On the Road

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On the Road

 

1st edition

On the Road is a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac. On the Road is based on the travels of Kerouac and his friends across America. It is considered a defining work of the postwar Beat and Counterculture generations, with its protagonists living life against a backdrop of jazz, poetry and drug use.

The idea for On the Road formed during the late 1940s. It was to be Kerouac's second novel, and it underwent several drafts before he completed it in April 1951. It was first published by Viking Press in 1957.

When the book was originally released, The New York Times hailed it as "the most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as 'beat,' and whose principal avatar he is."[1] In 1998, the Modern Library ranked On the Road 55th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. The novel was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.[2]

 

This section is written like a personal reflection or opinion essay rather than an encyclopedic description of the subject. Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style. (December 2012)

Many aspects go into understanding the context of On the Road, and they must be viewed cohesively in order to appreciate why the book was as relevant and pertinent as it was. The following issues are important to consider as the foundation for the book and its reception by the public.

Kerouac biography[edit]

Kerouac was born in a French-Canadian neighborhood of Lowell, Massachusetts, and learned English at age six. (He had difficulty with the language into his teens.) He grew up in a devout Catholic home, and this influence manifested itself throughout the work. During high school, Kerouac was a star football player and earned a scholarship to Columbia University. After dropping out following a conflict with the football coach, he then served on several different sailing vessels before returning to New York in search of inspiration to write. Here he met the likes of Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs who would not only become characters in the book but also form the core of the Beat Generation.[3]

Many of the events depicted in the book are the experiences that shaped both its content and production. Kerouac met Neal Cassady, who would become Dean Moriarty, in December 1946 and began his road adventures in 1947 while writing what would become The Town and the City. The adventures themselves, which took place between 1947 and 1950, were meant to help him overcome writers block during early attempts to write the book. It was through letters and other interactions with his friends that Kerouac decided to write the first person narrative that became On the Road as we know it today.[3]

The publication process was another adventure unto itself, which took a major psychological toll on Kerouac. He was discouraged by the struggle (even though he continued to write during the period) and finally agreed to substantially revise the original version after years of failed negotiations with different publishers. He removed several parts in order to focus the story and also to protect himself from potential issues of libel. He also continued to write feverishly after its publication in spite of attacks from critics.[3]

Historical context[edit]

On the Road portrays the story of a fierce personal quest for meaning and belonging. This comes at an interesting point in American history when conformity was praised and outsiders were suspect. The Beat Generation arose out of a time of intense conflict, both internally and externally.

The issues of the Cold War, the Second Red Scare and McCarthyism took center stage of the cultural arena in the 1950s. As the U.S government cracked down on left-wing influences at home and abroad, the sentiment of unifying and banding together led to extreme measures of censorship and control.

The Cold War was the backdrop for this fight. In a short time after defeating Germany, the Soviet Union fell from ally to threat in the eyes of the United States. In the postwar reconstruction process, the two powers found themselves continually at odds. The sentiment arose clearly as a struggle between two opposing ways of life. Contention over Soviet support for alleged communist revolution in Iran, then Turkey and Greece, led to the American policy of containment and the Truman Doctrine. Before a joint session of Congress on March 12, 1947, President Harry S. Truman stated, "I believe it must be the policy of the United States to support the people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."[4] That summer, Secretary of State George C. Marshall proposed a plan for the economic reconstruction of Europe. While Western European countries planned how to go about rebuilding with American help, the Soviets walked away and forced the Eastern European countries to do the same. A Soviet aid and recovery plan followed for these countries and would mark the beginning of a punch and counterpunch pattern that would typify the early years of the Cold War. This laid a foundation for the tension that would define the period.[4]

Beat Generation summary[edit]

It was in this climate that some individuals of the young generation were seeking meaning outside the mainstream worldview. Amidst all the conflict and contradiction, the Beats were seeking out a way to navigate through the world. As John Clellon Holmes put it, "Everywhere the Beat Generation seems occupied with the feverish production of answers—some of them frightening, some of them foolish—to a single question: how are we to live?"[5]

The idea of what it means to be "beat" is still difficult to accurately describe. While many critics still consider the word "beat" in its literal sense of "tired and beaten down," others, including Kerouac himself promoted the generation more in sense of "beatific" or blissful.[6] "Beat" can also be read as a 'rhythm' such as in music, as in Jazz - a rhythmic beat or 'the rhythm of life' itself.

Holmes and Kerouac published several articles in popular magazines in an attempt to explain the movement. In the November 16, 1952 New York Times Sunday Magazine, he wrote a piece exposing the faces of the Beat Generation. "[O]ne day [Kerouac] said, 'You know, this is a really beat generation' ... More than mere weariness, it implies the feeling of having been used, of being raw. It involves a sort of nakedness of mind, and ultimately, of soul: a feeling of being reduced to the bedrock of consciousness. In short, it means being undramatically pushed up against the wall of oneself."[7] He distinguishes Beats from the Lost Generation of the 1920s pointing out how the Beats are not lost but how they are searching for answers to all of life's questions. Kerouac's preoccupation with writers like Ernest Hemingway shaped his view of the beat generation. He uses a prose style which he adapted from Hemingway and throughout On the Road he alludes to novels like The Sun Also Rises. "How to live seems much more crucial than why."[7] In many ways, it is a spiritual journey, a quest to find belief, belonging, and meaning in life. Not content with the uniformity promoted by government and consumer culture, the Beats yearned for a deeper, more sensational experience.

Holmes expands his attempt to define the generation in a 1958 article in Esquire magazine. This article was able to take more of a look back at the formation of the movement as it was published after On the Road. "It describes the state of mind from which all unessentials have been stripped, leaving it receptive to everything around it, but impatient with trivial obstructions. To be beat is to be at the bottom of your personality, looking up."[5]

Literary context[edit]

At the time of publication, On the Road was not the first book to criticize contemporary American culture. A nonconformist sentiment characterized the arts and popular culture of the 1950s as a way of rejecting societal norms. Many of the best selling books of the time achieved this same mission.[4]

J. D. Salinger produced the first shock to the tranquil suburban landscape with the publication of The Catcher in the Rye in 1951. His protagonist Holden Caulfield struck a chord with young readers also at odds with the adult world. Caulfield's rejection of the regimentation and "phoniness" of the world around him resonated with the struggle for meaning that drove the Beat Generation. Salinger's rejection of traditional middle-class values signaled the first widely recognized public stand against the cultural conformist pressure.[4]

Among the best-selling novels of 1950s was Peyton Place by Grace Metalious. Published in September 1956, it managed to be the second most sold book in the country that year and then to top the chart in 1957. In fact, it went on to be the best-selling book in American history up to that point.[8] Often cited as the prime example of the decline in American culture of the decade, the novel examines the traditional values of a New England mill town by introducing the complications of extramarital sexual affairs. A book that received a broad range of reviews after publication, Peyton Place's popularity shows that popular culture was ready for a break from their traditional expectations.[8]

Another popular contemporary was Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1955) that dealt with the increasing suburbanization of American society. Tom Rath struggles with the dilemma of following his conscience or pursuing the big salary and lush lifestyle typically portrayed of the 1950s family. In the end, though, he discovers that he can have both. While Wilson can be seen as chastising the societal norms at times, he concludes with his character achieving them. This shows the dichotomy of attitudes toward the middle-class values of the day.[9]

Production and publication[edit]

  

The scroll, exhibited at the Boott Cotton Mills Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts, summer 2007

Kerouac often promoted the story about how in April 1951 he wrote the novel in three weeks, typing continuously onto a 120-foot roll of teletype paper.[10] Although the story is true per se, the book was in fact the result of a long and arduous creative process. Kerouac carried small notebooks, in which much of the text was written as the eventful span of road trips unfurled. He started working on the first of several versions of the novel as early as 1948, based on experiences during his first long road trip in 1947. However, he remained dissatisfied with the novel.[11] Inspired by a thousand-word rambling letter from his friend Neal Cassady, Kerouac in 1950 outlined the "Essentials of Spontaneous Prose" and decided to tell the story of his years on the road with Cassady as if writing a letter to a friend in a form that reflected the improvisational fluidity of jazz.[12]

The first draft of what was to become the published novel was written in three weeks in April 1951 while Kerouac lived with Joan Haverty, his second wife, at 454 West 20th Street in Manhattan, New York. The manuscript was typed on what he called "the scroll"—a continuous, one hundred and twenty-foot scroll of tracing paper sheets that he cut to size and taped together.[13] The roll was typed single-spaced, without margins or paragraph breaks. In the following years, Kerouac continued to revise this manuscript, deleting some sections (including some sexual depictions deemed pornographic in the 1950s) and adding smaller literary passages.[14] Kerouac authored a number of inserts intended for On the Road between 1951 and 1952, before eventually omitting them from the manuscript and using them to form the basis of another work, Visions of Cody.[15] On the Road was championed within Viking Press by Malcolm Cowley and was published by Viking in 1957, based on revisions of the 1951 manuscript.[16] Besides differences in formatting, the published novel was shorter than the original scroll manuscript and used pseudonyms for all of the major characters.

Viking Press released a slightly edited version of the original manuscript on 16 August 2007 titled On the Road: The Original Scroll corresponding with the 50th anniversary of original publication. This version has been transcribed and edited by English academic and novelist Dr. Howard Cunnell. As well as containing material that was excised from the original draft due to its explicit nature, the scroll version also uses the real names of the protagonists, so Dean Moriarty becomes Neal Cassady and Carlo Marx becomes Allen Ginsberg, etc.[17]

In 2007, Gabriel Anctil, a journalist of the Montreal's daily Le Devoir discovered, in Kerouac's personal archives in New York, almost 200 pages of his writings entirely in Quebec French, with colloquialisms. The collection included ten manuscript pages of an unfinished version of On the Road, written on January 19, 1951. The date of the writings makes Kerouac one of the earliest known authors to use colloquial Quebec French in literature.[18]

Plot summary[edit]

 

The two main characters of the book are the narrator, Salvatore "Sal" Paradise, and his new friend Dean Moriarty, much admired for his carefree attitude and sense for adventure, a free-spirited maverick eager to explore all kicks and an inspiration and catalyst for Sal's travels. The novel contains five parts, three of them describing road trips with Moriarty. The narrative takes place in the years 1947 to 1950, is full of Americana, and marks a specific era in jazz history, "somewhere between its Charlie Parker Ornithology period and another period that began with Miles Davis." The novel is largely autobiographical, Sal being the alter ego of the author and Dean standing for Neal Cassady. The epic nature of the adventures and the text itself creates a tremendous sense of meaning and purpose for the themes and lessons.

Part One[edit]

The first section describes Sal's first trip to San Francisco. Disheartened after a divorce, his life changes when he meets Dean Moriarty, who is "tremendously excited with life," and begins to long for the freedom of the road: "Somewhere along the line I knew there would be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me." He sets off in July 1947 with fifty dollars in his pocket. After taking several buses and hitchhiking, he arrives in Denver, where he hooks up with Carlo Marx, Dean, and their friends. There are parties — among them an excursion to the ghost town of Central City. Eventually Sal leaves by bus and gets to San Francisco, where he meets Remi Boncoeur and his girlfriend Lee Ann. Remi arranges for Sal to take a job as a night watchman at a boarding camp for merchant sailors waiting for their ship. Not holding this job for long, Sal hits the road again. "Oh, where is the girl I love?" he wonders. Soon he meets Terry, the "cutest little Mexican girl," on the bus to Los Angeles. They stay together, traveling back to Bakersfield, then to Sabinal, "her hometown," where her family works in the fields. He meets Terry's brother Ricky, who teaches him the true meaning of "mañana" ("tomorrow"). Working in the cotton fields, Sal realizes that he is not made for this type of work. Leaving Terry behind, he takes the bus back to New York and walks the final stretch from Times Square to Paterson, just missing Dean, who had come to see him, by two days.

In this section, Kerouac not only introduces many of the book's characters but also its central conflicts and dilemmas. He initially shows Sal as the deep thinking writer who yearns for greater freedom. As the plot unfolds he shows the depth and degree of Sal's internal conflict in the pursuit of "kicks," torn between the romanticized freedom of the open road and practicality of a more settled, domestic life. Dean appears as the "yellow roman candle" that catalyzes the action of the novel. His uncontainable spirit invites Sal to follow but also foreshadows problems of commitment and devotion that will reappear later on.

Part Two[edit]

In December 1948 Sal is celebrating Christmas with his relatives in Testament, Virginia when Dean shows up with Marylou (having left his second wife, Camille, and their newborn baby, Amy, in San Francisco) and Ed Dunkel. Sal's Christmas plans are shattered as "now the bug was on me again, and the bug's name was Dean Moriarty." First they drive to New York, where they meet Carlo and party. Dean wants Sal to make love to Marylou, but Sal declines. In Dean's Hudson they take off from New York in January 1949 and make it to New Orleans. In Algiers they stay with the morphine-addicted Old Bull Lee and his wife Jane. Galatea Dunkel joins her husband in New Orleans while Sal, Dean, and Marylou continue their trip. Once in San Francisco, Dean again leaves Marylou to be with Camille. "Dean will leave you out in the cold anytime it is in the interest of him," Marylou tells Sal. Both of them stay briefly in a hotel, but soon she moves out, following a nightclub owner. Sal is alone and on Market Street has visions of past lives, birth, and rebirth. Dean finds him and invites him to stay with his family. Together, they visit nightclubs and listen to Slim Gaillard and other jazz musicians. The stay ends on a sour note: "what I accomplished by coming to Frisco I don't know," and Sal departs, taking the bus back to New York.

In this section, Marylou sums up the dilemma of Dean's lack of commitment and selfishness when she says that he will always leave you if it isn't in his interest. This central conflict appears again after Dean returns to Camille in San Francisco, abandoning his two travel companions. Sal again finds himself at a loss for purpose and direction. He has spent his time following the other characters but is unfulfilled by the frantic nature of this life. Much of the euphoria has worn off as he becomes more contemplative and philosophical.

Part Three[edit]

In the spring of 1949, Sal takes a bus from New York to Denver. He is depressed and "lonesome"; none of his friends are around. After receiving some money, he leaves Denver for San Francisco to see Dean. Camille is pregnant and unhappy, and Dean has injured his thumb trying to hit Marylou for sleeping with other men. Camille throws them out, and Sal invites Dean to come to New York, planning to travel further to Italy. They meet Galatea, who tells Dean off: "You have absolutely no regard for anybody but yourself and your kicks." Sal realizes she is right — Dean is the "HOLY GOOF" — but also defends him, as "he's got the secret that we're all busting to find out." After a night of jazz and drinking in Little Harlem on Folsom Street, they depart. On the way to Sacramento they meet a "fag," who propositions them. Dean tries to hustle some money out of this but is turned down. During this part of the trip Sal and Dean have ecstatic discussions having found "IT" and "TIME." In Denver a brief argument shows the growing rift between the two, when Dean reminds Sal of his age, Sal being the older of the two. They get a '47 Cadillac from the travel bureau that needs to be brought to Chicago. Dean drives most of the way, crazy, careless, often speeding over 100 miles per hour, bringing it in a disheveled state. By bus they move on to Detroit and spend a night on Skid Row, Dean hoping to find his homeless father. From Detroit they share a ride to New York and arrive at Sal's aunt's new flat in Long Island. They go on partying in New York, where Dean meets Inez and gets her pregnant while his wife is expecting their second child.

After seeing how he treats Camille and Marylou, Sal finally begins to realize the nature of his relationship with Dean. While he cares greatly about him, several times discussing future plans to live on the same street, he recognizes that the feeling may not be mutual. The situations are beginning to change, though, as Sal has received some money from his recently published book and can begin to support himself and also Dean when he comes to New York. Sal is taking a more active role in his freedom as opposed to just following Dean.

Part Four[edit]

In the spring of 1950, Sal gets the itch to travel again while Dean is working as a parking lot attendant in Manhattan, living with his girlfriend Inez. Sal notices that he has been reduced to simple pleasures — listening to basketball games and looking at erotic playing cards. By bus Sal takes to the road again, passing Washington, Ashland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and eventually reaching Denver. There he meets Stan Shephard, and the two plan to go to Mexico City when they learn that Dean had bought a car and is on the way to join them. In a rickety '37 Ford sedan the three set off across Texas to Laredo, where they cross the border. They are ecstatic, having left "everything behind us and entering a new and unknown phase of things." Their money buys more (10 cents for a beer), police are laid back, cannabis is readily available, and people are curious and friendly. The landscape is magnificent. In Gregoria, they meet Victor, a local kid, who leads them to a bordello where they have their last grand party, dancing to mambo, drinking, and having fun with prostitutes. In Mexico City Sal becomes ill from dysentery and is "delirious and unconscious." Dean leaves him, and Sal later reflects that "when I got better I realized what a rat he was, but then I had to understand the impossible complexity of his life, how he had to leave me there, sick, to get on with his wives and woes."

In this section we see Dean's selfishness finally extend to Sal, as he leaves Sal abandoned in Mexico City. Sal has sunk to the bottom of his reality having seen Victor put his family obligations over the freedom of the road and Dean was not ready to do the same thing. This is the moment where the paths diverge and Sal realizes that he has more to live for than just constantly moving.

Part Five[edit]

Dean, having obtained divorce papers in Mexico, had first returned to New York to marry Inez, only to leave her and go back to Camille. After his recovery from dysentery in Mexico, Sal returns to New York in the fall. He finds a girl, Laura, and plans to move with her to San Francisco. Sal writes to Dean about his plan to move to San Francisco. Dean writes back saying that he's willing to come and accompany Laura and Sal. Dean arrives over five weeks early but Sal is out taking a late-night walk alone. Sal returns home to Laura and sees a copy of Proust and knows that it is Dean's. Sal realizes that his friend has arrived, but at a time when Sal doesn't have the money to relocate to San Francisco. On hearing this Dean makes the decision to head back to Camille and Sal's friend Remi Boncoeur denies Sal's request to give Dean a short lift to 40th Street on their way to a Duke Ellington concert at the Metropolitan Opera House. Sal's girlfriend Laura realises that this is a painful moment for Sal and prompts him for a response as the party drives off without Dean; to which he replies "He'll be alright". Sal later reflects as he sits on a river pier under a New Jersey night sky about the roads and lands of America that he has travelled and states ". . . I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty."

Character key[edit]

Kerouac often based his fictional characters on friends and family.[19][20]

"Because of the objections of my early publishers I was not allowed to use the same person's name in each work."[21]

Real-life personCharacter name

Jack KerouacSal Paradise

Gabrielle KerouacSal's Aunt

Alan AnsenRollo Greb

William S. BurroughsOld Bull Lee

Joan VollmerJane

Lucien CarrDamion

Neal CassadyDean Moriarty

Carolyn CassadyCamille

Hal ChaseChad King

Henri CruRemi Boncoeur

Bea Franco (Beatrice Kozera)Terry

Allen GinsbergCarlo Marx

Diana HansenInez

Alan HarringtonHal Hingham

Joan HavertyLaura

Luanne HendersonMarylou

Al HinkleEd Dunkel

Helen HinkleGalatea Dunkel

Jim HolmesTom Snark

John Clellon HolmesIan MacArthur

Ed StringhamTom Saybrook

Herbert HunckeElmer Hassel

Frank JeffriesStan Shephard

Gene PippinGene Dexter

Allan TemkoRoland Major

Bill TomsonRoy Johnson

Helen TomsonDorothy Johnson

Ed UhlEd Wall

Helen GullionRita Betancourt

Major themes[edit]

 

The main ideas of the Beat Generation, the longing for belief and meaning in life, are reflected in On the Road. While interest in the book initially revolved more around Kerouac's personal life rather than the literary nature of the text, critical attention has burgeoned in recent years. Although the book can be viewed through many lenses, several major themes rise up from a deeper study.

Kerouac has admitted that the biggest of these themes is religion. In a letter to a student in 1961, he wrote:

"Dean and I were embarked on a journey through post-Whitman America to FIND that America and to FIND the inherent goodness in American man. It was really a story about 2 Catholic buddies roaming the country in search of God. And we found him."

[22]

This idea of an inward adventure is illustrated in all of the experimentation. The Beats had a more liberal definition of God and spirituality closely related to personal experience.

All of the travel and personal interaction in the book permit an examination of the ideas of masculinity and mobility in the 1950s. While these concepts may seem unrelated, Kerouac weaves them together to provide another form of rebellion against the social norm of conformity. Mary Pannicia Carden examines this and proposes that traveling was a way for the characters to assert their independence. "[Sal and Dean] attempt to replace the model of manhood dominant in capitalist America with a model rooted in foundational American ideals of conquest and self-discovery."[23] Travel is a very symbolic act both in history and in literature of coming of age and self-realization, especially for males. But not only do they see conformity as restricting, but in many senses, they view women this way as well. "Reassigning disempowering elements of patriarchy to female keeping, they attempt to substitute male brotherhood for the nuclear family and to replace the ladder of success with the freedom of the road as primary measures of male identity."[23] The interactions of the book come down to balances of power and gains and losses of masculinity. Even though they seek to defy its traditional markers, Dean and Sal also rely on this masculinity in their self-definition. In the end, their divergence to different paths reflects Sal's understanding of the limitations of complete freedom that is sought on the road in so far as it pertains to relations to culture and identity.

In a broader sense, On the Road's major lesson is about the proper way of growing up. Unlike Holden Caulfield, Sal Paradise is struggling with getting through adolescence and maturity rather than delaying it. We see this contrasted with Dean Moriarty who is portrayed as the depiction of a child, always on the move. Sal's struggle is how to balance these opposing forces. We saw these exact issues in Holmes's definition of the Beat Generation as a whole, of which Sal Paradise becomes the metaphorical face.

Language[edit]

 

In addition to the themes and controversial topics addressed in On the Road, Kerouac's apparently erratic writing style garnered much attention for the novel. Some have said that On the Road was merely a transitional phase in between the traditional narrative structure of The Town and the City (1951) and the so-called "wild form" of Kerouac's later books like Visions of Cody (1972).[24]

Kerouac's own explanation of his style begins with the publication of "Essentials of Spontaneous Prose" (1953) in which he outlines the core features of his techniques. He likens his writing to Impressionist painters who sought to create art through direct observation. He endeavored to present a raw version of truth which did not lend itself to the traditional process of revision and rewriting but rather the emotionally charged practice of spontaneity he pursued.[25]

This spontaneity produced a book that was not only readable in 1957 but still captures the attention of audiences today. The personal nature of the text helps foster a direct link between Kerouac and the reader. Because he is writing about actual experiences, conveying appropriately the environment provided this connection. Kerouac chose to do this through his detailed descriptions, rarely pausing for a breath between sentences. His more casual diction and very relaxed syntax, although viewed as less than serious by some, was an intentional attempt to depict events as they happened and to convey all of the energy and emotion of the experiences.[25]

Reception[edit]

 

The book received a mixed reaction from the media in 1957. Some of the earlier reviews spoke highly of the book, but the backlash to these was swift and strong. Although this was discouraging to Kerouac, he still received great recognition and notoriety from the work. Since its publication, critical attention has focused on issues of both the context and the style, addressing the actions of the characters as well as the nature of Kerouac's prose.

Initial reaction[edit]

In his review for The New York Times, Gilbert Millstein wrote, "its publication is a historic occasion in so far as the exposure of an authentic work of art is of any great moment in an age in which the attention is fragmented and the sensibilities are blunted by the superlatives of fashion" and praised it as "a major novel."[1] Millstein was already sympathetic toward the Beat Generation and his promotion of the book in the Times did wonders for its recognition and acclaim. Not only did he like the themes, but also the style, which would come to be just as hotly contested in the reviews that followed. "There are sections of On the Road in which the writing is of a beauty almost breathtaking...there is some writing on jazz that has never been equaled in American fiction, either for insight, style, or technical virtuosity."[1] Kerouac and Joyce Johnson, a younger writer he was living with, read the review shortly after midnight at a newsstand at 69th Street and Broadway, near Joyce's apartment in the Upper West Side. They took their copy of the newspaper to a neighborhood bar and read the review over and over. "Jack kept shaking his head," Joyce remembered later in her memoir Minor Characters, "as if he couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t happier than he was." Finally, they returned to her apartment to go to sleep. As Joyce recalled: "Jack lay down obscure for the last time in his life. The ringing phone woke him the next morning, and he was famous.”[26]

The backlash began just a few days later in the same publication. David Dempsey published a review that contradicted most of what Millstein had promoted in the book. "As a portrait of a disjointed segment of society acting out of its own neurotic necessity, "On the Road", is a stunning achievement. But it is a road, as far as the characters are concerned, that leads to nowhere." While he did not discount the stylistic nature of the text (saying that it was written "with great relish"), he dismissed the content as a "passionate lark" rather than a novel."[27]

Other reviewers were also less than impressed. Phoebe Lou Adams in Atlantic Monthly wrote that it "disappoints because it constantly promises a revelation or a conclusion of real importance and general applicability, and cannot deliver any such conclusion because Dean is more convincing as an eccentric than as a representative of any segment of humanity."[28] While she liked the writing and found a good theme, her concern was repetition. "Everything Mr. Kerouac has to say about Dean has been told in the first third of the book, and what comes later is a series of variations on the same theme."[28]

The review from Time exhibited a similar sentiment. "The post-World War II generation—beat or beatific—has not found symbolic spokesmen with anywhere near the talents of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, or Nathaniel West. In this novel, talented Author Kerouac, 35, does not join that literary league, either, but at least suggests that his generation is not silent. With his barbaric yawp of a book, Kerouac commands attention as a kind of literary James Dean."[29] It considers the book partly a travel book and partly a collection of journal jottings. While Kerouac sees his characters as "mad to live...desirous of everything at the same time," the reviewer likens them to cases of "psychosis that is a variety of Ganser Syndrome" who "aren't really mad—they only seem to be."[29]

Current reactions[edit]

On the Road has been the object of much study since its publication. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of publication, several critics took a fresh look at the text in 2007. It is interesting to consider how the perception has evolved in the last half century.

David Brooks of the New York Times compiled several of these opinions and summarized them in an Op-Ed from October 2, 2007. Where as Millstein saw it as a story in which the heroes took pleasure in everything, George Mouratidis, an editor of a new edition, claimed "above all else, the story is about loss." "It's a book about death and the search for something meaningful to hold on to — the famous search for 'IT,' a truth larger than the self, which, of course, is never found," wrote Meghan O'Rourke in Slate. "Kerouac was this deep, lonely, melancholy man," Hilary Holladay of the University of Massachusetts Lowell told The Philadelphia Inquirer. "And if you read the book closely, you see that sense of loss and sorrow swelling on every page." "In truth, 'On the Road' is a book of broken dreams and failed plans," wrote Ted Gioia in The Weekly Standard.[30]

John Leland, author of Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think), says "We're no longer shocked by the sex and drugs. The slang is passé and at times corny. Some of the racial sentimentality is appalling" but adds "the tale of passionate friendship and the search for revelation are timeless. These are as elusive and precious in our time as in Sal's, and will be when our grandchildren celebrate the book's hundredth anniversary."[31]

To Brooks, this characterization seems limited. "Reading through the anniversary commemorations, you feel the gravitational pull of the great Boomer Narcissus. All cultural artifacts have to be interpreted through whatever experiences the Baby Boomer generation is going through at that moment. So a book formerly known for its youthful exuberance now becomes a gloomy middle-aged disillusion."[30] He laments how the book's spirit seems to have been tamed by the professionalism of America today and how it has only survived in parts. The more reckless and youthful parts of the text that gave it its energy are the parts that have "run afoul of the new gentility, the rules laid down by the health experts, childcare experts, guidance counselors, safety advisers, admissions officers, virtuecrats and employers to regulate the lives of the young."[30] He claims that the "ethos" of the book has been lost.

Influence[edit]

 

On the Road has been a major influence on many poets, writers, actors and musicians, including Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Jim Morrison, Hunter S. Thompson, and many more.

"It changed my life like it changed everyone else's," Dylan would say many years later. Tom Waits, too, acknowledged its influence, hymning Jack and Neal in a song and calling the Beats "father figures." At least two great American photographers were influenced by Kerouac: Robert Frank, who became his close friend — Kerouac wrote the introduction to Franks' book, The Americans — and Stephen Shore, who set out on an American road trip in the 1970s with Kerouac's book as a guide. It would be hard to imagine Hunter S. Thompson's road novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas had On the Road not laid down the template; likewise, films such as Easy Rider, Paris, Texas, and even Thelma and Louise.[32]

In his book Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors, Ray Manzarek (keyboard player of The Doors) wrote "I suppose if Jack Kerouac had never written On the Road, The Doors would never have existed."

Since the mobile lifestyle popularized by "On The Road" had a strong influence on the large market segment of baby boomers who joined the hippie movement the death of Jack Kerouac was of interest to the readers of the pioneering new journalism publication Rolling Stone. As a result, editor and publisher of the tabloid, Jann Wenner, printed a detailed account of the funeral of the "On The Road" author by writers Stephen Davis and Eric Ehrmann. According to the Rolling Stone article, Jack Kerouac's open casket viewing at the Archambault Funeral Home and subsequent burial funeral at the Edson Cemetery in Lowell, Massachusetts were attended by few of his "On The Road" era friends. Neal Cassady (Dean Moriarty in the book) had died the year before in 1968. San Francisco poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti chose not to come east to attend. Allen Ginsberg (Carlo Marx in the book) showed up with Peter Orlovsky and Gregory Corso was there filming the event. Author Terry Southern sent a floral arrangement that was on display near the bier. One writer in attendance not associated with the "On The Road" group or Beatnik crowd was New York Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin, who, like Kerouac, came from a working-class background. Breslin, who had been inspired by "On The Road" in his youth, journeyed up to Lowell to pay his respects, his feelings about Kerouac's appearing as part of the Rolling Stone coverage. Many writers, actors and artists including Ann Charters and Hettie Jones, inter alia, would later share their feelings about how they were influenced by "On The Road" and the Beat culture in the Rolling Stone Book of The Beats edited by Holly George Warren published by Hyperion in 1999.

 

Trikomo is a town in Cyprus. It is under the de facto control of Northern Cyprus and is the administrative center of the Iskele District of Northern Cyprus, which mainly extends into the Karpas Peninsula , while de jure it belongs to the Famagusta District of the Republic of Cyprus . It gained municipality status in 1998. Before 1974 Trikomo was a mixed village with a Greek Cypriot majority.

 

In 2011 Trikomo had 1948 inhabitants.

 

Trikomo is located in the north-eastern part of the Messaria plain , 9 km south of the village of Ardana , about two kilometers from the Bay of Famagusta and four kilometers north-west of the village of Sygkrasi .

 

In Greek Trikomo means "three houses". In 1975 the Turkish Cypriots renamed it Yeni İskele to commemorate the origins of the town's current inhabitants. In Larnaca before 1974 Turkish Cypriots resided in the neighborhood called Skala ("İskele" in Turkish), so that when they settled in the village they renamed it with the same name (lit. "new İskele", later shortened to İskele ). Yeni means "new", so Yeni İskele literally means "New Scale/İskele".

 

Before the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus , the population of Trikomo consisted almost entirely of Greek Cypriots , most of whom fled during the conflict while the rest were subsequently deported to the south. Among these, worthy of mention is Georgios Grivas (1898-1974), general of the Greek army , leader of the guerrilla organization EOKA, protagonist of the liberation struggle against the English and of the paramilitary organization EOKA B.

 

The Turkish Cypriot municipality of Larnaca which had been established in 1958 moved to Trikomo in 1974, soon after the Turkish invasion of the island .

 

In Trikomo is the Church of the Panagia Theotokos , deconsecrated and home to an icon museum displaying rare examples of medieval iconography in Cyprus. The church is divided into two sections, one Orthodox and one Catholic. The first is the oldest, dating back to the Byzantine era , while the second was built in the 12th century, during the period in which the island was ruled by the Lusignans

 

Before 1974 Trikomo was a mixed village with a Greek Cypriot majority. In the 1831 Ottoman census, Muslims made up approximately 18.4% of the population. However, by 1891 this percentage dropped significantly to 3.4%. In the first half of the 20th century the population of the village increased steadily, from 1,247 inhabitants in 1901 to 2,195 in 1960.

 

Most of Trikomo's Greek Cypriots were displaced in August 1974, although some remained in the town after the Turkish army took control. In October 1975 there were still 92 Greek Cypriots in the city, but in 1978 they were moved to the south side of the Green Line . Currently, like the rest of the displaced Greek Cypriots, Trikomo Greek Cypriots are scattered across the south of the island, especially in the cities. The number of Greek Cypriots from Trikomo displaced in 1974-78 was approximately 2,330 (2,323 in the 1960 census).

 

Today the village is inhabited mainly by displaced Turkish Cypriots from the south of the island, especially from the city of Larnaca and its district . In 1976-77, some families from Turkey, especially from the province of Adana , also settled in the village . Since the 2000s, many wealthy Europeans, Turks and Turkish Cypriots from other areas of the north of the island (including returnees from abroad) have purchased properties, built houses and settled in the vicinity of the city. According to the 2006 Turkish Cypriot census, the population of Trikomo/İskele was 3,657.

 

The city annually hosts the Iskele Festival , which takes place for ten days in summer, and is the oldest annual festival in Cyprus, having first been held in Larnaca in 1968. In 1974, the event was moved to Trikomo together to the Turkish Cypriot inhabitants of Larnaca who had moved there. The program includes an international folk dance festival, concerts by Turkish Cypriot and mainland Turkish musicians, various sports tournaments, stalls offering food and various competitions, along with other performances and competitions highlighting the city's cultural heritage.

 

The current mayor of the city is Hasan Sadıkoğlu, who was first elected in 2014 as an independent candidate. It was re-elected in 2018 as the candidate of the right-wing National Unity Party (UBP), winning with 54.6% of the vote. In the 2018 local elections, four members of the UBP, two members of the pro-settler Renaissance Party (YDP), and two members of the left-wing Turkish Republican Party (CTP) were elected to the eight-member city council .

 

Trikomo is twinned with:

Flag of Türkiye Beykoz, Istanbul

Flag of Türkiye Büyükçekmece, Istanbul

Flag of Türkiye Finike, Antalya , since 2015

Flag of Türkiye Mamak, Ankara

Flag of Türkiye Pendik, Istanbul

Flag of Türkiye Samsung , since 2006

 

Turkish Cypriot sports club Larnaka Gençler Birliği (also called İskele Gençlerbirliği ) was founded in 1934 in Larnaca, and was playing in the Süper Lig of the Northern Cyprus Football Federation in the 2018–19 season

 

Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, and its territory is considered by all other states to be part of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the northeast to Morphou Bay, Cape Kormakitis and its westernmost point, the Kokkina exclave in the west. Its southernmost point is the village of Louroujina. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both sides.

 

A coup d'état in 1974, performed as part of an attempt to annex the island to Greece, prompted the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. This resulted in the eviction of much of the north's Greek Cypriot population, the flight of Turkish Cypriots from the south, and the partitioning of the island, leading to a unilateral declaration of independence by the north in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support.

 

Attempts to reach a solution to the Cyprus dispute have been unsuccessful. The Turkish Army maintains a large force in Northern Cyprus with the support and approval of the TRNC government, while the Republic of Cyprus, the European Union as a whole, and the international community regard it as an occupation force. This military presence has been denounced in several United Nations Security Council resolutions.

 

Northern Cyprus is a semi-presidential, democratic republic with a cultural heritage incorporating various influences and an economy that is dominated by the services sector. The economy has seen growth through the 2000s and 2010s, with the GNP per capita more than tripling in the 2000s, but is held back by an international embargo due to the official closure of the ports in Northern Cyprus by the Republic of Cyprus. The official language is Turkish, with a distinct local dialect being spoken. The vast majority of the population consists of Sunni Muslims, while religious attitudes are mostly moderate and secular. Northern Cyprus is an observer state of ECO and OIC under the name "Turkish Cypriot State", PACE under the name "Turkish Cypriot Community", and Organization of Turkic States with its own name.

 

Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.

 

Cyprus, an island lying in the eastern Mediterranean, hosted a population of Greeks and Turks (four-fifths and one-fifth, respectively), who lived under British rule in the late nineteenth-century and the first half of the twentieth-century. Christian Orthodox Church of Cyprus played a prominent political role among the Greek Cypriot community, a privilege that it acquired during the Ottoman Empire with the employment of the millet system, which gave the archbishop an unofficial ethnarch status.

 

The repeated rejections by the British of Greek Cypriot demands for enosis, union with Greece, led to armed resistance, organised by the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle, or EOKA. EOKA, led by the Greek-Cypriot commander George Grivas, systematically targeted British colonial authorities. One of the effects of EOKA's campaign was to alter the Turkish position from demanding full reincorporation into Turkey to a demand for taksim (partition). EOKA's mission and activities caused a "Cretan syndrome" (see Turkish Resistance Organisation) within the Turkish Cypriot community, as its members feared that they would be forced to leave the island in such a case as had been the case with Cretan Turks. As such, they preferred the continuation of British colonial rule and then taksim, the division of the island. Due to the Turkish Cypriots' support for the British, EOKA's leader, Georgios Grivas, declared them to be enemies. The fact that the Turks were a minority was, according to Nihat Erim, to be addressed by the transfer of thousands of Turks from mainland Turkey so that Greek Cypriots would cease to be the majority. When Erim visited Cyprus as the Turkish representative, he was advised by Field Marshal Sir John Harding, the then Governor of Cyprus, that Turkey should send educated Turks to settle in Cyprus.

 

Turkey actively promoted the idea that on the island of Cyprus two distinctive communities existed, and sidestepped its former claim that "the people of Cyprus were all Turkish subjects". In doing so, Turkey's aim to have self-determination of two to-be equal communities in effect led to de jure partition of the island.[citation needed] This could be justified to the international community against the will of the majority Greek population of the island. Dr. Fazil Küçük in 1954 had already proposed Cyprus be divided in two at the 35° parallel.

 

Lindley Dan, from Notre Dame University, spotted the roots of intercommunal violence to different visions among the two communities of Cyprus (enosis for Greek Cypriots, taksim for Turkish Cypriots). Also, Lindlay wrote that "the merging of church, schools/education, and politics in divisive and nationalistic ways" had played a crucial role in creation of havoc in Cyprus' history. Attalides Michael also pointed to the opposing nationalisms as the cause of the Cyprus problem.

 

By the mid-1950's, the "Cyprus is Turkish" party, movement, and slogan gained force in both Cyprus and Turkey. In a 1954 editorial, Turkish Cypriot leader Dr. Fazil Kuchuk expressed the sentiment that the Turkish youth had grown up with the idea that "as soon as Great Britain leaves the island, it will be taken over by the Turks", and that "Turkey cannot tolerate otherwise". This perspective contributed to the willingness of Turkish Cypriots to align themselves with the British, who started recruiting Turkish Cypriots into the police force that patrolled Cyprus to fight EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist organisation that sought to rid the island of British rule.

 

EOKA targeted colonial authorities, including police, but Georgios Grivas, the leader of EOKA, did not initially wish to open up a new front by fighting Turkish Cypriots and reassured them that EOKA would not harm their people. In 1956, some Turkish Cypriot policemen were killed by EOKA members and this provoked some intercommunal violence in the spring and summer, but these attacks on policemen were not motivated by the fact that they were Turkish Cypriots.

 

However, in January 1957, Grivas changed his policy as his forces in the mountains became increasingly pressured by the British Crown forces. In order to divert the attention of the Crown forces, EOKA members started to target Turkish Cypriot policemen intentionally in the towns, so that Turkish Cypriots would riot against the Greek Cypriots and the security forces would have to be diverted to the towns to restore order. The killing of a Turkish Cypriot policeman on 19 January, when a power station was bombed, and the injury of three others, provoked three days of intercommunal violence in Nicosia. The two communities targeted each other in reprisals, at least one Greek Cypriot was killed and the British Army was deployed in the streets. Greek Cypriot stores were burned and their neighbourhoods attacked. Following the events, the Greek Cypriot leadership spread the propaganda that the riots had merely been an act of Turkish Cypriot aggression. Such events created chaos and drove the communities apart both in Cyprus and in Turkey.

 

On 22 October 1957 Sir Hugh Mackintosh Foot replaced Sir John Harding as the British Governor of Cyprus. Foot suggested five to seven years of self-government before any final decision. His plan rejected both enosis and taksim. The Turkish Cypriot response to this plan was a series of anti-British demonstrations in Nicosia on 27 and 28 January 1958 rejecting the proposed plan because the plan did not include partition. The British then withdrew the plan.

 

In 1957, Black Gang, a Turkish Cypriot pro-taksim paramilitary organisation, was formed to patrol a Turkish Cypriot enclave, the Tahtakale district of Nicosia, against activities of EOKA. The organisation later attempted to grow into a national scale, but failed to gain public support.

 

By 1958, signs of dissatisfaction with the British increased on both sides, with a group of Turkish Cypriots forming Volkan (later renamed to the Turkish Resistance Organisation) paramilitary group to promote partition and the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey as dictated by the Menderes plan. Volkan initially consisted of roughly 100 members, with the stated aim of raising awareness in Turkey of the Cyprus issue and courting military training and support for Turkish Cypriot fighters from the Turkish government.

 

In June 1958, the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was expected to propose a plan to resolve the Cyprus issue. In light of the new development, the Turks rioted in Nicosia to promote the idea that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and therefore any plan that did not include partition would not be viable. This violence was soon followed by bombing, Greek Cypriot deaths and looting of Greek Cypriot-owned shops and houses. Greek and Turkish Cypriots started to flee mixed population villages where they were a minority in search of safety. This was effectively the beginning of the segregation of the two communities. On 7 June 1958, a bomb exploded at the entrance of the Turkish Embassy in Cyprus. Following the bombing, Turkish Cypriots looted Greek Cypriot properties. On 26 June 1984, the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktaş, admitted on British channel ITV that the bomb was placed by the Turks themselves in order to create tension. On 9 January 1995, Rauf Denktaş repeated his claim to the famous Turkish newspaper Milliyet in Turkey.

 

The crisis reached a climax on 12 June 1958, when eight Greeks, out of an armed group of thirty five arrested by soldiers of the Royal Horse Guards on suspicion of preparing an attack on the Turkish quarter of Skylloura, were killed in a suspected attack by Turkish Cypriot locals, near the village of Geunyeli, having been ordered to walk back to their village of Kondemenos.

 

After the EOKA campaign had begun, the British government successfully began to turn the Cyprus issue from a British colonial problem into a Greek-Turkish issue. British diplomacy exerted backstage influence on the Adnan Menderes government, with the aim of making Turkey active in Cyprus. For the British, the attempt had a twofold objective. The EOKA campaign would be silenced as quickly as possible, and Turkish Cypriots would not side with Greek Cypriots against the British colonial claims over the island, which would thus remain under the British. The Turkish Cypriot leadership visited Menderes to discuss the Cyprus issue. When asked how the Turkish Cypriots should respond to the Greek Cypriot claim of enosis, Menderes replied: "You should go to the British foreign minister and request the status quo be prolonged, Cyprus to remain as a British colony". When the Turkish Cypriots visited the British Foreign Secretary and requested for Cyprus to remain a colony, he replied: "You should not be asking for colonialism at this day and age, you should be asking for Cyprus be returned to Turkey, its former owner".

 

As Turkish Cypriots began to look to Turkey for protection, Greek Cypriots soon understood that enosis was extremely unlikely. The Greek Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios III, now set independence for the island as his objective.

 

Britain resolved to solve the dispute by creating an independent Cyprus. In 1959, all involved parties signed the Zurich Agreements: Britain, Turkey, Greece, and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Makarios and Dr. Fazil Kucuk, respectively. The new constitution drew heavily on the ethnic composition of the island. The President would be a Greek Cypriot, and the Vice-President a Turkish Cypriot with an equal veto. The contribution to the public service would be set at a ratio of 70:30, and the Supreme Court would consist of an equal number of judges from both communities as well as an independent judge who was not Greek, Turkish or British. The Zurich Agreements were supplemented by a number of treaties. The Treaty of Guarantee stated that secession or union with any state was forbidden, and that Greece, Turkey and Britain would be given guarantor status to intervene if that was violated. The Treaty of Alliance allowed for two small Greek and Turkish military contingents to be stationed on the island, and the Treaty of Establishment gave Britain sovereignty over two bases in Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

 

On 15 August 1960, the Colony of Cyprus became fully independent as the Republic of Cyprus. The new republic remained within the Commonwealth of Nations.

 

The new constitution brought dissatisfaction to Greek Cypriots, who felt it to be highly unjust for them for historical, demographic and contributional reasons. Although 80% of the island's population were Greek Cypriots and these indigenous people had lived on the island for thousands of years and paid 94% of taxes, the new constitution was giving the 17% of the population that was Turkish Cypriots, who paid 6% of taxes, around 30% of government jobs and 40% of national security jobs.

 

Within three years tensions between the two communities in administrative affairs began to show. In particular disputes over separate municipalities and taxation created a deadlock in government. A constitutional court ruled in 1963 Makarios had failed to uphold article 173 of the constitution which called for the establishment of separate municipalities for Turkish Cypriots. Makarios subsequently declared his intention to ignore the judgement, resulting in the West German judge resigning from his position. Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to the constitution, which would have had the effect of resolving most of the issues in the Greek Cypriot favour. Under the proposals, the President and Vice-President would lose their veto, the separate municipalities as sought after by the Turkish Cypriots would be abandoned, the need for separate majorities by both communities in passing legislation would be discarded and the civil service contribution would be set at actual population ratios (82:18) instead of the slightly higher figure for Turkish Cypriots.

 

The intention behind the amendments has long been called into question. The Akritas plan, written in the height of the constitutional dispute by the Greek Cypriot interior minister Polycarpos Georkadjis, called for the removal of undesirable elements of the constitution so as to allow power-sharing to work. The plan envisaged a swift retaliatory attack on Turkish Cypriot strongholds should Turkish Cypriots resort to violence to resist the measures, stating "In the event of a planned or staged Turkish attack, it is imperative to overcome it by force in the shortest possible time, because if we succeed in gaining command of the situation (in one or two days), no outside, intervention would be either justified or possible." Whether Makarios's proposals were part of the Akritas plan is unclear, however it remains that sentiment towards enosis had not completely disappeared with independence. Makarios described independence as "a step on the road to enosis".[31] Preparations for conflict were not entirely absent from Turkish Cypriots either, with right wing elements still believing taksim (partition) the best safeguard against enosis.

 

Greek Cypriots however believe the amendments were a necessity stemming from a perceived attempt by Turkish Cypriots to frustrate the working of government. Turkish Cypriots saw it as a means to reduce their status within the state from one of co-founder to that of minority, seeing it as a first step towards enosis. The security situation deteriorated rapidly.

 

Main articles: Bloody Christmas (1963) and Battle of Tillyria

An armed conflict was triggered after December 21, 1963, a period remembered by Turkish Cypriots as Bloody Christmas, when a Greek Cypriot policemen that had been called to help deal with a taxi driver refusing officers already on the scene access to check the identification documents of his customers, took out his gun upon arrival and shot and killed the taxi driver and his partner. Eric Solsten summarised the events as follows: "a Greek Cypriot police patrol, ostensibly checking identification documents, stopped a Turkish Cypriot couple on the edge of the Turkish quarter. A hostile crowd gathered, shots were fired, and two Turkish Cypriots were killed."

 

In the morning after the shooting, crowds gathered in protest in Northern Nicosia, likely encouraged by the TMT, without incident. On the evening of the 22nd, gunfire broke out, communication lines to the Turkish neighbourhoods were cut, and the Greek Cypriot police occupied the nearby airport. On the 23rd, a ceasefire was negotiated, but did not hold. Fighting, including automatic weapons fire, between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and militias increased in Nicosia and Larnaca. A force of Greek Cypriot irregulars led by Nikos Sampson entered the Nicosia suburb of Omorphita and engaged in heavy firing on armed, as well as by some accounts unarmed, Turkish Cypriots. The Omorphita clash has been described by Turkish Cypriots as a massacre, while this view has generally not been acknowledged by Greek Cypriots.

 

Further ceasefires were arranged between the two sides, but also failed. By Christmas Eve, the 24th, Britain, Greece, and Turkey had joined talks, with all sides calling for a truce. On Christmas day, Turkish fighter jets overflew Nicosia in a show of support. Finally it was agreed to allow a force of 2,700 British soldiers to help enforce a ceasefire. In the next days, a "buffer zone" was created in Nicosia, and a British officer marked a line on a map with green ink, separating the two sides of the city, which was the beginning of the "Green Line". Fighting continued across the island for the next several weeks.

 

In total 364 Turkish Cypriots and 174 Greek Cypriots were killed during the violence. 25,000 Turkish Cypriots from 103-109 villages fled and were displaced into enclaves and thousands of Turkish Cypriot houses were ransacked or completely destroyed.

 

Contemporary newspapers also reported on the forceful exodus of the Turkish Cypriots from their homes. According to The Times in 1964, threats, shootings and attempts of arson were committed against the Turkish Cypriots to force them out of their homes. The Daily Express wrote that "25,000 Turks have already been forced to leave their homes". The Guardian reported a massacre of Turks at Limassol on 16 February 1964.

 

Turkey had by now readied its fleet and its fighter jets appeared over Nicosia. Turkey was dissuaded from direct involvement by the creation of a United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in 1964. Despite the negotiated ceasefire in Nicosia, attacks on the Turkish Cypriot persisted, particularly in Limassol. Concerned about the possibility of a Turkish invasion, Makarios undertook the creation of a Greek Cypriot conscript-based army called the "National Guard". A general from Greece took charge of the army, whilst a further 20,000 well-equipped officers and men were smuggled from Greece into Cyprus. Turkey threatened to intervene once more, but was prevented by a strongly worded letter from the American President Lyndon B. Johnson, anxious to avoid a conflict between NATO allies Greece and Turkey at the height of the Cold War.

 

Turkish Cypriots had by now established an important bridgehead at Kokkina, provided with arms, volunteers and materials from Turkey and abroad. Seeing this incursion of foreign weapons and troops as a major threat, the Cypriot government invited George Grivas to return from Greece as commander of the Greek troops on the island and launch a major attack on the bridgehead. Turkey retaliated by dispatching its fighter jets to bomb Greek positions, causing Makarios to threaten an attack on every Turkish Cypriot village on the island if the bombings did not cease. The conflict had now drawn in Greece and Turkey, with both countries amassing troops on their Thracian borders. Efforts at mediation by Dean Acheson, a former U.S. Secretary of State, and UN-appointed mediator Galo Plaza had failed, all the while the division of the two communities becoming more apparent. Greek Cypriot forces were estimated at some 30,000, including the National Guard and the large contingent from Greece. Defending the Turkish Cypriot enclaves was a force of approximately 5,000 irregulars, led by a Turkish colonel, but lacking the equipment and organisation of the Greek forces.

 

The Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1964, U Thant, reported the damage during the conflicts:

 

UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances; it shows that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish-Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting.

 

The situation worsened in 1967, when a military junta overthrew the democratically elected government of Greece, and began applying pressure on Makarios to achieve enosis. Makarios, not wishing to become part of a military dictatorship or trigger a Turkish invasion, began to distance himself from the goal of enosis. This caused tensions with the junta in Greece as well as George Grivas in Cyprus. Grivas's control over the National Guard and Greek contingent was seen as a threat to Makarios's position, who now feared a possible coup.[citation needed] The National Guard and Cyprus Police began patrolling the Turkish Cypriot enclaves of Ayios Theodoros and Kophinou, and on November 15 engaged in heavy fighting with the Turkish Cypriots.

 

By the time of his withdrawal 26 Turkish Cypriots had been killed. Turkey replied with an ultimatum demanding that Grivas be removed from the island, that the troops smuggled from Greece in excess of the limits of the Treaty of Alliance be removed, and that the economic blockades on the Turkish Cypriot enclaves be lifted. Grivas was recalled by the Athens Junta and the 12,000 Greek troops were withdrawn. Makarios now attempted to consolidate his position by reducing the number of National Guard troops, and by creating a paramilitary force loyal to Cypriot independence. In 1968, acknowledging that enosis was now all but impossible, Makarios stated, "A solution by necessity must be sought within the limits of what is feasible which does not always coincide with the limits of what is desirable."

 

After 1967 tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots subsided. Instead, the main source of tension on the island came from factions within the Greek Cypriot community. Although Makarios had effectively abandoned enosis in favour of an 'attainable solution', many others continued to believe that the only legitimate political aspiration for Greek Cypriots was union with Greece.

 

On his arrival, Grivas began by establishing a nationalist paramilitary group known as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B or EOKA-B), drawing comparisons with the EOKA struggle for enosis under the British colonial administration of the 1950s.

 

The military junta in Athens saw Makarios as an obstacle. Makarios's failure to disband the National Guard, whose officer class was dominated by mainland Greeks, had meant the junta had practical control over the Cypriot military establishment, leaving Makarios isolated and a vulnerable target.

 

During the first Turkish invasion, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus territory on 20 July 1974, invoking its rights under the Treaty of Guarantee. This expansion of Turkish-occupied zone violated International Law as well as the Charter of the United Nations. Turkish troops managed to capture 3% of the island which was accompanied by the burning of the Turkish Cypriot quarter, as well as the raping and killing of women and children. A temporary cease-fire followed which was mitigated by the UN Security Council. Subsequently, the Greek military Junta collapsed on July 23, 1974, and peace talks commenced in which a democratic government was installed. The Resolution 353 was broken after Turkey attacked a second time and managed to get a hold of 37% of Cyprus territory. The Island of Cyprus was appointed a Buffer Zone by the United Nations, which divided the island into two zones through the 'Green Line' and put an end to the Turkish invasion. Although Turkey announced that the occupied areas of Cyprus to be called the Federated Turkish State in 1975, it is not legitimised on a worldwide political scale. The United Nations called for the international recognition of independence for the Republic of Cyprus in the Security Council Resolution 367.

 

In the years after the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus one can observe a history of failed talks between the two parties. The 1983 declaration of the independent Turkish Republic of Cyprus resulted in a rise of inter-communal tensions and made it increasingly hard to find mutual understanding. With Cyprus' interest of a possible EU membership and a new UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1997 new hopes arose for a fresh start. International involvement from sides of the US and UK, wanting a solution to the Cyprus dispute prior to the EU accession led to political pressures for new talks. The believe that an accession without a solution would threaten Greek-Turkish relations and acknowledge the partition of the island would direct the coming negotiations.

 

Over the course of two years a concrete plan, the Annan plan was formulated. In 2004 the fifth version agreed upon from both sides and with the endorsement of Turkey, US, UK and EU then was presented to the public and was given a referendum in both Cypriot communities to assure the legitimisation of the resolution. The Turkish Cypriots voted with 65% for the plan, however the Greek Cypriots voted with a 76% majority against. The Annan plan contained multiple important topics. Firstly it established a confederation of two separate states called the United Cyprus Republic. Both communities would have autonomous states combined under one unified government. The members of parliament would be chosen according to the percentage in population numbers to ensure a just involvement from both communities. The paper proposed a demilitarisation of the island over the next years. Furthermore it agreed upon a number of 45000 Turkish settlers that could remain on the island. These settlers became a very important issue concerning peace talks. Originally the Turkish government encouraged Turks to settle in Cyprus providing transfer and property, to establish a counterpart to the Greek Cypriot population due to their 1 to 5 minority. With the economic situation many Turkish-Cypriot decided to leave the island, however their departure is made up by incoming Turkish settlers leaving the population ratio between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots stable. However all these points where criticised and as seen in the vote rejected mainly by the Greek Cypriots. These name the dissolution of the „Republic of Cyprus", economic consequences of a reunion and the remaining Turkish settlers as reason. Many claim that the plan was indeed drawing more from Turkish-Cypriot demands then Greek-Cypriot interests. Taking in consideration that the US wanted to keep Turkey as a strategic partner in future Middle Eastern conflicts.

 

A week after the failed referendum the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU. In multiple instances the EU tried to promote trade with Northern Cyprus but without internationally recognised ports this spiked a grand debate. Both side endure their intention of negotiations, however without the prospect of any new compromises or agreements the UN is unwilling to start the process again. Since 2004 negotiations took place in numbers but without any results, both sides are strongly holding on to their position without an agreeable solution in sight that would suit both parties.

The modern Phileas Fogg, the well known protagonist in the 1873 Jules Verne' novel "Around the World in Eighty Days", is called "Mackinac Bridge":

 

IMO number: 9689603

MMSI: 431241000

Call sign: 7JUR

Year of built: 2015 (FIRST SET SAIL ON AUGUST 28, 2015)

AIS Type: Cargo

Type of ship: CONTAINER SHIP

Length and breadth: 366m (1201ft) × 51m (167ft)

Draught: 15m ( 49ft)

Cruising speed: 22kn / 25 mph / 41 kmh

Gross tonnage: 155000 tons

DWT: 145500 tons

Crew capacity: 22 PERONS

Builder: IMABARI SHIPBUILDING HIROSHIMA SHIPYARD‎ - MIHARA, JAPAN

Flag: PANAMA

Class society: NIPPON KAIJI KYOKAI

Manager & owner: K LINE - TOKYO, JAPAN

 

By its TEU/container capacity, the 14000 TEU boxship (to be precise: 13,870 TEU / 1,000 TEU refrigerated containers (reefers)) is among the world’s largest container ships. The ship is named after the “Mackinac Bridge” that connects the Upper and Lower peninsula of Michigan (USA). By length (8km /26370ft) it is the 16th longest suspension bridge in the world.

 

The Mackinac Bridge’s scheduled itinerary is servicing ports in the following regions: China (Xiamen, Yantian, Hong Kong, Shekou), Taiwan (Kaohsiung), Singapore, Holland (Rotterdam), Germany (Hamburg), UK (Felixtowe), Belgium (Antwerp), Saudi Arabia (Jeddah) with a Suez Canal transition.

 

It takes the vessel roughly 84 days to circle the globe. And that includes port time. The actual sailing time is 6 days shorter than the 80 days Phileas Fogg and his French servant Jean Passepartout used to circumnavigate the world.

 

Technical stuff

One single shot. Due to the wind a HDR was not possible. But I manged to take a stable long exposure (mind the small star trails;-) by shielding the camera with my body from the wind).

Post-production was done with PS CC. I fiddled with the coloring, sharpening, curves, toning, cropping and finally added the copyright sign (which is alas necessary due to the frequent coping of my photos without permission).

 

EL VAIXELL. Un dels grans protagonistes de Mar i Cel

 

EL MÓN DE RAC 1 - EN DIRECTE DES DEL TEATRE VICTÒRIA .

 

At some point, I will build some "real" Gundams/mobile suits, but I didn't want to follow any rules building this. So, it's pretty much a combination of my favorite "hero" Gundams: 00, Wing, Seed, Seed Destiny.

rollei6008pro-distagon50-tmax400-rodinal

Altaïr, the protagonist of the first Assassin's Creed game.

 

I made the "eagle's beak" of the hood using Sugru (look it up, it's great stuff). The hidden blade was made in the same way most people seem to: I cut the two outer blades off one of the Prince of Persia tri-claw pieces. Incidentally, I've found that the cut-off blades work quite well as throwing knives, so I may put up a photo showing that at some point, along with the Short Blade which I haven't included here. The Syrian Sabre (visible in the top left photo, as Altaïr uses it to kill a Saracen captain while a Templar Knight looks on) is a basic Lego cutlass with the guard cut a little narrower, and painted with metallic silver and gold.

 

This is my first experiment with arm-decals that wrap around the arm rather than sitting flat on the outer side. I think it looks good, but unfortunately the stickers are prone to peeling off due to the curvature.

 

I played Assassin's Creed for the first time about a year ago, and I immediately fell in love with it. The gameplay, the story, the music, the world...it's all fantastic, even on my laptop. I'm hoping to build a gaming PC at some point, and I can't wait to go back to AC1 to see it in its proper glory...

 

(The font I used can be found here: www.dafont.com/assassin.font )

writingwithcolor: Before you say, Write your own! – let me tell you that we do. But this page is a resource for writers, so we thought writers might want to know what kinds of representation would make us more likely to get excited about your book. We don’t speak for everyone in our demographic, just ourselves, but we hope this post gives you some cool writing ideas. Note: This is additional info writers can keep in mind when writing characters of those backgrounds. We believe it’s a good thing to ask the people you’re including what they’d like to see. Actually hearing from misrepresented and underrepresented people and asking us what we’d like to see of ourselves is much better than unthinkingly tossing characters into tired tropes or reinforcing stereotypes that do us harm. Colette (Black): More Black people doing shit! Going on adventures, riding dragons, being magical! More Black characters in prominent roles in fantasy + sci-fi and historical settings and not always and only as slavess. These stories are important, but they’re NOT our only stories. We were kings and queens too. Let us wear the fancy dresses for a change instead of the chains, damn it! More Black girls being portrayed as lovely and treasured and worth protecting. More Black girls finding love. More Black girls in general who aren’t relegated to arc-less, cliche “Sassy best friends” and “strong black women.” More positive, dynamic roles of Black men (fathers, brothers, boys…) More positive, dynamic family roles of Black families as a whole, families that are loving and supportive and there. More Black people from all socioeconomic classes. More Black characters that don’t rely on the stereotypes that the media is currently going full force to reinforce. Yasmin (Arab, Turkish): More Arabs who aren’t token characters. I want to see Arabs normalised in literature. Arab teenagers in high school, Arab young adults behind on their taxes, Arab dads who cook amazing food, Arab moms who refuse to soften their tongue for others. Arabs who aren’t mystical fantasy creatures from another planet. Arabs in YAs and in dramas and nonfiction and comedies and children’s books. We are human just like everyone else, and I’d like to see that reflected in literature. Often we are boxed into very specific genres of literature and made to feel ostracised from the rest. Let’s see some change! Alice (Black, biracial): I’m hoping for more Black and biracial (mixed with Black) leading characters in all genres, but mainly in SF/F who fall outside of the stereotypes. Characters I can relate to who love, cry and fight for their ideals and dreams. It would be great if their race would play an active role in their identities (I don’t mean plot-related). Some intersectionality with sexuality and disability is also sorely missed, without it becoming a tragedy or it being seen as a character flaw. More mixed race characters who aren’t mixed with some kind of monster, fictional race or different species. Dystopias about problems usually faced by poc having actual poc protags, without all the racial ambiguity which always gets whitewashed. Shira (Jewish): More Jewish characters who feel positively about their Judaism and don’t carry it around as a burden or embarrassment. While the latter is definitely a real part of our experience due to anti-Semitism and all we’ve been through as a people, the fact that it overrepresents us in fiction is also due to anti-Semitism, even internalized. (Basically, Jews who don’t hate Judaism!) More brave, heroic characters who are openly Jewish instead of being inspired by the Jewish experience and created by Jews (like Superman) or played by Jews (Captain Kirk) but still not actually Jewish. I’m tired of always being Tolkien’s Dwarves; I’d like a chance to play Bard, Bilbo, or even Gandalf’s role in that kind of story. Elaney (Mexican): While we’re discussing what sort of representation we’d like to see, I am using the word “latinista” and I want to quickly address that since you may have not seen it before: “-ista” is a genderless suffix denoting someone is from an area (“Nortista”, a northerner), or who practices a belief (“Calvinista”, a calvinist), or a professsion (you’ve heard ‘barista’). I find it more intuitively pronounceable than “latinx” and also more friendly to Spanish, French, and Portugueze pronunciation (and thus more appropriate), personally, so I invite you to consider it as an alternative. If you don’t like it, well, at least I showed you. 1. I want legal Latinista immigrants. The darker your skin is down here, the more likely you are to be assumed to be illegal by your peers, and I want media to dilute this assumption so many have of us. 2. I want Latinistas who are well educated, not just smart, and I mean formally educated, with college degrees, professional skillsets, and trained expertise. Being in fields which do not require a formal degree is no less legitimate of a lifestyle than being in a field which requires a PhD, but I want you to consider when casting your Latinista character that We, as a people, are assumed to be little more than the drop-out and the janitor by our peers, and People Of Color in scientific fields are mistaken as assistant staff rather than the scientists that they are. I want media to dilute this assumption. 3. I want Latnistas who are not marketed as “Latin American” but as their actual country of origin, because “Latin America” is a conglomerate of individual entities with their own, distinct cultures and if you are, for example, Cuban, then Mexican characters may appeal to you but they don’t have the same relatability as fellow Cuban characters. Wouldn’t you be a little more interested, too, to pick up a book that’s about a character who lives where you do rather than about a character who lives somewhere in general? 4. I want rich or well-to-do Latinistas. Looking back, I notice that several of the character concepts that have been bounced off of us with regards to Latinista characters incorporate poverty despite an astronomical and diligent work ethic. I don’t think this is on purpose but I do think that it is internalized because so often the stereotype of us is poor and uneducated in a vicious cycle (uneducated because we’re poor, poor because we’re uneducated) and I think that there should be more media to dilute this. Lastly, I personally do not want these tropes to be explored and subverted by people, I want them to be avoided entirely because I feel that normalizing positive representation rather than commenting on negative representation is far more beneficial and validating to the people these works are supposed to help and represent. We don’t need sympathy, we need empathy! Jess (Chinese, Taiwanese): Stories that don’t center around the identity of being Chinese-American. That doesn’t mean “erase any references to protag’s Chinese identity” but I’d definitely like stories that have us go on awesome adventures every now and then and don’t have the Chinese character being all “I AM CHINESE” from beginning to end. Please round out the Chinese migrant parents instead of keeping them as strict and/or traditional. PLEASE. I could go into how my parents and the Chinese aunties and uncles here are so awesome, seriously, and we need more older Chinese migrant characters who are awesome and supportive and just people. Also! EAST ASIAN GIRLS WHO AREN’T SKINNY AND/OR PETITE. Please. PLEEEEEASE. And more stories about Taiwanese and Chinese folks who aren’t in bicoastal regions (the Midwest, the Plains, etc.) WE EXIST. More Chinese-Americans who aren’t necessarily Christian. Maybe it’s because of the books I’ve wound up reading, but there seems to be this narrative of Chinese migrants joining churches and converting when they’re in the US. This doesn’t mean I want less Chinese-American Christians in fiction, mind: I’d also just like to see more Chinese families in the US who are Buddhist or who still keep up with the traditions they learned from their homelands, like me, without having it considered in the narrative as ~old fashioned~ or ~ancient~ or ~mystical~. Tangentially, when writing non-Christian Chinese families, I’d rather people keep the assumption of Communism being the underlying reason why far, far away. I have been asked in the past if Communism was why my family didn’t go to church, and needless to say, it’s really, really offensive. Stella (Korean): I’d love to see more Korean (and Asian-American) characters that don’t perpetuate the super-overachieving, stressed-out, only-cares-about-succeeding Asian stereotype. These Koreans exist (I would know; I went to school with quite a few of them) but they don’t represent all of us. I want to see more Korean characters solving mysteries, saving the world and having fun. More Koreans that aren’t pale, petite, and a size 2. Not all of us have perfect skin or straight black hair or monolids. And some of us love our short legs, round faces and small eyes! And fewer stoic&strict Korean parents, please. So many of us grew up with loud, wacky, so-embarrassing-but-endearing parents! Recently, there’s been quite a few novels with Korean American female protags (particularly in the YA section) that deal with being in high school, dealing with strict parents, getting into college, and boys. Lots of boys! I think it’s awesome that there are more books with KA protags, and I’m so so so glad they’re out there. But I also recognize that those are definitely not the kind of books I would have read as a teenager, and it’s not the kind of book I want to read now. I want to see more Korean characters that are queer, trans, ace, bisexual. More Korean characters that are disabled or autistic or have mental illnesses. More Korean characters in fantasy, SFF, mystery! Heck, space operas and steampunk Westerns. I want it all! :DDDD A lot of Korean-Americans struggle with their identity. It’s hard to balance things sometimes! But I’d love to see more stories that *aren’t* overtly about Korean-Americans dealing with their racial identity or sexual orientation, but stories about Koreans saving princesses and slaying trolls and commandeering spaceships. I want a plot that doesn’t center on Korean-American identity, but on a Korean-American character discovering themselves. White characters get to do it all the time; I want Korean characters to have a turn. And honestly, I just want to see more Asians in media, period. South Asians, Southeast Asians, Central Asians! Thai, Hmong, Tibetan, Filipino, Vietnamese characters. Indian characters! There’s so much diversity in Asia and among Asian diaspora. I want us to be more than just ~~mystical~~ characters with ancient wisdom and a generic Asian accent. We’ve got boundless oceans of stories within ourselves and our communities, and I can’t wait for them to be told. I would also love to see more multiethnic Asian characters that are *not* half white. It seems to be the default mixed-race Asian character: East Asian and white. But so many of my friends have multiethnic backgrounds like Chinese/Persian, Thai/Chinese or Korean/Mexican. I have Korean friends who grew up in places like Brazil, Singapore and Russia. Did you know that the country with the largest population of Koreans (outside of Korea) is actually China? And while I’m at it, I’d love to see more well-translated works from Asia in the US. Like, how awesome would it be to have more science fiction, fantasy, and historical novels from Asia that are easily accessible in English? SUPER awesome!! Kaye (Muslim): I am so hungry for Muslim representation, because there is so little of it. You can see one or two (YA) titles I currently think or have heard are good representation on the shelves - notably, Aisha Saeed’s Written in the Stars - on an AMA I did the other day for /r/YAwriters. However, I’d just love to see stories where Muslim characters go on adventures like everyone else! I’ve been saying recently that I’d LOVE to see a cozy mystery. Or a series of Muslim historical romances a la Georgette Heyer (there are a LOT of Muslim girls who love romances, and I’m just starting to get into the genre myself!). I’d love to see Muslim middle grade readers get girls who find secret passages, solve mysteries, tumble through the neighborhood with their dozen or so cousins. I have a lot of cousins and thus I always have a soft spot for cousins. And siblings. I’m looking forward to Scarlett Undercover by Jennifer Latham because Jen is writing Scarlett as a detective a la Veronica Mars. And she’s Somali-American. How cool is that?! Let’s see some classic road trip YA with Muslims. Let’s see comedies with quirky characters - for instance, I know one or two tween Muslim girls who are driving their moms MAD by suddenly turning vegetarian and refusing to touch the celebratory biryani at family Eid parties, who join relevant societies at their schools and start preaching to their extended families about the benefits of going vegetarian and all the funny little interactions that are involved with that. Let’s have a story with some wise-cracking African American Muslim girls. My cousin is a niqaabi who loves YA and hates that she doesn’t see herself in it. Let’s see some stories with teen niqaabis! Let’s explore the full, joyful spectrum of diversity in Islam. Let’s have stories where we talk about how one word in Bengali is totally different in another language, and one friend is hilariously horrified and the other friend doesn’t know what he/she said. (True story.) I want to see joy. I want to see happiness. Being a woman of color and a hijaabi often means facing so many daily, disheartening scenarios and prejudice and hatefulness. So many of the suggested tropes recently in the inbox focus on trying to force Muslim characters into beastly or haraam or just sad and stereotypical scenarios. I know that writers are better and have bigger imaginations than that. You want angst? Push aside the cold, unkind, abusive Muslim parents trope. Let’s talk about the Muslim girls I know who have struggled with eating disorders. Let’s talk about Islamophobia and how that is a REAL, horrible experience that Muslim kids have to fear and combat every day. Let’s approach contemporary angst without the glasses of the Western gaze and assumptions about people of the Islamic faith on. We can have Muslim novels that focus on growing pains like Sarah Dessen and Judy Blume (and speaking of that, my “auntie” who used to teach in a madrasah used to press Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret on the Muslim girls she knew because of how Margaret approached growing up and had concerns about her faith and her relationships, etc.) Having Shia friends, I would like to see more stories that aren’t just assumed to be Sunni. How about stories about Su-Shi kids, too? (Sunni and Shia - the name always surprises me!) Let’s see some Muslim-Jewish friendships. Because they exist. And of course, I always, always hunger for Muslim voices first. Because it’s so important to have these voices there, from the source, and some of the issues with answering here at WWC is how people seem to be approaching certain tropes that a Muslim writer could explore with the nuance and lived experience of their faith behind it.

The protagonist for the game Guacamelee!

 

Unfortunately, I started this bust before MOCathalon, and thus I couldn't enter it into the contest, but I still felt like posting it here.

 

Guacamelee! is a fun 2d platformer with combat like the Batman: Arkham games, and the visual style of a Dia de Los Muertos parade (or Day of the Dead), all set to a pumping soundtrack. I would definitely recommend it to any fans of Metroidviana style games.

"In full jump, the protagonist, in a sudden explosion of energy, exceeds gravity. He/She cannot control his facial expressions, his gestures and the muscles of his members. The mask falls. The true person is done visible. It is just necessary to catch this moment with the camera"

P HALSMAN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Halsman)

 

These pictures were taken near/in a closed-down factory in Paris. Arthur is both a comedian and a dancer and we previously worked together on a short film. For that shot, he came with two friends of him (Anne-Laure & Natacha) who attend the same dance course in Paris...Thanks to all of them for this wonderful afternoon!

  

The withdrawal of Laguna was an episode of the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870), immortalized in literature by the pen of one of its protagonists, the future Viscount Taunay. After the seizure of Amambaí Gunboat Navy of Brazil, the Paraguay River, and the invasion of the then Province of Mato Grosso forces the Paraguayan Army in December 1864, declared the war, one of the first Brazilian reaction was to send a military contingent Earth to fight the invaders.

  

The story of the heroes of Laguna started when the imperial government decided to expel the Paraguayans who had invaded the province. Thus, the Brazilian army has come in two years, 2.112km walk, leaving Rio de Janeiro to the current state of Mato Grosso. On July 18, 1865, the 3000 men arrived at the river Parnaíba. Under the orders of Colonel Carlos de Morais Camisão they marched Nioaque and from there to the farm garden, the river Miranda, owned by Francisco José Lopes. The farmer offered as a guide for the Army and donated his oxen to feed them.

 

On May 7, 1867, the column of Colonel Camisão then with 1,680 men, strongly attacked the Paraguayan army in Laguna, Paraguay. Despite initial successes, the lack of provisions made Brazilian troops withdraw, the victim of disease and starvation. With this, the colonel decided to withdraw Camisão Laguna.

 

Have the heroes of Golden were 16 men on December 28, 1864, as members of the detachment of Lieutenant Antonio João, bravely resisted the onslaught of 300 Paraguayans who attacked the military colony in Mato Grosso. Having refused to surrender, the Brazilians died fighting to the last man.

 

To remember these two episodes, the Army carried out a public tender in 1918, with the goal of developing the design of a monument. Held the contest in 1920, won the design sculptor Antonino Pinto de Matos. This project was stored for 15 years, being implemented only in November 1935.

  

Céus de glória

 

A retirada da Laguna foi um episódio da Guerra da Tríplice Aliança (1864-1870), imortalizado na literatura pela pena de um de seus protagonistas, o futuro visconde de Taunay. Após a apreensão da Canhoneira Amambaí da Marinha do Brasil, o Rio Paraguai, e da invasão da então Província de Mato Grosso obriga o Exército paraguaio, em Dezembro de 1864, declarou a guerra, uma das primeira reação brasileira foi enviar um contingente militar para Terra lutar contra os invasores.

  

A história dos heróis da Laguna começou quando o governo imperial decidiu expulsar os paraguaios que haviam invadido a província. Assim, o Exército Brasileiro chegou em dois anos, 2,112 quilômetros a pé, deixando o Rio de Janeiro com o estado atual de Mato Grosso. Em 18 de julho de 1865, os 3.000 homens chegaram ao rio Parnaíba. Sob as ordens do coronel Carlos de Morais Camisão marcharam Nioaque e de lá para o jardim fazenda, o rio Miranda, de propriedade de Francisco José Lopes. O fazendeiro ofereceu como guia para o Exército e doou seus bois para alimentá-los.

 

Em 7 de maio de 1867, a coluna do coronel Camisão, em seguida, com 1.680 homens, atacou fortemente o exército paraguaio em Laguna, no Paraguai. Apesar dos sucessos iniciais, a falta de provisões feitas tropas brasileiras retirar, vítima de doença e fome. Com isso, o coronel decidiu retirar Camisão Laguna.

 

Tem os heróis de Ouro eram 16 homens em 28 de dezembro de 1864, como membros do destacamento do tenente Antonio João, resistiu bravamente ao ataque de 300 paraguaios que atacaram a colônia militar em Mato Grosso. Tendo se recusou a entregar, os brasileiros morreram lutando até o último homem.

 

Para lembrar esses dois episódios, o Exército realizou um concurso público em 1918, com o objetivo de desenvolver o projeto de um monumento. Realizado o concurso, em 1920, ganhou o escultor projeto Antonino Pinto de Matos. Este projeto foi armazenado por 15 anos, sendo implementada apenas em novembro de 1935.

  

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Rama (/ˈrɑːmə/; Sanskrit: राम Rāma) also known as Raghava, is the seventh avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, and a king of Ayodhya. Rama is also the protagonist of the Hindu epic Ramayana, which narrates his idealistic ideas and his greatness. Rama is one of the many popular figures and deities in Hinduism, specifically Vaishnavism and Vaishnava religious scriptures in South and Southeast Asia. Along with Krishna, Rama is considered to be one of the most important avatars of Vishnu. In a few Rama-centric sects, he is considered the Supreme Being, rather than an avatar.

 

Born as the eldest son of Kausalya and Dasharatha, king of Ayodhya, Rama is referred to within Hinduism as Maryada Purushottama, literally the Perfect Man or Lord of Self-Control or Lord of Virtue. His wife Sita is considered by Hindus to be an avatar of Lakshmi and the embodiment of perfect womanhood.

 

Rama's life and journey is one of adherence to dharma despite harsh tests and obstacles and many pains of life and time. For the sake of his father's honour, Rama abandons his claim to Ayodhaya's throne to serve an exile of fourteen years in the forest. His wife Sita and brother Lakshmana decide to join him, and all three spend the fourteen years in exile together. While in exile, Sita is kidnapped by Ravana, the Rakshasa monarch of Lanka. After a long and arduous search, Rama fights a colossal war against Ravana's armies. In a war of powerful and magical beings, greatly destructive weaponry and battles, Rama slays Ravana in battle and liberates his wife. Having completed his exile, Rama returns to be crowned king in Ayodhya and eventually becomes emperor, rules with happiness, peace, duty, prosperity and justice - a period known as Ram Rajya.

The legend of Rama is deeply influential and popular in the societies of the Indian subcontinent and across South East Asia. Rama is revered for his unending compassion, courage and devotion to religious values and duty.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The name Rama appears repeatedly in Hindu scriptures. Besides the name of the protagonist of the Ramayana (subject of the current article), the name is also given to other heroes including Parashu-Rama (Bhargava Rama) and Balarama (Bala-Rama).

 

In the Vishnu sahasranama, Rama is the 394th name of Vishnu. In the interpretation of Adi Shankara's commentary, translated by Swami Tapasyananda of the Ramakrishna Mission, Rama has two meanings: the supreme Brahman who is the eternally blissful spiritual Self in whom yogis delight, or the One (i.e., Vishnu) who out of His own will assumed the enchanting form of Rama, the son of Dasaratha.

 

Other names of Rama include Ramavijaya (Javanese), Phreah Ream (Khmer), Phra Ram (Lao and Thai), Megat Seri Rama (Malay), Raja Bantugan (Maranao) and Ramar (Tamil).

 

The greatness of chanting of Rama's name is mentioned in the Ramacharitamanasa.

 

In Sanskrit, the word Rama (राम) means 'charming'. The name is commonly given to male in India and Nepal.

 

Some of the popular names of Rama are:

 

Rama - charming

Ramachandra - Rama with a moon Raghava - descendent of Raghu

Siyaavar - husband of Sita

Ayodhyapati - king of Ayodhya

Dashrathaputra - son of Dasharatha

Maryada-Purushottam - best ideal man

Shriram

Dashrathi - Son of King Dashrath

 

SOURCES

The primary source of the life and journey of Rama is the epic Ramayana as composed by the Rishi Valmiki. The Vishnu Purana also recounts Rama as Vishnu's seventh avatar, and in the Bhagavata Purana, ninth skandha, adhyayas 10 & 11, the story of the Ramayana is again recounted in brief up to and including the slaying of Ravana and Prince Rama's return to Ayodhya. Additionally, the tales of Rama are reverently spoken of in the Mahabharata. The earliest documentation of Ram is in the Buddhist text of Dasharatha Jataka.

 

Composition of Ramayana in its current form is usually dated to 7th - 4th Century BCE. However, other scriptures in Sanskrit also reflect the life of Ramayana. The followers of Madhvacharya believe that an older version of the Ramayana, the mula-Ramayana, previously existed. They consider it to have been more authoritative than the version by Valmiki. Another important shortened version of the epic in Sanskrit is the Adhyatma Ramayana. The seventh century CE Sanskrit "Bhatti's Poem" Bhaṭṭikāvya of Bhatti who lived in Gujarat, is a retelling of the epic that simultaneously illustrates the grammatical examples for Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī as well as the major figures of speech and the Prakrit language.

 

Versions of the Ramayana exist in most major Indian languages; examples that elaborate on the life, deeds and divine philosophies of Rama include the epic poem Ramavataram by the 12th-century poet Kambar in Tamil, and Ramcharitmanas, a Hindi version of the Ramayana by the 16th-century saint, Tulsidas. Contemporary versions of the Ramayana include Sri Ramayana Darshanam by Kuvempu in Kannada and Ramayana Kalpavruksham by Viswanatha Satyanarayana in Telugu, both of which have been awarded the Jnanpith Award. The epic has transformed across the diverse regions of India, which boast their own unique languages and cultural traditions.

 

The essential tale of Rama has also spread across Southeast Asia, and evolved into unique renditions of the epic – incorporating local history, folktales, religious values as well as unique features from the languages and literary discourse. The Kakawin Ramayana of Java, Indonesia, the Ramakavaca of Bali, Hikayat Seri Rama of Malaysia, Maradia Lawana of the Philippines, Ramakien of Thailand (which calls him Phra Ram) are great works with many unique characteristics and differences in accounts and portrayals of the legend of Rama. The legends of Rama are witnessed in elaborate illustration at the Wat Phra Kaew temple in Bangkok. The national epic of Myanmar, Yama Zatdaw is essentially the Burmese Ramayana, where Rama is named Yama. In the Reamker of Cambodia, Rama is known as Preah Ream. In the Phra Lak Phra Lam of Laos, Gautama Buddha is regarded as an incarnation of Rama.

 

The mythological sources propose that Rama was born about 1.2 million years ago, during the Treta Yuga, age that lasted 1,296,000 years and his birthday Rama Navami is celebrated in the month of April/May To the Valmiki Ramayana, Rama was born in Ayodhya, India, on 9th day (now celebrated across India as Ram Navami) of Chaitra lunar month (March–April), when Moon and Jupiter were rising in the east in Cancer sign and four other planets (Sun, Mars, Saturn, Venus) were exalted in their exaltation signs. Based on these star alignments, a few astrologers claimed to have calculated the exact date of birth of Lord Rama as 10 January 5114 BC between 12 noon and 1pm.

Childhood

 

BIRTH AS AN AVATAR

The Ramayana speaks of how the earth goddess Bhudevi, came to the creator-god Brahma begging to be rescued from evil kings who were plundering her resources and destroying life through bloody wars and evil conduct. The deva (gods) also came to Brahma fearful of the rule of Ravana, the ten-headed rakshasa emperor of Lanka. Ravana had overpowered the devas and now ruled the heavens, the earth and the netherworlds. Although a powerful and noble monarch, he was also arrogant, destructive and a patron of evil doers. He had boons that gave him immense strength and was invulnerable to all living and celestial beings, except man and animals.

 

Brahma, Bhumidevi and the other gods requested Vishnu, the Preserver, to intervene and free the Earth from Ravana's tyrannical rule. Vishnu promised to kill Ravana by incarnating as a man – the eldest son of Kosala's king Dasharatha. According to the Ramayana, king Dasharata remained childless for a long time and finally decided to perform a putrakameshti yaga under the supervision of the royal priest. During the ritual, Prajapati arose from the sacrificial fire and gave a vessel of sacred potion to Dasharata for distribution to his three wives. The three queens drank the divine potion and conceived four sons: Rama, Bharata, Lakshmana and Shatrughna.

Goddess Lakshmi took birth as Sita in order to accompany her consort Vishnu and was found by king Janaka of Mithila while he was ploughing a field. Vishnu's eternal companion, the Shesha is said to have incarnated as Lakshmana to stay at his Lord's side on earth. Throughout his life, no one, except a few select sages (among which are included Vasishta, Sharabhanga, Agastya and Vishwamitra) know of his destiny. Rama is continually revered by the many sages he encounters through his life, but only the most learned and exalted know of his true identity. At the end of the war between Rama and Ravana, just as Sita passes her Agni pariskha, Brahma, Indra and the gods, the celestial sages and Shiva appear out of the sky. They affirm Sita's purity and ask him to end this terrible test. Thanking the avatar for delivering the universe from the grips of evil, they reveal Rama's divine identity upon the culmination of his mission.

 

Other scriptures provide other reasons for the avatar. The chastity of Vrinda, wife of the demon Jalandhara, that protects the life of her husband is destroyed by Vishnu by deceit so that Shiva can slay the demon. She curses Vishnu to be born on earth and that in this birth of his, his wife's (Lakshmi as Sita) purity and chastity will be a question in his mind throughout his life and he will be separated from her and live with sadness and grief.

 

Another legend narrates that Jaya and Vijaya, the gatekeepers of Vishnu, were cursed by the Four Kumaras to be born on earth three lives; Vishnu took avatars each time to free them of their earthy existence. They as born as Ravana and his brother Kumbhakarna, who are both killed by Rama. Also, due to a boon, Kashyapa and Aditi are born as the parents of Rama, Dasharatha and Kausalya. In another version, Svayambhuva Manu and his wife Satarupa are blessed to be born as Rama's parents.

 

Another tale says that the sage Narada cursed Vishnu to be born on earth as a king, to be helped by monkeys and suffer separation from his wife. Narada also curses Jaya and Vijaya to be born as the demon brothers.

 

INITIATION OF THE AVATAR

Sage Vishwamitra takes the two princes, Rama and Lakshmana, to his ashram, as he needs Rama's help in slaying several Rakshasas that have been harassing him and several other sages living in the area. Rama's first encounter is with a Rakshasi named Taataka, who is a celestial nymph cursed to take the form of a demoness. Vishwamitra explains that she has polluted much of the habitat where the sages reside and there will not be any contentment until she is destroyed. Rama has some reservations about killing a woman, but since Taataka poses such a big threat to the Rishis and he is expected to follow their word, he fights with Taataka and kills her with an arrow. After her death, the surrounding forest becomes greener and cleaner. Vishwamitra presents Rama with several astras and sastras (divine weapons) that will be of use to him in the future, and Rama masters the knowledge of all the weapons and their uses. Vishwamitra then tells Rama and Lakshmana that soon, he along with some of his disciples, will perform a yagna for seven days and nights that will be of great benefit to the world, and the two princes must keep close watch for the two sons of Taadaka, Mareecha and Subahu, who will try to defile the yagna at all costs. The princes therefore keep a strong vigil for all of the days, and on the seventh day they spot Maricha and Subahu coming with a whole host of Raakshasas ready to pour bones and blood into the fire. Rama points his bow at the two, and with one arrow kills Subahu, and with the other arrow flings Mareecha thousands of miles away into the ocean. Rama deals with the rest of the demons. The yagna is completed successfully

 

Rama also frees Ahalya, the wife of Gautama Maharishi, from a curse. She was cursed to turn into stone by her husband after a displeasing incident. However, the dust on Rama's feet touched the stone and turned it back into a woman again. Gautama Maharishi was gratified that everything was back to normal again.

 

Sage Vishwamitra then takes the two princes to the Swayamvara a wedding ceremony for Sita. The challenge is to string the bow of Shiva (Pinaka) and shoot an arrow from it. This task is considered impossible for any ordinary king or living being, as this is the personal weapon of Shiva, more powerful, holy and of divine creation than conceivable. While attempting to string the bow, Rama breaks it in two. This feat of strength spreads his fame across the worlds and seals his marriage to Sita, celebrated as Vivaha Panchami.

After Rama weds Sita and the entire royal family and the Ayodhya army begin their journey back, the great rishi Parashurama (Bhargava Rama) appears before them, having descended from his mountainous hermitage. Parashurama is an extremely powerful rishi, responsible for killing all of the world's tyrannical and oppressive emperors and kings 21 times. He is the sixth Avatara of Vishnu, and finds it unbelievable that anybody could break the bow of Shiva. Considering himself to still be the most powerful warrior-rishi on earth, he brings with them the bow of Vishnu (Saranga), and intends to challenge Rama to prove his strength by stringing it, and then fighting a battle with him to prove superiority. Although the entire Ayodhya army is forestalled by his mystical power, Rama is himself angered. He respectfully bows to Parashurama, and within a twinkling of an eyelid snatches the bow of Vishnu, (that is his own, an example of irony here) strings it, places an arrow and points it straight at the challenger's heart. Rama asks Parashurama what he will give as a target to the arrow. At this point, Parashurama feels himself devoid of the tremendous mystical energy he possessed for so long. He realizes that Rama is Vishnu incarnate, his successor and definitely his superior. He accepts Rama's superiority, devotes his tapasya to him, pays homage to Rama and promises to return to his hermitage and leave the world of men.Rama then shoots the arrow up into the sky with Vishnu's bow, performing a feat true to his supreme, divine nature with his natural weapon. His overpowering of Parashurama and using the supreme weapon with incredible ease and perfection dazzle the spectators and his relatives, but no one save Parashurama and Vasishta associate this with his true identity. It is said that the Rama's arrow is still flying across space, across time and across all of the universe. The day it will return to earth, it is said, it will bring the end of the world. Others say that the flying arrow destroys all evil on earth to uphold dharma and righteousness.

 

DHARMA OF EXILE

King Dasaratha announces to Ayodhya that he plans to crown Rama, his eldest child the Yuvaraja (crown prince). While the news is welcomed by everyone in the kingdom, the mind of queen Kaikeyi is poisoned by her wicked maid-servant, Manthara. Kaikeyi, who is initially pleased for Rama, is made to fear for the safety and future of her son Bharata. Fearing that Rama would ignore or possibly victimize his younger brother for the sake of power, Kaikeyi demands that Dasaratha banish Rama to a forest exile for fourteen years, and that Bharata be crowned in Rama's place. She had been granted two boons by the king when she had saved his life a long time ago in battle, and the queen now used them to serve her purpose. The king's court and the people are outraged at this turn of events. Dasaratha loved and cherished Rama dearly, and is in personal turmoil. Completely estranged now from his younger wife, he abhors the prospect of separation from Rama. But Rama realizes that the king must not break a solemn promise at any time, and neither should a son disobey his father's command. Sita joins her husband in exile despite his discouraging her, as it is her duty and out of love for Rama that she must be at his side at all times. His younger brother Lakshmana also immediately decides to join Rama rather than remain in the city. As he leaves for exile, the people of Ayodhya are deeply saddened and angered at Dasaratha and Kaikeyi. Dasaratha's heart is broken and he collapses and dies during the night of the sixth day, unable to bear the agony of separation from Rama. Despite the reasoning of Vashistha and the pleas of his brothers, Rama refuses to return. Although horrified at the news of his father's death, Rama finds it impossible that he should break his dead father's word. Rama does not bear any anger towards Kaikeyi, believing firmly in the power of destiny. According to the explanation of the classic, this exile actually presents Rama the opportunity to confront Ravana and his evil empire.

 

RAMA AND SITA

Rama and Sita are the protagonists in one of the most famous[peacock term] love stories of all time. Described as being deeply in love, Sita and Rama are theologically understood as Incarnations of Lakshmi and Vishnu respectively. When Rama is banished from the kingdom, he attempts to convince Sita not to join him in a potentially dangerous and certainly arduous existence in the jungle, but Sita rejects this. When Rama orders her in his capacity as husband, Sita rejects it, asserting that it was an essential duty of a wife to be at her husband's side come good or ill. Rama in turn is assiduously protective and caring for Sita throughout the exile.

 

When Sita is kidnapped by Ravana, both Sita and Rama undergo great personal hardships during their separation. Sita protects her chastity assiduously, and survives over a year in captivity on the strength of her love and attention to religious values and duty. She is completely unfettered in her resolve despite Ravana's courting, cajoling and threats. Meanwhile, Rama, not knowing who had kidnapped Sita or where was she taken, often succumbs to despair and tears, denouncing himself for failing to defend her and agonizing over her safety and pain. Sita knows that it is in Rama's destiny to fight to rescue her (she refuses to be rescued thus by Hanuman, who discovers her), but is deeply anxious for his safety and fearful of Ravana's power.

 

The 'Wedding of Rama and Sita' concerns two entities coming together to form a whole. An Indian marriage forges an alliance not only between two people, but also two families. The marriage of Sita and Rama creates an alliance between two people, two families, and two kingdoms: Mithila, home of Sita, and Kosala, home of Rama. Furthermore, Rama's marriage to Sita on earth parallels the celestial union of Vishnu and Lakshmi; each deity took birth on earth, and so when Rama marries Sita, he is actually reuniting with his divine consort Lakshmi, Goddess of Good Fortune, who brings prosperity to Kosala. At an allegorical level, the union of Rama and Sita represents the relationship between God and the devotee, with Rama as the beloved divine king and Sita as his devotee. Finally, at a societal level, the dance drama brings together north and south Indian dance traditions.

 

AGNI PARIKSHA

Lord Rama sent a messenger to Ravana that said, "Come to me and I will forgive you," before he slays Ravana. After Rama slays Ravana and wins the war, Sita wants to come before him in the state which over a year's imprisonment had reduced her to, but Rama arranges for Sita to be bathed and given beautiful garments before they are re-united. But even as Sita comes before him in great excitement and happiness,the society starts doubting Sita's purity so Rama decided to prove that his Sita is still pure and chaste in front of the society, so he tells her that she has to give Agni pariksha. At this sudden turn of events, all the vanaras, rakshasas, Sugriva, Hanuman and Lakshmana are deeply shocked.

Sita begs Lakshmana to build her a pyre upon which she could end her life, as she could not live without Rama. At this point, Lakshmana is angered at Rama for the first time in his life, but following Rama's nod, he builds a pyre for Sita. At the great shock and sorrow of the watchers, Sita sits into the flames. But to their astonishment and wonder, she is completely unharmed. Instead, she glows radiantly from the centre of the pyre. But the gods headed by Brahma and Shiva appear, reveal Rama's and Sita's true identity and requests that Rama take Sita back as she is truly pure. Rama replies that he had never doubted her purity for a second, but, the people of the world would not have accepted or honoured her as a queen or a woman if she had not passed this Agni pariksha before the eyes of hundreds. Agni would destroy the impure and sinful, but not touch the pure and innocent, irrespective of Parvati's/Adishakti's curse on him. There is a version of Tulsidas's Ramacharitamanasa, which is popular, which states that Rama had Sita under the protection of Agni God. After Sita was released it was necessary to bring her out of security of Agni god.[50] This finds echo in the sthala purana of Tirupathi. Another version of this, used in Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan, was that Rama had known Sita was going to be abducted by Ravana ahead of time. So he entrusted her to Agni, the god of fire. Rama did this so that he, who in reality was Vishnu, could kill Ravana. Sita, in turn, left behind a "shadow", or twin-like version of herself behind. The "shadow" Sita had been abducted by Ravana. Therefore, the lila of Agni Pariksha was to retrieve the genuine Sita from the temporary care of Agni Deva. Rama explains this to Lakshmana before the "Pariksha" is done. This version has also been written in the Ram Charit Manas.

 

SITAS´S EXILE

In the Uttara Kanda, Rama banishes his wife Sita, even as she is pregnant, asking Lakshmana to deliver her safely to the forest. He does so after receiving word that some of his subjects in Ayodhya believed that Sita was unfit due to her long captivity in Ravana's city. As a king is expected to uphold moral principles, Rama reluctantly banished Sita in order to uphold his duty. Sita took refuge under the noble sage Valmiki.

 

A legend by Rishi Agastya in the epic states that Vishnu in a previous age had been cursed by Rishi Bhrigu, whose wife had been killed by Vishnu for sheltering his enemies escaping from battle. The Rishi condemns Vishnu to be denied for a long age the companionship of his soul mate, just as Vishnu, had deprived the Rishi of his loving wife. Thus Rama, Vishnu's incarnation, must live the rest of his life without Sita.

 

Many Hindus, such as the followers of Sri Vaishnavism, consider this entire section of the Ramayana to be interpolated, and thus they do not accept the authenticity of this story claiming that Sita was banished. An alternate narration of Ramayana does not state it so. It says that Sita later lived in her father's kingdom of Mithila with her sons Lava and Kusha as per the North Indian (especially in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) custom that children be brought up in their nanihal, or maternal grandmother's place. Sita and her sons later live in Valmiki's ashram for the boys' education and military training. As per Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas, both the princes grew extremely intelligent and strong under Rishi Valmiki's tutelage.

 

CHILDREN

According to legend, Kusha and Lava are the twin sons of Lord Rama and Sita. Born in the forest after the banishment of Sita from Ayodhya, the twins were educated and trained in military skills as their mother took refuge in Sage Valmiki's ashram, located in a forest on the banks of the River Tamsa.

 

As Rama performed the Ashvamedha Yajna, a horse strayed into their forest, Rama sent Hanuman to retrieve the horses. Rama's sons Luv and Kush captured the horses. Hanuman, seeing Luv and Kush recognised that they were the son's of Rama. He let them capture him and tie him up. There Hanuman started meditating on the name Rama. Worried Rama sent his brothers to look for the horses. As they saw Hanuman tied up and two boys guarding him, they thought that the two boy had stolen the horses. So Ramas brothers started attacking Luv and Kush. Although Rama's brothers should have won, but Luv and Kush defeated them all, knocking them unconscious. Luv and Kush were protected by Hanuman. Then Rama himself went looking for the horses fearing that Hanuman and his brothers had been attacked. On his way there, Rama intuitively knew that Luv and Kush were his sons and purposely slept on his chariot to delay tension and confrontation with his sons as he knew it would be inappropriate for a father to fight his sons. Upon reaching the battlefield, the sage Valmiki interrupted the potential battle between father and sons by explaining to Rama that Luv and Kush were his sons. A familial reunion took place.

 

When Devi Sita found out that Lava and Kusha had defeated Ayodhya's forces, she proudly revealed their/her identity. Rama desired Sita and his sons to live with him in his kingdom but as this took place, the general population of the kingdom resented Sita from returning. In response, Sita forsaked her like and sought final refuge in the arms of her mother Bhumidevi, the Goddess Mother Earth and ultimately returned to Rama in the form of Vishnu in Vishnu's abode - indicating that forced separation from her beloved husband is only limited in life on earth compared to her eternal union with her beloved in life after death.

 

LATER LIFE

Rama's reign is known as the Rama Rajya which lasted for 11,000 years. During this period, people were healthy, holy, satisfied and lived with complete peace and harmony. There was no evil, no wars, no natural calamity and no diseases. Rama ruled the whole earth without using military force as all kings submitted themselves to him. His brothers Bharata and Shatrughna settled in their later lives. Bharata, with the help of his uncle Yudhajita, conquered the eastern land of the Gandharvas and ruled it. Shatrughna slew the Asura Lavana and founded the city of Mathura. Rama acquired a rare gem from Rishi Agastya which entombed the powers of the gods Indra, Varuna, Yama and Kubera, which helped the king rule efficiently. After his reign, Rama and his brothers and his allies peacefully left the earth on the river Sarayu abandoning their mortal bodies. Valmiki Ramayana mentions an abode named Santanaka invested with all spiritual qualities and located beyond Brahmaloka, which was attained by all followers of Rama, after Rama along with his brothers, entered into Vaishnava potency. Lava and Kusha ruled Kosala and continued the solar race.

 

MARYADA PURUSHOTTAMA

As a person, Rama personifies the characteristics of an ideal person (purushottama) who is to be emulated. He had within him all the desirable virtues that any individual would seek to aspire, and he fulfils all his moral obligations (maryada). Rama's purity and piety in his intentions and actions inspires affection and devotion for him from a variety of characters from different backgrounds. For example, he gave up his rightful claim to the throne, and agreed to go into exile for fourteen years, to fulfill the vow that his father had given to Kaikeyi, one of King Dashratha's wives. This is in spite of the fact that Kaikeyi's son, Bharat, begged him to return to Ayodhya and said that he did not want to rule in place of Rama. But Rama considered his dharma as a son above that of his own birthright and his life's ambition. For such supreme sacrifices, and many other qualities, Rama is considered a maryada purushottamor the best of upholders of Dharma, a basically human but exemplary figure Some of his ideals are as follows: 1. At the time when it was normal for kings to have more than one wife, Rama gave the ideal of having a single wife. In Balakanda of Valmiki Ramayana it is written that Rama and Sita resided in each other's heart.

 

2. Rama always followed his promise at any cost. In fact, he went to forest to make his father's promise to Kaikeyi true. Another instance was when, he had promised the Spirit of Time that during their conversation, if anyone was to intrude, Rama would have pronounce an instant death sentence upon the individual. They were intruded upon by his beloved younger brother Lakshmana, and to keep his part of the promise, pronounced the death sentence. There are many examples of Rama's promises which he kept. Most important are the promise to sages to save their lives from Rakshasas, getting back Sugreeva's kingdom, making Vibhishana the king of Lanka.

 

3. Excellent friend: Rama had very touching relations with his friends irrespective of their status. Some of his friends are Nishada-raja Guha, King of Nishaadas (a caste whose profession was hunting the birds), Sugreeva (the Vanara king) and Vibhishana a Rakshasa.

 

4. Even towards his enemies, Rama showed great nobility and virtue. To gather information about the enemy army's strengths and weaknesses, Ravana sent two of his spies, Suka and Sarana, to the Vanara camps. Disguised as Vanaras they blended into the enemy camp, but Vibhishana saw through their deceit. The duo sought Rama's protection when the monkey warriors thrashed them. Rama gave them refuge. He then asked them what their mission was and whether they fulfilled it. After listening to them, he sent for a Vanara to give them a proper tour of all the Vanara camps and give them all the information they desired about the major soldiers and their strengths. He then told the spies to give this message to Ravana. "Tomorrow morning, I will destroy all of Lanka. Keep all sides of your palace well defended and be ready with all of your men by sunrise." The spies were greatly astonished with Rama's charisma, courage, and adherence to the codes of war. After Rama gave them leave, they knew that their king was bound to lose against this virtuous and courageous man. When Ravana first fought with Rama, Rama defeated him to such an extent that Ravana lost his charioteer, horses, chariot, flag, weapons and armor. Though the situation was at his advantage, Rama instead praised Ravana for a great fight that day, and asked him to retire and take rest, as he must be quite tired. Ravana was greatly embarrassed at this, but he was also gratified that Rama saved his life, and this led him to consider for a moment whether to retreat and give Sita back...

 

COMPANIONS

Even as Rama is the ideal conception of manhood, he is often aided and complemented in different situations by the characteristics by those who accompany him. They serve Rama devotedly, at great personal risk and sacrifice.

 

BHARATA AND LAKSHMANA

Absent when Rama is exiled, upon his return Bharata is appalled to learn of the events. And even though Kaikeyi had done all this for his benefit, Bharata is angered at the suggestion that he should take Ayodhya's throne. Denouncing his mother, Bharata proclaims to the city that he would go to the forest to fetch Rama back, and would serve out his term of exile himself. Although initially resentful and suspicious, the people of Ayodhya hail Bharata's selfless nature and courageous act. Despite his fervent pleas to return, Rama asserts that he must stay in the forest to keep his father's word. He orders Bharata to perform his duty as king of Ayodhya, especially important after Dasaratha's death, and orders Shatrughna to support and serve him. Returning saddened to the city, Bharata refuses to wear the crown or sit on the throne. Instead, he places the slippers of Rama that he had taken back with him on the throne, and rules Ayodhya assiduously keeping Rama's beliefs and values in mind. When Rama finally returns, Bharata runs personally to welcome him back. Bharata is hailed for his devotion to his elder brother and dharma, distinguished from Lakshmana as he is left on his own for fourteen years. But he unfailingly denies self-interest throughout this time, ruling the kingdom only in Rama's name. Vasishtha proclaims that no one had better learnt dharma than Bharata, and for this piety he forms an essential part of the conception of perfect manhood, of the Seventh Avatara of Vishnu. Shatrughna's role to Bharata is akin to that of Lakshmana to Rama. Believed to be one-quarter of Vishnu incarnated, or as the incarnation of his eternal companion, Ananta Sesha, Lakshmana is always at Rama's side. Although unconstrained by Dasaratha's promise to Kaikeyi, Lakshmana resists Rama's arguments and accompanies him and Sita into the forest. During the years of exile, Lakshmana constantly serves Rama and Sita – building huts, standing guard and finding new routes. When Sita is kidnapped, Rama blazes with his divine power and in his immense rage, expresses the desire to destroy all creation. Lakshmana prays and pleads for Rama to calm himself, and despite the shock of the moment and the promise of travails to come, begin an arduous but systematic search for Sita. During times when the search is proving fruitless and Rama fears for Sita, and expresses despair in his grief and loneliness, Lakshmana encourages him, providing hope and solace.When Rama in his despair fears that Sugriva has forgotten his promise to help him trace Sita, Lakshmana goes to Kishkindha to remind the complacent monarch of his promise to help. Lakshmana twangs the bow inside the hall quaking the entire building and threatens to destroy Sugriva and the monkey kingdom with his own divine power. Lakshmana is unable to tolerate Sugriva breaking his vow to Rama while enjoying material and sensual pleasures while Rama suffers alone. It is only through the diplomatic intervention of Queen Tara, Sugriva's wife, that Lakshmana is pacified. Tara then scolds and galvanises Sugriva into honoring his promise to Rama. Sugriva and Rama are then reconciled with the help of Lakshmana and Tara. Sugriva sends the monkey hoards to find the location of Sita and lead the monkey army into battle against the demonic forces of Ravana.Lakshmana is uniquely responsible for slaying Indrajit, the invincible son of Ravana who had humiliated Indra and the devas, and outwitted the brothers and the Vanaras on several occasions. Rishi Agastya later points out that this victory was the turning point of the conflict. Rama is often overcome with emotion and deep affection for Lakshmana, acknowledging how important and crucial Lakshmana's love and support was for him. He also trusts Lakshmana to carry out difficult orders – Lakshmana was asked to take Sita to the ashrama of Valmiki, where she was to spend her exile. Lakshmana's deep love for Rama, his unconditional service and sacrifice, as well as qualities of practical judgment and clear-headedness make him Rama's superior in certain situations and perspectives. Lakshmana symbolizes a man's duty to his family, brothers and friends, and forms an essential part of the conception of ideal manhood, that Rama primarily embodies.

 

JATAYU, HANUMAN AND VIBHEESHNA

When Rama and Lakshmana begin the desperate search to discover where Sita had been taken, after traversing a distance in many directions, they come across the magical eagle Jatayu, who is dying. They discover from Jatayu that a rakshasa was flying away with a crying, struggling Sita towards the south. Jatayu had flown to the rescue of Sita, but owing to his age and the rakshasa's power, had been defeated. With this, Jatayu dies in Rama's arms. Rama is overcome with love and affection for the bird which sacrificed its own life for Sita, and the rage of his death returns to him in the climactic battle with Ravana.Rama's only allies in the struggle to find Sita are the Vanaras of Kishkindha. Finding a terrified Sugriva being hunted by his own brother, king Vali, Rama promises to kill Vali and free Sugriva of the terror and the unjust charge of plotting to murder Vali. The two swear everlasting friendship over sacred fire. Rama's natural piety and compassion, his sense of justice and duty, as well as his courage despite great personal suffering after Sita's kidnapping inspire devotion from the Vanaras and Sugriva, but especially Hanuman, Sugriva's minister. Devoted to Rama, Hanuman exerts himself greatly over the search for Sita. He is the first to discover that Sita was taken to Lanka, and volunteers to use his divine gifts in a dangerous reconnaissance of Lanka, where he is to verify Sita's presence. Hanuman hands Rama's ring to Sita, as a mark of Rama's love and his imminent intention of rescuing her. Though captured, he candidly delivers Rama's message to Ravana to immediately release Sita, and when his tail is burned, he flies and sets Lanka on fire. When Lakshmana is struck down and near death and Rama overcome with love and concern for his brother, Hanuman flies to the Himalayas on the urgent mission to fetch the sanjeevani medicinal herbs, bringing the entire mountain to Lanka so that no time is lost in saving Lakshmana. The Vanaras fight the rakshasas, completely devoted to Rama's cause. They angrily dismiss Ravana's efforts to create international divisions within their army when he suggested that Rama considered them, monkeys, as mere animals. At the end of the war, Indra restores life to the millions of fallen Vanaras.Before the onset of war, rakshasa prince Vibheeshana, Ravana's youngest brother comes to join Rama. Although he loves his brother and Lanka, he fails in repeated efforts to make Ravana follow religious values and return Sita. Vibheeshana believes that Ravana's arrogance and callousness will cause the destruction of Lanka, which is a gross violation of a king's duty, and that Ravana's actions have only propagated evil. Vibheeshana refuses to defend the evil of Ravana's ways and inspired by Rama's compassion and piety, leaves Lanka to join the Vanara Army. His knowledge of rakshasa ways and Ravana's mind help Rama and the Vanaras overcome black magic and mystical weapons. At the end of the war, Rama crowns Vibheeshana as the king of Lanka. Vibheeshana, and to a greater extent Hanuman, embody the perfect devotee in the wider conception of perfect manhood.

 

RAMA IN WAR

When Rama is thirteen years old, he and his brother Lakshmana are taken by Vishwamitra to the forests, with the purpose of killing rakshasas who are wrecking the tapasya and sacrifices of brahmins. When asked to slay the demoness, Rama demurs, considering it sinful to kill a woman. But Vishwamitra explains that evil has no gender. Rama replies that "My father asked me to follow your orders, I will obey them even if it is a sin". Rama proceeds to slay Tadaka, a cursed yaksha demoness. The killing of Tadaka liberates the yaksha soul who was cursed for a sin, and had to adopt a rakshasi's body. It restores the purity of the sacrifices of the brahmins who live nearby, and protects the animals who live in the forest, and travelers. Rama and Lakshmana are taught the advanced military arts and given the knowledge of all celestial weapons by Vishwamitra. The main purpose of Vishwamitra's exursion is to conduct his yagna without interruption from two evil demons, Maricha and Subahu sons of Tadaka. Rama and Lakshmana guard the sacrifice, and when the two demons appear, Rama shoots an arrow named Manava Astra that carries Maricha across the lands and into the ocean, but does not kill him. Rama and his brother then proceed to kill Subahu and accompanying demons. Rama explains to Lakshmana that leaving Maricha alive was an act of compassion, but the others did not heed the point and chose to attack. During the forest exile, sages plead for protection and help against evil rakshasas who spoil their sacrifices and religious activities and terrorize them. Many rakshasas had even killed and eaten sages and innocent people. At Janasthana, Rama uses his exceptional prowess to single-handedly kill over fourteen thousand demon hordes led by the powerful Khara, who is a cousin of Ravana and Dushana . . .

 

WIKIPEDIA

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Bishnupur is a town and a municipality in Bankura District in the state of West Bengal, India. It is famous for its terracotta temples and the balucheri sarees.

 

HISTORY

Bishnupur was ruled under the Gupta period by local Hindu kings who paid tribute to Samudra Gupta[citation needed]. Following a long period of obscurity, where the land oscillated between being a minor independent principality and a vassal state . The land is also called Mallabhum after the Malla rulers of this place. It was much later in 994 AD that the place was named bishnupur.The name is derived from the name of the Hindu God 'Vishnu'. The Malla rulers were Vaishnavites and built the famous terracotta temples during the 17th and 18th century at this place. The terracotta temples here are the best specimen of the classical style of Bengal architecture. The legends of Bipodtarini Devi are associated with Malla Kings of Bishnupur.

 

Bishnupur (the distance from Kolkata is 132 km), now the headquarters of the subdivision of the same name in Bankura district, is a seat of crafts and culture.

 

For almost a thousand years it was the capital of the Malla kings of Mallabhum, of which Bankura was a part, till their power waned during the times when Mughal Empire weakened under the last monarchs of the dynasty.

 

The patronage of Malla king Veer Hambir and his successors Raja Raghunath Singha Dev and Veer Singha made Bishnupur one of the principal centres of culture in Bengal.Most of the exquisite terracotta temples for which town is justly famous were built during this period.

 

Apart from the unique architecture of the period, Bishnupur is also famous for its terracotta craft and its own Baluchari sarees made of tussar silk.

 

Royal patronage also gave rise to Bishnupur Gharana (school) of Hindustani classical music in late 18th-century

and the Bishnupur school of painting.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Trikomo is a town in Cyprus. It is under the de facto control of Northern Cyprus and is the administrative center of the Iskele District of Northern Cyprus, which mainly extends into the Karpas Peninsula , while de jure it belongs to the Famagusta District of the Republic of Cyprus . It gained municipality status in 1998. Before 1974 Trikomo was a mixed village with a Greek Cypriot majority.

 

In 2011 Trikomo had 1948 inhabitants.

 

Trikomo is located in the north-eastern part of the Messaria plain , 9 km south of the village of Ardana , about two kilometers from the Bay of Famagusta and four kilometers north-west of the village of Sygkrasi .

 

In Greek Trikomo means "three houses". In 1975 the Turkish Cypriots renamed it Yeni İskele to commemorate the origins of the town's current inhabitants. In Larnaca before 1974 Turkish Cypriots resided in the neighborhood called Skala ("İskele" in Turkish), so that when they settled in the village they renamed it with the same name (lit. "new İskele", later shortened to İskele ). Yeni means "new", so Yeni İskele literally means "New Scale/İskele".

 

Before the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus , the population of Trikomo consisted almost entirely of Greek Cypriots , most of whom fled during the conflict while the rest were subsequently deported to the south. Among these, worthy of mention is Georgios Grivas (1898-1974), general of the Greek army , leader of the guerrilla organization EOKA, protagonist of the liberation struggle against the English and of the paramilitary organization EOKA B.

 

The Turkish Cypriot municipality of Larnaca which had been established in 1958 moved to Trikomo in 1974, soon after the Turkish invasion of the island .

 

In Trikomo is the Church of the Panagia Theotokos , deconsecrated and home to an icon museum displaying rare examples of medieval iconography in Cyprus. The church is divided into two sections, one Orthodox and one Catholic. The first is the oldest, dating back to the Byzantine era , while the second was built in the 12th century, during the period in which the island was ruled by the Lusignans

 

Before 1974 Trikomo was a mixed village with a Greek Cypriot majority. In the 1831 Ottoman census, Muslims made up approximately 18.4% of the population. However, by 1891 this percentage dropped significantly to 3.4%. In the first half of the 20th century the population of the village increased steadily, from 1,247 inhabitants in 1901 to 2,195 in 1960.

 

Most of Trikomo's Greek Cypriots were displaced in August 1974, although some remained in the town after the Turkish army took control. In October 1975 there were still 92 Greek Cypriots in the city, but in 1978 they were moved to the south side of the Green Line . Currently, like the rest of the displaced Greek Cypriots, Trikomo Greek Cypriots are scattered across the south of the island, especially in the cities. The number of Greek Cypriots from Trikomo displaced in 1974-78 was approximately 2,330 (2,323 in the 1960 census).

 

Today the village is inhabited mainly by displaced Turkish Cypriots from the south of the island, especially from the city of Larnaca and its district . In 1976-77, some families from Turkey, especially from the province of Adana , also settled in the village . Since the 2000s, many wealthy Europeans, Turks and Turkish Cypriots from other areas of the north of the island (including returnees from abroad) have purchased properties, built houses and settled in the vicinity of the city. According to the 2006 Turkish Cypriot census, the population of Trikomo/İskele was 3,657.

 

The city annually hosts the Iskele Festival , which takes place for ten days in summer, and is the oldest annual festival in Cyprus, having first been held in Larnaca in 1968. In 1974, the event was moved to Trikomo together to the Turkish Cypriot inhabitants of Larnaca who had moved there. The program includes an international folk dance festival, concerts by Turkish Cypriot and mainland Turkish musicians, various sports tournaments, stalls offering food and various competitions, along with other performances and competitions highlighting the city's cultural heritage.

 

The current mayor of the city is Hasan Sadıkoğlu, who was first elected in 2014 as an independent candidate. It was re-elected in 2018 as the candidate of the right-wing National Unity Party (UBP), winning with 54.6% of the vote. In the 2018 local elections, four members of the UBP, two members of the pro-settler Renaissance Party (YDP), and two members of the left-wing Turkish Republican Party (CTP) were elected to the eight-member city council .

 

Trikomo is twinned with:

Flag of Türkiye Beykoz, Istanbul

Flag of Türkiye Büyükçekmece, Istanbul

Flag of Türkiye Finike, Antalya , since 2015

Flag of Türkiye Mamak, Ankara

Flag of Türkiye Pendik, Istanbul

Flag of Türkiye Samsung , since 2006

 

Turkish Cypriot sports club Larnaka Gençler Birliği (also called İskele Gençlerbirliği ) was founded in 1934 in Larnaca, and was playing in the Süper Lig of the Northern Cyprus Football Federation in the 2018–19 season

 

Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, and its territory is considered by all other states to be part of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the northeast to Morphou Bay, Cape Kormakitis and its westernmost point, the Kokkina exclave in the west. Its southernmost point is the village of Louroujina. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both sides.

 

A coup d'état in 1974, performed as part of an attempt to annex the island to Greece, prompted the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. This resulted in the eviction of much of the north's Greek Cypriot population, the flight of Turkish Cypriots from the south, and the partitioning of the island, leading to a unilateral declaration of independence by the north in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support.

 

Attempts to reach a solution to the Cyprus dispute have been unsuccessful. The Turkish Army maintains a large force in Northern Cyprus with the support and approval of the TRNC government, while the Republic of Cyprus, the European Union as a whole, and the international community regard it as an occupation force. This military presence has been denounced in several United Nations Security Council resolutions.

 

Northern Cyprus is a semi-presidential, democratic republic with a cultural heritage incorporating various influences and an economy that is dominated by the services sector. The economy has seen growth through the 2000s and 2010s, with the GNP per capita more than tripling in the 2000s, but is held back by an international embargo due to the official closure of the ports in Northern Cyprus by the Republic of Cyprus. The official language is Turkish, with a distinct local dialect being spoken. The vast majority of the population consists of Sunni Muslims, while religious attitudes are mostly moderate and secular. Northern Cyprus is an observer state of ECO and OIC under the name "Turkish Cypriot State", PACE under the name "Turkish Cypriot Community", and Organization of Turkic States with its own name.

 

Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.

 

Cyprus, an island lying in the eastern Mediterranean, hosted a population of Greeks and Turks (four-fifths and one-fifth, respectively), who lived under British rule in the late nineteenth-century and the first half of the twentieth-century. Christian Orthodox Church of Cyprus played a prominent political role among the Greek Cypriot community, a privilege that it acquired during the Ottoman Empire with the employment of the millet system, which gave the archbishop an unofficial ethnarch status.

 

The repeated rejections by the British of Greek Cypriot demands for enosis, union with Greece, led to armed resistance, organised by the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle, or EOKA. EOKA, led by the Greek-Cypriot commander George Grivas, systematically targeted British colonial authorities. One of the effects of EOKA's campaign was to alter the Turkish position from demanding full reincorporation into Turkey to a demand for taksim (partition). EOKA's mission and activities caused a "Cretan syndrome" (see Turkish Resistance Organisation) within the Turkish Cypriot community, as its members feared that they would be forced to leave the island in such a case as had been the case with Cretan Turks. As such, they preferred the continuation of British colonial rule and then taksim, the division of the island. Due to the Turkish Cypriots' support for the British, EOKA's leader, Georgios Grivas, declared them to be enemies. The fact that the Turks were a minority was, according to Nihat Erim, to be addressed by the transfer of thousands of Turks from mainland Turkey so that Greek Cypriots would cease to be the majority. When Erim visited Cyprus as the Turkish representative, he was advised by Field Marshal Sir John Harding, the then Governor of Cyprus, that Turkey should send educated Turks to settle in Cyprus.

 

Turkey actively promoted the idea that on the island of Cyprus two distinctive communities existed, and sidestepped its former claim that "the people of Cyprus were all Turkish subjects". In doing so, Turkey's aim to have self-determination of two to-be equal communities in effect led to de jure partition of the island.[citation needed] This could be justified to the international community against the will of the majority Greek population of the island. Dr. Fazil Küçük in 1954 had already proposed Cyprus be divided in two at the 35° parallel.

 

Lindley Dan, from Notre Dame University, spotted the roots of intercommunal violence to different visions among the two communities of Cyprus (enosis for Greek Cypriots, taksim for Turkish Cypriots). Also, Lindlay wrote that "the merging of church, schools/education, and politics in divisive and nationalistic ways" had played a crucial role in creation of havoc in Cyprus' history. Attalides Michael also pointed to the opposing nationalisms as the cause of the Cyprus problem.

 

By the mid-1950's, the "Cyprus is Turkish" party, movement, and slogan gained force in both Cyprus and Turkey. In a 1954 editorial, Turkish Cypriot leader Dr. Fazil Kuchuk expressed the sentiment that the Turkish youth had grown up with the idea that "as soon as Great Britain leaves the island, it will be taken over by the Turks", and that "Turkey cannot tolerate otherwise". This perspective contributed to the willingness of Turkish Cypriots to align themselves with the British, who started recruiting Turkish Cypriots into the police force that patrolled Cyprus to fight EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist organisation that sought to rid the island of British rule.

 

EOKA targeted colonial authorities, including police, but Georgios Grivas, the leader of EOKA, did not initially wish to open up a new front by fighting Turkish Cypriots and reassured them that EOKA would not harm their people. In 1956, some Turkish Cypriot policemen were killed by EOKA members and this provoked some intercommunal violence in the spring and summer, but these attacks on policemen were not motivated by the fact that they were Turkish Cypriots.

 

However, in January 1957, Grivas changed his policy as his forces in the mountains became increasingly pressured by the British Crown forces. In order to divert the attention of the Crown forces, EOKA members started to target Turkish Cypriot policemen intentionally in the towns, so that Turkish Cypriots would riot against the Greek Cypriots and the security forces would have to be diverted to the towns to restore order. The killing of a Turkish Cypriot policeman on 19 January, when a power station was bombed, and the injury of three others, provoked three days of intercommunal violence in Nicosia. The two communities targeted each other in reprisals, at least one Greek Cypriot was killed and the British Army was deployed in the streets. Greek Cypriot stores were burned and their neighbourhoods attacked. Following the events, the Greek Cypriot leadership spread the propaganda that the riots had merely been an act of Turkish Cypriot aggression. Such events created chaos and drove the communities apart both in Cyprus and in Turkey.

 

On 22 October 1957 Sir Hugh Mackintosh Foot replaced Sir John Harding as the British Governor of Cyprus. Foot suggested five to seven years of self-government before any final decision. His plan rejected both enosis and taksim. The Turkish Cypriot response to this plan was a series of anti-British demonstrations in Nicosia on 27 and 28 January 1958 rejecting the proposed plan because the plan did not include partition. The British then withdrew the plan.

 

In 1957, Black Gang, a Turkish Cypriot pro-taksim paramilitary organisation, was formed to patrol a Turkish Cypriot enclave, the Tahtakale district of Nicosia, against activities of EOKA. The organisation later attempted to grow into a national scale, but failed to gain public support.

 

By 1958, signs of dissatisfaction with the British increased on both sides, with a group of Turkish Cypriots forming Volkan (later renamed to the Turkish Resistance Organisation) paramilitary group to promote partition and the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey as dictated by the Menderes plan. Volkan initially consisted of roughly 100 members, with the stated aim of raising awareness in Turkey of the Cyprus issue and courting military training and support for Turkish Cypriot fighters from the Turkish government.

 

In June 1958, the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was expected to propose a plan to resolve the Cyprus issue. In light of the new development, the Turks rioted in Nicosia to promote the idea that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and therefore any plan that did not include partition would not be viable. This violence was soon followed by bombing, Greek Cypriot deaths and looting of Greek Cypriot-owned shops and houses. Greek and Turkish Cypriots started to flee mixed population villages where they were a minority in search of safety. This was effectively the beginning of the segregation of the two communities. On 7 June 1958, a bomb exploded at the entrance of the Turkish Embassy in Cyprus. Following the bombing, Turkish Cypriots looted Greek Cypriot properties. On 26 June 1984, the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktaş, admitted on British channel ITV that the bomb was placed by the Turks themselves in order to create tension. On 9 January 1995, Rauf Denktaş repeated his claim to the famous Turkish newspaper Milliyet in Turkey.

 

The crisis reached a climax on 12 June 1958, when eight Greeks, out of an armed group of thirty five arrested by soldiers of the Royal Horse Guards on suspicion of preparing an attack on the Turkish quarter of Skylloura, were killed in a suspected attack by Turkish Cypriot locals, near the village of Geunyeli, having been ordered to walk back to their village of Kondemenos.

 

After the EOKA campaign had begun, the British government successfully began to turn the Cyprus issue from a British colonial problem into a Greek-Turkish issue. British diplomacy exerted backstage influence on the Adnan Menderes government, with the aim of making Turkey active in Cyprus. For the British, the attempt had a twofold objective. The EOKA campaign would be silenced as quickly as possible, and Turkish Cypriots would not side with Greek Cypriots against the British colonial claims over the island, which would thus remain under the British. The Turkish Cypriot leadership visited Menderes to discuss the Cyprus issue. When asked how the Turkish Cypriots should respond to the Greek Cypriot claim of enosis, Menderes replied: "You should go to the British foreign minister and request the status quo be prolonged, Cyprus to remain as a British colony". When the Turkish Cypriots visited the British Foreign Secretary and requested for Cyprus to remain a colony, he replied: "You should not be asking for colonialism at this day and age, you should be asking for Cyprus be returned to Turkey, its former owner".

 

As Turkish Cypriots began to look to Turkey for protection, Greek Cypriots soon understood that enosis was extremely unlikely. The Greek Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios III, now set independence for the island as his objective.

 

Britain resolved to solve the dispute by creating an independent Cyprus. In 1959, all involved parties signed the Zurich Agreements: Britain, Turkey, Greece, and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Makarios and Dr. Fazil Kucuk, respectively. The new constitution drew heavily on the ethnic composition of the island. The President would be a Greek Cypriot, and the Vice-President a Turkish Cypriot with an equal veto. The contribution to the public service would be set at a ratio of 70:30, and the Supreme Court would consist of an equal number of judges from both communities as well as an independent judge who was not Greek, Turkish or British. The Zurich Agreements were supplemented by a number of treaties. The Treaty of Guarantee stated that secession or union with any state was forbidden, and that Greece, Turkey and Britain would be given guarantor status to intervene if that was violated. The Treaty of Alliance allowed for two small Greek and Turkish military contingents to be stationed on the island, and the Treaty of Establishment gave Britain sovereignty over two bases in Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

 

On 15 August 1960, the Colony of Cyprus became fully independent as the Republic of Cyprus. The new republic remained within the Commonwealth of Nations.

 

The new constitution brought dissatisfaction to Greek Cypriots, who felt it to be highly unjust for them for historical, demographic and contributional reasons. Although 80% of the island's population were Greek Cypriots and these indigenous people had lived on the island for thousands of years and paid 94% of taxes, the new constitution was giving the 17% of the population that was Turkish Cypriots, who paid 6% of taxes, around 30% of government jobs and 40% of national security jobs.

 

Within three years tensions between the two communities in administrative affairs began to show. In particular disputes over separate municipalities and taxation created a deadlock in government. A constitutional court ruled in 1963 Makarios had failed to uphold article 173 of the constitution which called for the establishment of separate municipalities for Turkish Cypriots. Makarios subsequently declared his intention to ignore the judgement, resulting in the West German judge resigning from his position. Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to the constitution, which would have had the effect of resolving most of the issues in the Greek Cypriot favour. Under the proposals, the President and Vice-President would lose their veto, the separate municipalities as sought after by the Turkish Cypriots would be abandoned, the need for separate majorities by both communities in passing legislation would be discarded and the civil service contribution would be set at actual population ratios (82:18) instead of the slightly higher figure for Turkish Cypriots.

 

The intention behind the amendments has long been called into question. The Akritas plan, written in the height of the constitutional dispute by the Greek Cypriot interior minister Polycarpos Georkadjis, called for the removal of undesirable elements of the constitution so as to allow power-sharing to work. The plan envisaged a swift retaliatory attack on Turkish Cypriot strongholds should Turkish Cypriots resort to violence to resist the measures, stating "In the event of a planned or staged Turkish attack, it is imperative to overcome it by force in the shortest possible time, because if we succeed in gaining command of the situation (in one or two days), no outside, intervention would be either justified or possible." Whether Makarios's proposals were part of the Akritas plan is unclear, however it remains that sentiment towards enosis had not completely disappeared with independence. Makarios described independence as "a step on the road to enosis".[31] Preparations for conflict were not entirely absent from Turkish Cypriots either, with right wing elements still believing taksim (partition) the best safeguard against enosis.

 

Greek Cypriots however believe the amendments were a necessity stemming from a perceived attempt by Turkish Cypriots to frustrate the working of government. Turkish Cypriots saw it as a means to reduce their status within the state from one of co-founder to that of minority, seeing it as a first step towards enosis. The security situation deteriorated rapidly.

 

Main articles: Bloody Christmas (1963) and Battle of Tillyria

An armed conflict was triggered after December 21, 1963, a period remembered by Turkish Cypriots as Bloody Christmas, when a Greek Cypriot policemen that had been called to help deal with a taxi driver refusing officers already on the scene access to check the identification documents of his customers, took out his gun upon arrival and shot and killed the taxi driver and his partner. Eric Solsten summarised the events as follows: "a Greek Cypriot police patrol, ostensibly checking identification documents, stopped a Turkish Cypriot couple on the edge of the Turkish quarter. A hostile crowd gathered, shots were fired, and two Turkish Cypriots were killed."

 

In the morning after the shooting, crowds gathered in protest in Northern Nicosia, likely encouraged by the TMT, without incident. On the evening of the 22nd, gunfire broke out, communication lines to the Turkish neighbourhoods were cut, and the Greek Cypriot police occupied the nearby airport. On the 23rd, a ceasefire was negotiated, but did not hold. Fighting, including automatic weapons fire, between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and militias increased in Nicosia and Larnaca. A force of Greek Cypriot irregulars led by Nikos Sampson entered the Nicosia suburb of Omorphita and engaged in heavy firing on armed, as well as by some accounts unarmed, Turkish Cypriots. The Omorphita clash has been described by Turkish Cypriots as a massacre, while this view has generally not been acknowledged by Greek Cypriots.

 

Further ceasefires were arranged between the two sides, but also failed. By Christmas Eve, the 24th, Britain, Greece, and Turkey had joined talks, with all sides calling for a truce. On Christmas day, Turkish fighter jets overflew Nicosia in a show of support. Finally it was agreed to allow a force of 2,700 British soldiers to help enforce a ceasefire. In the next days, a "buffer zone" was created in Nicosia, and a British officer marked a line on a map with green ink, separating the two sides of the city, which was the beginning of the "Green Line". Fighting continued across the island for the next several weeks.

 

In total 364 Turkish Cypriots and 174 Greek Cypriots were killed during the violence. 25,000 Turkish Cypriots from 103-109 villages fled and were displaced into enclaves and thousands of Turkish Cypriot houses were ransacked or completely destroyed.

 

Contemporary newspapers also reported on the forceful exodus of the Turkish Cypriots from their homes. According to The Times in 1964, threats, shootings and attempts of arson were committed against the Turkish Cypriots to force them out of their homes. The Daily Express wrote that "25,000 Turks have already been forced to leave their homes". The Guardian reported a massacre of Turks at Limassol on 16 February 1964.

 

Turkey had by now readied its fleet and its fighter jets appeared over Nicosia. Turkey was dissuaded from direct involvement by the creation of a United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in 1964. Despite the negotiated ceasefire in Nicosia, attacks on the Turkish Cypriot persisted, particularly in Limassol. Concerned about the possibility of a Turkish invasion, Makarios undertook the creation of a Greek Cypriot conscript-based army called the "National Guard". A general from Greece took charge of the army, whilst a further 20,000 well-equipped officers and men were smuggled from Greece into Cyprus. Turkey threatened to intervene once more, but was prevented by a strongly worded letter from the American President Lyndon B. Johnson, anxious to avoid a conflict between NATO allies Greece and Turkey at the height of the Cold War.

 

Turkish Cypriots had by now established an important bridgehead at Kokkina, provided with arms, volunteers and materials from Turkey and abroad. Seeing this incursion of foreign weapons and troops as a major threat, the Cypriot government invited George Grivas to return from Greece as commander of the Greek troops on the island and launch a major attack on the bridgehead. Turkey retaliated by dispatching its fighter jets to bomb Greek positions, causing Makarios to threaten an attack on every Turkish Cypriot village on the island if the bombings did not cease. The conflict had now drawn in Greece and Turkey, with both countries amassing troops on their Thracian borders. Efforts at mediation by Dean Acheson, a former U.S. Secretary of State, and UN-appointed mediator Galo Plaza had failed, all the while the division of the two communities becoming more apparent. Greek Cypriot forces were estimated at some 30,000, including the National Guard and the large contingent from Greece. Defending the Turkish Cypriot enclaves was a force of approximately 5,000 irregulars, led by a Turkish colonel, but lacking the equipment and organisation of the Greek forces.

 

The Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1964, U Thant, reported the damage during the conflicts:

 

UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances; it shows that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish-Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting.

 

The situation worsened in 1967, when a military junta overthrew the democratically elected government of Greece, and began applying pressure on Makarios to achieve enosis. Makarios, not wishing to become part of a military dictatorship or trigger a Turkish invasion, began to distance himself from the goal of enosis. This caused tensions with the junta in Greece as well as George Grivas in Cyprus. Grivas's control over the National Guard and Greek contingent was seen as a threat to Makarios's position, who now feared a possible coup.[citation needed] The National Guard and Cyprus Police began patrolling the Turkish Cypriot enclaves of Ayios Theodoros and Kophinou, and on November 15 engaged in heavy fighting with the Turkish Cypriots.

 

By the time of his withdrawal 26 Turkish Cypriots had been killed. Turkey replied with an ultimatum demanding that Grivas be removed from the island, that the troops smuggled from Greece in excess of the limits of the Treaty of Alliance be removed, and that the economic blockades on the Turkish Cypriot enclaves be lifted. Grivas was recalled by the Athens Junta and the 12,000 Greek troops were withdrawn. Makarios now attempted to consolidate his position by reducing the number of National Guard troops, and by creating a paramilitary force loyal to Cypriot independence. In 1968, acknowledging that enosis was now all but impossible, Makarios stated, "A solution by necessity must be sought within the limits of what is feasible which does not always coincide with the limits of what is desirable."

 

After 1967 tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots subsided. Instead, the main source of tension on the island came from factions within the Greek Cypriot community. Although Makarios had effectively abandoned enosis in favour of an 'attainable solution', many others continued to believe that the only legitimate political aspiration for Greek Cypriots was union with Greece.

 

On his arrival, Grivas began by establishing a nationalist paramilitary group known as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B or EOKA-B), drawing comparisons with the EOKA struggle for enosis under the British colonial administration of the 1950s.

 

The military junta in Athens saw Makarios as an obstacle. Makarios's failure to disband the National Guard, whose officer class was dominated by mainland Greeks, had meant the junta had practical control over the Cypriot military establishment, leaving Makarios isolated and a vulnerable target.

 

During the first Turkish invasion, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus territory on 20 July 1974, invoking its rights under the Treaty of Guarantee. This expansion of Turkish-occupied zone violated International Law as well as the Charter of the United Nations. Turkish troops managed to capture 3% of the island which was accompanied by the burning of the Turkish Cypriot quarter, as well as the raping and killing of women and children. A temporary cease-fire followed which was mitigated by the UN Security Council. Subsequently, the Greek military Junta collapsed on July 23, 1974, and peace talks commenced in which a democratic government was installed. The Resolution 353 was broken after Turkey attacked a second time and managed to get a hold of 37% of Cyprus territory. The Island of Cyprus was appointed a Buffer Zone by the United Nations, which divided the island into two zones through the 'Green Line' and put an end to the Turkish invasion. Although Turkey announced that the occupied areas of Cyprus to be called the Federated Turkish State in 1975, it is not legitimised on a worldwide political scale. The United Nations called for the international recognition of independence for the Republic of Cyprus in the Security Council Resolution 367.

 

In the years after the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus one can observe a history of failed talks between the two parties. The 1983 declaration of the independent Turkish Republic of Cyprus resulted in a rise of inter-communal tensions and made it increasingly hard to find mutual understanding. With Cyprus' interest of a possible EU membership and a new UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1997 new hopes arose for a fresh start. International involvement from sides of the US and UK, wanting a solution to the Cyprus dispute prior to the EU accession led to political pressures for new talks. The believe that an accession without a solution would threaten Greek-Turkish relations and acknowledge the partition of the island would direct the coming negotiations.

 

Over the course of two years a concrete plan, the Annan plan was formulated. In 2004 the fifth version agreed upon from both sides and with the endorsement of Turkey, US, UK and EU then was presented to the public and was given a referendum in both Cypriot communities to assure the legitimisation of the resolution. The Turkish Cypriots voted with 65% for the plan, however the Greek Cypriots voted with a 76% majority against. The Annan plan contained multiple important topics. Firstly it established a confederation of two separate states called the United Cyprus Republic. Both communities would have autonomous states combined under one unified government. The members of parliament would be chosen according to the percentage in population numbers to ensure a just involvement from both communities. The paper proposed a demilitarisation of the island over the next years. Furthermore it agreed upon a number of 45000 Turkish settlers that could remain on the island. These settlers became a very important issue concerning peace talks. Originally the Turkish government encouraged Turks to settle in Cyprus providing transfer and property, to establish a counterpart to the Greek Cypriot population due to their 1 to 5 minority. With the economic situation many Turkish-Cypriot decided to leave the island, however their departure is made up by incoming Turkish settlers leaving the population ratio between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots stable. However all these points where criticised and as seen in the vote rejected mainly by the Greek Cypriots. These name the dissolution of the „Republic of Cyprus", economic consequences of a reunion and the remaining Turkish settlers as reason. Many claim that the plan was indeed drawing more from Turkish-Cypriot demands then Greek-Cypriot interests. Taking in consideration that the US wanted to keep Turkey as a strategic partner in future Middle Eastern conflicts.

 

A week after the failed referendum the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU. In multiple instances the EU tried to promote trade with Northern Cyprus but without internationally recognised ports this spiked a grand debate. Both side endure their intention of negotiations, however without the prospect of any new compromises or agreements the UN is unwilling to start the process again. Since 2004 negotiations took place in numbers but without any results, both sides are strongly holding on to their position without an agreeable solution in sight that would suit both parties.

 

My New Novel

B♭ (B Flat)

Feel free to read on and explore more. 😃

(Of course, this is not the final draft.)

 

Important 😅

The female protagonist was originally written as a married woman.

However, as the story unfolded, the constraints of that setting became too restrictive.

Therefore, I have changed her status to single, now living with her partner.

  

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

  

Scene: Los Angeles – The Beaudry – Majid Hamza

1:47 p.m. The heat of downtown Los Angeles drifted between buildings, and the dry air shimmered above the asphalt, warping the ground like a mirage. The midday sun poured vertically into the canyon of skyscrapers.

The façade of The Beaudry reflected the sunlight like a cold mirror, casting flickering shards of light into the eyes of passersby.

The Beaudry, standing in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, is a modern high-rise residential tower. Though its exterior is cold and inorganic, the building boasts luxury amenities. It faces Wilshire Boulevard and 7th Street, just steps from the 7th Street Metro station, offering exceptional convenience in an area where the business district intersects with the city's creative scene—a location in high demand.

960 W 7th Street. For a weekday afternoon, the area was oddly still. Though the office district bustled just a few blocks away, this particular corner seemed wrapped in a strange stagnation of air. Only two or three office workers passed by, presumably out for lunch.

A line of black Ubers honked briefly, then vanished down the road.

The glass-paneled entrance hall was as silent as a gallery. Behind the reception desk, a sculptural white lighting fixture floated like a piece of minimalist art.

Only residents or prospective tenants accompanied by real estate agents came and went. Visitors were rare. No one made eye contact. Everyone stared into the glow of their phones.

Majid, seated on a bench beside the bus stop with a few others, gently touched the mute-reader inside his bag. Subconsciously checking his surroundings, he connected the outdated smartphone—disconnected from the internet—to a tablet that operated only over Wi-Fi.

A few days earlier, he had received a single line from Rafi:

“July 24, 3 p.m. Look for the ‘♭’ mark at the bottom of mellow-echo.net.”

Majid quietly opened his browser. mellow-echo.net—the abandoned official site of a defunct indie music label. Its HTML pages hadn’t been updated in over a decade, but they still floated in some forgotten corner of the internet.

He scrolled to the very bottom. Against a gray background, an image of a musical note, slightly fuzzed with digital noise, lay embedded on the page.

At first glance, it looked like a mere piece of decoration. But when Majid held the mute-reader’s lens to the screen, a deep-layer QR code rose to the surface.

The scan took 0.7 seconds. A short encrypted sentence appeared:

"LA, 7/26, 21:00. Underground. Contact P. K1 → 38.91n / 118.40w"

Seconds later, the message vanished. The device powered down. Its memory wiped to zero. The QR code deleted itself from the server.

Majid’s screen now displayed the interface for a C4 detonation signal.

On the black display, a quiet message blinked once:

“C4-ID: Vanta+Core / Ready.”

He carefully lifted a thin directional antenna from the bag, aligning it along the seam of his trousers, resting it on his lap.

The C4 embedded deep within the pillar of The Beaudry awaited his signal.

This high-rise tower was built with hypersteel structural columns. According to the laws of engineering, if a single critical point was destroyed, the entire building would collapse upon itself like a tower of sand. Five years ago, under instructions from Rafi Gannam—then a student of architecture at the Islamic University—Majid had worked at the construction site and planted the charge. Los Angeles had been his responsibility. The East Coast buildings were under Rafi and Amir’s domain.

Majid took a single deep breath, then slid his finger across the screen.

0.7 seconds later, without a sound, the center of the tower gave a faint shudder. No one noticed. But in the next instant—

A snap. Or something like it.

The Beaudry began to fold in on itself, like a spine silently snapping. From the columns to the floors, from the ceilings to the walls—a silent avalanche of collapsing structures, all engulfed in pale dust. What had been standing just seconds before was now vanishing into the canyon of the city in a swirl of white fog.

A wind blew through the street. The building's mass, once so tangible, dissolved as if it had never existed. Only a soundless death cry remained, shivering the air with a cold, invisible tension.

The collapsed building lay frozen, silenced, severed from the city’s murmurs.

Majid adjusted the silver rim of his glasses and stood. Ignoring the rising chaos around him, he walked slowly toward the subway.

Even the sound of his footsteps was not erased by the thunder behind him.

 

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( Nikon Coolpix 8700 shot )

 

Manhattan. United States. 2007. … 2 / 7

(This is today’s photo. It has not been published before.)

 

Images

ELLEGARDEN - Lonesome

youtu.be/bceHbxUuJcY?si=a0xByYam9H9ydgJW

 

My new novel:

B♭ (B-flat)

There’s still more to come. 😃

(This is not the final draft.)

Set in New York City.

4

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/54653035442/in/dateposted...

3

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/54639396885/in/dateposted...

2

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/54628511025/in/dateposted...

1

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/54599616429/in/dateposted...

 

Soundtrack.

music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack/pl.u-47...

  

Note: I gave a brief explanation of this novel in the following video:

youtu.be/3w65lqUF-YI?si=yG7qy6TPeCL9xRJV

  

iTunes Playlist Link::

music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b/pl.u-47DJGhopxMD

  

Notes

1. "Bombay Blood Type (hh type)"

•Characteristics: A rare blood type that lacks the usual ABO antigens — cannot be classified as A, B, or O.

•Discovery: First identified in 1952 in Mumbai, India (formerly Bombay).

•Prevalence: Roughly 1 in 10,000 people in India; globally, about 1 in 2.5 million.

•Transfusion Compatibility: Only compatible with blood from other Bombay type donors.

2. 2024 Harvard University Valedictorian Speech – The Power of Not Knowing

youtu.be/SOUH8iVqSOI?si=Ju-Y728irtcWR71K

3. Shots Fired at Trump Rally

youtu.be/1ejfAkzjEhk?si=ASqJwEmkY-2rW_hT

  

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僕の新しい小説。

　B♭　（ビーフラット）

 

さらにさらにどうぞ。😃

(もちろん最終稿ではありません。)

 

重要😅

主人公の女性は、当初、既婚者でしたが、物語の展開上、制約が大きすぎたため、独身とし、同棲している設定へ変更しました。

 

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場面　ロサンゼルス　ボードリー　マジード・ハムザ

 

　午後1時47分。ダウンタウンの熱気がビルの隙間を吹き抜け、乾いた空気がアスファルトの表面を歪ませていた。真昼の太陽が、ダウンタウンの谷間に垂直に降り注いでいる。

　ザ・ボードリーのファサードは、まるで冷たい鏡のように白く光を跳ね返し、通りを歩く人々の視界をちらつかせている。

　ロサンゼルスにあるザ・ボードリーは、 ダウンタウン・ロサンゼルスの中心に位置する高層の住宅タワーで、建物自体は近代的で無機質な外観だが、ラグジュアリーな設備を備えたビルだ。ウィルシャー通りや7th通りに面しており、地下鉄の7thストリートからもすぐそばだ。便性が高く、ビジネス街と芸術系エリアが交錯する地点でとても人気が高い。

　960 W 7thストリート。その一帯は、週日の昼間にしては静かだった。オフィス街の喧噪がほんの数ブロック先にあるにもかかわらず、この一角には妙な“空気の滞り”があった。人通りはまばらで、ランチのために出てきた会社員が2～3人歩き去るだけだ。

　ビル前に停められた黒いUberの車列が、短くクラクションを鳴らし、すぐに消えた。

　ガラス張りのエントランスホールは、まるで展示室のように無音で、受付の背後には白い彫刻のような照明装置が浮かんでいる。

　建物に出入りするのは、住人か、不動産エージェントに連れられた見学者ばかりで、訪問者の数は極端に少ない。誰もが互いを見ない。誰もがスマートフォンの画面を見つめている。

　上階のバルコニーにふと視線を上げると、午後の光に照らされたグレーの植栽と、黒いラウンジチェアが無人のまま置かれている。

　ここは、人の気配があるのに「音」が存在しない、そんな場所だった。

　遠くで、清掃車のローラーが道路をゆっくりと転がしていく音が響いた。

　数人が腰掛けていたバス停のベンチに並んで座ったマジードは、バッグの中の“ミュートリーダー”にそっと手を触れた。無意識に周囲を確認しながら、手元の旧式スマートフォン──ネット非接続の「ミュートリーダー」をWi-Fi専用のタブレットに接続した。

　数日前、ラフィから一文だけが届いていた。

　「7月24日、午後3時。mellow-echo.netの最下部にある“♭（フラット）”マークを見ろ」

　マジードは静かにブラウザを開いた。mellow-echo.net──それは廃業したインディーズ音楽レーベルの公式サイトで、十年以上更新されていないHTMLが、今でもネットの片隅に残っている。

　マジードはページ最下部にスクロールした。グレイの背景に、わずかにノイズがかかった音符記号の画像が埋め込まれている。

　一見すると、ただのデザイン装飾にしか見えない。しかし「ミュートリーダー」のカメラでレンズをかざすと、そこにディープレイヤーQRコードが浮かび上がった。

　0.7秒のスキャンだ。画面に表示されたのは、暗号化された短い一文──

　「LA, 7/26, 21:00。地下。Pへ接触。K1→38.91n/118.40w」

　数秒後、表示は消え、端末はシャットダウンした。記憶領域はゼロ化され、QRコードはサーバーから自動削除された。

　マジードの手元のデバイスには、C4起爆用の信号送信画面が表示されている。

　“C4-ID:Vanta+Core/Ready.” と表示された黒い画面が、一度だけ微かに明滅した。

　マジードはバッグの中から細く仕込まれた指向性アンテナをそっと持ち上げ、ズボンの縫い目に沿わせるようにして膝の上に置いた。

　　ザ・ボードリーの柱の中心に埋め込まれたC４は、マジードの信号を待っていた。

　この高層ビルは、ハイパースチール製の柱が内部フレームに組み込まれており、一点を壊せば残りは構造力学に従って“砂の塔”のように自己崩壊する設計だ。5年前、イスラム大学で建築学を学んだラフィ・ガンナムの指示で建築現場で働き、仕込んだものだ。マジードはロサンゼルスを当時任されていた。東海岸の建築物についてはラフィとアミールが仕切った。

　マジードは一度だけ深呼吸し、画面に指を滑らせた。

　0.7秒後、何の音もなく、まずビルの中心がわずかに揺れた。誰も気づかない振動だ。だが次の瞬間──

「──ッ」

　高層建築そのものが骨の中心、まるで背骨を折られたように、ボードリーのボディは静かに沈み始めた。柱からフロアへ、天井から壁へ、粉塵とともに連鎖する沈黙の断崖──

　破片は内側に吸い込まれるように崩れ落ち、つい数秒前まで“存在していたもの”は、白い霧とともに都市の谷間に吸い込まれていった。

　通りに風が吹き抜けた。そこにあったはずの質量は、まるで最初から虚構だったかのように失われていった。音のない断末魔だけが、辺りの空気を冷たく震わせた。

　崩れ去った建物は、凍りついたまま沈黙し、都市のざわめきから切り離されていた。

　マジードは、銀色の眼鏡の縁を掛け直すと、静かに立ち上がった。騒然とし始めた周囲を無視し、マジードは地下鉄へ向け、ゆっくり歩き出した。彼が残した足音さえ、爆音にかき消されることはなかった。

 

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( Nikon coolpix8700 shot )

  

マンハッタン。ニューヨーク。アメリカ。2007. … 2 / 7

(今日の写真。それは未発表です。）

 

Images

ELLEGARDEN - Lonesome

youtu.be/bceHbxUuJcY?si=ESrstOEy7mrfmOIe

  

僕の新しい小説。

　B♭　（ビーフラット）

 

舞台はニューヨークです。

 

4

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/54653035442/in/dateposted...

3

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/54639396885/in/dateposted...

2

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/54628511025/in/dateposted...

1

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/54599616429/in/dateposted...

 

Soundtrack.

music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack/pl.u-47...

  

追記　この小説を多少説明しました。

youtu.be/3w65lqUF-YI?si=yG7qy6TPeCL9xRJV

  

メモ

 

1

「Bombay型（ボンベイ型、hh型）」

•特徴：通常のABO血液型を持たない（A、B、Oに分類されない）特殊な型。

•発見地：1952年、インド・ムンバイ（旧ボンベイ）で初めて確認。

•発生頻度：インドでは1万人に1人程度だが、世界的には約250万人に1人とも。

•輸血制限：同じBombay型しか輸血できない。

 

2

2024年ハーバード大学首席の卒業式スピーチ『知らないことの力』

youtu.be/SOUH8iVqSOI?si=Ju-Y728irtcWR71K

 

3

Shots fired at Trump rally

youtu.be/1ejfAkzjEhk?si=ASqJwEmkY-2rW_hT

  

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The 2 main protagonists from the LitRPG book series "Dungeon Crawler Carl" written by Matt Dinniman.

 

I made some FREE building instructions for the model of Donut - see here on my Rebrickable page:

rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-233391/Yatkuu/princess-donut/#de...

 

Also on video here:

www.instagram.com/p/DN-iKWhijcA/

 

Main protagonist of Big Fish.

Trikomo is a town in Cyprus. It is under the de facto control of Northern Cyprus and is the administrative center of the Iskele District of Northern Cyprus, which mainly extends into the Karpas Peninsula , while de jure it belongs to the Famagusta District of the Republic of Cyprus . It gained municipality status in 1998. Before 1974 Trikomo was a mixed village with a Greek Cypriot majority.

 

In 2011 Trikomo had 1948 inhabitants.

 

Trikomo is located in the north-eastern part of the Messaria plain , 9 km south of the village of Ardana , about two kilometers from the Bay of Famagusta and four kilometers north-west of the village of Sygkrasi .

 

In Greek Trikomo means "three houses". In 1975 the Turkish Cypriots renamed it Yeni İskele to commemorate the origins of the town's current inhabitants. In Larnaca before 1974 Turkish Cypriots resided in the neighborhood called Skala ("İskele" in Turkish), so that when they settled in the village they renamed it with the same name (lit. "new İskele", later shortened to İskele ). Yeni means "new", so Yeni İskele literally means "New Scale/İskele".

 

Before the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus , the population of Trikomo consisted almost entirely of Greek Cypriots , most of whom fled during the conflict while the rest were subsequently deported to the south. Among these, worthy of mention is Georgios Grivas (1898-1974), general of the Greek army , leader of the guerrilla organization EOKA, protagonist of the liberation struggle against the English and of the paramilitary organization EOKA B.

 

The Turkish Cypriot municipality of Larnaca which had been established in 1958 moved to Trikomo in 1974, soon after the Turkish invasion of the island .

 

In Trikomo is the Church of the Panagia Theotokos , deconsecrated and home to an icon museum displaying rare examples of medieval iconography in Cyprus. The church is divided into two sections, one Orthodox and one Catholic. The first is the oldest, dating back to the Byzantine era , while the second was built in the 12th century, during the period in which the island was ruled by the Lusignans

 

Before 1974 Trikomo was a mixed village with a Greek Cypriot majority. In the 1831 Ottoman census, Muslims made up approximately 18.4% of the population. However, by 1891 this percentage dropped significantly to 3.4%. In the first half of the 20th century the population of the village increased steadily, from 1,247 inhabitants in 1901 to 2,195 in 1960.

 

Most of Trikomo's Greek Cypriots were displaced in August 1974, although some remained in the town after the Turkish army took control. In October 1975 there were still 92 Greek Cypriots in the city, but in 1978 they were moved to the south side of the Green Line . Currently, like the rest of the displaced Greek Cypriots, Trikomo Greek Cypriots are scattered across the south of the island, especially in the cities. The number of Greek Cypriots from Trikomo displaced in 1974-78 was approximately 2,330 (2,323 in the 1960 census).

 

Today the village is inhabited mainly by displaced Turkish Cypriots from the south of the island, especially from the city of Larnaca and its district . In 1976-77, some families from Turkey, especially from the province of Adana , also settled in the village . Since the 2000s, many wealthy Europeans, Turks and Turkish Cypriots from other areas of the north of the island (including returnees from abroad) have purchased properties, built houses and settled in the vicinity of the city. According to the 2006 Turkish Cypriot census, the population of Trikomo/İskele was 3,657.

 

The city annually hosts the Iskele Festival , which takes place for ten days in summer, and is the oldest annual festival in Cyprus, having first been held in Larnaca in 1968. In 1974, the event was moved to Trikomo together to the Turkish Cypriot inhabitants of Larnaca who had moved there. The program includes an international folk dance festival, concerts by Turkish Cypriot and mainland Turkish musicians, various sports tournaments, stalls offering food and various competitions, along with other performances and competitions highlighting the city's cultural heritage.

 

The current mayor of the city is Hasan Sadıkoğlu, who was first elected in 2014 as an independent candidate. It was re-elected in 2018 as the candidate of the right-wing National Unity Party (UBP), winning with 54.6% of the vote. In the 2018 local elections, four members of the UBP, two members of the pro-settler Renaissance Party (YDP), and two members of the left-wing Turkish Republican Party (CTP) were elected to the eight-member city council .

 

Trikomo is twinned with:

Flag of Türkiye Beykoz, Istanbul

Flag of Türkiye Büyükçekmece, Istanbul

Flag of Türkiye Finike, Antalya , since 2015

Flag of Türkiye Mamak, Ankara

Flag of Türkiye Pendik, Istanbul

Flag of Türkiye Samsung , since 2006

 

Turkish Cypriot sports club Larnaka Gençler Birliği (also called İskele Gençlerbirliği ) was founded in 1934 in Larnaca, and was playing in the Süper Lig of the Northern Cyprus Football Federation in the 2018–19 season

 

Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, and its territory is considered by all other states to be part of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the northeast to Morphou Bay, Cape Kormakitis and its westernmost point, the Kokkina exclave in the west. Its southernmost point is the village of Louroujina. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both sides.

 

A coup d'état in 1974, performed as part of an attempt to annex the island to Greece, prompted the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. This resulted in the eviction of much of the north's Greek Cypriot population, the flight of Turkish Cypriots from the south, and the partitioning of the island, leading to a unilateral declaration of independence by the north in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support.

 

Attempts to reach a solution to the Cyprus dispute have been unsuccessful. The Turkish Army maintains a large force in Northern Cyprus with the support and approval of the TRNC government, while the Republic of Cyprus, the European Union as a whole, and the international community regard it as an occupation force. This military presence has been denounced in several United Nations Security Council resolutions.

 

Northern Cyprus is a semi-presidential, democratic republic with a cultural heritage incorporating various influences and an economy that is dominated by the services sector. The economy has seen growth through the 2000s and 2010s, with the GNP per capita more than tripling in the 2000s, but is held back by an international embargo due to the official closure of the ports in Northern Cyprus by the Republic of Cyprus. The official language is Turkish, with a distinct local dialect being spoken. The vast majority of the population consists of Sunni Muslims, while religious attitudes are mostly moderate and secular. Northern Cyprus is an observer state of ECO and OIC under the name "Turkish Cypriot State", PACE under the name "Turkish Cypriot Community", and Organization of Turkic States with its own name.

 

Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.

 

Cyprus, an island lying in the eastern Mediterranean, hosted a population of Greeks and Turks (four-fifths and one-fifth, respectively), who lived under British rule in the late nineteenth-century and the first half of the twentieth-century. Christian Orthodox Church of Cyprus played a prominent political role among the Greek Cypriot community, a privilege that it acquired during the Ottoman Empire with the employment of the millet system, which gave the archbishop an unofficial ethnarch status.

 

The repeated rejections by the British of Greek Cypriot demands for enosis, union with Greece, led to armed resistance, organised by the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle, or EOKA. EOKA, led by the Greek-Cypriot commander George Grivas, systematically targeted British colonial authorities. One of the effects of EOKA's campaign was to alter the Turkish position from demanding full reincorporation into Turkey to a demand for taksim (partition). EOKA's mission and activities caused a "Cretan syndrome" (see Turkish Resistance Organisation) within the Turkish Cypriot community, as its members feared that they would be forced to leave the island in such a case as had been the case with Cretan Turks. As such, they preferred the continuation of British colonial rule and then taksim, the division of the island. Due to the Turkish Cypriots' support for the British, EOKA's leader, Georgios Grivas, declared them to be enemies. The fact that the Turks were a minority was, according to Nihat Erim, to be addressed by the transfer of thousands of Turks from mainland Turkey so that Greek Cypriots would cease to be the majority. When Erim visited Cyprus as the Turkish representative, he was advised by Field Marshal Sir John Harding, the then Governor of Cyprus, that Turkey should send educated Turks to settle in Cyprus.

 

Turkey actively promoted the idea that on the island of Cyprus two distinctive communities existed, and sidestepped its former claim that "the people of Cyprus were all Turkish subjects". In doing so, Turkey's aim to have self-determination of two to-be equal communities in effect led to de jure partition of the island.[citation needed] This could be justified to the international community against the will of the majority Greek population of the island. Dr. Fazil Küçük in 1954 had already proposed Cyprus be divided in two at the 35° parallel.

 

Lindley Dan, from Notre Dame University, spotted the roots of intercommunal violence to different visions among the two communities of Cyprus (enosis for Greek Cypriots, taksim for Turkish Cypriots). Also, Lindlay wrote that "the merging of church, schools/education, and politics in divisive and nationalistic ways" had played a crucial role in creation of havoc in Cyprus' history. Attalides Michael also pointed to the opposing nationalisms as the cause of the Cyprus problem.

 

By the mid-1950's, the "Cyprus is Turkish" party, movement, and slogan gained force in both Cyprus and Turkey. In a 1954 editorial, Turkish Cypriot leader Dr. Fazil Kuchuk expressed the sentiment that the Turkish youth had grown up with the idea that "as soon as Great Britain leaves the island, it will be taken over by the Turks", and that "Turkey cannot tolerate otherwise". This perspective contributed to the willingness of Turkish Cypriots to align themselves with the British, who started recruiting Turkish Cypriots into the police force that patrolled Cyprus to fight EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist organisation that sought to rid the island of British rule.

 

EOKA targeted colonial authorities, including police, but Georgios Grivas, the leader of EOKA, did not initially wish to open up a new front by fighting Turkish Cypriots and reassured them that EOKA would not harm their people. In 1956, some Turkish Cypriot policemen were killed by EOKA members and this provoked some intercommunal violence in the spring and summer, but these attacks on policemen were not motivated by the fact that they were Turkish Cypriots.

 

However, in January 1957, Grivas changed his policy as his forces in the mountains became increasingly pressured by the British Crown forces. In order to divert the attention of the Crown forces, EOKA members started to target Turkish Cypriot policemen intentionally in the towns, so that Turkish Cypriots would riot against the Greek Cypriots and the security forces would have to be diverted to the towns to restore order. The killing of a Turkish Cypriot policeman on 19 January, when a power station was bombed, and the injury of three others, provoked three days of intercommunal violence in Nicosia. The two communities targeted each other in reprisals, at least one Greek Cypriot was killed and the British Army was deployed in the streets. Greek Cypriot stores were burned and their neighbourhoods attacked. Following the events, the Greek Cypriot leadership spread the propaganda that the riots had merely been an act of Turkish Cypriot aggression. Such events created chaos and drove the communities apart both in Cyprus and in Turkey.

 

On 22 October 1957 Sir Hugh Mackintosh Foot replaced Sir John Harding as the British Governor of Cyprus. Foot suggested five to seven years of self-government before any final decision. His plan rejected both enosis and taksim. The Turkish Cypriot response to this plan was a series of anti-British demonstrations in Nicosia on 27 and 28 January 1958 rejecting the proposed plan because the plan did not include partition. The British then withdrew the plan.

 

In 1957, Black Gang, a Turkish Cypriot pro-taksim paramilitary organisation, was formed to patrol a Turkish Cypriot enclave, the Tahtakale district of Nicosia, against activities of EOKA. The organisation later attempted to grow into a national scale, but failed to gain public support.

 

By 1958, signs of dissatisfaction with the British increased on both sides, with a group of Turkish Cypriots forming Volkan (later renamed to the Turkish Resistance Organisation) paramilitary group to promote partition and the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey as dictated by the Menderes plan. Volkan initially consisted of roughly 100 members, with the stated aim of raising awareness in Turkey of the Cyprus issue and courting military training and support for Turkish Cypriot fighters from the Turkish government.

 

In June 1958, the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was expected to propose a plan to resolve the Cyprus issue. In light of the new development, the Turks rioted in Nicosia to promote the idea that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and therefore any plan that did not include partition would not be viable. This violence was soon followed by bombing, Greek Cypriot deaths and looting of Greek Cypriot-owned shops and houses. Greek and Turkish Cypriots started to flee mixed population villages where they were a minority in search of safety. This was effectively the beginning of the segregation of the two communities. On 7 June 1958, a bomb exploded at the entrance of the Turkish Embassy in Cyprus. Following the bombing, Turkish Cypriots looted Greek Cypriot properties. On 26 June 1984, the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktaş, admitted on British channel ITV that the bomb was placed by the Turks themselves in order to create tension. On 9 January 1995, Rauf Denktaş repeated his claim to the famous Turkish newspaper Milliyet in Turkey.

 

The crisis reached a climax on 12 June 1958, when eight Greeks, out of an armed group of thirty five arrested by soldiers of the Royal Horse Guards on suspicion of preparing an attack on the Turkish quarter of Skylloura, were killed in a suspected attack by Turkish Cypriot locals, near the village of Geunyeli, having been ordered to walk back to their village of Kondemenos.

 

After the EOKA campaign had begun, the British government successfully began to turn the Cyprus issue from a British colonial problem into a Greek-Turkish issue. British diplomacy exerted backstage influence on the Adnan Menderes government, with the aim of making Turkey active in Cyprus. For the British, the attempt had a twofold objective. The EOKA campaign would be silenced as quickly as possible, and Turkish Cypriots would not side with Greek Cypriots against the British colonial claims over the island, which would thus remain under the British. The Turkish Cypriot leadership visited Menderes to discuss the Cyprus issue. When asked how the Turkish Cypriots should respond to the Greek Cypriot claim of enosis, Menderes replied: "You should go to the British foreign minister and request the status quo be prolonged, Cyprus to remain as a British colony". When the Turkish Cypriots visited the British Foreign Secretary and requested for Cyprus to remain a colony, he replied: "You should not be asking for colonialism at this day and age, you should be asking for Cyprus be returned to Turkey, its former owner".

 

As Turkish Cypriots began to look to Turkey for protection, Greek Cypriots soon understood that enosis was extremely unlikely. The Greek Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios III, now set independence for the island as his objective.

 

Britain resolved to solve the dispute by creating an independent Cyprus. In 1959, all involved parties signed the Zurich Agreements: Britain, Turkey, Greece, and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Makarios and Dr. Fazil Kucuk, respectively. The new constitution drew heavily on the ethnic composition of the island. The President would be a Greek Cypriot, and the Vice-President a Turkish Cypriot with an equal veto. The contribution to the public service would be set at a ratio of 70:30, and the Supreme Court would consist of an equal number of judges from both communities as well as an independent judge who was not Greek, Turkish or British. The Zurich Agreements were supplemented by a number of treaties. The Treaty of Guarantee stated that secession or union with any state was forbidden, and that Greece, Turkey and Britain would be given guarantor status to intervene if that was violated. The Treaty of Alliance allowed for two small Greek and Turkish military contingents to be stationed on the island, and the Treaty of Establishment gave Britain sovereignty over two bases in Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

 

On 15 August 1960, the Colony of Cyprus became fully independent as the Republic of Cyprus. The new republic remained within the Commonwealth of Nations.

 

The new constitution brought dissatisfaction to Greek Cypriots, who felt it to be highly unjust for them for historical, demographic and contributional reasons. Although 80% of the island's population were Greek Cypriots and these indigenous people had lived on the island for thousands of years and paid 94% of taxes, the new constitution was giving the 17% of the population that was Turkish Cypriots, who paid 6% of taxes, around 30% of government jobs and 40% of national security jobs.

 

Within three years tensions between the two communities in administrative affairs began to show. In particular disputes over separate municipalities and taxation created a deadlock in government. A constitutional court ruled in 1963 Makarios had failed to uphold article 173 of the constitution which called for the establishment of separate municipalities for Turkish Cypriots. Makarios subsequently declared his intention to ignore the judgement, resulting in the West German judge resigning from his position. Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to the constitution, which would have had the effect of resolving most of the issues in the Greek Cypriot favour. Under the proposals, the President and Vice-President would lose their veto, the separate municipalities as sought after by the Turkish Cypriots would be abandoned, the need for separate majorities by both communities in passing legislation would be discarded and the civil service contribution would be set at actual population ratios (82:18) instead of the slightly higher figure for Turkish Cypriots.

 

The intention behind the amendments has long been called into question. The Akritas plan, written in the height of the constitutional dispute by the Greek Cypriot interior minister Polycarpos Georkadjis, called for the removal of undesirable elements of the constitution so as to allow power-sharing to work. The plan envisaged a swift retaliatory attack on Turkish Cypriot strongholds should Turkish Cypriots resort to violence to resist the measures, stating "In the event of a planned or staged Turkish attack, it is imperative to overcome it by force in the shortest possible time, because if we succeed in gaining command of the situation (in one or two days), no outside, intervention would be either justified or possible." Whether Makarios's proposals were part of the Akritas plan is unclear, however it remains that sentiment towards enosis had not completely disappeared with independence. Makarios described independence as "a step on the road to enosis".[31] Preparations for conflict were not entirely absent from Turkish Cypriots either, with right wing elements still believing taksim (partition) the best safeguard against enosis.

 

Greek Cypriots however believe the amendments were a necessity stemming from a perceived attempt by Turkish Cypriots to frustrate the working of government. Turkish Cypriots saw it as a means to reduce their status within the state from one of co-founder to that of minority, seeing it as a first step towards enosis. The security situation deteriorated rapidly.

 

Main articles: Bloody Christmas (1963) and Battle of Tillyria

An armed conflict was triggered after December 21, 1963, a period remembered by Turkish Cypriots as Bloody Christmas, when a Greek Cypriot policemen that had been called to help deal with a taxi driver refusing officers already on the scene access to check the identification documents of his customers, took out his gun upon arrival and shot and killed the taxi driver and his partner. Eric Solsten summarised the events as follows: "a Greek Cypriot police patrol, ostensibly checking identification documents, stopped a Turkish Cypriot couple on the edge of the Turkish quarter. A hostile crowd gathered, shots were fired, and two Turkish Cypriots were killed."

 

In the morning after the shooting, crowds gathered in protest in Northern Nicosia, likely encouraged by the TMT, without incident. On the evening of the 22nd, gunfire broke out, communication lines to the Turkish neighbourhoods were cut, and the Greek Cypriot police occupied the nearby airport. On the 23rd, a ceasefire was negotiated, but did not hold. Fighting, including automatic weapons fire, between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and militias increased in Nicosia and Larnaca. A force of Greek Cypriot irregulars led by Nikos Sampson entered the Nicosia suburb of Omorphita and engaged in heavy firing on armed, as well as by some accounts unarmed, Turkish Cypriots. The Omorphita clash has been described by Turkish Cypriots as a massacre, while this view has generally not been acknowledged by Greek Cypriots.

 

Further ceasefires were arranged between the two sides, but also failed. By Christmas Eve, the 24th, Britain, Greece, and Turkey had joined talks, with all sides calling for a truce. On Christmas day, Turkish fighter jets overflew Nicosia in a show of support. Finally it was agreed to allow a force of 2,700 British soldiers to help enforce a ceasefire. In the next days, a "buffer zone" was created in Nicosia, and a British officer marked a line on a map with green ink, separating the two sides of the city, which was the beginning of the "Green Line". Fighting continued across the island for the next several weeks.

 

In total 364 Turkish Cypriots and 174 Greek Cypriots were killed during the violence. 25,000 Turkish Cypriots from 103-109 villages fled and were displaced into enclaves and thousands of Turkish Cypriot houses were ransacked or completely destroyed.

 

Contemporary newspapers also reported on the forceful exodus of the Turkish Cypriots from their homes. According to The Times in 1964, threats, shootings and attempts of arson were committed against the Turkish Cypriots to force them out of their homes. The Daily Express wrote that "25,000 Turks have already been forced to leave their homes". The Guardian reported a massacre of Turks at Limassol on 16 February 1964.

 

Turkey had by now readied its fleet and its fighter jets appeared over Nicosia. Turkey was dissuaded from direct involvement by the creation of a United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in 1964. Despite the negotiated ceasefire in Nicosia, attacks on the Turkish Cypriot persisted, particularly in Limassol. Concerned about the possibility of a Turkish invasion, Makarios undertook the creation of a Greek Cypriot conscript-based army called the "National Guard". A general from Greece took charge of the army, whilst a further 20,000 well-equipped officers and men were smuggled from Greece into Cyprus. Turkey threatened to intervene once more, but was prevented by a strongly worded letter from the American President Lyndon B. Johnson, anxious to avoid a conflict between NATO allies Greece and Turkey at the height of the Cold War.

 

Turkish Cypriots had by now established an important bridgehead at Kokkina, provided with arms, volunteers and materials from Turkey and abroad. Seeing this incursion of foreign weapons and troops as a major threat, the Cypriot government invited George Grivas to return from Greece as commander of the Greek troops on the island and launch a major attack on the bridgehead. Turkey retaliated by dispatching its fighter jets to bomb Greek positions, causing Makarios to threaten an attack on every Turkish Cypriot village on the island if the bombings did not cease. The conflict had now drawn in Greece and Turkey, with both countries amassing troops on their Thracian borders. Efforts at mediation by Dean Acheson, a former U.S. Secretary of State, and UN-appointed mediator Galo Plaza had failed, all the while the division of the two communities becoming more apparent. Greek Cypriot forces were estimated at some 30,000, including the National Guard and the large contingent from Greece. Defending the Turkish Cypriot enclaves was a force of approximately 5,000 irregulars, led by a Turkish colonel, but lacking the equipment and organisation of the Greek forces.

 

The Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1964, U Thant, reported the damage during the conflicts:

 

UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances; it shows that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish-Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting.

 

The situation worsened in 1967, when a military junta overthrew the democratically elected government of Greece, and began applying pressure on Makarios to achieve enosis. Makarios, not wishing to become part of a military dictatorship or trigger a Turkish invasion, began to distance himself from the goal of enosis. This caused tensions with the junta in Greece as well as George Grivas in Cyprus. Grivas's control over the National Guard and Greek contingent was seen as a threat to Makarios's position, who now feared a possible coup.[citation needed] The National Guard and Cyprus Police began patrolling the Turkish Cypriot enclaves of Ayios Theodoros and Kophinou, and on November 15 engaged in heavy fighting with the Turkish Cypriots.

 

By the time of his withdrawal 26 Turkish Cypriots had been killed. Turkey replied with an ultimatum demanding that Grivas be removed from the island, that the troops smuggled from Greece in excess of the limits of the Treaty of Alliance be removed, and that the economic blockades on the Turkish Cypriot enclaves be lifted. Grivas was recalled by the Athens Junta and the 12,000 Greek troops were withdrawn. Makarios now attempted to consolidate his position by reducing the number of National Guard troops, and by creating a paramilitary force loyal to Cypriot independence. In 1968, acknowledging that enosis was now all but impossible, Makarios stated, "A solution by necessity must be sought within the limits of what is feasible which does not always coincide with the limits of what is desirable."

 

After 1967 tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots subsided. Instead, the main source of tension on the island came from factions within the Greek Cypriot community. Although Makarios had effectively abandoned enosis in favour of an 'attainable solution', many others continued to believe that the only legitimate political aspiration for Greek Cypriots was union with Greece.

 

On his arrival, Grivas began by establishing a nationalist paramilitary group known as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B or EOKA-B), drawing comparisons with the EOKA struggle for enosis under the British colonial administration of the 1950s.

 

The military junta in Athens saw Makarios as an obstacle. Makarios's failure to disband the National Guard, whose officer class was dominated by mainland Greeks, had meant the junta had practical control over the Cypriot military establishment, leaving Makarios isolated and a vulnerable target.

 

During the first Turkish invasion, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus territory on 20 July 1974, invoking its rights under the Treaty of Guarantee. This expansion of Turkish-occupied zone violated International Law as well as the Charter of the United Nations. Turkish troops managed to capture 3% of the island which was accompanied by the burning of the Turkish Cypriot quarter, as well as the raping and killing of women and children. A temporary cease-fire followed which was mitigated by the UN Security Council. Subsequently, the Greek military Junta collapsed on July 23, 1974, and peace talks commenced in which a democratic government was installed. The Resolution 353 was broken after Turkey attacked a second time and managed to get a hold of 37% of Cyprus territory. The Island of Cyprus was appointed a Buffer Zone by the United Nations, which divided the island into two zones through the 'Green Line' and put an end to the Turkish invasion. Although Turkey announced that the occupied areas of Cyprus to be called the Federated Turkish State in 1975, it is not legitimised on a worldwide political scale. The United Nations called for the international recognition of independence for the Republic of Cyprus in the Security Council Resolution 367.

 

In the years after the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus one can observe a history of failed talks between the two parties. The 1983 declaration of the independent Turkish Republic of Cyprus resulted in a rise of inter-communal tensions and made it increasingly hard to find mutual understanding. With Cyprus' interest of a possible EU membership and a new UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1997 new hopes arose for a fresh start. International involvement from sides of the US and UK, wanting a solution to the Cyprus dispute prior to the EU accession led to political pressures for new talks. The believe that an accession without a solution would threaten Greek-Turkish relations and acknowledge the partition of the island would direct the coming negotiations.

 

Over the course of two years a concrete plan, the Annan plan was formulated. In 2004 the fifth version agreed upon from both sides and with the endorsement of Turkey, US, UK and EU then was presented to the public and was given a referendum in both Cypriot communities to assure the legitimisation of the resolution. The Turkish Cypriots voted with 65% for the plan, however the Greek Cypriots voted with a 76% majority against. The Annan plan contained multiple important topics. Firstly it established a confederation of two separate states called the United Cyprus Republic. Both communities would have autonomous states combined under one unified government. The members of parliament would be chosen according to the percentage in population numbers to ensure a just involvement from both communities. The paper proposed a demilitarisation of the island over the next years. Furthermore it agreed upon a number of 45000 Turkish settlers that could remain on the island. These settlers became a very important issue concerning peace talks. Originally the Turkish government encouraged Turks to settle in Cyprus providing transfer and property, to establish a counterpart to the Greek Cypriot population due to their 1 to 5 minority. With the economic situation many Turkish-Cypriot decided to leave the island, however their departure is made up by incoming Turkish settlers leaving the population ratio between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots stable. However all these points where criticised and as seen in the vote rejected mainly by the Greek Cypriots. These name the dissolution of the „Republic of Cyprus", economic consequences of a reunion and the remaining Turkish settlers as reason. Many claim that the plan was indeed drawing more from Turkish-Cypriot demands then Greek-Cypriot interests. Taking in consideration that the US wanted to keep Turkey as a strategic partner in future Middle Eastern conflicts.

 

A week after the failed referendum the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU. In multiple instances the EU tried to promote trade with Northern Cyprus but without internationally recognised ports this spiked a grand debate. Both side endure their intention of negotiations, however without the prospect of any new compromises or agreements the UN is unwilling to start the process again. Since 2004 negotiations took place in numbers but without any results, both sides are strongly holding on to their position without an agreeable solution in sight that would suit both parties.

Here's the protagonists from madness combat, One of the best series on Newgrounds.

L-R:

Sanford: with some suspenders (which don't actually appear in the serie, but in other media), round glasses, a bandana, a pistol and his iconic hook. He was made with decals.

Hank: with his goggles, Mask, smg and iconic katana.

Deimos: with his hat, headset, radio backpack and an smh. He is also made with decals.

I might make some more characters if i'm able to make decent decals

The tragedy takes place at night near a fountain, where the two young protagonists had set their love meeting. Thisbe – “audacem faciebat amor” ,“love made her bold” – reaches the fountain before Pyramos, but, frightened by a lioness dirty with the blood of the oxen that had just mauled, flees losing her veil. When the young man arrives, he sees on the ground Thisbe’s veil and the traces of the lioness, and, believing that his beloved has been mauled by the beast, kills himself with his sword.

 

“… Velamina Thisbes

tollit et ad pactae secum fert arboris umbram,

utque dedit notae lacrimas, dedit oscula vesti,

«accipe nunc» inquit «nostri quoque sanguinis haustus!»

quoque erat accinctus, demisit in ilia ferrum.

Nec mora, ferventi moriens e vulnere traxit

[met IV, 115– 120]

 

“He picks up Thisbe's cloak and carries it to the shade of the trysting-tree. And while he kisses the familiar garment and bedews it with his tears he cries: “Drink now my blood too.” So saying, he drew the sword which he wore girt about him, plunged the blade into his side, and straightway,

with his dying effort, drew the sword from his warm wound.

 

Once overcome her fear, Thisbe returns to the fountain where Pyramos is agonizing. Overwhelmed by despair, she kills herself with the same sword a moment later than her beloved could see her face for the last time before dying.

 

Sed postquam remorata suos cognovit amores,

percutit indignos claro plangore lacertos

et laniata comas amplexaque corpus amatum

vulnera supplevit lacrimis fletumque cruori

miscuit et gelidis in vultibus oscula figens

«Pyrame,» clamavit «quis te mihi casus ademit?

Pyrame, responde! tua te carissima Thisbe

nominat: exaudi vultusque attolle iacentes!»

ad nomen Thisbes oculos iam morte gravatos

Pyramus erexit visaque recondidit illa.

Quae postquam vestemque suam cognovit et ense

vidit ebur vacuum, «tua te manus» inquit «amorque

perdidit, infelix! est et mihi fortis in unum

hoc manus, est et amor: dabit hic in vulnera vires. …»

[met IV, 137– 153]

 

Translation: Frank Justus Miller, “Ovid - Metamorphoses”

 

“But when after a little while she recognizes her lover, she smites her innocent arms with loud blows of grief, and tears her hair ; and embracing the well-beloved form, she fills his wounds with tears, mingling these with his blood. And as she kissed his lips, now cold in death, she wailed :

“O my Pyramus, what mischance has reft you from me? Pyramus! Answer me. Tis your dearest Thisbe calling you. Oh, listen, and lift your drooping head!“

At the name of Thisbe, Pyramus lifted his eyes, now heavy with death, and having looked upon her face, closed them again.

Now when she saw her own cloak and the ivory scabbard empty of the sword, she said :

“ Twas your own hand and your love, poor boy, that took your life. I, too, have a hand brave for this one deed ; I, too, have love. …”

 

So Thysbe speaks, and fitting the point beneath her breast, she falls forward on the sword which is still warm with her lover's blood.

 

The movie, Thelma and Louise, featured two female protagonists, who went on an adventure in a fabled convertible and ultimately became wanted fugitives. The 1991 movie has become a cinematic myth not only due to the stellar performances by Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, but also because of its third lead, the 1966 Ford Thunderbird.

 

In Thelma and Louise, two women, riding a 1966 Ford Thunderbird, flee from the law after Louise shoots a man who is attempting to assault Thelma during a trip to a fishing camp. During the entire journey, this 1966 Ford Thunderbird plays a central role. The moment where this convertible takes the lead in the movie is notable not for the car’s technical skills, but for what it symbolizes. Typically, legendary vehicle scenes feature extreme high-speed chases and in the movie, Thelma and Louise decide they’d rather die than surrender themselves while surrounded by cops at the edge of the Grand Canyon. Finally, when they realize there is no escape, Thelma says they “keep going” as they speed off the cliff in their Thunderbird.

 

There were two different engines available for the Ford Thunderbird in 1966. The 3.9-liter FE V8 produced 275 hp and was available with a basic two-barrel carburetor. It generated 427 lb-ft of torque at 2,800 rpm and 315 horsepower at 4,600 rpm. The highest level of performance option was the 4.2-liter FE V8 with 345 horsepower. At 2,800 rpm, the 428 produced 462 ft-lb of torque. The 428-equipped T-Bird uses a C6 dual-range, three-speed automatic transmission. The 390 T-Bird had a three-speed Cruise-O-Matic automatic.

So in my regular story, the dream travelling and whatnot happens via technology (just like Inception). But I am one of those people who likes to make AUs of everything, so I also have an AU version of the story where dreaming is magical and Jane is the protagonist. This is the beginning of that story. I haven't been working on it for as long as the other one! -_-;

 

---

When Jane Gray was one week old, and her mother didn’t even know she existed yet, Jane got a sister, a mirror image of herself, and they kept each other company for nine long months.

 

When Jane was three, she got a little brother, and he was very loud.

 

When Jane was seven, her father moved away. Jane had never heard her parents argue, and their mother told them that he had left her with the greatest present ever, her three beautiful children, and she wouldn’t change what happened for the world.

 

When Jane was ten, she had a dream about her father. She was a grown woman, elegant and curvaceous, and she was sitting at a tea table with him. Her father looked as he had done in a picture of him from before Jane was born. His thick chestnut hair was slicked down in waves, and he wore a crisp tuxedo with tails.

 

“Hello, Jane,” he said. “I’ve missed you.”

 

“Hi Papa!” she said. “It’s been quiet without you.”

 

“How are you all doing?”

 

“Henry is getting very good grades, but he never cleans up any of his messes.”

 

“And Lottie?”

 

“She’s still too nice.”

 

“Go easy on your sister. She has a lot more empathy than you do.”

 

“What does that mean?”

 

“You’ll have to look it up.”

 

Jane snorted like a cat.

 

Alexander Gray chuckled. “Always the same,” he said. “How is your mother?”

 

“If you care so much, why don’t you come back?”

 

“I can’t lie to her anymore.”

 

“Why don’t you stop doing things you have to lie about?”

 

“I could no more do that than I could stop breathing, and it would hurt even more.”

 

“Hmm,” Jane said skeptically. Her father looked away. Jane thought there might have been sadness in his eyes, but she couldn’t be sure. She knew everyone lied sometimes, and he’d just admitted to being a liar.

 

“There’s another reason I’m here,” he said. “I have to offer you something, and you must listen very carefully and decide. What I will offer you will explain why I left your mother, and why I can’t come back. You may have the chance to make this choice again later on in life, but not from me.”

 

“Papa, you’re being very serious. This certainly isn’t like you.”

 

“It is very serious.”

 

“Tell me.”

 

“We are in a dream. The dream we are in is inside you. But outside you there is a whole dreamworld. Some people can leave their own dreams and go inside the dreamworld. They can visit other people’s dreams. And some very lucky few can use the power of the dreamworld to make changes in the waking world. I am one of those people. You are one of those people. Your mother is not.”

 

“Lottie?”

 

“Not Lottie or Henry, either.”

 

“So you left Mom because you can do magic, but you couldn’t tell her?”

 

“It’s not exactly magic. But yes, I couldn’t tell her.”

 

“You couldn't just say she was a muggle and you were a wizard, like Harry Potter?”

 

Jane’s father laughed. “I’m not sure I should have given you those books, though I’m sure you’d have found them anyway. I could have told your mother that, but it would have been a lie. I could have carried her to the dreamworld with me, but that would have been worse. Your mother made her own choice. I love her very deeply, and I would not take that away from her.”

 

Jane picked up a purple macaroon and toyed with it, examining her pretty, grown-up hands. “What is my choice?”

 

“I can show you how to enter the dreamworld,” her father said. “Once you have been in the dreamworld, the dreamworld is in you, and you will feel it in the waking world, and you’ll never be able to escape it. The dreamworld will give you power and knowledge, but it will draw a veil between you and those you love. You may be consumed with lust for power. You may be taunted by things you have seen in the dream but cannot draw out into reality. You may go mad, and live only in the dream, until you die in the waking world and your soul is restless forever in the vastness of the dream.”

 

“You’re really selling this, Dad,” Jane said. “I’m only ten.”

 

“I had my first dream when I was six,” he said. “There are other creatures in the world besides dreamers. And other dreamers besides me. When you are a little older, if you choose to dream, I will introduce you to them, and I will tell you about my family.”

 

“What do dreamers do?” Jane was imagining a Ministry of Magic, but she couldn’t picture her father submitting much to government.

 

“Some live ordinary lives. Some seek the dark creatures of the dream and destroy them. Some use the dream to make art and music.”

 

“And some go crazy and kill themselves.”

 

“Yes,” her father said evenly. “And some get hit by buses.”

 

“What if I say no?”

 

“You’ll wake up, and think this was all a dream.”

 

“Can I sleep on it?”

 

“You already are.”

 

Jane looked around the room. The walls were papered with a white pattern that swirled like fur, and a wide marble sideboard held strawberries dipped in white chocolate, and lemon bars topped with mounds of cream. The wall opposite had a wide black arch, opening to a dark terrace beyond.

 

Jane’s father gasped. “Did you do that?”

 

“Do what?”

 

“Make the arch.”

 

“I don’t know,” Jane said. “I just looked at it.”

 

“I didn’t make it, Jane. You did.”

 

“And it leads out into the dreamworld?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Jane’s father stood and walked out through the arch. The stars flickered as dark, wipsy clouds passed before them.

 

Jane rose from the table and approached the opening. She could feel it as she grew nearer, like a television left on but not tuned to any channel. Her father seemed to grow in the starlight, his hair and beard sparkling garnet, his head brushing the sky.

 

“If you come this way, Jane, you will be lonely.”

 

But it was too late. She paused, gripping the arch, but the cold air of the dream was raising the hairs on her elbow, and she could resist no longer. As she stepped across the threshold, she could see the clouds moving, gathering and drawing around her head.

 

Her father stared, as if she were unfamiliar to him. “What can I do now?” she asked.

 

“Not much yet,” he smiled. “It takes practice to make the dream create what your mind imagines. Start by thinking about something simple, like a rock.”

 

“What about a flower?” Jane asked, and handed her father a floppy white daisy.

 

“A flower works,” her father said, taking it and examining the petals. “This is impressive.”

 

“And if I wanted a whole garden?” All around them plants were suddenly growing, rosebushes and clover and violets, spreading like cream poured into coffee.

 

“Jane,” her father said, his face darkening, “what are you doing?”

 

“You said whatever I imagined, the dream would create. So I imagined a garden!”

 

“How are you filling in the details?”

 

“I don’t know. The dream doesn’t do that for you?”

 

“No. What you’ve done is very advanced.” The violets nodded in a slight breeze. “Other dreamers are always in the dreamworld, and they certainly will have felt that. We need to leave.”

 

“To go where?”

 

“To wake up.”

 

“Okay,” Jane said, starting to turn to go back to the tea building. It was gone.

 

“Wait!” her father reached out and jerked her arm back. “Listen. Never eat or drink anything anyone gives you in a dream. That can give them power over you. If you dream of anyone else before you hear from me again, wake up immediately and call me. I don’t think—”

 

A rustle passed through the rosebushes. Jane thought, and they grew taller, dropping their blossoms and thickening their thorns.

 

“Go! Wake up!” Alexander shouted.

 

*

 

Jane woke up. Her mother was tapping on her door. “Time to get up, sweetie!”

 

Jane washed her face and brushed her teeth. She dragged a comb through her hair and pushed it back with a My Little Pony headband. Her siblings were already eating Froot Loops when she walked into the kitchen, her mother unloading the dishwasher.. “Sleep well?” she asked.

 

“I dreamed about Dad,” she said as she poured herself cereal. “We were having tea and macaroons.”

 

“I’m glad to see you haven’t outgrown tea parties.”

 

“I had a dream!” Henry shouted. “I was playing soccer with some T-Rexes.”

 

And as he said it, Jane could feel his dream, bright and childish, swirling around him. Her mother passed behind Jane’s chair, and she could smell the baking bread her mother had dreamed of.

 

“What about you, Lottie?” their mother asked.

 

Lottie poked at her bowl. “I never remember my dreams.”

 

Jane put a hand across the table and touched her sister’s arm. There was no dream there. Jane closed her eyes, and she couldn’t feel any dream on her sister, like looking into a mirror in a dark room. Was this how it was for her sister all the time?

 

“I’m sorry I pick on you, Lottie. I’m going to be nicer in the future,” Jane blurted. She’d been overwhelmed with a sharp sense of pity at the realization that her sister had never had a dream, even a bad one.

 

“It’s okay,” Lottie said.

 

“You always say that,” Jane replied. “But this time it will be. For real.”

 

“What prompted all this?” their mother asked.

 

“Something Dad said in my dream.”

 

“Hmm,” her mother replied, and Jane could see her mother’s memory of her father’s teeth flashing as he laughed.

Ten portraits of strong women created by Alice Pasquini make up the exclusively female concept that CHEAP conceived for the 2019 opera season of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna. Each opera is represented by the female protagonist, with their classic characteristics bringing into focus their emotions and ties to the central narrative. Scrolling through we find the madness of Azucena at the center of the plot of “Il trovatore“, a vampy Salome, the provocative Rosina from “The Barber of Seville“, the sweet ingenuity of Gilda in “Rigoletto“, the passionate Violetta of “La traviata“, the cold acidity of Turandot, the gothic Mrs. Lovett of “Sweeney Todd“, an ironic and light Isabella for “An Italian in Algiers“, a determined Leonore from “Fidelio” and an unbelievable protagonist for “I pagliacci – Cavalleria Rusticana.” The Roman artist has used vibrant colors that recall the walls the artist paints around the world. The challenge for CHEAP, developed together with Studio Grafico Diversa-mente was the find the meeting between the contemporary language of street art and the classical world of opera in a way that brought value to both worlds.

 

Sono dieci ritratti di donne realizzati dalla street artist Alice Pasquini a comporre il concept esclusivamente femminile che CHEAP ha pensato per la stagione 2019 del Teatro Comunale Bologna e che da questa settimana potete ammirare nelle bacheche di Via dell'Indipendenza.

Ogni Opera in cartellone viene rappresentata mettendo in risalto le figure femminili al centro del racconto, ponendo in risalto le caratteristiche di ogni personaggio con un focus preciso sui loro sentimenti e sul rapporto che le legano alle rispettive storie soggettive, colte quasi come se fossero allo specchio. Scorrendo il cartellone troviamo la follia di Azucena al centro della trama de “Il trovatore”, una vampiresca Salome, la provocante Rosina da “Il barbiere di Siviglia”, la dolce ingenuità di Gilda nel “Rigoletto”, l'appassionata Violetta de “La traviata”, l'algidità fredda di Turandot, la gotica Mrs. Lovett dello “Sweeney Todd”, un'ironica e leggera Isabella per “L'italiana in Algeri”, una determinata Leonore per il “Fidelio” e un'incredula protagonista per “I pagliacci – Cavalleria Rusticana”. Ritratti in cui l'artista romana utilizza colori molto forti e pop, che solitamente campeggiano nei lavori sui muri di tutto il mondo e che l'hanno resa una delle street artist più amate e conosciute del panorama internazionale. I dieci ritratti vengono arricchiti da sei illustrazioni legate alla stagione Danza 2019, con quattro soggetti legati al mondo del balletto e due ritratti di protagonisti, tra cui spicca il ritratto di Svetlana Zakharova, prima étoile del Teatro Bol'šoj. La sfida di questo lavoro curato da CHEAP e sviluppato con lo Studio Grafico Diversa-mente è stato quello di trovare un punto di incontro tra il linguaggio contemporaneo dell'arte urbana e l'immaginario più tradizionale del mondo dell'Opera, legandolo in una trama comune che valorizzasse entrambi i mondi.

 

If there is a psychological trauma of the potential ego, an escape

from that reality is a dream. A dream regenerates one’s own body,

mind, and memory. I can do anything in a dream, and I am the director, the protagonist, the dead one, and also the teacher in the dream.

Repetitive phantom of the dream...Is the fear a reflection of or an

appeal to my weakness?

 

The worlds hung across the horizontal line’s space of light, which is spread infinitely in a dream, is human history, and Is also an expression of each one’s life that is neither beautiful nor grand.

Separation, waiting, and tears. I close my eyes to the sadness of

the emotions inside a human being’s essential ego, and I fall

asleep while dreaming. I enter into a space where time and space

exist, and where nobody exists at the end of the world. There is a

girl, a soldier, a woman who got hurt, and a boy coming from an

unknown time in the space. If light exists within the quadrangle

landscape in the space, that light must be the voice that represents

the ego in reality.

 

A faint memory of childhood gives me comfort in the space of light.

Lost things and vanished traces torture me. A spray of sunset, the

shade of a spindle tree under the sun, and a song of stars heard in a

cliff cave make me happy and paralyze me in the painful reality. The light. The light that I see in the distance as I pass through a path of

darkness. The light that finally touches me in the hill of the labyrinthafter staying alone in the forest for days. That is the comfort,

consolation, and friends of my ego. I am laughing in the hill of light.

It is we or I who are living in different dreams and ideals in one space.

Both have reality and unreality. A song of joy, anger, sorrow, and

happiness happening in one space begins from the study of light,

which everybody is looking at. The story of me that I see through

fragments of memory seems like the story of us, namely, the story of

this world. There is misfortune and hardship given to a person from

one’s birth, and separation, rendezvous, and many stories in betweenall these. I find a connection to the reality of ethnicity.

 

Through the story of me shown in the space of a dream, I am able to

sympathize with our reality that is full of division, ideology, and an

embarrassing past, like my story, and I cry at the stories. These

expressions are the shapes of the lessons that I have learned from

my experience and the agony in my life.

 

Such expressions of agony create a new space, and let you experience a glimpse of the ecstasy that comes from heartbreaking trials.

 

Light is a key and a result of this ecstasy. Eternity also means finiteness.

 

The meaning of eternal light is the pursuit of new light, the comfort

of an imperfect ego, and a fruit of the ideals that humans seek

through the spiritual world of ego, which illustrates the reality, ideals,

and dreams transcending time and space.

My protagonist in Louise and The Men of Transit looks to help customers. It all gets to be a bit confusing between numbers for names, and lack of exit signs, and real life customers thinking in a non-TTC way. It also gets dangerous for Louise. Her story: my.w.tt/i2Uvlc22QR

 

I’m continuing my Twitter account for Louise - @LouiseTransit - to keep posting TTC pictures because it’s fun. I need some way to offload the rage TTC induces in just trying to get somewhere. Some sarcasm may creep in to her tweets. 😏

Trikomo is a town in Cyprus. It is under the de facto control of Northern Cyprus and is the administrative center of the Iskele District of Northern Cyprus, which mainly extends into the Karpas Peninsula , while de jure it belongs to the Famagusta District of the Republic of Cyprus . It gained municipality status in 1998. Before 1974 Trikomo was a mixed village with a Greek Cypriot majority.

 

In 2011 Trikomo had 1948 inhabitants.

 

Trikomo is located in the north-eastern part of the Messaria plain , 9 km south of the village of Ardana , about two kilometers from the Bay of Famagusta and four kilometers north-west of the village of Sygkrasi .

 

In Greek Trikomo means "three houses". In 1975 the Turkish Cypriots renamed it Yeni İskele to commemorate the origins of the town's current inhabitants. In Larnaca before 1974 Turkish Cypriots resided in the neighborhood called Skala ("İskele" in Turkish), so that when they settled in the village they renamed it with the same name (lit. "new İskele", later shortened to İskele ). Yeni means "new", so Yeni İskele literally means "New Scale/İskele".

 

Before the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus , the population of Trikomo consisted almost entirely of Greek Cypriots , most of whom fled during the conflict while the rest were subsequently deported to the south. Among these, worthy of mention is Georgios Grivas (1898-1974), general of the Greek army , leader of the guerrilla organization EOKA, protagonist of the liberation struggle against the English and of the paramilitary organization EOKA B.

 

The Turkish Cypriot municipality of Larnaca which had been established in 1958 moved to Trikomo in 1974, soon after the Turkish invasion of the island .

 

In Trikomo is the Church of the Panagia Theotokos , deconsecrated and home to an icon museum displaying rare examples of medieval iconography in Cyprus. The church is divided into two sections, one Orthodox and one Catholic. The first is the oldest, dating back to the Byzantine era , while the second was built in the 12th century, during the period in which the island was ruled by the Lusignans

 

Before 1974 Trikomo was a mixed village with a Greek Cypriot majority. In the 1831 Ottoman census, Muslims made up approximately 18.4% of the population. However, by 1891 this percentage dropped significantly to 3.4%. In the first half of the 20th century the population of the village increased steadily, from 1,247 inhabitants in 1901 to 2,195 in 1960.

 

Most of Trikomo's Greek Cypriots were displaced in August 1974, although some remained in the town after the Turkish army took control. In October 1975 there were still 92 Greek Cypriots in the city, but in 1978 they were moved to the south side of the Green Line . Currently, like the rest of the displaced Greek Cypriots, Trikomo Greek Cypriots are scattered across the south of the island, especially in the cities. The number of Greek Cypriots from Trikomo displaced in 1974-78 was approximately 2,330 (2,323 in the 1960 census).

 

Today the village is inhabited mainly by displaced Turkish Cypriots from the south of the island, especially from the city of Larnaca and its district . In 1976-77, some families from Turkey, especially from the province of Adana , also settled in the village . Since the 2000s, many wealthy Europeans, Turks and Turkish Cypriots from other areas of the north of the island (including returnees from abroad) have purchased properties, built houses and settled in the vicinity of the city. According to the 2006 Turkish Cypriot census, the population of Trikomo/İskele was 3,657.

 

The city annually hosts the Iskele Festival , which takes place for ten days in summer, and is the oldest annual festival in Cyprus, having first been held in Larnaca in 1968. In 1974, the event was moved to Trikomo together to the Turkish Cypriot inhabitants of Larnaca who had moved there. The program includes an international folk dance festival, concerts by Turkish Cypriot and mainland Turkish musicians, various sports tournaments, stalls offering food and various competitions, along with other performances and competitions highlighting the city's cultural heritage.

 

The current mayor of the city is Hasan Sadıkoğlu, who was first elected in 2014 as an independent candidate. It was re-elected in 2018 as the candidate of the right-wing National Unity Party (UBP), winning with 54.6% of the vote. In the 2018 local elections, four members of the UBP, two members of the pro-settler Renaissance Party (YDP), and two members of the left-wing Turkish Republican Party (CTP) were elected to the eight-member city council .

 

Trikomo is twinned with:

Flag of Türkiye Beykoz, Istanbul

Flag of Türkiye Büyükçekmece, Istanbul

Flag of Türkiye Finike, Antalya , since 2015

Flag of Türkiye Mamak, Ankara

Flag of Türkiye Pendik, Istanbul

Flag of Türkiye Samsung , since 2006

 

Turkish Cypriot sports club Larnaka Gençler Birliği (also called İskele Gençlerbirliği ) was founded in 1934 in Larnaca, and was playing in the Süper Lig of the Northern Cyprus Football Federation in the 2018–19 season

 

Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, and its territory is considered by all other states to be part of the Republic of Cyprus.

 

Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the northeast to Morphou Bay, Cape Kormakitis and its westernmost point, the Kokkina exclave in the west. Its southernmost point is the village of Louroujina. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both sides.

 

A coup d'état in 1974, performed as part of an attempt to annex the island to Greece, prompted the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. This resulted in the eviction of much of the north's Greek Cypriot population, the flight of Turkish Cypriots from the south, and the partitioning of the island, leading to a unilateral declaration of independence by the north in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support.

 

Attempts to reach a solution to the Cyprus dispute have been unsuccessful. The Turkish Army maintains a large force in Northern Cyprus with the support and approval of the TRNC government, while the Republic of Cyprus, the European Union as a whole, and the international community regard it as an occupation force. This military presence has been denounced in several United Nations Security Council resolutions.

 

Northern Cyprus is a semi-presidential, democratic republic with a cultural heritage incorporating various influences and an economy that is dominated by the services sector. The economy has seen growth through the 2000s and 2010s, with the GNP per capita more than tripling in the 2000s, but is held back by an international embargo due to the official closure of the ports in Northern Cyprus by the Republic of Cyprus. The official language is Turkish, with a distinct local dialect being spoken. The vast majority of the population consists of Sunni Muslims, while religious attitudes are mostly moderate and secular. Northern Cyprus is an observer state of ECO and OIC under the name "Turkish Cypriot State", PACE under the name "Turkish Cypriot Community", and Organization of Turkic States with its own name.

 

Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.

 

Cyprus, an island lying in the eastern Mediterranean, hosted a population of Greeks and Turks (four-fifths and one-fifth, respectively), who lived under British rule in the late nineteenth-century and the first half of the twentieth-century. Christian Orthodox Church of Cyprus played a prominent political role among the Greek Cypriot community, a privilege that it acquired during the Ottoman Empire with the employment of the millet system, which gave the archbishop an unofficial ethnarch status.

 

The repeated rejections by the British of Greek Cypriot demands for enosis, union with Greece, led to armed resistance, organised by the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle, or EOKA. EOKA, led by the Greek-Cypriot commander George Grivas, systematically targeted British colonial authorities. One of the effects of EOKA's campaign was to alter the Turkish position from demanding full reincorporation into Turkey to a demand for taksim (partition). EOKA's mission and activities caused a "Cretan syndrome" (see Turkish Resistance Organisation) within the Turkish Cypriot community, as its members feared that they would be forced to leave the island in such a case as had been the case with Cretan Turks. As such, they preferred the continuation of British colonial rule and then taksim, the division of the island. Due to the Turkish Cypriots' support for the British, EOKA's leader, Georgios Grivas, declared them to be enemies. The fact that the Turks were a minority was, according to Nihat Erim, to be addressed by the transfer of thousands of Turks from mainland Turkey so that Greek Cypriots would cease to be the majority. When Erim visited Cyprus as the Turkish representative, he was advised by Field Marshal Sir John Harding, the then Governor of Cyprus, that Turkey should send educated Turks to settle in Cyprus.

 

Turkey actively promoted the idea that on the island of Cyprus two distinctive communities existed, and sidestepped its former claim that "the people of Cyprus were all Turkish subjects". In doing so, Turkey's aim to have self-determination of two to-be equal communities in effect led to de jure partition of the island.[citation needed] This could be justified to the international community against the will of the majority Greek population of the island. Dr. Fazil Küçük in 1954 had already proposed Cyprus be divided in two at the 35° parallel.

 

Lindley Dan, from Notre Dame University, spotted the roots of intercommunal violence to different visions among the two communities of Cyprus (enosis for Greek Cypriots, taksim for Turkish Cypriots). Also, Lindlay wrote that "the merging of church, schools/education, and politics in divisive and nationalistic ways" had played a crucial role in creation of havoc in Cyprus' history. Attalides Michael also pointed to the opposing nationalisms as the cause of the Cyprus problem.

 

By the mid-1950's, the "Cyprus is Turkish" party, movement, and slogan gained force in both Cyprus and Turkey. In a 1954 editorial, Turkish Cypriot leader Dr. Fazil Kuchuk expressed the sentiment that the Turkish youth had grown up with the idea that "as soon as Great Britain leaves the island, it will be taken over by the Turks", and that "Turkey cannot tolerate otherwise". This perspective contributed to the willingness of Turkish Cypriots to align themselves with the British, who started recruiting Turkish Cypriots into the police force that patrolled Cyprus to fight EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist organisation that sought to rid the island of British rule.

 

EOKA targeted colonial authorities, including police, but Georgios Grivas, the leader of EOKA, did not initially wish to open up a new front by fighting Turkish Cypriots and reassured them that EOKA would not harm their people. In 1956, some Turkish Cypriot policemen were killed by EOKA members and this provoked some intercommunal violence in the spring and summer, but these attacks on policemen were not motivated by the fact that they were Turkish Cypriots.

 

However, in January 1957, Grivas changed his policy as his forces in the mountains became increasingly pressured by the British Crown forces. In order to divert the attention of the Crown forces, EOKA members started to target Turkish Cypriot policemen intentionally in the towns, so that Turkish Cypriots would riot against the Greek Cypriots and the security forces would have to be diverted to the towns to restore order. The killing of a Turkish Cypriot policeman on 19 January, when a power station was bombed, and the injury of three others, provoked three days of intercommunal violence in Nicosia. The two communities targeted each other in reprisals, at least one Greek Cypriot was killed and the British Army was deployed in the streets. Greek Cypriot stores were burned and their neighbourhoods attacked. Following the events, the Greek Cypriot leadership spread the propaganda that the riots had merely been an act of Turkish Cypriot aggression. Such events created chaos and drove the communities apart both in Cyprus and in Turkey.

 

On 22 October 1957 Sir Hugh Mackintosh Foot replaced Sir John Harding as the British Governor of Cyprus. Foot suggested five to seven years of self-government before any final decision. His plan rejected both enosis and taksim. The Turkish Cypriot response to this plan was a series of anti-British demonstrations in Nicosia on 27 and 28 January 1958 rejecting the proposed plan because the plan did not include partition. The British then withdrew the plan.

 

In 1957, Black Gang, a Turkish Cypriot pro-taksim paramilitary organisation, was formed to patrol a Turkish Cypriot enclave, the Tahtakale district of Nicosia, against activities of EOKA. The organisation later attempted to grow into a national scale, but failed to gain public support.

 

By 1958, signs of dissatisfaction with the British increased on both sides, with a group of Turkish Cypriots forming Volkan (later renamed to the Turkish Resistance Organisation) paramilitary group to promote partition and the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey as dictated by the Menderes plan. Volkan initially consisted of roughly 100 members, with the stated aim of raising awareness in Turkey of the Cyprus issue and courting military training and support for Turkish Cypriot fighters from the Turkish government.

 

In June 1958, the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was expected to propose a plan to resolve the Cyprus issue. In light of the new development, the Turks rioted in Nicosia to promote the idea that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and therefore any plan that did not include partition would not be viable. This violence was soon followed by bombing, Greek Cypriot deaths and looting of Greek Cypriot-owned shops and houses. Greek and Turkish Cypriots started to flee mixed population villages where they were a minority in search of safety. This was effectively the beginning of the segregation of the two communities. On 7 June 1958, a bomb exploded at the entrance of the Turkish Embassy in Cyprus. Following the bombing, Turkish Cypriots looted Greek Cypriot properties. On 26 June 1984, the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktaş, admitted on British channel ITV that the bomb was placed by the Turks themselves in order to create tension. On 9 January 1995, Rauf Denktaş repeated his claim to the famous Turkish newspaper Milliyet in Turkey.

 

The crisis reached a climax on 12 June 1958, when eight Greeks, out of an armed group of thirty five arrested by soldiers of the Royal Horse Guards on suspicion of preparing an attack on the Turkish quarter of Skylloura, were killed in a suspected attack by Turkish Cypriot locals, near the village of Geunyeli, having been ordered to walk back to their village of Kondemenos.

 

After the EOKA campaign had begun, the British government successfully began to turn the Cyprus issue from a British colonial problem into a Greek-Turkish issue. British diplomacy exerted backstage influence on the Adnan Menderes government, with the aim of making Turkey active in Cyprus. For the British, the attempt had a twofold objective. The EOKA campaign would be silenced as quickly as possible, and Turkish Cypriots would not side with Greek Cypriots against the British colonial claims over the island, which would thus remain under the British. The Turkish Cypriot leadership visited Menderes to discuss the Cyprus issue. When asked how the Turkish Cypriots should respond to the Greek Cypriot claim of enosis, Menderes replied: "You should go to the British foreign minister and request the status quo be prolonged, Cyprus to remain as a British colony". When the Turkish Cypriots visited the British Foreign Secretary and requested for Cyprus to remain a colony, he replied: "You should not be asking for colonialism at this day and age, you should be asking for Cyprus be returned to Turkey, its former owner".

 

As Turkish Cypriots began to look to Turkey for protection, Greek Cypriots soon understood that enosis was extremely unlikely. The Greek Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios III, now set independence for the island as his objective.

 

Britain resolved to solve the dispute by creating an independent Cyprus. In 1959, all involved parties signed the Zurich Agreements: Britain, Turkey, Greece, and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Makarios and Dr. Fazil Kucuk, respectively. The new constitution drew heavily on the ethnic composition of the island. The President would be a Greek Cypriot, and the Vice-President a Turkish Cypriot with an equal veto. The contribution to the public service would be set at a ratio of 70:30, and the Supreme Court would consist of an equal number of judges from both communities as well as an independent judge who was not Greek, Turkish or British. The Zurich Agreements were supplemented by a number of treaties. The Treaty of Guarantee stated that secession or union with any state was forbidden, and that Greece, Turkey and Britain would be given guarantor status to intervene if that was violated. The Treaty of Alliance allowed for two small Greek and Turkish military contingents to be stationed on the island, and the Treaty of Establishment gave Britain sovereignty over two bases in Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

 

On 15 August 1960, the Colony of Cyprus became fully independent as the Republic of Cyprus. The new republic remained within the Commonwealth of Nations.

 

The new constitution brought dissatisfaction to Greek Cypriots, who felt it to be highly unjust for them for historical, demographic and contributional reasons. Although 80% of the island's population were Greek Cypriots and these indigenous people had lived on the island for thousands of years and paid 94% of taxes, the new constitution was giving the 17% of the population that was Turkish Cypriots, who paid 6% of taxes, around 30% of government jobs and 40% of national security jobs.

 

Within three years tensions between the two communities in administrative affairs began to show. In particular disputes over separate municipalities and taxation created a deadlock in government. A constitutional court ruled in 1963 Makarios had failed to uphold article 173 of the constitution which called for the establishment of separate municipalities for Turkish Cypriots. Makarios subsequently declared his intention to ignore the judgement, resulting in the West German judge resigning from his position. Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to the constitution, which would have had the effect of resolving most of the issues in the Greek Cypriot favour. Under the proposals, the President and Vice-President would lose their veto, the separate municipalities as sought after by the Turkish Cypriots would be abandoned, the need for separate majorities by both communities in passing legislation would be discarded and the civil service contribution would be set at actual population ratios (82:18) instead of the slightly higher figure for Turkish Cypriots.

 

The intention behind the amendments has long been called into question. The Akritas plan, written in the height of the constitutional dispute by the Greek Cypriot interior minister Polycarpos Georkadjis, called for the removal of undesirable elements of the constitution so as to allow power-sharing to work. The plan envisaged a swift retaliatory attack on Turkish Cypriot strongholds should Turkish Cypriots resort to violence to resist the measures, stating "In the event of a planned or staged Turkish attack, it is imperative to overcome it by force in the shortest possible time, because if we succeed in gaining command of the situation (in one or two days), no outside, intervention would be either justified or possible." Whether Makarios's proposals were part of the Akritas plan is unclear, however it remains that sentiment towards enosis had not completely disappeared with independence. Makarios described independence as "a step on the road to enosis".[31] Preparations for conflict were not entirely absent from Turkish Cypriots either, with right wing elements still believing taksim (partition) the best safeguard against enosis.

 

Greek Cypriots however believe the amendments were a necessity stemming from a perceived attempt by Turkish Cypriots to frustrate the working of government. Turkish Cypriots saw it as a means to reduce their status within the state from one of co-founder to that of minority, seeing it as a first step towards enosis. The security situation deteriorated rapidly.

 

Main articles: Bloody Christmas (1963) and Battle of Tillyria

An armed conflict was triggered after December 21, 1963, a period remembered by Turkish Cypriots as Bloody Christmas, when a Greek Cypriot policemen that had been called to help deal with a taxi driver refusing officers already on the scene access to check the identification documents of his customers, took out his gun upon arrival and shot and killed the taxi driver and his partner. Eric Solsten summarised the events as follows: "a Greek Cypriot police patrol, ostensibly checking identification documents, stopped a Turkish Cypriot couple on the edge of the Turkish quarter. A hostile crowd gathered, shots were fired, and two Turkish Cypriots were killed."

 

In the morning after the shooting, crowds gathered in protest in Northern Nicosia, likely encouraged by the TMT, without incident. On the evening of the 22nd, gunfire broke out, communication lines to the Turkish neighbourhoods were cut, and the Greek Cypriot police occupied the nearby airport. On the 23rd, a ceasefire was negotiated, but did not hold. Fighting, including automatic weapons fire, between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and militias increased in Nicosia and Larnaca. A force of Greek Cypriot irregulars led by Nikos Sampson entered the Nicosia suburb of Omorphita and engaged in heavy firing on armed, as well as by some accounts unarmed, Turkish Cypriots. The Omorphita clash has been described by Turkish Cypriots as a massacre, while this view has generally not been acknowledged by Greek Cypriots.

 

Further ceasefires were arranged between the two sides, but also failed. By Christmas Eve, the 24th, Britain, Greece, and Turkey had joined talks, with all sides calling for a truce. On Christmas day, Turkish fighter jets overflew Nicosia in a show of support. Finally it was agreed to allow a force of 2,700 British soldiers to help enforce a ceasefire. In the next days, a "buffer zone" was created in Nicosia, and a British officer marked a line on a map with green ink, separating the two sides of the city, which was the beginning of the "Green Line". Fighting continued across the island for the next several weeks.

 

In total 364 Turkish Cypriots and 174 Greek Cypriots were killed during the violence. 25,000 Turkish Cypriots from 103-109 villages fled and were displaced into enclaves and thousands of Turkish Cypriot houses were ransacked or completely destroyed.

 

Contemporary newspapers also reported on the forceful exodus of the Turkish Cypriots from their homes. According to The Times in 1964, threats, shootings and attempts of arson were committed against the Turkish Cypriots to force them out of their homes. The Daily Express wrote that "25,000 Turks have already been forced to leave their homes". The Guardian reported a massacre of Turks at Limassol on 16 February 1964.

 

Turkey had by now readied its fleet and its fighter jets appeared over Nicosia. Turkey was dissuaded from direct involvement by the creation of a United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in 1964. Despite the negotiated ceasefire in Nicosia, attacks on the Turkish Cypriot persisted, particularly in Limassol. Concerned about the possibility of a Turkish invasion, Makarios undertook the creation of a Greek Cypriot conscript-based army called the "National Guard". A general from Greece took charge of the army, whilst a further 20,000 well-equipped officers and men were smuggled from Greece into Cyprus. Turkey threatened to intervene once more, but was prevented by a strongly worded letter from the American President Lyndon B. Johnson, anxious to avoid a conflict between NATO allies Greece and Turkey at the height of the Cold War.

 

Turkish Cypriots had by now established an important bridgehead at Kokkina, provided with arms, volunteers and materials from Turkey and abroad. Seeing this incursion of foreign weapons and troops as a major threat, the Cypriot government invited George Grivas to return from Greece as commander of the Greek troops on the island and launch a major attack on the bridgehead. Turkey retaliated by dispatching its fighter jets to bomb Greek positions, causing Makarios to threaten an attack on every Turkish Cypriot village on the island if the bombings did not cease. The conflict had now drawn in Greece and Turkey, with both countries amassing troops on their Thracian borders. Efforts at mediation by Dean Acheson, a former U.S. Secretary of State, and UN-appointed mediator Galo Plaza had failed, all the while the division of the two communities becoming more apparent. Greek Cypriot forces were estimated at some 30,000, including the National Guard and the large contingent from Greece. Defending the Turkish Cypriot enclaves was a force of approximately 5,000 irregulars, led by a Turkish colonel, but lacking the equipment and organisation of the Greek forces.

 

The Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1964, U Thant, reported the damage during the conflicts:

 

UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances; it shows that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish-Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting.

 

The situation worsened in 1967, when a military junta overthrew the democratically elected government of Greece, and began applying pressure on Makarios to achieve enosis. Makarios, not wishing to become part of a military dictatorship or trigger a Turkish invasion, began to distance himself from the goal of enosis. This caused tensions with the junta in Greece as well as George Grivas in Cyprus. Grivas's control over the National Guard and Greek contingent was seen as a threat to Makarios's position, who now feared a possible coup.[citation needed] The National Guard and Cyprus Police began patrolling the Turkish Cypriot enclaves of Ayios Theodoros and Kophinou, and on November 15 engaged in heavy fighting with the Turkish Cypriots.

 

By the time of his withdrawal 26 Turkish Cypriots had been killed. Turkey replied with an ultimatum demanding that Grivas be removed from the island, that the troops smuggled from Greece in excess of the limits of the Treaty of Alliance be removed, and that the economic blockades on the Turkish Cypriot enclaves be lifted. Grivas was recalled by the Athens Junta and the 12,000 Greek troops were withdrawn. Makarios now attempted to consolidate his position by reducing the number of National Guard troops, and by creating a paramilitary force loyal to Cypriot independence. In 1968, acknowledging that enosis was now all but impossible, Makarios stated, "A solution by necessity must be sought within the limits of what is feasible which does not always coincide with the limits of what is desirable."

 

After 1967 tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots subsided. Instead, the main source of tension on the island came from factions within the Greek Cypriot community. Although Makarios had effectively abandoned enosis in favour of an 'attainable solution', many others continued to believe that the only legitimate political aspiration for Greek Cypriots was union with Greece.

 

On his arrival, Grivas began by establishing a nationalist paramilitary group known as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B or EOKA-B), drawing comparisons with the EOKA struggle for enosis under the British colonial administration of the 1950s.

 

The military junta in Athens saw Makarios as an obstacle. Makarios's failure to disband the National Guard, whose officer class was dominated by mainland Greeks, had meant the junta had practical control over the Cypriot military establishment, leaving Makarios isolated and a vulnerable target.

 

During the first Turkish invasion, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus territory on 20 July 1974, invoking its rights under the Treaty of Guarantee. This expansion of Turkish-occupied zone violated International Law as well as the Charter of the United Nations. Turkish troops managed to capture 3% of the island which was accompanied by the burning of the Turkish Cypriot quarter, as well as the raping and killing of women and children. A temporary cease-fire followed which was mitigated by the UN Security Council. Subsequently, the Greek military Junta collapsed on July 23, 1974, and peace talks commenced in which a democratic government was installed. The Resolution 353 was broken after Turkey attacked a second time and managed to get a hold of 37% of Cyprus territory. The Island of Cyprus was appointed a Buffer Zone by the United Nations, which divided the island into two zones through the 'Green Line' and put an end to the Turkish invasion. Although Turkey announced that the occupied areas of Cyprus to be called the Federated Turkish State in 1975, it is not legitimised on a worldwide political scale. The United Nations called for the international recognition of independence for the Republic of Cyprus in the Security Council Resolution 367.

 

In the years after the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus one can observe a history of failed talks between the two parties. The 1983 declaration of the independent Turkish Republic of Cyprus resulted in a rise of inter-communal tensions and made it increasingly hard to find mutual understanding. With Cyprus' interest of a possible EU membership and a new UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1997 new hopes arose for a fresh start. International involvement from sides of the US and UK, wanting a solution to the Cyprus dispute prior to the EU accession led to political pressures for new talks. The believe that an accession without a solution would threaten Greek-Turkish relations and acknowledge the partition of the island would direct the coming negotiations.

 

Over the course of two years a concrete plan, the Annan plan was formulated. In 2004 the fifth version agreed upon from both sides and with the endorsement of Turkey, US, UK and EU then was presented to the public and was given a referendum in both Cypriot communities to assure the legitimisation of the resolution. The Turkish Cypriots voted with 65% for the plan, however the Greek Cypriots voted with a 76% majority against. The Annan plan contained multiple important topics. Firstly it established a confederation of two separate states called the United Cyprus Republic. Both communities would have autonomous states combined under one unified government. The members of parliament would be chosen according to the percentage in population numbers to ensure a just involvement from both communities. The paper proposed a demilitarisation of the island over the next years. Furthermore it agreed upon a number of 45000 Turkish settlers that could remain on the island. These settlers became a very important issue concerning peace talks. Originally the Turkish government encouraged Turks to settle in Cyprus providing transfer and property, to establish a counterpart to the Greek Cypriot population due to their 1 to 5 minority. With the economic situation many Turkish-Cypriot decided to leave the island, however their departure is made up by incoming Turkish settlers leaving the population ratio between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots stable. However all these points where criticised and as seen in the vote rejected mainly by the Greek Cypriots. These name the dissolution of the „Republic of Cyprus", economic consequences of a reunion and the remaining Turkish settlers as reason. Many claim that the plan was indeed drawing more from Turkish-Cypriot demands then Greek-Cypriot interests. Taking in consideration that the US wanted to keep Turkey as a strategic partner in future Middle Eastern conflicts.

 

A week after the failed referendum the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU. In multiple instances the EU tried to promote trade with Northern Cyprus but without internationally recognised ports this spiked a grand debate. Both side endure their intention of negotiations, however without the prospect of any new compromises or agreements the UN is unwilling to start the process again. Since 2004 negotiations took place in numbers but without any results, both sides are strongly holding on to their position without an agreeable solution in sight that would suit both parties.

Lanira, lead protagonist of the new VR Game 'Secrets of the forgotten mysteries'.

It is still unknown what she's looking for and for what purpose, but one thing is for sure, she is unstoppable and determined to accomplish the task she had.

Providence, RI USA

The main protagonist and main antagonist of the Star Wars video game Fallen Order. You can see Cal's robot, BD-1, peeking out from behind Cal's back. The Second Sister's helmet is achieved with a Darth Vader respirator, a TMNT robot head flipped backwards, and a First Order cap.

French postcard by Imp. Georges Lang, Paris, offered by Chocolats Tobler. Image: Walt Disney.

 

Pecos Bill is a handsome, tough, rough, funny, and heroic American cowboy from Texas. He is the protagonist of the segment Pecos Bill from Disney's Melody Time (Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske, 1948).

 

Pecos Bill is slender, has blond hair and blue eyes. He wears a black cowboy hat, a pink long-sleeved shirt, a gray vest, a lime green bandanna, blue jeans, gray chaps, and black boots. He carries a pair of brown pistol hostlers. He likes to catch evil rustlers, yodel, and do some heroic deeds, but most likely of all, Slue-Foot Sue, a strange, yet beautiful cowgirl from in the middle of nowhere. He dislikes her leave straight up to the moon due to his horse and trusty sidekick Widowmaker and dying of thirst. Pecos Bill is first seen in Melody Time as a toddler being thrown out of the chuck wagon and onto a muddy place where he plans to make mudpies. Along a prairie moon comes, he is found on a trio of coyote cubs by a mother coyote when she hurries into her den. When Bill looks up, he smiles, and the mother coyote kisses him as her heart is caved in. Starving to death, little Bill then moves one of the coyote cubs from their mother's teat so he can drink. A few years later, Bill grows up and become a young boy with the coyote pack, chewing a large bone. Like a real coyote, he scratches his head with his foot and bites his buttocks, and the young coyotes try to chew the bone, but Bill roars so loud which causes them to roll to a nearby rock until several stones sprinkle almost on them. Then, Bill lays on a cactus, watching several animals trek by him, and shows them a few tricks, like out-loping an antelope, out-jumping a jackrabbit, and out-hissing a rattlesnake (if he roars at Bill) until when Bill roars at him, he grows giant, and the rattlesnake shrinks as small as an ant. Then one day, a lonely colt name Widowmaker, thirsty, comes crossing the hot Pecos land until suddenly, vultures come circling him just before they land, but the young colt tries to attack them. However, Bill leaps off a tall cliff and attack the vultures to save Widowmaker's life until they both meet at the same time with each of their eyes all bruised up. And forever, they stick together.

 

Several years later, Bill grows up to become an American cowboy of all Texas. They both holler happily, and Bill aims his pistol at the camera. While they race straight to the village, he shoots violently at a few objects, his own hat, then a small tornado. When suddenly there is a drought that spreads throughout Texas, Bill hits California to pick up some rain to save a few thirsty people's life, though the joke is rather corny. And they all go swimming and floating in the Gulf of Mexico, but something happens when Bill and Widowmaker wake up to a startling sight. There are several evil rustlers who steal Bill's herd of cattle, so Bill lassoes them and gives them a few punches in faces until their gold fillings fly off of their mouths, and that's why there is gold in every hill. The rustlers (now apparently reformed) say "Yippee-Yi-Yay" with Bill, Widowmaker, and the now-rescued cattle, who's also got gold teeth in their mouths. 90 miles across the desert, poor Bill and Widowmaker lose their ways while traveling on it. If they don't get any water, they know they've never reached the border. So, he's got a sign and digs the Rio Grande to make water reveal. Then, while a tribe of Indians playing with paints, Bill starts shooting up their little game. He gives them such a shake-up as they jump from their makeup, and that's the way the Painted Desert got its name. That night, while reclining on a cloud high over Texas with his pistol, Bill makes the stars evaporate. Then, he sees the stars declining, so he leaves a brightly shining star as the logo of Texas.

 

Following a few heroic days, it looks like nothing can ever come between Bill and Widowmaker. Then, when something happens, poor Bill happily kills some time in his extremely carefree way, invents a one-man rodeo, and butting heads with buffaloes. Suddenly, who shall appear, shockingly spotted by them, but a strange and unusual, yet beautiful Slue-Foot Sue, a cowgirl on her giant catfish, who comes out of nowhere. Bill is given a right peculiar feeling, and his senses are reeling. With a pounding sound inside his ears like galloping hooves, and inside his chest is seeing and churning, his blood is boiling and his brain is burning with fire that can only be cooled in the depths of a couple of pools. Bill's lovesick behavior causes Widowmaker to be puzzled, then to start to cry. At twilight, while Widowmaker is bawling over Sue, Bill is busy wooing Sue, western-style. He arranges for the moon to rise and flood the land with a silvery light. He orders the stars from the sky to form a non-stop love token. Then, across the sky, Bill tells Sue of his own heart's desire, "Sweet Sue, I love you." As they kiss, Bill's pistols come shooting to life out of his hostlers. The next day, Bill and Sue's annual wedding day begins. Bill excitedly waiting for Sue in her beautiful yellow wedding gown to marry him, but he sees Widowmaker, fit to be tied, now jealous of Sue, throwing a temper tantrum. Later, after her wild ride just before Widowmaker furiously kicks Sue off of his back and sends her flying, then bouncing up and down up a storm, Bill, never known to miss, comes up with his trusty lasso. Calmly and confidently, he makes his loop with careless ease, then judges and tests the distance. Then, a whirl, a twirl, and a twist of the wrist, he tries to lasso poor Sue from bouncing so many times in a row, but he missed, and it is Widowmaker, whistling a brief triumphant tune, who stops Bill from getting the over-bouncing Sue out of there, and that's how it happens nobody can ever figure out. When night comes, after Sue shoots into the moon in which she gets stuck, Bill and Widowmaker go back to the coyote pack, but Bill always remembers Sue. And every night, when the moon rises high, he howls mournfully, bewailing Sue's fate. So painful is his grief to see, the coyotes join in from sympathy. It was rumored that Widowmaker apologises to Sue for being rude to her like that after she emerges from the moon, and then she marries Bill.

 

Source: The Disney Wiki.

 

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

A very bright and large point is the undisputed protagonist of the top half of this picture of the sky above ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) on Cerro Paranal in Chile’s Atacama Desert. Yet if you take a closer look, you will notice it is not just one point, but two, very close to each other. What you see is, in fact, a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn.

 

Jupiter and Saturn are the two largest planets in the Solar System, almost 320 and 95 times as massive as the Earth, respectively. They are not rocky, like the Earth or Mars, but are mainly made up of hydrogen. They both have tens of moons, many of which we think did not form together with the planets they orbit, but were instead captured at a later stage by their strong gravitational fields.

 

Conjunctions occur when two objects are aligned in the sky. However, conjunctions are a consequence of the observer’s perspective. If seen not from Earth but another direction, the involved objects will not be aligned. A similar effect holds for constellations, whose shapes, so familiar here on our planet, may not be recognisable when observed from another corner of the galaxy.

 

Credit: F. Char/ESO

A very beautiful study of Isabel de Segura, the protagonist of the nineteenth-century legend of The Lovers of Teruel, which was dramatised in verse by Hartzenbusch. The bride, prepared to marry Rodrigo de Azara, the spouse her father chose for her, wears an expression of profound sadness and desperation at not being able to marry her true love, Diego de Marsilla.

 

The modernity of Muñoz Degrain's art is especially notable in this work, where the detailed rendering of Isabel's figure contrasts with the loose and faded brushstrokes of the background. Indeed, it is barely possible to make out the silhouettes of the tapestries that decorate the walls, and the jewelry box and vase on the table to the right. This technique comes directly from the artist's admiration of sixteenth-century Venetian painting, in which the purely pictorial quality of the work, its exuberance and colour, are given more importance than the linearity of drawing.

 

The Prado also has another work by Muñoz Degrain related to the subject of The Lovers of Teruel. The latter was painted in 1884 and presented alongside the present work at the National Exhibition of 1884.

 

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 119 x 93 cm]

Orazio Lomi Gentileschi (1563-1639)

The Penitent Mary Magdalene, around 1622/28

Fully possessed of her physical beauty, the repentant sinner lies on the ground in her lonely cave, her look turned heavenwards towards the light. Her simple attire shows her repudiation of earthly vanity, while the skull and opened book indicate her inner conversion and devotion to spirituality.

 

Büßende Maria Magdalena, um 1622/28

Im Vollbesitz ihrer körperlichen Schönheit liegt die reuige Sünderin auf dem Boden ihrer einsamen Höhle, den Blick himmelwärts dem Lichte zugewandt. Ihr schlichtes Gewand zeigt Abkehr von irdischer Eitelkeit, Totenkopf und aufgeschlagenes Buch weisen auf innere Umkehr und Hinwendung zu Geistigem.

 

Caravaggio and the Caravaggisti

Gallery V

The KHM houses one of the most important collections of paintings by Caravaggio and his followers outside Italy. After training in Milan, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) moved to Rome in 1592, where he soon found favour with important patrons and connoisseurs. His first public commission, the decoration of the Contarelli Chapel in the church of S. Luigio dei Francesi (1599), caused a sensation and turned him into one of the most famous painters in Rome.

Caravaggio's dramatic use of light and dark, and his revolutionary pictorial solutions were quickly copied by other artists who modified and disseminated them throughout parts of Italy and Europe. The colleciton in Vienna comprises works by the Italian painters Manfredi and Gentileschi as well as by the Frenchmen Bigot, Régnier, Vouet and Valentin, and the Dutch artists Terbrugghen, Honthorst, Baburen and Stomer.

Typical for the work of Caravaggio's followers is the use of dramatic spotlights that pick out selected objects from the sourrounding darkness, a preference for half-figure compositions where the protagonists are placed close to the picture plane and thus the spectator, and a lack of idealization in the rendering of the figures; they, their robes and other objects in the painting are clearly subject to the ravages of time and frequently also to the tug of gravity.

 

Caravaggio und der internationale Caravaggismus

Saal V

Das KHM verfügt über eine der bedeutendsten Sammlung caravaggesker Malerei außerhalb Italiens.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) kam nach einer kurzen Ausbildung in Mailand 1592 nach Rom und wurde bald von einflussreichen Mäzenen unterstützt. Mit seinem ersten öffentlichen Auftrag, der Ausstattung der Contarelli-Kapelle in der Kirche S. Luigio die Francesi (1599), zog er große Aufmerksamkeit auf sich und wurde zu einem der gefragtesten Maler der Stadt.

Caravaggios eigentümliche Helldunkel-Malerei und seine revolutionären Bildlösungen wurden von zahlreichen anderen Künstlern rasch aufgegriffen, vielfach variiert und fanden in verschiedenen Teilen Italiens und Europas Verbreitung. In der Wiener Sammlung vertreten sind neben den Italienern Manfredi und Gentileschi die Franzosen Bigot, Régnier, Vouet und Valentin, sowie die Niederländer Terbrugghen, Honthorst, Baburen und Stomer.

Zu den charakteristischen Merkmalen des Caravaggismus zählen eine schlaglichtartige Beleuchtung der Bildgegenstände, die bewirkt, dass sich die beleuchteten Seiten scharf abzeichnen, während die Schattenpartien im Dunkel versinken; eine Präferenz für das Halbfigurenformat, das die Personen nah an den Betrachter heranrückt, sowie ein kaum idealisiertes Bildpersonal, das - ebenso wie die dargestellten Kleider und Gegenstände - dem Zahl der Zeit und gelegentlich auch dem Zerren und Ziehen der Schwerkraft ausgesetzt ist.

 

Austria Kunsthistorisches Museum

Federal Museum

Logo KHM

Regulatory authority (ies)/organs to the Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture

Founded 17 October 1891

Headquartered Castle Ring (Burgring), Vienna 1, Austria

Management Sabine Haag

www.khm.at website

Main building of the Kunsthistorisches Museum at Maria-Theresa-Square

The Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM abbreviated) is an art museum in Vienna. It is one of the largest and most important museums in the world. It was opened in 1891 and 2012 visited of 1.351.940 million people.

The museum

The Kunsthistorisches Museum is with its opposite sister building, the Natural History Museum (Naturhistorisches Museum), the most important historicist large buildings of the Ringstrasse time. Together they stand around the Maria Theresa square, on which also the Maria Theresa monument stands. This course spans the former glacis between today's ring road and 2-line, and is forming a historical landmark that also belongs to World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Vienna.

History

Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his Gallery

The Museum came from the collections of the Habsburgs, especially from the portrait and armor collections of Ferdinand of Tyrol, the collection of Emperor Rudolf II (most of which, however scattered) and the art collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm into existence. Already In 1833 asked Joseph Arneth, curator (and later director) of the Imperial Coins and Antiquities Cabinet, bringing together all the imperial collections in a single building .

Architectural History

The contract to build the museum in the city had been given in 1858 by Emperor Franz Joseph. Subsequently, many designs were submitted for the ring road zone. Plans by August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Null planned to build two museum buildings in the immediate aftermath of the Imperial Palace on the left and right of the Heroes' Square (Heldenplatz). The architect Ludwig Förster planned museum buildings between the Schwarzenberg Square and the City Park, Martin Ritter von Kink favored buildings at the corner Währingerstraße/ Scots ring (Schottenring), Peter Joseph, the area Bellariastraße, Moritz von Loehr the south side of the opera ring, and Ludwig Zettl the southeast side of the grain market (Getreidemarkt).

From 1867, a competition was announced for the museums, and thereby set their current position - at the request of the Emperor, the museum should not be too close to the Imperial Palace, but arise beyond the ring road. The architect Carl von Hasenauer participated in this competition and was able the at that time in Zürich operating Gottfried Semper to encourage to work together. The two museum buildings should be built here in the sense of the style of the Italian Renaissance. The plans got the benevolence of the imperial family. In April 1869, there was an audience with of Joseph Semper at the Emperor Franz Joseph and an oral contract was concluded, in July 1870 was issued the written order to Semper and Hasenauer.

Crucial for the success of Semper and Hasenauer against the projects of other architects were among others Semper's vision of a large building complex called "Imperial Forum", in which the museums would have been a part of. Not least by the death of Semper in 1879 came the Imperial Forum not as planned for execution, the two museums were built, however.

Construction of the two museums began without ceremony on 27 November 1871 instead. Semper moved to Vienna in the sequence. From the beginning, there were considerable personal differences between him and Hasenauer, who finally in 1877 took over sole construction management. 1874, the scaffolds were placed up to the attic and the first floor completed, built in 1878, the first windows installed in 1879, the Attica and the balustrade from 1880 to 1881 and built the dome and the Tabernacle. The dome is topped with a bronze statue of Pallas Athena by Johannes Benk.

The lighting and air conditioning concept with double glazing of the ceilings made ​​the renunciation of artificial light (especially at that time, as gas light) possible, but this resulted due to seasonal variations depending on daylight to different opening times .

Kuppelhalle

Entrance (by clicking the link at the end of the side you can see all the pictures here indicated!)

Grand staircase

Hall

Empire

The Kunsthistorisches Museum was on 17 October 1891 officially opened by Emperor Franz Joseph I. Since 22 October 1891 , the museum is accessible to the public. Two years earlier, on 3 November 1889, the collection of arms, Arms and Armour today, had their doors open. On 1 January 1890 the library service resumed its operations. The merger and listing of other collections of the Highest Imperial Family from the Upper and Lower Belvedere, the Hofburg Palace and Ambras in Tyrol will need another two years.

189, the farm museum was organized in seven collections with three directorates:

Directorate of coins, medals and antiquities collection

The Egyptian Collection

The Antique Collection

The coins and medals collection

Management of the collection of weapons, art and industrial objects

Weapons collection

Collection of industrial art objects

Directorate of Art Gallery and Restaurieranstalt (Restoration Office)

Collection of watercolors, drawings, sketches, etc.

Restoration Office

Library

Very soon the room the Court Museum (Hofmuseum) for the imperial collections was offering became too narrow. To provide temporary help, an exhibition of ancient artifacts from Ephesus in the Theseus Temple was designed. However, additional space had to be rented in the Lower Belvedere.

1914, after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne, his " Estonian Forensic Collection " passed to the administration of the Court Museum. This collection, which emerged from the art collection of the house of d' Este and world travel collection of Franz Ferdinand, was placed in the New Imperial Palace since 1908. For these stocks, the present collection of old musical instruments and the Museum of Ethnology emerged.

The First World War went by, apart from the oppressive economic situation without loss. The farm museum remained during the five years of war regularly open to the public.

Until 1919 the K.K. Art Historical Court Museum was under the authority of the Oberstkämmereramt (head chamberlain office) and belonged to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. The officials and employees were part of the royal household.

First Republic

The transition from monarchy to republic, in the museum took place in complete tranquility. On 19 November 1918 the two imperial museums on Maria Theresa Square were placed under the state protection of the young Republic of German Austria. Threatening to the stocks of the museum were the claims raised in the following weeks and months of the "successor states" of the monarchy as well as Italy and Belgium on Austrian art collection. In fact, it came on 12th February 1919 to the violent removal of 62 paintings by armed Italian units. This "art theft" left a long time trauma among curators and art historians.

It was not until the Treaty of Saint-Germain of 10 September 1919, providing in Article 195 and 196 the settlement of rights in the cultural field by negotiations. The claims of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Italy again could mostly being averted in this way. Only Hungary, which presented the greatest demands by far, was met by more than ten years of negotiation in 147 cases.

On 3 April 1919 was the expropriation of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine by law and the acquisition of its property, including the "Collections of the Imperial House" , by the Republic. Of 18 June 1920 the then provisional administration of the former imperial museums and collections of Este and the secular and clergy treasury passed to the State Office of Internal Affairs and Education, since 10 November 1920, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Education. A few days later it was renamed the Art History Court Museum in the "Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna State", 1921 "Kunsthistorisches Museum" . Of 1st January 1921 the employees of the museum staff passed to the state of the Republic.

Through the acquisition of the former imperial collections owned by the state, the museum found itself in a complete new situation. In order to meet the changed circumstances in the museum area, designed Hans Tietze in 1919 the "Vienna Museum program". It provided a close cooperation between the individual museums to focus at different houses on main collections. So dominated exchange, sales and equalizing the acquisition policy in the interwar period. Thus resulting until today still valid collection trends. Also pointing the way was the relocation of the weapons collection from 1934 in its present premises in the New Castle, where since 1916 the collection of ancient musical instruments was placed.

With the change of the imperial collections in the ownership of the Republic the reorganization of the internal organization went hand in hand, too. Thus the museum was divided in 1919 into the Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection (with the Oriental coins)

Collection of Classical Antiquities

Collection of ancient coins

Collection of modern coins and medals

Weapons collection

Collection of sculptures and crafts with the Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments

Picture Gallery

The Museum 1938-1945

Count Philipp Ludwig Wenzel Sinzendorf according to Rigaud. Clarisse 1948 by Baroness de Rothschildt "dedicated" to the memory of Baron Alphonse de Rothschildt; restituted to the Rothschilds in 1999, and in 1999 donated by Bettina Looram Rothschild, the last Austrian heiress.

With the "Anschluss" of Austria to the German Reich all Jewish art collections such as the Rothschilds were forcibly "Aryanised". Collections were either "paid" or simply distributed by the Gestapo at the museums. This resulted in a significant increase in stocks. But the KHM was not the only museum that benefited from the linearization. Systematically looted Jewish property was sold to museums, collections or in pawnshops throughout the empire.

After the war, the museum struggled to reimburse the "Aryanised" art to the owners or their heirs. They forced the Rothschild family to leave the most important part of their own collection to the museum and called this "dedications", or "donations". As a reason, was the export law stated, which does not allow owners to perform certain works of art out of the country. Similar methods were used with other former owners. Only on the basis of international diplomatic and media pressure, to a large extent from the United States, the Austrian government decided to make a change in the law (Art Restitution Act of 1998, the so-called Lex Rothschild). The art objects were the Rothschild family refunded only in the 1990s.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum operates on the basis of the federal law on the restitution of art objects from the 4th December 1998 (Federal Law Gazette I, 181 /1998) extensive provenance research. Even before this decree was carried out in-house provenance research at the initiative of the then archive director Herbert Haupt. This was submitted in 1998 by him in collaboration with Lydia Grobl a comprehensive presentation of the facts about the changes in the inventory levels of the Kunsthistorisches Museum during the Nazi era and in the years leading up to the State Treaty of 1955, an important basis for further research provenance.

The two historians Susanne Hehenberger and Monika Löscher are since 1st April 2009 as provenance researchers at the Kunsthistorisches Museum on behalf of the Commission for Provenance Research operating and they deal with the investigation period from 1933 to the recent past.

The museum today

Today the museum is as a federal museum, with 1st January 1999 released to the full legal capacity - it was thus the first of the state museums of Austria, implementing the far-reaching self-financing. It is by far the most visited museum in Austria with 1.3 million visitors (2007).

The Kunsthistorisches Museum is under the name Kunsthistorisches Museum and Museum of Ethnology and the Austrian Theatre Museum with company number 182081t since 11 June 1999 as a research institution under public law of the Federal virtue of the Federal Museums Act, Federal Law Gazette I/115/1998 and the Museum of Procedure of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and Museum of Ethnology and the Austrian Theatre Museum, 3 January 2001, BGBl II 2/ 2001, in force since 1 January 2001, registered.

In fiscal 2008, the turnover was 37.185 million EUR and total assets amounted to EUR 22.204 million. In 2008 an average of 410 workers were employed.

Management

1919-1923: Gustav Glück as the first chairman of the College of science officials

1924-1933: Hermann Julius Hermann 1924-1925 as the first chairman of the College of the scientific officers in 1925 as first director

1933: Arpad Weixlgärtner first director

1934-1938: Alfred Stix first director

1938-1945: Fritz Dworschak 1938 as acting head, from 1938 as a chief in 1941 as first director

1945-1949: August von Loehr 1945-1948 as executive director of the State Art Collections in 1949 as general director of the historical collections of the Federation

1945-1949: Alfred Stix 1945-1948 as executive director of the State Art Collections in 1949 as general director of art historical collections of the Federation

1949-1950: Hans Demel as administrative director

1950: Karl Wisoko-Meytsky as general director of art and historical collections of the Federation

1951-1952: Fritz Eichler as administrative director

1953-1954: Ernst H. Buschbeck as administrative director

1955-1966: Vincent Oberhammer 1955-1959 as administrative director, from 1959 as first director

1967: Edward Holzmair as managing director

1968-1972: Erwin Auer first director

1973-1981: Friderike Klauner first director

1982-1990: Hermann Fillitz first director

1990: George Kugler as interim first director

1990-2008: Wilfried Seipel as general director

2009-2019: Sabine Haag as general director

2019– : Eike Schmidt (art historian, designated)

Collections

To the Kunsthistorisches Museum are also belonging the collections of the New Castle, the Austrian Theatre Museum in Palais Lobkowitz, the Museum of Ethnology and the Wagenburg (wagon fortress) in an outbuilding of Schönbrunn Palace. A branch office is also Ambras in Innsbruck.

Kunsthistorisches Museum (main building)

Picture Gallery

Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection

Collection of Classical Antiquities

Vienna Chamber of Art

Numismatic Collection

Library

New Castle

Ephesus Museum

Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments

Arms and Armour

Archive

Hofburg

The imperial crown in the Treasury

Imperial Treasury of Vienna

Insignia of the Austrian Hereditary Homage

Insignia of imperial Austria

Insignia of the Holy Roman Empire

Burgundian Inheritance and the Order of the Golden Fleece

Habsburg-Lorraine Household Treasure

Ecclesiastical Treasury

Schönbrunn Palace

Imperial Carriage Museum Vienna

Armory in Ambras Castle

Ambras Castle

Collections of Ambras Castle

Major exhibits

Among the most important exhibits of the Art Gallery rank inter alia:

Jan van Eyck: Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, 1438

Martin Schongauer: Holy Family, 1475-80

Albrecht Dürer : Trinity Altar, 1509-16

Portrait Johann Kleeberger, 1526

Parmigianino: Self Portrait in Convex Mirror, 1523/24

Giuseppe Arcimboldo: Summer 1563

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio: Madonna of the Rosary 1606/ 07

Caravaggio: Madonna of the Rosary (1606-1607)

Titian: Nymph and Shepherd to 1570-75

Portrait of Jacopo de Strada, 1567/68

Raffaello Santi: Madonna of the Meadow, 1505 /06

Lorenzo Lotto: Portrait of a young man against white curtain, 1508

Peter Paul Rubens: The altar of St. Ildefonso, 1630-32

The Little Fur, about 1638

Jan Vermeer: The Art of Painting, 1665/66

Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Fight between Carnival and Lent, 1559

Kids, 1560

Tower of Babel, 1563

Christ Carrying the Cross, 1564

Gloomy Day (Early Spring), 1565

Return of the Herd (Autumn), 1565

Hunters in the Snow (Winter) 1565

Bauer and bird thief, 1568

Peasant Wedding, 1568/69

Peasant Dance, 1568/69

Paul's conversion (Conversion of St Paul), 1567

Cabinet of Curiosities:

Saliera from Benvenuto Cellini 1539-1543

Egyptian-Oriental Collection:

Mastaba of Ka Ni Nisut

Collection of Classical Antiquities:

Gemma Augustea

Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós

Gallery: Major exhibits

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunsthistorisches_Museum

ift.tt/1Yti165

AJ Bell World Triathlon 2019 - Leeds

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 745a. Photo: Universal.

 

It seemed like American actor Edward Everett Horton (1886-1970) appeared in just about every Hollywood comedy made in the 1930s. He was always the perfect counterpart to the great gentlemen and protagonists of the films. Horton specialised in the fretful, woebegone 'Nervous Nellie' types.

 

Edward Everett Horton Jr. was born in 1886 in Brooklyn, New York City, to Isabella S. (Diack) and Edward Everett Horton, a print typesetter for the New York Times. He was the eldest of four children; George, Winter Davis, and Hannahbelle were his siblings. The family remained close throughout their lives. Edward's mother lived with him until she died at the age of 101. His brothers and sister also spent their later years residing at his Encino estate. Edward was a student at Oberlin College in Ohio. However, he was asked to leave after he climbed to the top of a building and, after a crowd gathered, threw off a dummy, making them think he had jumped. He then studied business at both Polytechnic Institute and Columbia. At Columbia, however, he joined the university's drama club and that changed the direction of his life. He quickly decided on an acting career rather and he left Columbia before graduating. In 1907, he joined the Dempsey Company, a stock company on Staten Island. There he performed in several Gilbert and Sullivan light operas, including 'The Mikado'. His rich baritone singing voice enabled him to appear in chorus on Broadway and he joined the prestigious Louis Mann company, playing in stock and learning his new trade. He went on to join several theatre companies in the 1910s, including the Orpheum Players in Philadelphia, The Baker Stock Company in Oregon, and the Crescent Theatre in Brooklyn. In the 1920s he acted in and managed the Majestic Theater in Los Angeles with his brother and business manager, George. He made his film debut in the comedy Too Much Business (1922). In only his fourth film, Horton struck gold as a screen comedy performer with his starring role as the butler in the Western comedy Ruggles of Red Gap (James Cruze, 1923) opposite Ernest Torrence. Charles Laughton would play Ruggles in the 1935 version. Horton portrayed the lead role of an idealistic young classical composer in the drama Beggar on Horseback (James Cruze, 1925) with Esther Ralston. Unlike many of his silent-film colleagues, the stage-trained Horton had no problems in adapting to the sound, despite - or perhaps because of - his quavering, slightly effeminate voice. He appeared in such early talkies as the horror film The Terror (Roy Del Ruth, 1928) with May McAvoy and Louise Fazenda, and Sonny Boy (Archie Mayo, with child star Davey lee and Betty Bronson, 1929).

 

Edward Everett Horton played the role of Professor Nick Potter in Holiday (Edward H. Griffith, 1930) and again in the remake, Holiday (George Cukor, 1938) starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. He also made an impact playing The Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland (Norman Z. McLeod, 1933). Other classics in which he played character roles are The Front Page (Lewis Milestone, 1931) with Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien, The Gay Divorcee (Mark Sandrich, 1934) with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Top Hat (Mark Sandrich, 1935) again with Astaire and Rogers, and Here Comes Mr. Jordan (Alexander Hall, 1941). Horton cultivated his own special variation of the double-take (an actor's reaction to something, followed by a delayed, more extreme reaction). In Horton's version, he smiled ingratiatingly and nodded in agreement with what just happened; then, when realisation set in, his facial features collapsed entirely into a sober, troubled mask. From 1932 to 1938 he worked often with Ernst Lubitsch such as on Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932), Design for Living (Ernst Lubitsch, 1933), and The Merry Widow (Ernst Lubitsch, 1934) starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald. Later he worked with Frank Capra on Lost Horizon (Frank Capra, 1937) as the erratic paleontologist, Alexander P. Lovett, and Arsenic and Old Lace (Frank Capra, 1944). During the 1950s, Horton embraced the new medium of television with enthusiasm. His television career started in 1949 in the drama 'The Man Who Came to Dinner' and he appeared regularly on the small screen for the next 20 years in programs such as I Love Lucy (1952), The Red Skelton Hour (1957-1962), Dennis the Menace (1962-1963), Burke's Law (1963-1965), and Batman (1966). He gained a completely new fanbase as the storyteller in the animated series Fractured Fairy Tales (1959-1962). He was also the befuddled Hekawi medicine man Roaring Chicken on the Western comedy series F Troop (1965). His later feature films include Pocketful of Miracles (Frank Capra, 1961) starring Bette Davis and Glenn Ford, the highly successful It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (Stanley Kramer, 1963) with Spencer Tracy, and Sex and the Single Girl (Richard Quine, 1964), starring Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood. His last film role was in the comedy Cold Turkey (Norman Lear, 1971), in which his character sat in a wheelchair and communicated only through facial expressions. Horton died before the film was released. During his long career, he appeared in more than 120 films and never tied himself down with a long-term contract to any single studio. He remained a freelancer throughout his long career. In the theatre, he appeared in a number of revivals of the comedy play 'Springtime for Henry' beginning in the 1930s and extending into the 1960s. He played the part of the effete Henry Dewlip more than 3,000 times. At the age of 84, Edward Everett Horton died of cancer in 1970 in Encino, Los Angeles. He is interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, CA. According to an in-depth article by Eve Golden in Classic Images magazine, Edward's longtime companion was actor Gavin Gordon, who was 15 years his junior. Not much was ever documented on the couple. They had appeared together in a 1931 production of Noël Coward's 'Private Lives' and acted in one film together, Pocketful of Miracles (Frank Capra, 1961). For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Edward Everett Horton has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6427 Hollywood Boulevard.

 

Sources: Chris Whiteley (Hollywood's Golden Age), Volker Boehm (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

non si sa perchè ci si innamora

io rimango in contemlpazione e basta

no vigliacca..estasiata

The two main protagonists from both red dead games. red harlow from revolver and john marston from redemption

Wonderful World

by the Cinquini brothers.

 

Nelson Mandela, the protagonist of the float, sacrificed 27 years of his life locked up in a small cell, nurturing the hope of

demonstrating to humanity that the world is actually a wonderful place. The message left to us by him is stronger today than ever.

We are only realizing this now, after being locked in a house for several months of self-isolation.

On the giant Noah's Ark, the smiling face of Nelson Mandela enters the carnival. A new biblical boat needed to escape the flood of intolerance, ignorance, and hatred in search of a better world where everyone can exist freely without fear of living their own lives. On a large boat, you can see the emblems of culture and human progress of each era.

Daniel LaRusso is a fictional character and the protagonist of The Karate Kid media franchise.

 

He is portrayed by Ralph Macchio.

 

Overview

Daniel LaRusso was born in Newark, New Jersey, on December 18, 1966, into an Italian-American family. When he was eight, his father died after a 2-year battle with stomach cancer. Daniel's mother Lucille never remarried. In September 1984, Daniel and Lucille moved to Reseda, California, after Lucille accepted a job offer at a computer firm. Shortly after moving to California, Daniel meets and starts a rivalry with Johnny Lawrence, the two-time winner of the All Valley Under-18 Karate Championship after the latter mistakened him for having a fling towards his ex-girlfriend Ali Mills. Luckily for Daniel, after being jumped by Johnny and his friends, he met Mr. Miyagi, the maintenance man at his apartment, who becomes his karate mentor and also a perfect friend of his, as well as a father figure. Through this training, Daniel becomes skilled enough to defeat Johnny in the tournament's final match and become the new champion. Despite their mutual respect afterward, Daniel and Johnny become rivals.

 

Over the summer, Daniel gets to spend more time with Mr. Miyagi as they go to Okinawa, where Daniel ends up meeting a girl named Kumiko who becomes his love interest and eventual girlfriend along with also getting into a rivalry with Chozen, who is Sato's karate student and nephew. He ends up defeating Chozen in a fight to the death, although instead of killing him, he obeys Mr. Miyagi's teachings and instead shows mercy to Chozen. After returning home, Daniel picks up one more karate championship in the All-Valley Tournament after being forced to compete in the tournament and defeats the national karate champion Mike Barnes, becoming a 2-time champion, and ending Terry Silver and John Kreese's vision of opening up multiple Cobra Kai dojos all across the valley.

 

Thirty-three years later, Daniel becomes the owner of a successful car dealership in Southern California and is married to his co-owner, Amanda, with whom they have two children named Samantha (nicknamed Sam) and Anthony. They live in a large home with a swimming pool in Encino. Despite his success as an adult, he lacks the life balance he had in his youth, as Mr. Miyagi had died in 2011. Daniel's interest in karate reignites after LaRusso learns of the return of the Cobra Kai dojo, now run by Lawrence. This drives Daniel to reopen Miyagi-Do, passing on the teachings of the dojo to a new generation of students, leading to a massive rivalry between the two dojos and their students.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Wet with cool dew drops

fragrant with perfume from the flowers

came the gentle breeze

jasmine and water lily

dance in the spring sunshine

side-long glances

of the golden-hued ladies

stab into my thoughts

heaven itself cannot take my mind

as it has been captivated by one lass

among the five hundred I have seen here.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture

Main article: Commercial graffiti

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

  

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

In the 1950s, thousands of government employees were fired from their jobs because they were, or were believed to be, homosexual. These firings, supported by an executive order from Dwight D. Eisenhower, were said to be in avoidance of a national security threat because it was thought that homosexuals could be easily blackmailed.

 

This period would later be coined the "Lavender Scare." owing to the fact that it occurred alongside the "Red Scare," in which numerous suspected Communists were also ousted from their jobs. The most tragic element of the Lavender Scare is that it outed thousands of gay and lesbian individuals who were then ostracized from their communities. Many of these individuals committed suicide.

ink via laser cut woodblock print, 16inx12in, 2018

Lanira, lead protagonist of the new VR Game 'Secrets of the forgotten mysteries'.

It is still unknown what she's looking for and for what purpose, but one thing is for sure, she is unstoppable and determined to accomplish the task she had.