The Postcard

 

A postally unused carte postale published by F. Chapeau of Nantes.

 

Although the card was not posted, someone has written a date on the back:

 

"5. 12. 32".

 

Le Château des Ducs de Bretagne

 

Le Château des Ducs de Bretagne is a large castle located in the city of Nantes in the Loire-Atlantique département of France.

 

It is located on the right bank of the Loire, which formerly fed its ditches. It was the residence of the Dukes of Brittany between the 13th. and 16th. centuries, subsequently becoming the Breton residence of the French Monarchy.

 

The castle has been listed as a Monument Historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1862.

 

Restoration of the Château

 

Starting in the 1990's, the town of Nantes undertook a massive programme of restoration and repairs to return the site to its former glory as an emblem of the history of Nantes and Brittany.

 

Following 15 years of works and three years of closure to the public, it was reopened on the 9th. February 2007, and is now a popular tourist attraction. Night-time illuminations at the castle further reinforce the revival of the château.

 

The restored edifice now includes the new Nantes History Museum, installed in 32 of the castle rooms. The museum presents more than 850 objects of interest with the aid of multimedia devices.

 

The château and its museum try to offer a modern vision of the heritage by presenting the past, the present and the future of the city.

 

The 500-metre round walk on the fortified ramparts provides views not just of the castle buildings and courtyards but also of the town.

 

The Sale of Liquor

 

So what else happened on Monday the 5th. December 1932?

 

Well, on that day, a joint resolution was introduced to the U.S. Congress repealing the Eighteenth Amendment, and turning the regulation of liquor over to the individual states.

 

British War Debts

 

Also on that day, the British government suggested issuing bonds to cover its war debts to the United States.

 

'Jane'

 

Also on that day, the comic strip 'Jane' by Norman Pett first appeared in the British tabloid newspaper the Daily Mirror.

 

Little Richard

 

The 5th. December 1932 also marked the birth, in Macon, Georgia, of Little Richard.

 

Richard Wayne Penniman, known professionally as Little Richard, was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades.

 

Described as the "Architect of Rock and Roll", Richard's most celebrated work dates from the mid-1950's, when his charismatic showmanship and dynamic music, characterized by frenetic piano playing, pounding back beat and raspy shouted vocals, laid the foundation for rock and roll.

 

Richard's innovative emotive vocalizations and uptempo rhythmic music also played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk.

 

He influenced numerous singers and musicians across musical genres from rock to hip hop, and his music helped shape rhythm and blues for generations.

 

"Tutti Frutti" (1955), one of Richard's signature songs, became an instant hit, crossing over to the pop charts in both the United States and the United Kingdom. His next hit single, "Long Tall Sally" (1956), hit No. 1 on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues Best-Sellers chart, followed by a rapid succession of fifteen more hits in less than three years.

 

Richard's performances during this period resulted in integration between the white Americans and black Americans in his audience.

 

In 1962, after a five-year period during which Richard abandoned rock and roll music for born again Christianity, concert promoter Don Arden persuaded him to tour Europe.

 

During this time, the Beatles opened for Richard on some tour dates. Richard advised the Beatles on how to perform his songs, and taught Paul McCartney his distinctive vocalizations.

 

Richard is cited as one of the first crossover black artists, reaching audiences of all races. His music and concerts broke the color line, drawing black and white people together despite attempts to sustain segregation.

 

Many of his contemporaries, including Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran, recorded covers of his works.

 

Impressed by Richard's music and style, and personally covering four of Richard's songs on his own two breakthrough albums in 1956, Presley told Richard in 1969 that his music was an inspiration to him, and that he was "the greatest".

 

Richard was honored by many institutions. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of its first group of inductees in 1986. He was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

 

Richard was the recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from The Recording Academy and the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.

 

In 2015, Richard received a Rhapsody & Rhythm Award from the National Museum of African American Music for his key role in the formation of popular music genres, and for helping to bring an end to the racial divide on the music charts and in concerts in the mid-1950's.

 

"Tutti Frutti" was included in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2010, which stated that:

 

"Richard's unique vocalizing over the

irresistible beat announced a new era

in music".

 

Little Richard - The Early Years

 

Richard Wayne Penniman was the third of twelve children of Leva Mae (née Stewart) and Charles "Bud" Penniman. His father was a church deacon and a brick mason, who sold bootlegged moonshine on the side, and who also owned a nightclub called the Tip In Inn. Richard's mother was a member of Macon's New Hope Baptist Church.

 

Initially, his first name was supposed to have been "Ricardo", but an error resulted in "Richard" instead. In childhood, he was nicknamed "Lil' Richard" by his family because of his small and skinny frame.

 

The Penniman children were raised in a neighborhood of Macon called Pleasant Hill. A mischievous child who played pranks on neighbors, he began singing in church and taking piano lessons at a young age.

 

Possibly as a result of complications at birth, Richard had a slight deformity that left one of his legs shorter than the other. This produced an unusual gait, and he was mocked for his allegedly effeminate appearance.

 

Richard's family were very religious, and joined various A.M.E., Baptist, and Pentecostal churches, with some family members becoming ministers. He enjoyed the Pentecostal churches the most, because of their charismatic worship and live music.

 

Richard later recalled that people in his neighborhood sang gospel songs throughout the day during segregation to keep a positive outlook, because:

 

"There was so much poverty, so

much prejudice in those days".

 

He had observed that:

 

"People sing to feel their connection

with God, and to wash their trials and

burdens away."

 

Gifted with a loud singing voice, he recalled that:

 

"I was always changing the key upwards,

and I was once stopped from singing in

church for screaming and hollering so loud.

My singing gave me the nickname "War Hawk".

 

Richard recalled that:

 

"As a child, I would beat on the steps

of the house, and on tin cans and pots

and pans, or whatever, while I was

singing, and this used to annoy the

neighbors."

 

Richard's initial musical influences were gospel performers such as Brother Joe May, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson, and Marion Williams.

 

Joe May, a singing evangelist who was known as "The Thunderbolt of the Middle West" because of his phenomenal range and vocal power, inspired Richard to become a preacher. He credited the Clara Ward Singers for one of his distinctive hollers.

 

Richard attended Macon's Hudson High School, where he was a below-average student. He eventually learned to play alto saxophone, joining the school's marching band while in fifth grade.

 

While still in high school, Richard got a part-time job at Macon City Auditorium for local secular and gospel concert promoter Clint Brantley. He sold Coca-Cola to crowds during concerts of star performers of the day such as Cab Calloway, Lucky Millinder, and his favorite singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

 

Little Richard's Music Career

 

(a) 1947–1955: Beginnings

 

In October 1947, Sister Rosetta Tharpe overheard the fourteen-year-old Richard singing her songs before a performance at the Macon City Auditorium, and she invited him to open her show.

 

After the show, Tharpe paid Richard, inspiring him to become a professional performer. Richard stated that his piano style was greatly influenced by Ike Turner's piano intro on "Rocket 88".

 

In 1949, Richard began performing in Doctor Nubillo's traveling show. He was inspired to wear turbans and capes in his career by Nubillo, who also:

 

"Carried a black stick and exhibited

something he called 'the devil's child'—

supposedly the dried-up body of a

baby, with claw feet like a bird, and

horns on its head."

 

Nubillo told Richard:

 

"You're gonna be famous, but you'll

have to go where the grass is greener".

 

Before entering the tenth grade, Richard left his family home and joined Hudson's Medicine Show in 1949, performing Louis Jordan's "Caldonia". Richard recalled that the song was the first secular R&B song he learned, since his family had strict rules against playing R&B music, which they considered "devil music".

 

Little Richard was influenced by Jordan. In fact, the whoop sound on Jordan's record "Caldonia" sounds eerily like the vocal tone Little Richard adopted, in addition to the "Jordan-style pencil-thin mustache".

 

Richard also performed in drag during this time, performing under the name "Princess LaVonne".

 

In 1950, Richard joined his first musical band, Buster Brown's Orchestra, where Brown gave him the name Little Richard. Performing in the minstrel show circuit, Richard, in and out of drag, performed for various vaudeville acts such as Sugarfoot Sam from Alabam, the Tidy Jolly Steppers, the King Brothers Circus, and Broadway Follies.

 

Having settled in Atlanta at this point, Richard began listening to rhythm and blues, and frequented Atlanta clubs, including the Harlem Theater and the Royal Peacock, where he saw performers such as Roy Brown and Billy Wright onstage.

 

Richard was further influenced by Brown's and Wright's flashy style of showmanship, and was even more influenced by Wright's flamboyant persona. Inspired by Brown and Wright, he decided to become a rhythm-and-blues singer, and after befriending Wright, began to learn how to be an entertainer from him.

 

Richard began to sport a pompadour hairdo similar to Wright's, as well as a pencil mustache, using Wright's brand of facial pancake makeup and wearing flashier clothes.

 

Impressed by his singing voice, Wright put him in contact with Zenas Sears, a local D. J. Sears recorded Richard at his station, backed by Wright's band. The recordings led to a contract that year with RCA Victor. Richard recorded a total of eight sides for RCA Victor, including the blues ballad, "Every Hour", which became his first single, and a hit in Georgia.

 

The release of "Every Hour" improved his relationship with his father, who began regularly playing the song on his nightclub jukebox. Shortly after the release of "Every Hour", Richard was hired to front Perry Welch and His Orchestra, and played at clubs and army bases for $100 a week.

 

Richard left RCA Victor in February 1952 after his records for the label failed to chart; the recordings were marketed with little promotion from RCA Victor, although ads for the records showed up in Billboard Magazine.

 

After his father´s death in 1952, Richard began to find success, RCA Victor re-issued the recordings on the budget RCA Camden label. He continued to perform during this time, and Clint Brantley agreed to manage Richard's career.

 

Moving to Houston, he formed a band called the Tempo Toppers, performing as part of blues package tours in Southern clubs such as Club Tijuana in New Orleans, and Club Matinee in Houston.

 

Richard signed with Don Robey's Peacock Records in February 1953, recording eight sides, including four with Johnny Otis and his band that were unreleased at the time. Like Richard's venture with RCA Victor, none of his Peacock singles charted, despite Richard getting knocked out by Robey during a scuffle.

 

Disillusioned by the record business, Richard returned to Macon in 1954. Struggling with poverty, he settled for work as a dishwasher for Greyhound Lines.

 

While in Macon, he met Esquerita, whose flamboyant onstage persona and dynamic piano playing deeply influenced Richard's approach to performance. That year, he disbanded the Tempo Toppers, and formed a harder-driving rhythm and blues band, the Upsetters, which included drummer Charles Connor and saxophonist Wilbert "Lee Diamond" Smith.

 

In 1954, Richard signed on to a Southern tour with Little Johnny Taylor. The band supported R&B singer Christine Kittrell on some recordings, then began to tour successfully, even without a bass guitarist, forcing drummer Connor to thump "real hard" on his bass drum in order to get a "bass fiddle effect". Around this time, Richard signed a contract to tour with fellow R&B singer Little Johnny Taylor.

 

At the suggestion of Lloyd Price, Richard sent a demo to Price's label, Specialty Records, in February 1955. Months passed before Richard got a call from the label. Finally, in September of that year, Specialty owner Art Rupe loaned Richard money to buy out of his Peacock contract, and set him to work with producer Robert "Bumps" Blackwell.

 

Upon hearing the demo, Blackwell felt that Richard was Specialty's answer to Ray Charles. However, Richard told him that he preferred the sound of Fats Domino. Blackwell sent him to New Orleans, where he recorded at Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studios, recording there with several of Domino's session musicians, including drummer Earl Palmer and saxophonist Lee Allen.

 

Richard's recordings that day failed to produce much inspiration or interest (although Blackwell saw some promise). Frustrated, Blackwell and Richard went to relax at the Dew Drop Inn nightclub. According to Blackwell, Richard then launched into a risqué dirty blues he titled "Tutti Frutti".

 

Blackwell felt that the song had hit potential, and hired songwriter Dorothy LaBostrie to replace some of Richard's sexual lyrics with less controversial ones. He also changed the microphone placement, and pushed Richard's voice forward.

 

Recorded in three takes in September 1955, "Tutti Frutti" was released as a single that November, and became an instant hit, reaching No. 2 on Billboard magazine's Rhythm and Blues Best-Sellers chart and crossing over to the pop charts in both the United States and the United Kingdom. It reached No. 21 on the Billboard Top 100 in America, and No. 29 on the British singles chart, eventually selling a million copies.

 

(b) 1956–1962: Initial Success and Conversion

 

Richard's next hit single, "Long Tall Sally" (1956), hit number one on the R&B chart and number thirteen on the Top 100 while reaching the top ten in Great Britain. Like "Tutti Frutti", it sold over a million copies.

 

Following his success, Richard built up his backup band, The Upsetters, with the addition of saxophonists Clifford "Gene" Burks and leader Grady Gaines, bassist Olsie "Baysee" Robinson and guitarist Nathaniel "Buster" Douglas.

 

Richard began performing on package tours across the United States. Art Rupe described the differences between Richard and a similar hitmaker of the early rock and roll period by stating that:

 

"While the similarities between Little Richard

and Fats Domino for recording purposes were

close, Richard would sometimes stand up at

the piano while he was recording and onstage,

whereas Domino was plodding, and very slow,

Richard was very dynamic, completely uninhibited,

unpredictable, and wild. So the band took on

the ambience of the vocalist."

 

Richard's performances, like most early rock and roll shows, resulted in integrated audience reaction during an era where public places were divided into "white" and "colored" domains. In these package tours, Richard and other artists such as Fats Domino and Chuck Berry would enable audiences of both races to enter the building, albeit still segregated (e.g. blacks on the balcony and whites on the main floor).

 

As his later Producer H. B. Barnum, explained, Richard's performances enabled audiences to come together to dance. Despite broadcasts on television from local supremacist groups such as the North Alabama White Citizens Council warning that rock and roll "brings the races together", Richard's popularity was helping to shatter the myth that black performers could not successfully perform at "white-only venues", especially in the South where racism was most overt.

 

Richard's high-energy antics included lifting his leg while playing the piano, climbing on top of his piano, running on and off the stage and throwing souvenirs to the audience. He also began using capes and suits studded with multi-colored stones and sequins. Richard said he began to be more flamboyant onstage so that no one would think he was "after the white girls".

 

Little Richard recalled:

 

"A lot of songs I sang to crowds first

to watch their reaction. That's how I

knew they'd hit."

 

Richard claims that a show at Baltimore's Royal Theatre in June 1956 led to some women throwing their panties onstage at him, resulting in other female fans repeating the action, saying that it was "the first time" that had happened to any artist.

 

Richard's show stopped several times that night due to fans being restrained from jumping off the balcony and then rushing to the stage to touch him.

 

Overall, Richard produced seven singles in the United States alone in 1956, with five of them also charting in the UK, including "Slippin' and Slidin'", "Rip It Up", "Ready Teddy", "The Girl Can't Help It" and "Lucille".

 

Immediately after releasing "Tutti Frutti", which was then protocol for the industry, "safer" white recording artists such as Pat Boone covered the song, sending the song to the top twenty of the charts, several positions higher than Richard's.

 

His fellow rock and roll peers Elvis Presley and Bill Haley also recorded his songs later that same year. Befriending Alan Freed, Richard was given a role in "rock and roll" movies such as Don't Knock the Rock, and Mister Rock and Roll.

 

Richard was given a larger singing role in the 1956 film, The Girl Can't Help It starring Jayne Mansfield. That year, he scored more hit successes with songs such as "Jenny, Jenny" and "Keep A-Knockin,'" the latter becoming his first top ten single on the Billboard Top 100.

 

By the time he left Specialty in 1959, Richard had scored a total of nine top 40 pop singles and seventeen top 40 R&B singles.

 

Richard performed at the famed twelfth Cavalcade of Jazz held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles on the 2nd. September 1956.

 

Also performing that day were Dinah Washington, The Mel Williams Dots, Chuck Higgins' Orchestra, Bo Rhambo, Willie Hayden & Five Black Birds, The Premiers, Gerald Wilson and his 20-Piece Recording Orchestra, and Jerry Gray and his Orchestra.

 

Shortly after the release of "Tutti Frutti", Richard relocated to Los Angeles. After achieving success as a recording artist and live performer, Richard moved into a wealthy, formerly predominantly white neighborhood, living close to black celebrities such as boxer Joe Louis.

 

Richard's first album, Here's Little Richard, was released by Specialty in March 1957, and peaked at number thirteen on the Billboard Top LPs chart. Similar to most albums released during that era, the album featured six released singles and a number of "filler" tracks.

 

In October 1957, Richard embarked on a package tour in Australia with Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran. During the middle of the tour, he shocked the public by announcing that he intended to follow a life in the ministry.

 

Richard claimed in his autobiography that during a flight from Melbourne to Sydney, his plane was experiencing some difficulty, and he claimed to have seen the plane's red hot engines, and felt that angels were "holding it up".

 

At the end of his Sydney performance, Richard saw a bright red fireball flying across the sky above him, and claimed that he was "deeply shaken". Though he was eventually told that it was the launching of the first artificial Earth satellite Sputnik 1, Richard took it as a "sign from God" to repent from performing secular music and his wild lifestyle at the time.

 

Returning to the States ten days earlier than expected, Richard later read that the flight he had originally planned to take had crashed into the Pacific Ocean, He regarded this as a further sign to "do as God wanted".

 

After a "farewell performance" at the Apollo Theater and a "final" recording session with Specialty later that month, Richard enrolled at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, to study theology.

 

Despite his claims of spiritual rebirth, Richard admitted his reasons for leaving were more monetary. During his tenure at Specialty, despite earning millions for the label, Richard complained that he was unaware that Speciality had reduced the percentage of royalties he was to earn from his recordings.

 

In early 1958, Specialty released Richard's second album, Little Richard, which didn't chart.

 

Specialty continued to release Richard's recordings, including "Good Golly, Miss Molly" and his unique version of "Kansas City", until 1960. Finally ending his contract with the label, Richard agreed to relinquish any royalties for his material.

 

In 1958, Richard formed the Little Richard Evangelistic Team, traveling across the country to preach. A month after his decision to leave secular music, Richard met Ernestine Harvin, a secretary from Washington, D.C., and the couple married on the 11th. July 1959.

 

Richard ventured into gospel music, first recording for End Records, before signing with Mercury Records in 1961, where he eventually released King of the Gospel Singers, in 1962, produced by Quincy Jones, who later remarked that Richard's vocals impressed him more than any other vocalist that he had worked with.

 

Richard's childhood heroine, Mahalia Jackson, wrote in the notes of the album that:

 

"Richard sings gospel the

way it should be sung".

 

While Richard was no longer charting in the U.S. with pop music, some of his gospel songs such as "He's Not Just a Soldier" and "He Got What He Wanted", and "Crying in the Chapel", reached the pop charts in the U.S. and in the UK.

 

(c) 1962–1979: Return to Secular Music

 

Mick Jagger said of Richard:

 

"I heard so much about the audience

reaction, I thought there must be some

exaggeration. But it was all true.

He drove the whole house into a

complete frenzy ... I couldn't believe

the power of Little Richard onstage.

He was amazing."

 

In 1962, concert promoter Don Arden persuaded Little Richard to tour Europe after telling him his records were still selling well there.

 

With soul singer Sam Cooke as an opening act, Richard, who featured a teenage Billy Preston in his gospel band, figured it was a gospel tour and, after Cooke's delayed arrival forced him to cancel his show on the opening date, performed only gospel material during the show. This led to boos from the audience, who were expecting Richard to sing his rock and roll hits.

 

The following night, Richard viewed Cooke's well-received performance. Bringing back his competitive drive, Richard and Preston warmed up in darkness before launching into "Long Tall Sally", resulting in frenetic, hysterical responses from the audience.

 

A show at Mansfield's Granada Theatre ended early after fans rushed the stage. Hearing of Richard's shows, Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles, asked Don Arden to allow his band to open for Richard on some tour dates, to which he agreed.

 

The first show for which the Beatles opened was at New Brighton's Tower Ballroom that October. The following month they, along with Swedish singer Jerry Williams and his band The Violents, opened for Richard at the Star-Club in Hamburg.

 

During this time, Richard advised the group on how to perform his songs, and taught Paul McCartney his distinctive vocalizations.

 

Back in the United States, Richard recorded six rock and roll songs with his 1950's band, the Upsetters for Little Star Records, under the name "World Famous Upsetters", hoping this would keep his options open in maintaining his position as a minister.

 

In the fall of 1963, Richard was called by a concert promoter to rescue a sagging tour featuring The Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley and the Rolling Stones. Richard agreed, and helped to save the tour from flopping.

 

At the end of that tour, Richard was given his own television special for Granada Television titled The Little Richard Spectacular. The special became a ratings hit, and after 60,000 fan letters, was rebroadcast twice.

 

In 1964, now openly re-embracing rock and roll, Richard released "Bama Lama Bama Loo" on Specialty Records. Due to his UK exposure, the song reached the top twenty there, but only climbed to number 82 in the U.S.

 

Later in the year, he signed with Vee-Jay Records, then on its dying legs, to release his "comeback" album, Little Richard Is Back. Due to the arrival of the Beatles and other British bands as well as the rise of soul labels such as Motown and Stax Records and the popularity of James Brown, Richard's new releases were not well promoted, nor well received by radio stations.

 

In November 1964, Jimi Hendrix joined Richard's Upsetters band as a full member.

 

In December 1964, Richard brought Hendrix and childhood friend and piano teacher Eskew Reeder to a New York studio to re-record an album's worth of his greatest hits. He went on tour with his new group the Upsetters to promote the album.

 

In early 1965, Richard took Hendrix and Billy Preston to a New York studio where they recorded the Don Covay soul ballad, "I Don't Know What You've Got (But It's Got Me)", which became a number 12 R&B hit.

 

Three other songs were recorded during the sessions, "Dance a Go Go" aka "Dancin' All Around the World", "You Better Stop", and "Come See About Me." However "You Better Stop" was not issued until 1971, and "Come See About Me" has yet to see official release.

 

Around this time, Richard and Jimi appeared in a show starring Soupy Sales at the Brooklyn Paramount, New York. Richard's flamboyance and drive for dominance reportedly got him thrown off the show.

 

Hendrix and Richard clashed over the spotlight, as well as Hendrix's tardiness, wardrobe and stage antics. Hendrix also complained over not being properly paid by Richard. In early July 1965, Richard's brother Robert Penniman "fired" Jimi. However, Jimi wrote to his father, Al Hendrix, that he quit Richard because:

 

"You can't live on promises when

you're on the road, so I had to cut

that mess aloose".

 

Hendrix had not been paid for five-and-a-half weeks, and was owed 1,000 dollars. Hendrix then rejoined the Isley Brothers' band, the IB Specials.

 

Richard later signed with Modern Records, releasing a modest charter, "Do You Feel It?" before leaving for Okeh Records in early 1966.

 

His former Specialty labelmate Larry Williams produced two albums for Richard on Okeh - the studio release The Explosive Little Richard, which utilised a Motown-influenced sound and produced the modest charters "Poor Dog" and "Commandments of Love." Secondly Little Richard's Greatest Hits: Recorded Live! which returned him to the album charts.

 

Richard was later scathing about this period, declaring Larry Williams "the worst producer in the world". In 1967, Richard signed with Brunswick Records, but after clashing with the label over musical direction, he left the label the following year.

 

Richard felt that producers on his labels failed to promote his records during this period. Later, he claimed they kept trying to push him to record in a style similar to Motown, and felt he wasn't treated with appropriate respect.

 

Richard often performed in dingy clubs and lounges with little support from his label. While Richard managed to perform at huge venues in England and France, in the U.S. Richard had to perform on the Chitlin' Circuit.

 

Richard's flamboyant look, while a hit during the 1950's, failed to help his labels to promote him to more conservative black record buyers. Richard later claimed that his decision to "backslide" from his ministry, led religious clergymen to criticise his new recordings.

 

Making matters worse, Richard said, was his insistence on performing in front of integrated audiences at the time of the black liberation movement shortly after the Watts riots and the formation of the Black Panthers. This caused many black radio disk jockeys in certain areas of the country, including Los Angeles, to choose not to play his music.

 

By then acting as his manager, Larry Williams convinced Richard to focus on his live shows. By 1968, he had ditched the Upsetters for his new backup band, the Crown Jewels, performing on the Canadian TV show, "Where It's At".

 

Richard was also featured on the Monkees' TV special 33⅓ Revolutions per Monkee in April 1969.

 

Williams booked Richard shows in Las Vegas casinos and resorts, leading Richard to adopt a wilder, flamboyant, and androgynous look, inspired by the success of his former backing guitarist Jimi Hendrix.

 

Richard was soon booked at rock festivals such as the Atlantic City Pop Festival, where he stole the show from headliner Janis Joplin. Richard produced a similar show stealer at the Toronto Pop Festival with John Lennon as the headliner.

 

These successes brought Little Richard to talk shows such as the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and the Dick Cavett Show, making him a major celebrity again.

 

Responding to his reputation as a successful concert performer, Reprise Records signed Richard in 1970, and he released the album, The Rill Thing, with the philosophical single, "Freedom Blues", becoming his biggest charted single in years.

 

In May 1970, Richard made the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Despite the success of "Freedom Blues", none of Richard's other Reprise singles charted, with the exception of "Greenwood, Mississippi", a swamp rock original by guitar hero, Travis Wammack, who incidentally played on the track.

 

It charted only briefly on the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box pop chart, also on the Billboard Country charts; it made a strong showing on WWRL in New York, before disappearing.

 

Richard became a featured guest instrumentalist and vocalist on recordings by acts such as Delaney and Bonnie, Joey Covington and Joe Walsh, and was prominently featured on Canned Heat's 1972 hit single, "Rockin' with the King".

 

To keep up with his finances and bookings, Richard and three of his brothers formed a management company, Bud Hole Incorporated. On American TV, Richard announced that he would appear in a Rock Hudson motion picture, playing "The Insane Minister". (The appearance has never seen the light of day.)

 

Richard also mentioned a new project involving Mick Jagger and Joe Cocker, celebrating his 20 years in show business, though it was never realized.

 

By 1972, Richard had entered the rock and roll revival circuit, and that year, he co-headlined the London Rock and Roll Show at Wembley Stadium with his musical peer Chuck Berry, Richard would come on stage and announce himself as "The King of Rock and Roll", fittingly also the title of his 1971 album with Reprise, and told the packed audience there to "let it all hang out".

 

Richard, however, was booed during the show when he climbed on top of his piano and stopped singing; he also seemed to ignore much of the crowd. To make matters worse, he showed up with just five musicians, and struggled through low lighting and bad microphones.

 

When the concert film documenting the show came out, his performance was considered generally strong, though his fans noticed a drop in energy and vocal artistry. Two songs he performed did not make the final cut of the film.

 

The following year, he recorded a charting soul ballad, "In the Middle of the Night", released with proceeds donated to victims of tornadoes that had caused damage in twelve states.

 

Richard did no new recordings in 1974, although two "new" albums were released. In the summer, came a major surprise for fans, "Talkin' 'bout Soul", a collection of released and unreleased Vee Jay recordings, all never before on a domestic LP. Two tracks were new to the world: the title tune and "You'd Better Stop", both uptempo.

 

Later that year came a set recorded in one night, early the previous year, called "Right Now!", and featuring "roots" material, including a vocal version of an unreleased Reprise instrumental "Mississippi", released in 1972 as "Funky Dish Rag"; his third try at his gospel-rock "In the Name"; and a 6 minute plus rocker, "Hot Nuts", based upon a 1936 song by Li'l Johnson ("Get 'Em From The Peanut Man").

 

1975 was a big year for Richard, with a world tour, and acclaim over high energy performances throughout England and France. His band was perhaps his best to date. He cut a top 40 single (US and Canada), with Bachman-Turner Overdrive, "Take It Like a Man".

 

Richard worked on new songs with sideman, Seabrun "Candy" Hunter. He told Dee-Jay, Wolfman Jack, that he planned on releasing a new album with Sly Stone, but it never materialized.

 

In 1976, he decided to retire again, being physically and mentally exhausted, having experienced family tragedy and the drug culture. He was talked into once again re-cutting his greatest hits, for Stan Shulman in Nashville. This time, they did not use new arrangements, but stuck to the original arrangements.

 

Richard re-recorded eighteen of his classic rock and roll hits for K-Tel Records, in high-tech stereo recreations, with a single featuring the new versions of "Good Golly Miss Molly" and "Rip It Up," with both tracks reaching the UK singles chart.

 

Richard later admitted that he was heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol. By 1977, worn out from years of drug abuse and wild partying, as well as a string of personal tragedies, Richard quit rock and roll again and returned to evangelism, releasing one gospel album, God's Beautiful City, in 1979.

 

At the same time, while touring once again as a minister and returning to talk shows, a controversial album was released by the discount label, Koala, taken from a 1974 concert.

 

It includes an 11 minute discordant version of "Good Golly, Miss Molly". The performances are widely panned as subpar, and the album has gained some notoriety amongst record collectors.

 

(d) 1984–1999: Comeback

 

In 1984, Richard filed a $112 million lawsuit against Specialty Records, Art Rupe and his publishing company, Venice Music, and ATV Music for not paying royalties to him after he left the label in 1959. The suit was settled out of court in 1986.

 

According to some reports, Michael Jackson allegedly gave him monetary compensation for his work, which he co-owned with Sony-ATV, songs by the Beatles and Richard.

 

In September 1984, Charles White released the singer's authorized biography, Quasar of Rock: The Life and Times of Little Richard, which put Richard back in the spotlight. Richard returned to show business in what Rolling Stone referred to as "a formidable comeback" following the book's release.

 

Reconciling his roles as evangelist and rock and roll musician for the first time, Richard stated that the genre could be used for good or evil. After accepting a role in the film Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Richard and Billy Preston penned the faith-based rock and roll song "Great Gosh A'Mighty" for its soundtrack.

 

Richard won critical acclaim for his film role, and the song found success in the American and British charts. The hit led to the release of the album Lifetime Friend (1986) on Warner Bros. Records, with songs deemed "messages in rhythm", including a gospel rap track.

 

In addition to a version of "Great Gosh A'Mighty", cut in England, the album featured two singles that charted in the UK, "Somebody's Comin,'" and "Operator".

 

Richard spent much of the rest of the decade as a guest on television shows and appearing in films, winning new fans with what was referred to as his "unique comedic timing."

 

In 1988, he surprised fans with a serious tribute to Otis Redding at his Rock and Roll of Fame induction ceremony, singing several Redding songs, including "Fa Fa Fa (sad song)", "These arms of mine", and "Dock of the Bay ".

 

He told Otis' story, and explained how his 1956 tune "All Around the World" was Redding's reference on his 1963 side, "Hey, Hey Baby".

 

In 1989, Richard provided rhythmic preaching and background vocals on the extended live version of the U2–B.B. King hit "When Love Comes to Town". That same year, Richard returned to singing his classic hits following a performance of "Lucille" at an AIDS benefit concert.

 

In 1990, Richard contributed a spoken-word rap on Living Colour's hit song, "Elvis Is Dead", from their album Time's Up. That same year he appeared in a cameo for the music video of Cinderella's "Shelter Me".

 

In 1991, he was one of the featured performers on the hit single and video "Voices That Care" that was produced to help boost the morale of U.S. troops involved in Operation Desert Storm.

 

The same year, he recorded a version of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" for the Pediatric AIDS Foundation benefit album For Our Children. The album's success led to a deal with Walt Disney Records, resulting in the release of a hit 1992 children's album, Shake It All About.

 

In 1994, Richard sang the theme song to the award-winning PBS Kids and TLC animated television series The Magic School Bus based on the book series created by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen. He also opened Wrestlemania X from Madison Square Garden on the 20th. March that year, miming to his reworked rendition of "America the Beautiful".

 

Throughout the 1990's, Richard performed around the world and appeared on TV, film, and tracks with other artists, including Jon Bon Jovi, Elton John and Solomon Burke.

 

In 1992 he released his final album, Little Richard Meets Masayoshi Takanaka, featuring members of Richard's then current touring band.

 

(e) 2000–2020: The Later years

 

In 2000, Richard's life was dramatized for the biographical film Little Richard, which focused on his early years, including his heyday, his religious conversion and his return to secular music in the early 1960's.

 

Richard was played by Leon Robinson, who earned an NAACP Image Award nomination for his performance.

 

In 2002, Richard contributed to the Johnny Cash tribute album, Kindred Spirits: A Tribute to the Songs of Johnny Cash. In 2004–2005, he released two sets of unreleased and rare cuts, from the Okeh label 1966/67 and the Reprise label 1970/72. Included was the full Southern Child album, produced and composed mostly by Richard, scheduled for release in 1972, but shelved.

 

In 2006, Little Richard was featured in a popular advertisement for the GEICO brand. A 2005 recording of his duet vocals with Jerry Lee Lewis on a cover of the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There" was included on Lewis's 2006 album, Last Man Standing.

 

The same year, Richard was a guest judge on the TV series Celebrity Duets. Richard and Lewis performed alongside John Fogerty at the 2008 Grammy Awards in a tribute to the two artists considered to be cornerstones of rock and roll by the NARAS.

 

That same year, Richard appeared on radio host Don Imus' benefit album for sick children, The Imus Ranch Record. In June 2010, Richard recorded a gospel track for an upcoming tribute album to songwriting legend Dottie Rambo.

 

In 2009, Richard was Inducted into The Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame in a concert in New Orleans, attended by Fats Domino.

 

Throughout the first decade of the new millennium, Richard kept up a stringent touring schedule, performing primarily in the United States and Europe. However, sciatic nerve pain in his left leg and then replacement of the involved hip began affecting the frequency of his performances by 2010.

 

Despite his health problems, Richard continued to perform to receptive audiences and critics. Rolling Stone reported that at a performance at the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C., in June 2012:

 

"Richard was still full of fire, still a master

showman, his voice still loaded with deep

gospel and raunchy power."

 

Richard performed a full 90-minute show at the Pensacola Interstate Fair in Pensacola, Florida, in October 2012, at the age of 79, and headlined at the Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas during Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend in March 2013.

 

In September 2013, Rolling Stone published an interview with Richard who said that he would be retiring from performing. He told the magazine:

 

"I am done, in a sense, because I don't

feel like doing anything right now.

I think my legacy should be that when I

started in showbusiness there wasn't no

such thing as rock'n'roll.

When I started with 'Tutti Frutti', that's

when rock really started rocking."

 

Richard performed one last concert in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 2014.

 

In June 2015, Richard appeared before a benefit concert audience, clad in sparkly boots and a brightly colored jacket at the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville to receive the Rhapsody & Rhythm Award from and raise funds for the National Museum of African American Music.

 

He charmed the crowd by reminiscing about his early days working in Nashville nightclubs. In May 2016, the National Museum of African American Music issued a press release indicating that Richard was one of the key artists and music industry leaders that attended its third annual Celebration of Legends Luncheon in Nashville.

 

In 2016, a new CD was released on Hitman Records, California (I'm Comin') with released and previously unreleased material from the 1970's, including a cappella version of his 1975 single release, "Try to Help Your Brother".

 

On the 6th. September 2017, Richard participated in a long television interview for the Christian Three Angels Broadcasting Network, appearing in a wheelchair, clean-shaven, without make-up, dressed in a blue paisley coat and tie, where he discussed his lifelong Christian faith.

 

On the 23rd. October 2019, Richard addressed the audience after appearing to receive the Distinguished Artist Award at the 2019 Tennessee Governor's Arts Awards at the Governor's Residence in Nashville, Tennessee.

 

Little Richard's Personal Life

 

(i) Relationships and Family

 

Around 1956, Richard became involved with Audrey Robinson, a sixteen-year-old college student, originally from Savannah, Georgia. Richard and Robinson quickly got acquainted, despite Robinson not being a fan of rock and roll music.

 

Richard said in his 1984 autobiography that he invited other men to have sexual encounters with her, including Buddy Holly, although Audrey denied those statements.

 

Richard proposed marriage to Robinson, but she refused. Robinson later became known under the name Lee Angel as a stripper and socialite. Richard re-connected with Robinson in the 1960's, though she left him again after his drug abuse worsened.

 

Robinson was interviewed for Richard's 1985 documentary on The South Bank Show, and denied Richard's statements. According to Robinson, Richard would use her to buy food in whites-only fast food stores, as he could not enter any, due to the color of his skin.

 

Richard met his only wife, Ernestine Harvin, at an evangelical rally in October 1957. They began dating that year, and wed on the 12th. July 1959 in California. According to Harvin, she and Richard initially enjoyed a happy marriage with "normal" sexual relations.

 

When the marriage ended in divorce in 1964, Harvin said it was due to her husband's celebrity status, which had made life difficult for her. Richard said the marriage fell apart due to his being a neglectful husband and because of his sexuality.

 

Both Robinson and Harvin denied Richard's statements that he was gay, and Richard believed they did not know it because:

 

"I was such a pumper

in those days".

 

During the marriage, Richard and Harvin adopted a one-year-old boy, Danny Jones, from a late church associate. Richard and his son remained close, with Jones often acting as one of his bodyguards. Harvin later married McDonald Campbell in Santa Barbara, California, on the 23rd. March 1975.

 

(ii) Little Richard's Sexuality

 

In 1984, Richard said that he just played with girls as a child, and was subjected to homosexual jokes and ridicule because of his manner of walking and talking. His father brutally punished him whenever he caught him wearing his mother's makeup and clothing.

 

The singer said he had been sexually involved with both sexes as a teenager. Because of his effeminate mannerisms, his father kicked him out of their family home when he was fifteen. In 1985, on The South Bank Show, Richard explained:

 

"My daddy put me out of the house.

He said he wanted seven boys, and

I had spoiled it, because I was gay."

 

Richard got involved in voyeurism in his early twenties. A female friend would drive him around picking up men who would allow him to watch them having sex in the backseat of cars.

 

Richard's activity caught the attention of the Macon police in 1955, and he was arrested after a gas station attendant reported sexual activity in a car Richard was occupying with a heterosexual couple. Cited on a sexual misconduct charge, he spent three days in jail, and was temporarily banned from performing in Macon.

 

In the early 1950's, Richard became acquainted with openly gay musician Billy Wright, who helped in establishing Richard's look. Billy advised Richard to use pancake makeup, and to wear his hair in a long-haired pompadour style similar to his.

 

As Richard got used to the makeup, he ordered his band, the Upsetters, to wear makeup too, in order to gain entry into predominantly white venues. He later stated:

 

"I wore the make-up so that white

men wouldn't think I was after the

white girls.

It made things easier for me, plus

it was colorful too."

 

In 2000, Richard told Jet magazine:

 

"I figure if being called a sissy would

make me famous, let them say what

they want to."

 

Richard's look, however, still attracted female audiences, who would send him naked photos and their phone numbers.

 

During Richard's heyday, his obsession with voyeurism and group sex continued, with his girlfriend Audrey Robinson participating. Richard wrote that Robinson would have sex with men while she sexually stimulated Richard.

 

Despite saying he was "born again" after leaving rock and roll for the church in 1957, Richard left Oakwood College after exposing himself to a male student. The incident was reported to the student's father, and Richard withdrew from the college.

 

In 1962, Richard was arrested for spying on men urinating in toilets at a Trailways bus station in Long Beach, California. However he still participated in orgies, and continued to be a voyeur.

 

On the 4th. May 1982, on Late Night with David Letterman, Richard said:

 

"God gave me the victory. I'm not gay

now, but, you know, I was gay all my

life. I believe I was one of the first gay

people to come out.

But God let me know that he made

Adam be with Eve, not Steve.

So, I gave my heart to Christ."

 

In his 1984 book, while demeaning homosexuality as "unnatural" and "contagious", he told Charles White that he was "omnisexual".

 

In 1995, Richard told Penthouse that he always knew he was gay, saying "I've been gay all my life". In 2007, Mojo Magazine referred to Richard as "bisexual".

 

In October 2017, Richard once again denounced homosexuality in an interview with the Christian Three Angels Broadcasting Network, stating that:

 

"Homosexual and transgender identity

is an unnatural affectation that goes

against the way God wants you to live."

 

(iii) Little Richard's Drug Use

 

During his initial heyday in the 1950's rock and roll scene, Richard was a teetotaler, abstaining from alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs. Richard often fined bandmates for drug and alcohol use during this era.

 

By the mid-1960's, however, Richard began drinking large amounts of alcohol, as well as smoking cigarettes and marijuana. By 1972, he had developed an addiction to cocaine. He later lamented that period:

 

"They should have called me

Lil Cocaine, I was sniffing so

much of that stuff!"

 

By 1975, he had developed addictions to both heroin and PCP, otherwise known as "angel dust". His drug and alcohol misuse began to affect his professional career and personal life. He later recalled:

 

"I lost my reasoning."

 

Of his cocaine addiction, Richard said that he did whatever he could to use cocaine. Richard admitted that his addictions to cocaine, PCP and heroin were costing him as much as $1,000 a day.

 

In 1977, longtime friend Larry Williams once showed up with a gun and threatened to kill Richard for failing to pay his drug debt. Richard said that this was the most fearful moment of his life; Williams' own drug addiction made him wildly unpredictable.

 

Richard did acknowledge that he and Williams were "very close friends," and when reminiscing about the drug-fueled clash, he recalled thinking:

 

"I knew he loved me—

I hoped he did!"

 

Within that same year, Richard had several devastating personal experiences, including his brother Tony's death from a heart attack, the accidental shooting of his nephew whom he loved like a son, and the murder of two close personal friends – one a valet at "the heroin man's house."

 

These experiences convinced the singer to give up drugs and alcohol, along with rock and roll, and return to the ministry.

 

(iv) Little Richard and Religion

 

Richard's family had deep evangelical (Baptist and African Methodist Episcopal) Christian roots, including two uncles and a grandfather who were preachers. He also took part in Macon's Pentecostal churches, which were his favorites, mainly due to their music, charismatic praise, dancing in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues.

 

At the age of ten, influenced by Pentecostalism, he would go around saying that he was a faith healer, singing gospel music to people who were feeling sick, and touching them.

 

He later recalled that they would often say that they felt better after he prayed for them, and would sometimes give him money. Richard had aspirations of being a preacher due to the influence of singing evangelist Brother Joe May.

 

After he was born again in 1957, Richard enrolled at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, a mostly black Seventh-day Adventist college, to study theology. It was also at this time that he became a vegetarian.

 

Richard returned to secular music in the early 1960's. He was eventually ordained a minister in 1970, and resumed evangelical activities in 1977. Richard represented Memorial Bibles International, and sold their Black Heritage Bible, which highlighted the Book's many black characters.

 

As a preacher, he evangelized in anything from small churches to packed auditoriums of 20,000 or more. His preaching focused on uniting the races, and bringing lost souls to repentance through God's love.

 

In 1984, Richard's mother, Leva Mae, died following a period of illness. Only a few months prior to her death, Richard promised her that he would remain a Christian.

 

During the 1980's and 1990's, Richard officiated at celebrity weddings. In 2006, in one ceremony, Richard wedded twenty couples who had won a contest.

 

Richard used his experience and knowledge as an elder statesman of rock and roll to preach at funerals of musical friends such as Wilson Pickett and Ike Turner.

 

At a benefit concert in 2009 to raise funds to help rebuild children's playgrounds that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, Richard asked guest of honor Fats Domino to pray with him and others. His assistants handed out inspirational booklets at the concert, a common practice at Richard's shows.

 

Richard told a Howard Theatre, Washington, D.C. audience in June 2012:

 

"I know this is not Church, but

get close to the Lord. The world

is getting close to the end. Get

close to the Lord."

 

In 2013, Richard elaborated on his spiritual philosophies, stating:

 

"God talked to me the other night.

He said He's getting ready to come.

The world's getting ready to end,

and He's coming, wrapped in flames

of fire with a rainbow around His

throne."

 

Rolling Stone reported that Richard's apocalyptic prophesies generated snickers from some audience members as well as cheers of support. He responded to the laughter by stating:

 

"When I talk to you about Jesus, I'm

not playing. I'm almost 81 years old.

Without God, I wouldn't be here."

 

Little Richard's Health Problems and Death

 

In October 1985, having finished his album Lifetime Friend, Richard returned from England to film a guest spot on the show Miami Vice. Following the taping, he accidentally crashed his sports car into a telephone pole in West Hollywood. He suffered a broken right leg, broken ribs and head and facial injuries.

 

Richard's recovery from the accident took several months, preventing him from attending the inaugural Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony in January 1986 where he was one of several inductees. He instead supplied a recorded message.

 

In 2007, Richard began having problems walking due to sciatica in his left leg, requiring him to use crutches. In November 2009, he entered hospital to have replacement surgery on his left hip.

 

Despite returning to performing the following year, Richard's problems with his hip continued, and he was brought onstage in a wheelchair, only being able to play sitting down.

 

On the 30th. September 2013, he revealed to CeeLo Green at a Recording Academy fundraiser that he had suffered a heart attack at home the week before. Taking aspirin and having his son turn on the air conditioner saved his life, according to his doctor. Richard stated:

 

"Jesus had something for me.

He brought me through."

 

On the 28th. April 2016, Richard's friend Bootsy Collins stated on his Facebook page that:

 

"Richard is not in the best of

health, so I ask all the Funkateers

to lift him up."

 

Reports began being posted on the internet stating that Richard was in grave health, and that his family were gathering at his bedside. On the 3rd. May 2016, Rolling Stone issued a rebuttal by Richard and his lawyer. Richard stated:

 

"Not only is my family not gathering

around me because I'm ill, but I'm still

singing. I don't perform like I used to,

but I have my singing voice, I walk

around, I had hip surgery a while ago,

but I'm healthy.'"

 

His lawyer said:

 

"He's 83. I don't know how many

83-year-olds still get up and rock

it out every week, but in light of

the rumors, I wanted to tell you

that he's vivacious and conversant

about a ton of different things, and

he's still very active in a daily routine."

 

Though Richard continued to sing into his eighties, he kept away from the stage.

 

On the 9th. May 2020, after a two month illness, Richard died at the age of 87 at his home in Tullahoma, Tennessee, from a cause related to bone cancer. His brother, sister, and son were with him at the time.

 

Richard received tributes from many popular musicians, including Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, John Fogerty, Elton John, and Lenny Kravitz, as well as many others, such as film director John Waters, who were influenced by Richard's music and persona.

 

Richard was laid to rest at Oakwood University Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Huntsville, Alabama.

 

Little Richard's Legacy

 

Richard claimed to be "The Architect of Rock and Roll", and history would seem to bear out his boast. More than any other performer—save, perhaps, for Elvis Presley, Little Richard blew the lid off the Fifties, laying the foundation for rock and roll with his explosive music and charismatic persona.

 

On record, he made spine-tingling rock and roll. His frantically charged piano playing and raspy, shouted vocals on such classics as "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally" and "Good Golly, Miss Molly" defined the dynamic sound of rock and roll.

 

Richard's music and performance style had a pivotal effect on the sound and style of popular music genres of the 20th. century. As a rock and roll pioneer, Richard embodied its spirit more flamboyantly than any other performer.

 

Richard's raspy shouting style gave the genre one of its most identifiable and influential vocal sounds, and his fusion of boogie-woogie, New Orleans R&B and gospel music blazed its rhythmic trail.

 

Richard's innovative emotive vocalizations and uptempo rhythmic music also played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk.

 

He influenced numerous singers and musicians across musical genres from rock to hip hop; his music helped shape rhythm and blues for generations to come.

 

Combining elements of boogie, gospel, and blues, Richard introduced several of rock music's most characteristic musical features, including its loud volume and vocal style emphasizing power, and its distinctive beat and innovative visceral rhythms.

 

He departed from boogie-woogie's shuffle rhythm, and introduced a new distinctive rock beat, where the beat division is even at all tempos. He reinforced the new rock rhythm with a two-handed approach, playing patterns with his right hand, with the rhythm typically popping out in the piano's high register.

 

His new rhythm, which he introduced with "Tutti Frutti" (1955), became the basis for the standard rock beat, which was later consolidated by Chuck Berry.

 

"Lucille" (1957) foreshadowed the rhythmic feel of 1960's classic rock in several ways, including its heavy bassline, slower tempo, strong rock beat played by the entire band, and verse–chorus form similar to blues.

 

Richard's voice was able to generate croons, wails, and screams unprecedented in popular music. He was cited by two of soul music's pioneers, Otis Redding and Sam Cooke, as contributing to the genre's early development.

 

Redding stated that most of his music was patterned after Richard's, referring to his 1953 recording "Directly From My Heart To You" as the personification of soul, and that:

 

"Richard has done a lot for

me and my soul brothers

in the music business."

 

Cooke said in 1962 that:

 

"Richard has done so

much for our music".

 

Cooke had a top 40 hit in 1963 with his cover of Richard's 1956 hit "Send Me Some Loving".

 

James Brown and others credited Richard and his mid-1950's backing band, The Upsetters, with having been the first to put funk in the rock beat. This innovation sparked the transition from 1950's rock and roll to 1960's funk.

 

Richard's hits of the mid-1950's, such as "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally", "Keep A-Knockin'" and "Good Golly, Miss Molly", were generally characterized by playful lyrics with sexually suggestive connotations.

 

AllMusic writer Richie Unterberger stated that:

 

"Little Richard merged the fire of

gospel with New Orleans R&B,

pounding the piano and wailing

with gleeful abandon. While other

R&B greats of the early 1950's had

been moving in a similar direction,

none of them matched the sheer

electricity of Richard's vocals.

With his high-speed deliveries,

ecstatic trills, and the overjoyed

force of personality in his singing,

he was crucial in upping the voltage

from high-powered R&B into the

similar, yet different, guise of rock

and roll."

 

Emphasizing the folk influences of Richard, English professor W. T. Lhamon Jr. wrote:

 

"His songs were literally good

booty. They were the repressed

stuff of underground lore.

And in Little Richard they found

a vehicle prepared to bear their

chocked energy, at least for his

capsulated moment."

 

Ray Charles introduced him at a concert in 1988 as:

 

"A man that started a kind of music

that set the pace for a lot of what's

happening today."

 

Richard's contemporaries, including Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Pat Boone, the Everly Brothers, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran, all recorded covers of his works.

 

As they wrote about him for their Man of the Year – Legend Category in 2010, GQ magazine stated that:

 

"Richard is, without question, the

boldest and most influential of the

founding fathers of rock'n'roll."

 

Little Richard's Influence on Society

 

In addition to his musical style, Richard was cited as one of the first crossover black artists, reaching audiences of all races. His music and concerts broke the color line, despite attempts to sustain segregation.

 

As H. B. Barnum explained in Quasar of Rock:

 

"Little Richard opened the door.

He brought the races together."

 

Barnum described Richard's music as follows:

 

"It wasn't boy-meets-girl-girl-meets-boy,

they were fun records, all fun. And they

had a lot to say sociologically in our

country and the world."

 

Barnum also stated that:

 

"Richard's charisma was a whole

new thing to the music business.

He would burst onto the stage

from anywhere, and you wouldn't

be able to hear anything but the

roar of the audience. He might

come out and walk on the piano.

He might go out into the audience."

 

Barnum also stated that Richard was innovative in that he would wear colorful capes, blouse shirts, makeup and suits studded with multi-colored stones and sequins, and that he also brought flickering stage lighting from his show business experience into performance venues where rock and roll artists performed.

 

In 2015, the National Museum of African American Music honored Richard for helping to shatter the color line on the music charts and changing American culture for ever.

 

Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister of the heavy metal band Motörhead spoke highly of Little Richard, stating:

 

"Little Richard was always my main

man. How hard must it have been

for him: gay, black and singing in

the South? But his records are a

joyous good time from beginning

to end."

 

The Influence of Little Richard

 

Richard influenced generations of performers across musical genres. Quincy Jones stated that:

 

"Richard was an innovator whose

influence spans America's musical

diaspora from Gospel, the Blues &

R&B, to Rock & Roll, & Hip-Hop."

 

James Brown and Otis Redding both idolized him. Brown allegedly came up with the Famous Flames debut hit, "Please, Please, Please", after Richard had written the words on a napkin.

 

Redding started his professional career with Richard's band, The Upsetters, and first entered a talent show performing Richard's "Heeby Jeebies", winning for fifteen consecutive weeks.

 

Ike Turner claimed that most of Tina Turner's early vocal delivery was based on Richard, something Richard reiterated in the introduction to Turner's autobiography, Takin' Back My Name.

 

Bob Dylan first performed covers of Richard's songs on piano in high school with his rock and roll group, the Golden Chords; in 1959 when leaving school, he wrote in his yearbook under "Ambition": "to join Little Richard".

 

Jimi Hendrix was influenced in appearance (clothing and hairstyle/mustache) and sound by Richard. He was quoted in 1966 saying:

 

"I want to do with my guitar what

Little Richard does with his voice."

OBSERVE Collective

All images are © Copyrighted and All Rights Reserved

 

germanstreetphotography.com/michael-monty-may/

 

www.instagram.com/montymay/

www.instagram.com/montymay_bw/

www.instagram.com/montymay_phone/

Hi guys! Don't worry, I'm fine. Even though I spend most of my time alone in my cell, it's not that bad as it seems. I have my peace and quiet there. The white jumpsuit looks amazing, and the restraints I'm put in when I am allowed out of my cell are pretty much cool too.

First the Gulls, then the Brown Pelicans, then, in the water, the White Pelicans...as though they were all in their assigned places and keeping with their own kind.

View On Black

It is Toton open day and a “bulled up” D8 Penyghent is giving cab rides up and down the yard, 9th June 1979. Notice the lack of any form of segregation between the “running line” and footpath/people, how times have changed.

 

Locomotive History

One of the ten Pilot Scheme Peak class locomotives D8 was delivered to Camden in December 1959 but it was immediately loaned to Derby. During May 1960 it was transferred to Crewe North. During the early part of February 1962 D8 moved to Nottingham, the precursor of the eventual move of the class to Toton for use on heavy freight duties. In May 1962 D8 moved to Toton. In the mid 1970’s the ten class 44 locomotives started to be withdrawn. Surprisingly D8, now numbered 44008 visited Derby Works during November 1979, not for withdrawal but for engine repairs, It would remain under repair at Derby until early July 1980 when it was tested on the 12.07 Derby - St Pancras, (with 45121 as the train engine) and 44008 was removed at Leicester, returning light engine to Derby and re-entered traffic at Toton. . Despite its recent Works attention 44008's reprieve was brief, it was withdrawn along with the two remaining Class 44's during November 1980, and stored at Toton. In July 1981 the locomotive moved north to Scotland heading for preservation on the Strathspey Railway at Boat of Garten in the Highlands. Following the sale of a very forlorn 44008 to the North Notts Locomotive Group in 1987 the locomotive returned to the East Midlands and is now based at Peak Rail.

 

Praktica LTL, Ektachrome 200

better view large View On Black

 

life in Europe.

Protection of environment

Rosa Parks fait le mur, fresque de 493 mètres de long autour du thème de la lutte contre les discriminations et pour l'égalité. Les artistes :

Bastardilla (Bogota)

Tatyana Fazlalizaden (New-York)

Kashink (Paris)

Katjastroph (Nantes)

Zepha (Toulouse)

Projet de GFR sur mur SNCF du pont Riquet et rue d'Aubervilliers, Paris 19e

This mural celebrates gains for blacks in a Western Kentucky community's institutions and grounds. It remembers a park's annual emancipation celebration held in Paducah. I understand that this mural celebrates black history; hence the reason why there are no whites, but the all-blackness of this mural about emancipation conveys a message of blacks segregated to their own.

 

It gnawed at me. That caused me to snoop around. Let me share what I’ve found.

 

With Jim Crow laws, blacks were not allowed in this Western Kentucky community's biggest park that whites enjoyed, Noble Park. Blacks wanted a large gathering place, a park that was not forbidden to them and that their families could enjoy. That opportunity would come in the middle 1930s when President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal provided billions in funds for the WPA to employ out-of-work Americans. Federal money was apportioned and federal workers were available. Now the community needed to pick a spot and tap into those federal resources. WPA workers built a park for blacks of Paducah, a park that opened in 1938.

 

In 2021 Paducah Life magazine reported on the beginnings of Stuart Nelson Park:

 

"The city had already found a good spot. The roughly 55-acre site just off Hinkleville Road was, at the time, just outside the city limits. It had been the home of Paducah’s pest house, a farm of shacks and tents where those with communicable diseases such as smallpox were housed and treated until they recovered and were no longer contagious.

 

The site had been condemned as treatment of such diseases advanced by the mid-30s, and most patients were housed in an isolation unit at Riverside Hospital. The black community agreed on the location."

 

That was what the city considered a "good" spot for a black park?!?

 

Paducah's black community named the park after an extraordinary man, Dr. Stuart Nelson, who was a graduate of the segregated (that changed in the 1960s) Lincoln High School for blacks of Paducah, Howard University, and Yale. He was a civil rights activist and a leader of universities.

 

Buses were arranged to take some in the sizeable black community within the city to their new park just outside of it. Since then, parks have been integrated. The city has vastly expanded. Nowadays, the park has a dog park, lighted softball fields, and an 18-hole disc golf course.

late 19th century

  

One of Alabama's oldest surviving African-American schoolhouses.

Placed on the Places of Peril List for 2008...still deteriorating and in need of restoration.

Fort Lauderdale is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, 25 miles (40 km) north of Miami. It is the county seat of Broward County. As of the 2019 census, the city has an estimated population of 182,437. Fort Lauderdale is a principal city of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to an estimated 6,198,782 people in 2018.

 

The city is a popular tourist destination, with an average year-round temperature of 75.5 °F (24.2 °C) and 3,000 hours of sunshine per year. Greater Fort Lauderdale which takes in all of Broward County hosted 12 million visitors in 2012, including 2.8 million international visitors. The city and county in 2012 collected $43.9 million from the 5% hotel tax it charges, after hotels in the area recorded an occupancy rate for the year of 72.7 percent and an average daily rate of $114.48. The district has 561 hotels and motels comprising nearly 35,000 rooms. Forty six cruise ships sailed from Port Everglades in 2012. Greater Fort Lauderdale has over 4,000 restaurants, 63 golf courses, 12 shopping malls, 16 museums, 132 nightclubs, 278 parkland campsites, and 100 marinas housing 45,000 resident yachts.

 

Fort Lauderdale is named after a series of forts built by the United States during the Second Seminole War. The forts took their name from Major William Lauderdale (1782–1838), younger brother of Lieutenant Colonel James Lauderdale. William Lauderdale was the commander of the detachment of soldiers who built the first fort. However, development of the city did not begin until 50 years after the forts were abandoned at the end of the conflict. Three forts named "Fort Lauderdale" were constructed; the first was at the fork of the New River, the second at Tarpon Bend on the New River between the Colee Hammock and Rio Vista neighborhoods, and the third near the site of the Bahia Mar Marina.

 

The area in which the city of Fort Lauderdale would later be founded was inhabited for more than two thousand years by the Tequesta Indians. Contact with Spanish explorers in the 16th century proved disastrous for the Tequesta, as the Europeans unwittingly brought with them diseases, such as smallpox, to which the native populations possessed no resistance. For the Tequesta, disease, coupled with continuing conflict with their Calusa neighbors, contributed greatly to their decline over the next two centuries. By 1763, there were only a few Tequesta left in Florida, and most of them were evacuated to Cuba when the Spanish ceded Florida to the British in 1763, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the Seven Years' War. Although control of the area changed between Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Confederate States of America, it remained largely undeveloped until the 20th century.

 

The Fort Lauderdale area was known as the "New River Settlement" before the 20th century. In the 1830s there were approximately 70 settlers living along the New River. William Cooley, the local Justice of the Peace, was a farmer and wrecker, who traded with the Seminole Indians. On January 6, 1836, while Cooley was leading an attempt to salvage a wrecked ship, a band of Seminoles attacked his farm, killing his wife and children, and the children's tutor. The other farms in the settlement were not attacked, but all the white residents in the area abandoned the settlement, fleeing first to the Cape Florida Lighthouse on Key Biscayne, and then to Key West.

 

The first United States stockade named Fort Lauderdale was built in 1838, and subsequently was a site of fighting during the Second Seminole War. The fort was abandoned in 1842, after the end of the war, and the area remained virtually unpopulated until the 1890s. It was not until Frank Stranahan arrived in the area in 1893 to operate a ferry across the New River, and the Florida East Coast Railroad's completion of a route through the area in 1896, that any organized development began. The city was incorporated in 1911, and in 1915 was designated the county seat of newly formed Broward County.

 

Fort Lauderdale's first major development began in the 1920s, during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. The 1926 Miami Hurricane and the Great Depression of the 1930s caused a great deal of economic dislocation. In July 1935, an African-American man named Rubin Stacy was accused of robbing a white woman at knife point. He was arrested and being transported to a Miami jail when police were run off the road by a mob. A group of 100 white men proceeded to hang Stacy from a tree near the scene of his alleged robbery. His body was riddled with some twenty bullets. The murder was subsequently used by the press in Nazi Germany to discredit US critiques of its own persecution of Jews, Communists, and Catholics.

 

When World War II began, Fort Lauderdale became a major US base, with a Naval Air Station to train pilots, radar operators, and fire control, operators. A Coast Guard base at Port Everglades was also established.

 

On July 4, 1961, African Americans started a series of protests, wade-ins, at beaches that were off-limits to them, to protest "the failure of the county to build a road to the Negro beach". On July 11, 1962, a verdict by Ted Cabot went against the city's policy of racial segregation of public beaches.

Today, Fort Lauderdale is a major yachting center, one of the nation's largest tourist destinations, and the center of a metropolitan division with 1.8 million people.

 

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lauderdale,_Florida

 

© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.

 

Well we think it's Needle Ice, awaiting confirmation. It's another first for us which also means another tick off the lifetime bucket list. Found on the South Downs in West Sussex near a small stream which had overflowed and flooded the area, then it froze overnight, possibly over two nights or more given they all seem to look of being two tiered. This phenomena is known as Ice Segregation, when we found Frost Flowers back in 2017 in Decatur Alabama we made contact with Dr. Carter and he sent us this article which he had published a few years prior, it's probably the best explanation we've found for all the forms of Ice Segregation.

 

link to Dr. Carter's article

www.jrcarter.net/ice/segregation/?fbclid=IwAR2Xy8AShWF9Pc...

 

on the South Downs, South Downs National Park, West Sussex England

Happy Fence Friday!!!

The year 1952 White lives mattered. 364 days of the year there was no sign.

Parts of the Birwood Wall, built to separate a new white neighborhood from an existing black neighborhood in 1940 near 8 Mile Road in Detroit. It was built in order to satisfy Federal Housing Administration Loan Requirements for segregated neighborhoods.

 

Olympus IS-3

Kodak Ektar 100

Text portrait of a photo of Martin Luther King Jr. using part of his text from his "I have a dream" speech.

 

Free to download. Some Rights Reserved.

Local call number: V-40; CA133

 

Title: [The Torch of Friendship]

 

Date of film: Early 1960s

 

Physical descrip: Color; sound; original length: 14:50

 

General note: Excerpt of original film promoting the Hampton House Hotel in Miami, a business oriented to an African-American clientele. The film describes how notable black men and women of the 1960s gathered there, such as Ralph Metcalf (gold medalist, 1932 & 1936 Olympics), Althea Gibson (Wimbledon Champ), Martin Luther King Jr., singer Jackie Wilson, and baseball Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson. The film follows a formula similar to other promotional films, except almost everyone in it is black. The complete footage shows entertainment, the owners, a fashion show, dog and horse racing, the Miami Seaquarium, the Torch of Friendship, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, the Baltimore Orioles, and the FAMU Track team. Produced by Don Parisher.

 

To see full-length versions of this and other videos from the State Archives of Florida, visit www.floridamemory.com/video/.

 

Repository: State Library and Archives of Florida, 500 S. Bronough St., Tallahassee, FL 32399-0250 USA. Contact: 850.245.6700. Archives@dos.state.fl.us

 

Persistent URL: www.floridamemory.com/items/show/232404

  

Medyo grainy at pangit lang ang quality nito kasi malayo pa lang, kinunan ko na agad.

 

Company/Owner: Stella Mae Star Bus

Fleet/Bus Number: 57558

Classification: Air-conditioned City Bus

Coachbuilder: Santarosa Motor Works, Inc./Columbian Manufacturing Corporation

Body Model: Santarosa Daewoo Bus BS106

Engine Model: Doosan DE08TIS

Chassis Model: Daewoo BS106 (PL5UM52HDFK)

Transmission: 6-speed Manual Transmission

Suspension: Leaf Spring Suspension

Seating Configuration: 3×2

Seating Capacity: 61

Franchise route: Pacita Complex (San Pedro, Laguna)–Navotas via EDSA

Route: Pacita Complex, San Pedro City, Laguna [PCT, LA]–Navotas City [NAV] via N1 (Manila South Road; EDSA) / E2 (South Luzon Expressway–Metro Manila Skyway) / N2 (MacArthur Highway)

Areas/landmarks/stations passing (underlines are designated stops for this bus scheme - EDSA area only: Magallanes–Ermin Garcia Avenue): Shopwise\Cataquiz Avenue\BBL Trans Terminal/Savemore San Pedro\Super 8 Grocery Warehouse\SM Center Muntinlupa\Pepsi-Cola Plant Muntinlupa\Susana Heights–Magallanes\Ayala Avenue\Buendia Avenue\Estrella\Guadalupe\Boni/Pioneer\Reliance\Shaw Boulevard\SM Megamall\Ortigas Avenue\Robinsons Galleria\Boni Serrano\Main Avenue\Araneta Center Cubao\Baliwag Transit/Five Star\Ermin Garcia Avenue\Kamuning/Kamias\East Avenue/GMA/Timog/MRT GMA Kamuning Station\NIA Road\ETON Centris/Quezon Avenue\Vertis North\Trinoma/Paramount\SM North

Muñoz/Roosevelt/LRT Roosevelt Station\Kaingin\LRT Balintawak Station/Royal\Bagong Barrio\General Tinio\Serrano\MCU Caloocan/Monumento Circle\Jollibee Pinagtipunan Circle, Potrero\Gov Pascual Avenue\Araneta Avenue\Caimito Road\University of the East Caloocan\SM Center Sangandaan\Letre\Malabon Citysquare/Fisher Mall Malabon\Dagat-Dagatan Avenue\Longos\Tañong/M. Naval Street

Type of Operation: City Operation Public Utility Bus (Bus C Segregation | Regular Class)

Area of Operations: CALABARZON (Region IV-A) / National Capital Region (NCR)

 

Shot location: EDSA-Boni, Mandaluyong City

Date and time taken: May 14, 2018 (6:28H)

 

Notices:

* Please DON'T GRAB A PHOTO WITHOUT A PERMISSION. If you're going to GRAB IT, please give A CREDIT TO THE OWNER. Also, don't PRINT SCREEN my photos.

** If I have mistakes on the specifications, please comment in a good manner so that I can edit it immediately.

*** The specifications and routes (for provincial, inter-provincial, and city operation) mentioned above are subjected for verification and may be changed without prior notice.

**** The vehicle's registration plate(s), conduction sticker(s), and/or persons (if applicable) were pixelated/blurred to prevent any conflict with the photographer, the bus company and/or to the car owner for their security and/or privacy purposes. So, don't use their plate number, conduction sticker, and vehicle tag as an evidence for any incident. And, I have taken this photo for bus fanatics, bus enthusiasts, and bus lovers purposes.

 

AA Museum: Southern Rwy 1200 washroom (B&W)

 

See this link. Sou 1200 was a segregated rail car from the Jim Crow era. She has been restored and resides at the Smithsonian African American Museum in Washington, DC. I

 

The face in the background is actually a random screen grab from a video that plays on a large screen away from Southern 1200.

 

(BCBE94)

 

And with advance to REALITY COPY there’s certainly no way of changing this perception only enforcing it, nothing in reality is good enough for “REALITY COPY” that is just another paradox that is not futuristic.

We might be still skeptical about the arrival of REALITY COPY, but its only before its sold at the supermarkets.

What would happen after “Reality Copy” when the progress of all possible levels of true “reality copy” (in technical sense, not psychologically-philosophical) are achieved. The reality hence is copied and sealed.

Technology won’t stop there… one wonders. What is next.

In political sense when reality in representation is something embraced by conservative social power than with “reality copy” the conservative power is the dominating from the social point of view having new level of reality and it’s copy to be controlled.

*seems like the only possibly alternative to REALITY COPY could be ultra radical Invisibility)

In principle the artist aims to deform the reality subjectively to create not the “reality copy” lacking such skills but to convey the artistic poetic goal of expressing whatever given artist wants to express.

In a matter of “reality copy” what is left for the artist to argue with and deform… to question and test… Nothing really changes socially except for more pressure applied to the issue of dealing with self-image and tools to “sell” When a person changes the image the higher the technology the more transformed is the final product.

The progress of mental growth is just as conservative as control on the “visual image of reality” and its copy.

The ongoing technological progress is irreversible as it carries percent of good with bad,

It is common knowledge how for instance internet is benefit and at the same time does damage. A person who knows about the addiction and suffers would acquire the knowledge and hope from the place the person suffers the internet of course.

Same thing is with photography and video. Reality copy would add more psychological problems to the present but create more visual attraction of true-life experience with whatever could be rediscovered in Lifecopy style. Probably is benefits pornography since it will continue same as consumption of food. The basic things… Consumerism benefits since it is super-trained for “instant reach” affect and will commercially exploit the “reality copy” to sell more of “reality copy” gadgets the phones, screens, etc.

New generation of people will repeat the cycle in new technological means of having “reality copy” as nothing new but similar to any visual information currently available.

The creative people are the ones BEHIND the time it seems in a matter of “reality copy” and being unable to have anything is an alternative.

The Invisible alternative is the ONLY ONE to question “reality copy”

That is the power of UNKNOWN.

Techno progress can deal in “reality” bringing higher resolution to the fore to sell new generation of phones and gadgets.

But it really doesn’t change the philosophical issue of questions asked by philosophers, what is life, what is art, why do we live. Questions remain unanswered when techno progress veils those questions with the promise that higher technology would bring the end to all unanswered questions and answer them for people.

So far the techno advance puts the artistic, literary and philosophical field out of business. As when people get the toys (gadgets) and the playground (the podium of internet) the art is irrelevant and completely disconnected from the social phenomenon of self-representation. Art is not interested to question something with no philosophical substance to it.

The commercial art is willing to supply more stuff for consumerism. If its reality-copy than someone empowered by financial wealth (born rich) would come up with more decorative solutions that could serve REALITY COPY in needed fashion, add more details to the “reality set” to those who can afford it.

Same way it is now when people with means live with more things.

“Reality Copy” of people without means would look just as it is in reality, gray and unexciting. To help people without means the software would offer “decoration” solutions to add the faux details able to transform the surroundings to less depressing. It would enter the person into “life copy” of vacation at Caribbean resorts… etc.

What in such situation could be philosophically questioned, if nothing changed in human morality, but techno advance manage to involve people into self-entertainment to such degree that a person is no longer interested to read books about other people or watch movies and hear news. Self-promotion is the ongoing and time-consuming thing. One has to research the “popular” topics.

As to participating in reality activities, there’s the issue of not having time for anything that doesn’t deal with self-promotion and earning a living.

ART commerce is growing commercially going Industrial since supplying consumer goods is always rewarding in sales. On the other hand this and techno revolution reduces interest of writers and philosophers to dig in depths where there is no depth. It makes such people disengaged with the process. When there are no critical voices to the established situation or some few art critics pretend to do what is expected of them – know about current situation not only on the art scene but at large - socially, and have strong voice against the trends that contribute to the lowering of culture. There’s no more liberal freedom since nobody reads the newspapers. Even if the working critics were principal enough to write articles and books they know their voice would not be heard. They are not vociferous about anything at all because there’s a concept of supporting and art endavour since art is in decline and anything that relates to art needs their support.

There are no voices to oppose the current situation for many reasons such as no younger people would be interested in such undertaking also for many reasons of being disoriented in expectation of techno changes or living their me-life.

The young ones are the invisibility movers, every day someone who is young, information and internet savvy adds the invisibility statement to their online identity. I saw it on tumblr and Iheart. (samples year web address – source)

Art consumer goods sell and make the seller get the goods since sale is the rule.

Art critics silently agree and actually it seems if they even try to disagree there is nothing in art that presently shows any direction against the established art situation.

There isn’t anything not saying a serious claim to deny aesthetic values of the art present and past, to turn away from any influence and history by the fashion avant-garde to question than resuscitate (bring back from death) art that lost vitality and practically is a dead art of dominating taste in an authoritarian culture and conformity.

Bring new blood to reinvent the art into weapon against the outlived old and positioning itself as direct opposition AGAINST art that represents culture of the present time.

Culture of consumerism that turned into visual consumerism with the help of internet is hard to oppose and challenge in any attempt of making bid public art spectacle, won’t challenge any concept but serve certain need for entertainment.

 

Invisible art of Paul Jaisini stands against all that is dominating and culturally regressive in the present, false visual multiplicity that imply democracy and absence of segregation in visual sphere, all inclusiveness.

On so many levels Paul Jaisini brings knowledge of how the present condition reflect on a mind. (non-linear thinking, information processing, constant analysis is the advanced state of high analytical creative mind /osd, adad is the side effect but there are more worse side effects) Shows the burst to create in manifestation of genius mind (can do any task without training) but unable to maintain the creative process as wholesome, bored with the immediate results. Invisibility is theoretical stability and result of high impact activity that gives fast result of creativity and genius realized in art. Then instability in the fact of the created art un--preserved and lost, destroyed.

On a lower level of people who start building some blog with enthusiasm dedicating time, research than abandoning it to become digital graveyard demonstrates inability to continue and search for new. Inability to face what yesterday seemed interesting and capture someone’s mind to give the creative boost.

(fast life, no sleep, high tech knowledge, constant search for new, unsatisfied… new is old – altogether supports “CONSUMERISM” when buying is haul more than physically needed, quantity is the need for new.

Invisible art as a concept seem to attract wide public and elite in such diametrically opposed combination, of people without high aesthetics in mind or the complete opposite illuminati-culturati. People with average or below average taste and aesthetic requirements are as interested and supportive as the elite. When it comes to someone in the middle- another phenomena, quite often those who are educated and intelligent take a stand against even one mention of the art being possibly somehow invisible.

These people respond very well and willing to agree with the concept as Invisible art is brought to them by mass media. In the beginning I was using internet to send out essays and saw the proof that as avant-garde wanted to reach people who never acquired artistically developed taste the invisible art was and now is more than ever suits their taste even to degree of obsession.

That’s adds insult to injury when nobody even pay attention and there’s nothing to offer as the alternative.

They want something tangible as the alternative, the grown philosophy to brew in the minds of people and artists as the sign of time.

The invisibility is the idea that has the power to antagonize the “reality copy” but not in a sense that is widely used in the present time. To express social isolation in case of the teens as seen on tumblr. (examples and variations of Invisibility trend in primitive pictures shared every day in such huge quantities no art publication ever knew, teens and pre-teens are those with passion among the rest of us, when they spread the word it goes far, same as the early internet time, when the word would go far distances to large number of people)

Historically known of the episodes when many artists tried to create the so-called invis art but it really didn’t involve much creativity except for the concepts they came up with, but in reality it involved the reduction of visual means and performance art when the audience came up with more ideas acting around the non-existent artwork than the artist.

Personally I discovered high interactive value of the “PRESUMED” invisible painting when I was getting a lot of responses with very interesting commentaries from the people who actually insisted I was sending them info about the invisible artworks. I never made any claims when sending written essays. People decided for me and probably this is the best way for the interactive dialogue to let people decide.

The only known versions of invisible artworks would be not something that can turn into a philosophical school of thought but random reductions of visual means of various artists. It all came to same MOA that involved frames etc., not the process of creativity or life long creativity that would show how such artistic philosophy develops and what various periods of the artist’s life produce by his belief in his artistic style.

The known precedents of exhibiting so-called invisible art were always random statements that never continued to develop in a distinct style.

What one usually expects is a blank canvas, a picture with some written ideas which is more a topography art, a picture that is in a wrapping of covered up and is a found object art. The only known artists who continued wrapping is Christo but his art is not considered invisible even though he hides or attempts to hide what is inside the wrapping….

Recently same as in more distant periods in time many artists are trying to reduce their visual means. There’s a difference though. In previous times artists ventured into reduction of visual means with more ease. The artworks from older times with reduced visual means had much less labor and look less worked on.

Now the reduction of visual means is something that doesn’t fall under the artistic philosophy when an artists trying to prevent an overkill of the visual imagery.

If Rothko worked on his abstract painting laboriously than in current standards his work would be considered not sale’s worthy. Now to be sale-worthy the abstraction is worked to show a lot of workmanship. Surely Rothko doesn’t want anyone to see a lot of workmanship quite the opposite, he wanted his paintings to look fresh and not overdone. And in current standards he would have to toil on every dot in his painting to perfect it.

Today’s abstract paintings look like very hard-worked on simulations of surfaces that look like some textures (varieties of plain or distressed surfaces /stone and whatever is the decorative surfaces of abstracts, patterns that are used in interior design.

Overworked, machine-like is expensive looking enough to sell in the gallery but it creates a certain amount of fatigue in time. The commerce knows about it, the fatigue would bring the art buyer to buy more to add some new life to the art collection ed infinitum.

Art commerce wants more art collectors in the times when art is selling and makes money and should be called what it is – decorative luxury items.

Art or luxury decorative items was always meant for people with wealth and they always wanted to get their money worth.

When abstract painting is done in a manner to be worthy of selling price it is not creativity of conceptual thought and has no abstracted meaning. The craft of simulating surfaces is widely known and is used in interior design. When it is unique that no other craftsman can repeat it is recognized nearly as jewelry and rag-making, etc. All the items that cost money due to the high workmanship and hours, months and sometimes years of creation. Same way was built the historical hand-made furniture. Same way the current abstract decorations will hold in time. It is made for someone as rich as royalties but it doesn’t mean that it has anything to do with artistic creativity, the most mysterious and unexplained human phenomenon.

So anyone who is interested to earn money as a maker of such luxury items and be able to place them in the store for sale – the art gallery, can come up with own recipe for surface replica and start working will find a paying job on the art scene nowadays...

It doesn’t involve questioning of morals, times and life. It involves many hours of working and ability to produce varieties of the same surfaces in good taste. Instead of questioning human spirituality, or questioning art means that someone considers irrelevant and outdated, not for any breakthrough to create something revolutionary new.

Lumen Print

The segregation-era homes of Inglewood are looking ragged, still showing tenacious independence in their dereliction. Some sit empty, others cling tightly to memories fading since 1954. Now you're just as likely to find black as white in this neighborhood, precariously perched over the hill and out of sight of Bridgetown. I've passed through walking, biking, or driving since being born, watching the mouldering, demolition, and periodic renovation of various tiny historic homes. Thousands of times on the roadside, seeing what the years might make of us. The oldest ones show additions on additions, slowly expanded from the original shacks, more room made as money was saved and children born. Poor, proud history, old as any other village in the Valley, but far more forgotten. But you and I, we remember.

 

February 7, 2020

Inglewood, Nova Scotia

 

facebook | instagram | twitter | tumblr | youtube | etsy

 

You can support my work

get things in the mail

and see everything

first on Patreon

Exposition : The color line

Du mardi 04 octobre 2016 au dimanche 15 janvier 2017

 

Quel rôle a joué l’art dans la quête d’égalité et d’affirmation de l’identité noire dans l’Amérique de la Ségrégation ? L'exposition rend hommage aux artistes et penseurs africains-américains qui ont contribué, durant près d’un siècle et demi de luttes, à estomper cette "ligne de couleur" discriminatoire.

 

—————

 

« Le problème du 20e siècle est le problème de la ligne de partage des couleurs ».

 

Si la fin de la Guerre de Sécession en 1865 a bien sonné l’abolition de l'esclavage, la ligne de démarcation raciale va encore marquer durablement la société américaine, comme le pressent le militant W.E.B. Du Bois en 1903 dans The Soul of Black Folks. L’exposition The Color Line revient sur cette période sombre des États-Unis à travers l’histoire culturelle de ses artistes noirs, premières cibles de ces discriminations.

 

Des thématiques racistes du vaudeville américain et des spectacles de Minstrels du 19e siècle à l’effervescence culturelle et littéraire de la Harlem Renaissance du début du 20e siècle, des pionniers de l’activisme noir (Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington) au réquisitoire de la chanteuse Billie Holiday (Strange Fruit), ce sont près de 150 ans de production artistique – peinture, sculpture, photographie, cinéma, musique, littérature… – qui témoignent de la richesse créative de la contestation noire.

And with advance to REALITY COPY there’s certainly no way of changing this perception only enforcing it, nothing in reality is good enough for “REALITY COPY” that is just another paradox that is not futuristic.

We might be still skeptical about the arrival of REALITY COPY, but its only before its sold at the supermarkets.

What would happen after “Reality Copy” when the progress of all possible levels of true “reality copy” (in technical sense, not psychologically-philosophical) are achieved. The reality hence is copied and sealed.

Technology won’t stop there… one wonders. What is next.

In political sense when reality in representation is something embraced by conservative social power than with “reality copy” the conservative power is the dominating from the social point of view having new level of reality and it’s copy to be controlled.

*seems like the only possibly alternative to REALITY COPY could be ultra radical Invisibility)

In principle the artist aims to deform the reality subjectively to create not the “reality copy” lacking such skills but to convey the artistic poetic goal of expressing whatever given artist wants to express.

In a matter of “reality copy” what is left for the artist to argue with and deform… to question and test… Nothing really changes socially except for more pressure applied to the issue of dealing with self-image and tools to “sell” When a person changes the image the higher the technology the more transformed is the final product.

The progress of mental growth is just as conservative as control on the “visual image of reality” and its copy.

The ongoing technological progress is irreversible as it carries percent of good with bad,

It is common knowledge how for instance internet is benefit and at the same time does damage. A person who knows about the addiction and suffers would acquire the knowledge and hope from the place the person suffers the internet of course.

Same thing is with photography and video. Reality copy would add more psychological problems to the present but create more visual attraction of true-life experience with whatever could be rediscovered in Lifecopy style. Probably is benefits pornography since it will continue same as consumption of food. The basic things… Consumerism benefits since it is super-trained for “instant reach” affect and will commercially exploit the “reality copy” to sell more of “reality copy” gadgets the phones, screens, etc.

New generation of people will repeat the cycle in new technological means of having “reality copy” as nothing new but similar to any visual information currently available.

The creative people are the ones BEHIND the time it seems in a matter of “reality copy” and being unable to have anything is an alternative.

The Invisible alternative is the ONLY ONE to question “reality copy”

That is the power of UNKNOWN.

Techno progress can deal in “reality” bringing higher resolution to the fore to sell new generation of phones and gadgets.

But it really doesn’t change the philosophical issue of questions asked by philosophers, what is life, what is art, why do we live. Questions remain unanswered when techno progress veils those questions with the promise that higher technology would bring the end to all unanswered questions and answer them for people.

So far the techno advance puts the artistic, literary and philosophical field out of business. As when people get the toys (gadgets) and the playground (the podium of internet) the art is irrelevant and completely disconnected from the social phenomenon of self-representation. Art is not interested to question something with no philosophical substance to it.

The commercial art is willing to supply more stuff for consumerism. If its reality-copy than someone empowered by financial wealth (born rich) would come up with more decorative solutions that could serve REALITY COPY in needed fashion, add more details to the “reality set” to those who can afford it.

Same way it is now when people with means live with more things.

“Reality Copy” of people without means would look just as it is in reality, gray and unexciting. To help people without means the software would offer “decoration” solutions to add the faux details able to transform the surroundings to less depressing. It would enter the person into “life copy” of vacation at Caribbean resorts… etc.

What in such situation could be philosophically questioned, if nothing changed in human morality, but techno advance manage to involve people into self-entertainment to such degree that a person is no longer interested to read books about other people or watch movies and hear news. Self-promotion is the ongoing and time-consuming thing. One has to research the “popular” topics.

As to participating in reality activities, there’s the issue of not having time for anything that doesn’t deal with self-promotion and earning a living.

ART commerce is growing commercially going Industrial since supplying consumer goods is always rewarding in sales. On the other hand this and techno revolution reduces interest of writers and philosophers to dig in depths where there is no depth. It makes such people disengaged with the process. When there are no critical voices to the established situation or some few art critics pretend to do what is expected of them – know about current situation not only on the art scene but at large - socially, and have strong voice against the trends that contribute to the lowering of culture. There’s no more liberal freedom since nobody reads the newspapers. Even if the working critics were principal enough to write articles and books they know their voice would not be heard. They are not vociferous about anything at all because there’s a concept of supporting and art endavour since art is in decline and anything that relates to art needs their support.

There are no voices to oppose the current situation for many reasons such as no younger people would be interested in such undertaking also for many reasons of being disoriented in expectation of techno changes or living their me-life.

The young ones are the invisibility movers, every day someone who is young, information and internet savvy adds the invisibility statement to their online identity. I saw it on tumblr and Iheart. (samples year web address – source)

Art consumer goods sell and make the seller get the goods since sale is the rule.

Art critics silently agree and actually it seems if they even try to disagree there is nothing in art that presently shows any direction against the established art situation.

There isn’t anything not saying a serious claim to deny aesthetic values of the art present and past, to turn away from any influence and history by the fashion avant-garde to question than resuscitate (bring back from death) art that lost vitality and practically is a dead art of dominating taste in an authoritarian culture and conformity.

Bring new blood to reinvent the art into weapon against the outlived old and positioning itself as direct opposition AGAINST art that represents culture of the present time.

Culture of consumerism that turned into visual consumerism with the help of internet is hard to oppose and challenge in any attempt of making bid public art spectacle, won’t challenge any concept but serve certain need for entertainment.

 

Invisible art of Paul Jaisini stands against all that is dominating and culturally regressive in the present, false visual multiplicity that imply democracy and absence of segregation in visual sphere, all inclusiveness.

On so many levels Paul Jaisini brings knowledge of how the present condition reflect on a mind. (non-linear thinking, information processing, constant analysis is the advanced state of high analytical creative mind /osd, adad is the side effect but there are more worse side effects) Shows the burst to create in manifestation of genius mind (can do any task without training) but unable to maintain the creative process as wholesome, bored with the immediate results. Invisibility is theoretical stability and result of high impact activity that gives fast result of creativity and genius realized in art. Then instability in the fact of the created art un--preserved and lost, destroyed.

On a lower level of people who start building some blog with enthusiasm dedicating time, research than abandoning it to become digital graveyard demonstrates inability to continue and search for new. Inability to face what yesterday seemed interesting and capture someone’s mind to give the creative boost.

(fast life, no sleep, high tech knowledge, constant search for new, unsatisfied… new is old – altogether supports “CONSUMERISM” when buying is haul more than physically needed, quantity is the need for new.

Invisible art as a concept seem to attract wide public and elite in such diametrically opposed combination, of people without high aesthetics in mind or the complete opposite illuminati-culturati. People with average or below average taste and aesthetic requirements are as interested and supportive as the elite. When it comes to someone in the middle- another phenomena, quite often those who are educated and intelligent take a stand against even one mention of the art being possibly somehow invisible.

These people respond very well and willing to agree with the concept as Invisible art is brought to them by mass media. In the beginning I was using internet to send out essays and saw the proof that as avant-garde wanted to reach people who never acquired artistically developed taste the invisible art was and now is more than ever suits their taste even to degree of obsession.

That’s adds insult to injury when nobody even pay attention and there’s nothing to offer as the alternative.

They want something tangible as the alternative, the grown philosophy to brew in the minds of people and artists as the sign of time.

The invisibility is the idea that has the power to antagonize the “reality copy” but not in a sense that is widely used in the present time. To express social isolation in case of the teens as seen on tumblr. (examples and variations of Invisibility trend in primitive pictures shared every day in such huge quantities no art publication ever knew, teens and pre-teens are those with passion among the rest of us, when they spread the word it goes far, same as the early internet time, when the word would go far distances to large number of people)

Historically known of the episodes when many artists tried to create the so-called invis art but it really didn’t involve much creativity except for the concepts they came up with, but in reality it involved the reduction of visual means and performance art when the audience came up with more ideas acting around the non-existent artwork than the artist.

Personally I discovered high interactive value of the “PRESUMED” invisible painting when I was getting a lot of responses with very interesting commentaries from the people who actually insisted I was sending them info about the invisible artworks. I never made any claims when sending written essays. People decided for me and probably this is the best way for the interactive dialogue to let people decide.

The only known versions of invisible artworks would be not something that can turn into a philosophical school of thought but random reductions of visual means of various artists. It all came to same MOA that involved frames etc., not the process of creativity or life long creativity that would show how such artistic philosophy develops and what various periods of the artist’s life produce by his belief in his artistic style.

The known precedents of exhibiting so-called invisible art were always random statements that never continued to develop in a distinct style.

What one usually expects is a blank canvas, a picture with some written ideas which is more a topography art, a picture that is in a wrapping of covered up and is a found object art. The only known artists who continued wrapping is Christo but his art is not considered invisible even though he hides or attempts to hide what is inside the wrapping….

Recently same as in more distant periods in time many artists are trying to reduce their visual means. There’s a difference though. In previous times artists ventured into reduction of visual means with more ease. The artworks from older times with reduced visual means had much less labor and look less worked on.

Now the reduction of visual means is something that doesn’t fall under the artistic philosophy when an artists trying to prevent an overkill of the visual imagery.

If Rothko worked on his abstract painting laboriously than in current standards his work would be considered not sale’s worthy. Now to be sale-worthy the abstraction is worked to show a lot of workmanship. Surely Rothko doesn’t want anyone to see a lot of workmanship quite the opposite, he wanted his paintings to look fresh and not overdone. And in current standards he would have to toil on every dot in his painting to perfect it.

Today’s abstract paintings look like very hard-worked on simulations of surfaces that look like some textures (varieties of plain or distressed surfaces /stone and whatever is the decorative surfaces of abstracts, patterns that are used in interior design.

Overworked, machine-like is expensive looking enough to sell in the gallery but it creates a certain amount of fatigue in time. The commerce knows about it, the fatigue would bring the art buyer to buy more to add some new life to the art collection ed infinitum.

Art commerce wants more art collectors in the times when art is selling and makes money and should be called what it is – decorative luxury items.

Art or luxury decorative items was always meant for people with wealth and they always wanted to get their money worth.

When abstract painting is done in a manner to be worthy of selling price it is not creativity of conceptual thought and has no abstracted meaning. The craft of simulating surfaces is widely known and is used in interior design. When it is unique that no other craftsman can repeat it is recognized nearly as jewelry and rag-making, etc. All the items that cost money due to the high workmanship and hours, months and sometimes years of creation. Same way was built the historical hand-made furniture. Same way the current abstract decorations will hold in time. It is made for someone as rich as royalties but it doesn’t mean that it has anything to do with artistic creativity, the most mysterious and unexplained human phenomenon.

So anyone who is interested to earn money as a maker of such luxury items and be able to place them in the store for sale – the art gallery, can come up with own recipe for surface replica and start working will find a paying job on the art scene nowadays...

It doesn’t involve questioning of morals, times and life. It involves many hours of working and ability to produce varieties of the same surfaces in good taste. Instead of questioning human spirituality, or questioning art means that someone considers irrelevant and outdated, not for any breakthrough to create something revolutionary new.

“Segregation is the adultery of an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality” - Malcolm X

 

Macro Monday project – 11/24/14

"Oil and/or Water"

Upper balcony at the Lyric Theatre in Birmingham, Ala.

 

When it opened in 1914, this was the only white theater in the city to allow black people, though blacks had to use a separate entrance and stay up here. And pee in a separate bathroom. I wonder how hot it got up here, with the body heat of a thousand-plus sweaty white folks rising up from two levels of seating below.

 

This is the only area with any of the original seats left.

Company/Owner: Mersan Snow White Transport Corporation/Luzon Bus, Inc.

Fleet/Bus Number: 276530

Classification: Air-conditioned City Bus

Coachbuilder: (Zhengzhou) Yutong Bus Company, Ltd.

Body Model: Yutong ZK6107HA

Engine Model: Yuchai YC6G240-20 (G52MA/G52YA)

Chassis Model: Yutong ZK6107CRA (LZYTBTD62D1)

Transmission: 6-speed Manual Transmission

Suspension: Leaf Spring Suspension

Seating Configuration: 3×2

Seating Capacity: 61

Franchise route: San Jose del Monte–Baclaran via Commonwealth, Ayala

Route: Baclaran, Parañaque City [BCL, PQ]–Palmera, San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan [PMR, BU] via N61 (Roxas Boulevard: from NAIA Road to EDSA) / N120 (Roxas Boulevard: from EDSA to Buendia Avenue) / N190 (Buendia Avenue/Sen. Gil Puyat Avenue) / Ayala Avenue (Makati City) / N1 (EDSA) / N174 (East Avenue) / N170 [Commonwealth Avenue (Quezon City)] / N127 (Quirino Highway)

Areas/landmarks/stations passing (underlines are designated stops for this bus scheme - EDSA area only: Buendia–Ermin Garcia Avenue): Bayview International Towers\City of Dreams\Airport Road\Baclaran Market/Baclaran Church\Japanese Embassy\Cuneta Astrodome/HK Sun Plaza/Department of Foreign Affairs\World Trade Center\F.B. Harrison Street\BIR Pasay City\LRT Gil Puyat Station/Taft Avenue\Osmeña Highway/PNR Buendia Station\Chino Roces Avenue (Pasong Tamo)\Makati Central Post Office\RCBC Plaza Yuchengco Tower\V.A. Rufino\PBCOM Tower\Ayala Triangle\Makati Avenue/The Peninsula Manila Hotel\Glorietta 5\Buendia Avenue\Estrella\Guadalupe\Boni/Pioneer\Reliance\Shaw Boulevard\SM Megamall\Ortigas Avenue\Robinsons Galleria\Boni Serrano\Main Avenue\Araneta Center Cubao\Baliwag Transit/Five Star\Ermin Garcia Avenue\LTFRB Central Office/LTO Central Office\NIA Road\V. Luna Avenue/Land Registration Authority East Ave\Philippine Statistics Authority\SSS East Ave/BSP East Ave\BIR Road\East Avenue Medical Center\Philippine Heart Center\Matalino Street/Nat'l Kidney Transplant Institute\Quezon Memorial Circle/Quezon City Hall Gate 10\Nat'l Housing Authority Main Office/Maharlika Street\Philcoa\UP Ayala TechnoHub\Central Avenue\INC Templo Central\Tandang Sora Avenue\Luzon Avenue\Diliman Doctors Hospital\Don Antonio\Ever Gotesco\Saint Peter Parish\Sandiganbayan\Commission on Audit\Commonwealth Market\Manggahan\INC Capitol\Litex\Don Fabian\Doña Carmen Avenue\Winston Street\Pearl Drive\Fairview Center Mall/NCBA Fairview\Our Lady of Fatima Regalado\AMA Fairview/Bristol Street\Mindanao-Jollibee\Brittany Square/Belfast\Commonwealth Hospital and Medical Center\SM City Fairview\Trees Residences\Hilltop Mansion Subdivision/Our Lady of Fatima Hilltop\Mater Carmeli School\Sacred Heart Novitiate\Quezon City–Caloocan Boundary\Sacred Heart Village/Dela Costa Homes 2\Midway Park Subdivision\Amparo Subdivision Gate 2\Guadanoville Subdivision\Mountain Heights Subdivision\Pangarap Village\Bankers Village 2/North Caloocan Doctors Hospital\Cefels Park 3 Subdivision\Malaria Road\Funnside Ningnangan Caloocan\Ascoville Road\Sampaguita Street\Altaraza Town Center/Pleasant Hills Subdivision\Diamond Crest Village\Savano Park\Pecsonville Subdivision/SM Tungko (SM San Jose del Monte)\Skyline Hospital\Gumaok East\Francisco Homes Subdivision\Starmall San Jose del Monte

Type of Operation: City Operation Public Utility Bus (Bus B Segregation | Regular Class)

Area of Operations: National Capital Region (NCR)/Central Luzon (Region III)

 

Shot location: EDSA-Boni, Mandaluyong City

Date and tme taken: May 14, 2018 (06:19H)

 

Notices:

* Please DON'T GRAB A PHOTO WITHOUT A PERMISSION. If you're going to GRAB IT, please give A CREDIT TO THE OWNER. Also, don't PRINT SCREEN my photos.

** If I have mistakes on the specifications, please comment in a good manner so that I can edit it immediately.

*** The specifications and routes (for provincial, inter-provincial, and city operation) mentioned above are subjected for verification and may be changed without prior notice.

**** The vehicle's registration plate(s), conduction sticker(s), and/or persons (if applicable) were pixelated/blurred to prevent any conflict with the photographer, the bus company and/or to the car owner for their security and/or privacy purposes. So, don't use their plate number, conduction sticker, and vehicle tag as an evidence for any incident. And, I have taken this photo for bus fanatics, bus enthusiasts, and bus lovers purposes.

Rosa Parks fait le mur, fresque de 493 mètres de long autour du thème de la lutte contre les discriminations et pour l'égalité. Les artistes :

Ernesto Novo, 2015

Bastardilla (Bogota)

Tatyana Fazlalizaden (New-York)

Kashink (Paris)

Katjastroph (Nantes)

Zepha (Toulouse)

Projet de GFR sur mur SNCF du pont Riquet et rue d'Aubervilliers, Paris 19e

I made this video to illustrate granular convection/inverse segregation, the process whereby people with avalanche airbag packs are shuffled to the surfaced of slides, for this article: www.instructorcourses.skinewgen.com/avalanche-airbags-are...

San Francisco, California

Leica M Monochrom - 50mm Summilux

 

Please view on black - Hit "L"

racial segregation

Ausstellung im Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan

Exhibition, Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan

Segregation.

Nakanosakaue, Tokyo.

Canon AE-1 PROGRAM + FD 50/1.8 s.c. + FUJICOLOR 100

"Baby Jerry Ogata died on October 15th 1943 in Manzanar of a congenital heart defect. Age 2 months. His Parents, Mr. and Mrs. Toshiro Ogata were transferred to Tule Lake Segregation Center after his death.

A sculpture of John Wesley Dobbs, an African-American political leader in Atlanta, GA. Dobbs believed that enfranchisement was the best way to end segregation, so he organized a voter registration campaign with the goal of registering 10,000 people.

Taken 1.22.14

Nikon D5100

© 2020 Mike McCall

_Cowles House, 1836-1840_

aka Cowles-Bond House or, Woodruff House or Cowles-Woodruff House

National Register of Historic Places

antebellum Greek Revival

Mercer University Law School

Macon, Bibb County, Georgia USA

 

1836-1840

Elam Alexander, architect

 

Residence & headquarter of General James H. Wilson, 1864

Stratford Academy, a segregation academy, 1960-1978

 

The mission of the 621 soldiers of the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion on D-Day was to launch hydrogen-filled balloons to protect troops on the ground from the Germans above. The War Department (and the Navy Department) were both segregated as they had been since their founding. The 320th was no different a group of soldiers commanded by white officers. It is estimated that at least 2,000 Black soldiers landed on the beaches of Normandy that day and most of them were company and battalion support positions due to segregation. Of the men that survived they helped to form the Red Ball Express which was a truck convoy system that supplied Allied forces moving through Europe and then joined during the Battle of the Bulge.

 

None of the Black soldiers that were part of D-Day were awarded a Medal of Honor either during World War II or immediately afterwards until 1992 when a study conducted by Shaw University and commissioned by the Department of Defense and the Army asserted that "systematic racial discrimination had been present in the criteria for awarding medals during the war."

Company/Owner: Thelman Transit, Inc.

Fleet/Bus Number: 88288

Classification: Air-conditioned City Bus

Coachbuilder: Santarosa Motor Works, Inc./Columbian Manufacturing Corporation

Body Model: Daewoo/Santarosa BS106

Engine Model: Doosan DE08TIS

Chassis Model: Daewoo BS106 (PL5UM52HDHK)

Transmission: 6-speed Manual Transmission

Suspension: Leaf Spring Suspension

Seating Configuration: 2×2 (1st to 9th row); 3×2 (10th and 11th row)

Seating Capacity: 52

Franchise Route: Alabang–Novaliches via EDSA Mindanao Avenue

Route: Alabang, Muntinlupa City–Novaliches Proper, Quezon City via E2 [Skyway-Sucat Exit (Muntinlupa City)–Skyway-Bicutan Exit (Parañaque City)–SLEX (South Luzon Expressway)]–N1 (EDSA) / N129 (Congressional Avenue)/ N128 (Mindanao Avenue) / N127 [Quirino Highway (Quezon City)] and vice versa

Areas passing (underlines are designated stops for this bus scheme - EDSA area only: Magallanes–Ermin Garcia Avenue): South Station\Starmall Alabang–Sucat–SM City Bicutan–Magallanes\Ayala Avenue\Buendia Avenue\Estrella\Guadalupe\Boni/Pioneer\Reliance\Shaw Boulevard\SM Megamall\Ortigas Avenue\Robinsons Galleria\Boni Serrano\Main Avenue\Araneta Center Cubao\Baliwag Transit/Five Star\Ermin Garcia Avenue\Kamuning/Kamias\East Avenue/GMA/Timog/MRT GMA Kamuning Station\NIA Road\ETON Centris/Quezon Avenue\Vertis North\Trinoma/Paramount\SM North

Muñoz/Roosevelt/LRT Roosevelt Station/Muñoz Market\S&R Congressional\Shorthorn Street\Metro North Medical Center Hospital\Tandang Sora Avenue\Tandang Sora National High School\Saint James School\Sauyo\Bagbag\Quezon City Polytechnic University\Bernardino General Hospital/Novaliches District Hospital\TV5\SM Novaliches\Novaliches General Hospital\Gulod\SB Plaza Novaliches\Susano Market\Novamall\Shrine Our Lady of Mercy\Santa Monica Shop & Ride\Puregold Nova

Type of Operation: City Operation Public Utility Bus (Bus B Segregation | Regular Class)

Area of Operation: National Capital Region (NCR)

 

Shot Location: EDSA-Boni, Mandaluyong City

Date Taken: May 14, 2018 (6:17H)

 

Notices:

* Please DON'T GRAB A PHOTO WITHOUT A PERMISSION. If you're going to GRAB IT, please give A CREDIT TO THE OWNER. Also, don't PRINT SCREEN my photos.

** If I have mistakes on the specifications, please comment in a good manner so that I can edit it immediately.

*** The specifications and routes (for provincial, inter-provincial, and city operation) mentioned above are subjected for verification and may be changed without prior notice.

**** The vehicle's registration plate(s), conduction sticker(s), and/or persons (if applicable) were pixelated/blurred to prevent any conflict with the photographer, the bus company and/or to the car owner for their security and/or privacy purposes. So, don't use their plate number, conduction sticker, and vehicle tag as an evidence for any incident. And, I have taken this photo for bus fanatics, bus enthusiasts, and bus lovers purposes.

Company/Owner: Philippine Touristers, Inc. (Phil Touristers, Inc.)

Fleet/Bus Number: 572

Classification: Air-conditioned City Bus

Coachbuilder: Santarosa Motor Works, Inc./Columbian Manufacturing Corporation

Body Model: Daewoo/Santarosa BS120S Low Floor Bus Technology

Engine Model: Doosan DL08K

Chassis Model: Daewoo BS120 (PL5UX61NDGK)

Transmission: 6-speed Automatic Transmission

Suspension: Air Suspension

Seating Configuration: 2×2, Side-facing seats

Seating Capacity: 49

Franchise route: Pacita Complex (San Pedro, Laguna)–Navotas via EDSA

Route: Navotas City [NAV]–Pacita Complex, San Pedro City, Laguna [PCT, LA] via C-4 / Dagat-Dagatan / C-3 / EDSA / Skyway (E3) / SLEX-Susana Heights (E2)

Areas passing (underlines are designated stops for this bus scheme - EDSA area only: Kamuning–Mantrade): M. Naval\Tañong\Longos\Fisher Mall Malabon\Dagat-Dagatan\Kaunlaran Village\C-3 Road\5th Avenue\Rizal Avenue Extension/LRT-5th Avenue Station\Bagong Barrio\Balintawak\Kaingin Road\Muñoz/Roosevelt\SM North EDSA/TriNoma/Paramount\West Avenue\Quezon Avenue\GMA-Kamuning\Kamuning\Ermin Garcia\Monte de Piedad\Arayat Cubao\Main Avenue\Santolan\VV Soliven\Connecticut\POEA Ortigas\Shaw Boulevard/Starmall EDSA-Shaw\Pioneer/Boni\Reliance\Guadalupe\Estrella\Buendia Avenue\Ayala Avenue\Mantrade\Sucat–Bicutan–Alabang–Susanna Heights\Pepsi-Cola Plant Muntinlupa\SM Center Muntinlupa\Super 8 Grocery Warehouse\Savemore San Pedro/BBL Trans Terminal\Cataquiz Avenue\Shopwise

Type of Operation: City Operation Public Utility Bus (Bus C Segregation | Regular Class)

Area of Operations: National Capital Region (NCR) / CALABARZON (Region IV-A)

 

Shot Location: EDSA-Boni, Mandaluyong City

Date Taken: May 14, 2018

 

Notices:

* Please DON'T GRAB A PHOTO WITHOUT A PERMISSION. If you're going to GRAB IT, please give A CREDIT TO THE OWNER. Also, don't PRINT SCREEN my photos.

** If I have mistakes on the specifications, please comment in a good manner so that I can edit it immediately.

*** The specifications and routes (for provincial, inter-provincial, and city operation) mentioned above are subjected for verification and may be changed without prior notice.

**** The vehicle's registration plate(s), conduction sticker(s), and/or persons (if applicable) were pixelated/blurred to prevent any conflict with the photographer, the bus company and/or to the car owner for their security and/or privacy purposes. So, don't use their plate number, conduction sticker, and vehicle tag as an evidence for any incident. And, I have taken this photo for bus fanatics, bus enthusiasts, and bus lovers purposes.

The Wood Ducks get the high perches and the Hooded Merganser gets the dirty water.

Or

The Hooded Merganser gets the cool safe water while the Wood Ducks are exposed to possible predators.

Company/Owner: Malanday Metro Link

Fleet/Bus Number: 1409

Classification: Air-conditioned City Bus

Coachbuilder: (Xiamen) Golden Dragon Bus Company, Ltd./Trans-Oriental Motor Builders, Inc.

Body Model: Golden Dragon XML6103J12 Marcopolo 2 Series I (Phoenix)

Engine Model: Yuchai YC6A240–20 (A3515)

Chassis Model: Golden Dragon XML6103D12 (LFZ6103TR)

Transmission: Manual (5-speed forward, 1-speed reverse)

Suspension: Leaf Spring Suspension

Seating Configuration: 3×2

Seating Capacity: 56

Route: Malanday, Valenzuela City–Coastal Mall, Baclaran, Parañaque City via MacArthur Highway / EDSA / Gil Puyat Avenue/Buendia Avenue / Roxas Boulevard–NAIA Road

Areas passing (underlines are designated stops for this bus scheme - EDSA area only: Kamuning–Buendia): Dalandanan\Malinta\Karuhatan/SM City Valenzuela\Marulas/Our Lady of Fatima University/BBB\Potrero\Monumento\MCU Caloocan\Bagong Barrio\Balintawak\Kaingin Road\Muñoz/Roosevelt\SM North EDSA\West Avenue\Quezon Avenue\GMA-Kamuning\Ermin Garcia\Monte de Piedad\Arayat Cubao\Main Avenue\Santolan\VV Soliven\Connecticut\POEA Ortigas\Shaw Boulevard/Starmall EDSA-Shaw\Pioneer/Boni\Reliance\Guadalupe\Estrella\Buendia Avenue\Glorietta 5\The Peninsula Manila Hotel/Makati Avenue\Ayala Triangle\Makati Stock Exchange\Paseo de Roxas\Robinsons Summit Center\RCBC Plaza Yuchengco Tower\Makati Central Post Office\Chino Roces Avenue (Pasong Tamo)\Mayapis Street\Osmeña Highway/PNR Buendia Station\LRT Gil Puyat Station/Taft Avenue\BIR Pasay City\F.B. Harrison Street\World Trade Center\Department of Foreign Affairs/HK Sun Plaza/Cuneta Astrodome\Japanese Embassy\Heritage Hotel\Baclaran Church\Airport Road

Type of Operation: City Operation Public Utility Bus (Bus B Segregation | Regular Class)

Area of Operation: National Capital Region (NCR)

 

Shot Location: Sen. Gil J. Puyat Avenue (Buendia Avenue), Makati City

Date Taken: January 25, 2016

 

Notices:

* Please DON'T GRAB A PHOTO WITHOUT A PERMISSION. If you're going to GRAB IT, please give A CREDIT TO THE OWNER. Also, don't PRINT SCREEN my photos.

** If I have mistakes on the specifications, please comment in a good manner so that I can edit it immediately.

*** The specifications and routes (for provincial, inter-provincial, and city operation) mentioned above are subjected for verification and may be changed without prior notice.

**** The vehicle's registration plate(s), conduction sticker(s), and/or persons (if applicable) were pixelated/blurred to prevent any conflict with the photographer, the bus company and/or to the car owner for their security and/or privacy purposes. So, don't use their plate number, conduction sticker, and vehicle tag as an evidence for any incident. And, I have taken this photo for bus fanatics, bus enthusiasts, and bus lovers purposes.

The Black Apple - The Extreme Right Social Media Techniques- Hate Speech Processes by Daniel Arrhakis (2025)

 

Extreme Right Social Media Techniques - Hate Speech Processes (*)

  

There is often talk of the use of many fake profiles that certain political forces use to give the impression of greater support for this or that political party.

The case has been more inflated in cases of far-right movements, but in general it has also been seen that it runs through several political quadrants, including the left.

 

With the rise of Bolsonaro and especially Trump in world politics and later with the acquisition of X (Twitter) by Elon Musk, the problem has taken on a projection and dimension that no one can ignore anymore. The proliferation of hate speech and racial, religious, social, sexual and/or gender segregation has reached proportions never seen before.

 

In the case of the Chega party in Portugal, it is estimated that half of the profiles supporting the populist/far-right party may be fake.

 

I wouldn't say most of them are fake, or made by AI. There are indeed the normal profiles of those who support Chega, but there are other groups linked to football fan clubs, to the group 1143, Habeas Corpus, Ergue-te and other so-called Nationalists and Patriots with multiple profiles, in which the same person creates several and whose main objective is to comment on competing political forces and articles in the press and television of the so-called public and/or private institutional media!

 

The multiple use of several profiles is planned in detail, even temporally, with a few Trolls at the forefront of the process, who post the so-called Information/Disinformation produced by the global, national or far-right partisan media, which is then voraciously repeated by their followers.

In Portugal, group 1143 and certain groups linked to football fan clubs as well as certain nationalist groups are experts in this and often include their significant others, who are also quite active.

 

The process is simple, the speech is always uncomfortable, made with an air of mockery, or sometimes with a violent, hateful character, and rude enough and without moral restrictions, it is made in order to scandalize audiences in search of a dynamic response! The more interactive it is, the more the message is passed on to others and therefore the possibility of reaching a wider range of web browsers; because it is also enhanced by the algorithms of social media platforms!

 

The propagation of hate and segregationist speech thus occurs in a multi-directional fractal way, expanding in all directions and to followers of followers, even those who did not even participate in the initial conversation! Rudeness, swearing, and lying are part of the process of promoting indignation and the natural impulse to respond!

The use of racialized violent videos, identified with a given religion or political spectrum and which can be associated with a given group, then serves to stigmatize that community in order to standardize the idea that we have of them, often dehumanizing them, even culturally bestializing them!

The choice is not made at random, videos with a high level of graphic content, criminal content, behavioral or cultural divergence, which have a strong impact on viewers, are chosen. Their origin is worldwide, what matters is that they are an incessant and permanent source, periodically renewed with others that emerge or are replenished, to shape the viewer's vision and perception in relation to their own perception of the world and their sense of security - Fear and the feeling of Insecurity is the ultimate goal!

 

Next comes the generalization and use of the superiority of a race, religion or political belief in order to justify both the right to segregation and even the duty of that so-called civilization " more evolved" to do so so that it does not run the risk of being invaded or simply disappearing.

 

The threat of a national and even international conspiracy that wants to end Western civilization, white, serious, hard-working, meritorious and civilizing, then serves the urgency of struggle and survival by all means to escape a programmed extinction!

 

And the fact of the matter is that there can only be one conclusion: to choose someone who meets the requirements of a strong leader, without fear of bringing back the natural order of things, who will rescue the country once again for its legitimate heirs against usurpers and external invaders.

A kind of Savior of the Nation, an Enlightened One who, like Ventura (the current president of Chega), or Trump himself, has already said that he was chosen by God. Dignification is thus an attempt to justify one's own right to ascend and exercise absolute power emanated by God or the heavens over common mortals in the light of a Messian Absolutism; which in the case of Trump and Elon take the form of an Absolutist Oligarchy.

 

In this conception, Democracy and the tolerant Left are the source of all evils, the cause of Social and Moral Disorder that must be defeated at all costs... and in the last instance, must be controlled or even replaced by a Universal Order of Single Thought, imposed by a strong and incontestable leader - which necessarily has to be a Totalitarian, Patriarchal and Dictatorial Order; and in Trump's case also Worldly.

 

And that is what we are walking towards while the people welcome them with applause!!

 

That is why our struggle is so important and increasingly urgent, dear Friends !

  

______________________________________________________

 

The Black Apple - As Técnicas da Extrema Direita nas Redes Sociais - Processos Do Discurso De Ódio

 

Fala-se muitas vezes da utilização de muitos perfis falsos que certas forças politicas usam para dar a sensação de um maior apoio a este ou aquele partido politico.

O caso tem sido mais empolado em casos de movimentos de Extrema Direita , mas no geral também já se percebeu que percorre vários quadrantes politicos, incluindo à esquerda.

 

Com a ascensão na politica mundial de Bolsonaro e principalmente de Trump e posteriormente com a aquisição do X (Twitter ) por Elon Musk, o problema tomou uma projeção e uma dimensão que já ninguém pode desprezar. A proliferação do discurso do ódio e da segregação racial, religiosa, social, sexual e ou de género atingiu proporções então até há pouco tempo nunca vistas.

 

No caso do partido Chega em Portugal, estima-se que metade dos perfis que apoiam o partido populista/de extrema-direita possam ser falsos.

 

Eu não diria que a maioria são falsos, ou feitos por AI. Há é sim os perfis normais de quem apoia o Chega mas há outros grupos ligados ás claques do futebol, ao grupo 1143, Habeas Corpus, Ergue-te e outros ditos Nacionalistas e Patriotas com perfis múltiplos, em que uma mesma pessoa cria vários e cujo principal objetivo é comentar junto das forças politicas concorrentes e os artigos da imprensa e televisão da dita média institucional publica e/ou privada!

 

A utilização múltipla de vários perfis é planeada com detalhe, mesmo temporal, com uns quantos Trolls á frente do processo, que postam a dita Informação / Desinformação produzida pela média mundial, nacional ou partidária de extrema direita que depois é então repetida vorazmente pelos seus seguidores.

Em Portugal o grupo 1143 e certos grupos ligados às claques futebolísticas bem como a certos grupos nacionalistas são nisso peritos e inclui muitas vezes as suas caras metade, aliás bastante ativas.

 

O processo é simples, o discurso sempre incómodo, feito com ar de gozo, ou por vezes com carácter violento, de ódio, e grosseiro o quanto baste e sem restrições morais, é feito de modo a escandalizar audiências na procura de uma dinâmica de resposta! Quanto mais interativo resultar, mais a mensagem passa para outros e portanto a possibilidade de atingir um leque alargado de navegadores da rede; pois é também potenciado pelos algoritmos das plataformas das redes sociais!

 

A propagação do discurso de ódio e segregacionista faz-se assim de forma fractal multidirecional, expandindo-se em todas as direções e para os seguidores dos seguidores, mesmo os que nem sequer entraram na conversa inicial ! A grosseria, o xingamento, a mentira faz parte do processo de promover a indignação e o impulso natural de resposta!

A utilização de vídeos violentos racializados, identificados com uma dada religião ou espectro politico e que podem ser associados a um dado grupo, servem então para estigmatizar essa comunidade de modo a padronizar a ideia que se quer dar deles, muitas vezes desumanizando-os, bestializando-os mesmo culturalmente!

A escolha não é feita ao acaso, escolhem-se videos com grande teor grafico, criminal, de divergencia comportamental ou cultural, que tenha forte impacto junto dos observadores. A sua origem é mundial, o que interessa é que sejam uma fonte incessante e permanente, renovada periodicamente com outros que vão surgindo ou repondo, para moldar a visão e a perceção do espectador em relação à sua própria perceção do mundo e do seu sentido de segurança - o Medo e a sensação de Insegurança é o objetivo final !

 

A seguir vem a generalização e a utilização da superioridade de uma raça, religião ou crença política de modo a justificar quer por um lado o direito á segregação como até o dever dessa dita civilização " mais evoluída" de o fazer para que não corra o risco de ser invadida ou desaparecer simplesmente.

 

A ameaça de uma conspiração nacional e até internacional que quer acabar com a civilização ocidental, branca, séria, trabalhadora, meritória e civilizadora serve então a urgência da luta e da sobrevivência por todos os meios para escapar a uma extinção programada!

 

E facto dos factos a constatação só pode ser uma, escolher alguém que reúne as condições de um líder forte, sem medo que traga de novo a ordem natural das coisas, que resgate o país de novo para os seus legítimos herdeiros contra os usurpadores e invasores externos.

Uma espécie de Salvador da Pátria, um Iluminado que, como Ventura (o actual presidente do Chega), ou o próprio Trump já teem dito terem sido escolhidos por Deus. A dignificação é assim uma tentativa de justificar o direito próprio a ascender e a exercer um poder absoluto emanado por Deus ou pelos céus sobre os comuns mortais à luz de um Absolutismo Messiano; que no caso de Trump e de Elon tomam a forma de um Oligarquismo Absolutista.

 

Nesta conceção, a Democracia e a Esquerda tolerante é a fonte de todos os males, a causa da Desordem Social e Moral que é preciso derrotar a todo o custo ... e em ultimo caso, deve ser controlada ou mesmo substituída por uma Ordem Universal de Pensamento Único, imposta por um líder, forte e incontestável - o que forçosamente tem que ser uma Ordem Totalitária, Patriarcal e Dictatorial; e no caso de Trump também Mundial.

 

E é para isso que caminhamos enquanto os povos os recebem em palmas !!

 

Por isso é que é tão importante e cada vez mais urgente a nossa luta Camaradas !!

  

(*) Text and image by Daniel Arrhakis (2025)

   

“Segregation is the adultery of an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality” - Malcolm X

 

Macro Monday project – 11/24/14

"Oil and/or Water"

Martin Luther King Jr grew up in a time of extreme segregation, but he did not let that stop him from being a dreamer. He had a dream that would resonate with his country, and he became a major leader of the civil rights movement. His story is told at the national park site that includes his childhood home and in the church where he moved hearts and changed minds.

 

www.nps.gov/malu

Europe, Netherlands, Rotterdam, Centre, Schiekade, Luchtsingel, Schieblock, Pedestrians (uncut)

 

The Luchtsingel and the Schieblock projects are interesting strategies that counteract the detrimental effects that the combination of modernist urban planning (with its rigorous segregation of work, living and commercial functions) and chronic high levels of vacancy of office buildings have on the liveability and vitality of the city.

 

For the almost empty 60s office building Schieblock, a coalition of an architecture bureau (ZUS), a real estate developer, the owner of the building and the municipality of Rotterdam turned it on to creative hotspot and a laboratory of urban redevelopment. A specialty is the “Dak Akker” an agricultural facility on the roof of the building.

  

The Luchtsingel offers a circuit of elevated walkways that passes through the Schieblock, crosses major roads and a railroad to offer the pedestrian new ways to discover the city, help them to avoid the anonymous and sometime unsafe existing urban ground level and realizing a connection between emerging cultural hotspots in the Rotterdam Central and Noord areas. Funding: the municipality of Rotterdam and crowd sourcing / crowd funding. For 25 € people could and can buy planks on which the name of the buyer is printed (as can be seen on this capture).

The first part of the walkway is realized. The next one which will lead to the square of the former Hofplein railway station and will cross the 4 tracks of the Rotterdam-Dordecht railway main line to connect to the Hofpleinviaduct redevelopment project. It will be realized in the last quarter of this year.

 

The projects are urban renewal ‘light’, intervening before demolition and total redevelopment are the only options left.

Because of this I added it to my Urban Frontiers set

 

Shot during a very enjoyable lunch and impromptu summer walk with Leun :-)

This afternoon I suddenly found myself kneeling on the brown coconut matting in the bathroom, my head hidden in my dressing gown, which was slung over the broken cane chair. Kneeling doesn’t really come easily to me, I feel a sort of embarrassment. Why? Probably because of the critical, rational, atheistic bit that is part of me as well. And yet every so often I have a great urge to kneel down with my face in my hands and in this way to find some peace and to listen to that hidden source within me.

-Etty Hillesum

 

Klaus Schulze - Agony

youtu.be/xEvAxthexfc

The East Coast is the poorest and most culturally conservative part of Malaysia.

 

The economy is largely based on agriculture, and the people are fairly conservative. Most women wear a headscarf. Kelantan and Terengganu (but not Pahang) implement many aspects of Islamic law (syariah) in public. The availability of alcohol is limited. Unlike the rest of Malaysia, the weekend in Terengganu and Kelantan runs from Friday to Saturday, with shops and banks closed on Friday but everything open normally on Sunday.

 

On the resort islands, however, rules are far more relaxed. On these islands there is little gender-segregation and alcohol is readily available. If a backpacker decides to sunbathe topless in these areas, oglers (not mullahs) are her top concern.

Christian naturism is the practise of naturism or nudism by Christians. This form of naturism is not to be confused with what Durkheim termed "naturism" as an explanation for the origin of religion[1] in which the forces of nature form the origin of religion.Naturism is the practice of recreational social nudity in a natural environment, such as at a beach, lake, or in a forest or other wilderness area. It is not certain that Christian naturism exists in any formal organisations, however, there are informal (mostly online) networks of Christians who practise naturism.Many of the early protagonists of naturism were Christians. For example, authors such as Ilsley Boone, Henry S. Huntington and Elton Raymond Shaw were writers of books on naturism and on Christianity. The dean of St Paul's Cathedral, the Very Revd William Inge, known as Dean Inge, offered support to the cause of naturists in his support of the publishing of Maurice Parmelee's book, The New Gymnosophy : Nudity and the Modern Life.[5] Dean Inge was also critical of town councillors who were insisting that bathers wear full bathing costumes.Many Christian naturists have very little disagreement with the core beliefs of long-established churches, and may even be members. They feel the error of mandatory dress is cultural, rather than anything related to salvation.[citation needed] Nor is such an error unprecedented. For example, in the 20th century, churches largely abandoned any teaching which promoted racial separation and segregation.[7] Likewise, Christian naturists perceive a gap between scripture and Victorian era modesty (which to some extent is still observed today).Christian naturists believe that much of Christianity has misinterpreted the events of the Garden of Eden story and the Fall of Man. According to this interpretation, God could see the sin that Adam and Eve had committed by eating the forbidden fruit. It was for this reason alone that the couple was ashamed, and therefore tried to hide by covering their bodies with fig leaves. They were not motivated to dress by being able to see one another nude. (If that were the case, Adam and Eve would have immediately run off in opposite directions, rather than remain together.[citation needed]) Although God subsequently clothed them with animal skins, he made no mandate for humans to be dressed in public.

The human body was God's final and greatest earthly creation. Requiring the body to be covered rivals the legalism of the Pharisees. Many people have been deceived into thinking that their clothing keeps them from sin, when in fact the opposite is true.There are a number of ministers and priests in the contemporary nudist movement. In fact, the modem nudist movement was largely organized by ordained religious leaders, as discussed more fully in Chapter 8. These religious leaders used as their justification the many parts of the Judaic-Christian Bible which speak of accepting the human body without shame (such as references to those apostles who were fishermen, naked at their work). Religious nudists use these quotations as an answer to the fundamentalist preachers who sermonize about God’s demand for clothing.

 

For example, the Rev. Martin Wadestone, author of “Nudism and Christianity,” writes: “Actually, in the light of the Bible, there is no sin in nudity itself; but if a person uses the nudity for lustful or immoral purposes he has misused it, and this constitutes a sin. The Bible does not speak against nudity nor does it teach that the body is shameful. There is reference to shame in nudity, but this shame was produced in the mind of man, not by divine ordination.”This was also the belief of at least five groups in the history of Christianity: the Carpocrations, Adamites, Adamianis, Encratites, and Marcosians. Most of the historical information we have concerning the beliefs and practices of these early Christians comes to us, in fact, through the recorded criticisms and diatribes of Roman Catholic Church authorities, since these authorities have largely destroyed the writings of those they considered heretical.Platonic philosopher Carpocrates, born in Alexandria, Egypt in the second century A.D., believed in one God as creator of the world and all things in it. He combined the Christian ideal of the brotherhood of man with portions of Plato’s Republic, advocating that the glories of God should not be hidden. He urged Christians, both male and female, to look upon the natural body with gratitude for the creative force of God-love. His disciples suffered ridicule and sometimes severe persecution but continued their practices into the fourth century A.D. Records indicate that nude statues and a museum were created to honor this sect. It was the Carpocrations who first portrayed Christ’s body in the exposed form commonly seen to this day.The Adamianis existed in the second and third centuries A.D. They were a group that hoped to regain the innocence mankind lost in the Garden of Eden and, consequently, worshiped in a state of nakedness and lived as a nudist community. It’s believed that groups of Adamianis used deserted pagan temples for their own rituals.Some generations later, Encratites and Marcosians, who developed out of the Adamiani tradition, appeared on the scene. The Encratites were vegetarians and many, if not all, practiced nudism. In ancient Gaul (France), a Gnostic teacher named Marcus and his followers became known as Marcosians and were well established in the Rhone Valley by the third century. Irenaeus, a conservative Christian writer of the day, criticized their nudity and religious beliefs, remarking: “Marcus is regarded by these senseless and brain cracked as working miracles.”The Adamites (no connection with the Adamianis) were an active sect in Bohemia during the fifteenth century A.D. They were part of the Hussite Reformation. This group set up numerous religious nude communities.Natural-living Christians were referred to by traditionalists as “Gnostic heretics,” because their Christian doctrines were influenced by esoteric teachings and Eastern mystical thought. Henry de Horatev has written that, while in one sense they could be considered Gnostics, “they were not Gnostics but just plain radical Christians.”These “in-the-buff” religious groups were not exhibitionists, preferring to live in isolated and inaccessible seclusion, protected by the forests in Gaul, the deserts in Egypt, and the islands of Greece.

They built sturdy stone walls for privacy and protection from the hostile communities surrounding them. DeHoratev reflects, “How much it is to be regretted that the only records we have of the early Christian nudists come to us from hostile censorious quarters! Let us hope that someday, in some European or African monastery or tomb, there will be discovered a cache of lost Gnostic books which will shed new light on the persecuted groups of the nudists of antiquity, just as the Dead Sea Scrolls have brought new understanding to the old Hebrew literature.”Other prominent figures in the Bible also participated in social nudity (see scripture below). Being nude is a wholesome way of life, and an acceptable state of dress which was never condemned by God in the Bible. Christian naturists note there is no command in the Adam and Eve story, or elsewhere in the Bible, to wear clothing.

While "openness" and "loving people for who they are" are common concepts throughout Christianity, they are especially emphasized in Christian naturism through "body acceptance." Having a perfect body as the world sees fit is totally unimportant for both males and females of all ages

Many of the prohibitions of present-day nudity (both within Christianity and society at large) originate from the 19th-century Victorian era, rather than scripture. Two centuries ago, except for a Puritan minority and Anabaptist sects, Christians did not generally equate nudity with sexuality.Christian naturists view the story of the Garden of Eden as a model for their beliefs. It is also the main scripture where their interpretation disagrees with denominations where clothing is required. When Adam and Eve were created and placed in the garden as a couple by God, they were both naked and "felt no shame". (Genesis 2:25) They see Adam and Eve being in the blameless state that God had intended them to be. God knew that they were naked, as this was how he had created them.Even before Eve's creation, God had warned Adam "...but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." (Genesis 2:17) Despite God's warning, first Eve, then Adam, eat the forbidden fruit after being persuaded by the devil in the form of a serpent. (Genesis 3:1-6) Upon doing so, they immediately realize that they are naked, and sew fig leaves together as coverings.Shortly thereafter, Adam and Eve hear God walking in the garden, which results with them fearfully hiding among the trees. God queries Adam, "Where are you?" In spite of the fig leaves, Adam replies that he is afraid because of his nakedness. God further asks Adam, "Who told you that you were naked?" Only God, Adam, Eve, and the devil are a party to this matter, as there are no other humans on the planet at this time. Therefore, Christian naturists believe it was the devil who told Adam and Eve that they were naked. Their shame was not of God; nor would the fig leaves cover this shame, regardless of their genitals being covered. God was displeased not only by their disobedience of eating the forbidden fruit, but also with Adam and Eve's subsequent attempt to cover up their bodies.Christian naturists maintain the fig leaves were worn in a futile attempt to hide what the couple had done from God—not each other, noting they were married, and equally guilty of the same original sin.[9] The second sin was to cover parts of the body.[10] The devil had chosen the sexual organs as the area of shame because, unlike God, he has no ability to create life. As the next chapter begins with Adam and Eve engaging in appropriate marital sexual relations,[11] they conclude the couple would have seen each other naked subsequent to the fall of mankind.Having thus sinned, and no longer living nude by their own accord, God expels them from the Garden of Eden. He also made garments from animal skins to replace the fig leaves.

There are other references to nudity in the Bible, such as:[

 

1 Samuel 19:24 He (Saul) stripped off his robes and also prophesied in Samuel's presence. He lay that way all that day and night. This is why people say, "Is Saul also among the prophets?"

 

2 Samuel 6:20-23 As the Ark of the Covenant finally arrives in Jerusalem, King David dances nude within sight of slave girls. For this he is strongly denounced by his wife, Michal. David replies "I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more humble than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor." The Scripture immediately following adds: "And Michal (daughter of Saul) had no children to the day of her death." (For a woman in the ancient Near East to be barren was considered one of the worst curses possible.[citation needed])

 

2 Samuel 11 While King David was rebuked by God for his lust of Bathsheba (a married woman), nothing was said about her nude bathing.

 

Isaiah 20:2 The Lord says to Isaiah: "Take off the sackcloth from your body and the sandals from your feet." And he did so, going around stripped and barefoot.

 

Micah 1:8a (Micah speaking:) Because of this [Jacob's transgression] I will weep and wail; I will go about barefoot and naked.

 

Matthew 6:25 and Luke 12:22-23 Then Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?"

 

Mark 14:51-52 "A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind."

 

John 19:23-24 "When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, ... "Let's not tear [the undergarment]," they said to one another. "Let's decide by lot who will get it...." Many paintings and films depict Christ's crucifixion with Him wearing a loin cloth, but this is consistent neither with scripture nor with the normal method of a Roman crucifixion.

 

Gospel of Thomas Although no major Christian group accepts this book as canonical or authoritative (its translation was unavailable until the 20th century), it relates a conversation between Jesus and his disciples:

 

His disciples asked, "When will you become revealed to us and when shall we see you?" Jesus answered, "When you disrobe without being ashamed and take up your garments and place them under your feet like little children and tread on them, then will you see the son of the Living One, and you will not be afraid."

 

To many people, the word witchcraft conjures up visions of evil Hailoween hags on broomsticks or strange and perhaps depraved rituals of nudity and sex. However, some historians believe that witchcraft is the oldest religion in the world and, therefore, quite respectable despite the prevalent prejudices of Judaism and Christianity. These historians of religion say that witchcraft’s fertility rites are only a worship and awe of nature, and that the monthly new-moon “esbats” and seasonal “sabbats” are only ceremonial rituals in an appeal to the gods for fecundity of the earth and fertility of its inhabitants. The wordwitchcraft, for example, actually means “craft of the wise,” since Wicca,” its root, means “wise one.” As civilization developed, this old religion became a blend of fertility cults, Egyptian occultism, and ancient kabbalistic studies.A fascinating tale of early sun worship and nudity was unearthed in 1887 at Tell-el-Amarna, a small Egyptian village on the banks of the Nile some 200 miles south of Cairo. There, an Arab woman accidentally stumbled upon the baked-clay tablet archives of Pharaoh Akhen-Aton (1385-1353 B.C.). It was learned through the subsequent translation of these tablets that the brilliant young pharaoh and his exquisitely beautiful queen, Nefertiti, considered the sun, Aton, to be the true wellspring of life and thus justified the practice of nudism for spiritual and physical advancement.Because of the discovery of these tablets and other artifacts at Tell-el Amarna, the seat of Pharaoh Akhen-Aton’s government, it is now well known that he was not only a great religious reformer and mystic, who disputed the pantheism of the traditional priesthood, but also a poet of great sensitivity. On the scattered stones that had formed the original wall of Aton’s Temple, archaeologists have found and deciphered the pharaoh’s famous “Hymn to Aton, the Sun God,” a portion of which appears in the Hebrew scriptures as Psalm 104 of the Old Testament. “Through this poem,” writes J. Herman in King& Queen of the Sun,“the pharaoh reveals himself to be a lover of beauty in nature, in art, and in man.”During British control of India, the gymnosophist practice of nudism was greatly curtailed. However, now that there is an independent Republic of India, the jains are again unhampered in their religious practice of nudity. In India today, some women have also joined the ranks of the naked Jain ascetics.The Khajurako temple is not an isolated example of a great tolerance for nudity in ancient India. Other Indian temples, such as the revered shrines at Konarak and Ellora, also display highly realistic erotic sculptures. These representations were obviously not regarded as obscene by the people who lived at the time they were created. Their directness of statement and their placement at central public locations shows that they were an essential part of the living experience of the community, part of the fabric of their social, educational, and religious life.This attitude was carried to such extremes that huge numbers of innocent people were murdered. It is now known that the great majority of those unfortunate victims had no connection with wrong-doing other than being identified as immoral and evil by their fearful neighbors and enemies. Of course, it is conceivable that there were a few witches at the time who used their potions and pills for personal profit and revenge, as their accusers claimed, just as some witches must have “cursed” their persecutors with great forcefulness. But the Wicca tradition as a whole was a religion celebrating joy, health, and fruitful harvests.This old religion is having a renaissance today as part of the “New Age” interest in metaphysics and psychic phenomena. Meditation and hypnosis, traditional tools of witchcraft, are now popular methods of “raising consciousness” toward accomplishing personal and global changes. Flowers, herbs, and crystals, the natural sacraments of the old religion, are also widely used by New Agers in their healing rituals.Much of the evil that has been attributed to witchcraft is actually part of the quite different traditions of Satanism and/or Devil Worship. Cults of this type were based on atheistic hedonism rather than on nature worship. Like witches, the members also practiced ritualistic nudity, but their emphasis was on orgiastic sexuality. Their “black mass” was centered around a nude woman as the altar, and their rites included liberal usage of drugs and hallucinogenic potions.

  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_naturism