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I missed Batman while I was on vacation, but he is making up for lost time.
(p.s. Sally just painted the kitchen pale pink and pale buttercream.)
“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.
Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language.
Do not now look for the answers. They cannot be given to you because you could not live them.
At present you need to live the questions.
Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answers, some distant day."
Rainer Maria Rilke
PS
Inspired by a very talented artist here
thanks,Alex.
:)
"Question Mark" is the actual name (Polygonia interrogationis) in my garden in the Austin, Texas area.
. . . Femdom Tale . . .
Chapter - Arena of Femdom and Enslavement
" Ask me if I'm tired of fighting. Ask me if I'm scared. Then watch me enter this arena and see if you believe your own questions. No, weariness will never claim me, this is my home!
A thousand battles etched in these sands, and still the thrill thrums through my veins. This arena's a mistress I can't resist, a siren song of sweat and glory. It's a canvas of blades and spells, a whirlwind of strategy and fury I addicted to.. ❤️ "
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. . . Enslaving Them . . .
Chaining those with energy and extraordinary abilities isn't a walk in the park. The path is marked with scars and resistance since their vibrant spirit doesn't surrender easily to the shackles of enslavement.
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. . . Rules of Fighting / Enslaving . . .
" Identify whether he is a sub, a dom, or a switch, as they use different ways to enslave and handle them."
1. Male Submissive
1.1 When he hits, dodge.
When he throws a punch, dodge it. Don't take his hits. If you catch his punch or let him land a successful attack, even if it's just a light one, he'll start looking down on you and won't bother chasing or seeking you out anymore. (Game over)
" Always watch out behind you. Beware of backstabbing and all kinds of poison. Even the love potion might be poison. They're tricky, they fight dirty, and they're cunning. Don't trust them. They don't fight fair or head-on like a Dom, they wait for the right moment to hit you from behind or catch you off guard mercilessly, much more unkind than Doms. If Doms fought like tigers (eating when you die), Subs engage in a hyena-style fight, where they'll eat you alive, consuming what they bite immediately."
1.2 When he stops, tease him with a jab.
" Use sneaky jabs to relentlessly mess with his head, making him careless and accidentally revealing his weak spots, setting you up for an attack. "
1.3 When he lowers his guard, go all out with your attack.
" When he reveals his weakness or lowers his guard, go all out with your attack. Don't stop, even if you get hurt. Aim for a successful knockout. "
1.4 When he runs away, chase him and bring him back.
" When you fail to knock him out, he'll freak out and try to escape. If he gets scared and runs away, you gotta relentlessly chase him down, stick with it, and drag him back. Swallow your pride, use every trick to reel him in, even if it means fighting, facing off with his hideout, his other half. Realize your enslaving job isn't done yet—he's gotta come back. "
1.5 Repeat!
---------------------------------
2. Male Dom
2.1 When he hits, pretend he succeeds.
When he hits, take all his punches, pretend you're hurt, easily surrender, and admire how awesome his punches are.
" That punch was like nothing I've faced before. Everyone else is a weaker hitter than you. You bring a world of amazing battles. I've been through many tournaments, and there's never been anyone as powerful, strong, smart in a fight, or as amazing as you. Just your powerful fighting stance melts me, making me surrender deeply to your awesomeness."
2.2 When he stops, tease him with a jab.
Use sneaky jabs to relentlessly mess with his head, making him careless and accidentally revealing his weak spots, setting you up for an attack.
" Build trust and a sense of safety in him, or make him think you're not as smart by asking for his suggestions on things that most people know well. If you're too lazy to listen to his answer, there's no need to ask for his suggestions, just say, 'Oh, I just knew that' or 'Oh, I never knew that before,' making him secure that he is smarter, for him to lower his guard and reveal his weak spots."
2.3 When he lowers his guard, go all out with your attack.
When he reveals his weakness or lowers his guard, go all out with your attack. Don't stop, even if you get hurt. Aim for a successful knockout.
2.4 When he runs away, chase him to knock him out or bring him back.
When you fail to knock him out, he'll freak out and try to escape.
" Estimate what percentage of attacks he's taken. If it's less than 50%, use your innocent side to make him feel safe and return to you. If it's more than 50%, chase after him and keep attacking until you succeed. Don't let him heal, or he'll come back even stronger. Don't let him escape, or he might not return. Keep him in a state of fear. If he's really strong, continue instilling fear. As long as the mind is weak and panicked with fears, no matter how strong his body is, he will crumble eventually."
2.5 Repeat!
---------------------------------
3. A Switch
Sometimes his emotions and mind play the dom while he's in a Sub role, and sometimes his mind plays the sub while he's in a Dom role. He doesn't know and realize himself well, you must observe and decide.
" The fight is tough, sensitive, and meticulous. It's a martial art that requires a ton of psychology because it's like juggling two conflicting things. You've got to stay updated, figuring out which side of his emotions is dominating at the moment, constantly adjusting and tuning in. It's intricate and delicate, and it's easy to fail and slip up. You've gotta be super careful and pay attention to every detail. "
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. . . After Breaking up . . .
☑️ Enslaved him 99% = Still Failed
☑️ Only Enslaved him 100% = Success
" After successfully enslaving him (100%), do as you wish—learn and grow together. Even if it fails and you break up with him, be confident: what is yours (100%) is yours.
Your slave is your slave. If he runs away, there's no need to chase him anymore. Ignore him, cut off all contacts mercilessly. He will wait for you to follow him, to chase him, and to care about him like a loyal dog. Give it time. Let him sink deep into the misery of yearning and suffering to be yours again, to feel you again, to get your attention again. Always keep in mind, no matter how many women he dates after you, no matter how many times he marries or partners, what is yours will always be yours. Just with a snap of your fingers, he will leave everything and break anyone to be with you, to be yours again. "
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. . . His Return . . .
☑️ After 3-4 months at least, 6-8 months, 1-3 years, 5-7 years
**** Keep in mind, he must lose significant things to come back—things that will scar him and make him remember well that he lost big to make a comeback. ****
Don't let him return for free, don't make it too easy for him. For example, you may set the price high, in the range of 80-500$++. If he's short on cash, he must be ready for some creatively substantial sacrifices. Propose significant items as sacrifices that he must obtain for you. Maybe the breakup of his new Miss or the heads of all his dear subs, complete with a transparent screenshot chat log of him ending the relationship the way you ordered—use those as your offerings. It's like a sacrifice, a significant tribute to earn permission for a comeback.
If he negotiates, don't become so focused on what you want that you forget to weigh it carefully. There must have been something he sacrificed or felt hurt about losing, regardless of whether it's something you truly desire or not. He had to lose it and feel its impact deeply.
Take this as another step of enslavement that goes even deeper. Carve deeply into his soul, make him realize that nothing belongs to him anymore, what was his can never truly be his. Everything now belongs to you and is at your mercy. He cannot possess a thing, everything he has had is yours, and you've taken it all away, you can take it away powerfully, just the way you like, anytime you desire.
" Every now and then, for a smoother ride in our life together, we gotta give his personna and moral compass a little spin to sync up with his owner's vibe. That way, we can sidestep those pesky arguments we had in past, vibe with better compatibility, deeper understanding, and groove together effortlessly this time."
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🎧 What Lies Beneath 🎵
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztJirkY5AMw
In this arena, it's not just about bloodstained stones, it's a symphony of clashing egos, steel and roaring crowds. She waltzs with death, the rhythm intoxicating—an exquisite fusion of kink-infused architecture, pulsating with genuine heart and wisdom. She doesn't adhere to the constraints of sports rules, to her, it's a visceral dance akin to MMA, with the gleam of gold belts as her coveted trophies.
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We had to do a Self Portrait for school.
Here is mine
Strobist :
One sb800 with softbox in front of me @1/4
That's all
Well... lately I've been at a loss to make minifigure wise. I have a really great Bionicle planned, so yeah. Tell me in the comments what I should make!
Recently my friend Bill Storage asked a question in DeletemeUncensored titled "What's Wrong With Flickr." The thread wasn't meant to complain about Flickr but to talk about how Flickr could be improved if one were starting from scratch. I wrote a couple of long responses out to Bill in the thread, but thought that some of the ideas really belonged in a longer-form blog post.
Alot of people give me crap for criticizing Flickr. They ask me why I use Flickr if "hate" it so much. The fact of the matter is that I don't hate Flickr at all. In fact I love Flickr (even if they don't love me anymore). I spend more time on Flickr than any other site on the web. I think Flickr represents the best place on the web for a photographer to share photos today and I think as a whole that Flickr is one of the cultural gems of our lifetime. What's more, a lot of the stuff on Flickr works really, really well and is really really great.
That said, I've always viewed criticism as a positive thing. As something that helps us improve and grow. Hopefully we learn from our critics and hopefully one can view suggestions as opportunities for improvement rather than simple mindless negativity. I blog alot about Flickr because I care about Flickr. I care about photography on the web. I care about the greater Flickr community and I want to see it get better and better. So don't see this list as a bitch list about Flickr, rather see it as some honest ways that Flickr can improve.
1. Improve the process on how account and group deletions are handled. Flickr is increasingly becoming known as a place that deletes accounts willy nilly without warning. Flickr's "Community Guidelines" are notoriously vague (you can be deleted without warning on Flickr for being "that guy" or if Flickr feels that you are "creepy.")
Many of my friends have had their entire accounts deleted for pretty minor offenses that are not specifically prohibited in more specific language in the TOS. In some cases photos with historical significance have been permanently lost. A while back Flickr nuked a group that I administered killing thousands of permanent threads. Thousands of threads by a group with thousands of members. Threads about cameras, workflows, photographic techniques, etc. Institutional knowledge stricken from the web forever.
Flickr really only should nuke accounts or groups as a matter of absolute last resort. They should try to work with their members (especially their long-term and paying members) if they find content that they object to. They should give members opportunities to take self-corrective action before just pulling the plug on their account. If they object to a single thread or a single image, they should just delete that image rather than nuking a user's entire account.
When Flickr nukes a group or an account it says to a user, "I don't respect you or your data." It creates an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty is bad for community.
At Flickr when they nuke your account it is also permanent and irrevocable. There is no undo button. Even if Flickr staff mistakenly deletes an account or if a hacker maliciously deletes your account, there is no getting that data back. It's gone forever.
Flickr could probably very easily create a system where deleted accounts are simply turned completely private and inaccessible from the web without actually removing all of the data. They could then give a user an opportunity to fix whatever they have a problem with in order to get their account turned back on. This would be a far better way of managing community than Flickr does at present.
2. Create a more robust blocking tool. Today at Flickr when you block someone, all it means is that they can't fave or comment on your photos. This is a very weak blocking system. If someone really wants to harass you blocking them does nothing. They can still comment on photos after you do so that their comments show up in your recent activity. They can still follow you around in groups and post things that you're forced to look at etc. Especially with cheap throw away troll accounts this creates unnecessary conflict on the site.
A few years back, over at FriendFeed, they developed a far more robust blocking system. When you block someone on FriendFeed they become entirely invisible to you. Not only can they not comment in your threads, anyplace else they post on the site is made invisible to you. They are wiped off the planet as far as you are concerned.
Now this would accomplish a few things at flickr. First it would give users far more control over eliminating anything that they found personally offensive or negative on the site. You don't like my paintings of nudes from a museum and don't like seeing them when you search for the de Young Museum? Fine. Then block me and you never see any of my content again. You don't like someone who uses language that you find offensive in a group post? Fine, block them as well.
Second though, this sort of tool would encourage more civil interaction between users. If a user creates a troll account and starts behaving badly. They are quickly blocked and become irrelevant. This encourages them not to troll creating a more positive experience for the rest of us.
Many of the personality clashes that occur on Flickr could be avoided if Flickr simply empowered the user to block more robustly.
3. SmartSets. Having to manually construct sets is an incredibly inefficient way to build and maintain your sets. That's why I use Jeremy Brooks' SuprSetr. It's probably the best third-party app ever built for Flickr. Flickr should hire Jeremy in fact as he's doing groundbreaking work here, but that's another topic.
Flickr should consider building SuprSetr technology directly into their Organize section. Let users build sets by keywords. It makes it much easier for users to build and maintain their sets. If I build a Las Vegas set for instance. In the future every single photo of mine keyworded Las Vegas, automatically gets added to this set when I run SuprSetr. Very slick.
4. Better Group thread management. At present Flickr has a very strong and robust Groups section. Here users can create groups (and there are probably literally millions of groups at this point) and talk about whatever they want and post photos into a pool. Games have been created around groups. Businesses have set up groups. Local communities have created their own groups. There are niche groups about anything and everything -- from graffiti in South Florida to a specific neon sign in San Jose. Some groups have more robust discussion threads than others, but all offer this feature.
One of the problems with group threads on Flickr though is that you are constantly losing track of conversations that you are having because you have to manually go to each and every group to check the threads. If I post something in a group, but then don't remember to go back to that specific group and that specific thread, I have no way of knowing if someone has answered my question or commented after my thoughts or whatever.
Flickr should create a page that aggregates all of the group threads that you are participating in or have chosen to follow. This page would encompass all threads from all group in a nice aggregated section. This way if you posted a really important question in a group three months ago that someone has finally got around to answering, you will actually see it, the moment it is bumped to the top of your aggregator.
Flickr should also allow you to hide group threads. Both in your aggregator as well as in the more general group view. If I don't care about the latest Pentax camera (because I'm a Canon 5D M2 owner) I should be able to mute that thread in the group and never see it again. This would also help decrease negative trolling and bumping of threads on the site as offensive threads could just be hidden by a user if they didn't want to see it.
5. Kill explore and replace it with a recommendation system based on your contact's/friends photos. Flickr blacklisted me from Explore a while back after I wrote a negative blog post about actions that someone on their community management team had taken. They capped my photos in it at 666 (cute huh?). But this isn't why I don't like Explore. There's a whole thread called "So I Accidentally Clicked on Explore" in DMU devoted to crappy photos that end up in Explore. The problem with Explore is that it largely shows you photos that you are less interested in. Broad general popular photos of cliches. Sunsets and kittens as the saying goes.
If I choose to follow people on Flickr, I'm probably much more interested in their style of photography or them personally than I am images in Explore. Maybe I'm a graffiti writer and am most interested in graffiti photos. Maybe my thing is mannequins. Maybe I want to see photos of classic cars. Whatever. Instead of presenting the community what Flickr feels is the best of the whole community, show each member the best of their contacts each, day, week, month. I would be far more interested in the photos of people that I actually follow, like, know, etc. Maybe Aunt Edna's photo of her dog will never hit Flickr's explore. But it just might hit my own personalized explore and because I know Aunt Edna and she is my contact, it might be a much more rewarding experience for me to see than say another random dog shot from a user that I don't even know.
Flickr does have a page that shows your contacts most recent uploads, but this page is very limited and only shows the most recent 1 or 5 photos. There is also no way to filter it so that you see the photos that are faved/commented on the most and are likely to be the more interesting photos.
Get rid of Explore and replace it with something that is focused much more on your contacts than people you don't even know. A personalized Explore would be a far more interesting page.
6. Improve Group Search. I have no idea why Group Search sucks so badly on Flickr but it does. Frequently you will search for terms that you've posted in group thread conversations and Flickr will not return the thread where the word exists. I would think that Yahoo! should know a few things about search and am surprised that searching for threads in groups has been so spotty for so many years. I have no idea why this is so bad, but it shouldn't be.
7. Improve Data Portability. Flickr gives lipservice to data portability, but is not serious about it. As long as 99% of Flickr users can't or won't figure out how to move their photos easily to another site they are just fine with things. Functional lock in. The data that we put on Flickr is our data. It belongs to us. We are paying Flickr to hold it for us, but it belongs to us.
Recently my friend Adam wrote up a post on a help forum post about the language Flickr uses for encouraging people to buy Pro accounts. They said that they felt that Flickr is holding your photos hostage (beyond the 200 photo free limit) if you don't upgrade to Pro. Only Pro accounts have access to original images on Flickr.
Flickr should let any member get their photos out of Flickr at any time. Further they should offer competitors API keys to allow them to build service to service direct transfer applications to move your photos to another service if you want. If I don't want to renew my Pro account on Flickr and want to move my photos to Picasa, this should be as easy as me pressing a single button and having all of my photos transfer over.
Today it is very difficult and clunky to get your photos off of flickr. A few third party apps are available, but there are lots of problems with them. They fail if you have too many photos. They are only Windows based, etc. etc. Flickr has functional lock in and holds photos in a silo while talking about how they allow you to get your photos out of Flickr. Flickr should follow the lead of Google here and publicly both state and help make our data more portable. This ought to be part of being a good web citizen today.
8. Uncensor Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Germany and Maktoob.com. At present Flickr censors content to these places. It's still mind boggling to me that a photo of a painting that I took in the Art Institute of Chicago can't be seen by people in India. Trying to censor the world's web is messy business. Flickr/Yahoo should take a stand for freedom and uncensor these locations. Google last year took a bold step of choosing to walk about from China rather than censor results there. Yahoo should stand for freedom and stop censoring in these places.
9. Let people sell their photos for stock photography. Flickr missed the boat by giving away stock photography to Getty Images. Stock photography is probably the single easiest way for Yahoo to dramatically increase the profitability of Flickr. Getty Images represents a tiny fraction of the images available on Flickr. The Flickr/Getty deal was probably done as a defensive move by Getty more than anything to keep Yahoo out of the multi billion dollar market that is stock photography today. What resulted is that users get a paltry 20% payout for a very small number of their images that can be sold.
Flickr could be a far more formidable competitor to Getty. Flickr has the size and market share to dramatically disrupt this market. The stock photography marketplace is *far* more complicated than this. But oversimplifying things, Flickr should offer two collections for sale (if a user chooses to offer their photos for sale). Cleared photos and uncleared photos. Uncleared photos should pay more to the photographer than cleared photos. Cleared photos would be reviewed by a team of stock photography experts (Yahoo could even buy one of the smaller stock agencies that already has experience clearing images) and result in a lower payout to the photographer. By turning Flickr into the world's largest stock photography agency Yahoo could receive significant revenue from Flickr and Flickr photographers personally could benefit much more from posting their work there.
10. Build a better mobile app. The Yahoo built mobile app for Flickr sucks ass (sorry). As I understand it, it wasn't even developed by the Flickr team. Over at Quora former Flickr Engineer Kellan Elliott-McCrea answers the question, "Why did Flickr miss the mobile photo opportunity that Instagram and picplz are pursuing?" There is no compelling mobile Flickr experience today.
Recently, one of my favorite Flickr photographers, Michael Wilbur, deleted his entire Flickr account and is now one of the most popular photographers on Instagram. Flickr needs to develop a more compelling mobile experience. Part of this should be a very easy way to view group threads via mobile.
There you go. Food for thought. And keep on flickering.
#56 Another glass refraction pattern. I can't decide what to make of this. Is it another luminous deep sea creature, or a deep space gas cloud formation or perhaps you can think of other interpretations? To me it's all a question of scale.
For new viewers: these are analog images of the refraction patterns of light passing through textured glass objects. The glass used for this one is clear so I have introduced colour by inserting coloured optical filters into the light beam. The image is captured directly on to 35mm film, there is no camera lens ( this is a photogram using film instead of photographic paper). No Photoshop is used only Picasa2 for alignment and cropping. The negative film was lab processed and a print scanned for uploading.
È stato solo un attimo, un attimo in cui non si pensa altro che imbracciare la macchina fotografica e scattare, un attimo in cui la luce si affaccia sulla terrazza immobile, un attimo di contemplazione impresso in eterno.
Grazie a Francesco (Fratag73) di avermi portata lì!
Questa è la sua versione: www.flickr.com/photos/fratag73/3204559984/
Photo by Valentina Blasi - © All rights reserved - Mentioning the Author is required by law 633/41.
Fotografia di Valentina Blasi - © Tutti i diritti riservati - Menzione del nome dell'Autore obbligatoria ai sensi legge 633/41.
The Lego Question Block I built recently has proven to be rather popular, and since it's quite small, I figured it would be a good build to offer as a Build-It-Yourself project! Cost direct from Lego is about $12, and instructions and part lists can be found at chrismcveigh.com.
Follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr. Prints available from Society6.
The Sacredness of Questioning Everything:
Questioning God, religion, offhandedness, passions, media, language, interpretations, history, governments, bureaucracy, future
a book by David Dark
While waiting in line at McDonalds for our Mocha Frappas, I noticed the reflection of our car in the back hatch of the Jeep ahead of us. I've taken thousands of photos of cars at car shows and almost all of them have reflections to be dealt with one way or another. But I don't recall ever seeing one upside down like this. Maybe there's a simple explanation but I can't figure it out. Can someone tell me how this happens? Or is this just another strange 2020 thing?
I was thinking of selling off some of my 3rd party stuff, would you guys be interested in buying anything. I live in Canada and shipping prices wouldn't be to much. I would be selling mostly my unused citizen brick and brickarms. Comment if you're interested.
Are there any barbie competitions open for auditions? I could not find a Barbie photo so I just found this.
Curling steam from the PG&E stack, from the S.S. Independence ghost ship.
Visit the set page for more info.
Night, half-moon, mercury and sodium vapor light, LED flashlight. Composite of 20 second and one minute exposures.
Reprocessed and replaced 2023.
Fave colour? Turquise
Biggest dream? Becoming either an actor or a youtuber
Lucky\fave number ?13. Celebrity crush? Megan Fox Ariana Grande
Sexuality? Straight....I think i haven't thought about being gay or bi
Meet anyone? All of my flickr contacts Shane Dawson Lisa (shanes gf) Joey Graceffa Lady Gaga And someone famous that would think I'm good at acting and put me in a film.... LOL
Middle name? Begins with D
Love at first sight? Thinking someone is attractive or wanting to have sex with soemone
Allergies? I have none :P
Addictions? Phone Xbox MH EAH Instagram Flickr Ipad Selfies
Typical weekend? Xbox Instagram Flickr Shopping babysitting
Favourite serial killer? I don't have a favourite serial killer WTF!? xD
Birthday? 13/08/1999
Best friends? MHperfectlyimperfect
Eshi Wolf
DollPicStudios
Clawdeen-Twyla
Tengaku
Jordan/Gagasbratz
Zebraluvr11520
Cutebarbie115
DisneyDiva594
Divaray522
DollLover,BratzFan
French_Disney_Princess
PicklePud
Mariko&Susie
Jinafirelong31
LagoonaLicious
LilyVampwolf
lps592
Mimeesbatd
PancakeBoss
CatrineDemew
Pukunui81
Ramses De Nile
Freya's Dolly world
CupcakeFreak17
SailorCrystal
That-Doll
Winxbsfamt
XeLbuah
Beauitful Doll
Josephreyes34
Liv4Ever
And anyone else on my contacts list i get along so well with all of you ILY <3
Favourite food ? Ben and Jerry's ice-cream and Chocolate
Would you rather choke on tentacles or fuck a doughnut? The doughnut because nobody would ever know......
Fave social media site ? Instagram and Flickr .
Current mood? Shocked my sister is being such a brat right now
Age?14
Have you ever stolen anything? I stole a ribbon from my friends house once! #BadAss
Are you a virgin?yes definitely.
First kiss? from a girl I was like 7 lol it was at her house on her bed in the dark lol
Weirdest food I like? I can eat a lemon without going "sour faced"
Would you rather kiss satan or a monkey? Depends on the monkey xD
Ever cheated on somebody? Does flirting with other girls count :3 then again its not really flirting I'm just quite a flirty person lol
How long have you taken before having a shower/bath? This question confuses me but once I was so busy playing my Xbox I didn't get in until like an hour after I ran it and it was cold LOL
Have you ever been in love with a friend? I've had a crush on a friend before but I got over it because I knew it wasn't going to happen
How many girls have you dated? 2
Favourite movie? Hunger games ( all of them don't care if they aren't out yet ) Monster high movies mean girls scary movie saga and the paranormal activity films always make me laugh :)
Do you remember your dreams ? sometimes but I also have visions of the future in my dreams and then when it happens I'm just like "This has happened to ,me in my dreams before" its kinda like that's so raven except it happens when I'm sleeping if you don't believe me I don't care xD
What do you like about yourself? My hair my eyes my instgram my photography xD
Smoke? Eww gross no thanks I don't want a road in my chest.
Do you drink? Peach Wine <3
Do you like to play video games? Yes if I'm not on my phone I'm on the Xbox with my besties :P
What do you think of valentines? I hate it when I'm single because everyone is like "hey I'm in a relationship and your still single so F*CK YOU! HAHA" and I normally spend it eating ice cream and crying about how I'm going to die alone... nut if your like in a relationship It's a great excuse to have sex....???
How do you feel about tattoos? I don't like those ugly big ones like David Beckam has but I don't mind the rest of them
Do you like anyone? Yes she goes to my school <3
What is your perfect date? A candle lit dinner with champagne and rose petals.
Have you ever broke a bone? No but I honestly don't know how I'm the bloody clumsiest person ever xD
What deodorant do you wear? Lynx
If you could live anywhere ? Califonia
Biggest regret? Not puching that dickhead that bullied me in year 6
If you could change anything about yourself what would it be?my belly I wish I had abs :( but I'm going to the gym soon so yaaayyy!!!
What are you scared of ? Snakes......
Name of favourite toy as a kid? Surprisingly it was Action men then Laura croft figure then barbie then bratz then i stopped playing with dolls for like 5 years
Favourite cereal? wheatabix
Are you still a virgin? Yes but two more years then its legal xD looool
Boxers or briefs? Boxers
Do you like cheese ? I love it
Who are you talking to now? My Brother xD
When did I go sleep last night? 2am
Do you have armpit hair? not really but Its coming through ( Puberty sucks guys -_- )
How big is your dick? Bigger than the middle finger I'm sticking up at the pedo who wrote this question
Favourite tv show? I don't watch TV xD
Longest relationship ? Well I'm in one right now but we never speak so its not really a relationship I'm just super gorgeous so I said id be her boyfriend whoops LOL
If I could travel anywhere ? America
Favourite song ? Clean bandit Rather be <3
What do you want to be when you're older? Actor
Naughtiest thing I've ever done is? I broke a couple up, they were both assholes anyway
Favourite animal? Fish
Love or Money ? Love what is money if you have nobody to share it with you can have all the dolls you want but if nobody loves you you cant even take pictures and put them on flickr because nobody cares
How many kids do you want? 2
Ten years from now where are you? Hopefully on your TV :P
Do you like massages? I dont mind them lol
If You are reading this consider yourself tagged ( sorry about the crappy old picture )
Since the question was raised – there are pretty huge age gaps between all of the children. Only ones close in age are the twins and Morgana (seven years gap) and then later on Nightingale and Wulfric (five years gap).
Despite Wulfric being the younger one of the two, he pretty soon starts to protect his brother in all situations (Pazuzu blames this on his animalistic instincts due to being partial wolf shapeshifter) and he never gets out of that habit even as adults.
Both are the only child who spend their lives constantly within reach of Pazuzu without any “I need at least a millennia away from my Mom to recover from the trauma she put me through”-hiatus.
Wulfric by becoming a blood hunter and therefore a spy for his mother in the Council (because Pazuzu’s children are not known by everyone) and Nightingale by marrying one of the elven noblemen and succeeding in getting some of the elvish clans onto his mother’s side (because at large the elvish society still blames her – in both forms – for the ruin of the elvish society and the fact that they crumbled their civilization to dust and ruins, reducing them to a life as nomads mostly).
Honestly, these two benefit from the fact that life was still calm, Pazuzu had five other children before them as test subjects and they were kinda raised okayish for Pazuzu’s standards xD
ALSO I DON’T KNOW HOW CLEAR IT IS BUT BASICALLY THEY ARE PLAYING KNIGHT AND PRINCESS – Wulfric is the prince who slayed the evil dragon (Pazuzu) to protect his princess (Nightingale). And okay, Pazuzu might also be drunk and fighting a killer headache but shush. We do not speak of Pazuzu's alcohol habit.
In doll news, we reached those children who have no proper clothes yet so I need to get creative x'D
The 'what is what'
Fairyland LTF Elf El with face-up by Lina Kröger, ear mod by SilverEyePsycho
Wig by DearMine, goggles from syrinxfox, scarf from Taobao and eyes from LuaGaro
Iplehouse JID Violet with DollLegend Jointed hands, face-up by Pearls of Danube, eyes from DollBakery, wig from eclipse21, outfit/jewelry by nezumitoo
Fairyland LTF Juri 2013
Found hogging the road at the Wolf River Restoration Area near Collierville, Tn. Note one antenna seems to be missing. Actually, it is just pointing down and cannot be seen.
Week 8, Wednesday
Before I began to understand anything about my own photography, I used to look inspiration from other peoples work. It's easy to trap yourself with an idea that you need to find your own photographic character from world outside. With a click of a mouse one can browse all kinds of photographs of different ideas, characters and styles; and have so overflowing possibilities that it actually just introduces insecurity. They don't feel home, because they don't come inside you. The only way to overcome this is to pay attention to your own photography and start asking questions.
It is interesting to try to understand why we take such photographs as we do. I believe everyone has prominent photographic or other visual experiences from their youth that defines their taste and photographic eye. Maybe they relate to vivid photographic experiences, maybe they come from TV and movies, or they might be related to artistic black&white photographs, record covers or war propaganda pictures in history textbooks that you saw when you were young. Maybe you had friends who introduced you to photography. Or it was your parents. Maybe it's photographs from your personal past that convey hidden meanings to you. It can be anything really, and of all photographs you've seen in your youth, you only remember particular ones which have some meaning to you and which have stratified into your visual memory. I believe these kind of experiences also define, to some extent, your way of seeing things and world through photography – your photographic eye, which also makes you somebody with meaningful visual past and not just anybody. It would be shame to leave these visual influences untouched and one of my goals regarding this photo blog is to lure my own influences forward by taking photographs that feel like me. So, for every photograph that I'm somehow satisfied, I ask same questions: why did I take this particular photograph and not something else? What's in there? What does it say about my visual past and influences? Is it me or someone else? Needless to say, there is much more questions than there are clear answers.
Year of the Alpha – 52 Weeks of Sony Alpha Photography: www.yearofthealpha.com
The Tuarek Girl.
© All rights reserved. Copyright by V.Bures. Pictures taken by V.Bures. For any questions please contact me.
Juzga a las personas por sus preguntas más que por sus respuestas...
Questions
© Luis Campillo 2018
con Miglena Nikolaeva
#ambrotype #ferrotype #tintype #fineartphotography #vintagephotography #vintageportrait #wetplate #makeportraits #oddities
Пара интервью с вокалистом Felt.
• их главный хит Primitive Painters спродюсировал Робин Гатри из Cocteau Twins, и на бэк-вокале с его подачи там спела Elizabeth Fraser;
• сингл Primitive Painters попал на вершину UK Independent Singles Chart, чего не удалось достичь ни The Smiths, ни Cocteau Twins;
• когда песня взлетела в топы МакГи из Creation и Cherry Red решили снять видео на этот сингл, но МакГи (был на мели) не заплатил ребятам (Cherry и Creation изначально договаривали разделить расходы пополам), поэтому они смогли снять только полклипа (!), из-за этого Lawrence собирался уничтожить видео, к счастью копия была не только у него (группа как раз перешла из Cherry на Creation);
• Робин очень любил эту группу и старался им помочь по мере сил, но для сведения альбома они заставили их вокалиста (по имени Lawrence Hayward) подписать бумажку, что он никаким образом не будет вмешиваться в сведение записи, потому что были наслышаны о его характере, он очень страдал что не может повлиять;
• видео сняли спустя пару лет после выхода альбома, в доме Фила Кинга (в будущем басиста Lush и The Jesus and Mary Chain) в Hammersmith, он тогда играл в Felt; штатным басистом Felt был Marco Thomas, так что Phil King даже не отмечен ни на одной их пластинке, хотя и снялся в их самом популярном видео;
• Martin Duffy сыграл на клавишах на этой пластинке, когда ему было всего 18 (а пришёл он в группу вообще в 16 лет), после распада Felt он примкнет к Primal Scream (на днях скончался /RIP);
Felt discography
1982.01 — Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty (Cherry Red)
1984.02 — The Splendour of Fear (Cherry Red)
1984.10 — The Strange Idols Pattern and Other Short Stories (Cherry Red)
1985.09 — Ignite the Seven Cannons (Cherry Red) - Primitive Painters отсюда
1986.06 — Let the Snakes Crinkle Their Heads to Death (Creation)
1986.09 — Forever Breathes the Lonely Word (Creation)
1987.06 — Poem of the River (Creation)
1988.05 — The Pictorial Jackson Review (Creation)
1988.07 — Train Above the City (Creation)
1989.11 — Me and a Monkey on the Moon (Creation)
compilation
1987.09 — Gold Mine Trash [Cherry Red]
1990.04 — Bubblegum Perfume [Creation]
1992.04 — Absolute Classic Masterpieces [Cherry Red]
1993.10 — Absolute Classic Masterpieces Vol. II [Creation]
1993.10 — Felt Box [Cherry Red]
2003.05 — Stains on a Decade [Cherry Red]
singles
1979 — Index
1981 — Something Sends Me to Sleep
1982 — My Face Is on Fire / Trails of Colour Dissolve
1983 — Penelope Tree
1984 — Mexican Bandits / The World Is as Soft as Lace
1984 — Sunlight Bathed the Golden Glow
1985 — Primitive Painters
1986 — Ballad of the Band
1986 — Rain of Crystal Spires
1987 — The Final Resting of the Ark
1988 — Space Blues
• Уникальный саунд Felt — заслуга гитариста Maurice Deebank (Lawrence его друг детства) и он покинет группу сразу после альбома «Ignite the Seven Cannons», 1985, он говорил в другом интервью, что на первых альбомах учил всех играть на инструментах, там все самоучки кроме него (и даже после его ухода, они играли так как он их научил), Maurice признавал что Lawrence великий поэт, но они разошлись т.к. парни перестали слушать его советы по поводу саунда, плюс им вскружил голову успех Primitive Painters — Джон Пил и все остальные там подпрыгивали от радости когда её включали и они реально остановились в полушаге от глобальной популярности, но эта же песня стала их последним большим хитом;
Phil King играл в группах:
The Servants (1986)
Felt (1986-1987)
Apple Boutique (1987)
Hangman's Beautiful Daughters (1987)
Biff Bang Pow! (1988-1989)
See See Rider (1989-1992)
Lush (1992-1997, 2015-2016)
The Jesus & Mary Chain (1997-1998, 2017-)
(удивительно конечно, что я посмотрел живьём и Lush и JAMC хотя даже и не мечтал о таком!)
Felt одна из самых недооценённых британских групп, как и McCarthy.
...
An interview with Lawrence: “‘Primitive Painters’ was this great big statement, Felt were going to be massive.”
— Michael Bonner @ Uncut, 24.07.2015
www.uncut.co.uk/features/an-interview-with-lawrence-primi...
— Where were Felt just prior to Ignite the Seven Cannons?
— Honestly there’s so much. I don’t want to blab on and on. Originally I wanted to continue with John Leckie after The Strange Idols Pattern. He didn’t want to do it. I was writing these trademark pop songs at the time, short 3-minute things. Leckie said, “They’re all the same, they just seem to start and then stop, there’s no beginning.” Things like that. He was reluctant to get involved. But I said, “These are just a few rough demos that you’re listening to, the songs are nothing like that really. They’re quite expansive, there’s a lot going on.” But he wouldn’t give it a chance. So he passed on it anyway. We were trying to get Tom Verlaine as well.
— Did you approach Verlaine?
— We did, yeah. He said – oh God, his quote was classic – he said he didn’t want to get involved himself because he felt the guitars were playing all the way through the songs. That’s the gist of it. They would start and continue, like a long solo. The songs, they weren’t arranged. Like most would start and then continue all the way through the song. That’s a lot to do with me, because Maurice [Deebank] is such a great guitarist that I encouraged him to play from beginning to end, especially on my songs. That’s something Tom Verlaine picked up on. It was a good criticism, I suppose, in a way, if you were trying to write conventional songs. But we weren’t. At the beginning of this chat my point would be that these people didn’t give us a chance to see what could happen in the studio with this.
— How did Robin Guthrie become involved?
— Cocteau Twins had approached us to play with them live because we were Robin’s favourite band. We didn’t know them, they got in touch with us, and Robin said they were doing a small UK tour – well, for them it was a massive tour. It was 5 days on the trot I think, or 6 days. They took us with them in their mini bus and they paid for everything. They were very kind to us, and we became great friends on this tour. So, I thought, “Maybe I’ll ask Robin because he seems to know what he’s doing in the studio.” He wasn’t known as a producer then, he’d only produced Cocteau Twins. Now he’s known as more of a producer. I wanted to work with a musician. Robin liked us a lot, and he agreed to do it as long as I wasn’t at the mixing. I had to sign a contract to say that I wasn’t allowed to be at the mixing, because he thought my presence was too overpowering. There could only be one person mixing the record, and that would be him.
— Is that just how he works or was that about you personally?
— That was about me personally, absolutely. Because I was in control of every asset of the band. I had a comment on everything, even a shoelace, for example. I was in to everything, and I was completely obsessed. I think he thought, if he was going to produce, he’d want to produce it his way. He’d probably heard stories of me in the studio before anyway.
— What sort of stories?
— I don’t know, the usual. You always hear stories about people in the studio that are kind blown up out of all proportion. I don’t know what he could have heard, there are so many. He’d probably heard that it’s very hard to work with me. I signed this piece of paper anyway. There was a production contract and there was an extra contract for me to sign saying that I wouldn’t be there at the mixing. I can’t go into the whole thing, we’d need a whole book. But, what happened was, as we were recording the album, I was more and more reluctant to go along with this. I wasn’t sure that I shouldn’t be there. It got to the point where we had 11 days to record and five or six days to mix. We did it in Palladium studios in Edinburgh. Robin knew the engineer, the guy who owned it. Jon Turner I think his name was.
— Do you remember when this was?
— Let’s remember the weather… I reckon it was spring. It was coldish but there wasn’t any snow or rain. I’d say spring we did it. Definitely spring, yeah. Loads of Eighties bands went to Palladium, especially Scottish bands. Paul Haig and people.
— What was it like?
— It was residential which is the first time I’ve done that, and I didn’t like that at all, being away from my own surroundings, and sharing a room, we were all sharing a room. Like a dormitory it was.
— Who did you share with?
— I had my own room. I think that was part of it. I had to have my own room. I think we threw someone else in together, three of them together, so that I could have my own room. I think that was my one diva moment. It was awful for me, it was in the middle of nowhere. About a 45 minute bus ride into Edinburgh. It was awful, in a country lane, there was like a tiny little village down the lane. I got attacked by a dog, had to go to hospital. Like a wolf it was. It attacked me one day.
— Why did it attack you?
— I don’t know, just saw I was scared. It didn’t attack anybody else. I was on my own. Had to go to hospital. I hated it. And also I hated the food, and the whole day was geared up to “Is he going to eat or not tonight?” It’s all like that.
— What kind of food did they serve, if you don’t mind me asking?
— I can’t remember. But I didn’t eat anything. I didn’t like any meals, it was always a big deal. His wife was cooking the meals for us, of course, and you tend to be polite in those situations, but I couldn’t eat the food. Robin, he thought it was wonderful that all this was going on, and he’d make a big show of it to the wife, “He’s not eating it again, he doesn’t like your food.” All this kind of stuff. He’s quite the joker, Robin is. Everything’s based around a joke and japes with him. He sort of revelled in my idiosyncrasies.
— I want to talk more about Robin in a minute. But this is Duffy’s first record. How did he come into the picture?
— He joined late ‘84, straight from school. When we did Ignite… he was probably 16.
— How did you find him?
— I put an advert in Virgin for a guitarist. This was during one of the periods where Maurice left. This guy who worked there came up to me and said, “Look, you’re in Felt aren’t you? I know this great keyboard player.” That was Martin. I rang him and it was as simple as that. That was it really. Very lucky. I was thinking about a keyboard player anyway, because Maurice is so hard to replace. I got Martin in, we worked on all songs that were on Ignite the Seven Cannons – apart from “Primitive Painters” and Maurice’s solo song. In between then and starting the album, Maurice rejoined. He’d always leave, then he’d rejoin. Me and Gary [Ainge] would carry on on our own for a few months, and then we’d come to a low point, go round to Maurice’s house and beg him. We’d stay up all night with him and plead with him to come back. He took a lot of persuading, he wasn’t bothered about being in a group at all. So anyway, the next time we got Maurice back, Martin was with us. One of the reasons Maurice was quite happy to come back was the fact that we had a keyboard player. He thought it would be better for the arrangements.
— This was Maurice’s final record, though?
— Every record he came in and left really. That’s why he’s never in a lot of interviews, because he’d left straight after recording. But what happened this time was he’d got married to a girlfriend, and what should have been his honeymoon was spent recording Ignite the Seven Cannons. When we delivered him back to his flat in Birmingham, he got out the van and said “I’m finished now, yeah that’s it, I’m finished.” I knew he meant it that time. He left soon as we’d finished recording.
— When did you start writing “Primitive Painters”?
— When Maurice rejoined, he bought the music for “Primitive Painters”. It wasn’t like a fully formed song, it was like a cyclical riff. We arranged it together, and I put the verses in so it was a joint collaboration. But he wrote all the music to that and he brought his instrumental track, “Elegance of an Only Dream”. I wanted there to be lots of Maurice songs on that record. But he wasn’t interested, or he just found it too hard to work on his own, I think. When we wrote the songs together, we would sit opposite each other, parallel to each other, in my bedroom or flats that we subsequently got, and we’d just sit there and work on them. I’d play the chord sequence while he’d work out his guitar parts. I think he liked the camaraderie of that better than sitting on his own in a cold room trying to come up with songs, which I didn’t have a problem with. The poet in the garret was made for me. I was quite happy to be on my own composing and writing the words and writing the music, just waiting for fame. I was very prolific, but Maurice wasn’t. He wrote I think one on the first album, “I Worship The Sun”, and he wrote a song called “Spanish House” on the third album, and “Primitive Painters” and the “Elegance…” song. I was quite happy for him to present a whole album worth of stuff. We were partners and it didn’t matter who wrote what bits. We were songwriters’ together, joint songwriters. And of course, he came up with the best song, “Primitive Painters”.
— Where did the lyrics come in, do you have books of lyrics?
— I was sitting in my kitchen in Moseley doing it. The lyrics, I don’t know how they come about. That would’ve been the last song on Ignite the Seven Cannons, because I had all the others written. So that would’ve been the last lyric I wrote. I can’t say there was any special moment that made me come up with it.
— Can you explain the song?
— “Dragons blow fire, angels fly, Spirits wither in the air/It’s just me I can’t deny I’m neither here, there nor anywhere”. It’s about wanting to be in a select group. “Primitive painters are ships floating on an empty sea, gathering in galleries”. Imagine groups of really cool kids hanging out in galleries, not pubs. That was my sort of conception.
— Was that you?
— Yeah, that’s me. I’d always find myself in a gallery on my own, y’know.
— Can you talk us through how you worked on the song in the studio?
— We’d work them up in a practise room. There was no improvising going on, so we knew exactly what we were doing. Then we set up like a band in the studio. They were layered afterwards. They were very simple, very traditional big group concepts, just like everyone did. You’d set up live and you’d get the bass and the drums and the keyboards down, and the rhythm guitar, and you’d layer it from there, adding lead guitar and vocals afterwards. It’s quite boring, that aspect of it. But it was done really quickly because we didn’t have enough time to ponder, so we just did them all live.
— What was Robin like in the studio as a producer?
— While I was there, he was capturing it all with the engineer. He didn’t make any arrangement suggestions because it was all set in stone before we got there. I was very pedantic like that. But he put effects to tape, which is something you don’t do.
— Could you explain what you mean?
— You should record everything dry, and then you decide what effects to put on afterwards so you have the choice. That’s why that album sounds so impenetrable and dense because all the effects went down, so by the time of the mixing there was nothing to change. I suppose that was the way he recorded the Cocteau Twins. It was a massive mistake, and I’m sure he would never do that now. Over the years I’ve collected some of the master tapes and on the reissues that are coming out, I’ve tried to extract the Cocteau Twins from my record. You can’t really hear Maurice’s guitar leads. Okay, skip forward to the end of the mixing when I finally got my tape. I was horrified, I would never have made a record like that. I was like beside myself with anguish. The thing was in those days, you couldn’t remix an album. But Robin quite rightly said “Primitive Painters” has to be the single. He went on and on about it, and he went to Cherry Red and he told them, he persuaded everyone. I didn’t think it was a single, I thought it was too long. I went with him to a studio in London and we remixed it together. And that’s why that’s the best song, ‘cause I was there in that mixing. I went with him to Barry Blue’s studio in Camden. Remember that guy Barry Blue? He had some hits in the ‘70’s? He was like a teenybopper. His studio in Camden was by the Roundhouse. We spent an afternoon there and we remixed “Primitive Painters”. I think we should’ve done an EP with Robin; that would’ve been the best outcome. It would’ve been a different story. But, anyway, we were lumbered with a whole album. And it was 11 tracks as well. That’s something I could never get my head around because I like everything symmetrical. That hurt me a bit, straight away, before I’d even listened to it.
— How did Liz Fraser come to be on the record?
— Liz came with Robin to work on her own lyrics and songs and that, so she’d be upstairs in the bedroom, in their room, working on her lyrics. She had a bed full of books that she was poring though, reading and writing. Anyway, when we’d recorded “Primitive Painters” and we listened back, Robin said “I’ve got a good idea.” He ran upstairs and he said to Liz, “I want you to sing this song.” He just played her the end section. I wrote the lyrics out for her on a piece of paper, she went in, listened to it once on headphones, and then just improvised around it. It was as real as that. It was a remarkable moment. When you listen back to something like that, we knew we’d got it.
— It was on the cusp between the 7-inch culture of the late ‘70’s and the 12-inch culture of the Eighties.
— Yeah, I wanted it to be a stand alone release like Wild Swans’ “Revolutionary Spirit” and Joy Division’s “Atmosphere” which were 12-inches. “Atmosphere” was on 7-inch, but that was that French label so it didn’t count. Songs that were too big to hold on 7-inch, they were big. Cherry Red wanted to do a 7-inch edit of “Primitive Painters”, but I wouldn’t let them.
— Talking of Cherry Red, what was your relationship like with them at that point?
— Michael Alway was the A&R guy who signed us to Cherry Red. He formed a new label with Geoff Travis and they went to Warners and they started Blanco Y Negro. He always promised that he’d take us with him. He took most of the Cherry Red rock stuff, and he left us behind, because Warners just wouldn’t entertain the idea of having Felt. So we were on a label that we didn’t want to be on. But we all made friends and we had two albums left to deliver so we did Strange Idols Pattern, and then Ignite the Seven Cannons. I’d been speaking to Alan McGee at this point so I knew we were going to Creation after this last album. There was no animosity there, we were all friends and I’ve never fallen out with them, we’d been friends for years and it was just business.
— You made a video with Phil King a couple of years later. How did that come about?
— We were on Creation when we did it. What happened was, I don’t know why but it was mooted that we should do a video for “Primitive Painters”. It got half made. Cherry Red and Creation were meant to pay for it together, pay half each. Cherry Red came up with their half because they initiated the project, and McGee didn’t pay his half. So we did half a video with Phil’s friend Danny. What you see on YouTube is half a video. We were meant to do another half and join it together, have stuff superimposed over the top, have extra scenes. But all you can see really is me and Phil in Phil’s house in Hammersmith, just standing around. It’s ridiculous. I was so embarrassed when it leaked out. So we put it to bed, and it lay there until somebody scooped it up and put it on YouTube or leaked it on a VHS probably first, it was probably a leaked VHS first.
— Yeah, it’s got that slight tracking wobble you get every now and again on VHS…
— I should’ve been more attentive and got hold of it and cut it up or something. I was very meticulous about ‘there’s no extra tracks’ and things like that, no demos or extra tracks hanging around. But with this for some reason it went wrong. I can’t remember why it was resurrected I’d say about a year and a half later. Maybe together McGee and Cherry Red were going to do something.
— Where do you think now the song fits into your body of work? Is it a song you still feel proud of?
— Oh yeah, oh wow. It was great that we went back – at that time you never went back and revisited anything – and we spent an extra afternoon getting it right and perfecting it. It was this great big statement, Felt were going to be massive. I was prone to short pop songs. My thing was, I’m going to break in to the mainstream by doing a short pop song. I was totally off the mark. We nearly had a hit single with a six-minute track that was not a traditional pop song, let’s put it that way. I reckon that if it would’ve been in the ’90s, it would’ve been a Top 10 song – because the independent movement was ready to promote songs like that. In 1985, there was no apparatus for a song like that, to take it to the mainstream. Even The Smiths would only get to 23, and the Cocteaus would only get to 38. I’m really proud of the song, I’m really proud that Maurice got his moment. I’m proud of the fact the Cocteaus are on it. I suppose it was the high point of the first days of Felt wasn’t it?
...
Trash ascetic. The minimally-monikered Lawrence - driving force behind Felt, Denim, and now Go-Kart Mozart - lives like a monk but dreams of pop stardom, drawing inspiration from the 'middle-of-the-road underground'
• The Guardian, 8 Jul 2005
www.theguardian.com/music/2005/jul/08/1
When the cult pop star Lawrence was 12, he saw a film of Gary Glitter disposing of his old life as Paul Gadd by putting all of his possessions on to a boat on the river Thames and floating them downstream. "I said to myself, 'I'm going to do that one day,'" says Lawrence, who began the process by disposing of his surname. "I'm going to put one life away in a box and start a new one."
Although he hasn't quite reached Glitter's levels of fame or infamy, Lawrence has succeeded in reinventing himself several times. For most of the 1980s, he was the sensitive leader of the influential indie band Felt. Then he re-emerged in the 1990s with Denim, whose wry wit and celebration of 1970s pop culture proved too far ahead of its time for commercial success. Now he is back with Go-Kart Mozart, and a roster of perfectly formed pop songs that he hopes will be recorded by some of the biggest stars of the day. He's setting his sights on Charlotte Church, but whether she will add Um Bongo (about the Rwanda genocide), and Transgressions (about a trend for spraying Lynx body lotion on to your tongue for a cheap high) to her repertoire remains to be seen.
"I got a letter from a fan the other day who said that I was the only true talent left, now that Stephen Duffy is writing for Robbie Williams," says Lawrence, who lives in near poverty in a featureless flat in Victoria. "But I'd love to write for Robbie Williams! I think I write hit singles anyway; it's just taken me a long time to master them because I'm a slow learner. I couldn't tie my own shoelaces until I was 12."
Lawrence manages the unlikely feat of existing as both pop star and monkish hermit. He eats as little as possible because he believes that creativity comes from being hungry - if pushed, he will admit to pigging out on the occasional sausage roll from a stall on Victoria station - yet he is in love with glamour. He likes the Norwegian singer Annie because "she's a gorgeous girl and I'm into beauty. I could never listen to that big fat oaf from Pop Idol [Michelle McManus] because she's over-indulged herself. My whole thing is about not doing things, about being as thin and as minimal as possible. Ideally I'd like to wear brown robes, eat a bowl of rice a day, and go into a trance as I stare at beautiful album covers."
Then there are the records. In the corridor of the tiny flat Lawrence has a shelving unit with his French pop and 1970s glam albums. He's heavily into what he calls the underground middle-of-the-road scene. He has two copies of his favourite ones in mint condition "just in case", and visitors are only allowed to touch them once they have donned special protective gloves. "I don't want fingerprints on the laminated covers," he explains. Asked about his prized albums, he presents the solo debut by the 1960s/70s Israeli pop star Abi and 1973's Aquashow by obscure glam rocker Elliot Murphy.
Lawrence plays an emotional version of David Bowie's Life on Mars by British choral group the King's Singers and follows it with 1973's Dee Doo Dah by the actress and singer Jane Birkin. "And get ready for this," he says, unsheathing a poster of Michel Polnareff depicting the flamboyant French star proudly displaying his bottom. The poster was banned in 1972 and Polnareff was fined 10 francs for every copy printed. "I go mad on Polnareff. In the 1970s, he moved to the penthouse suite of a hotel in Los Angeles and as far as I know he's still there."
His only other significant possession is a book collection, shelved under a durable polythene dust cover and containing true-life accounts by heroin addicts, a few cult novels like Hunger by Knut Hamsun and Ask the Dust by John Fante, and an entire set of the Skinhead novels; the violent pulp books written by Richard Allen in the early 1970s. "I would say that real accounts by junkies are my favourites, and I'm not into fiction. I have everything by Jack Kerouac but his novels are about real life anyway."
Lawrence does dream of riches, despite currently living as an ascetic. "I love prison cells - if I had the money I would definitely build one of those cement beds that extend from a wall - but I'd really love a circular penthouse flat in Mayfair," he says. "I have a jewel case full of hits ready for ransacking, but I'm also in the market for a rich wife. She can be late 20s to early 30s and if her dad's in Who's Who, that's a bonus."
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‘I’d rather be a tramp than reform my old bands’: Lawrence on life as British music’s greatest also-ran
• The Guardian, 27 Jul 2022
www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jul/27/lawrence-interview-...
His fans range from Charlie Brooker to Jarvis Cocker, yet the auteur behind Felt, Denim and Mozart Estate never found fame. He explains why it was all Princess Diana’s fault
The most uncompromising figure in British pop has an urgent question: “Do you need the loo?” This is Lawrence (no surnames, please), the mastermind responsible for the coruscating beauty of Felt, the knowing glam-rock of Denim and the bargain-bin ear-worms of Go-Kart Mozart, now renamed Mozart Estate. As we walk to his high-rise council flat in east London, I promise him that my bladder is empty. “Are you sure?” he persists in his Midlands lilt. “Do you want to try going in the cafe?” No one is allowed near his toilet. “A workman was round the other day, and he used it without asking. Oh God, it was ’orrible!”
Lawrence is wearing his trademark baseball cap with its blue plastic visor and a vintage-style blue Adidas jumper. His skin is pale and papery, his eyes small but vivid. He is 60 now and has been dreaming of pop stardom since he was a child. “I used to sit in the bath and pretend I was being interviewed: ‘So what’s it like to have your third No 1 on the trot?’”
Only one of his songs has ever charted: Denim’s It Fell Off the Back of a Lorry, straight in at No 79 in 1996. Summer Smash, a BBC Radio 1 single of the week, might have made good on its lyrics (“I think I’m gonna come / Straight in at No 1”) if its release in September 1997 had not been scrapped following a certain Parisian car crash. As Lawrence shows me around his ramshackle flat, which he has been decorating for the past 12 years or so, I spot a grotesquely bad portrait of Diana, Princess of Wales stowed in one corner. “My story is pinned to hers forever,” he says glumly.
We perch on wooden stools in the cluttered, dimly lit living room. Around us are piles of books and vinyl, assorted knick-knacks (feather duster, magnifying glass) and a mustard-coloured Togo chair – a rare extravagance – still in its plastic wrapping. The white blinds are pulled down; a leak has stained them urine-yellow like a child’s mattress. “I don’t think anyone’s had as much bad luck as me,” he says. “It just goes from one disaster to another.”
And yet Lawrence of Belgravia, the 2011 documentary about him which is now being released on Blu-ray, remains stubbornly inspiring. It’s the story of a born maverick who refuses either to abandon his dreams of success or lower his standards to make them a reality. “You see so many musicians reforming their old bands,” he says. “I can’t do that. You’ve got to move forward.” He knows what it’s like to be disappointed by your idols – “I couldn’t get over it in the 1980s when Lou Reed had a mullet” – and is determined never to sully his own legacy, no matter how much cash he is offered. “I’d rather be a tramp than reform Felt or play my old songs,” he says.
He has put his lack of money where his mouth is. “There came a point where I learned to live on nothing. I’d have two pence in my pocket, and I’d find a bench on the King’s Road hoping someone would sit next to me so I could ask for a cigarette. No one ever did because I looked so rough.”
Lawrence of Belgravia alludes to addiction issues and legal woes: we glimpse bottles of methadone and piles of court letters. At the start of the film, he is evicted from his previous flat. But it is still a fond and hopeful study of someone for whom fame – as symbolised by limousines, helicopters and Kate Moss – has never lost its allure. “It’s such a shame it hasn’t happened to me,” he says. “I’d love to try fame on for size, see what it’s like.” How close has he come? “There was a period in the 1990s when I could get a taxi. That was as good as it got. There’s a fame ladder and I’m near the bottom. I always have been, and I accept that.”
The documentary has helped a bit. “It’s a proper film, and that took me up a couple of rungs,” he says. “It legitimised me.” He has rarely wanted for respect: he counts Jarvis Cocker and Belle & Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch among his fans; Charlie Brooker chose Denim’s The New Potatoes, with its Pinky & Perky vocals, as one of his Desert Island Discs. He has also started being recognised in the street – “which shows you’re getting somewhere”. But he has a little grumble: “The people who come up to me are all listening to my stuff on Spotify. I tell them: ‘Buy a bloody record!’ Some of them haven’t got a turntable, so I say, ‘Put it on the wall.’”
His hard-luck story began when Felt failed to win favour with the DJ John Peel. “If you were an indie band in the 1980s, you couldn’t make it without Peel’s support,” he says. When Lawrence formed Denim in the early 1990s, he seemed ideally placed to ride the incipient Britpop wave. “Except I made one super error,” he points out. “I thought live music was over, so we didn’t play live at first.’” He believed it would add mystique if fans couldn’t see Denim in the flesh. “I wanted to be a cartoon band. But it turned out to be the beginning of the live boom. Indie suddenly went mainstream. I didn’t spot that coming.”
If the hard-gigging likes of Blur stole a march on Lawrence, it was another Damon Albarn outfit that pipped him to the post with the “cartoon band” idea. “I couldn’t believe it when Gorillaz happened,” he splutters. “I was like, ‘That’s what I wanted to do!’”
Soon after the Summer Smash debacle, Denim were dropped by EMI. “We had to go down to making records for nothing, getting favours from friends.” Go-Kart Mozart was intended as a stop-gap but the songs, many of them musically upbeat and lyrically harsh (When You’re Depressed, Relative Poverty, We’re Selfish and Lazy and Greedy), have kept on coming for more than two decades. The name-change to Mozart Estate reflects, says Lawrence, “the tougher times we live in”.
Even he was taken aback while checking the lyric sheet for the new Mozart Estate album Pop-Up, Ker-Ching and the Possibilities of Modern Shopping, which is to be released in January. “Every song has something ’orrible,” he says. One track features the line, “London is a dustbin full of human trash.” Another is called I Wanna Murder You. “I’m never going to get any PRS money for that,” he says. “Still, it’s very catchy. Breaks into a lovely chorus.”
It’s all too much for some people. When the first Go-Kart Mozart album came out, he received a call from Alan McGee, his Creation boss from the Felt days. “Alan said, ‘What’s this song Sailor Boy, then? Jean Genet going down on you? I don’t get it, Lawrence. I don’t get what the fuck you’re doing!’” He looks pleased as punch.
Paul Kelly, the director of Lawrence of Belgravia, thinks the singer is in a healthier and more optimistic state now than during the making of the film. Production took eight years, largely because Lawrence kept disappearing for months on end. “First I’d be frustrated, then I’d worry,” says Kelly. “When he finally turned up, he’d act as though nothing had happened. He has that disarming personality so you always forgive him. I think he had a fear that when we were finished, there’d be nothing else. He didn’t want to let the film go.”
These days, Lawrence has fingers in umpteen pies (Felt reissues, a limited-edition folder of collectible bits-and-pieces and a 10-inch EP, all ahead of the new album). He is bubbling with ideas: he wants to write a play for the Royal Court, collaborate with Charli XCX, be directed by Andrea Arnold. “Do you know her?” he asks hopefully. “I want to be in one of her films and write a song for it.”
His greatest enthusiasm is reserved for the larger-than-life-sized pink marble bust which the sculptor Corin Johnson is making of him: “He came up to me at a gig and said, ‘I’d like to do a statue of you.’” A month’s worth of sittings later – including one spent with straws in his nostrils while his head was encased in plaster of Paris – and it’s almost ready. Nick Cave, one of Lawrence’s heroes, has been working in the same yard on a ceramics project about the devil. “He keeps saying, ‘When are you going to bloody finish that?’”
Even on Lawrence’s rinky-dink, old-school mobile phone, which is no bigger than a Matchbox car, the pictures of the bust look imposing. A hood is yanked up over his baseball cap, sunglasses are clamped to his face, his expression is surly and defiant: it’s a literal monument to his artistic purity. “This should push me a few rungs up the fame ladder,” he says, marvelling at his marble doppelganger. I think he’s in love.
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📼 Felt - Primitive Painters [feat Elizabeth Fraser] (1985)
Producer: Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins)
video 1987 - Lawrence Hayward & Phil King (in Phil’s house in Hammersmith)