden's rigid disbelief of the supernatural means he also does not believe in a Christian God with its fundamentally spiritual faith system of Good and Evil, saints and devils, angels and demons. Horror movies that deal directly with religious symbolism and "real faith" can be hypocritical in their exploitation and brutal in their cheap toying with what are for many people sacred personal concepts. I'm thinking of course of The Exorcist here. That movie has all the grace of a reporter who shows a serial killer's atrocity photos to a mother whose child has just been kidnapped. Curse of the Demon hasn't The Exorcist's ruthless commercial instincts but instead has the modesty not to pretend to be profound, or even "real." Yet it expresses our basic human conflict between rationality and faith very nicely.
Savant called Jim Wyrnoski, who was associated with Photon, in an effort to find out more about the article, namely who wrote it. It was very well done and I've never forgotten it; I unfortunately loaned my copy out to good old Jim Ursini and it disappeared. Obviously, a lot of the ideas here, I first read there. Perhaps a reader who knows better how to take care of their belongings can help me with the info? Ursini and Alain Silvers' More Things than are Dreamt Of Limelight, 1994, analyzes Curse of the Demon (and many other horror movies) in the context of its source story.
This is a true story: Cut to 2000. Columbia goes to re-master Curse of the Demon and finds that the fine-grain original of the English version is missing. The original long version of the movie may be lost forever. A few months later a collector appears who says he bought it from another unnamed collector and offers to trade it for a print copy of the American version, which he prefers. Luckily, an intermediary helps the collector follow up on his offer and the authorities are not contacted about what some would certainly call stolen property. The long version is now once again safe. Studios clearly need to defend their property but many collectors have "items" they personally have acquired legally. More often than you might think, such finds come about because studios throw away important elements. If the studios threaten prosecution, they will find that collectors will never approach them. They'd probably prefer to destroy irreplaceable film to avoid being criminalized.
There is a school close to where i live, quite big. Passing by to day a class of teenage girls left the school right as I was passing and I found my self right in the middle of the class that ”slumped” out of the school entrance.
Somehow children can be more hurtful than adults and since you can't just beat them up, I braced my self to withstand just about anything. But as it happened, absolutely nothing happened. They didn't even give me a second glance. Just a boring adult, they thought, probably some conservative secretary heading for work, and just kept on chatting and using their smart phones dutifully. Not a single one noticed and I am (mind you) using me very own hair....!!
But looking especially at this third picture.... I (Who my self are VERY, if not extremely perceptive, when it comes to spotting T-girls) wouldn't even notice my self!
Dear spirits, I AM getting better... Noticably!
Ignis, the Pyromancer, is a riddle wrapped in flame. His body is a furnace. Legend has it he was born from the heart of a volcano, shaped by fire and stone. But is he a guardian of realms, or a power-hungry entity? Only time will reveal his true nature.
Firstly, this moc is actually my first ever organic, so if it doesn't look that great, it's normal
Here my entry of the "Emergency Elementary" category from the contest"Brickscalibur" in collaboration with Sympatik Brick in his moc: Krysta, the Ice Sorceress
Please note that these characters are hightly inspired by Markus Rollbühler especially by his moc "" Brickscalibur 2023 Trophy: The Warlock
Another inspiration are those two pictures: Image (Can't find the author or name of it) and Human Torch / Fire Genasi / Wizard made by phandigrams (AI)
My last entry for Brickscalibur, I wanted build a moc for the "Perceptive Matter" category but I got sick and Iron Forge has begun already.
Hope you like it :)
Lions start to come alive at dusk - trading their lazy energy to one of alertness as they ready themselves for a hunt in the coming night. In this heightened state the lions are extra perceptive to any change in their environment, for they are hungry for a chase - their pupils widen and their nostrils open as they ready themselves for challenges ahead. The saying goes that a lion sees you a hundred times before you see it, making it all the more thrilling to be in their company, photographing them in this exaggerated state.
Model - Matt Adcock.
Lightning Assistant - Dip Chandarana And Me.
Make Up/Hair Stylist - Kelli Evans.
Assistant/Helper - Amrit Sembhi.
Direction, Photography, Post Processing And Styling - Me.
Model: JB.
We got a lot of pictures during this last photoshoot, so I'll be uploading them in the next couple of days, which just demans 5 minutes and that's great! By the time I finish that, I guess I'll have new pictures.
God, I missed A LOT being around! I missed you guys and your amazing photographs!
Reality itself is the true identity of everything.
Everything has been worked out to make this real.
The strategy is to engender wisdom.
This cannot be seen through perspectives based on differentials.
The true identity of all things
Cannot be seen by anyone whosoever!
Even the Buddha cannot see it!
The wisdom of enlightenment has no visible abode!
This is the real reason it has no true identity!
Nothing brings a harvest of Nothing!
A duality of Something and Nothing does not exist!
This is called "The Inconceivable Center."
The only thing real about a true identity
Is that there is nothing whatsoever to say about it!
Anything that can be an object of sensory perception
Cannot be proven to exist!
The true identity of all things
Has no beginning and no end.
It neither lasts nor does it stop.
It is not plural nor is it single.
It does not come nor does it go.
Speculation is pacified through recognition.
Respected intentions have no substance!
This cannot be perceived by the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body or mind (yid)!
The attitude that one is perceptive is a deception!
True purity cannot be understood!
There are no superior attitudes with regard to Samsara and Nirvana.
When one dwells in the way things really are
Stability and instability are both fine.
When what is taken in and what is saved are clear,
There are no specifics or generalities,
No endings and no beginnings.
The unspeakable is completely inconceivable!
Words that are not written down are the best.
If you give up on words
The delusions of the mind will stop!
Vol: Kha P. 595 Line 3
In the Language of India:
Vajrasatva Mahaa Aakasha Pushti Nama Yogenii Tantra
In the Tibetan Language:
rDo rJe Sems dPa' Nam mKha' Che rGyas Pa Shes Bya rNal 'Byor Ma'i rGyud
I fold my hands to the One Who Transcends Dominion and Possession, the Glorious Bearer of The Stone of Transformation!
Translated by Christopher Wilkinson
Horizon Zero Dawn is an action role-playing video game developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. he 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).
Horizon Zero Dawn is an action role-playing video game developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. he 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).
This is the window through which jesse watches me go to visit bodhi and the kitties, only 35 steps away from my front door... i come home fragrant with five kitties who have been bouncing around the house, rolling on their backs, meow-squeaking, climbing up and over things, and playfully biting everything. i hold mama Moxie and wonder if the scent of her milk on me jars jesse's memory of her own kittyhood - are cats' memories as deeply connected as ours are to smell? or does she simply think i am a traitor?
this coming week, i'd like to introduce bodhi to jesse and yuki for real. they know 'about' bodhi from my kitty-joy energy; they are very perceptive.
VIDEO: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvqLlcCle_s
••• SCRIPT/LYRICS: •••
MOLEMAN'S EPIC RAP BATTLES!
JIMMY NEUTRON…
…VS…
…How about you cut it there, and do as Aaron Carter put it:
Jimmy Neutron:
Leave it up to me to show the world just how I beat this carrot-topped kid,
With the hyper-stunted growth and accent screaming "I'm adopted!"
While you live behind a front, what I present is far from feigning,
And I'll show it sevenfold here, no one crying Fowl nor complaining!
3D's rising to preeminence saw me play an essential role,
While it's being generous to even call you two-dimensional;
My words will haunt your dreams 'til you can't speak but to repeat them,
While as for eggs from afar, I over-easily defeat them!
You're a lifelong Ego-Tripper, like Sheen's brain gone ultra-bloated,
With a dumb ass full of hot air; best believe that I'll explode it:
Push your buttons, and I'll make you pay, like Dee Dee's sub-in bitch.
I'll hit a home run with your noggin; call me T.V. Puppet Mitch!
Your Koos is cooked; try and attack with some alleged brilliant plan,
And get the axe still harder than your missiles visiting Japan!
A six-year-old got hired by your management to pen an ep?
Your typical scriptwriters might as well have handed them the rest.
I gaze upon your works, and scoff with triple-to-quintuple "HA!"s;
Lay down trash-talk as heinous as your little Rude-Removal was,
So like the man behind your wack doujinshi tales, prepare to Bleed,
But you can spare Einstein your moping: failure here was guaranteed!
I've heard your I.Q.'s off the charts, but have they checked your mental state;
Addressing people who aren't present? I mean, I, for one, relate,
But if this bout being with a Cartoon Network kid was your impression,
You're on some kind of narcotic, and so hear out my confession:
Dexter Morgan:
Your inventiveness-effectiveness extends not to perceptiveness;
The evidence: you entered this and went expecting tepidness,
Instead of which, you'll fend against this vigilante nemesis!
The title, to be fair, was vague; dare I say: ambiDexterous.
You'll find no monkey business with this scourge on vile men,
For my forte's an altogether other cause to Dial M.
Consider this a warning, Jimbo: you should go into this knowing
That the Nick logo will be far from the only splatter showing.
Think you'll know no harsher hazards than your baddest clone's dimension?
My world holds still-darker matters; enter at your own discretion.
For those I delete, retrieval simply isn't in the question,
Though the errors that earn my ire exceed just any imperfection.
Get back where you need to be, like timeline-truant Thomas Edison,
Before I slap you silly as your student body president;
Your metal mutt should know: my measured methods of malevolence
Are honed to extreme altitudes of evil-ending excellence.
Jimmy Neutron:
Though I've perhaps miscalculated, my mistake's no stumping one;
Don't give me flak for targeting the wrong guy here and jumping guns:
Because you'd know well all about that from your model-killer case,
Plus from the shot Deb should have fired off, full-throttle, in your face!
You hid in plain sight from the Double-M.P.D.; evaded crews of men?
Get Dave Caruso on the force, and see if they'll get fooled again.
I'd spell out why it isn't right to kill another man,
But clearly, there's no point explaining: psychos just don't understand!
Dexter Morgan:
Shitloads of sheeting set the stages for my killings' consummations,
But I've never seen plasticity quite like your animation's!
You're a sitting duck out here, and though your dad could lend protection,
Other such birds have been deemed as worthier of his attention!
A dark passenger's stowed up in your amusement park armada,
As fixated on rein-taking as your best friend on his llamas,
Not to mention on your mama! I'm this track's true driving force:
A bloody boss at cruelly cutting creeps and stacking slides in scores!
You're packing filler raps, bereft of charge; guess that explains the name,
But this verse won't be butchered by the baddies of Bay Harbor's bane.
Their lot fought not; got caught with shots of knockout medicine to necks,
But when it comes to battles' beats, adrenaline's what I inject!
Jimmy Neutron:
The comic you inspired got you fantasizing hero-scenes,
But here's a verse you couldn't defend from if you tried in your own dreams:
Prepare to eat your scary words; I'm not intimidated, mister!
They'll prove bitterer to swallow than "I will not kill my sister",
While as far as pulling plugs go, you've my personal assurance
That once you're in the electric chair, there'll be no such occurrence:
Currents surging while you curse my name; a showing truly shocking,
With the only sponge involved among my Nicktoon homies, watching!
Dexter Morgan:
I'm not buying your salesbots, Wrong Trousers and space-transmission toasters;
Watch me dice and ice them all, though I'm the way less vicious Moser,
Who'll command genuine genius in the name of Harry; knock a poser!
Yours falls flat as your own graphics in a Fairly Odd crossover,
Where your wish of winning this would still elude attaining!
Claiming my Doomsday is nigh? You're blatantly hallucinating:
While my psyche holds a presence people see as quite demonic,
Yours is on some other planet even Sheen would find moronic!
Jimmy Neutron:
If you're in the logging business now, then note this in your records:
Jimmy's jabs could fill a novel; Diligently Dissing Dexter.
Your delivery's off-key enough to turn a Twonkie peaceful;
Straying as far from proper rhythm as Showtime from Lindsay's sequels!
Your disastrous endgame saw you abscond off on your boat;
Calamitous could finish up a series on a stronger note,
As when the viewing public's tears gave way to smiles one week later,
And I'll break you even worse still, leaving half your face a crater!
Dexter Morgan:
What a fitting reference, seeing as it's apparent you're on meth;
Your love interest's a C.G. Helga, sans developmental depth!
Like when the P.T.C. got pissed and pushed for prudish editing,
I'll set more triggers off with this than your Bond bootleg's wedding ring:
You think your disses deeply-cutting? I don't feel the slightest twinging;
Mine will shatter all you know in spite of Hugh's space-opera-binging,
For at flesh and flows alike, I peak-perform precise stab takings,
As perfected in the practice as the "candy" your lab's baking.
Jimmy Neutron:
My sick spitting's like the written form of pi: it's endless, man;
The worst besmirching of your image since your real-life biggest fan!
I'll leave you Six Feet Under; torn asunder, making fatal wounds,
And spilling sodium chloride into them by the tablespoon!
You've run on more than long enough; it's high time science cut you down,
And as with barrels of sea monkeys, there'll be silence once you drown!
A crackpot code can curb compulsions, but the truth is that you ought to
Follow daddy's lead from when he saw the fruits of what he'd taught you.
Dexter Morgan:
On suspicion he's a huffer of perfumed megalomania,
My mission's making this brat suffer; cue Megalovania.
I'll show you how a truly bad time looks seen way up-close:
So zoomed-in as to render routines that start every day off gross!
It hardly takes brain surgery to pick apart just what your mind holds,
Blinded to the fact your "science" is inclined to backfire fivefold,
While my tried, true tactics show my skill within the spilling-blood trade,
Taking out the competition like McSpanky's with your upgrades,
And you'll thank me one day soon, when, notwithstanding your shenanigans,
Your town's left slightly safer, with its kids' preferred establishment
Under new management, although the time for that comes later,
So for now, doc, stick to fear and keep your calmness at a nadir.
Jimmy Neutron:
For my future-forays' flaming, you're in no position here
When the best thing you ever did for those you love was disappear!
While my screenwriting venture was a total bust, to state the obvious,
That you won't see this battle's Final Cut is my hypothesis:
I'll not let yours be put to practice; fuck you up preemptively,
The way you wish you'd done in that sick schmuck who struck in sets of three!
Just ask my other foes about the cost of crossing me, Dex,
Once I blast you all the way back to the era of the T. rex!
This foul ogre won't upstage me: it's no first-time animation Oscar!
Think I can't be mercilessly spiteful? See "Hall Monster".
Watch me scorch him like the scapegoat of his worst crimes by his crazy sponsor;
Shrink-ray-zap the worth of iffy Michael C. Hall monsters.
Dexter Morgan:
This last round's the round it happens, and I'll not say this again:
This rocket-boy'd best run away, avoiding witnessing a slaughter.
Stay and watch, and I'll take up your wack remote, play it again,
And keep until my point's acknowledged, and yours left dead in the water
With the local piece of human garbage I'll likewise be taking out;
A freakish, putrid arse of which you'll recognize the face, no doubt!
Jimmy Neutron: Who in my life could be deemed to deserve such dreadful killing?!
Dexter Morgan: It turns out the candy man can, 'cause he murdered several children,
So don't make me say this thrice, fat fuck: come to and face the music!
Sam: Ugh… I'm pressing charges; yeah!
Dexter Morgan: Forget a courtroom case; just sue this! (*STAB!*)
Jimmy Neutron: I'm gonna puke…
Dexter Morgan: Its usage leaves you traumatized, my knife,
But that's just one more normal day for me; another Slice of Life!
Sci-fi defines yours, with spoofs on The Fly, like hamster body-swaps,
So take an icon's word on why this fight's unwise: ask Robocop!
You're messing with aggression darker than your cheesiest of horror stories;
Simply put: you've gotta blast off out of my laboratory.
WHO WON?
WHO'S NEXT?
I DECIDE!
MOLEMAN'S…
James Doakes: April Fools', motherfucker!
…EPIC RAP BATTLES!!!
A mandala map of the Shingon Buddhist Mantra School's cosmology.
There are three universal truths found in Shingon Buddhism, the universal essence, universal form, and universal function.
The universal essence is in regard to the chakra body, otherwise known as the wheel body. The chakra body is a circle composed of elemental circles which encompass the nature of all phenomena including the dharma, the law of universal norms, Buddhist teachings, karmic consequences, thought and all things. There are three Buddha bodies or three chakra bodies for three types of listeners. The first chakra body exists in its own nature, this body manifests in the form of Buddhas who read the innate original nature by meditation. The second is the right dharma chakra body which connects the Bodhisattva to those who search for liberation by right dharma. The third is the doctrine command chakra body which exists in wrathful forms that must command those difficult to convert. Each chakra body is made up five chakras into a Stupa which creates the Matrix world.
The first chakra is the earth chakra found just below the naval and represented by the yellow square. This is the root chakra which roots the lower body into the `yoga throne of indestructible diamond` This is the throne of Indra which casts light brilliantly onto all beings cultivating Ji. This chakra acts as support and ultimately resembles the uncreated. The mantra for this chakra is Namah a
The second chakra is the water chakra found at the naval which changes into the white circle. The water chakra, also known as the lotus throne, radiates like a clear moon and irrigates all things with the water of great compassion, nourishing all in Samadhi. This chakra acts as an agent of quickening and ultimately resembles ineffableness. The mantra for this chakra is Namah VA
The third chakra is the fire chakra found at the heart which changes into a red pyramid. This chakra shines like the red rising sun and emits a fire of knowledge to burn all defilements. This is a seal of the dharma world which acts as maturation and ultimately resembles a freedom of defilement. The mantra for this chakra is Namah ram
The fourth chakra is the air chakra found in between the eyes which changes into a black half moon. This chakra exercises the power of freedom and exorcises maleficent and demonic influences. This is the seal of turning the wheel functioning as growth and ultimately meaning freedom from causality. The mantra for this chakra is Namah ham
The fifth chakra is the space chakra found at the top of the head which changes to a blue jewel. This chakra is the great space, the great void and seal of the great wisdom sword. This chakra acts as all pervasive and ultimately resembles the attributes of space. The mantra for this chakra is Namah kham
The sixth Chakra is the consciousness existing above and beyond the head which changes to white or all colours. This is the chakra of perception and determination, formless in nature. This chakra is ungraspable and ultimately void. The first five physical chakras pervade the sixth and yet the sixth pervades all five. The mantra for this chakra is Namah Hum
These chakras are made of the primary colours including white, which is all colours, and black which is void of colour. All together these chakras colour and shade all things. These are the six eternal, omnipresent and indestructible elements which are irreducible components of all three dharma bodies, that of desire, form, and formless worlds.
The universal form is in regard to four Mandalas. The all pervading oneness which Shingon calls Mahaivairocana is the dharma body fused with form in the conditioned cosmos, equivalent to the virtues of one of the Buddhist faith. This dharma body is Mandala, the form of all encompassing and complete circle. The first of the four mandalas is the great mandala. This is the universe of form composed of the six elements and colours made up of images. The second mandala is the Samaya mandala which is the universe of symbolic form which identifies the Buddha’s powers and the bodhisattva’s vows through symbols such as the vajra, sword, jewels and such. The Samaya mandala is activated with the coming together of hand gestures called mudras. The third mandala is the dharma mandala which contains all sounds of the universe and identifies with the original vow. All sounds are resembled by their Sanskrit seed sound, the seed which flowers into all words. The fourth mandala is the action mandala which is composed of all actions and is uncoloured where as form is forgotten and form is seeing. In the center of the four mandalas is the great radiating light of the sun, of Mahiavairocana, all the mandalas existing as attributes of Mahaivairocana. The four mandalas within the being interpenetrate each other without hindrance uniting body and mind with Buddha body and mind in a universal form of suchness.
The Buddha said `Mandala is what gives birth to all Buddhas, incomparable excellent flavor` Firstly, the mandala means circle, wheel, or chakra, a totality of the whole, completeness. Totality is formed by its parts, like a wheel is formed of a hub, spokes and empty space. A circle is an assembly, such as a circle of friends, or bodhisattvas. Secondly what gives birth to all Buddha`s and awakens the Buddha nature within? In Buddhism this is the seed, the bodhicitta. The citta is planted in the earth of the mind of all knowledge, than moistened by the water of great compassion, warmed by the sun of great wisdom, animated by air of great method and obstructed in space of great void, the citta develops into the dharma world as a sprout of inconceivable dharma nature. Thirdly the most excellent flavor is that in referring to the dharma world as a sea of milk, oceans of unformed chaos with unobstructed potentiality. Churned, the milk solidifies and the most refined, the most pure part rises to the surface. Condensing, unchanging, firm, without residue, we find a concentration of the dharma.
Mandala is a circle, birth to Buddha and concentration. A mandala is a circle of ritual enclosure contained within is a field free of distractions. Mandala is a platform for awakening a place of the way. Way or `do` is synonymous with awakening, a dojo is a place of the way, of awakening. Mandala is a map of the cosmos, a representational domain for self realization through the purifying of karmas. The domain is entered or `yoked` to through universal functioning of the three mysteries.
The universal function is the truth of the three interpenetrating mysteries. Actions of men are of three types which are physical actions of the body, speech and functions of the mind. These three functions are adorned as mysteries because unless awakened are truly inconceivable.
The first mystery is the mystery of the body which is activated through hand gestures called mudras. These mudras are bodily interpenetration with phenomenon and the Dharma body which consists of five bodies. These being the precept body a perfection of precepts beyond moral conditioning, the meditation body free from illusion, The wisdom body of prajna and perfected knowledge, the liberation body of unconditioned nirvana and the knowledge of liberation where clear perception abides in liberation. The left hand resembles these five dharma bodies where as the right hand resembles the five elements. The performer of these gestures is really affirming a vow and performing a seal of faith.
The second mystery is the mystery of speech which is activated through invocations called mantras or dharanis. Dharani is a verbal formula to invoke Buddha, a calling for oneness. Dharani is a support which sustains. Mantra stems from the Sanskrit seeds of `man` which means thought and `tra` which means liberates or container. Thus mantra means container of thought. This is the container for the essence of doctrine and the Dharma bodies. One syllable can contain all dharmas beyond which conceptualizing, illusory words are able to convey the dharmas unconditioned suchness beyond causality and the limitations of space and time. Although Mantras contain powers capable of miracles, the true aim is that of liberation.
The third mystery is the mystery of the mind activated through visualizations. The mind lies in a formless void, and it is important to note here that Esotericism does not aim at the void but to interpenetrate form. Visualization manifests through a one pointed concentration that brings the image into the mind-heart within the chakra body which forms a seal of entry. The mind`s eye sees that true form is emptiness. There is no grasping here, no differentiating the illusory of the symbol or to see real by cutting the unreal but to just see things as they are in their non-duality.
The external formal mandala is not the true mandala but a meditational support consisting of externalized rites for a realization of an internal yoke to the true mandala. To realize this inner mandala satisfies all desires. Mandala abides in the mind and knowing this one can receive full fruition of the Bodhi-citta tree and recognize god`s eye view. Mandala does not differ from consciousness nor consciousness differs from mandala, they are identical. The outward painted mandala is both a schema of Dharma world made up phenomenal dharmas and a schema, the underlying organizational framework, of the mind of being. The mandala is an energy grid that represents the constant flow of the divine and demonic, the human and animal. These are impulses that interact in constructive or deconstructive patterns that are a mesocosm consisting of the macrocosm with the microcosm, the mundane with sublime. The Mandala purges the body of demons and embodies the divine through the cleansing of the elements. Mandala is a template for the divine. The energy flows into the center of the mandala, rather implodes to the source which is a reversal of the original cosmology. The energy flows through channels (nadis) into energy centers composed of concentric circles (chakras) to reach unity with the `godhead`. The mandala wholly contained within mind interpenetrates all phenomena.
The Buddhist Cosmology
The Buddhist Cosmos is instructionally approached in my mandala from the sides with visual guides for the mantras and mudras to be used in approaching the center to stimulate the three mysteries and seal one into the mandala. Following the chakra bodies is the mudra for the golden turtle which arises out of the sea of samsara. The golden turtle is untarnished and is free to roam between nirvana and samsara as earth and water. On top of the golden turtle is the jewel palace of Mt. Sumeru, the immoveable resides here. Following these embodiments one is to hold their hands in J-Yin and chant the seed syllables of the elements `Ah Vi Ra Hum Kham` and embody Mahavairocana, the body of all form. Earth supports one where water is necessary in welfare as fire is to burn away false assumptions and delusions while the air blows away the dust of passions and space remains non-discriminating without distinctions. This Dharani destroys hindrances. Ah enters Nirvana through cessation, Vi is the bondless Samadhi, Ra is the dust of defilements wiped away, Ha+U+M is the three liberation gates which severe distinctions of formlessness and finally Kham which is space and void, the negation of negation and void of void, Buddha hood. This is the stupa of the body and when perfected all bad karma vanishes.
Following the chakra chain is the Heaven realms. This begins with the six heavens of the world of desire. The first heaven exists on earth which consists of the four kings of the directions, protector, wide-eyed, renowned and virtuous. Following the first heaven is the last earthly heaven which is on the summit of Mt. Sumeru in Indra`s palace located in the center of heaven. The third heaven exists in the realm of the sky and is the heaven of `Yama` or time. This is the heaven of the king of the world of the dead where the season is always good and inhabitants enjoy occasional pleasures. The next heaven is the heaven of commitment where inhabitants are content with their pleasures. This is the pureland of Miroku, the future Buddha, and the realm where bodhisattvas dwell before born on earth. The fifth heaven is the joy in transformations where inhabitants enjoy pleasures which the create themselves. The sixth heaven is the free enjoyment of transformation and pleasure created by others. King Mara the tempter reins in this heaven.
Following the heavens of the world of desire are the heavens of the world of form which consists of heavens belonging to four meditations. All forms of existence until now constitute the world of desire and now inhabitants are free of passion and desire. The heavens of the first meditation have transcended smell and taste but are still hindered in meditation, however not of sexual desire. There are five mental functions in this heaven which are investigation, reflection, joy, bliss and Samadhi. This is the abode of Brahma where one believes not to be bound of causation and can transform heaven and earth at will. There are no Buddhist inhabitants in this Hindu realm. The Heavens of the second meditation have transcended the five senses and types of consciousness. Thought, joy, and renunciation are all that remain. There is no pleasure or pain and attraction. True identity is recognized. The heavens of the third meditation are like the second but contain only one thought. The heavens of the fourth meditation are cloudless in that they need no support. There is an auspicious birth as the result of an abundance of merit. Here exists the heaven without thought that is without mental, perceptive and feeling functions, a warm resemblance of death. This is a heaven without Buddhist inhabitants for non returners, although they have not escaped the wheel of being. The non-returner has reached three fourths of the level of attainment. That is they have first entered the stream by turning against the stream of samsara. Secondly is the once-returner who has one more birth on earth to attain nirvana and the non-returner does not return to the desire realms of false practices and views. Finally one may become an Arhat to be unborn and escape rebirth.
Following the heavens of the world of form are the heavens of the formless world. These heavens are without form, beyond spatiality and subjection to causality. There are no longer the five physical aggregates but only aggregates of the mind/function. These again are perception, connotation, volition and consciousness. This is an ecstatic state of pure spiritual existence consisting of four meditations of the void. The first is infinite space in which the mind severed of form. Next is infinite consciousness which severs the mind of infinite space into infinite consciousness. Next we find non-existence which severs the mind of infinite consciousness to not exist. Finally we reach neither thought nor non-thought which severs the mind from thought contained in consciousness and non-thought of non-existence. Beyond this is the unconditioned immutable eternal world of the Buddhas.
Following the heavens are the ten stations of Buddha hood which are not hierarchical but horizontal identities, that is virtues that occur instantaneously upon attaining the realization of Buddha mind. The first station is of the dharma cloud, the perfection of the paramita of knowledge, whence wisdom and compassion has been perfected the bodhisattvas virtue permeates like a cloud and rains the elixir of Dharma to nourish and irrigate all sentient beings. The second is the station of wisdom of skills is where the paramita of power is perfected, powers and eloquence have been mastered which gives freedom to aid all beings with versatility of powers being paramitas, vows, supernatural faculties, mind, faith, compassion, love, dharanis and such things of suchness. The third station is of immovability, the perfection of the paramita of vows which is immutable in wisdom, immoveable in formless and fulfills the liberation of all beings. The third station is overcoming the supremely difficult, that is the perfection of the paramita of patience, the non-duality of mundane and absolute. The fourth station is of being face to face with wisdom, the paramita of wisdom consists of the immediate presence of wisdom, that is perceives absolute identity with the eyes. The fifth station is overcoming the supremely difficult, that is the perfection of the paramita of patience, the non-duality of mundane and absolute. The sixth station is that of blazing wisdom, the paramita of exertion where knowledge burns brilliantly and burns away illusion. The seventh station is that of manifesting light, the paramita of patience where the delusions of practice has been cut and one has the patience to understand. The eighth station is the freedom from defilements and union of body-mind which is the paramita of precepts where the delusion of practice is cut by removing improper action from beginningless time. The ninth station is the station of joy, the giving paramita which is the single thought of non discriminating knowledge. The tenth station is of far-reaching practice, the perfection to the paramita of method, this is a great compassion which is entirely selfless and consists of spiritual aims toward all sentient beings.
Descending from the center is the realm of man and the eight disasters which befall him. These consist of a world of secular views, deformed senses, remote places, the heavens of long life without thought, and of the world of mappo where no Buddha appears. The last three disasters are hungry ghosts, animals and hells which will soon be covered. Next is the realm of the Asuras which are figures of Hindu mythology that are `without wine or beauty` and are false gods seeing in Buddhism as belligerent beings whom make war on Indra and when they gain supremacy in this endless battle evil and chaos prevail. Following this is the realm of animals consisting of living creatures such as the birds, bees, beasts, dragons, shells and insects that are all suffering of mutual slaughter. This is the realm of the blind sheepman whom are spiritually blind and trapped in samsara by illusion.
The realm of the hungry ghosts consists of three classes of ghosts, each with three subclasses. The first class is ghosts with no possessions which consist of torch mouthed ghosts, needle thin throat ghosts and ghosts with foul breath. The Second class is ghosts with few possessions which consist of needle-haired ghosts, ghosts with rank hair and ghosts with large ulcers. The third class is ghosts with many possessions consisting of ghosts who receive discards and live on food after being used in offerings, ghosts who receive lost food that is left wayside by travelers and powerful ghosts.
There are than single isolated hells in mountains and deserts and neighboring hells which are smaller progressive hells which lay in close proximity to each hell. I have added a hell to the Shingon cosmology and that is the suicidal hell, this realm where one selfishly throws away their gift of life. There are also radical hells which consist of eight cold and eight hot hells.
The cold hells cause inhabitants to suffer by degrees of coldness. The arbuda hell is so cold that it causes blisters. The nirarbuda hell is even colder causing blisters to burst. Atata is the hell of chattering teeth. Hahaua is the hell and sound made by sufferers. Huhuua is the hell and sound of the breath of sufferers. The blue lotus hell is so cold that it causes patches on the skin to look like blue lotus. The red lotus hell is even colder and causes patches of red lotus on the skin. The great red lotus hell consists of the skin being entirely covered by red lotus.
The hot hells cause suffering to inhabitants in karmic retribution. The rebirth hell contains inhabitants who are repeatedly put to death and immediately brought back by a cold wind, renewed to torture. The hell of black ropes has sufferers bound with ropes and chopped to pieces. The hell of multitudinous combinations consists of combinations of instruments used to torture. The wailing hell`s inhabitants wail in anguish. The great wailing hell`s inhabitants wail in great suffering. The hell of scorching heat is self explanatory. Finally there is the hell of non-intervals which is for the worst of the five deadly offences that are patricide, matricide, killing an Arhat, doing injury to the body of a Buddha or cause disunity in the Sangha. There is no interval of suffering in between death and rebirth here, no interval in hell, in life. There is no part of body-mind that does not suffer.
Ascending from the center is the three stages of awakening which is permeated by the three mysteries. These stages are the three kalpas which are false tenets to be destroyed. These objective cuttings of false tenets consist of stages of fearlessness which relate to subjective attainment of mental tranquility. These stages of fearlessness are states of rest that are free of anxiety and suffering which escapes turning the karmic wheel. These are not just `absences` of fear but total regeneration of being which directly correspond to the ten stages of mind. The ascension of these stages of mind is a centrifugal expansion that is outward flowing from the center to periphery which is then followed by a centripetal return back to the center.
The first kalpa is the delusion to the nature of man, that there is permanent individuality and that the ego is real and not a temporary composition of the five aggregates which are form, perception, conception, volition, and consciousness. This kalpa is removed by meditating on the voidness of aggregates as well as the twelve linked chain of dependent co-origination which gives rise to birth and suffering. The links of the chain are ignorance (the cause of all illusion), actions produced by ignorance, consciousness which arises in the womb, name and form, the six sense organs, contact, perception/ sensation, desire, the attachment of grasping, existence, birth and death.
There are four fearlessnesses which belong to the first Kalpa. The first fearlessness is the fearlessness of virtue which is the result of good karma in previous lives. This fearlessness takes refuge in the three jewels which are the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. One who has attained this level of fearlessness has turned from the worldly life by taking the five precepts which are to not kill, steal, be promiscuous, use immoderate language and abuse intoxicants. Thus one has removed fear of three paths being the hells, ghosts and animals. This commences the first practices of the three mysteries and awakens the bodhicitta. This stage of fearlessness consists of the first three stages of mind. The first stage is the mind of sheep life and profane which consists of an endless cycle of rebirths for those lacking spiritual awareness. Those at this level of mind are uncontrolled and entrapped in illusion. They work on the animal level and are trapped in a fight or flight response. The second level of mind is of the foolish child who abstains. Those at this level of mind are ignorant and naïve but ethical. They live a profane life and do not hurt man. The third level of mind is of the fearlessness of a baby where one has faith in the gods and rebirth but the ego is still attached and one remains a worldly being.
The Second fearlessness belonging to the first Kalpa is the fearlessness of body. One meditates on their body and realizing impurity thus eliminates desire and greed. Those at this level of fearlessness experience heat, forms of Samadhi and honzen`s wondrous form body. The fourth stage of mind resides at this level of fearlessness which is the mind that understands an atman and the five aggregates. This is the first Buddhist stage of mind where all being are recognized as a temporary link or flux of the aggregates.
The third level of fearlessness belonging to the first kalpa is that of the non self. This is the recognition that the body-mind is composed temporarily of the five aggregates and thus lacks any true existence and permanent self. This severs attachments and cools the mind in union or yoga with honzen that cuts desire and pride which leads to tranquility. The fourth level of fearlessness belonging to the first kalpa is fearlessness of the Dharmas. Having realized the non-existing self one severs Dharma attachments by analyzing them and seeing that they too are composed of five aggregates and arise by co-dependent origination without self nature. One at this level of fearlessness knows the twelve link chain and meditates on the ten illusions arising of environmental conditions. These illusions consist of sleight of hand, mirage, dreams, reflections and shadows, echoes, moon reflected on water, floating bubbles, dust, and fire wheels. The stage of mind corresponding to these two levels of fearlessness is the fifth level where the seeds of karma have been eradicated and the truth of the twelve linked chain is realized but cannot be taught.
The second Kalpa is to eradicate the false tenet that dharmas have a true and permanent nature that underlies the five aggregates. This kalpa removes the duality and therefore existence of nirvana and samsara. Forms in yogic practices are realized to be merely illusory forms arising in the mind and that not a single dharma exists outside of mind.
Belonging to the second Kalpa is the fifth level of fearlessness, that of the non-self of the dharmas. Having meditated on essential voidness all dharmas are realized to be formed by the linking of the five aggregates and thus exist in the store-consciousness. Essentially void, nothing exists outside of mind; there is no dichotomy between subject and object. Through this subtle union all things are undifferentiated in their self-nature.
Two levels of mind belong to the fifth fearlessness of the second kalpa. The sixth stage of mind seeks the welfare of others as a bodhisattva of the Mahayana branch of Buddhism. All dharmas and the three worlds are known in the storehouse. The seventh stage of mind has awakened to the truth that the mind is unborn. Prior to now objects had been voided and now the mind is voided as unconditional and timeless. This is achieved through eight negations being non… birth, extinction, cessation, permanence, uniformity, diversity, coming and going. The removal of these erroneous views equates in the right view.
The final Kalpa is to discard the false tenet that dharmas are separate and that subject and object are different. Identity and suchness is revealed. All dharmas are in the one true middle way. The stage of fearlessness associated to this kalpa is the fearlessness of the identity of the self-nature of all dharmas. 10,000 dharmas are suchness and suchness is the 10,000 dharmas. Prior the non-duality of dharmas, mind and voidness (sunyata) has been realized. Now voidness is itself void, the self nature of dharma is without nature and one discovers the reality of the phenomenal. Nothing can have context and therefore the self is nullified by nullifying the ground it has to stand on.
The final three stages of mind belong to this final level of fearlessness of the third Kalpa. The eighth stage of mind is of the one-way of non-action and suchness. The voidness of mind is…void. All dharmas and all thought are contained in one thought. The three truths of voidness, provisional existence and middle existence are realized. The truth of `middle existence` is the middle way of the first two truths. All dharmas are co-dependent and thus temporary causal relation and void, yet experienced and not denied which equates in provisional existence. Dharmas and existence are on the same two-sided coin as voidness. Reality is thus the middle way of the non duality of existence and voidness and forms are known to be nothing but manifestations of suchness. The ninth stage of mind realizes the absence of self-nature and full reality as is without the distinctions of phenomenon and real. This can best be described as the interdependent nature of Indra`s net of phenomenal and real where each thing is in the universe and the universe is in each thing. The tenth stage of mind is adorned by mysteries. This is the unobstructed view of all reality. Whereas the ninth stage is the expression of identity the tenth puts this in practice through body, mind and speech becoming Buddha.
A final important thing to note is that although all dharmas are ephemeral and changing they are real just as they are. The phenomenal and the void are equally real and codependent. This being said these symbols are and are not what they signify. Though they signify emptiness they are in fact empty. The signified and signifier are both dual and non-dual. The emphasis is form, not minor or universal but all forms inner-reflecting the interdependent nature of reality which is not to be seeing as an illusion but real as is. The body of the Buddha is all things and the body of all beings is Buddha.
This was an outtake for one of the last photos I took for my 365 back in 2010. Obviously I made the right choice in not using it. I'm uploading it now partly because I can't find my camera charger and partly because 2010!Catherine was kinda freaking awesome in her own wonderful messed up vulnerable way, and I miss the hell out of her sometimes. I feel I ought to apologise to her for diminishing and curling in on myself.
I kind of had a conversation with someone last Saturday, and it left me reeling in a way. I go on about being open all the time, but a lot of that is a way of distracting from other stuff, which I'm guessing is a pretty common thing to do. Anyway, the person I was talking to, they said some really perceptive things. They put into words what was unspoken, you know? & it was agonising. They weren't being mean - their words were comforting, but painful. I was glad they could see through what I was saying to actually see where a lot of the pain was coming from. It felt good to be emotionally honest like that, but I haven't had time to deal with it since then. I've been too busy. I don't have time to do the necessary crying and acceptance thing. I have final exams and an interview & my birthday & then hanging out with my friends before graduation. I'm just pushing myself to keep going & accepting that I probably won't be able to reflect properly until after my last exam, and maybe not until mid-July. & that's okay. That's why I'm on here now. I wanted to take advantage of this place for the evening & say "IT'S FUCKING OKAY, CATHERINE. IT'S OKAY. YOU WILL BE OKAY. IT'S FUCKING SCARY AND PAINFUL AND YOU FEEL LIKE YOUR HEART IS BEING RIPPED OUT OVER AND OVER AND YOUR SKIN PEELED OFF INCH BY INCH BUT IT'S OKAY. IT'S FUCKING OKAY. YOU WILL BE OKAY. I PROMISE."
& I will be, because I'm awesome. I'm a wonderful mass of ego and insecurity. I'm a terribly flawed human being but most of the time I take strength from being so comfortable in my skin and then I come online and I'm just like "I have no idea what I'm doing - someone please help me!" But I'm fine. I swear. Like, yeah, when I'm not typing my hands are clenched in fists and I'm crying a little but I also feel okay because I am enough and I am worth it. I AM MAJESTIC. (That's a joke that doesn't make anyone laugh but me. I find those are always the best kind of jokes.)
I actually had a really lovely day so I don't know why I decided to be emotional. I went to bed at 3.30am & woke up in pain before 8 this morning. Ugh. Painkillers are my friend and so I was fine the rest of the day, and I just stayed up and read. It was lovely & sunny & my parents slept in late & so I had lunch before them before figuring I should actually shower & get dress for the day because I was missing all the sunshine. I listened to my classic rock playlist and I could hear my parents gardening outside, & I went down into the Garden Room & sunbathed while reading essays on Shakespeare plays for revision & then I almost fell asleep in the sun so I took a break and ate frozen yogurt while talking to my parents. I went back to revision & then lay in the sun with my Mum while my Dad cooked dinner. I bugged him for a little bit & complained about my Shakespeare exam & then I went back to revision & my Mum sunbathed & then started playing the piano & eventually she started playing songs I knew the words to but I wasn't trying hard & it was terrible but it was so funny & I was laughing & then I started trying to do the male parts & trying to sing really deep & I was just laughing so much. We ate dinner together & then my Mum went to phone my great-aunt & I spent an hour with my Dad talking about and listening to classic rock music & I was happy. There is a small possibility I burnt the back of my legs though.
Yesterday morning I had my Arabic Literature exam. I'd said to Sophie that if a question on storytelling came up, or a question on extinction and survival, then I would be happy. I opened the exam paper, read the first question, and went "Shit." Same reaction to the next question. A few questions down there was a Q on storytelling. In Section B there was a question on extinction and survival. I couldn't believe it. I don't think I've ever been that lucky in an exam!! Doesn't mean I aced it, but at least I wasn't panicking about what to answer.
Afterwards I hung around a bit to chat & then Sophie & I got a bus back to the house. We both had trains to catch so had to go pack. My journey home was 90mins longer than usual! There was work on the track so I had to get a bus from Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury & it had no air-conditioning & it was so hot! & then I had a long wait at the station & when I got to the next station my parents weren't even there to pick me up! I ran into my old Media teacher while waiting though, & it was nice to be able to tell her about applying to film school & already hearing back about an interview for one (come on, NFTS, just give me an interview . . . and a place!). Then my parents turned up & I think the first thing I said was that I had been planning on sending them an angry text for being late & my Mum said it was my Dad's fault & she'd told him I'd be grumpy if they were late. I laughed. I am wonderfully predictable in my moods. I just seriously hate waiting at stations. I really look forward to seeing someone I know waiting for me, especially as the journey has usually always been hard work.
They took me out for dinner & it was lovely sitting in the sunshine, & then at home we went & looked around the art exhibition that's being set up. There are some seriously lovely sculptures. I'd already decided I was going to take the rest of the day of from revision so I watched an show about the construction of characters on American TV (which was really interesting) & then stayed up all night reading, even though I was exhausted.
I have some nice things coming up. Hopefully I know my shit well enough to do well in my interview. I'm feeling pretty okay about it, but I'd rather not talk about my Shakespeare exam. I think it's going to be a few years before I can think about Shakespeare again without wanting to burn my Norton.
Anyway. I'm okay. That conversation that I don't have time to deal with right now was positive, and I'm happy, and I'm so close to the end of my degree (10 days!!) that the little emotional blip earlier on in the text seems silly. But it was important. I'm going to need to read it and remind myself that I am worth it and I will be okay and I am so happy.
We arrived at our hotel in Zion National Park and I've delighted to find that it has great internet service so I can upload a few of yesterday's Las Vegas pictures.
This shot was taken around sunset outside the Paris Hotel and Casino on the strip. It's a 3 exposure blend processed using Photomatix rather wonderful "fuse exposures" feature.
Perceptive readers may notice that this image isn't watermarked. I completely forgot that my watermark images are on a network drive at home so I won't be watermarking any images I upload while I'm away this week. I'll make sure I copy the images to my laptop hard drive when I get home.
I would greatly appreciate your vote in the 2010 Photoblog Awards. Thanks!
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Just wanted to say Happy Easter to you all. :) I hope that you all have a great weekend.
Some of you more perceptive people may have noticed that i changed Shushu's set name to Kyrii. That's right. I finally named her. :) There is a lot of meaning behind the name.
I love how just pulling her wig back a few millimeters and showing her eyebrows makes her look much younger. ^__^
Built for Bio-Cup 2018
Preliminary round (Elements)
Sherbonk Holmes is a famed detective and deductionist who calls upon the power of the mind (and sometimes Stone) in order to solve crimes simple Toa aren't perceptive enough to. He also likes shouting the word "Elementary!" whenever he gets an idea.
It got old really quick.