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

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

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/

“Women prefer emotions to reasoning” (Stendhal) by Françoise Fougères (stand by)

21 52

EXPLORE Jan. 25, 2009, # 349

Antique effect from the software Photoscape.

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

17 19

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

9 9

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

{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

Barbarians At The Gate/ Pacifists Reflect/The Hour Is Getting Late/There Is No Reasoning/Only Trickery by Roger Guetta

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

Brac To-Maz Warn, Jedi Master of Bats (The Batman of Star Wars) by ZenThorga

Seeing his parents getting slaughtered by the Lord of Darkside, he swore to avenge them by defeating this threat to the galaxy. At first the Jedi council was against this violent reasoning, but since he was strongly supported by the councils leader, Ra-za Gruuhl, and also having a strong connection to the deeper connections inside the force, he got trained and reached after a short amount of time higher levels and a deeper understanding of the force than any of his masters.

Old-school registers, and some old (pre-remodel) picture links, to boot by Retail Retell

14 3

WEEK 35 – Carrollton, GA, Target (V)

Perhaps to compensate for my inability to get any better pics of the café, I dawdled around here in the register area, capturing this shot of some of the checklanes. Not much reasoning behind my shot that I can tell, although looking at it closer, it is notable from the standpoint that those old-school lane lights would for sure be going away soon. Also interesting (if true) – is register number 13 there operating without an electric belt? I certainly don’t remember those from any Target store, not even Horn Lake!

Some extra content to drop here, while I’ve still got this store’s Google Maps page open: here's a link to what the front actionway would’ve liked like prior to the remodel. There, we can see the perimeter track lighting in action, as well as some backlit poster screens on the walls that acted as extra decoration – but clearly had already been removed before I visited. Note the strange/possibly rare “FOOD” sign instead of “MARKET” or “CANDY & SNACKS,” too! In fact, lots of great photos, majority pre-remodel, to be found at that Google Maps page, so be sure to spend some time exploring that. I’m sorry I didn’t link to more comparison shots throughout this album!

These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is.... by ira tucker

20 14

not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual :-)

― Galileo Galilei

tulips, sarah p duke gardens, duke university, durham, north carolina

Abbey . . Road . . Class47s crossing . . by Brian Newton

9 4

Having tried some shots from this particular location near to Whalley Abbey before, I wanted to try another during wintertime, my reasoning being that the view would be opened up without the foliage on the surrounding trees. Fortunately on this day, I had better weather and more interesting lighting than on any of my previous attempts.

On 15th January 2022, Statesman Rail ran one of its Settle & Carlisle Circular railtours from Worcester Shrub Hill to Appleby. The outward journey was via the S&C, and the return leg ran via the Cumbrian Coast. LSL provided the traction, with regulars 47593 'Galloway Princess' and 47810 'Crewe Diesel Depot' up front. The train is seen here crossing Whalley Viaduct.

If you're interested in an alternative angle on railway photography, take a look at the Phoenix Railway Photographic Circle's website at www.phoenix-rpc.co.uk

My sister in law's Anniversary gift from her daughter❤️ Copyrights of RJP Studio 2017. by Tammy Ocen

41 11

Maria at their summer home with her anniversary gift scarf and Bella her daughter on the beach in Spain, that gave it to her. The reasoning for tags is my family is from Chicago but travels everywhere in the winter/early summer. Maria and her husband now live in Mexico. I'm trying to catch onto the rules and guidelines on Flickr. If I am supposed to add anyone in a tag, PLEASE please make it very clear. Please be nice❤️ I really am doing my best. I am sorry for yesterday, I was Ill. I WILL get to as many pages as I can tonight👍👍👍❤️❤️😃. I promise. Thank you to all the groups that accepted me, Any award's and virtual hugs to my supporters who fav me and vice versa💘💘💘💘You know who you are. Mwah!!! Thank you💘💘💘😉 Darn auto correct! Lol!

925 on Pink Line 29 by timothyr673

13 5

Assuming you read the description of 907's photo before this one, then I'll have made you well aware of the issue surrounding NCT's new route 29 and bonkers decision to run 12.2m long Scania Omnidekkas on it. The crux of the issue is that they're too big to easily use the turning circle at the terminus within Jubilee Campus, and every driver had a different method of dealing with the problem.

The common answer was to reach the terminus and then keep going, as the Hopper 903 does, get pitched back out onto Wollaton Road and double back at Crown Island. That's what is happening here with 925 here, seen negotiating the exit barrier from Jubilee Campus at the main Wollaton Road gate. Although it's working a 29 back to the city centre, this isn't supposed to be part of the route!

Annoyingly, my attempts to photograph 29s at more photogenic parts of Jubilee Campus kept getting thwarted by the buses inconsistently and haphazardly picking their way around the university site, with no guarantee they'd stick to the route in any way. Some of what I witnessed (and missed) were:

- Bus follows normal route to terminus, does a multi-point turn at the turning circle and returns the way it came (this is the advertised route).

- Bus follows normal route to terminus, keeps going in the same direction, rejoins Wollaton Road and doubles back at Crown Island (as per this photo).

- Bus follows normal route, but stays on Triumph Road, ends up on Derby Road and turns back at QMC Island (why... just why?)

- Bus cuts out university campus completely, stays on Wollaton Road, doubles back at Crown Island (the final few before I left did this so I guess they eventually gave up with the uni).

Basically, the routing was SO unpredictable half the time they didn't even turn up where I was standing, and it makes me wonder why they even tried it with Omnidekkas in the first place. I mean, from the pre-existence of the 31 there surely should have been some idea that midibuses were probably a more suitable size of vehicle to use?!

The only reasoning I can come up with is that with the 29's first day being so quiet - nobody was using it to get to the university - NCT just stuck Omnidekkas on it to see if they'd fit (answer - they didn't), and if it all went wrong then it wouldn't really inconvenience anyone. Or was it simply the case that Trent Bridge had run out of midi spares and the Omnidekkas were all they had left for the 29? Whatever the situation, it certainly was bizarre!

YT61 FFM

University of Nottingham Jubilee Campus

16.9.24

2013 A New Project? by Jarch21

8 11

Met and organised supervisor for this last semester. The funny thing was the people I selected I was not given but perhaps this is best. Although my design last year was pretty solid it was lacking back up/reasoning. Things may change as nothing ever stays static. I thought I was just going through the process for protocol to finally get my masters but was told I would have to do something. Not sure how to take this, although I planned to work this semester the assumption i was going to do nothing as I have worked my ass off last year and have come up with a project was a bit insulting. Anyways it is week 0. I plan to document this on film. 1 roll_ 36 exposures_16 weeks to be developed and seen when its all done.

Think* by Gaëtan Bourque

39 72

v. *Think

1. Judge or regard; look upon; judge;

2. Expect, believe, or suppose;

3. Use or exercise the mind or one''s power of reason;

4. Recall knowledge from memory; have a recollection;

5. Imagine or visualize;

6. Focus one''s attention on a certain state;

7. Have in mind as a purpose;

8. Decide by pondering, reasoning, or reflecting;

9. Ponder; reflect on, or reason about;

10. Dispose the mind in a certain way;

11. Have or formulate in the mind;

Gondolier's Thought, Venice, Italy.

PixQuote:

The camera can photograph thought.

-Dirk Bogarde

PixNote:

Please note, that what you think, is not necessarily what I think.....I think so!

Sound Reasoning by Jemima Bates

38 6

5 11

View On Black

Self Portrait II 14 March 2012 (2012) by A.Davey

13 5

David Hockney (British 1937- )

iPad Drawing on printed paper

Edition 10/25

Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

Portland State University

While Jordan Schnitzer, boy billionaire, is delighted to exhibit bits and pieces of his art collection at various venues around Portland provided his name gets first billing, should you attempt to photograph his art on the ground floor of his downtown Portland office tower, his concierge will yell Sir! Mr Schnitzer does not not allow his art to be photographed."

There's no reasoning with underlings, so I waited until he was distracted, photographed them all, and set them free in Flickrland.

Billionaires are pricks,

thoughts by al shep

12 9

the act of thinking reasoning serious consideration any idea opinions design intentions

Barefoot On the Bare Wood by Viejito

46 4

Upon entering the pier, signs clearly warn tourists not to go barefoot or wear high heels, but young people prefer to discover the reasoning behind those signs for themselves, I guess...

01/52: Sydney Observatory and Intergalactic Clouds by Chester Castillo

2 1

This year 2016 I am doing another 52 Weeks photo project, the first 52 Weeks project I did was way back in 2012. So, it might be a good time to do it since it had been so long. I consider this the Olympics or World Cup of photography projects --it only happens every 4 years! At least in my case. ;-)

For the photo for my first week, I wanted to start with a bang so I was envisioning a star trails photo at the Sydney Observatory. But since the 3rd of January when we came here in this charming city, what was supposed to be a summer month greeted us with intermittent rains and bleak clouds! By Wednesday, the photo project seems a lost cause. There was no sign of the rain letting up. I might need to plan another shoot by the weekend without the star trails photo I had in mind since I needed a really clear night sky! But by Thursday weather conditions started to improve. The sun peeked a little with the afternoon mostly cloudy. Even better was the forecast for Friday! A clear night sky!

I could already see it in my mind's eye. The coolest photo ever taken at Sydney Observatory! Haha! Yes, the arrogance of this never-heard trying-hard photography enthusiast!

By Friday morning & afternoon, the forecast seems to be accurate since the skies have been generally clear.

When I hit home after work, I was feeling lazy to go out to shoot. I was unsure. Was it worth it to go out in the cold summer winds of Sydney and stay the night looking up for stars? Or should I just take a long well-deserved sleep as I haven't slept well since New Year's eve? Indecision has caught up again early in the year. It bit me so hard it slowed down the blood going to the reasoning part of my brain! :p

But when darkness fell, I found myself getting up from the couch turning off the TV and preparing for the shoot. I had to hurry up if I wanted to take the next bus since its interval is 30 minutes. When the bus arrived it swooshed passing me by as if the driver didn't see me making a lousy signal that I wanted to get a ride.

I decided to just walk, it was just 600 meters away but it was uphill. I didn't want to drag my heavy bag and hefty tripod. But I had no other choice. As I walked, the skies were still quite clear. But when I got to the place, a few clouds started to crept up my frame.

I was still trying to compose my shot. Which angle was I going to take it. I wanted to shoot near the dome on the left with the telescope to emphasize it in the structure but the plants in the garden was cramping my shot. I finally settled to shoot at the middle and have a symmetrical composition. But by this time more clouds were showing up! As I looked back at the horizon where the clouds were coming, it seems the clouds would not relent. So, I decided to just forego the star trails shot and just settled with this long exposure photo. =)

It was nice that the clouds had a bit of spiraling motion that suggests a galactic cloud or nebula. At least in my imagination. ;-) Even if I didn't got the photo I wanted, what I got seems good enough to start the year.

Happy new year! =)

P.S. Look at the right side of the frame. Orion's belt is seen clearly. =)

Megabus by paul green

12 1

Snowdons are one of a number of operators to supply coaches to Megabus on a self-drive basis whereby Megabus provide the drivers. I am not quite sure of the reasoning behind this arrangement. On 4th March 2023, former Logans Volvo B13R(T) Plaxton Elite YN 13 GXP was in Reading,

CHOICES by mike donahue

23 22

Mat 24:4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

Mat 24:5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

There is a lot to choose from out there, man has made God very complicated as though we are left to figure out God by our own reasoning. After Jesus died on the cross and before he ascended to heaven he said, I must go away so the comforter can come, that is the Holy spirit. With Christ in us we are given the ability to understand who He is and who we are. We are mighty in Christ, problems accrue when we place our own agendas over the truth of the word of God, when this happens man ends up with a golden calf and a religious spirit. A religious spirit produces judgment and judgment produces separation. The world tends to judge God by the actions of “religious” men as though God had anything to do with their foolishness. The lord loves you and wants a relationship with you, a personal relationship. In that relationship He will point out what is sin in your life and guide you into a more fruitful life. Please remember that it is not your sins that sends you to hell, Christ paid for your sins on the cross, but rather it is ones rejection of the Lord and His grace, God will never send someone to hell, people make that choice for themselves.

If you have not accepted Christ into your heart please do so, it doesn’t take any special prayer or anyone to lead you just a desire to be with the one who loved you first.

Contax IIa Colour Dial with Zeiss Opton Sonnar 2/50 by Michael Khan

36 6

Actually, I have these six thread mount and four M-mount Leicas and I've sworn to each and every of them that I will remain faithful to her, forever and ever.

But a man can resist anything except temptation. That's a well known fact. So when I happened to see a colour dial Contax IIa on Fleabay that allegedly was in perfect working order, I placed a bid.

My conscience made me place a low bid. My reasoning was that I had succumbed to temptation, but as my bid was unlikely to go through, I had, technically at least, remained faithful. Little did I know that my bid would come out on top. The next day I was the surprised owner of yet another rangefinder camera.

In 1925, the optical instrument company Ernst Leitz in Wetzlar, Hesse, brought out the Leica, the first truly compact photo camera. It was an instant success, and Leitz quickly followed up with increasingly advanced models, introducing, in quick succession, exchangeable lenses, then a coupled rangefinder, then broader exposure time ranges.

Though blazingly expensive, the Leica sold like hot cakes and revolutionized photography.

The much larger camera maker Zeiss Ikon, based in Dresden, an amalgamation of four companies decided to snatch a share of the 35 mm camera market from the Leica with a technically superior product, the Contax.

The original model came out in 1932 and was even more expensive than the Leica, and arguably, far more advanced technically, but not in terms of durability. It was followed by the Contax II, which had a significantly improved metal shutter and a combined range- and viewfinder, something Leitz would not manage until the M3 in 1958. Then came the Contax III with its uncoupled light meter.

The Contax ran rings around the Leica but the Leica with her simpler, more rugged design persistently outsold her competitor 2:1. While the Leica was seen as the camera of choice for (rich) amateurs, the Contax was for the pros. Robert Capa's "death of a loyalist militiaman"? Shot with a Contax. Capa's magnificent eleven? Contax.

After the war, the Zeiss Ikon factories in Dresden lay in ruins, and what was left of the tools, parts and construction plans was hauled off to the Soviet Union. All German patents were voided, which greatly benefited the Japanese camera industry.

In the USSR, Contax production was soon resumed at the Arsenal factory in Kiev. But that is a different story.

However, one Zeiss factory was in Stuttgart, in the American-occupied sector of Germany. Part of Dresden and Jena staff moved there and from then on, there were two Zeiss companies, the West German one in Stuttgart, the East German one in Jena.

Zeiss Ikon in Stuttgart quickly set up their rangefinder lines again and also started making SLRs, but that is a different story. Their first rangefinder was the IIa black dial, which was still excruciatingly expensive. That was followed by the IIIa, which had an uncoupled meter.

There were numerous changes with respect to the pre-war Contaxes. The new Contaxes had slightly smaller bodies and their rangefinder baseline was reduced, which makes them easier to use because it is harder to inadvertently cover the rangefinder window with one's finder. They also offered flash synchronisation.

The colour dials came later, with some more technical changes. A PC terminal and some modifications of the shutter, the merits of which are hotly debated to this day. Production ceased in 1961, and a decade later, following a series of egregious management errors, Zeiss Ikon stopped producing cameras altogether.

You will find that the Contax IIIa is far more common than the model IIa, because they were both shockingly expensive and the well-heeled, who were the only ones who could afford such cameras, would go for the model with the meter. The colour dial IIa is the rarest of the series, which makes it all the more surprising that my modest bid won. Normally, this is the model that the collectors go for. Especially if it is in as good shape as this.

I was not interested in the IIIa because a selenium meter will at any rate either not work at all or not work accurately, and it isn't aesthetically pleasing - it breaks the clean line of the top of the camera.

The seller did not provide very good pictures, which may explain why he did not obtain as high a sum as by rights, he should have (Honestly, how hard is it to take some sharp and detailed pictures of a camera?).

And then, this baby didn't have the highly prized 1:1.5 Sonnar, but "only" the 1:2. Actually, the 1:2 is sharper and better. I am not a collector, but a user. I use cameras to do what they were designed to do: take pictures. So this is the lens I wanted.

So far, I have not found any fault with my Contax, other than that the rangefinder needs adjusting, which is hardly surprising with a 60 year old camera.

1996-12-10_d (McAlester, Oklahoma) by M McGuire

26 2

Practicing with make up and trying new outfits while traveling.

I had only two pairs of pantyhose and two pairs of stockings with me. [The stockings were still with me from previous travels, see the 1992-05-17 (Madison, Wisconsin) album.] Unfortunately I ruined the two pairs of pantyhose and so had only the stockings to wear. During my previous experience I did find them comfortable for "everyday activities."

I took them on an "extended outing" in this outfit by going to the post office and a restaurant (where I felt overdressed for this town!) As before I enjoyed the occasional rubbing and Shh-Shh sound, but didn't enjoy the pulling of the individual garters that occurred when using stairs or while driving. (See end note for interesting memory.) By the way, the stocking shade is taupe. I think this shade produces a much better leg look than off black or black.

Ego boost - While leaving the post office, a gentleman who was entering held the door for me. I walked about 20 yards (18.3 m ) to my car and when I turned to get in the car I noticed that he had not yet entered the post office and had probably been watching me (hopefully in admiration).

A relevant and humorously insightful aside - Has this ever happened to you, have you ever done this? The person that gave me directions to the restaurant often referred to places that were no longer there, such as, turn right where the hardware store used to be. Obviously, as an out-of-towner this description meant nothing to me and I had to keep asking for current landmarks.

End Note: In the sixties, when pantyhose were first becoming popular, I remember reading an article on the advantages of pantyhose over stockings and garters. One advantage was safer driving. The reasoning was that the tug of the garter on the stocking caused one to overcompensate when depressing the accelerator leading to greater acceleration, but with pantyhose this did not occur. This article was probably put out by the Pantyhose Promotion Partnership.

An Intellectual All-in-All by gfpeck

Active Assignment Weekly: May 17-24 – Wordsworth

I recently read a book in which author described how the words of William Wordsworth were replicated over 100 years later in the form of a photograph. For this assignment I would like you to do the same. Review some of the famous quotes Wordsworth (England’s Poet Laureate from1843 to 1850) and use that quote as the inspiration for a photograph. Please be sure to include the quote in your WIT section.

WIT: Another critter shot from our recent family trip to the city. I could watch this big guy all day. The expressions and movements are way to human-like. I have no problem believing that one of my great ancestors looked like this (maybe not as handsome though). Some cropping, a bit of sharpening, and a levels adjustment layer.

"Huge and mighty forms that do not live like living men, moved slowly through the mind by day and were trouble to my dreams."

"A reasoning, self-sufficing thing, An intellectual all-in-all."

View On Black

Paradise Lost': How The Apple Became The Forbidden Fruit...Sources say that the dreaded biblical fruit may have been a ?? by Hughes Songe

It was only later readers of Milton, says Appelbaum, who thought of "apple" as "apple" and not any seed-bearing fruit. For them, the forbidden fruit became synonymous with the malus pumila. As a widely read canonical work, Paradise Lost was influential in cementing the role of apple in the Fall story.

This month marks 350 years since John Milton sold his publisher the copyright of Paradise Lost for the sum of five pounds.

His great work dramatizes the oldest story in the Bible, whose principal characters we know only too well: God, Adam, Eve, Satan in the form of a talking snake — and an apple.

Except, of course, that Genesis never names the apple but simply refers to "the fruit." To quote from the King James Bible:

And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.'"

"Fruit" is also the word Milton employs in the poem's sonorous opening lines:

Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit

Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste

Brought Death into the World, and all our woe

But in the course of his over-10,000-line poem, Milton names the fruit twice, explicitly calling it an apple. So how did the apple become the guilty fruit that brought death into this world and all our woe?

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The short and unexpected answer is: a Latin pun.

In order to explain, we have to go all the way back to the fourth century A.D., when Pope Damasus ordered his leading scholar of scripture, Jerome, to translate the Hebrew Bible into Latin. Jerome's path-breaking, 15-year project, which resulted in the canonical Vulgate, used the Latin spoken by the common man. As it turned out, the Latin words for evil and apple are the same: malus.

In the Hebrew Bible, a generic term, peri, is used for the fruit hanging from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, explains Robert Appelbaum, who discusses the biblical provenance of the apple in his book Aguecheek's Beef, Belch's Hiccup, and Other Gastronomic Interjections.

"Peri could be absolutely any fruit," he says. "Rabbinic commentators variously characterized it as a fig, a pomegranate, a grape, an apricot, a citron, or even wheat. Some commentators even thought of the forbidden fruit as a kind of wine, intoxicating to drink."

A detail of Michelangelo's fresco in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel depicting the Fall of Man and expulsion from the Garden of Eden

Wikipedia

When Jerome was translating the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil," the word malus snaked in. A brilliant but controversial theologian, Jerome was known for his hot temper, but he obviously also had a rather cool sense of humor.

"Jerome had several options," says Appelbaum, a professor of English literature at Sweden's Uppsala University. "But he hit upon the idea of translating peri as malus, which in Latin has two very different meanings. As an adjective, malus means bad or evil. As a noun it seems to mean an apple, in our own sense of the word, coming from the very common tree now known officially as the Malus pumila. So Jerome came up with a very good pun."

The story doesn't end there. "To complicate things even more," says Appelbaum, "the word malus in Jerome's time, and for a long time after, could refer to any fleshy seed-bearing fruit. A pear was a kind of malus. So was the fig, the peach, and so forth."

Which explains why Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel fresco features a serpent coiled around a fig tree. But the apple began to dominate Fall artworks in Europe after the German artist Albrecht Dürer's famous 1504 engraving depicted the First Couple counterpoised beside an apple tree. It became a template for future artists such as Lucas Cranach the Elder, whose luminous Adam and Eve painting is hung with apples that glow like rubies.

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Eve giving Adam the forbidden fruit, by Lucas Cranach the Elder.

Wikipedia

Milton, then, was only following cultural tradition. But he was a renowned Cambridge intellectual fluent in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, who served as secretary for foreign tongues to Oliver Cromwell during the Commonwealth. If anyone was aware of the malus pun, it would be him. And yet he chose to run it with it. Why?

Appelbaum says that Milton's use of the term "apple" was ambiguous. "Even in Milton's time the word had two meanings: either what was our common apple, or, again, any fleshy seed-bearing fruit. Milton probably had in mind an ambiguously named object with a variety of connotations as well as denotations, most but not all of them associating the idea of the apple with a kind of innocence, though also with a kind of intoxication, since hard apple cider was a common English drink."

But whether the forbidden fruit was an apple, fig, peach, pomegranate or something completely different, it is worth revisiting the temptation scene in Book 9 of Paradise Lost, both as an homage to Milton (who composed his masterpiece when he was blind, impoverished and in the doghouse for his regicidal politics) and simply to savor the sublime beauty of the language. Thomas Jefferson loved this poem. With its superfood dietary advice, celebration of the 'self-help is the best help' ideal, and presence of a snake-oil salesman, Paradise Lost is a quintessentially American story, although composed more than a century before the United States was founded.

What makes the temptation scene so absorbing and enjoyable is that, although written in archaic English, it is speckled with mundane details that make the reader stop in surprise.

Take, for instance, the serpent's impeccably timed gustatory seduction. It takes place not at any old time of the day but at lunchtime:

"Mean while the hour of Noon drew on, and wak'd/ An eager appetite."

What a canny and charmingly human detail. Milton builds on it by lingeringly conjuring the aroma of apples, knowing full well that an "ambrosial smell" can madden an empty stomach to action. The fruit's "savorie odour," rhapsodizes the snake, is more pleasing to the senses than the scent of the teats of an ewe or goat dropping with unsuckled milk at evening. Today's Food Network impresarios, with their overblown praise and frantic similes, couldn't dream up anything close to that peculiarly sensuous comparison.

It is easy to imagine the scene. Eve, curious, credulous and peckish, gazes longingly at the contraband "Ruddie and Gold" fruit while the unctuous snake-oil salesman murmurs his encouragement. Initially, she hangs back, suspicious of his "overpraising." But soon she begins to cave: How can a fruit so "Fair to the Eye, inviting to the Taste," be evil? Surely it is the opposite, its "sciental sap" must be the source of divine knowledge. The serpent must speak true.

So saying, her rash hand in evil hour

Forth reaching to the Fruit, she pluck'd, she eat:

Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat

Sighing through all her Works gave signs of woe,

That all was lost.

But Eve is insensible to the cosmic disappointment her lunch has caused. Sated and intoxicated as if with wine, she bows low before "O Sovran, vertuous, precious of all Trees," and hurries forth with "a bough of fairest fruit" to her beloved Adam, that he too might eat and aspire to godhead. Their shared meal, foreshadowed as it is by expulsion and doom, is a moving and poignant tableau of marital bliss.

Meanwhile, the serpent, its mission accomplished, slinks into the gloom. Satan heads eagerly toward a gathering of fellow devils, where he boasts that the Fall of Man has been wrought by something as ridiculous as "an apple."

Except that it was a fig or a peach or a pear. An ancient Roman punned – and the apple myth was born.

The first tale in the Bible tells of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden. This was in consequence for having tasted the “forbidden fruit” of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Christian iconography and popular culture represent the fruit as an apple. But a careful reading of the passage leads one to the conclusion that, in fact, the actual fruit is never mentioned in the book. How, then, did the apple become this symbol of temptation and sin?

A standard version of Genesis 3:3-5 says:

But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

According to Robert Appelbaum’s book Aguecheek’s Beef, Belch’s Hiccup, and Other Gastronomic Interjections, the confusion may be due to a sort of joke of St. Jerome, who first translated the Bible into the vulgar Latin. (This version is still known as “The Vulgate” even today.) It turns out that the Latin words for apple, and for evil, are the same: malus. According to Appelbaum, the Hebrew word, peri, which was used to refer to the fruit in the Bible, can refer to any type of fruit, a fig, a pomegranate, a grape, or even a peach or a lemon. Some Bible commentators even believe that the forbidden fruit may have been a drink that produced an intoxication in those who drank it. Hence they gained “knowledge of good and evil.”

St. Jerome translated “peri” with the word “malus.” It’s an adjective meaning “evil,” though as a noun, it means “apple,” from trees known even today as Malus pumila. However, as Appelbaum points out, malus may refer not only to the apple, but to any fruit with seeds: pears are a species of malus, as are figs, peaches, and others.In religious iconography, there was no clear consensus for several centuries on exactly what type of fruit it was from this tree of which humanity’s first parents couldn’t eat. Michelangelo painted a fig tree in the Sistine Chapel. Durer depicted an apple tree, as did Lucas Cranach, the Elder. But another Appelbaum hypothesis in explaining the apple’s preeminence over other seeded fruits comes from the English poet, John Milton. His Paradise Lost was published in 1667. For Milton, the semantic ambiguity of the malus should not have been a mystery, versed as he was in ancient languages like Latin and Hebrew. Appelbaum notes that it’s possible Milton appreciated St. Jerome’s joke as a reference to intoxication or drunkenness from apple cider, popular in his own time. Paradise Lost refers on a couple of occasions to the fruit of this problematic tree and refers to it as an apple.

Another possible explanation may come from the Golden Apple of Discord. In Greek mythology, this was the work of the goddess Eris, (a temptress, as Satan had been for the Hebrews). According to the myth, Eris was angry at having not been invited to the wedding of Peleus and Tetis (parents of the great warrior Achilles). She presented the wedding guests with a golden apple which would reveal who among them was “the most beautiful of all.” Three goddesses fought amongst themselves: Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty; Hera, the guardian of the home and childbearing and wife of the great Zeus; and Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus and goddess of wisdom. To settle the dispute, Zeus consulted a Trojan shepherd and mortal, Paris, to choose from among the three goddesses which was the most beautiful. The three goddesses tried to bribe him in turn with new gifts. Finally, Paris decided for Aphrodite, who had promised him the love of the most beautiful woman of all. This was none other than Helena. Helena’s abduction by Paris is the mythical origin of the Trojan War. And thus the apple is also at the center of the most epic dispute in Greek civilization.

The Apple and the Heart

Romanesque iconography more frequently used the apple as the forbidden fruit. The lengthy list of images in the three studied countries represents a significant part of our corpus. Among them, one can cite in Spain, Amandi, Añes, Avilés, the Bible of Burgos, the Bible of San Isidoro, Covet, Estany, Estibaliz, Frómista, Loarre, Mahamud, Peralada (figure 6), Porqueras, Rebolledo de la Torre, San Pablo del Campo, Sangüesa, Santillana del Mar, and Uncastillo. In France, Airvault, Andlau, Arles, Aulnay, the Bible of Corbie, the Bible of Marchiennes, the Bible of Souvigny, Cahors, Chalon-sur-Saône, Chauvigny (Figure 3), Cluny, Courpiac, Esclottes, Guarbecque, Hastingues-Arthous, the Hortus Deliciarum, Lescure, Mauriac (in the Auvergne), Melay, Moirax, Montpezat, Neuilly-en-Donjon, Nîmes, Poitiers (Sainte-Radegonde Church), Provins, Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire, Saint-Gaudens, the Sauve-Majeure, Targon, Tavant, Thuret, Toirac, Varax, Verdun, and Vézelay. In Italy, Galliano, Modena (figure 4), Parma, Pisa, Sant’Angelo in Formis, and Sovana.

Over subsequent centuries, the apple was continually present in the iconography of the original sin. [45] For illustrative purposes, note that in the Gothic...[45] It was frequently used as the forbidden fruit in literature, particularly in the twelfth century by Marie de France, [46] Marie de France, Yonec, v. 152, in Les Lais de Marie...[46] in the thirteenth century by Robert de Boron, [47] Le Roman du Graal: manuscrit de Modène, ed. Bernard...[47] and in the fifteenth century by Sebastian Brandt. [48] Sebastian Brandt, La Nef des fous [Das Narrenschiff],...[48] In paroemiology, this seems to be the meaning of a proverb from the beginning of the thirteenth century: “mieux vaut pomme donnée que mangée” (better an apple given than eaten). [49] Joseph Morawski, ed., Proverbes français antérieurs...[49] In hagiography, the apple is the forbidden fruit in, for example, the Cantigas de Santa María. [50] Alfonso X of Castile, Cantigas de Santa María, 353,...[50] An interesting case also appears in the breviary: the Hail Mary—appearing in the twelfth century from a passage in the New Testament [51] Luke, I, 28, 42. Henri Leclercq, “Marie, mère de Dieu,”...[51]—refers only to a “fruit,” but an anonymous commentator from Northern France specifies at the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century that it concerns the “fruit of the apple tree.” [52] Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. Gall. 34,...[52] Anchored in Western imaginations ever since, the apple has even replaced the fig among modern scholars, in parallel to the cultural process that saw the heart where previously there had been the liver. [53] See Hasenohr, Prier au Moyen Âge: n. 38. Regarding...[53]

Figure 3. - Capital at the entranceway to the choir of the church

The reasons behind this almost unanimous choice are unclear, however. We may allude to the more or less widespread presence of the apple throughout all of Western Europe. We may observe the old Celtic symbolism of the apple as the fruit of knowledge. We may recall its symbolic capital as a sign of power, wealth, lies, lust, discord, and transgression. [54] Michel Pastoureau, “Bonum, malum, pomum. Une histoire...[54] We may suppose that just as the garden of Hesperides recalls the Garden of Eden (both sheltering a snake that defends the sacred tree), the apple tree “with fruits of gold” in the Greek myth influenced the medieval interpretation of the biblical account. We may thus argue the ancient association between this tree and Eden, which led to naming the carob the “apple of Paradise” in Hebrew. [55] L. Ginzberg, Les Légendes des juifs, 219, n. 70.[55] We may also consider the authority of Saint Augustine, who hesitantly accepted the possibility of the apple being the fruit of sin, perhaps influenced by the existence of thirty different varieties of apples in the Roman world at the time. [56] Augustine, La Genèse au sens littéral en douze livres...[56] We may wonder especially whether in popular medieval etymology there was not certain confusion between the words malum “badly” and malum “apple” as well as between malus “malicious” and malus “apple tree;” these phonetic identities may have had semantic implications indicating the evil character of the fruit. [57] Among the transformations affecting the Roman world...[57]

The increasing popularity of the apple in this role was perhaps also related to its round shape and red color, which drew it closer to the heart, being the organ that was linked to the blood of Christ and that Christianity and its doctrine perceived as the center of the human being. In this sense, the precedents were strong; the doubt surrounding the identity of the forbidden fruit reflected another, more ancient doubt regarding the central organ of the body in the diverse cultures that, in a more or less direct way, provided the foundations for medieval Christian culture. Whereas the Egyptians perceived the heart as the center of the human being, [58] The Book of the Dead, ed. and trans. E. A. Wallis Budge,...[58] the Hebrews attributed sacred powers to the liver, while regarding the heart as the seat of feelings and wisdom, and the source of life. [59] See, for example, Genesis, 20:5; Job, 9:4; Proverbs,...[59] The two organs fought for the role of the principle of life among the Babylonians [60] Alexandre Piankoff, Le “Cœur” dans les textes égyptiens...[60] and Greeks. [61] In mythology, the liver is the central element in the...[61]

In the third century BC, the medical school in Alexandria established the physiological model that went on to prevail throughout the following two millennia: the brain was attributed with neurological sensitivity, movement, and functions, the heart with enthusiasm and the vital spirit. [62] Mary J. Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of...[62]

Isidore of Seville affirmed that in the heart “lies all concern and the source of knowledge, [as] with the heart we understand, and with the liver we love.” [63] Isidore of Seville, Seville’s Etymologies: The complete...[63] Sharing his opinion, more than five centuries later, Hildegard of Bingen considered the attribute of the heart to be knowledge and that of the liver to be sensitivity. [64] Hildegard of Bingen, Causae et curae, II, 1–12, ed....[64] For her, the heart was the point of contact between the body and the soul, the terrestrial and the divine; it was “almost the essence of the body [since it] governs it,” being the residence of the soul. [65] Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, I, 4, 16, ed. A. Führkötten...[65] It is thus not by chance that she imagined the forbidden fruit to be an apple. [66] Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, III, 2, 21, ed. Führkötten...[66] For Saint Bernard, the heart was the seat of faith. [67] Bernard of Clairvaux, In Nativitate Beatae Mariae,...[67] For his adversary, Pierre Abélard, when God wants to examine the feelings of men, he probes their hearts. [68] Pierre Abélard, Ethics, ed. and trans. D. E. Luscombe...[68] Chrétien de Troyes considered the heart to be the place where mystical union occurs with our purest self, [69] Chrétien de Troyes, Cligès, vv. 708–716, trans. Micha,...[69] since this organ is the seat of love, [70] Chrétien de Troyes, vv. 4302–4306, trans. Micha, 1...[70] memory, [71] Chrétien de Troyes, Le Conte du Graal ou le Roman de...[71] and life. [72] Chrétien de Troyes, Cligès, vv. 3668–3673, trans. Micha,...[72] Vincent of Beauvais regarded the heart as the principal “spiritual organ.” [73] Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum historiale, I, 32 (Graz:...[73] The evolution in the hierarchy of meanings did not affect the importance attributed to the heart: while troubadours and courtly love previously spoke of “the hearing of the heart,” the eye and the heart were later associated. [74] Guy Paoli, “La relation œil-cœur. Recherches sur la...[74] At the start of the thirteenth century, a poem established the relationship between the heart and the phallus, between feeling and sexuality, by telling the story of a character killed by the husbands of his mistresses, who tore off these two organs and gave them to their adulterous wives to eat. [75] Lai d’Ignauré, trans. Danielle Régnier-Bohler, in Le...[75]

The new collective feeling in relation to the heart was present in the idioms that were forming. From the Classical Latin cor, synonymous with “memory” (also with “thought,” “intelligence,” and “heart” [76] This is still the meaning of the word for Saint Augustine...[76]) were derived “recorder” in French, ricordari in Italian, and recordar in Castilian and Portuguese. Although the heart as the center of memory appears in the root of the Castilian and Portuguese words decorar, this link is even more explicit in the phrases par cœur in French (appearing in around 1200), de cor in Portuguese (dating to the thirteenth century), and by heart in English (attested around 1374 and based on the acceptance of herte as “memory,” which existed from the start of the twelfth century [77] Rey, Dictionnaire historique, 1:442; José Pedro Machado,...[77]). However, the heart was not only regarded as the seat of memory. In English, it was associated with courage (towards 825), emotions (1050), love (about 1175), and character (1225). [78] The Oxford English Dictionary, 5:159.[78] In medieval Italian, the heart (core prior to 1250, then cuore) was reputed as being the center of feelings, emotions, and thoughts. [79] Manlio Cortelazzo and Paolo Zolli, Dizionario etimologico...[79]

Most often, the association occurred between the organ and a feeling, thought to derive from it directly, as attested in various Western languages: curage in French (appearing in 1080, then written as courage and used as a synonym of cœur “heart” until the seventeenth century), coraggio (prior to 1257) in Italian, coraje in Castilian and coragem in Portuguese (both from the fourteenth century), herzhaftigleit in German (from the fifteenth century derived from herz “heart,” written herza in the eighth century), and courage in English (around 1500, written as corage in around 1300). English presents an interesting case, showing the psychocultural hesitation between the liver and heart as the seat of positive feelings: the compound liver-heartedness, literally “without liver or heart,” designates the idea of “cowardly.” Further evidence of the moral importance attached to this organ is found in the word cordial, which initially carried the neutral meaning of “relative to the heart” and later acquired the positive sense of “nice” and “pleasant,” not only in French, English, Castilian, and Portuguese, but also in Italian (cordial) and in German (herzlich).

The symbolic value of the heart in the twelfth century was also seen in Jewish culture. Whereas the Pirkei Rabbi Nathan, a text predating the tenth century, establishes several comparisons between the parts of the universe and parts of the human body without even citing the heart, in the second half of the twelfth century, Maimonides considered it the center of the human body. [80] Samuel S. Kottek, “Microcosm and Macrocosm According...[80] He was probably influenced by Aristotle, for whom the human body developed from the heart, which was a very influential idea after the Christian rediscovery of the Stagirite. Thus, some Romanesque representations of the creation of Adam depict him coming to life not by a “breath on the face” (in faciem eius spiraculum vitae) as the Bible states, [81] Genesis, 2:7.[81] but by the hand of God touching his heart. This is the case, for example, in a manuscript from the abbey of Saint-Martial de Limoges, [82] Breviarium ad usum S. Martialis Lemovicensis (Paris:...[82] which was illuminated in around the year 1100, as well as in a relief carved a few years later on the northern facade of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

The importance of the heart in Romanesque culture also transpires in its growing metaphorical use. On the political level, it became the “king” of the human body in the same way as the king is the “heart” of the social body. [83] Jacques Le Goff, “Head or Heart? The Political Use...[83] On the literary level, the rhetorical figure of the heart spread like a book in which an ordinary individual, saint, or even Christ could write their amorous (including erotic) and spiritual emotions. [84] On the evolution of this metaphor, see Ernst Robert...[84] On the architectural level, the cruciform design of churches situated the altar—the place where the mystery of the incarnation was reproduced—in the position occupied by the heart. [85] It is no coincidence that in Medieval French, the same...[85] On the liturgical level, the Christianization of the Holy Grail rendered it the receptacle holding the blood of Christ, symbolically transforming it into a heart. [86] Begoña Aguiriano, “Le cœur dans Chrétien,” Senefiance...[86] On the geographical level, in the same way as the heart was the center of the human body, the sepulcher of the Lord was the heart of the world, according to a sermon by Peter the Venerable. [87] Peter the Venerable, In laudem sepulcri Domini, PL,...[87] On the linguistic level, from the thirteenth century, the word designated the center of something in French and Italian, as it did later in English (beginning of the fourteenth century) and Castilian (sixteenth century). [88] This meaning was applied to the city by Aristotle in...[88] In this cultural context, when the Abbess of Bingen declared that Adam made of clay was merely an empty body before being filled with a heart, liver, lungs, stomach, and internal organs by God, [89] Hildegard of Bingen, Causae et curae, II, 20, ed. Kaiser,...[89] she seemingly established a hierarchy of organs. Thus, the growing importance of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in spirituality from the twelfth century seems to have been the conclusion of a long process in which this organ gained in medical and symbolic value. [90] Jean-Vincent Bainvel, “Cœur sacré de Jésus (dévotion...[90]

Exegetical Doubt

An interesting example of the rivalry between the fig and the apple in terms of the symbolic function of forbidden fruit is seen in the sculptures on the western facade of the small rural Castilian church of San Quirce, close to Burgos, which was completed in 1147. Here, eleven modillions illustrate several episodes of the myth of Adam, from the creation of protoplasm to the judgment of Cain, while in between them, ten metopes depict scenes that are sometimes difficult to relate to those of the modillions, although each stage of the cycle is identified by inscriptions. [91] These inscriptions are now almost illegible, but they...[91] The ensemble forms an iconographic discourse with two aspects: the subject is evil, as much at its origin (original sin) as in some of its manifestations (sex, death, and bodily impurity).

This latter topic is visible on the two metopes at each end, where the artist depicts a man defecating. This was not a simple curiosity or obscenity, as the placement of these scenes is significant: the first being compared with the sin of Adam and the second with that of Cain. In fact, an inscription close to the representation of the original sin illuminates the link between the events depicted on the metope and modillion: MALA CAGO. No doubt, the man who speaks and acts in this way is both the paradisiacal Adam who has just eaten the forbidden fruits as well as the symbol of all human beings, his “posthumous sons,” as defined in a contemporaneous sermon. [92] Julien of Vézelay, Sermons, XV, ed. and trans. Damien...[92] However, the exact interpretation of the inscription poses an important problem.

A few decades ago, historiography considered this a pun, as the individual excretes both “apples” and “evils.” [93] Pérez de Urbel and Whitehill, “La iglesia románica...[93] This interpretation is based on three elements: the facade’s inscription, a capital inside the church on the same subject that undoubtedly depicts an apple, and finally, the ancient roots of the tradition perceiving the forbidden food of Paradise in this fruit. However, on the modillion’s scene, the forbidden fruits rather resemble figs, an impression reinforced by a nonformalistic reasoning. Indeed, the fig traditionally had an explicitly sexual character, while the apple, though related to Aphrodite, the goddess of love, had a more sensual, rather than explicitly sexual connotation. This is shown, for example, in an Icelandic saga from the thirteenth century in which the love philter is an apple, or even in some mythologies, where the rejuvenating and beautifying virtues attributed to the fruit remain in the etymology of “pomade,” a scented, cosmetic, and curative substance with apple. [94] See Pastoureau, “Bonum, malum, pomum;” Rey, Dictionnaire...[94]

The fig’s association with sexuality is seemingly expressed during the third quarter of the twelfth century in the iconographic design of the doorway of Barret Church in Poitou. Here, the three capitals on each side establish a spatial and symbolic relationship, which was very common in the Romanesque imagination. Looking at them, starting with the capital closest to the entry on the left-hand side, the first represents the original sin with the fig as the fruit, the second depicts a character in a very obscene pose, and the third, which is double, shows an eagle on one side and a monster devouring a sheep on the other. Symmetrically, on the right-hand side, the first capital depicts lions leaning against each other, the second, two doves embracing, and the final one, a centaur and a dove. The message seems rather evident: sin (that is to say, the fig and sex) leads to unnatural and erotic acts, thus to the death of the soul, which is devoured by the demon (eagle and monster); on the other hand, those who join Christ (the lion) will be innocent (doves), embracing peace and purity, thus calming the animal that exists in every human being (centaurs).

Indeed, the sexual meaning of the fig was accepted within traditional culture and did not disappear with its Christianization. Throughout the centuries, the fig tree was associated with Dionysus, and, at least in its Roman version, Bacchus. The image of the god was always carved in the wood of the fig tree, with a basket of figs being the most sacred object at the festivals that celebrated him, the Bacchanalia. As the protector of orchards, particularly of the fig tree, Dionysus was confused with his son, Priapus, born of Aphrodite. In the processions paying homage to this god of fertility, who was endowed with a disproportionately large penis, there was a large phallus carved in the wood of the fig tree, the leaves of which were also seen as an ithyphallic symbol. [95] Brosse, Mythologie des arbres, 290–291. The fig’s sexual...[95] This notion of sexual exuberance is also found in a version of an episode of the Dionysus myth by the Christian apologist Clement of Alexandria (around 150–250). [96] Clement of Alexandria, Protreptique, II, 34, 3–4, ed....[96] In a similar manner, although he calls the liver iecur and not ficatum, Isidore of Seville implicitly makes this link by affirming that in this organ “lies pleasure and concupiscence. [97] Isidore of Seville, Seville’s Etymologies, XI, I, 125,...[97]

The popular gesture of “making the fig” should also be mentioned here, associated with the fruit through its name and shape. This association is observed in Castilian, in which two words (higo/higa) appeared at the same time, in around 1140. [98] Joan Corominas, Diccionario critico etimológico de...[98] This gesture assumed “an obvious sexual connotation” [99] Jean-Claude Schmitt, La Raison des gestes dans l’Occident...[99] in the popular tradition of several societies, and even in the medieval West, where it can either denote the female sex organ (predominant meaning), its state of excitation (in this case, the tip of the thumb between the index and middle fingers imitates a swollen clitoris), copulation (the thumb is the penis between the vaginal lips), or a phallus (rarer meaning). [100] Desmond Morris et al., Os gestos: suas origens e significado...[100] It is probably with this latter meaning that formerly, in Bavaria, a young man confirmed his intention to marry by sending a silver or gold fig to his lover, who could refuse the demand by returning the gift or accept it by returning a silver heart. [101] José Leite de Vasconcelos, A figa (Porto: Araújo e...[101] The far la fica was an aggressive and derogatory gesture frequently used by Italians in the Middle Ages, not only on a daily basis, but also in emotionally charged situations. In 1162, angry with the Milanese who had forced his wife to mount a mule backwards, thus facing the tail of the animal—a very ancient position signifying contempt—Frederick I Barbarossa seized the city and, on penalty of death, forced the prisoners to remove a fig from the anus of a mule with their teeth. [102] Quoted by Leite de Vasconcelos, A figa, 80; by Jerome...[102] The inhabitants of Pistoia had carved into their castle of Carmignano two large arms with hands making the sign of the fig towards the enemy city of Florence—which, humiliated, went on to conquer the place in 1228. [103] Giovanni Villani, Cronica, VI, 5, ed. Ignazio Moutier...[103] In Dante, a robber condemned to Hell makes the sign of the fig against God Himself. [104] Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia, Inferno, XXV, 1–3,...[104] The gesture and expression ficha facere are found, with the same derisory meaning, in all Romanesque cultures, and even outside of them. [105] Leite de Vasconcelos, A figa, 42–56, 72, 76–81, and...[105] Although this gesture has a talismanic function, that of casting off the evil eye and other dangers, this seems to be precisely due to its sexual connotation, that of warding off sterility in life. [106] Leite de Vasconcelos, A figa, 27–41, 57–59, and 91...[106]

In this sense, the scene of the paramount sin depicted on the third modillion at San Quirce, in addition to adopting the ancient interpretation of the original sin as a sexual sin, [107] See Martin Elze, Tatian und seine Theologie (Göttingen:...[107] prepared the observer to encounter, three metopes along and just after the expulsion from Paradise, a representation of the carnal relationship of protoplasm. [108] Pérez de Urbel and Whitehill (“La iglesia románica...[108] Thus, according to our hypothesis, the word malum would not have been used here with its specific meaning of “apple,” but rather in the broader sense of “fruit with pulp” (as opposed to nux, “fruit with hard skin”), [109] Although the former meaning was eventually enforced...[109] so that the pun of the inscription would signify “to expel evils and fruits.” Whether conscious or not of the inscription’s ambiguity, the sculptor at San Quirce thus revealed the interesting coexistence of two exegetical traditions, that of the apple, present in the representation of the original sin inside the church, and that of the fig, visible on its facade. An even more meaningful coexistence if it is accepted that a single artist carved both the capital and the modillion. [110] A situation that de Lojendio (Castilla 1) regards as...[110]

This exegetical doubt is not an isolated case appearing in a monastic community in the center of Castile. The formation of the French word “pomme” provides an interesting indication in this context. Although, from the beginning of the fifth century, the Latin word pomum (“fruit” in a generic sense) gained the specific meaning of “fruit of the apple tree” in Northern Italy and the majority of the Ibero-Romance area—a meaning preserved in the Provençal and Catalan poma—Italian, Castilian, Portuguese, and Galician eventually favored the traditional form malum, from which they derived mela, manzana, maçã and mazá, respectively. [111] Both the Spanish word manzana (attested in 1112 as...[111] Pomum preserved its broad sense in these four languages in the form pomo (poma in the case of Galician). By the same evolution, the collective forms pomario in Italian and pomar in Castilian, Portuguese, Provençal, and Galician derived from the Classical Latin pomarium.

In contrast, the medieval Latin of Gaul had used, from the end of the eighth century, the word pomarius to denote the apple tree, from which derived the vernacular name of this specific fruit (pume) from the generic term (pomum) in 1080. [112] The word appeared in the Chanson de Roland as pume;...[112] At the same date appeared the French word verger (orchard), denoting land planted with various fruit trees, taken from the Latin viridiarum (from viridis, “green”). Faced with these facts, it is not absurd to assume that the French linguistic evolution unconsciously avoided the supposedly negative character of this fruit, as expressed through the word malum. Furthermore, the apple is a positive symbol in Celtic culture, [113] Françoise Le Roux and Christian-Joseph Guyonvarc’h,...[113] which was heavily present in the territory of the future France, particularly in the context of the “folkloric reaction” of the twelfth century. [114] Jacques Le Goff, “Culture cléricale et traditions folkloriques...[114]

In accordance with its archetypical character as the fruit par excellence, the word was used in the formation of many syntagms, and even, around 1256, in the curious expression “pomme de paradis” (apple of paradise) denoting the banana. [115] Rey, Dictionnaire historique. It is interesting to...[115] Although in terms of vocabulary, we note a French resistance to the association of the apple with the fruit of sin, in terms of iconography, as seen above, such identification was established without problem. This was also the case in popular literary works, such as the first French theatrical text from the middle of the twelfth century or a sermon from the same time. [116] Respectively Le Mystère Adam: Ordo representationis...[116] Similarly, in this and the subsequent century, there were various love stories generally beginning with a betrayal (hearts metaphorically devoured) and ending with the death of the two protagonists (one of them literally devouring the other’s heart without realizing it [117] Accounts collected in Régnier-Bohler, ed., Le Cœur...[117]). To a certain extent, these stories consciously or unconsciously rewrote the drama of the original demise: betraying the confidence of the Creator (“from the tree . . . you will not eat”) by eating the apple/heart (“the knowledge of good and evil”), the human being was the cause of his own perdition (“the day you eat of it, you will surely die”), as Adam and Eve had hearts full of arrogance (“you will be like gods” [118] Genesis, 2:17; 3:5. On the close relationship between...[118]).

The Tree and Androgyny

This search for the identity of the Romanesque forbidden fruit must still consider the tree in relation to the primordial couple. The position of these three elements provides some important information. One of the symbolic and physical solutions used was to portray the primi parentes on the same side of the tree, with Eve always being closer to it (figure 4). The most common composition placed the tree between Adam and Eve, as already found on the sarcophagus of San Justo de la Vega in Leon, dated to the end of third century or the beginning of the fourth century and currently held in the archaeological museum of Madrid. It would be simplistic to think that this position on both sides of the tree simply responded to the desire for symmetry in Romanesque art, [119] As considered Guerra, Simbología románica, 107.[119] because the form is almost always a fragment of the contents that emerged. [120] Gerardus Van Der Leeuw, La Religion dans son essence...[120] In the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, this scheme probably referred to two very pressing questions related to the contemporary phenomenon of the sacralization of marriage.

Figure 4. - Relief on the western façade of Modena Cathedral (Emilia-Romagna), circa 1100.

On the one hand, by placing Adam and Eve at an equal distance from the tree, the iconography referred to a certain social egalitarianism and moral leveling between man and woman, even if the snake is almost always turned towards the woman. The side occupied by each character varied. We have already considered the position of Eve on the right-hand side of the tree as an “iconographic tradition,” a scheme with only three exceptions, in Saint-Antonin, Bruniquel, and Lescure. [121] Jean-Claude Fau, “Découverte à Saint-Antonin (Tarn-et-Garonne)...[121] In fact, the woman appears on the left in several other cases: for example on the sculptures in Anzy-le-Duc, Airvault, Butrera, Cergy, Cervatos, Covet, Embrun, Gémil, Girona, Lavaudieu, Lescar, Loarre, Luc-de-Béarn, Mahamud, Manresa, Moirax, Montcaret, Peralada (figure 6), Saint-Étienne-de-Grès, Saint-Gaudens, Sangüesa, San Juan de la Peña, Toirac, Verona, and Vézelay. Similarly, on the frescos in Aimé, Fossa, and San Justo in Segovia, on the illuminations of the Bible of Burgos, the Exultet 3 of Troia, and the Hortus Deliciarum, on a metal medallion from the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, and on the mosaics in Monreale and Trani.

In addition, the central position of the tree, separating Adam and Eve, insinuated a rupture of the initial unity, at least on the psychological level. The tree, that is to say knowledge, revealed the existence of contradictory traits in human beings, made in the image and resemblance of God, the androgyne par excellence. “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female created he them:” [122] Genesis, 1:27.[122] this is why the human being was initially double, and thus, inherently complete and microcosmic. [123] There were several types of microcosmic man in the...[123] Removing Eve from the rib of Adam was a surgery of separation, because they were formed from the same bones, they were “one flesh.” [124] Genesis, 2:23–24.[124] In this manner, the sacred text was interpreted from first half of the first century, initially by the Jew, Philo of Alexandria, and subsequently by Ambroise, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Isidore, the pseudo-Remigius of Auxerre, Guibert of Nogent, Pierre Lombard, Bernard, and others, who all regarded Eve as the image of the woman from within man. [125] Michel Planque, “Ève,” in Dictionnaire de spiritualité...[125]

Augustine, in particular, implicitly recognized the androgyny of the first man when he said that the devil “cannot tempt us only by the means of this animal part, which appears in a single man as an image or a model of woman.” [126] Augustine, Del Genesis contra los maniqueos [De Genesi...[126] Following a reasoning based on that of Saint Paul, he saw Adam-Eve as the complementarity of spirit and flesh, a comparison that was adopted by many thinkers in the Romanesque period. Since in the Bible, “Adam” was originally the generic name denoting a human being (Genesis, 1:19) and only later became the name of a person (Genesis, 3:17), Augustine interpreted the word “man” (Genesis, 1:26) as “human nature.” [127] Augustine, De Trinitate, I, 7, PL, vol. 42, col. 8...[127] Saint Anselme, who was very influential in the twelfth century, agreed that “Adam” should initially include Adam and Eve. [128] Anselm of Canterbury, La Conception virginale et le...[128] While trying to explain how Adam’s prohibition of the fruit also implied Eve, Petrus Comestor stated that it was transmitted to the woman through man; [129] Petrus Comestor, Historia scholastica, 15, PL, vol....[129] thus implicitly suggesting the unity of the two individuals, and the androgyny of the being to whom it was forbidden to eat the fruit.

While the medieval Church did not formally accept the divine and the androgyny of Adam, it was still familiar with it. It is thus found in a text from the New Testament: “There is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Jesus Christ.” [130] Galatians, 3:28.[130] This appeared in an apocryphal text: “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor female . . . then will you enter the kingdom [of God].” [131] Il Vangelo di Tommaso, 22, trans. Mario Erbetta (Casale...[131] This was a noncontemptible part of the thought of Clement of Alexandria [132] In a piece of literature that is today lost, Hypotyposes,...[132] (around 150–215), Origen [133] According to him, based on Luke, 20:36, there will...[133] (185–254), Gregory of Nyssa [134] Gregory of Nyssa, La Création de l’homme [De opificio...[134] (around 330–390) and, through them, of Johannes Scotus Eriugena [135] Johannes Scotus Eriugena, Periphyseon, IV, PL, vol....[135] (around 810–870). It undoubtedly belonged to the cultural and psychological milieu of the first Christian centuries. [136] Wayne A. Meeks, “The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses...[136]

While the androgyne of Eden had disappeared, it was because of sin. For some thinkers, the human being henceforth became aware of its duplicity, since that time it was broken and characterized by the genitals, which was visible proof of the original sin: sexus comes from sectio (“cut,” “separation”), a term derived from secare “to cross,” which only assumed a specifically sexual meaning in the Middle Ages. [137] Du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis,...[137] It is thus not by chance that Adam said “me” for the first time after the sin. [138] “Mulier, quam dedisti mihi sociam, dedit mihi de ligno,...[138] Although, undeniably, the original sin and sex were closely linked, the way in which events had transpired was the subject of debate. [139] Emmanuele Testa, Il peccato di Adamo nella Patristica...[139] One stream of thought interpreted the sin as a sexual offence: for example, the Jew Philon and some Church fathers, including Clement of Alexandria and Saint Ambrose. [140] Philo of Alexandria, De opificio mundi, 151–152, trans....[140] In the Romance period, the majority of theologists from the school of William of Champeaux (1070–1121) also considered that this sin involved concupiscence, although Guillaume himself saw it as an act of disobedience in which sensualitas managed to dominate ratio. [141] Odon Lottin, “Les théories du péché originel au XIIe...[141]

Another group reversed the question, seeing sex rather as a consequence of the sin. The Physiologus, an influential allegorical, zoological treatise translated into Latin in the fifth century, stated that the elephant and its partner, which “personified” Adam and Eve, were unaware of intercourse until the female had eaten the fruit of the Mandragora officinarum and given it to the male: “because of that, they had to leave Paradise.” [142] El Fisiólogo: bestiário medieval, 20, ed. Francis J....[142] The main proponent of this train of thought was Saint Augustine, according to whom the human being before the sin practiced sex without concupiscence. [143] Augustine, La Genèse au sens littéral [De Genesi ad...[143] The error of the first couple would then have been one of pride, which led to the error of disobedience and then to carnal error. [144] In the first part of his interpretation, Augustine...[144] Another proponent of this idea was Johannes Scotus Eriugena in the eighth century, who considered that before the sin, the human being was only one, and that the resulting division of the sexes would cease in the eternal life. [145] Johannes Scotus Eriugena, Periphyseon, V, 20, PL, vol....[145] His thought continued to exert a certain influence; in the fourteenth century, it led Meister Eckhart to regard “any division” to be “bad as such,” thus perceiving the number two as the sign of the fall. [146] Meister Eckhart, Commentaire de la Genèse, 88 and 90,...[146] The Romanesque representations of the initial sin hesitated in choosing between these theological positions. Showing a preference for the second, several images accorded sexual attributes to Adam and Eve just after the ingestion of the fruit: for Adam, generally a beard [147] For Hildegard of Bingen, Causae et curae, II, 5–7,...[147] (figures 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5), seldom a penis (figure 5), and for Eve, usually breasts (figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6). A minority of images seem to attribute the initial sin to a sexual act, an iconographic and theological concept that was perhaps expressed for the first time on the bronze door of Hildesheim Cathedral in Germany between 1011 and 1015. [148] William Tronzo, “The Hildesheim Doors: An Iconographic...[148] Here, Adam appears to the left of the tree and behind him is another tree on which a small dragon is standing. Eve is to the right, close to another tree with the snake. The fruit is the apple, one in right hand of Adam and the other in the right hand of Eve, being stretched out towards Adam. There is another apple in the left hand of Eve, whose folded arm merges with her vagina. A similar illustration was used in Rebolledo de la Torre in 1186. In the Alardus Bible, the snake that gives the fruit to Eve is at the height of her vagina, recalling a male sexual organ about to penetrate her. The southernmost façade of the Church of Santa María in Sangüesa in Navarre, which dates from the second half of the twelfth century, seems to portray the same design. Here, the scene of sin is situated immediately below the personification of Lust, showing a woman whose naked breasts are attacked by toads and snakes. [149] Despite the great diversity of iconographical material...[149] This association between lust and the original sin was not uncommon; as Sangüesa was on St. James’s Way, the most travelled road by Occitans and Italians, we may hypothesize that its iconographic message expressed the opinion of many pilgrims on the subject. In this sense, this image from Navarre ratified at least two other images known to these pilgrims.

The first image from Provence, dated to the second quarter of the twelfth century, is located a few kilometers from Tarascon in Saint-Etienne-du-Grès, on the tympanum of Saint-Gabriel’s chapel, where Daniel appears next to the original sin (prefiguration of Christ, the new Adam) with lions (a common symbol of lust): an opposition of scenes suggesting the sexual signification of the sin. As already mentioned, it is true that the contrast between the two scenes did not necessarily mean that the artist interpreted the sin “as a vulgar sin of lust, but its consequence was to introduce turmoil and even shame into a domain that had emerged wholly pure from the hands of the Creator.” [150] Gérard de Champeaux and Sébastien Sterckx, Introduction...[150] However, the authors of this comment—a longstanding phenomenon in medieval art studies—seem inclined towards adapting the intentions of the Romanesque artist to the theologically correct reading, rather than considering other interpretative possibilities beyond the domain of ecclesiastical culture. It is significant, for example, that on the same area of the tympanum, the two scenes are chronologically inversed, first portraying Daniel and then the sin.

The second image from Italy figures on the mosaic of Otranto (1163–1165). The branches of the forbidden tree pass between the legs of the characters, insinuating the sexual nature of the sin. This seems all the more evident given that Adam and Eve are each situated in a circle, rendering the characters isolated, separated, and autonomous entities in their respective domains, domains most certainly resulting from the primordial androgyne being cut in two. This assumption is reinforced by the fact that the forbidden fruit is represented as the fig (with its strong sexual connotation, as already seen) and illustrated in a suggestive way by the mosaic artist, the priest Pantaleon: the thinner part of the fig held by Eve is facing downwards and placed between her breasts, as though forming a third breast; the fig in Adam’s hand is in the inverse position, reminding us of the male genitals. [151] The same sexual presentation appeared towards the end...[151]

Figure 5. - Illumination from the in Troia (Puglia), Archivio Capitulario, middle of the eleventh century.

Figure 6. - Capital in the western gallery of the monastery cloister

Taking the geographical distribution of the Romanesque images into account, we see that the function attributed to the fig as the forbidden fruit was mainly expressed in the cultural milieu related to the Greco-Judaic world, while the apple appeared in association with the Romano-Christian world. This is perhaps due the specific links established in these cultural areas between each fruit and a bodily organ. In the images where the fig is used, Eve is often portrayed with the fruit on the right-hand side of the tree, like the liver in the human body. [152] In this regard, I evidently mean a statistical trend,...[152] In the images with the apple, the tendency is for Eve and the fruit to appear on the left-hand side, just like the heart in the body (figures 3 and 6). In both instances, the forbidden fruit was the symbol of the rupture of the unity of Eden and the birth of the disjointed humanity that characterizes history.

Notes

[1]

On the methodological issues affecting the construction and analysis of an iconographic corpus, some good comments have been made by Jérôme Baschet in “Inventivité et sérialité des images médiévales. Pour une approche iconographique élargie,” Annales HSS 51 (1996): 93–133.

[2]

Genesis, 2:16–17; 3:1–12.

[3]

Jeremiah, 1:14. Jerome, Expositio quattuor Evangeliorum, Patrologia Latina (PL), vol. 30, col. 549d–550a.

[4]

Midrash Rabbah, Genesis, XV, 7, trans. Bernard Maruani and Albert Cohen-Arazi (Paris: Verdier, 1987), 1:183 [Midrash Rabbah, Genesis trans. Harry Freedman and Maurice Simon, 2 vols. (London: Soncino Press, 1939)]; Genesis Rabbah I (Genesis 1–11), trans. Luis Vegas Montaner (Estella: Verbo Divino, 1994), 188–189 [Genesis Rabbah I, trans. Samuel Rapaport (London: Routledge, 1907)].

[5]

Following the interpretation of Marcel Durliat, Pyrénées romanes (La-Pierre-Qui-Vire: Zodiaque, 1978), 42.

[6]

Vita Adae, 36–42: “The ‘Vita Adae’,” ed. J. H. Mozley, The Journal of Theological Studies (1929): 121–149 (English manuscripts); “La Vie latine d’Adam et Ève,” ed. Jean-Pierre Pettorelli, Archivum latinitatis Medii Aevi (1998): 5–104 (German manuscripts); 2 Henoc 22:8: Slavonic Apocalypse of Enoch, trans. Francis I. Andersen, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth, 2 vols. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1983–1985), 1:92–221; L’Évangile de Nicodème, 19, ed. André Vaillant (Geneva, Paris: Droz, 1968), 59–61.

[7]

In this instance, the capital over the door of Miègeville, dated to around 1100–1118, does not depict the scene of the sin, but rather that of the expulsion from Paradise, where the fruit behind Adam and Eve (the couple being situated between God on one side and an angel on the other) is the grapevine.

[8]

Midrash Rabbah, Genesis, XV, 7 and XIX, 5, trans. Maruani and Cohen-Arazi, [trans. Freedman and Simon], 184 and 217; Genesis Rabbah I, trans. Vegas Montaner, 190–225. Ethiopic Apocalypse of Enoch, XXXII, 3–6, trans. Ephraim Isaac, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1:28. Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, 4–8, trans. Harry E. Gaylord, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1:667; Apocalypse of Abraham, XXXIII, 7, trans. Ryszard Rubinkiewicz and Horace G. Lunt, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1:700. In the first century AD, Eliezer ben Hurcanus’s Chapters only specifies that “Noah found a grapevine coming from the Garden of Eden:” Los Capítulos de Rabbí Eliezer, XXIII, 4, trans. Miguel Pérez Fernandez, (Valencia: Institución San Jerónimo, 1984), 174. Louis Ginzberg nevertheless believes that this text probably alludes to a fragment from the tree of knowledge: Les Légendes des juifs [1909], trans. Gabrielle Sed-Rajna (Paris: Éd. du Cerf, 1997), 1:302, n. 59. According to the same author (Les Légendes des juifs, 219, n. 70), “the oldest and widespread opinion identifies the forbidden fruit with the grape, which traces back to an ancient mythological idea considering wine to be the beverage of the gods.”

[9]

David Romano, “Jueus a la Catalunya carolingia i dels primers comtes (876–1100),” in Exposiciò dins la formació de l’Europa medieval (Girona: Ajuntament de Girona, 1985), 113–119. Hilário Franco Júnior, “Le pouvoir de la parole: Adam et les animaux dans la tapisserie de Gérone,” Médiévales 25 (1993): 113–128.

[10]

Arturo Graf, Il Mito del Paradiso terrestre (1892; reprint, Rome: Edizioni del Graal, 1982), 65; Gioacchino Volpe, Movimenti religiosi e sette ereticali nella società medievale italiana: secoli XI–XIV fourth ed. (Florence: Sansoni, 1972), 17–40; Cinzio Violante, La Società milanese nell’età precomunale (Bari: Laterza, 1974), 220–231. Priests in Spain in the seventh century offered a bunch of grapes to believers during the Eucharist, which could also be a reaction against the idea of the grapevine as the forbidden fruit (third Council of Braga [675], prologue and canon 1: Concílios visigóticos e hispano-romanos, ed. and trans. José Vives (Barcelona and Madrid: CSIC, Instituto Enrique Florez, 1963), 371–373).

[11]

Michel Tardieu, Trois Mythes gnostiques: Adam, Éros et les animaux d’Égypte dans un écrit de Nag Hammadi (II, 5) (Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1974), particularly 88–89, 142–144, and 166–169.

[12]

Paul Deschamps, “Notes sur la sculpture romane en Bourgogne,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1922): 61–80.

[13]

Deschamps, “Notes sur la sculpture.”

[14]

Joseph de Ghellinck, “L’eucharistie au XIIe siècle en Occident,” in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1913), vol. 5, col. 1233–1302. Iconography was also influenced by the phenomenon in which the Crucified was depicted as a bunch of grapes, as seen on the thirteenth-century metal relief on the door of the Church of Sion in Switzerland. This was reproduced by Erich Neumann, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, trans. Ralph Mannheim (1955; reprint, Princeton (N. J.): Princeton University Press, 1972), pl. 114.

[15]

Roger Dion, Histoire de la vigne et du vin en France des origines au XIXe siècle (Paris: author publication, 1959), 245–247.

[16]

Auguste Gaudel, “Péché originel,” in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, vol. XII-1, col. 441 [quotation back-translated from the French].

[17]

Jacques Brosse, Mythologie des arbres (Paris: Plon, 1989), 299–300. The purity attributed to the olive rendered the olive tree the tree of life par excellence, as seen above, n.5.

[18]

Robert Saint-Jean and Jean Nougaret, Vivarais-Gévaudan romans (La Pierre-Qui-Vire: Zodiaque, 1991), 157–158. La Nuit des temps, 75.

[19]

Genesis, 3:7.

[20]

John, 1:48. This relationship between the fig and knowledge can be traced back to classical paganism: Plato, for example, called this fruit “the friend of philosophers,” according to Éloïse Mozzani, Le Livre des superstitions: mythes, croyances et légendes (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1995), 746.

[21]

Matthew, 21:19. Paul Sébillot, Le Folklore de France, vol. 6, La Flore (1906; reprint, Paris: Imago, 1985), 21; Mozzani, Le Livre des superstitions, 746.

[22]

Stuttgart Psalter, around 810 (Stuttgart: Württembergische Landes-bibliothek, Cod. Bibl. 172o 23, fol. 8).

[23]

Midrash Rabbah, Genesis XV, 7, trans. Maruani and Cohen-Arazi, 185; Génesis Rabbah I, trans. Vegas Montaner, 190–191.

[24]

Life of Adam and Eve (Apocalypse), xx, 4–5, trans. M. D. Johnson, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2:281; Apocalisse di Mosè, trans. Liliana Rosso Ubigli, in Apocrifi dell’Antico Testa-mento, ed. Paolo Sacchi (Turin: UTET, 1989), 2:429; Vida de Adán y Eva (Apocalipsis de Moises), trans. Natalio Fernández Marcos, in Apocrifos del Antiguo Testamento, ed. Alejandro Diez Macho (Madrid: Cristiandad, 1982), 2:330.

[25]

Testament of Adam 3c, trans. Stephen E. Robinson, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1:994; Testamento de Adán III, 4 (R II), trans. F. J. Martínez Fernández, in Apocrifos del Antiguo Testamento, 5:433.

[26]

Il Combattimento di Adamo, 40, ed. and trans. A. Battista and B. Bagatti (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1982), 110.

[27]

Theodoret of Cyrus, Quaestiones in Genesim, II, 28, Patrologia Graeca (PG), vol. LXXX, col. 125 c.

[28]

Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, I, 2, 2, ed. Ernst Kroymann (Turnhout: Brepols, 1954), 443. Corpus christianorum. Series latina, 1; Hugh of Saint Victor, Adnotationes elucidatoriae in Pentateuchon, Patrologia Latina (PL), vol. CLXXV, col. 42 a-b; Pierre Comestor, Historia scholastica, 23, PL, vol. CXCVIII, col. 1073 b-c. Even at the end of the Middles Ages, several authors still thought in this manner: Meister Eckhart, Commentaire de la Genèse, 97 and 205, ed. and trans. Fernand Brunner et al. (Paris: Éd. du Cerf, 1984), 360 and 518. L’Œuvre latine de Maître Eckhart, 1.

[29]

Das Tristan-Epos Gottfrieds von Strassburg, v. 17944, ed. Wolfgang Spiewok (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1989), 251. Deutsche Texte des Mittelalters, 75.

[30]

Beryl Smalley, “Andrew of Saint-Victor, Abbot of Wigmore: A Twelfth-Century Hebraist,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 10 (1938): 358–373; Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983), 149–172 and 179–180; Esra Shereshevsky, “Hebrew Traditions in Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 59 (1968–1969): 268–289.

[31]

Brosse, Mythologie des arbres, 285–286.

[32]

Jean Beleth, Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis, 125, ed. Herbert Douteil (Turnhout: Brepols, 1976), 239–241; Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia: Recreation for an Emperor, trans. S. E. Banks and J. W. Binns (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). In the thirteenth century, the theme appeared in several well-known texts, such as La Queste del Saint Graal, ed. Albert Pauphilet (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1980), 210ff. and Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend: Legenda aurea, vulgo Historia Lombardica dicta, LXVIII, ed. Theodor Graesse (1846; reprint, Osnabrück: Otto Zeller, 1969), 303–304.

[33]

Exodus, 29:13, 22; Leviticus, 3:4, 10, 15; 4:9; 7:4; 8:16, 25; 9:10, 19.

[34]

Tobit, VI, 7.

[35]

Hesiod, Théogonie, v. 524, ed. and trans. Paul Mazon, thirteenth reprint (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1996), 51. Coll. des Universités de France [Theogony, trans Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classics, 1914)].

[36]

Anacreon, “Fragment 33,” vv. 28, 32, in Carmina Anacreontea, ed. Martin L. West (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1984), 25.

[37]

Horace, Odes, IV, 1, 12, ed. and trans. François Villeneuve (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1927), 152 [The Complete Odes and Satires of Horace, trans. Sidney Alexander (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999)].

[38]

Plato, Timée, 71 a, d, ed. and trans. Albert Rivaud (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1985), 198 [Timaeus and Critias, ed. Thomas K. Johansen, trans. Desmond Lee (London: Penguin, 1977)].

[39]

In the Romanesque period, there was at least one allusion to the Latin Cupid (called only Amores) sending an arrow to the heart: Chrétien de Troyes, Cligès, v. 455, trans. Alexandre Micha (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1982) [Cliges, trans. W. W. Comfort (London: Everyman’s Library, 1914)]. A medieval collection of classical mythology, written between 875 and 1075, says that the gods sent an eagle to punish Prometheus by attacking his heart (not the liver, as Hesiod declared): Premier Mythographe du Vatican, I, 1, 3, ed. Nevio Zorzetti, trans. Jacques Berlioz (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1995), 2. The transposition of the symbolic role of the liver to the heart became so ingrained that modern scholars have more than once taken one for the other, as, for example, the translator of Horace, Odes, ed. and trans. Villeneuve, n.36 or that of Anacreon, Odes, trans. Frédéric Matthews (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1927), 91.

[40]

Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea, XXV, ed. Graesse, 120. Eve

"Fer Maiden" by Lindsday Ross by Classic Pirates

There be a new 5th rate frigate found in these waters. She be called the Fer Maiden, pierced for 36 guns. She's armed with 18 long guns on her upper (gun) deck with a further 14 cannonades on her weather decks. 2 long gun bow chasers and 2 larger cannonades on her stern complete her firepower.

She's built at Theme-scale: a slick, fast hunter that can protect merchants ... or hunt and take prizes. In this build she is flying the black, but every smart pirate knows that a letter of marque from a faction's admiralty is worth more than pieces of eight. A "chest" of alternate flags would be a great compliment.

Features: a working capstan to weigh anchor, a stove to feed her crew, a furnished cabin for her captain, standing and running rigging with yards that rotate to accurately portray various sailing profiles, and removable foc'sle and quarter decks to allow access to her gun deck and interior.

This is designed and built using real parts first before I made it digital in Stud.io and uses 100% legal build techniques and pieces.

Now, keep that prize 2 points off our larboard bow on a broad reach, throw all sheets to the wind and let her eat.

Build details: this started as an evolution from my earlier Barracuda frigate (21322 x2) but quickly became her own endeavor. I tried to nail the desired level of play vs realism, staying in theme scale and hull sections. My reasoning is that it can integrate nicer with peoples' official set collections if they choose. Because of that I decided to leave the molded shrouds off the mizzenmast, which allowed me to get the proportions of the sail plan "correct" whilst still allowing for full rotation of the yards and spanker. I fully realize some of the concessions and compromises I had to make but I like the result and challenge.

Full respect to you long-time MOC builders pioneering the space, and hopefully when viewing her with the theme-scale perspective you understand why I did certain things. One of which is only 4 mid sections, though her length is much closer to that of a 5-mid-frigate. I am currently building her modular lower hull so she can be displayed/played with a variety of ways - especially on an island beach getting careened, or perhaps in a yard getting her copper.

Check out the ReBrickable page for instructions and more details.

www.classic-pirates.com/mocs/class/ships/fer-maiden-by-su...

HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche displaying the vitarka mudrā, Teaching, Giving Instruction, Reason, Preaching, Transmission of the Dharma mudra, after a visit to the Sakya Dharma Center, 1976, SeaTac Airport, Seattle, Washington, USA by Wonderlane

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Three Short Teachings

By Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche:

Thoughts and the Mind

Like waves, all the activities of this life have rolled endlessly on, one after the other, yet they have left us feeling empty-handed. Myriads of thoughts have run through our mind, each one giving birth to many more, but what they have done is to increase our confusion and dissatisfaction.

When we closely examine the ordinary habits that underlie whatever we do and try to discover where they come from, we find that their very source is our failure to investigate them properly. We operate under the deluded assumption that everything has some sort of true, substantial reality. But when we look more carefully, we find that the phenomenal world is like a rainbow—vivid and colourful, but without any tangible existence.

When a rainbow appears in the sky we see many beautiful colours—yet a rainbow is not something we can clothe ourselves with, or wear as an ornament. There is nothing we can take hold of; it is simply something that appears to us through the conjunction of various conditions. Thoughts arise in the mind in just the same way. They have no tangible reality or intrinsic existence at all. There is therefore no logical reason why thoughts should have so much power over us, nor any reason why we should be enslaved by them.

Mind is what creates both samsara and nirvana. Yet there is nothing much to it—it is just thoughts. Once we recognize that thoughts are empty, the mind will no longer have the power to deceive us. But as long as we take our deluded thoughts as real, they will continue to torment us mercilessly, as they have been doing throughout countless past lives. To gain control over the mind, we need to be aware of what to do and what to avoid, and we also need to be alert and vigilant, constantly examining all our thoughts, words and actions.

To cut through the mind’s clinging, it is important to understand that all appearances are void, like the appearance of water in a mirage. Beautiful forms are of no benefit to the mind, nor can ugly forms harm it in any way. Sever the ties of hope and fear, attraction and repulsion, and remain in equanimity in the understanding that all phenomena are nothing more than projections of your own mind.

Once you have realized absolute truth, then you will see the whole, infinite display of relative phenomena that appears within it as no more than an illusion or a dream. To realize that appearance and voidness are one is what is called simplicity, or freedom from conceptual limitations.

Self and others

As you wish to be happy, so you should wish others to be happy too. As you wish to be free from suffering, so you should wish that all beings may also be free from suffering. You should think, “May all living creatures find happiness and the cause of happiness. May they be free from suffering and the cause of suffering. May they always have perfect happiness free from suffering. May they live in equanimity, without attachment or hatred but with love towards all without any discrimination.”

To feel overflowing love and almost unbearable compassion for all living creatures is the best way to fulfil the wishes of all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Even if for the moment you cannot actually help anyone in an external way, meditate on love and compassion constantly over the months and years until compassion is knit inseparably into the very fabric of your mind.

As you try to practise and progress on the path, it is essential to remember that your efforts are for the sake of others. Be humble and remember that all your exertions are child’s play compared to the vast and infinite activity of the Bodhisattvas. Like parents providing for the children they love so much, never think that you have done too much for others—or even enough. Even if you finally manage to establish all living creatures in perfect Buddhahood, simply think that all your wishes have been fulfilled. There must never be so much as a trace of hope for any benefit for oneself in return.

The essence of the Bodhisattva practice is to go beyond self-clinging and dedicate yourself to serving others. The Bodhisattva’s activity hinges on the mind, not on how your actions might appear externally. True generosity is the absence of clinging, ultimate discipline is the absence of desire, and authentic patience is the absence of hatred. Bodhisattvas are able to give away their kingdom, their body, their dearest possessions, because they have completely overcome any inner impoverishment and are unconditionally ready to fulfil the needs of others.

Practice

The teachings we need most are those that will actually strengthen and inspire our practice. It is all very well to receive teachings as high as the sky, but the sky is not that easy to grasp. Start with practices which you can truly assimilate—developing determination to be free of ordinary concerns, nurturing love and compassion—and as you gain stability in your practice you will eventually be able to master all the higher teachings.

The only way to achieve liberation from samsara and attain the omniscience of enlightenment is to rely on an authentic spiritual teacher. An authentic spiritual teacher is like the sail that enables a boat to cross the ocean swiftly.

The sun and moon are reflected in clear, still water instantly. Similarly, the blessings of the Three Jewels are always present for those who have complete confidence in them. The sun’s rays fall everywhere uniformly, but only where they are focused through a magnifying glass can they set dry grass on fire. When the all-pervading rays of the Buddhas’ compassion are focused through the magnifying glass of your faith and devotion, the flame of blessings blazes up in your being.

Obstacles can arise from good as well as bad circumstances, but they should never deter or overpower you. Be like the earth, which supports all living creatures indiscriminately, without distinguishing good from bad. The earth is simply there. Your practice should be strengthened by the difficult situations you encounter, just as a bonfire in a strong wind is not blown out, but blazes even brighter.

When someone harms you, see him as a kind teacher who is showing you the path to liberation and merits your respect. Pray that you may be able to help him as much as you can, and whatever happens, never hope for an opportunity for vengeance. It is particularly admirable to bear patiently the harm and scorn of people who have less education, strength or skill than you.

Look right into it, and you will see that the person who is harmed, the person who does the harm, and the harm itself are all totally devoid of any inherent reality. Who, then, is going to get angry at mere delusions? Faced with these empty appearances, is there anything to be lost or gained? Is there anything to be liked or disliked? It is all like an empty sky. Recognize that!

Once you control the anger within, you will discover that there is not a single adversary left outside. But as long as you pay heed to your hatred and attempt to overcome your external opponents, even if you succeed, more will inevitably rise up in their place. Even if you managed to overpower everyone in the whole world, your anger would only grow stronger; to follow it will never make it subside. The only really intolerable enemy is hatred itself. To defeat the enemy of hatred it is necessary to meditate one-pointedly on patience and love until they truly take root in your being. Then there can be no outer adversaries.

Ask yourself how many of the billions of inhabitants of this planet have any idea of how rare it is to have been born as a human being. How many of those who understand the rarity of human birth ever think of using that chance to practise the Dharma? How many of those who think of starting to practise actually do so? How many of those who start continue to practise? How many of those who continue attain ultimate realization? Indeed, those who attain ultimate realization, compared to those who do not, are as few as the stars you can see at daybreak compared to the myriad stars you can see in the clear night sky.

As long as you, like most people, fail to recognize the true value of human existence you will just fritter your life away in futile activity and distraction. When life comes all too soon to its inevitable end, you will not have achieved anything worthwhile at all. But once you really see the unique opportunity that human life can bring, you will definitely direct all your energy into reaping its true worth by putting the Dharma into practice.

If you make use of your human birth in the right way, you can achieve enlightenment in this very lifetime. All the great Siddhas of the past were born as ordinary people. But by entering the Dharma, following a realized teacher and devoting their whole lives to practising the instructions they received, they were able to manifest the enlightened activities of great Bodhisattvas.

Translated by the Padmakara Translation Group

From Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Editions Padmakara

Photo by Chris Wilkinson, SeaTac Airport, Seattle, Washington, USA 1976

URBEX LV - Spilves lidosta by Diapozitīvs

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There's a sad knowledge in my heart of where this tendency of content overpolicing is going on a larger scale. This overreach of control and micromanagement that's getting normalized fast on or way to 1984.

If I'd posted this pic to a small local URBEX Facebook group, my post would be deleted without any explanation and prior communication on rules regarding location disclosure elsewhere, although I never disclose locations explicitly - not on Facebook, not on Flickr, not anywhere. And have been rude in the past to make clear that I won’t disclose the info, so that the received message is as laconic and clear as possible. So that the potential explorer in contact could go fuck him/herself ASAP and hard.

Today – after being around abandoned places for 30+ years and pondering this for a quite some time, especially in 20/21, I’m thinking a tad differently. Do I care about Fecesbook drama? No, I’m on my way out of there for good and only my business interests hold me to that decrepit shithole, plus I can find another ways to reach local customers, so the ban affects me only in principle (first post sanitization without prior communication) that’s laid bare below.

So, my first post in that group was deleted yesterday. Basis? As it turned out when I PM’d the admin of the group for some reasoning: “You have disclosed locations on your Flickr”, which just amazes me. I upload to Flickr using external tool exclusively, and have set a Publish rule to never post GPS locations. So I went through my Flickr titles, and found out whopping 5 unique places named.

This will be the 6th.

Some might argue that even this amount of information disclosure is too much, to which I wholeheartedly agree to a degree: only if the place is not in public domain, AND if there’s anything but walls and smashed windows left in there. Yesteryear I’d told you to fuck off. Today I’d do some work before doing so. I’d check your profile for signs of thorough and non-damaging interest, and will disclose the place only if some evidence is found. This is the healthier approach, in my opinion, and here’s why.

If you do some critical thinking on this idea of info non-disclosure between URBEX people, at least a couple of problems present themselves gloriously clearly, and they tend to contradict the assumption that information non-disclosure will somehow magically stop the entropy, and will keep the place up and in good health. 1) Places getting ruined or demolished anyways (entropy); 2) Places getting renovated and made boring to explorers.

I’m highly doubtful that scrappers, vandals, teens and addicts use local URBEX internet groups as their primary source of information. These places attract all these kinds of people. They use brains too, and scrappers can smell abandonment miles away, for their living depends on it, not just a silly drive to trespass and explore the living past. Teens and vandals are usually local pricks that enjoy the feeling of smashed windows and falling walls, and I can’t really blame them, it’s a ton of fun, if you look at it honestly.

I’ve been exploring long enough to see non-disclosed places destroyed by scrappers and vandals time and time again. To see how bulldozers level a premium undisclosed Soviet fallout shelter / Communications center – twice at least.

Been here long enough to experience a building getting renovated and opened to the public once again – this very picture is from that place!

And the net result of this is what exactly? What’s the message to take home?

Well, those bulldozed places are leveled, no more living history to experience and less quality pictures, because inevitably some talented photographers missed the place because of the lack of exchange of info between URBEXers. So - fewer enthusiasts got to experience those places and… that’s about it.

And this particular piece I’m posting – it’s Spilves lidosta in Latvia, an Airport that’s an example of premium Stalin's neoclassical architecture in an awesome shape. Only some boarded windows and that’s about it. Why it was in such a pristine condition when we visited it in 2010 and managed to get in? Well, because it was a tad harder to access (some activity on runways and around, and a very naked/open place, no hiding to be had) and guarded the whole time: security personnel, cameras and all that sweet Jazz for us to bypass non-destructively. Today this airport is available to the public and the net result is? Well, less explorers got to experience the place and take pics on their own terms, and access now inaccessiblep areas.

You tell me if this approach isn’t damaging to URBEX movement as a whole? I see a whole lot of Ego masturbation in this too, and it’s ugly. Because scrappers will find their scrap, vandals will find their stuff to smash, and owners or the city will one day demolish or renovate our URBEX sites, and we will move on, trying to protect this information from ourselves.

Thanks for the read! : )

Jessops Pan 100S scanned with Plustek 7600i Ai.

Best enjoyed with Dark Ambient / URBEX

IMG_5350 by SingWay

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國立台灣文學館 - 推理文學在臺灣特展 / 古典電話機 - 戲劇性演出

National Museum of Taiwanese Literature - Reasoning literature in Taiwan special exhibition / Classical telephone - Dramatic performance

Museo Nacional de la literatura taiwanesa - Razonamiento de la literatura en Taiwan exposición especial / Teléfono clásico - Rendimiento espectacular

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 / 古典の電話機 - 演劇性の公演

Nationalmuseum der taiwanesischen Literatur - Begründung Literatur in Taiwan Sonderausstellung / Klassisches Telefon - Dramatische Leistung

Musée national de la littérature taiwanaise - Raisonnement de la littérature à Taiwan exposition spéciale / Téléphone classique - Performance dramatique

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

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

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

jørn utzon, bagsværd kirke - bagsvaerd church, copenhagen 1967-1976 by seier+seier

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bagsværd kirke - bagsvaerd church, copenhagen, denmark 1967-1976.

architect: jørn utzon, 1918-2008.

in so many churches there is this battle royale taking place between a giant sunburst of an organ and the space it inhabits. not so at bagsværd. utzon fits the organ into neat little wooden boxes, makes furniture of it, and a clear hierarchy is established. it is even charming and in a difficult and demanding modern building acts like something of an invitation to the layman.

observations like this abound in utzon's architecture. the reasoning may be easy to follow, but as an architect I find his ability to work out solutions entirely within the logic of the problem he has set for himself humbling.

as has been noticed elsewhere, utzon's original plan for the furnishing had members of the congregation facing each other across the aisle and thus facing the organ wall and its opposing interior elevation, both of which offer a perfect delineation of the great concrete shell vault. what a loss, it seems, to have conventional pews instead.

as for any longer text on bagsværd, I have decided against it for now. not that I don't have anything to say, I find the architect misrepresented by much of the writing out there, the strangeness of it all appears lost on his Danish commentators to whom art can be rationalized to the point of banality, while the international reception is typified by convoluted essays establishing how every part of his buildings fit into semperian categories. they don't, of course, unless you are really writing about semper and then the whole world fits, not just utzon.

I would much rather meet with those of you who are interested and discuss the church and its architect on site. I wonder if we could have as fruitful and thought-provoking discussions as we sometimes have here on flickr. imagine spending the morning in lewerentz' church in klippan and the afternoon in bagsværd watching the space darken and turn slightly blue as the sun sets. two buildings on identical programs, contemporary and separated only by a short drive, yet as different as day and night - and as intimately connected. what a day.

for now, I hope you all have a wonderful summer - and thank you for your responsiveness and patience during my somewhat long introduction of hans christian hansen's work. I have even stranger scandinavian modernists on the HDD, but they will have to wait.

more utzon here

more words, yada, yada, yada.

The elusive 1153 by atfd26

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I would say that this is probably been the hardest bus to get my camera to despite still having about 300 buses yet to capture this one has had one of the weirdest histories in recent Lothian history with 3 significant layoffs already and that is on top of it having only been with Lothian since the summer of 2019.

So, back to the summer of 2019, Lothian bought themselves 14 more Ex Londoners 1 standard bus and 13 this time with exit door still in tact to go alongside the 50 they had purchased the previous summer. Originally basing them at Marine depot for usage mostly for the service 4. Fast forward just shy 9 months and the pandemic of Coronavirus hits. So, here comes 1153s first layoff (like the at some point the whole fleet) for approximately 3 months as buses were on a critical timetable with about only 20% of services running.

Then for about 2 years there isn't too much to report for 1153 as it runs standardly until summer of 2022, when their is a timetable change and leaves only 1143 in service and puts the others into reserve, the likely reasoning behind this is that due to the exit door downstairs there is a significant reduction in seating downstairs which means that capacity is significantly less and they struggle to deal with a full load of passengers.

Yet again it returns in September 2022 this time based out of Longstone primarily on service 33 duties as it requires slightly less capacity however, this change shall we say was short lived as 2 months later poor old 1153 found itself yet again in the reserve team at the back of Marine looking rather miserable with the talk being that 1153 would never return to service and would be sold off which would have made it one of Lothians' shortest lived buses in the fleet as through service changes it still did not return and I genuinely thought I wouldn't even manage a ride on it (I like to get a ride on each bus).

However, in yet another change in the tale of 1153 on the 1st of July it decided it would return to service and made its appearance back for the start of the summer season due to an increase of one bus being needed so the call up finally came.

And i finally got a ride on 1153 taking absolutely no chances in this life of it, and just as I got off I thought I could get a pretty decent capture and with a touch up to brighten it, I think it looks pretty epic. So, here we see at last Lothian Buses 1153 terminating at Ocean Terminal on a service 35 as it waits to go back to Heriot Watt university as it embarks on a the student route on a rather miserable Thursday afternoon in September.

IMG_5359 by SingWay

7 2

國立台灣文學館 - 推理文學在臺灣特展 / 小說引人入勝 - 因為全是秘密

National Museum of Taiwanese Literature - Reasoning literature in Taiwan special exhibition / The novel is fascinating - Because it is all secret

Museo Nacional de la literatura taiwanesa - Razonamiento de la literatura en Taiwan exposición especial / La novela es fascinante - Porque es todo secreto

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 / 小説は人をうっとりさせます - すべて秘密ためです

Nationalmuseum der taiwanesischen Literatur - Begründung Literatur in Taiwan Sonderausstellung / Der Roman ist faszinierend - Weil es alles Geheimnis ist

Musée national de la littérature taiwanaise - Raisonnement de la littérature à Taiwan exposition spéciale / Le roman est fascinant - Parce que tout est secret

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

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

Super Learning - Concentration, Study Music, BiNaural Beats | Enhance Your Learning Skills by Healing 4 Happiness

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

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20200710 Don't Step on a Bee Day by Ron Brauer

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Things were all a-buzz in the garden as Honeybee came to 'kiss' the flowers.

On this, "Don't Step on a Bee" Day, you can also 'kiss a bee' rather than step on one by planting flowers that will attract them and allow them a place for shade and rest. Read more below..

July 10 Is Don’t Step on a Bee Day

Bees are the world's largest pollinators and there are 20,000 species of them. Bumblebees and honeybees have bodies specifically made for collecting pollen, as the pollen gets stuck to the fine hairs on their bodies. The pollen then goes to pollen baskets on the back of the bees’ legs, where it stays while being transported. Pollination makes food that we eat grow, and this is just one of many benefits that bees bring humans, along with the making of products such as honey and beeswax.

Don't Step on a Bee Day was created to remind people that going barefoot can mean getting stung by a bee. According to the creators of the day, Thomas and Ruth Roy, if you get stung, you are supposed to "tell Mom." Although the original reasoning behind the day says that bees shouldn't be stepped on because you may get stung, many have interpreted the day as meaning that people shouldn't willingly step on bees to harm them and that there is a need to protect and care for bees. The holiday is particularly celebrated this way in the United Kingdom.

Why do bees need protection? Besides getting killed by people stepping on them or hitting them with fly swatters, they face many other obstacles. They are killed by insecticides, particularly by those containing neonicotinoids. They commonly die from pollution, chemical exposure, and temperature change. Honey bees are threatened by mites that carry diseases, and bumblebees often have a hard time finding flowers and places to nest.

On Don't Step on a Bee Day, people share online about the best ways to protect bees. Special events have also been organized, where people have learned about the benefits of bees and how to take care of them. Ultimately, today is for being aware of bees. Yes, it’s important to be aware that if you are walking barefoot you may be stung, but it is also important to remember the many benefits that bees bring.

How to Observe

One way to celebrate the day is to keep an eye out for bees when you are walking around barefoot, so you don't get stung. Perhaps you could count how many bees you see during the day while doing this. As the day is more so celebrated as a day to help bees, while you are watching not to step on them, you could keep an eye out for ones having trouble in the heat. If you see that some are struggling, you could give them a few drops of sugar water.

There are many things you can do to help protect and care for bees. Some general things you could do are make sure bees in your yard have water, and limit your pesticide use or go organic. You could plant pollen-rich plants and flowers in your garden that are attractive to bees. You could also put up a bee hotel. After learning about beekeeping, you could make an apiary. You will need to purchase or build beehives to make this a reality.

You could also read more about bees to gain a deeper knowledge about them and learn more ways to enjoy their benefits. Picking up a copy of The Beekeeper's Bible: Bees, Honey, Recipes & Other Home Uses may be a good place to start. If nothing else, you could eat some honey on the day. There is such a buzz around the subject of bees, that you should be able to find some enjoyable way to celebrate the holiday!

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IMG_5357 by SingWay

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國立台灣文學館 - 推理文學在臺灣特展 / 相機紀錄真實 - 才有正確的歷史

National Museum of Taiwanese Literature - Reasoning literature in Taiwan special exhibition / The camera records the real - Will be the correct history

Museo Nacional de la literatura taiwanesa - Razonamiento de la literatura en Taiwan exposición especial / La cámara registra el real - Será la historia correcta

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 / カメラが記録するのが真実です - 正しい歴史があります

Nationalmuseum der taiwanesischen Literatur - Begründung Literatur in Taiwan Sonderausstellung / Die Kamera zeichnet das Reale auf - Wird die richtige Geschichte sein

Musée national de la littérature taiwanaise - Raisonnement de la littérature à Taiwan exposition spéciale / La caméra enregistre le réel - Sera l'histoire correcte

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

PENTAX SMC TAKUMAR 50mm 1:1.4

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