Reasoning photos on Flickr

{My Blog / Great Music The splendid performance touches your heart}

{Mi blog / La gran música el funcionamiento espléndido toca su corazón}

{Mein Blog / Große Musik die herrliche Leistung berührt Ihr Herz}

{Mon blog / La grande musique l'exécution splendide touche votre coeur}

Melody 曲:JAPAN / Words 詞:Sheesen / Singing : Sheesen

bighugelabs.com/flickr/onblack.php?id=466059095&size=...

家住安南鹽溪邊

The family lives in nearby the Annan salt river

隔壁就是聽雨軒

The next door listens to the rain porch

一旦落日照大員

The sunset Shineing to the Taiwan at once

左岸青龍飛九天

The left bank white dragon flying in the sky

Theory && Practice by Daniel Friedman

"If you think education is expensive -- try ignorance."

– Ann Landers, October 4, 1975.

"Never call yourself a philosopher, nor talk a great deal among the unlearned about theorems, but act conformably to them."

– Epictetus, 'Enchiridion'

"Theories usually result from the precipitate reasoning of an impatient mind which would like to be rid of phenomena and replace them with images, concepts, indeed often with mere words."

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 'Maxims and Reflections' (1833).

"How can we possibly test, or improve upon the truth of a theory if it is built in such a manner then any conceivable event can be described, and explained, in terms of its principles? The only way of investigating such all-embracing principles would be to compare them with a different set of equally all embracing principles- but this procedure has been excluded from the very beginning."

– Paul Feyerabend, 'Against Method' (1975).

Reasoning by Tony Shertila

5 1

Squad Stories: Harley's Journal #3 by Lord Allo

53 6

October 1

The plant Pammy gave me is startin to turn into its own little Jungle. I’ve been askin’ Orchid to water it when I’m out, and I dunno what she’s been waterin’ it with, but that little guy is happy. Her and Pam should exchange gardening tips. Sweet kid, that Orchid. Doesn’t say much, but she seems to mean well. I have no idea what Waller offered her to stick around. Come to think of it, I don’t really know anything about her at all. Except she’s bonkin’ Patten upstairs.

Ugh.

BUT, we’re not here to discuss petals and the crackpot, we’re here for somethin’ else. GUESS. WHO I HAD. IN MY OFFICE THIS MORNING. C’mon guess! (Naw you’ll never guess, you’re a journal). None other than LEX. FREAKIN’. LUTHOR. That’s right! He disappeared for a while after that whole Cloudburst disaster Digger and Floyd were tellin’ me about, then he popped up again, get this, completely penniless, tryin to steal from a bake shop! He got thrown into the general clink, but Amanda pulled all the right strings and got him on the Squad purely just to humiliate him. Normally I’d be kinda appalled, but if anyone deserves it, it’s him. Either way, I was sent to “analyze” ole baldy, and hoo boy, it was a riot. . .

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

Excerpt from Harley’s tape recorder:

The sound of chairs being pushed around on the floor rings out briefly. Papers are laid on the table

Harley, warmly: Hello, Mister Luthor, let me be the first t’welcome you here to lovely Belle Reve.

Luthor, entirely flat: You’re hardly the first. Don’t I know you, Doctor . . . ?

Harley: Quinzel! Doctor Quinzel.

Luthor, more animated: Quinzel. Harley Quinn? You’re my ‘psychiatrist’? *Luthor laughs* Alright, Now I know this is one of your boyfriend’s sick pranks.

Harley, entirely calm: I’ll have you know Mister Luthor, I am a trained an’ seasoned pro. And my ‘boyfriend’ and I haven’t spoken in some time. In fact, I kinda hope he’s dead.

Luthor: Well, at least we have that in common. So tell me, what is it that you want to talk to me about?

Harley, flipping through papers: Welllll, it says here that I’m supposed to see if you’re fit for field missions, but let’s not insult both of our intellects, huh? Instead, I wanna talk to ya about The Big Blue Boy Scout.

There is about a minute of silence. Then;

Luthor: Didn’t you bite my head once?

Harley: Let’s just try an’ see past that. What is it, about Superman, that drives you so bananas?

There is another pause, and then:

Luthor: Well, ‘Doctor’ Quinn, it’s a number of things.

Harley: Let’s start with the most basic.

Luthor: Well, to start, he’s not even really a man. He’s not even of this earth. By that reasoning alone, Superman is a fraud. He masquerades as a symbol of hope, of human perfection, and yet his very name is a deception. Am I the only person left who remembers he’s not even one of us?

Harley: So to you, he’s unworthy of his hero-worship.

Luthor scoffs: Unworthy doesn’t begin to describe it. He isn’t god. He hasn’t helped humanity progress. He merely catches purse snatchers and the occasional radioactive psychopath. And yet humanity treats him as a supreme being, holding all our lives in his hands.

Harley: So, you see him as a false god?

Luthor: Indeed. Humanity is its own maker: Its own supreme being. Only we as a species have propelled ourselves this far. It only follows that Superman would represent a Demiurge, in the Gnostic terms. We’re human beings, it’s only natural that we follow the strongest and most cunning of our kind. That arrogant caveman has been basing his motivations off of that fact alone for centuries. But when the strongest and most cunning are not only a fraud in their name, but their ideals, that is something that weakens humanity. Take his principles for instance. Hell, just take one. Take Justice. An abstract concept, with no true definition. In a sense, Justice could mean anything. For some, it means sending a murderer to prison. For others, it’s removing the hands of a thief. Would Superman allow a thief’s hands removed? Of course not. Justice is too broad a concept for one ma-, excuse me, one being, to fully encompass.

Harley: Fascinating. And if not for Superman, who do you think would stand in that place, leading humanity?

Luthor chuckles: Well, I don’t wish to self-aggrandize, but me, naturally. Look at me, the peak of human intelligence, the peak of human physicality. I was hewn for this role.

Harley: Ah, and that’s why you masqueraded as him for so long, protecting Metropolis yourself.

Luthor, getting energized: That was the only point when the world was as it should be. And for a time, I thought he and I could work in harmony. But, as I should have anticipated, he abandoned me, and cast aside both my help and my trust.

Harley: Now, an’ excuse me for sayin’ this, but dressin’ up in a big red S and protecting Metropolis, doesn’t sound like hatred for an enemy. It sounds a lot like hero worship.

Luthor says nothing.

Harley: I’d even go so far as to say that, maybe, deep down, you even . . . love him.

Luthor, angry: Hold your tongue, woman.

Harley: I mean think about it! Everyone always accused my “Ex-Boyfriend” of bein in love with Bats, even me after a while, and it’s such a similar thing! The two of you are always buildin’ death traps tailor-made, you’re dressin’ up in their costumes and sometimes takin’ on their roles. Look at you, you’ve done so much workin’ out so achieve his body on yourself. Hell, Mercy once told me at a party y’sleep with a picture of him under your pillow! That’s crazy stalker girlfriend stuff, Lex!

Luthor, angrier: Shut up, SHUT UP! I loathe every fiber of his being. I want nothing more than his insipid, vacant smile wiped from the face of this earth. I – no, no I see what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to get me angry on purpose. I don’t know why. Maybe because That Bitch in charge told you to. Well, I’m not going to be goaded into violence for your amusement.

Harley, after a decent pause: You want to have sex with Superman.

The sound of angry shouting, yelling, and crashing. The table audibly flips, a chair smashes. The sound of prison shoes on metal walls is heard. The creak of the door and sounds of struggle as guards manage to subdue Luthor.

There is panting, and silence, then:

Luthor, quietly, scathingly: I hope That Bitch blows your head clean off you psychopathic little clown.

There is the sound of him spitting, then being dragged bodily out of the room.

The sound of footsteps, heels on the tile floor, the door shutting, and the heels returning. The chair squeaks.

Then, the sound of Harleen Quinzel laughing uproariously. It echoes around the room. She’s laughing so hard, tears are in her eyes, then there is a click on the recorder, and nothing.

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

I'm not gonna lie, I could have just made the entire arc this conversation.

.it ends. by Sharon Wish

56 88

..."Funny how I find myself

in love with you

If I could buy my reasoning

I would pay to lose

one half won't do...

I've asked myself how much do you

commit yourself?

It's my life

don't you forget

It's my life

it never ends"...

It's My Life

-Mark Hollis/Tim Friese-Greene

(Talk Talk)

Good to be back (: by Obliterator Bricks

20 11

Hey guys... Jack here, after a LONG time of what may have seemed to be a span of inactivity. For my followers reading this, I thank each and every one of you for your continued support despite my extended leave, and I hope I can explain to you all my reasoning for it. See, despite having turned 18 around mid-June... I was not free from my parents until about a week ago. It is good I finally escaped their grasp I’d say.. because otherwise I may not have gotten back to this community for quite some time more, unfortunately. See, right after I turned 18, my parents grew considerably stricter and applied far more pressure than I felt from them before. Now, my parents are very pressurizing people as they were beforehand, but their newly gained behavior involved attempting to control, manipulate and increase my academic rigor (which is already quite difficult for me), despite me being the one being enrolled in the college. Of course, I completely understand they want me to be successful, but this relentlessly oppressive effort and it’s results were so debilitating, discouraging and hard to swallow that I ended up moving to my uncles in Santa Barbara. I am continuing college in the spring, but I decided I needed a break to work on myself and such this fall. Now, I don’t hate on my parents or want to bring hate to them... but I do think their methods resulted in a really unhealthy and cut-off environment for me: they restricted even my phone many times, as well as my computer, and dictated that I could not use recreational apps much with my online classes I was taking during the summer. These apps even included Flickr and Instagram, mediums which I share my passion for LEGO through, and engage with and be inspired by the communities there. It was hard, and eventually I decided that the environment was too limiting and stressful for me, and that I had to move to my Uncle’s place in Santa Barbara. I am here now, and have been here for around a week, perhaps a week and a half. I know my parents were doing their best, but I decided to remove myself from them temporarily to get some space and air. It’s very beautiful here and I brought my LEGO collection, phone and PC here. Everything is settled in now, including me, and all is unrestricted — meaning I can finally post again! I have cooked up so many models (behind my parents’ backs 😂) and can’t wait to show you all. It’s great to be back, and I wish my parents the best despite the trying times I’ve undergone with them. See you guys soon with the bunch of models I’m uploading!

http://www.zabars.com/ 2 by Mitsushiro Nakagawa

Title.

www.zabars.com/ 2

( LUMIX G3 shot )

Manhattan. New York. USA. 2017. … 4 / 7

(Photo of the day. Unreleased.)

Images:

Linda Sikhakhane … Closer to the Heart

youtu.be/BshCm2zi0KQ?si=DIk0HgPilkJLQ8xo

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

My new novel

B♭ (B Flat)

Volume 15 😄

The following is still in its draft stage and will be revised further.

Key parts are not disclosed.

The order of the content shown here is mixed.

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

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

My new novel

B♭ (B Flat)

The summer light of Manhattan afternoons flared against the glass facades of the high-rises, and each time the heat of the asphalt wavered through the alleys, the massive building of the FBI’s New York Field Office seemed to draw in the clamor of the city, holding a grave and immovable stillness, while within its walls a taut tension and vigilance seeped forth. Beyond the thick iron doors set into its corner, the countless eyes of surveillance cameras interlaced with the motions of guards, proclaiming an order unshaken by the heat waves or the murmur of the crowd outside.

Special Agent Veronica Reeves, carrying the weight of long years of experience yet with a gaze still honed to an unerring edge, sat at the long desk by the window, quietly deciphering the thick bundle of reports spread before her—accounts of what had unfolded thus far. The shafts of heat-laden sunlight pressed through the glass, warping the air, and against that trembling her thoughts held fast, focusing upon the minutiae, drawing out, in three dimensions, the possibilities of the case and the breadth of its consequences.

The figures and map symbols inscribed upon the documents she reassembled in her mind, as though enfolding the arteries of the overheated city itself—the courses of traffic, the currents of people, the compression of the skyline—ordering the incident’s first movements with a hand imbued with a quiet, frigid certainty. The sterile white light of the ceiling LEDs cast swaying shadows upon the papers, and even those faint tremors at the edges of her sight seemed to enter her calculus, like unknown variables absorbed into the mesh of her analysis.

Her fingertip traced a single point upon the map, and in that gesture she drew together the city’s flows, the density of its crowds, the thicket of its structures, conjuring within her mind a three-dimensional rendering of the ground. The clash of red and blue signals at intersections, the exhaust drifting at corners, the tempo of footsteps, the shadows of cars idling at the curb—all converged upon the figures and symbols of the page, lifting before her the living geometry of New York.

Fragments of reports crackled from radios and telephones, slipping into her net of thought and fixed into the coordinates of time and place. At what moment, in what place, had the current of the crowd shifted? Who might have slipped within which building? The jam of traffic, the swell of onlookers, the frameworks of the structures—these she aligned, reducing error to its smallest margin, until the hidden contours of the scene emerged.

Her eyes remained calm, but the faint tightening of the muscles around them betrayed the sense of danger running beneath. With her finger pressing upon a point on the map, she drew upon the memory of old cases, of the city’s blueprints, calculating risk along each imagined path. The city’s shape, the crowd’s density, the placing of exits—all she set upon a grid of logic, hypothesizing every possible turn the future might take.

Her gaze halted upon a photograph in the file, parsing the expressions of the crowd, the disposition of guards, the position of obstacles. Cold though her eyes remained, they missed no dissonance, no trace of the unnatural, intent upon catching every variable within the net of reason, undistracted by the fever of the summer city.

In the office, where the cool of the air conditioning crossed with the heat outside, her thoughts gathered speed—silent, assured, relentless. What would unfold next? Which routes were safe, which led into peril? Each decision, measured in the span of a heartbeat, bore upon the safety of the crowd, upon the life of the candidate. Her logic did not waver, its threads weaving together in her hand like cords unraveling the complexity of the city.

Before her stood not only the files, but also the glow of monitors, the static of radios. Each was but a source of fragments, meaningless until passed through the filter of her thought. To bind data to the streets, images to reality, was the task at hand, advancing cold and quiet even as the heat of summer pressed against the glass.

The sweltering air outside rattled the windows; the distant sirens and the rumble of the city did not shatter her focus, but rather deepened her mental simulation, lending depth to the field she constructed within. Figures on the page fused with the living breath of the streets, reason drawing them together into clarity, and she readied herself to strike upon the next move.

Each sweep of her fingertip across the map made the city’s avenues rise in relief within her mind: the density of buildings, the movement of passersby, the gaze of cameras, the stations of guards. All chained together, cold and inexorable, suggesting the next action. Veronica drew a long breath, and with her exhale, wove the scattered variables into a single fabric, fixing her gaze upon the heart of the incident. In that moment, the distant sirens, the horns, the shuffling of feet at a crosswalk—all dissolved into her reasoning, each sound settling into place like a piece of a puzzle within the flow of logic. The city shimmered in heat, light and shadow in feverish scatter, but her mind cut through the glare, quietly tracing the full outline of the unfolding event.

At last, Veronica lifted the receiver of the internal line, feeling the cold resin beneath her fingers, and summoned Deputy Special Agent Elliot.

“Put me through to Jack Vance, Secret Service.”

“Understood.”

The black Ford SUV cut through the summer heat, racing down the streets. At the wheel, Jack’s profile was set with strain, while in the backseat Ana leaned forward, arms stretched protectively over the children, shouting in desperation.

“Keep your eyes ahead, Jack!”

The children, jolted by the car’s violent tremors, cried out with voices that wavered between cheers and screams, unable to discern the line between fear and thrill. Beside them, Mika bit her lip, struck dumb, staring in mute shock.

Behind them, the pursuing car roared, bullets sparking off the asphalt and leaving the acrid tang of gunpowder in the air. Jack twisted the wheel, his Ford scraping sparks along a wall of concrete, gunfire rattling through the city’s very skin. Ignoring lights and crowds alike, he veered the SUV up onto the sidewalk, plunging forward as screams scattered into the air, driving on as if to outpace the terror that pursued them.

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

My new novel:

B♭ (B-flat)

There’s still more to come. 😃

(This is not the final draft.)

Set in New York City.

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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

My new novel:

B♭ (B-flat)

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

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

Title.

www.zabars.com/ 2

( LUMIX G3 shot )

マンハッタン。ニューヨーク。アメリカ。2017. … 4 / 7

(今日の写真。それは未発表です。）

Images:

Linda Sikhakhane … Closer to the Heart

youtu.be/BshCm2zi0KQ?si=DIk0HgPilkJLQ8xo

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

僕の新しい小説。

　B♭　（ビーフラット）

第15弾。 😄

以下は、まだ初稿の段階です。まだ推敲します。

重要な部分は公開していません。

公開している内容の順番はバラバラです。

(もちろん最終稿ではありません。)

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

僕の新しい小説。

　B♭　（ビーフラット）

　マンハッタンの夏の午後の光が高層ビル群のガラスにぎらつき、アスファルトの熱気が路地を揺らすたびに、FBIニューヨーク支局の巨大な建物は都市の喧騒を吸い込み、どっしりと静けさを保ちながらも、その内部に張り詰めた警戒と緊張をにじませていた。その角に設えられた厚い鉄の扉の向こうでは、監視カメラの無数の視線と警備員の動きが絡み合い、外界の熱波や人々のざわめきにも揺るがぬ秩序を守っていることを告げていた。

　ヴェロニカ・リーヴス特別捜査官は、豊富な経験を背負いながらもなお研ぎ澄まされた眼差しで、窓際の長机に広げられた、これまでに起こった報告がまとめられた資料の束を静かに読み解いていた。差し込んだ外光の熱の束が窓ガラスを透かし、空気を歪ませ、彼女の思考はそれに抗うように細部まで集中され、事件の可能性や影響範囲を論理の中に立体的に描き出していった。

　書類に記された数字や地図の記号を、熱せられた街の動線や人々の流れ、ビルの密集度までを含めるかのように頭の中で再構築し、事件の初動を論理的に整理していく手つきには、冷たくも静かな確信が宿っていた。

　天井のLEDの白い光が、紙面に落ちる影を揺らし、視界の隅で振れるその影さえも、未知の変数として分析に取り込まれているかのようであった。

　ヴェロニカは指先で地図上の一点をなぞり、都市の動線、人の密度、建築の密集度を瞬時に組み合わせ、頭の中で現場の立体的な状況を描き出していた。信号の赤や青が交錯する交差点、街角に漂う排気ガスの匂い、通行人の歩行速度、路上に停められた車の影――それらすべてが、紙面の数字や地図上の印と結びつき、ニューヨークという巨大な都市の立体的な動線を彼女の思考に浮かび上がらせた。

　無線や電話からの断片的な報告も、彼女の分析の網に吸い込まれ、時間と空間に配置される。どの瞬間に、どの場所で、人々の流れが変化したか。誰がどの建物に潜入した可能性があるか。交通の混雑状況と、観衆の動き、建築物の構造を組み合わせ、最小の推測誤差で現場の全貌を描く。

　彼女の瞳は冷静そのもので、しかし微細な筋肉の緊張が、その奥に潜む危機意識を示していた。手元の地図の一点を指でなぞり、過去の事件や都市計画のデータを呼び出しながら、シナリオごとにリスクを計算する。都市の構造、観衆の密度、出口の配置――あらゆる要素を論理のグリッドに沿って並べ、想像されるすべての事態を仮定する。

　ヴェロニカは資料の中の写真に目を留め、観衆の表情や警備員の配置、障害物の位置を詳細に分析した。その視線は冷徹でありながらも、微細な違和感や不自然さを見逃さず、都市の熱気に流されることなく、論理の網の中に全ての変数を捕らえようとしていた。

　冷房の空気と夏の熱気が交錯するオフィス内で、彼女の思考は静かに、しかし確実に速度を上げていく。次に何が起こりうるか、どのルートが安全で、どのルートが危険か。瞬間ごとの判断が、観衆の安全と候補者の命を左右する。論理は揺るぎなく、都市の複雑さを紐解く糸のように彼女の手の中で絡まり合った。

　彼女の前には資料だけでなく、コンピュータの画面や無線のディスプレイも並ぶ。それらは断片的な情報の源にすぎず、ヴェロニカの思考というフィルターを通すことで初めて意味を持つ。データと現実の光景を繋ぎ、事件の全体像を構築する作業は、夏の街の熱気の中でも冷たく静かに進行した。

　外の熱気は窓ガラスを揺らし、街のざわめきや遠くで響くサイレンは、彼女の集中をかき乱すどころか、逆に現場の臨場感を補強し、頭の中のシミュレーションに奥行きを与えた。紙面の数字と街の実像が、冷たい理性の中で重なり合い、彼女は次の一手を論理的に導き出す準備を整えていった。

　彼女の指先が地図をなぞるたび、都市の街路が脳内で立体的に浮かび上がり、建物の密度、通行人の流れ、監視カメラの視野、警備員の位置が、冷徹な論理の中で連鎖し、次の行動を示唆する。ヴェロニカは深く息を吸い、吐き出すと同時に、無言のうちに全ての変数を繋ぎ合わせ、事件の核心へと視線を固定した。その瞬間、遠くの街路から聞こえるサイレンの音や車のクラクション、交差点で立ち止まる人々の足音が、彼女の頭の中ではパズルのピースとなり、論理的な流れの中に溶け込んでいった。都市は暑さに揺れ、光と影が乱反射するが、ヴェロニカの思考は静かに、その熱気を透過して事件の全体像を描き出していった。

　ヴェロニカは、静かに内線電話の受話器を手に取り、その冷たい樹脂の感触を指先で確かめながら、エリオット副特別捜査官を呼び出し、いった。

「シークレットサービスのジャックバンスにつないで」

「了解」

ーーーーーー

　黒のSUVフォードは、夏の熱気を押し裂くように街路を駆け抜けた。ハンドルを握るジャックの横顔には焦燥が張りつき、後部座席に身を寄せたアナは、子供たちを庇うように腕を伸ばしながら、それでも必死に声を張り上げた。

「前を見て、ジャック！」

　車体の振動に身を揺らしながら、子供たちは歓声とも悲鳴ともつかぬ声をあげ、恐怖と興奮の境を知らぬままに叫んでいる。その隣でミカは唇を噛み、言葉を失ったまま呆然としている。

　背後では追撃の車が唸りを上げ、硝煙の匂いを残して弾丸がアスファルトを跳ねた。ハンドルを切ったジャックの車体がコンクリート壁面に火花が散らせた。都市の皮膚を削るようにして銃声が響く。ジャックのフォードは信号も人波も無視し、歩道へと飛び込み、群衆の悲鳴を振り払うように疾走した。

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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。

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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

「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。

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

Shots fired at Trump rally

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

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Joiner vs avoider by lucy naughton

54 47

I have never been a ‘joiner’.

I refused categorically to join the Brownies, It was not open for discussion. I did not want to wear brown and sit in a dank wooden hut being bossed around.

In her attempts to socialise me my mother somehow got me to join a swimming club AND a ballet class in one of my weak moments. I was not happy. Dreading the afternoons where instead of going home and eating biscuits in front of cartoons I would be dragged off to yet more damp halls and have to change into more outfits.

I arrived at my first session of ballet expecting to be presented with a beautiful pearl encrusted bodice and tutu with shimmering satin point shoes. This was my biggest incentive to join. Instead I was given a pale blue, lycra-free leotard and disappointing looking, pitta bread shoes with elastic across the front. We sat in circles doing the ‘good toes naughty toes exercise’ for what felt like six months.

There was one solitary boy in our class. The poor bugger. I remember him looking like a Romanian orphan all little and frail with a number one cut and a black leotard. Nowadays I would much rather hang out with the boys than the girls but in those days girls were safe and didn’t have clammy hands. Being new and having no allies I was the one who had to dance with the boy. I think I spent the entire length of the hall that we had to prance down pulling away from him as hard as I could with thundering, angry stomps.

At the end of the lesson I pointed out to my mother that I was hugely unsatisfied; No fancy costume fit for the Nutcracker (regardless of whether I could actually even do ‘good toes’ yet), no fancy shoes. At the end of one long hour, I was not able to get my leg up as high as my head; I was not clonking around on point doing pliés, développés, grand fouetté en tournant, dégagés, grand rond de jambe, rond de jambe en l'air, coupés, battements tendus, attitudes, arabesques, and all types of pirouettes. Being subjected to the humiliation ‘clammy hands’ as my partner took the absolute biscuit (which he smelt of).

I informed my mother that I would be resigning herewith reasoning that I now wanted to concentrate my efforts on swimming.

Two weeks later I informed my mother that I would be resigning herewith from swimming because I wanted to concentrate on being alone and avoiding ‘joining in.’

It continued throughout primary school. I waged a war against ‘country dancing’. I trained a renegade band of girls not to join. We would continue to play ‘off ground touch’ and stealing the boy’s footballs and then kicking them in the shins in preference.

Little by little my gang shrunk. Each week another member slunk off to wear the apricot skirt of the ‘dancers’ until one day it was me, sat alone in the playground, not dancing and not kicking boys.

So I joined.

I hated to admit it, I loved it.

Naturally I had to bring a little of rebellion to it though and when we went ‘on tour’ to the school down the road I managed to start a country dancing riot against the girls who wore lilac skirts.

Why do some kids resist ‘joining in’ with such fervour whilst others happily accept every new membership to club and lesson?

I am still exactly as I was at 6 years old. I joined a running club last year and quit after a few months because I couldn’t see the point of waiting around all day to go running with a bunch of strangers making small talk when I could go running on my own whenever I felt like it, in silence and think hateful, angry thoughts to help me get up the tough hills and stop to stroke horses in fields and flirtatious cats if I so desired.

I cannot bear having some ‘thing’ looming at the end of my day that I must do, even if in theory I quite like what I will be doing. It ruins all the idle hours before, taints them with a countdown to the ‘activity’ and gives me time to build up dread.

So I want to know chaps, who is a joiner and who is an avoider?

Bean's Discovery by Paul Boudreau

30 78

Recently, NASA released a photograph that previously had been unseen by the general public and indeed, by very few 'insiders' as well. Apollo 12 was the second spaceflight in the program to land humans on the Moon. During EVA II, on November 20th, 1969, Alan L. Bean caught a glint of something on the surface and veered momentarily from the mission's planned protocol (Archival sound footage reveals a "gasp-type" sound at 04:37:54 UTC). He immediately whipped out his Swinger and snapped a quick shot! It was later revealed that he had planned on taking a family snap of himself and Pete near Surveyor III with his Hasselblad and although this failed in the end, his "back-up" camera recorded something far more significant!

Although the reasoning behind NASA's publication of this photograph now is unknown, the press release did contain one tiny, little iota of information that was of interest: "As far as we know, no bottles of soft drinks of any kind were taken to the moon's surface during Apollo 11."

Another Bucket List Location Removed - Summit, MT by MinnKota Railfan

20 2

As memorizing as my first trip to Western Montana was, one thing that really stood out to me about this trip was this shot. The reasoning for this is not because the weather was the most cooperative, or the power on the train was noteworthy, but rather the location of where it was shot was.

When I was growing up, my parents always took my brother and I out to the Black Hills every year for vacation. Trips to the 1880 Train in Hill City South Dakota were inevitable as a result. Every year I bought a railroad calendar with some of the money my parents gave me for the trip. One particular calendar (I believe it was 2003 or 2004) had a picture of a pair of warbonnet dash nines and a BNSF H2 dash nine leading and intermodal train past these very same snow covered peaks at this very same location in Summit Montana. To this day, this photo is in my top 10 favorite railroad photos taken by anyone ever. I later found out this photo was taken by none other than Mr. Mike Danneman.

I stumbled upon this location in Summit Montana by accident while I was on my trip. It wasn't until after I shot this photo that I realized that I was standing nearly in the same spot as Mike Did 14 years earlier to take his photo. To me, that connection alone made my Montana Trip worth it.

That is my experience! by Glowing Star

22 4

“When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you

don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not

doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or

less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have

problems with our friends or family, we blame the other

person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will

grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive

effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason

and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no

reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you

understand, and you show that you understand, you can

love, and the situation will change”

― Thích Nhất Hạnh

Circular Reasoning by The New Motive Power

16 8

MILW 312 -MILW STORED 08301981 MRB by Michael Bingen

7 1

Another walking the 35th Street bridge finds too many units stored, capped and dispo uncertain on 8-31-1982. One has got my attention, the 312 with its unusual "braces" across the cab roof. Far unlike the old Athearn Blue box GP9 in which the cab came off by pulling it upward, what was the the reasoning for this if anyone knows. I had yet to see any other units with this securing.

South Midland. by 125 Nightrider

11 1

This Duple 'Vista' bodied Bedford OB was originally registered GBL 200 and new to Chiltonian, Chilton Foliat in 1950. The reasoning for the reregistration LJO 757 and restoration in South Midland colours in unclear. Here it is seen at the Oxford Bus Museum, Long Hanborough in June 1985.

Easter Recovery by Craig Warner

8 3

It's been a quiet few weeks on the photography front and a busy few weeks painting and decorating! Had a quick visit home though for Easter and I think Obi sums up how we all feel. Great fun had and absolutely shattered! My reasoning is too much chocolate and cake - Obi's is 2 non-stop days playing with his 'cousin' Rudy, my brother's vizsla.

IMG_4918 by SingWay

14 11

國立台灣文學館 - 推理文學在臺灣特展 / 小說的情節 - 復古電話機

National Museum of Taiwanese Literature - Reasoning literature in Taiwan special exhibition / The plot of the novel - Retro phone

Museo Nacional de la literatura taiwanesa - Razonamiento de la literatura en Taiwan exposición especial / El argumento de la novela - Retro phone

国立の台湾の文学館 - 推理の文学は台湾特に展にあります / 小説のプロット - レトロ電話

Nationalmuseum der taiwanesischen Literatur - Begründung Literatur in Taiwan Sonderausstellung / Die Handlung des Romans - Retro Telefon

Musée national de la littérature taiwanaise - Raisonnement de la littérature à Taiwan exposition spéciale / L'intrigue du roman - Rétro téléphone

Tainan Taiwan / Tainan Taiwán / 台灣台南

管樂小集 2017/06/11 台南文化中心 Tainan Cultural Center Star Plaza performances 1080P

{ 曲名:千曲川 / 心影 / Chikuma river }

{View large size on fluidr / 觀看大圖}

{My Blog / Great Music The splendid performance touches your heart}

{Mi blog / La gran música el funcionamiento espléndido toca su corazón}

{Mein Blog / Große Musik die herrliche Leistung berührt Ihr Herz}

{Mon blog / La grande musique l'exécution splendide touche votre coeur}

Melody 曲:JAPAN / Words 詞:Sheesen / Singing : Sheesen

{ 旅笠道中 Wearing hats travel in road }

家住安南鹽溪邊

The family lives in nearby the Annan salt river

隔壁就是聽雨軒

The next door listens to the rain porch

一旦落日照大員

The sunset Shineing to the Taiwan at once

左岸青龍飛九天

The left bank white dragon flying in the sky

Extreme Travels lll by Thosrsteinn Asgeirsson

9 44

Eager to get underway, we head outside to where the snowmobiles are parked with their engines running, we went through the operation and safety instructions. And in the small print, explains what to do if we get lost: “Stop and we’ll find you – you won’t find anything,” Not encouraging.

Nevertheless, the prospect of actually having to confront my fear of driving one of these machines is not especially appealing. So, when I find out that one on the team is there to assistant me (the guides reasoning being that the photographer needs more freedom)

I panic. Before I even have time to conjure up a decent excuse for chickening out I hit the accelerator and follow the guide and the rest of the group up the hill or where ever we are going. Even at 20 km/hour, fear quickly turns to an adrenaline rush. This isn’t so bad.

“Do I lean in or away from the turn?” I try to remember. Even the simple laws of gravity seem too complex to grasp when I’m nervously trying to remember all of guide instructions.

Our first stop allows us to soak in the panoramic view of the glacier below and the countryside. Cold is there and also the beauty of this powerful country.

behind bars by Brian D. Tucker

27 31

I don't know who took this picture, but she or he used my camera, and thus, by (twisted) parity of reasoning I claim this to be a selfie. Oh never mind. That day we were in Havana.

News flash: For those who might be interested, the furnace has been fixed, everything thawed out (pipes, hot water tank/heater, water pump and tank) the toilet replaced (cracked tank), 2 popped pipe joints re-soldered. Except for fixing the furnace, which I had a professional come in and do, I did the rest myself, and was especially pleased that my soldering tested good on the first pass! I hate having to do things twice, and I often seem to have to. The most tedious part of the process was waiting to be sure the water pump was completely thawed before I turned on the power to it -- three days with a portable heater blowing hot air on it.

Spring-Heeled Jack by Diney Pau

51 5

Although in the main the Victorian era was though of as a scientific time and one of great reasoning - however parallel to this was believed in phrenology and fairies, in ghosts and galvanism, in photographs and séances..

enter the story of;

Spring heeled jack

Sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack are recorded across England, from London and Chichester up to Liverpool, but they were especially prevalent in the Black Country, where they peeked in the 1880s.

ability to jump; to leap over rooftops and across hedges. Such agility always allowed him to terrify his victims and to escape his pursuers.

Birmingham Post reported in September 1886:

“First a young girl, then a man, felt a hand on their shoulder, and turned to see the infernal one with glowing face, bidding them a good evening.”

various stories of women being attacked and a creature like figure in white oilskins with goatee and red eyes with sharp ears....

AI Manipulated

British myths&legends

IMG_5354 by SingWay

12 10

國立台灣文學館 - 推理文學在臺灣特展 / 開啟真相的鑰匙 - 就在其中之一

National Museum of Taiwanese Literature - Reasoning literature in Taiwan special exhibition / The key to the truth - Just one of them

Museo Nacional de la literatura taiwanesa - Razonamiento de la literatura en Taiwan exposición especial / La clave de la verdad - Solo uno de ellos

国立の台湾の文学館 - 推理の文学は台湾特に展にあります / 真相の鍵を開きます - 中の一つにあります

Nationalmuseum der taiwanesischen Literatur - Begründung Literatur in Taiwan Sonderausstellung / Der Schlüssel zur Wahrheit - nur einer von ihnen

Musée national de la littérature taiwanaise - Raisonnement de la littérature à Taiwan exposition spéciale / La clé de la vérité - Juste l'un d'entre eux

Tainan Taiwan / Tainan Taiwán / 台灣台南

管樂小集 2017/10/07 台南孔子廟 Confucian temple Tainan performances 1080P

{View large size on fluidr/觀看大圖}

PENTAX SMC TAKUMAR 50mm 1:1.4

{My Blog / Great Music The splendid performance touches your heart}

{Mi blog / La gran música el funcionamiento espléndido toca su corazón}

{Mein Blog / Große Musik die herrliche Leistung berührt Ihr Herz}

{Mon blog / La grande musique l'exécution splendide touche votre coeur}

Melody 曲:JAPAN / Words 詞:Sheesen / Singing : Sheesen

www.facebook.com/jonhatan.gallardo

家住安南鹽溪邊

The family lives in nearby the Annan salt river

隔壁就是聽雨軒

The next door listens to the rain porch

一旦落日照大員

The sunset Shineing to the Taiwan at once

左岸青龍飛九天

The left bank white dragon flying in the sky

Lone Tree 1 by L Fischer

Cottonwood on the Kansas Flint Hills prairie. There is not much of a crowd around this old 'guy'.

“None too good at reasoning, the crowd is on the contrary much given to action.”—Gustave Le Bon, 1895, as published in The Rhetoric of Reaction by Albert O. Hirschman, pg. 25, concerning the ‘crowd as a lower, though dangerously vigorous, form of life.’

First Berkshire Dennis Dart SLF Marshall Capital by DennisDartSLF

DML41336 First Berkshire

T336ALR

on William Street, Slough.

Not sure of any reasoning behind this scheme, other than nothing got done with it following TfL work!

ESWR 603, WB, PREWITT, NM 3-23-2020 by Dennis Stern

20 8

I don't recommend this shot boys and girls, but I took it and was lucky to walk away from it with only a warning from a no nonsense, no joking, no reasoning with armed security guard. I got the bright idea to drive up the road into the papermill just to see what I could see after remembering that the train would go into the loop track and turn back into the sun. I casually pulled into a semi truck staging lot outside of the main gate and proceeded to fire away as the train was slowly making his way into the loop and started to turn into the sun as expected. Suddenly Officer Friendly arrived in his little truck, with amber lights flashing, and quickly approached me to let me know that under no certain terms that I was trespassing and couldn't take pictures here. I was nice, I was friendly, I tried a little humor, and I even used the "just give me 30 seconds to get the shot and I'll be gone". All to no avail as he repeated himself again, this time louder, and asked for my ID. After looking at it, he instructed me to follow him to the gate office immediately and waited for me to put my camera away. The c@#kblock even made sure I didn't take anymore pictures before he turned and walked back to his truck. All the while the train made the full turn into the sun and stopped at the dumper shed. After we got to the office, a copy of my ID was made for the file and the warning of "Don't come back here again or I'll call the cops and have you arrested for trespassing." With license in hand, I bid him a good day and left his immediate area. I may have snagged another shot from further down the road and out of his sight as I left.

by Lou Noble

84 4

Film Crit Hulk blew my mind the other day.

He was speaking on the new version of Les Miserables, discussing how the director is an obvious devotee of Stanley Kubrick, using many of the same shots.

But that, crucially, the director had no true understanding of Kubrick's motivations, of the reasoning behind the shots, and so used them clumsily and, often, at cross-purposes to his intent.

And I see the same thing a lot lately with photography, folks copying the form without an understanding of the function within.

Some people are merely drawn to the aesthetic. Others believe they understand the Whys, but lack the proper perspective, as thus their understanding is distorted.

To which the reply is often, hey, it's art! Everyone copies everyone!

To which the reply is also often, hey, that's how people learn!

To which I reply, ah! This Was how people learned. They would sit in their art classes and dissect the masters, mimicking in order to understand.

But that was in the hermetically sealed environment of a classroom. The dynamic shifts when you go public

It's a favorite Hunter S. Thompson anecdote that he would type out all of Hemingway's novels, in order to understand the prose, the cadence.

But he never published those copies. The dynamic shifts when the work becomes public, where the direct influence can be hidden, can be ignored, can be forgotten. These days, copying in public is just Part of the Game.

And sure, back before the internet, some artists copied others. But when they did, they prayed no one would notice.

For the most potent criticism in art is that it is merely a copy of another artist.

Influences are all well and good, we all have them. But if they show, if someone can look at your work and needs not be told where the influence is, if it's right there on the surface? Then the work has a serious problem.

We are not the sum of our influences. We are the choices we make.

Yourself + your influences does not equal you. It equals you copying your influences.

Watching a documentary on Gregory Crewdson, I heard him say that David Lynch was an influence on his early work.

To which I thought, ah, I can see it now. It's there.

But he had synthesized the influence thoroughly enough that it was only apparent once he'd mentioned it, and even then, it was merely a component.

Intentional copying is a worthwhile exercise only in short bursts, only so long as it is necessary to learn the lesson.

Beyond that, you enter the realm of mimicry, and do a disservice to both yourself and your influence.

R E A S O N I N G C U L T U R E by Jonhatan Photography

Follow me

www.instagram.com/__gruszkameister/

Interview With an Octopus, Part 1: Sauron by Gallisuchus

11 10

Lower Manhattan, 9:28 PM. The air is muggy, ensured by a constant drizzle that pelts the brick and mortar labyrinth. On a particular branch of this urban stretch sits a defunct sauna which, in outward appearance, is of no more import than its neighbors.

Through the natural drum of the downpour, a series of unorganized whirs and clanks can be identified, and then, a disproportionate shape lurches out of the grey veil and stalks along the parking lot on tall, winding stabilizers. It is a man riding atop them, his torpid state in opposition with the arms’ erratic lunging. They allow him to descend gradually as he reaches the awning outside the dead establishment, and the ensemble of flesh and machinery bobs to a standstill.

With an efficiency gained through repetition, Doctor Otto Octavius commands a tentacle to pluck the damp trilby from his head, resulting in a few droplets tagging his neck. He huffs, and sways a little like he wishes a bed would catch him. Then his lower-left pincer punches the lock out of the door and he lumbers inside.

Rain patters against the panes and roof. The sauna’s interior is even heavier than it is out in the streets; clearly, the back rooms are not out of service, nor locked. The light implements, on the other hand, are characteristically dark.

“Sauron!” barks the arrival. “It’s a dungeon in here! … Even Warren’s lairs aren’t this repellent…”

Over the din of the weather, a response slithers to Octavius’ ears:

“I hear now that thou wouldst barter with me. What is thy price?”

“Quoting the Silmarillion, hmph. So you do take your name from Tolkien,” a blasé Octavius verifies. “I happen to be aware of the swift betrayal met by the character offered the same. Come to think of it, it was the undoing of his companions as well. Showing our hand a tad early, are we?”

“As if.”

Sounding like a heavy tarp being splayed, something unfolds from the rafters above the waiting room, to Octavius’ left. It swoops down, and across to the reception area. Octavius sizes up the wide figure; its only prominent features in the gloom are three points, devilishly crowning its shoulders and head.

“Plead your case, Doctor, and I, Sauron, will be the godsend to your campaign.”

One of Octavius’ claws snips at the air. “It’s you who needs to impress me, Doctor.”

“Bah!” Sauron screeches. “You were not already satisfied by my resume?!”

“As for my ‘price’,” Octavius reprimands, “I submit to you a part to play in removing the thorn in our sides: Spider-Man. My end of the bargain was final; your contribution is what we will be reviewing.”

This ruffles Sauron. “I just wanted to say the quote, damn you!”

Octavius, frowning, flips open the dossier provided by a tentacle rooting through his trench coat. “Firstly, you claim a kill on one of the X-Men operatives. ‘Cannonball’.”

“Yes. Full disclosure: He came around.”

“From dying.”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it just the way?” Octavius muses, continuing. “Flight capabilities. Energy-draining touch. Expertise in genetic modification. Professional hypnotherapist, and by extension, able to turn desired targets against one an-“

“FFFFIRE-breathing!” reminds Sauron, as he belches out a cone of flame over the duo’s heads. His form—that of an anthropomorphic pteranodon—is brilliantly exposed for an instant.

Octavius rubs the indentations on his nose, made by his shades. “I have a man that flies. I expect to be bringing in more that specialize in illusions and biological weapons. Should I become truly desperate, I do, regrettably, know a particularly intolerable vampire. With ALL of these candidates, in fact, I have greater familiarity, than I do you. Bearing this in mind… tell me why I might have need of you.”

“Did I not breathe fire before your mammalian eyes?!”

“I’m enthralled,” Octavius snarls. “You have thoroughly wasted my time. Good night!”

“I have the Spider-Man’s true name!” Sauron squawks after his departure.

“YOU-“ Octavius’ arms rattle, and he slams the door shut, jerking back around. “LEAD WITH THAT! BLAZES, MAN!”

Sauron hops over to a specific drawer in the front desk, crestfallen. “Just once I would like fire-breath to seal the deal.”

“How on Earth could you know the man behind the wall-crawler’s mask?”

“As it were: By saving his life. My other half did, that is.”

Octavius looks at his claws. They look back. “Your marital partner..?”

“What?” Sauron blinks softly, then shakes his beak. “… No, my former identity, Karl Lykos; that veritable pheasant! He banished himself to the Savage Land, allowing himself no interaction with superpowered persons, that which must be consumed to bring forth my glorious form!”

He produces a videotape from the drawer, and motions for Octavius to follow him to the flatscreen intended for patrons. There, Sauron had seemingly brought his own cassette player. Octavius’ lower-right tentacle sighs.

Sauron pops in the tape. “But much to Lykos’ dismay, the Savage Land beckoned adventurers. Spider-Man arrived and, unprepared for the trials that awaited him, was transformed, by the mutant Brainchild, into a feral arachnoid beast-“

“Why couldn’t he have contacted me?..” laments Octavius.

“-and was set loose upon the nobler natives of the Savage Land. Lykos prevented a massacre by sapping the false mutation from the Spider-Man, but at the cost of unleashing me! Lykos witnessed the vigilante’s face as he reverted… and I was freed.”

“And you managed to put the face to a name, how? Lykos knew his alter-ego?”

Sauron tuts. “Now now, if I told you everything, it would take no time at all for a man of your acuity to piece things together… and—my usefulness expired—you would cast me off.”

“Like a broken. Crayon,” says Octavius darkly.

“In that event, I shall keep my leverage! Ah, it wasn’t rewound.” Sauron pecks at his remote, and the VCR begins complaining.

“Armed with this secret,” Sauron resumes, “I made my way to New York. The brief ’taste’ I got of the Spider-Man’s power told me that he was… an individual kind of delicacy; the likes of which, I have found in only the most astonishing of X-Men. A full meal of one such person… I imagine it could facilitate my control over Lykos for years. A decade, even.”

“The X-Men, again,” Octavius notes the recurring topic, unsure. “Are you yourself, categorically, a ‘mutant’?”

“A titan among mortals, created by a metamorphic virus carried by apex organisms that were thought to be long-extinct!” boasts Sauron. “Oh yes, but ‘mutant’ will do. Blasphemy! Lumping me in with the same barbarians that…”

Sauron irascibly tosses around more cables.

“‘That’, what?” Octavius presses.

“Never mind, you! See here, my near-triumph over our common enemy!”

On cue, the display’s fuzzy picture and static subsides into the rustling of foliage. The camera was being pushed in short bursts through dense grass. Narrating the footage was an extraordinarily phony English accent; it was Sauron’s.

“It is here, in the undergrowth, where we will have a chance-“

Sauron grunted from behind the camera, likely performing a leopard crawl.

“-to spot Ka-Zar’s courtship ritual with the She-Devil.”

Sauron—not in the video—starts mashing buttons feverishly. Octavius grimaces.

“Never before has this unique mating behavior been documented to be released to the general… oh. Oh balls.”

The choppy audio picks up the far-off bellows of a woman, then those of a man. The camera view is shown shuffling for a moment, when a wooden spear embeds itself in the muck, inches from the lens. The visuals blur, and flapping can be heard. Then a very deep, feline snarl. Then a girlish yawp from Sauron. The last image is of two rows of pure-white incisors, when present-day Sauron finally locates the fast-forward feature.

The rain still beats down while the tape zips along.

“I was feeling silly.”

“You are detestable.”

“Yes, well… never let it be said that Sauron, Master of Malice, was too much the Boy Scout!” the villain recovers. “NOW, see here…”

The video plays at regular speed, and one of Sauron’s hands is seen clutching a mason jar, turning it over to agitate the sizable arachnid it houses. The creature has an atypically vibrant exoskeleton, and repeatedly attacks the glass at the slightest upset of its prison. The chuckling of both Saurons harmonizes.

“Before stowing aboard a ship braving the Drake Passage, I stowed with me a deadly specimen: One of many ready-made weapons housed by the Savage Land,” Sauron explains proudly. “Aggressive on her best days, and positively bloodthirsty when she’s carrying her young.”

A zoom-in showcases scores of fibrous pouches speckle the animal’s abdomen.

“My plan was direct. Elegant. No extraneous moving parts… so to speak.”

The perspective cuts to Sauron’s feet lighting on the uppermost ledge of an apartment building.

Octavius shoves past Sauron to absorb every pixel on the monitor. “This is where he lives? Where is this??”

Sauron ignores him. “The first snag came up before I even began. Spider-Man somehow saw me coming.”

Doctor Octopus’ concentration on identifying any landmarks on the skyline is broken. He squints at Sauron, almost disgusted. “That’s half of his act: Sensing things. I’m sorry, how many times did you say you actually fought-“

“Watcha doin’ up here, bud? Migration been rough this year?”

Sauron rack-focused to Spider-Man, on the adjacent ledge.

“Orchestrating your demise, morsel. You and I have a dinner engagement.”

Sauron smiles approvingly at his own delivery in the video. “I had that one written beforehand.”

Spider-Man tilted his head. “Oh hey, you’re recording this? Hi future-me, who’s going to be looking at this and finding all of bird-man’s embarrassing shower karaoke.”

“Lord above, he doesn’t shut up for anyone,” Octavius mutters.

The screen rocks from Sauron hobbling to a ventilation duct. “Mock your doom. Mock Sauron the Unspeakable! But YOU will be the one caught in a web this time.”

Sauron brandished the jar containing his spider.

“Awww…” Spider-Man cooed at it, wiggling a finger playfully. “Here’s the thing: I don’t have your Ring of Power or whatever you’re here for, but I’m going to have to insist you round up any and all Shelobs you have on your person and hit the road. I’m telling you, they’ve got a serious policy about pets, the guy two doors down from me had to have a friend look after his chinchilla for-“

“Quit your drivel! I am antagonizing you!”

“-of course Ms. Rasmussen has an emotional-support dog, that’s really the only exception! Hey! If your spiders help you detect low blood-sugar, you may be able to convince the landlord-“

“Enough!” Sauron crowed. His wicked smile could practically be heard through the recording. “They’re waking up.”

“That’s ominous,” Spider-Man decided. “‘kay I’ll take that now.”

The vigilante’s web-shooters both fired; the left, snaring the spider’s glass, and the right tangling around Sauron’s wing, and part of the camera’s lens. Before Spider-Man could reel in his catch, Sauron coughed up a fiery jet that snapped the sticky band leading to the jar, then dashed the vessel straight through the grating of the duct beside him.

The eyes on Spider-Man’s mask enlarged. “Oh god!”

He sprang after the lost jar, but the camera swirls and Sauron’s great wingspan blindsided the hero back onto the gravel at the far end of the roof. Sauron jabbed through the remaining webbing as his adversary rolled upright. Spider-Man didn’t try for the vent again; he flipped over the ledge, calling,

“Storks are really supposed to deliver babies wrapped in blankets! Just sayin’!”

Sauron pursued, capturing the image of Spider-Man swinging himself through a window two stories below.

“This,” Octavius commentates, “is not… entirely uninspired. Having him chase thousands of tiny tasks with minds of their own…”

“… so that he’s too distracted and tired to stop my killing stroke,” Sauron finishes.

The escapade carried on with Sauron peaking into the apartment. Spider-Man had interrupted a family of four’s board game.

“I’m real sorry but I need you to call the hospital,” he appealed to the parents, “tell them there might be a whole bunch of people with venomous spider bites at this location! You need to help me get everyone… where’s all the vents in-“

A clump of infant spiders dropped out of the hallway air conditioning system and spread like water across the wood flooring. The family screamed, and Spider-Man yanked a bookcase off the wall to spin one-hundred-and-eighty degrees on its corner and flatten the horde. He then webbed over the vent.

“REALLY sorry,” he apologized again. “Please go, bang on doors, and don’t let these things get on you!”

Spider-Man perked up as if he heard something, and immediately launched through the front door. Sauron clambered inside, trailing the family as they too exited. From the apartment entryway, the mic picked up Spider-Man’s cries for the building to be evacuated. Bouncing from one room to the next, he would pound on and occasionally break open the door in order to block off the endless invasion of hatchlings. Soon after multiple tenants had become wise to the situation, the fire alarm was activated.

Sauron kept his distance all the while, observing Spider-Man’s fatigue from his unabating alertness. The hero traversed the walls; back and forth he sped, several minutes into fighting the disaster and only just now moving on to clear the next floor of danger. Back and forth, for all the good he could do. His shouts had grown hoarse. Back and forth.

“EVERYONE NEEDS TO GET OUT! … -J’s going to burn me at the stake when this story makes the ne… ‘-ider-Man unleashes minions on unsuspecting families!’… -lding that dumb coffee mug, and using that voice, too!”

Doctor Octopus appears bored with the uncut footage. “Let’s cut to the chase, yes?”

“This… is the chase… Oh, very well,” Sauron begrudgingly conforms, realizing Octavius’ limbs are poising threateningly.

The tape skips, and Spider-Man—defending a male resident—is facing a kitchen teeming with the newborn killers. Sauron had been gradually encroaching on his prey as the exertion took its toll on the web-slinger’s faculties, and had now barged through the home’s entrance, meters away.

To make an example, the monstrous hybrid roasted some of the furnishing to his left, then pointed the camera back to Spider-Man.

“Are you quite through?”

“Running late, dear,” Spider-Man shot back unenthusiastically.

He bumped the civilian out the window to their backs, hastily calculating and fastening to the poor man a web that would rappel him to the street. The hero salvaged his own fall with three fingertips on the sill, shifting his momentum with a kick that would send him into the next apartment over. Sauron, anticipating the maneuver, crossed his room with a combative glide and ripped down the dividing wall, right onto the arriving Spider-Man, who was pummeled by insulation, a metal stud and a full china cabinet.

Sauron put the heat on his opponent by slicing his shin. Spider-Man retaliated with more webbing, but his larger rival shielding himself with the backs of his wings, then subsequently pulled the young man—and his left-hand web-shooter—into his waiting beak, which wedged into the gadget, rendering it inoperative. This was followed up by a stab to the do-gooder’s abdomen, pinning him to the carpet for agonizing seconds. The villain then gripped Spider-Man by the throat, a portion of which was no longer even negligibly protected by red and blue spandex, due to a tear. The captive choked and flailed. As his very life-force was being stripped, Sauron relished his prize off-camera.

“Ah. As good as I remembered.”

Spider-Man built up some vitality, and cracked him over the jaw. Sauron’s taloned foot put the second web-shooter out of the fight.

“Rest now,” Sauron chided. “Rest. It’s possible you saved them all; isn’t that a lovely thought? And you can always hope the first-responders are prepared. The spider’s toxicity is of a most exotic variety, however…”

Spider-Man’s words were strangled. “You endangered all these people… AAUGH… to get to me. Big…”

One hand tore free from Sauron’s trap,

“BIG”

and then the other.

“Mistake,” he said ferociously, as though possessed by an unrevealed, primal side of himself.

He took Sauron’s webbed wings in each fist, shredding palm-sized sheets out of them. Now it was Sauron who screamed. The image quakes violently from a wild blast of fire. The screen then goes blue.

The sauna is again silent; even the rain has moved on. Sauron hangs his head.

Octavius starts at the blank display, feeling cheated. “Well?”

“I fled! Time had run out, and there was no leeway in my plan for trading blows. It was only for his incomplete commitment to rescuing the building that the Spider-Man gave me up.”

Sauron hits “Eject”.

“I failed to factor in that his concern for bystanders might be as emboldening, as much as detrimental, to him.”

“There is much to repurpose with this course of action. Your efforts are commendable,” Octavius praises, but seems perturbed. “… In all my years, trying to best him, I’ve never seen him use his adhesion so… ruthlessly.

“It wasn’t that alone,” Sauron corrects. “It burned. Enough to undermine my own hold. These mutants, they’re full of such surprises. Tricky little devils.”

Octavius’ demeanor is made irritable in an instant. “No… now this has been avoided far too long: Your obsession with the mutants. You mean to tell me you’ve thought Spider-Man is one of their kind??”

“Naturally. They worked side-by-side in the Savage Land-“

Octavius’ upper-right tentacle squeaks as a pained rodent would. The doctor’s face nearly glows red. “Know-nothing! … inept layman! You almost killed the Spider-Man, robbing the rest of us... when you have no quarrel with him?!”

“Do not try to disillusion me, Octopus!” Sauron rebukes. “You wish to get rid of me, but recycle my genius! Spider-Man is one of the Brotherhood, and I-“

“He is neither an X-Man nor part of that supremacist cabal… THOSE are separate entities too, you might be interested to learn!” growls Octavius, pacing as he does so. “They wear uniforms and start wars! Spider-Man helps old ladies with their grocery bags and throws the same three puns at you when you happen to be given the name ‘Octopus’ by the news!”

The gears turn in Sauron’s brain. “… I would… still very much like to feast on his energies…”

Octavius roars, hurling a magazine rack. “You’ve been cutting in on our vendetta… the TRUE foes of Spider-Man! How could you be so blinded to the obvious? What did the Brotherhood do to you warrant this utter lapse in reasoning??”

Sauron squirms, like a child caught fibbing. “Nothing. Nothing of-“

“WHAT, you boob?!” Octavius demands.

“They killed my wife!”

…

“They wanted my power, and they used me to kill my… my Tanya. Oh…”

Sauron burrows into the waiting room’s sofa, weeping.

Knee-deep in the exceedingly awkward interlude, Otto Octavius finds himself whisked into the past: An unprecedented, reflective condition for him, since having chosen this sinister path. A fateful day pierces the villain’s psyche. A particular laugh embraces a small, brackish heart, confronting him with a name he had hoped yet hated to drown.

“Mary.”

Sauron slurps up some snot. “Who?”

Octavius’ resentment of Sauron transitions to momentary pity. Pity, to envy. Envy, right back to resentment.

Octavius stares down at him. “Maybe there’s less distinction between you and Lykos than you’d care to admit, or maybe there never was a distinction. Whatever the case, whichever of you is in there, I’m speaking to a lovesick idiot! And your wife lies dead, waiting for you, still!”

“I-I don’t…”

“YOU SHOULD FEEL BLESSED! Having faces to put to the injustice! That she wasn’t taken from you by an accident, and all you have left is an abyss to yell into! You have the opportunity to exact your pound of flesh! Find the ones that wronged you… Get it RIGHT this time, and end them! Let your wife rest!”

“You…” Sauron sits up. “You should really see someone about these types of things.”

Octavius gnashes his teeth, and stomps toward the VCR player.

“What are you doing?”

“Collecting my compensation!” Octavius jiggles the device, unsure of how to dislodge the halfway-expelled cassette. “If you insist on being a useless dolt, I will use this tape to extract any and all clues to Spider-Man’s identity!”

Sauron dives for the tape, snatching it away and defensively backing into a potted fern. “No! My home movies are on there too!”

“Out of my way!”

Sauron’s mouth glows like a forge. “Never!”

Octavius curses in frustration. Weighing the odds, he gives it up and storms off once more through the parking lot.

Sauron peeks out from the business’ entrance. “W-where are you going?”

“To rethink EVERYTHING to do with how I will find competent applicants! Never, I repeat, NEVER contact me. And I do mean ‘ever’!”

The doctor’s lower-right tentacle waves a goodbye to Sauron. Octavius keeps grumbling, well out of earshot of his bane.

“Four hours walking through sewers… for this. Never again. They’ll come to me. I’m in charge. A nice office to work from… yes…”

***

“Aaaaalllright, so you’ve got your account’s password, bio, all of that how you want it?”

“I believe so,” Sauron acknowledges, nibbling on a claw.

“Great! You can click the ‘Complete’ button; it’ll be green,” Screwball instructs over the video chat.

Sauron complies. “… There are little hearts raining down.”

“That should mean you’re all set, let me refresh. Ooh, sweet PFP my guy!”

The icon shows Sauron lounging in a wingback chair, with a derby hat precariously positioned on his crest.

“Oh, yes, well-“ Sauron blushes.

“On. Fleek.”

“I really should repay you in some way,” maintains Sauron.

“Listen, you hold onto Spider-Boy’s real name for me if I’m ever hurting for views, and that’s payment enough.”

Sauron glances over his desk to at a folded Daily Bugle newspaper, preserved from years past: The last piece he had needed, to the puzzle of the person behind Spider-Man’s mask. In an undeservedly small article, abruptly detailed is an expedition, taken by the socialite Warren Washington III, into the mystifying, Antarctic region dubbed “the Savage Land”. As photographed, accompanying Washington had been the column’s own author: An unassuming journalist named Peter Parker. His was the face Lykos had seen appear on the monster that he stopped all that time ago, just before Lykos himself had become another monster needing to be cured.

“Certainly, but,” Sauron taps his mousepad, evaluating. “you’re sure you wouldn’t like me to put in a word for you with this alliance Octopus is convening?”

Screwball sticks her tongue out. “They’re way too mainstream, my audience would think I’m getting desperate. But hey, if you ever get back into a crime kick, I could always use a camera with wings!”

“My leave from supervillainy will be… quite extended. Recent events have caused me to, well, reconsider where I may find fulfillment.”

“C’est la vie. Caaatch you later, dino-dude!”

Screwball’s feed closes out.

“They’re not dinosaurs…” Sauron protests, but returns to his new media platform.

“A match, already? … ’madamedracheXO : 33, mutant : Self-made entrepreneur : Flexible with long-distance relationships, fire-breathing is big plus.’ Hmm.”

***

~ DOCTOR OCTOPUS’ nefarious exploits will return in INTERVIEW WITH AN OCTOPUS: BLACK CAT! ~

Mark Hollis - Such a Shame by INNES

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Very sad to hear on the car radio that Mark Hollis died today aged 64. Lead singer of Talk Talk. Out of all the music in the world I would struggle to know which discs to take with me to my desert island but certainly amongst them would be two of my absolute favourites of all time, "It's my life" and "Such a shame", because they put a smile on my face. Especially this video www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FezKvr5naI Ha! Do you remember what it was like queuing up to use a phone box?

Funny how I find myself in love with you

If I could buy my reasoning I'd pay to lose

One half won't do

I've asked myself

How much do you commit yourself?

It's my life

Don't you forget

It's my life

It never ends

Funny how I blind myself

I never knew if I was sometimes played upon

Afraid to lose,

I'd tell myself what good you do

Convince myself

It's my life

Don't you forget

It's my life

It never ends

I've asked myself

How much do you commit yourself?

It's my life

Don't you forget

Caught in the crowd

It never ends

IMG_5302 by SingWay

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國立台灣文學館 - 推理文學在臺灣特展 / 漂亮的封面 - 讓人想多看一眼

National Museum of Taiwanese Literature - Reasoning literature in Taiwan special exhibition / Beautiful cover - Let one want to see more

Museo Nacional de la literatura taiwanesa - Razonamiento de la literatura en Taiwan exposición especial / Hermosa portada - Deja que uno quiera ver más

国立の台湾の文学館 - 推理の文学は台湾特に展にあります / きれいな表紙 - 讓人は多く1つ見たいです

Nationalmuseum der taiwanesischen Literatur - Begründung Literatur in Taiwan Sonderausstellung / Schöne Abdeckung - Lassen Sie einen mehr sehen wollen

Musée national de la littérature taiwanaise - Raisonnement de la littérature à Taiwan exposition spéciale / Belle couverture - Laissez-vous vouloir voir plus

Tainan Taiwan / Tainan Taiwán / 台灣台南

管樂小集 2017/10/07 台南孔子廟 Confucian temple Tainan performances 1080P

{ 旅笠道中 Wearing hats travel in road }

{View large size on fluidr/觀看大圖}

{My Blog / Great Music The splendid performance touches your heart}

{Mi blog / La gran música el funcionamiento espléndido toca su corazón}

{Mein Blog / Große Musik die herrliche Leistung berührt Ihr Herz}

{Mon blog / La grande musique l'exécution splendide touche votre coeur}

Melody 曲:JAPAN / Words 詞:Sheesen / Singing : Sheesen