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A hundred years into the future, Lord Satanus sits upon a twisted metal throne in the ruins of metropolis. His sister rules by his side. The world is fire, pain and blood. The world is theirs. Ten years in the future, Lord Satanus leads a legion of demons through hell; their hissing and screaming and chanting carves a bloody swath through the inferno to behead the Demon lord known as Neron.
Twenty years in the future, Lady Blaze will usurp Lord Satanus’s then-immense power, and leave him for dead, a withered, aching husk. Stripped entirely of his former glory, and cast into the abyssal wastes to fend for himself among the lesser demons.
Today, she is his only hope.
Lord Satanus sits, powerless in his cell. The vibrations on the dampeners boring into his head. He attempts to meditate, to find some kind of inner calm, but fails. A figure sulks towards his glass enclosure.
Blaze: Brotherrrrr . . . I have come.
Satanus: Wicked Sister! You are my salvation! Release me from this bondage, and we shall engulf this prison in flames.
Blaze: Yes, brother. We shall feast, and this pit will become our own!
Blaze conjures a ball of fire and attempts to destroy Satanus’s cell and power dampeners. They refuse to budge, or even char. Somewhere, Niles Caulder smiles.
Blaze: Satan’s breath. Rest easy, brother, I shall free you, yet.
Blaze merges with the barely-tangible shadows of the hallway and floats down the corridors, past all manner of incarcerated, monstrous people. Psycho Pirate sneers as she goes by. Prometheus cowers in the corner of his cell. Other villains, long forgotten by the public, watch with silent eyes as Blaze shifts around the corner.
Christopher Hackett, twenty three, is newly married. His wife Ellen and he expect a baby within the month. Thanks to Blaze, Ellen will be a single mother.
Blaze tears open the shaft of the service elevator at the end of the hall and floats down it, gentle as a leaf despite her armor, gnarled and heavy, and tears the doors open to the basement. She can feel a great surge of power emanating from this room. Her brother has been stripped of this power, she deduces, releasing it will release him.
Ted Manalo is a single father. After tonight, his daughter will go into the custody of his ageing parents. She will learn to grow up far too quickly. Billy Logan is the only sibling left of three, and the only one who cares for the elderly Mrs. Logan. After tonight, she will have no one.
Blaze approaches the box of power. She can smell the fumes of it, feel energy radiating off it. She drinks a little, makes a sound not unlike a purr, then in one swift movement slashes it to ribbon. It explodes in a fireball of sparks, then dies like Christopher, Ted, Billy and Jerald.
Jerald Parker works the nightshift. He’s here filling in for another man. He wasn’t even supposed to be here today. He won’t survive the afternoon. There is no one to mourn him.
On the floors above, An alarm begins to sound. Blaze courses swiftly back to Satanus’s cell, the doors behind her swinging open as she goes.
“Grodd’s Balls, you filthy chain-smoking Layabouts! Get down to detention block S immediately!” shouts Michael Patten to Digger Harkness and Floyd Lawton. He sends a distress signal to Amanda Waller. Waller is in Washington, there’s nothing she can do.
Digger, withdrawing Boomerangs: Another day in paradise eh?
Floyd, still not looking at him: Another day.
Answer: I’m sure it’s not in your vocabulary, but I advise you to be as non-lethal as possible. You both know how the boss likes her toys broken.
Systematically, the doors start swinging open. The guards begin grapping weaponry. Some suit up in light armor, though generally, they know it wont help. They all grab tranquilizers, Emps, sonic rifles and other non-lethal neutralizers. They’ve been through the training, they know the drill.
Dave Rebor, married father of two, will die despite the training.
If the guards had it their way, they would kill their prisoners on-sight in this situation, but that’s not what they’re being paid for. Floyd Lawton is no guard, and Floyd Lawton is not having a good day, mentally. Even before he pulled his mask on, the world was red around him, the walls coated in blood, and a bullet hole placed neatly between the eyes of everyone around him. One freak, smiling toothily, breaks free of his cell and begins to sprint down the hall. Deadshot shoots him through the neck. They’re all dead to him anyways, today, what’s a few more. Captain Boomerang runs ahead, dodging and weaving through the chaos, scoring hits where he can. Deadshot just walks casually, firing through the riot. Wading through the dead.
Prometheus seizes the opportunity and sprints to the monitor room. In a time like this, who’s to stop him from lifting all of Belle Reve’s secrets and making a nice profit off of them.
Ben Smith and Jerry Cawse do not see tomorrow thanks to him.
Prometheus slams open the door to the monitor room, and basks briefly in it’s low, glaring light. Only one man stands in his way.
Answer: Not now, man! Can’t you see there’s a god damn riot on! It’s like the 1960’s all over again and you’re up here, gnashing at me like a wildebeest!
Prometheus, preparing a fight stance: I hope you have your house in order. *He lunges forward.*
Answer, in one swift motion, spins his chair, grasps his cane and ignites a flashbulb within it, blinding Prometheus for a moment. He swings the cane and jabs Prometheus in the stomach, then grabs the back of his helmet and smashes it on the monitor. Prometheus crumples to the floor.
Answer: This is my house, bitch.
Black Orchid, sitting on the far end of the monitor, smiles widely.
Answer: Flower, baby, you should probably get out there and crack some skulls. Maybe bring me back one to gnaw on.
Orchid nods, kisses his forehead, brushes his chin a second, then flies out of the room and into the fray. Randy Miller, John Beckel, and Lance Henry see tomorrow because of her. Another man, Mike Derry, will be saved at the last minute by Bito Wladon, not wanting to seem dishonorable. No one will live or die because of Angelo Bend, sitting patiently in his cell until Wladon comes to speak with him.
Satanus exits his cell, his power grows. He breathes in the screams and carnage.
Satanus: Sister, you have done well. This structure shall soon be ours.
Blaze: Brother, it alrea-
Her sentence is cut short by Orchid’s fist, plowing squarely into her face. Blaze hits the ground hard, and Black Orchid continues to pummel her. Satanus grabs Orchid by the throat, lifts her bodily, and stares.
Satanus: Child. . . I smell . . . The Green on you. *he pulls her closer to his face* Curious.
Black Orchid goes limp, and Satanus tosses her aside bodily.
Satanus: Rise, sister. This is no place to fall.
Blaze smiles, rises, and arm-in-arm, the two begin to stroll casually through the violence.
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She's fine. She's okay. She's fine . . .
Where the Jewels Are.
A Prequel to
“An Odyssey Less Taken “ (Tallie)
An Escapade in 3 Acts…
Excerpts:
************
Act 1
The Mustard Seed is planted
***********
A couple is getting ready to leave for an apparently Fancy Dress Affair:
The wife cascades down the stairs swirling her silk dress for to catch her husband’s eye, which she does.
Blimey Bess, did you leave anything in ur Jewelry Casket, he chides with a satisfied smirk.
Casket, Luv? Really? I keep telling you what a morbid term that is, she scolds him , while she smiles radiantly ; fetchingly placing a hand to her husband’s cheek, then straightening the black bow tie of his tux.
Don’t be snide, I know you like it when I dress. Besides it’s not often we get to hob nob with near royalty. Beth said in justification of herself driving to the occasion dressed to the nines.
But Beth, Calling it a casket is an old term, and her husband starts to explain (not for the first time) the origin of the phrase ”jewele casket”
Hush child, Beth simpers, placing a finger to his lips, with a very becoming look in her eyes, save it for the students. She turns away and he slaps her lovingly upon her posterior. She giggles and heads back to the stairs.
The doorbell rings.
Beth stops and turns, looking at the door. Could you get that dear, looks like a postal package. I have to go upstairs to finish my hair, and to bury my casket, you old toad she tosses at him, making no attempt to hide in her voice the with undying affection she has for her husband, the love of her life.
He obediently goes to the door, where a man in uniform can be seen through the window, waiting with a package.
He turns, a lump rising in his throat as he eyeballs his pretty ( to him) wife Bess. The main reason is too catch another look at the pretty party dress swishing along her withdrawing figure ,but he also throws a teasing retort at her retreating back, . besides, casket It what me Mum called it luv…..
Turning away, he goes to open the door.
End Act 1
*******
Act 2
The Trolley Cometh
*******
Up on a hummock a large stone manor sits, dominating the landscape below.
A proper butler opens the Manor’s double doors and a stream of well gowned, ladies pour out. The many jewels they are wearing sparkling like some sort of jewel filled waterfall as they move heading down to where a quite ornate Trolley awaits them.
The whispering rustle of high end satin and the erupting glitter of colourfully flickering tiffany quality jewels, lighting up the dreary early morning as female members of the wedding party descend.
The bride is the last to come out into the early morning, stopping to survey the activity below , ever so a royal highness looking down on her subjects.
It was her idea to have her brides maids be driven out to her parents country estate before the dress rehearsal and have a photo grapher take shots of her party at various locations. Since the Groom and his Groomsmen were not allowed, by custom, to view the gowned bride before the ceremony, they were of course not invited. Nor was anyone else outside herself, the bridal party and the photo grapher. The rehearsal and dinner were to take place later that afternoon, and the bride and her party would be changing at the country estate. Towards that means they had already placed cases aboard the trolley containing their evening clothes and everyday jewelry that they would wear for the evenings festivities..
She preferred to be in control off all aspects of the situation. Needless to say, her wedding planner, waiting at the stone cathedral, had developed a migraine over the whole affair.
After a couple of group shots are arranged in front of the elegant trolley, the party is herded aboard by the tuxedoed trolley driver. He has their schedule to keep. He is helped by his pretty blonde wife, herself dressed shimmering, sparkling, as she expertly moves (herds?) the elegant ladies , escorting them cheerfully to their seats.
And with a lurch of the trolley on the old private road, the entire ultra-wealthy group set off on their pre nuptial adventure.
End Act 2
*******
The connection between acts 1 & 2, for those who haven’t figured it out, will be revealed in act 3.
Please comment if you’re going to stay tuned for the outcome
************
****************
This would be the 3rd and possibly final installment of the trilogy…..If you are interested in reading the storyline complete you may find it enlightening to visit Acts 1 and 2 (respectively) before proceeding any further.
Please consider leaving a comment behind that you have (read) the acts. It would be deeply appreciated.
Act 3(?)
After the Harvest
*******
The inspector arrives in his rather jaunty sports auto. He emerges with his Detective Sargent, approaching a waiting constable.
The constable’s partner, Archie, is inside with the police matron.
What do we have Constable? The inspector asks quizzically.
Apparently we have a husband and wife teem who own and drive a private rental trolley, that then decides to waylay and rob the entire wedding party they were hired to ferry about.
Way out here, in the middle of nowhere, Constable?
Appears they were going to the Brides summer home to be photographed. The trolley turned down the path to this old deserted manor where they were told there was engine trouble.
And they were robbed, by the driver and his wife you say Constable?
Them, and two others waiting.
4 robbers then,
Who called it in Constable?
Received an anonymous tip
And just what were they robbed of, Constable? The inspector asked, almost wearily.
Stripped of everything down to their bloody knickers, the lot of them. Then handcuffed and left.
Language Mate, the inspector chided his constable, looking at his Sargent, taking this all down?
Detective Sargent nods
Now, he said turning back to the Constable, Just why do you suppose they stripped them of their clothes.
The gowns were worth L3000 pounds each, real emeralds, the brides was worth double that, with real diamonds
So they were robbed for their expensive clothes, then eh Sargent, the inspector leered.
No Sir that was not all the lot were after.
The Bride was wearing diamond jewelry worth L100,000 pounds easy, the rest of the girls were wearing matching emeralds sets that the bride paid L32,000 pounds each.
Each, The inspector arched an eyebrow.
Each of the Bridesmaids, inspector, answered the ridden constable.
That’s a great amount of information constable. Just how did you acquire it.
The bride sir, she won’t stop squawking on about it. answered the Constable
Careful how you talk about your betters, constable, the inspector winked at him.
I’m sure the young lady in question has every right to squawk.
So let me get this straight constable, a bridal party was Shanghaied and robbed of their possessions by their trolley driver, his wife and two other associates. Then someone cordially calls the station to let us in on the joke?
Right sir, no joke though
Then why did they leave their trolley here, for evidence against them?
Asked the Inspector, before turning to his Detective Sargent.
Sergeant. send a man down to the drivers abode, the information should be acquired from the registration from the plates they so handily left.
The Constable cleared his throat, actually my partner Archie already called it in Sir.
The inspector raised an eyebrow, Glad to see someone is on the ball.
The police radio crackles, the constable goes to answer it.
He comes back, standing smartly at attention.
Just received a call, they found the husband and wife tied up in their basement.
Apparently two men posing as a postal worker and driver held them up.
The ones who robbed the bride and her party? Constable?
No sir, apparently the two who brought them here were imposters.
The real uns were held them up at gunpoint, made to strip to their underthings and tied up.
Then Two others, man and woman, took the Trolly to the Manor to “pick up” the Bride and her Bridesmaids.
Has a statement been taken? Yes sir, but there is not much.
Thieves were disguised as postal workers. House was ransacked, safe looted, wife jewel case cleaned out, the usual.
After burgling their manor, the occupants were stripped to their skivvies, trussed up and locked in their basement cannery.
Then a call came in on their telephone, the thieves answered it. After they hung up, the husband heard their phone used to call us, and heard the two thieves leave..
Was anything said by the thieves?
They only overheard the one thing, something one of the postage men said.
Thief posing as one, right constable, don’t want to give anyone a bad rep
Yes sir,
it appears that when the thief - wearing the postman’s costume- answered the phone, he repeated a phrase.
And what would that phrase have been, constable?
Mustard Seed,
Mustard seed? Eh.
Sergeant, the inspector turned to his detective sergeant. That begs the question, why Mustard seed?
The Detective Sergeant mulled it over for a minute. Then offered:
Seed, could be seed money, mustards grow from a small seed into something quite large. This robbery was seed money for something bigger, possibly, sir?
Not bad Sargent, will make an inspector of you yet.
The inspector turns back to the constable, who has had just about enough of his superiors questions.
He is relieved to now hear what the inspector has to say.
Constable, stand pat here while my sergeant and I have a chat with our victims inside,
The inspector turned to his Detective Sergeant :
Let’s get this lot sorted out, and then will we’ll head over and see about the driver and his wife…
The two made their way up towards the decaying deserted manor house.
The Constable, watching them disappear inside, mutters under his breath.
That is an awfully big haul just for seed money. I would be happy with what that lot will get for what they stole. I bet the old man is off target on this one. Thieves probably will be out of the country with the loot and have it pawned in the states by the time he gets done with his questions.
The constable was closer to the truth than he realized…..
Originally the gang planning the heist had meant to carry out the caper then head off to parts unknown with the loot and lay low. During planning the stages of the heist, one of their members infiltrated the group to garner information. Remarks were interestingly overheard by chatting bridesmaids about a lavish affair being staged a fortnight away (only one week after the rehearsal dinner).
From the “seed” planted by that helpful bit of overheard gossip, grew the new job the group was now going to carry out very shortly .
Mustard seed become its code name.
End of Act 3
*****************
In addendum
Now we break away from the crime scene to visit an occurrence that took place some two hours prior to the phone call that alerted the police to the unfortunate incident related above.
The scene: Inside a C. Hoare & Co branch, in a posh end of London..
Two ladies, both, opulently dressed in satins and jewels, their thick fur coats have been carefully hung by a smartly dressed lady porter, nearby, had been seated and served. The pair are now alone in a richly furnished private room of the bank. Wine at hand, they are merrily going through a collection of jewelry glistening from an open safe deposit strongbox brought up from the depths of the banks’ vault.
The fashionable, long haired daughter is half-heartedly trying on one of several jewel encrusted Tiaras…… Her stylish, bobbed haired mother is admiring the sparkle of a diamond waterfall style necklace; the pricy jewels’ matching mates, (earrings and bracelets and brooch) are laid out next to her.
The daughter suddenly lest out a squeal of delight as she spy’s a small sparkling ruby and emerald encrusted diamond cocktail ring , which she grabs and slips on her pinky. She admires the raw, rainbow like fireworks as she moves it under the lights.
Mum, can I? it will go ever so nicely with the gown I’m wearing to Polly’s Soiree.
Hey, that was my Great Aunts , her Mother yelps grasping at the ring. Almost looking like Defoe’s Sunday dressed Moll Flanders snatching at the colourful trinket worn by a young miss, awed by the passing parade of royals.
Unlike that distracted young miss, however, the daughter was able to hold the ring high from the reach of Her mother’s fingertips, giggling as she did so.
Now Millicent, her mother lectured, You know we don’t approve of young Lady Pollyanna’s fancy boy, Raul. He would probably manage a way to slip the ring from off your finger.
Oh, MaMa, , answered Millicent, I’ll be ever so careful, and please don’t you harp on poor Raul. He really is quite a dear, and the pearls were simply lost, nothing more. Let me wear the ring, and I’ll wear whatever jewelry you pick out for me the weekend, Sagely bargained Millicent.
Promise? Her mother asks, relenting in to her daughter’s wishes. It’s just that we don’t you making publicity over getting robbed just before your occasion.
Mum, Millicent says soothingly, nothing will happen to me before my Debs Ball, or occasion as you will call it. She bent over and kissed her mother on the forehead, before going back to her admiration of the pretty ring.
But innocently enough, pretty Millicent has no idea of the prophetic canniness her naively made promise to her mother would soon foretell.
To be continued….
Please see:
Album entitled “Tallie”
For the main story of what the mustard seed turned out to grow into…..
*********************************************************************************
Masza
www.flickr.com/photos/bubbastudio
with her Masha (Volks) in Zofiowka (psychiatric hospital)
Zofiówka Sanatorium is a defunct abandoned mental health facility in Otwock in Poland, built at the beginning of the 20th century. Zofiówka initially had 95 beds, but this number had increased to 275 by 1935. The institution was still working during the early stages of the occupation of Poland, but the conditions dramatically worsened. Almost 400 patients were sentenced to a slow and torturous death by starvation as part of the Nazi extermination Aktionen. Only a few doctors, who managed to escape to Warsaw by ambulance, survived. Some of the staff people committed suicide.
Lisa Buttmonkey (Jasmine0Alaya)
Chilean Rose: ‘Sentence first — verdict afterwards.’, 2018
Staged inSL™, color rebalanced in Lightroom CC
3300 × 6000
Taken at my installation, Out of the Looking Glass|Into the Madness.
Main entrence: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Fender/33/204/297
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAoKcM54Q1Y
The Sin And The Sentence
Trivium
I heard the passing bells calling out my name
I knew I'd never see another day
I couldn't swim against the tides of blame
I knew there was no other way
You better practice your lines
You better practice your words
I know that real monsters lie
Between the light and the shade
It doesn't matter what you say or feel
When honest men become deranged, they'll genuflect to a lie
The sin and the sentence
Penance in the fire (to a lie)
The sin and the sentence
The plagues grip your throat (they'll genuflect to a lie)
The sin and the sentence
Penance in the fire (to a lie)
The sin and the sentence
The plagues grip your throat (they'll genuflect to a lie)
I saw the dagger eyes staring back at me
I knew I'd never have a chance to bleed
Guilty, but in the sight of fallen men
They bury you before you speak (the sin and the sentence)
You better practice your lies
You better practice your words
I know that real monsters lie
Between the light and the shade
It doesn't matter what you say or feel
When honest men become deranged, they'll genuflect to a lie
The sin and the sentence
Penance in the fire (to a lie)
The sin and the sentence
The plagues grip your throat (they'll genuflect to a lie)
The sin and the sentence
Penance in the fire (To a lie)
The sin and the sentence
The plagues grip your throat (They'll genuflect to a lie)
Beware those who speak in tongues
For they may call your name
You condemn me
'Cause you don't understand me
You condemn me
'Cause you don't understand me
They'll genuflect to a lie
The sin and the sentence
Penance in the fire (To a lie)
The sin and the sentence
The plagues grip your throat (They'll genuflect to a lie)
The sin and the sentence
Penance in the fire (To a lie)
The sin and the sentence
The plagues grip your throat (They'll genuflect to a lie)
Beware those who speak in tongues
For they may call your name
You condemn me
'Cause you don't understand me
You condemn me
'Cause you don't understand me
You condemn me
'Cause you don't understand me
You condemn me
'Cause you don't understand me
Fuck!
The sin and the sentence
Penance in the fire
The sin and the sentence
The plagues grip your throat
Let this little sentence be continually before the eyes of our minds!
Let it check us when we are ready to murmur at earthly trials.
Let it strengthen us when we are tempted to deny our Master on account of persecution.
Let it caution us when we begin to think too much of the things of this world.
Let it quicken us when we are disposed to look back, like Lot's wife.
In all such seasons, let the words of our Lord ring in our ears like a trumpet, and bring us to a right mind! "Only one thing is needed!"
If Christ is ours — then we have all and abound!
Maybe one of these days they'll get out....
Thanks for looking!
Instagram - instagram.com/imaginography71/
Twitter - twitter.com/imaginography71
He has just got a 6 years sentence. He will spend 6 years wearing that ugly uniform, cuffed and treated like an inmate. He will be sleeping on a plastic matress, surronded by criminals like him. Working all day at the prison laundry and maybe having sex with inmates. I wish I was him...
There are two eyes watching me. They´re studying my prayers... It is difficult for me to forget my roots. I will make it.
BOB SELF/The Times-Union--11/15/07--Alan Wade talks with one of his attorney Frank Tassone prior to the start of his sentencing hearing in Judge Michael Weatherby's courtroom in the Duval County Courthouse Thursday morning. Wade is the second of four killers facing a possible death sentence for burying a Jacksonville couple alive. (The Florida Times-Union, Bob Self)
To start the week we have a postcard of Finian Lynch B.A. who was sentenced to death but later had the sentence commuted to 10 years penal servitude. What was Finian's crime and what became of him later?
Photographers: Various
Collection: Irish Political Figures Photographic Collection
Date: Ca. 1916 - 1920
NLI Ref: NPA POLF103
You can also view this image, and many thousands of others, on the NLI’s catalogue at catalogue.nli.ie
Sentenced to death.
Sony NEX-5N with Minolta Rokkor 100mm f3.5 with extension tube. Bug chose to participate of his own will and foolishness.
Jane Farrell stole 2 boots and was sentenced to do 10 hard days labour.
Age (on discharge): 12
Height: 4.2
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Place of Birth: Newcastle
Married or single: Single
These photographs are of convicted criminals in Newcastle between 1871 - 1873.
Reference: TWAS: PR.NC/6/1/1090
(Copyright) We're happy for you to share this digital image within the spirit of The Commons. Please cite 'Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums' when reusing. Certain restrictions on high quality reproductions and commercial use of the original physical version apply though; if you're unsure please email archives@twmuseums.org.uk.
To purchase a hi-res copy please email archives@twmuseums.org.uk quoting the title and reference number.
Brett Lahr is escorted from the jail to the courtroom in the Union County Courthouse for a pre-trial motion Tuesday morning, June 23, 2015, in Lewisburg, Pa. Lahr is awaiting a sentencing hearing later Tuesday after pleading no contest to a conspiracy count for his involvement in a rock-throwing incident that badly injured an Ohio teacher on Interstate 80 last year. (Amanda August/The Daily Item via AP)
Out of this sentence, I created a picture in my mind and made it into reality.
Everybody starts from the bottom, with years of practice, trial and error, helps them focus on their game.
Attitude and perseverance take you up to the victory.
Look at the picture and see how I created an arrow with light to express the journey from “Focus To Victory”.
According to historical records "There are many people at Versailles today." was the only sentence spoken between the young dauphine Marie Antoinette and Madame du Barry, the mistress of the old king Louis XV. Marie Antoinette, coming from a strict christian background could not palate the king flaunting his lover at court and enmity sprouted between her and the sexually liberated du Barry.
I depicted this rivalry between the two women as a cold war of fashion, a contest where the gowns got bigger and the wigs more ridiculously elaborate. Marie Antoinette's pink silk robe à la française follows the traditional period fashions; where as dy Barry's blue gown is a more modern interpretation of the silhouette and "indecently" sleeveless. Both gowns come with a front hemline that can be hoisted up to reveal either their pantaloons or a tableau of a stage depicting the propaganda of the era, smearing each lady of the court for their frivolities.
Marie Antoinette is FR2 Agnes sculpt by Integrity Toys, painted with a disapproving expression as she utters the famous words "There are many people at Versailles today." Madame du Barry is the Luchia sculpt from the same company, her face charismatic enough to climb to to court from her humble beginnings, and amused at the small victory she gains as Marie Antoinette is finally forced to acknowledge her.
The pair comes with two sets of wigs: huge ones evoking the outrageous size of the fashion drawings of the era, decorated with hand carved ornaments of a three mast schooner and a girl on a swing; the other pair of wigs are a more modern interpretation of the pompadour style.
The OOAK shoes are hand sculpted from epoxy putty, covered with silk and lace and embellished with Swarovski crystal ornaments.
The pair is a commission project and not for sale.
Syunsuke Sengoku is a cyber-criminal sentenced to 375 years of orbital penal colony incarceration. Was approached by Juzo Hasegawa with an alternative offer to serve the Cyber Police in the city of Oedo (a portmanteau of Oasis and Edo, according to the Internet). Along with Sengoku such offer received Gabimaru “Gogol” Rikiya and Merrill “Benten” Yanahawa. All of them accepted it, each for their own reason.
Sengoku is a hot-headed, ill-mouthed debauchee who is always on knives with his boss Hasegawa, but not enough to make Hasegawa blow his head off. In combat prefers the high-caliber Magnum revolver that is code-locked to his fingerprints. Is accompanied at most times by Cyber Police assistance robot Varsus tasked by Hasegawa to keep an eye on Sengoku and keep him from excessive drinking, among other things.
* * *
If you like what I do and you want to see me create your OC, a favorite Bionicle Character, or something else, feel free to look up my Commission Info! I also now have a Patreon page, so please consider supporting!
Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions
"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".
The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Wet with cool dew drops
fragrant with perfume from the flowers
came the gentle breeze
jasmine and water lily
dance in the spring sunshine
side-long glances
of the golden-hued ladies
stab into my thoughts
heaven itself cannot take my mind
as it has been captivated by one lass
among the five hundred I have seen here.
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.
In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".
Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.
While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983
Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture
Main article: Commercial graffiti
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.
Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis
Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.
Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.
In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".
There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.
To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".
Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.
sentenced to Life as a pony
Visit this location at DoomsDay Designs & Moonlight Stables in Second Life
The sentence ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE was written by Gertrude Stein as part of the 1913 poem Sacred Emily, which appeared in the 1922 book Geography and Plays. In that poem, the first ROSE is the name of a person. Stein later used variations on the sentence in other writings, and A ROSE IS ROSE IS A ROSE is probably her most famous quote, often interpreted as meaning THINGS ARE WHAT THEY ARE, a statement of the law of identity, A IS A. In Stein's view, the sentence expresses the fact that simply using the name of a thing already invokes the imagery and emotions associated with it. As the quote diffused through her own writing, and the culture at large, Stein once remarked NOS LISTEN! I'M NO FOOL. I KNOW THAT IN DAILY LIFE WE DON'T GO AROUND SAYING IS A... IS A...IS A... YES, I'M NO FOOL; BUT THINK THAT LINE THE ROSE IS RED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ENGLISH POETRY FOR A HUNDRED YEARS. (Four in America).
Gertrude Stein's repetitive language can be said to refer to the changing quality of language in time and history. She herself said to an audience at Oxford University that the statement referred to the fact that when the Romantics used the word ROSE it had a direct relationship to an actual rose. For later periods in literature this would no longer be true. The eras following romanticism, notably the modern era, use the word rose to refer to the actual rose, yet they also imply, through the use of the word, the archetypical elements of the romantic era. It also follows the rhetoric law of thricefold repetition to emphasize a point, as can be seen in speeches dating back to the sophists.
They carry me far away. The glows of light and a loud noise wake me up...
''To reach the other one you'll have to wait''.
“Of all those who are born, most are so fortunate
as to be sentenced to death
For surely they are better off than those
who are sentenced to life.
And yet…
None are more free than they who, in their lifetime
rather then thereafter,
have found themselves from a sentence to life delivered
For those are the few that live to be granted
redemption.”
Sebastian F.W. Nijhof
Ilford HP5 @1600ASA in Ilfosol...2009 I guess...Minolta SRT101 with 50mm 1.7 lens. My first reflex camera.
mixed media on paper. ca. 30 x 40 cm.
www.saatchiart.com/art/Collage-forming-sentences/703169/2...
Sätze bilden.
Mischtechnik auf Papier. ca. 30 x 40 cm.
Kormakitis (Cypriot Arabic: Kurmajit; Greek: Κορμακίτης, Kormakítis; Turkish: Kormacit or Koruçam) is a small village in Cyprus. It is under the de facto control of Northern Cyprus. Kormakitis is one of four traditionally Maronite villages in Cyprus, the other three being Asomatos, Agia Marina and Karpaseia. The Maronites of Kormakitis traditionally speak their own variety of Arabic called Cypriot Maronite Arabic (CMA) in addition to Greek and recently Turkish and they follow the Catholic Maronite Church. Cape Kormakitis is named after the village.
All of the remaining Maronites villagers are elderly. The Republic of Cyprus government gives those who stayed in the north pensions of $670 a month per couple and around $430 for an individual. It also pays instructors to teach CMA, and funds week-long summer visits by young Maronites to put them in touch with their communal roots. Maronites also receive help from the United Nations. Every two weeks UN troops make the trip from Nicosia to deliver food, water, fuel and medical supplies across the border to the north's Maronite population. The UN aid convoy is manned by soldiers from the 12 Regiment Royal Artillery. Aid is funded by the Republic of Cyprus government but is delivered by the UN.
During the weekends the population of Kormakitis increases to more than 600 as displaced former residents return to visit relatives and celebrate Mass. Access has been made easier since 2003 when the Turkish Cypriot authorities relaxed rules on visits to Northern Cyprus. Many Maronites who were displaced from Kormakitis have renovated and upgraded the village and homes for weekend use.
There are several versions for the name of the village. The most common instance of folk etymology is related to the Maronites who arrived from Kour, Batroun. Feeling nostalgic, they used to repeat the sentence "Nahni jina wa Kour ma jit" "We came (to Cyprus) but Kour hasn't come". Another instance of folk etymology is related to the Phoenician settlement of Kormia. The present village would take its name from the expression Kormia jdide, or "New Kormia". These hypotheses seem consistent with the pronunciation of the village in Cypriot Greek (Κορματζίτης /Korma'dʒitis/) and Cypriot Turkish (Kormacit /Korma'dʒit/). The standard Greek name Kormakitis is an attempt to adjust the name to standard Greek pronunciation, whereas the new Turkish name Koruçam was made up after 1974 for political reasons.
Originally from Lebanon and Syria, today's Maronite community in Cyprus was shaped by four successive waves of emigration that started in the 8th century. With the Islamic conquests radiating outward from the Arab Peninsula, many Maronites abandoned Syria and Lebanon[dubious – discuss] and settled in Cyprus. In 938, the destruction of St Maron's Monastery[citation needed][dubious – discuss] in Lebanon prompted a second wave of refugees. Another three centuries passed and Crusader king Guy of Lusignan purchased Cyprus from Richard the Lionheart, leading the former to import Maronite warriors to the island to protect its coastlines. The last wave of emigration came 100 years later when Acre, last outpost of the Crusader edifice, collapsed leading to the last migration of Maronites to Cyprus. Kormakitis was originally built near Cape Kormakitis, but because of Arab raids the village was moved to its current location. The new location of the village was chosen because it provided better protection against raids and contained an ample supply of water and lush vegetation for agriculture and livestock. During the period of 1191–1489, the village of Kormakitis was one of the richest fiefs of the island, which belonged to the French feudal Denores. The Maronites at the time held 60 villages with a reported number of 60,000 and was the second largest community after the Greek Cypriots. In 1570, Kormakitis had 850 inhabitants.
During the Ottoman rule of Cyprus, the number of residences decreased; in 1841, there were only 200 inhabitants. Villagers who remained were highly taxed and harassed by Ottoman Turks and Greek Cypriots alike. The number of Maronites across Cyprus decreased simultaneously: In 1572, there were between 7,000 and 8,000 Maronites, living in 23 villages, while, in 1596, there were 4.000 Maronites, living in 19 villages. Under the British administration in Cyprus, the Maronite Community was promoted by the British government, whose policy was to support minorities. This resulted in better living conditions for the population of Kormakitis. By 1910, Kormakitis relied on agriculture and livestock, which produced grain, olives, beans, cotton, cocoons and other crops.
After Cyprus gained independence in 1960, projects were carried out within the village. In 1962, the village school was constructed, which was able to enrol 210 students and employ seven teachers. In 1965, the village was connected to the electric grid and houses were connected to water mains for the first time.
Following years of intercommunal violence, on 15 July 1974, there was an attempted coup d'état led by the Greek military junta to unite the island with Greece. The coup ousted president Makarios III and replaced him with pro-enosis nationalist Nikos Sampson. On 20 July 1974, the Turkish army invaded the island in response to the coup d'état. Despite the restoration of constitutional order and the return of Archbishop Makarios III to Cyprus in December 1974, the Turkish troops remained on the island occupying the northeastern portion of the island. This resulted in the island being divided into its Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities respectively. Many of Kormakitis's residents choose to migrate to the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus.
Before the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Kormakitis had around 1,000 inhabitants. The number of Maronites has since decreased. It is estimated that between 100 and 165 Maronites remained in the TRNC. The decline in population has been attributed to a lack of jobs and secondary education, leading to migration, migrating mainly to Nicosia and Limassol. During the school year 1999–2000, the Kormakitis Primary School was forced to close down, due to a lack of pupils, providing evidence of Kormakitis's declining young population.
In 2006, TRNC officials announced that Maronites from the village of Kormakitis have been given an opportunity to return to the village. This has been made possible by the fact that the houses and properties in question at Kormakitis, were not seized by Turkish settlers and Turkish Cypriots during the aftermath of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. However, the Maronites have to meet a certain criteria. Firstly, they need to be the legitimate owner of a house or property in the village to be allowed to resettle. Secondly, they also have to move back to the village and reside there. Maronites are not allowed to reclaim their property and then commute to and from Kormakitis to the Republic of Cyprus controlled areas. Some 40 people, mainly elderly couples, meanwhile, have permanently resettled in the village.
Several churches and chapels have been built within Kormakitis and the surrounding fields. These churches and chapels belong to the Maronite Church, a denomination of the Catholic Church. Saint George's Church, located within Kormakitis was built in 1930. Devoted to the patron saint of the village the Church, construction started in 1900. The designs and plans of the church were prepared by the Maltese architect Fenec and the Maltese Civil Engineer Cafiero. The inhabitants of the village offered donations for the construction of the church. The church constituted as the official church of the Maronite Church of Cyprus, prior 1974. Today, Saint George's Church is used by the remaining inhabitants. Icons and religious items dating from the 12th century are located within the cathedral.
The Chapel of Saint George, often referred as Chapel of Saint George of the seeds, is a chapel situated near the Mediterranean Sea, north of Kormakitis. It was built in 1852. Every year, on 3 November, a Mass is celebrated by the Maronite Community dedicated to Saint George. This is done to coincide with the start of the agricultural season, the farmers pray to Saint George for a successful harvest. According to the tradition, after Mass, the Maronites have lunch by the sea to celebrate Saint George.
The Chapel of the Holy Virgin is a small chapel situated in the west of the village. The chapel was thought to have been built in 1453. Recently renovated it is frequently visited.
The Chapel of Saint George, often referred as Chapel of Saint George of the Nuns, is a chapel situated next to the monastery of the Franciscan sisters, in the center of the village. It was built in 1534 and was the first chapel to be built inside the village. The monastery of the Franciscan sisters was built in 1936, next to the village's square.
Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, and its territory is considered by all other states to be part of the Republic of Cyprus.
Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the northeast to Morphou Bay, Cape Kormakitis and its westernmost point, the Kokkina exclave in the west. Its southernmost point is the village of Louroujina. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both sides.
A coup d'état in 1974, performed as part of an attempt to annex the island to Greece, prompted the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. This resulted in the eviction of much of the north's Greek Cypriot population, the flight of Turkish Cypriots from the south, and the partitioning of the island, leading to a unilateral declaration of independence by the north in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support.
Attempts to reach a solution to the Cyprus dispute have been unsuccessful. The Turkish Army maintains a large force in Northern Cyprus with the support and approval of the TRNC government, while the Republic of Cyprus, the European Union as a whole, and the international community regard it as an occupation force. This military presence has been denounced in several United Nations Security Council resolutions.
Northern Cyprus is a semi-presidential, democratic republic with a cultural heritage incorporating various influences and an economy that is dominated by the services sector. The economy has seen growth through the 2000s and 2010s, with the GNP per capita more than tripling in the 2000s, but is held back by an international embargo due to the official closure of the ports in Northern Cyprus by the Republic of Cyprus. The official language is Turkish, with a distinct local dialect being spoken. The vast majority of the population consists of Sunni Muslims, while religious attitudes are mostly moderate and secular. Northern Cyprus is an observer state of ECO and OIC under the name "Turkish Cypriot State", PACE under the name "Turkish Cypriot Community", and Organization of Turkic States with its own name.
Several distinct periods of Cypriot intercommunal violence involving the two main ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, marked mid-20th century Cyprus. These included the Cyprus Emergency of 1955–59 during British rule, the post-independence Cyprus crisis of 1963–64, and the Cyprus crisis of 1967. Hostilities culminated in the 1974 de facto division of the island along the Green Line following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The region has been relatively peaceful since then, but the Cyprus dispute has continued, with various attempts to solve it diplomatically having been generally unsuccessful.
Cyprus, an island lying in the eastern Mediterranean, hosted a population of Greeks and Turks (four-fifths and one-fifth, respectively), who lived under British rule in the late nineteenth-century and the first half of the twentieth-century. Christian Orthodox Church of Cyprus played a prominent political role among the Greek Cypriot community, a privilege that it acquired during the Ottoman Empire with the employment of the millet system, which gave the archbishop an unofficial ethnarch status.
The repeated rejections by the British of Greek Cypriot demands for enosis, union with Greece, led to armed resistance, organised by the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle, or EOKA. EOKA, led by the Greek-Cypriot commander George Grivas, systematically targeted British colonial authorities. One of the effects of EOKA's campaign was to alter the Turkish position from demanding full reincorporation into Turkey to a demand for taksim (partition). EOKA's mission and activities caused a "Cretan syndrome" (see Turkish Resistance Organisation) within the Turkish Cypriot community, as its members feared that they would be forced to leave the island in such a case as had been the case with Cretan Turks. As such, they preferred the continuation of British colonial rule and then taksim, the division of the island. Due to the Turkish Cypriots' support for the British, EOKA's leader, Georgios Grivas, declared them to be enemies. The fact that the Turks were a minority was, according to Nihat Erim, to be addressed by the transfer of thousands of Turks from mainland Turkey so that Greek Cypriots would cease to be the majority. When Erim visited Cyprus as the Turkish representative, he was advised by Field Marshal Sir John Harding, the then Governor of Cyprus, that Turkey should send educated Turks to settle in Cyprus.
Turkey actively promoted the idea that on the island of Cyprus two distinctive communities existed, and sidestepped its former claim that "the people of Cyprus were all Turkish subjects". In doing so, Turkey's aim to have self-determination of two to-be equal communities in effect led to de jure partition of the island.[citation needed] This could be justified to the international community against the will of the majority Greek population of the island. Dr. Fazil Küçük in 1954 had already proposed Cyprus be divided in two at the 35° parallel.
Lindley Dan, from Notre Dame University, spotted the roots of intercommunal violence to different visions among the two communities of Cyprus (enosis for Greek Cypriots, taksim for Turkish Cypriots). Also, Lindlay wrote that "the merging of church, schools/education, and politics in divisive and nationalistic ways" had played a crucial role in creation of havoc in Cyprus' history. Attalides Michael also pointed to the opposing nationalisms as the cause of the Cyprus problem.
By the mid-1950's, the "Cyprus is Turkish" party, movement, and slogan gained force in both Cyprus and Turkey. In a 1954 editorial, Turkish Cypriot leader Dr. Fazil Kuchuk expressed the sentiment that the Turkish youth had grown up with the idea that "as soon as Great Britain leaves the island, it will be taken over by the Turks", and that "Turkey cannot tolerate otherwise". This perspective contributed to the willingness of Turkish Cypriots to align themselves with the British, who started recruiting Turkish Cypriots into the police force that patrolled Cyprus to fight EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist organisation that sought to rid the island of British rule.
EOKA targeted colonial authorities, including police, but Georgios Grivas, the leader of EOKA, did not initially wish to open up a new front by fighting Turkish Cypriots and reassured them that EOKA would not harm their people. In 1956, some Turkish Cypriot policemen were killed by EOKA members and this provoked some intercommunal violence in the spring and summer, but these attacks on policemen were not motivated by the fact that they were Turkish Cypriots.
However, in January 1957, Grivas changed his policy as his forces in the mountains became increasingly pressured by the British Crown forces. In order to divert the attention of the Crown forces, EOKA members started to target Turkish Cypriot policemen intentionally in the towns, so that Turkish Cypriots would riot against the Greek Cypriots and the security forces would have to be diverted to the towns to restore order. The killing of a Turkish Cypriot policeman on 19 January, when a power station was bombed, and the injury of three others, provoked three days of intercommunal violence in Nicosia. The two communities targeted each other in reprisals, at least one Greek Cypriot was killed and the British Army was deployed in the streets. Greek Cypriot stores were burned and their neighbourhoods attacked. Following the events, the Greek Cypriot leadership spread the propaganda that the riots had merely been an act of Turkish Cypriot aggression. Such events created chaos and drove the communities apart both in Cyprus and in Turkey.
On 22 October 1957 Sir Hugh Mackintosh Foot replaced Sir John Harding as the British Governor of Cyprus. Foot suggested five to seven years of self-government before any final decision. His plan rejected both enosis and taksim. The Turkish Cypriot response to this plan was a series of anti-British demonstrations in Nicosia on 27 and 28 January 1958 rejecting the proposed plan because the plan did not include partition. The British then withdrew the plan.
In 1957, Black Gang, a Turkish Cypriot pro-taksim paramilitary organisation, was formed to patrol a Turkish Cypriot enclave, the Tahtakale district of Nicosia, against activities of EOKA. The organisation later attempted to grow into a national scale, but failed to gain public support.
By 1958, signs of dissatisfaction with the British increased on both sides, with a group of Turkish Cypriots forming Volkan (later renamed to the Turkish Resistance Organisation) paramilitary group to promote partition and the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey as dictated by the Menderes plan. Volkan initially consisted of roughly 100 members, with the stated aim of raising awareness in Turkey of the Cyprus issue and courting military training and support for Turkish Cypriot fighters from the Turkish government.
In June 1958, the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was expected to propose a plan to resolve the Cyprus issue. In light of the new development, the Turks rioted in Nicosia to promote the idea that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could not live together and therefore any plan that did not include partition would not be viable. This violence was soon followed by bombing, Greek Cypriot deaths and looting of Greek Cypriot-owned shops and houses. Greek and Turkish Cypriots started to flee mixed population villages where they were a minority in search of safety. This was effectively the beginning of the segregation of the two communities. On 7 June 1958, a bomb exploded at the entrance of the Turkish Embassy in Cyprus. Following the bombing, Turkish Cypriots looted Greek Cypriot properties. On 26 June 1984, the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktaş, admitted on British channel ITV that the bomb was placed by the Turks themselves in order to create tension. On 9 January 1995, Rauf Denktaş repeated his claim to the famous Turkish newspaper Milliyet in Turkey.
The crisis reached a climax on 12 June 1958, when eight Greeks, out of an armed group of thirty five arrested by soldiers of the Royal Horse Guards on suspicion of preparing an attack on the Turkish quarter of Skylloura, were killed in a suspected attack by Turkish Cypriot locals, near the village of Geunyeli, having been ordered to walk back to their village of Kondemenos.
After the EOKA campaign had begun, the British government successfully began to turn the Cyprus issue from a British colonial problem into a Greek-Turkish issue. British diplomacy exerted backstage influence on the Adnan Menderes government, with the aim of making Turkey active in Cyprus. For the British, the attempt had a twofold objective. The EOKA campaign would be silenced as quickly as possible, and Turkish Cypriots would not side with Greek Cypriots against the British colonial claims over the island, which would thus remain under the British. The Turkish Cypriot leadership visited Menderes to discuss the Cyprus issue. When asked how the Turkish Cypriots should respond to the Greek Cypriot claim of enosis, Menderes replied: "You should go to the British foreign minister and request the status quo be prolonged, Cyprus to remain as a British colony". When the Turkish Cypriots visited the British Foreign Secretary and requested for Cyprus to remain a colony, he replied: "You should not be asking for colonialism at this day and age, you should be asking for Cyprus be returned to Turkey, its former owner".
As Turkish Cypriots began to look to Turkey for protection, Greek Cypriots soon understood that enosis was extremely unlikely. The Greek Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios III, now set independence for the island as his objective.
Britain resolved to solve the dispute by creating an independent Cyprus. In 1959, all involved parties signed the Zurich Agreements: Britain, Turkey, Greece, and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders, Makarios and Dr. Fazil Kucuk, respectively. The new constitution drew heavily on the ethnic composition of the island. The President would be a Greek Cypriot, and the Vice-President a Turkish Cypriot with an equal veto. The contribution to the public service would be set at a ratio of 70:30, and the Supreme Court would consist of an equal number of judges from both communities as well as an independent judge who was not Greek, Turkish or British. The Zurich Agreements were supplemented by a number of treaties. The Treaty of Guarantee stated that secession or union with any state was forbidden, and that Greece, Turkey and Britain would be given guarantor status to intervene if that was violated. The Treaty of Alliance allowed for two small Greek and Turkish military contingents to be stationed on the island, and the Treaty of Establishment gave Britain sovereignty over two bases in Akrotiri and Dhekelia.
On 15 August 1960, the Colony of Cyprus became fully independent as the Republic of Cyprus. The new republic remained within the Commonwealth of Nations.
The new constitution brought dissatisfaction to Greek Cypriots, who felt it to be highly unjust for them for historical, demographic and contributional reasons. Although 80% of the island's population were Greek Cypriots and these indigenous people had lived on the island for thousands of years and paid 94% of taxes, the new constitution was giving the 17% of the population that was Turkish Cypriots, who paid 6% of taxes, around 30% of government jobs and 40% of national security jobs.
Within three years tensions between the two communities in administrative affairs began to show. In particular disputes over separate municipalities and taxation created a deadlock in government. A constitutional court ruled in 1963 Makarios had failed to uphold article 173 of the constitution which called for the establishment of separate municipalities for Turkish Cypriots. Makarios subsequently declared his intention to ignore the judgement, resulting in the West German judge resigning from his position. Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to the constitution, which would have had the effect of resolving most of the issues in the Greek Cypriot favour. Under the proposals, the President and Vice-President would lose their veto, the separate municipalities as sought after by the Turkish Cypriots would be abandoned, the need for separate majorities by both communities in passing legislation would be discarded and the civil service contribution would be set at actual population ratios (82:18) instead of the slightly higher figure for Turkish Cypriots.
The intention behind the amendments has long been called into question. The Akritas plan, written in the height of the constitutional dispute by the Greek Cypriot interior minister Polycarpos Georkadjis, called for the removal of undesirable elements of the constitution so as to allow power-sharing to work. The plan envisaged a swift retaliatory attack on Turkish Cypriot strongholds should Turkish Cypriots resort to violence to resist the measures, stating "In the event of a planned or staged Turkish attack, it is imperative to overcome it by force in the shortest possible time, because if we succeed in gaining command of the situation (in one or two days), no outside, intervention would be either justified or possible." Whether Makarios's proposals were part of the Akritas plan is unclear, however it remains that sentiment towards enosis had not completely disappeared with independence. Makarios described independence as "a step on the road to enosis".[31] Preparations for conflict were not entirely absent from Turkish Cypriots either, with right wing elements still believing taksim (partition) the best safeguard against enosis.
Greek Cypriots however believe the amendments were a necessity stemming from a perceived attempt by Turkish Cypriots to frustrate the working of government. Turkish Cypriots saw it as a means to reduce their status within the state from one of co-founder to that of minority, seeing it as a first step towards enosis. The security situation deteriorated rapidly.
Main articles: Bloody Christmas (1963) and Battle of Tillyria
An armed conflict was triggered after December 21, 1963, a period remembered by Turkish Cypriots as Bloody Christmas, when a Greek Cypriot policemen that had been called to help deal with a taxi driver refusing officers already on the scene access to check the identification documents of his customers, took out his gun upon arrival and shot and killed the taxi driver and his partner. Eric Solsten summarised the events as follows: "a Greek Cypriot police patrol, ostensibly checking identification documents, stopped a Turkish Cypriot couple on the edge of the Turkish quarter. A hostile crowd gathered, shots were fired, and two Turkish Cypriots were killed."
In the morning after the shooting, crowds gathered in protest in Northern Nicosia, likely encouraged by the TMT, without incident. On the evening of the 22nd, gunfire broke out, communication lines to the Turkish neighbourhoods were cut, and the Greek Cypriot police occupied the nearby airport. On the 23rd, a ceasefire was negotiated, but did not hold. Fighting, including automatic weapons fire, between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and militias increased in Nicosia and Larnaca. A force of Greek Cypriot irregulars led by Nikos Sampson entered the Nicosia suburb of Omorphita and engaged in heavy firing on armed, as well as by some accounts unarmed, Turkish Cypriots. The Omorphita clash has been described by Turkish Cypriots as a massacre, while this view has generally not been acknowledged by Greek Cypriots.
Further ceasefires were arranged between the two sides, but also failed. By Christmas Eve, the 24th, Britain, Greece, and Turkey had joined talks, with all sides calling for a truce. On Christmas day, Turkish fighter jets overflew Nicosia in a show of support. Finally it was agreed to allow a force of 2,700 British soldiers to help enforce a ceasefire. In the next days, a "buffer zone" was created in Nicosia, and a British officer marked a line on a map with green ink, separating the two sides of the city, which was the beginning of the "Green Line". Fighting continued across the island for the next several weeks.
In total 364 Turkish Cypriots and 174 Greek Cypriots were killed during the violence. 25,000 Turkish Cypriots from 103-109 villages fled and were displaced into enclaves and thousands of Turkish Cypriot houses were ransacked or completely destroyed.
Contemporary newspapers also reported on the forceful exodus of the Turkish Cypriots from their homes. According to The Times in 1964, threats, shootings and attempts of arson were committed against the Turkish Cypriots to force them out of their homes. The Daily Express wrote that "25,000 Turks have already been forced to leave their homes". The Guardian reported a massacre of Turks at Limassol on 16 February 1964.
Turkey had by now readied its fleet and its fighter jets appeared over Nicosia. Turkey was dissuaded from direct involvement by the creation of a United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in 1964. Despite the negotiated ceasefire in Nicosia, attacks on the Turkish Cypriot persisted, particularly in Limassol. Concerned about the possibility of a Turkish invasion, Makarios undertook the creation of a Greek Cypriot conscript-based army called the "National Guard". A general from Greece took charge of the army, whilst a further 20,000 well-equipped officers and men were smuggled from Greece into Cyprus. Turkey threatened to intervene once more, but was prevented by a strongly worded letter from the American President Lyndon B. Johnson, anxious to avoid a conflict between NATO allies Greece and Turkey at the height of the Cold War.
Turkish Cypriots had by now established an important bridgehead at Kokkina, provided with arms, volunteers and materials from Turkey and abroad. Seeing this incursion of foreign weapons and troops as a major threat, the Cypriot government invited George Grivas to return from Greece as commander of the Greek troops on the island and launch a major attack on the bridgehead. Turkey retaliated by dispatching its fighter jets to bomb Greek positions, causing Makarios to threaten an attack on every Turkish Cypriot village on the island if the bombings did not cease. The conflict had now drawn in Greece and Turkey, with both countries amassing troops on their Thracian borders. Efforts at mediation by Dean Acheson, a former U.S. Secretary of State, and UN-appointed mediator Galo Plaza had failed, all the while the division of the two communities becoming more apparent. Greek Cypriot forces were estimated at some 30,000, including the National Guard and the large contingent from Greece. Defending the Turkish Cypriot enclaves was a force of approximately 5,000 irregulars, led by a Turkish colonel, but lacking the equipment and organisation of the Greek forces.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1964, U Thant, reported the damage during the conflicts:
UNFICYP carried out a detailed survey of all damage to properties throughout the island during the disturbances; it shows that in 109 villages, most of them Turkish-Cypriot or mixed villages, 527 houses have been destroyed while 2,000 others have suffered damage from looting.
The situation worsened in 1967, when a military junta overthrew the democratically elected government of Greece, and began applying pressure on Makarios to achieve enosis. Makarios, not wishing to become part of a military dictatorship or trigger a Turkish invasion, began to distance himself from the goal of enosis. This caused tensions with the junta in Greece as well as George Grivas in Cyprus. Grivas's control over the National Guard and Greek contingent was seen as a threat to Makarios's position, who now feared a possible coup.[citation needed] The National Guard and Cyprus Police began patrolling the Turkish Cypriot enclaves of Ayios Theodoros and Kophinou, and on November 15 engaged in heavy fighting with the Turkish Cypriots.
By the time of his withdrawal 26 Turkish Cypriots had been killed. Turkey replied with an ultimatum demanding that Grivas be removed from the island, that the troops smuggled from Greece in excess of the limits of the Treaty of Alliance be removed, and that the economic blockades on the Turkish Cypriot enclaves be lifted. Grivas was recalled by the Athens Junta and the 12,000 Greek troops were withdrawn. Makarios now attempted to consolidate his position by reducing the number of National Guard troops, and by creating a paramilitary force loyal to Cypriot independence. In 1968, acknowledging that enosis was now all but impossible, Makarios stated, "A solution by necessity must be sought within the limits of what is feasible which does not always coincide with the limits of what is desirable."
After 1967 tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots subsided. Instead, the main source of tension on the island came from factions within the Greek Cypriot community. Although Makarios had effectively abandoned enosis in favour of an 'attainable solution', many others continued to believe that the only legitimate political aspiration for Greek Cypriots was union with Greece.
On his arrival, Grivas began by establishing a nationalist paramilitary group known as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B or EOKA-B), drawing comparisons with the EOKA struggle for enosis under the British colonial administration of the 1950s.
The military junta in Athens saw Makarios as an obstacle. Makarios's failure to disband the National Guard, whose officer class was dominated by mainland Greeks, had meant the junta had practical control over the Cypriot military establishment, leaving Makarios isolated and a vulnerable target.
During the first Turkish invasion, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus territory on 20 July 1974, invoking its rights under the Treaty of Guarantee. This expansion of Turkish-occupied zone violated International Law as well as the Charter of the United Nations. Turkish troops managed to capture 3% of the island which was accompanied by the burning of the Turkish Cypriot quarter, as well as the raping and killing of women and children. A temporary cease-fire followed which was mitigated by the UN Security Council. Subsequently, the Greek military Junta collapsed on July 23, 1974, and peace talks commenced in which a democratic government was installed. The Resolution 353 was broken after Turkey attacked a second time and managed to get a hold of 37% of Cyprus territory. The Island of Cyprus was appointed a Buffer Zone by the United Nations, which divided the island into two zones through the 'Green Line' and put an end to the Turkish invasion. Although Turkey announced that the occupied areas of Cyprus to be called the Federated Turkish State in 1975, it is not legitimised on a worldwide political scale. The United Nations called for the international recognition of independence for the Republic of Cyprus in the Security Council Resolution 367.
In the years after the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus one can observe a history of failed talks between the two parties. The 1983 declaration of the independent Turkish Republic of Cyprus resulted in a rise of inter-communal tensions and made it increasingly hard to find mutual understanding. With Cyprus' interest of a possible EU membership and a new UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1997 new hopes arose for a fresh start. International involvement from sides of the US and UK, wanting a solution to the Cyprus dispute prior to the EU accession led to political pressures for new talks. The believe that an accession without a solution would threaten Greek-Turkish relations and acknowledge the partition of the island would direct the coming negotiations.
Over the course of two years a concrete plan, the Annan plan was formulated. In 2004 the fifth version agreed upon from both sides and with the endorsement of Turkey, US, UK and EU then was presented to the public and was given a referendum in both Cypriot communities to assure the legitimisation of the resolution. The Turkish Cypriots voted with 65% for the plan, however the Greek Cypriots voted with a 76% majority against. The Annan plan contained multiple important topics. Firstly it established a confederation of two separate states called the United Cyprus Republic. Both communities would have autonomous states combined under one unified government. The members of parliament would be chosen according to the percentage in population numbers to ensure a just involvement from both communities. The paper proposed a demilitarisation of the island over the next years. Furthermore it agreed upon a number of 45000 Turkish settlers that could remain on the island. These settlers became a very important issue concerning peace talks. Originally the Turkish government encouraged Turks to settle in Cyprus providing transfer and property, to establish a counterpart to the Greek Cypriot population due to their 1 to 5 minority. With the economic situation many Turkish-Cypriot decided to leave the island, however their departure is made up by incoming Turkish settlers leaving the population ratio between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots stable. However all these points where criticised and as seen in the vote rejected mainly by the Greek Cypriots. These name the dissolution of the „Republic of Cyprus", economic consequences of a reunion and the remaining Turkish settlers as reason. Many claim that the plan was indeed drawing more from Turkish-Cypriot demands then Greek-Cypriot interests. Taking in consideration that the US wanted to keep Turkey as a strategic partner in future Middle Eastern conflicts.
A week after the failed referendum the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU. In multiple instances the EU tried to promote trade with Northern Cyprus but without internationally recognised ports this spiked a grand debate. Both side endure their intention of negotiations, however without the prospect of any new compromises or agreements the UN is unwilling to start the process again. Since 2004 negotiations took place in numbers but without any results, both sides are strongly holding on to their position without an agreeable solution in sight that would suit both parties.
A semicolon represents a sentence the author could have ended, but chose not to. That author is you and the sentence is your life.
I've been following the semi colon project since it started when I was 15, and I have been obsessed with drawing semi colons on my wrists since. I knew then that I wanted to get a tattoo, so the message of the project would be with me permanently. On Friday, I made it official and got a semi colon tattoo.
Do me a favor and search the hashtag #projectsemicolon on facebook, instagram, or twitter to find out more of what this is all about.
This is my list of my favorite 2018 songs.
This year I was able to listen to a much broader range of songs than in the past thanks to a great new website (Popnable) that lists the top YouTube listens for an astonishing range of countries (from Kyrgyzstan to Cameroon).
Unfortunately, much of the local music throughout the world is the same factory-produced, autotuned, syndrum-drenched crap that dominates American radio, just in more obscure languages. Ultimately, I weeded through 4000-plus songs to come up with this list of just under 100 songs.
If anyone wants to actually hear any of the songs on this list, go to Spotify and search on “2018 Snopes Favorites.” That should turn up the entire playlist. Or just go to YouTube and start searching song by song.
89 – The Carters – “Apeshit” – It is a sign of the times that President Obama’s year-end best songs list (which was pretty good) includes this song by husband and wife Jay-Z and Beyonce, which includes the line “get off my d**k.” This was an absolutely sex-drenched year in music, and the number of songs about female private parts was astonishing.
88 - MC MM, DJ RD – “So Quer Vrau” – This seemingly German oompah band song is actually by Brazilian hardcore rappers.
87 - Nickie Minaj “Barbie Dreams” – This song disses a whole bunch of rappers in the filthiest ways imaginable. It’s hilarious.
86 - EAZ, Xen, Ledri Vula – “Nasty Girl” – Most of the lyrics to this gentle rap song are in Albanian, but the English chorus seems to be about a female derriere.
85 – Poppy – “Girls In Bikinis” – Poppy is a former Rockette from Boston. From Wikipedia, she seems to live a cosplay life. She has recently started the Poppy.Church.
84 - Tayna, Don Phenom – “Columbiana” – Another song mostly in Albanian. It seems to be about marijuana. It’s an obvious ripoff of Camila Cabelo’s “Havana,” but it sure sounds good.
83 - Yemi Alade – “Bum Bum” – This hooky song by a Nigerian rapper is another about the female derriere, this time about “shaking your bum bum bum.”
82 - Pistol Annies - “Got My Name Changed Back” – Miranda Lambert, Ashley Monroe, and Angaleena Presley are the Pistol Annies. Aggressively feminist country music. “Well I've got me an ex that I adored/But he got along good with a couple road whores/Got my name changed back (yeah yeah)/I got my name changed back (yeah yeah)/I don't wanna be a Missus on paper no more/I got my name changed back (yeah yeah) … I broke his heart and took his money….”
81 - Ashley McBryde – “Girl Goin' Nowhere” – McBryde is a heavily tattooed Nashville singer-songwriter who’s gotten a lot of critical buzz for her first album. This is a good song, but I’m a little skeptical about her long term potential.
80 - Meghan Trainor – “Let You Be Right” – Catchy mainstream pop with cute lyrics:” I don't wanna fight tonight/ I'ma let you be right (let you be right)/We can make up if you just kiss me at the next traffic light”
79 - MC Stojan - “La Miami” – This is classical sounding Arabic pop, with a circular rhythm and sinuous guitar lines – but it’s in Serbian. Even using Google Translate, I can’t figure out what this song is about, although I assume Miami has something to do with it.
78 - Pasha, RebMoe – “I Don't Speak French” – Goofy and catchy song by a Norwegian rapper.
77 – Shenseea – “Body Good” – Shenseea is a Jamaican dancehall performer. This song is a tribute to (in keeping with 2018’s dominant theme) the goodness of female genitalia.
76 - Haifa Wehbe – “Touta” – In 2006, Wehbe was on People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People list. Wehbe won the title of Miss South Lebanon at the age of sixteen and was a runner-up at the Miss Lebanon competition, which was revoked after it was discovered that she was ineligible because she had been married and had a child. (I love Wikipedia.)
75 – Badshah – “She Move It Like” – Badshah is India’s most popular rapper. Google Translate couldn’t handle the lyrics to this song, but I’m betting it’s about the female derriere.
74 - Becky Warren – “Carmen” – Bouncy, upbeat country/Americana love song to Carmen.
73 - Richard Thompson – “The Rattle Within” – Wonderful to hear a good new Richard Thompson song. One of the greatest guitarists ever.
72 - M3NSA – “God Is Good God Is Good God Is Good” – Ghanaian singer and producer M3NSA savagely mocks the minister of the International Central Gospel Church, who was implicated in a financial scandal.
71 – Litany – “Call On Me” – female singer from Harrogate, UK. Smooth and polished request for a one-night stand.
70 - 24hrs, Lil Pump – “Lie Detector” – 24 Hours is an Atlanta rapper (is everyone who lives in Atlanta a famous rapper?). The song incorporates a brief tribute to female genitalia.
69 - Clay Parker and Jodi James - "Easy, Breeze" – Gillian Welch lives.
68 - Lost Frequencies, James Blunt – “Melody” – The sweetest song of the year is from a Belgian DJ.
67 - Alice Merton – “Why So Serious” – An old-fashioned anthemic female belter by a German/English singer.
66 - Emmanuel Jal, Nyaruach – “Ti Chuong” – Christian Sudanese gospel rapper, formerly a conscript child soldier in the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army.
65 - Colin Self - “Story” - Mr. Self’s self-description: “Colin Self was born in 1987 in Portland, Oregon. He lives and works in Berlin and Brooklyn. Self graduated in 2010 with a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A composer, choreographer, and performance artist, Self often works in and with interdisciplinary collectives, using the voice, the body, and digital technologies to explore gender, communication, our relationships to the biological and the technological, the potential for social transformation, and the spaces between and across binaries and boundaries.”
64 - Sebongile Kgaila – “Gladys” – From the great compilation album, “I’m Not Here to Hunt Rabbits.” Apparently, Botswanans play guitar differently than everyone else in the world.
63 - Rodney Crowell, Mary Karr – “Christmas In Vidor” – I wonder what the Beaumont, Texas suburb of Vidor ever did to piss Rodney Crowell off so bad to warrant this piece of pure venom.
62 - Orquesta Akokan – “Mambo Rapidito” – 14-piece mambo band from Havana.
61 - Future, Juice WRLD – “Fine China” – Classic trap artist from Atlanta rhymes “fine china, “I remind her,” “I’m a divah,” and “vagina.” Really pretty song.
60 - King Princess – “Pu**y Is God” – Brooklynite King Princess is very fond of what the Victorians called pudenda. I hesitate to put a gender label on “King Princess,” but she presents as female.
59 – cupcakke – “Duck Duck Goose” – “Easy Bake Oven and this pu**y so similar….” If cupcakke got her mind out of the gutter, she wouldn’t have no mind at all.
58 - Courtney Barnett – “Need A Little Time” – Sydney, Australia singer with an irresistible deadpan singing voice. Classic rock and roll. Barnett has three songs on the 2018 list.
57 - Janelle Monae – “Make Me Feel” – Monae is probably the best of the big-voiced women who dominate the pop radio charts.
56 – Rosalia – “Que No Salga La Luna - Cap.2: Boda” – I’ve long wondered why the distinctive rhythms of Spanish flamenco have not crossed over to the mainstream. It looks like Rosalia might be the first flamenco artist to reach a wider audience. She deserves it, this is gorgeous music.
55 - Car Seat Headrest – “My Boy (Twin Fantasy)” – Leesburg, Virginia’s greatest (now in Seattle).
54 - Courtney Barnett – “City Looks Pretty” – Buzzy guitars wrap around Pavementesque lyrics like this – “Friends treat you like a stranger and strangers treat you like their best friend, oh well.” Addictive.
53 - Thee Oh Sees – “Enrique El Cobrador” – Black Sabbath lives! (and can play their instruments way better than they used to)
52 – XXXTENTACION – “Sad!” – Stereotypically, rapper XXXTENTACION’s career got a huge boost (this song has 878 million Spotify streams) when he was gunned down in Deerfield Beach, Florida in June at age 20. Unstereotypically, his music was innovative and interesting (and not exclusively about female genitalia). It’s really too bad.
51 – Spiritualized – “The Morning After” – Still spacy after all these years.
50 - David Byrne – “ I Dance Like This” – The B-side to “Burning Down the House.”
49 - Soccer Mommy – “Your Dog” – A bracing lyric from the rare Nashville native – “I don’t want to be your f**king dog that you drag around, a collar on my neck tied to a pole, leave me in the freezing cold.” Ringing guitars to boot.
48 - The Chainsmokers – “Sick Boy” – It is an enduring mystery why the Chainsmokers, who are 100% American, sing in a British accent. But, boy do they sound great.
47 - Laura Marling, LUMP, Mike Lindsay – “Curse of the Contemporary” – Eric Burdon meets Heart, with Fleetwood Mac avant-garde garnishes. Maybe the most purely pretty song of 2018.
46 - Cardi B – “Get Up 10” – “Look, they gave a bitch two options: strippin' or lose/ Used to dance in a club right across from my school/ I said "dance" not "f**k", don't get it confused/Had to set the record straight 'cause bitches love to assume.”
45 - Mary Gauthier - “The War After the War” – Political correctness can be both beautiful and, well, correct.
44 - Car Seat Headrest - “Stop Smoking (We Love You)” – The title is the sum total of the lyrics.
43 - Mercedes Peon – “Deixaas” – I’m predicting this is by far the best Galician music you’ve ever heard. Driving beat over lovely intertwined female voices … how could you go wrong?
42 – Odette – “Lotus Eaters” – Piano and voice from a 20-year old woman from Sydney with a plummy fake accent. It ought to be awful, but it really is not. Not at all.
41 - Priscilla Renea – “Gentle Hands” – “I want a strong man with gentle hands.”
40 - Rodney Crowell, Brennen Leigh – “Merry Christmas From An Empty Bed” – Rodney Crowell’s “Christmas Everywhere” is the best Christmas album since the 1981 classic “A Christmas Record” on Ze records. This heartbreaker is the best traditional heartbreaker on the album, though not the best song on the album (which has 4 songs on this list).
39 - Courtney Barnett – “I'm Not Your Mother I'm Not Your Bitch” – Message delivered with a deluge of feedback.
38 - Sofi Tukker – “Batshit” – This duo, who met at Brown University, have a lock in case the Guinness Book of World Records ever decides to add a category of “most times the word ‘batshit’ has been used in a single song.” Autotuned, syndrummed, very polished … and yet really really good.
37 - Alec Benjamin – “If We Have Each Other” – A song to tide us over since Ed Sheeran did nothing new this year. And it’s not bad at all. Maybe Ed should be looking over his shoulder.
36 - Too $hort – Balance – Another female derriere tribute song, but it rises above the genre. “It must be a challenge, trying to keep your balance, with a ass like that, yeah it’s fat, okay…”
35 - Valee, Jeremih – “Womp Womp” – A portion of her physique “tastes like peach cobbler.” Valee is flying a little under the radar because he’s trying to do trap out of Chicago (where it gets way colder than Atlanta, which makes it hard to pull off trap levels of chill). Another very pretty song with extremely sexually explicit lyrics.
34 - Otoboke Beaver “anata watashi daita ato yome no meshi” – These Tokyo women don’t just pay tribute to HarDCore, they run straight over HarDCore.
33 - Rodney Crowell – “Let's Skip Christmas This Year” – Toni loves to put on Christmas music starting pretty much the day after Thanksgiving, but she doesn’t understand how Spotify works so I’m in charge of the playlist. This Rodney Crowell anti-classic will be added to the short list from now on.
32 - Y La Bamba – “Mujeres”– As someone who firmly believes that didacticism and politics are the surest combination for producing terrible music, if you’d have told me that this “Mujeres” is a “battle cry against machismo” by Portland-based Latinx Luz Elena Mendoza I would have confidently predicted a constricted dry monstrosity. ‘Wrong, Moose Breath!,” as Carnak the Magnificent often chastised the magnificently predictable Ed McMahon.
31 - Kapil Seshasayee – “The Ballad of Bant Singh” – If you explore the body of work of Glasgow jazzbo Kapil Seshasayee you’ll find way too much unlistenable experimentation, usually at great length. But this three-minute piece about Bant Singh, an Untouchable who was beaten nearly to death for protesting his daughter’s gang rape, is tightly focused and moving.
30 - Mountain Man - “Stella” – An acapella piece by an unknown three-woman group from Raleigh, North Carolina should have been easy to delete when assembling this list from a starting conglomeration of 4000-plus songs. It wasn’t.
29 - Tal National – “Entente” – For music critics, 2018 was the year of the Tuareg guitarists. The Tuaregs are a Berber tribal group who inhabit the Sahara on the southern fringes of North Africa and northern fringes of sub-Saharan Afria (including portions of Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria). Apparently, Jimi Hendrix’s music was extremely popular among the Tuareg and there are a bunch of Tuareg guitarists who have built on Hendrix to produce a guitar-drenched wall of sound. Toni and I and our friends Carol and Jack saw a great show by Tuaregan guitarist Mdou Mocstar at Drom in the East Village in January. But Mocstar released no new music in 2018 and I couldn’t find any music released in 2018 by Tuareg guitarists that measured up to that show. The closest I found was this song by Tal National, a pan-North African group that includes at least one Tuareg. They’re very different from the Tuareg guitarists, but are worthwhile i their own right (if a touch “World Music-ish”).
28 – XXXTENTACION - “Moonlight” – One of the last songs from this 20-year-old is both inspiring and depressing in its intertwining of the beauty of femininity in the moonlight and a “Smith and Wesson” and a “knife in the intestine.”
27 - Sebongile Kgaila – “Tika Molamu (Knobkerrie Throw)” – You guitarists out there should try to put aside your preconceptions and really listen to this new way of playing the guitar from Botswana. Fascinating and energetic.
26 - A$AP Rocky – “Sundress” – A$AP Rocky moved from Harlem to New Jersey where he has been inspired by his fellow intellectual New Jersey-ites Yo La Tengo and the Feelies.
25– Fontaines D.C. – “Chequeless Reckless - Darklands Version” – An idiot is someone who lets their education do all their thinking.
24 - Lucy Dacus – “Night Shift” – A song about recovery from breaking up with your first love. “The first time I ever tasted somebody else’s spit, I had a coughing fit. I mistakenly called them by your name.”
23 – Wussy – “One Per Customer” – Wussy, a Cincinnati band, is the greatest American band that basically no one has ever heard of (Robert Christgau, the venerable rock critic, is a huge fan, but as he’s almost 80 no one listens to him any more). “Don’t you wish you could have been an astronaut, back when astronauts had more appeal?”
22 - 88rising, Joji, Rich Brian, Higher Brothers, AUGUST 08 – “Midsummer Madness” – “Can’t look me in the eyes when you’re sober … last night I lost all my patience … you were f**ked up I was wasted… midsummer madness … I can’t take it … no more.” Beautiful tenor lead and lovely harmonies.
21 - Rodney Crowell, Daddy Cool & The Yule – “All For Little Girls & Boys” – Rodney Crowell actually doesn’t sing on the best song on his brilliant Christmas album “Christmas Everywhere.” This piece is almost 1920’s Appalachian in its sensibilities.
20 - Ammar 808, Sofiane Saidi – “Kahl el inin” – Tunisian-led bass-heavy trance music band.
19 - XXXTENTACION, Rio Santana, Judah, Carlos Andrez – “I don't even speak spanish lol” – A lovely song by the doomed 20-year-old celebrating lust on the dance floor with (for once) no trace of foreboding about his imminent murder. “Dance with me through the night.”
18 - Rita Ora, Bebe Rexha, Charli XCX, Cardi B – “Girls” – Gorgeous autotuned anthem, “Sometimes I just want to kiss girls, girls, girls….”
17 – Rosalia – “MALAMENTE - Cap.1: Augurio” – This fairly traditional flamenca song (admittedly heavily syndrummed) has 67 million streams on Spotify. That is definitely progress for this radically underappreciated Spanish music.
16 - Saba Andemariam – “Halengaye” – I have probably wildly overrated this song since I’m not really very familiar with Ethiopian and Eritrean music. I might be a note-for-note copy for some other Tigrayan classic, for all I know. But to my ignorant ears, it’s a densely structured, edgy gem.
15 - Cole Swindell – “Break up in the End” – Country to the core. “I'll introduce you to my mom and dad/Say ‘I think I love her’ when you leave that room/I'd still not take their advice when I say you're moving in/Even though we break up in the end”
14 - Amen Dunes – “Miki Dora” – NYC solo musician backed by a rotating group of musicians, but they make some shamelessly gorgeous music.
13 - Pistol Annies – “Milkman” – Second best country music song of the year. “If mama would've loved the milkman/Maybe she wouldn't judge me/If she'd've had a ride in his white van/Up and down Baker Street/On a Monday with her hair down and hand about to slide between his knees/But mama never did love nothin' but daddy and me”
12 - 03 Greedo – “Bacc to Jail” – I usually have a visceral reaction against songs that heavily use the n-word (or the n***ah word). But this song is an exception. The word fits the singer’s helpless acceptance that he is being sentenced to many years in prison for the victimless crimes of drug dealing and gun possession.
11 - Moon Hooch – “Light It Up” – As far as I can tell, Moon Hooch is by far the best jazz band playing today. Not a trace of ossification here.
10 - Kane Brown – “Short Skirt Weather” – Kane Brown is about to take popular country music by storm and it’s tempting to label him the “new Charley Pride” since he’s black. But “Short Skirt Weather” is way better than anything Pride ever did. “Oh my baby's made for short skirt weather/Yeah she makes me wish summer would just go on forever/From them yellow polka dots/From blue jeans to leather/Oh my baby's made for short skirt weather.” Brown is going to transcend color (no pun intended).
9 - Janelle Monae, Pharrell Williams – “I Got The Juice” – The title says it all.
8 – The Low Anthem – “Give My Body Back” - After a terrible auto accident after a Washington, DC show, the Low Anthem became very introspective … and very interior, without any real concern about what might be commercial. They did a DC show this spring that was one of the most intellectually challenging shows I’ve ever seen. “Give My Body Back,” a song about a cube-shaped salt doll who walks into the ocean to determine who she really is, has to be their most commercially palatable song of their recent work. This is definitely the most pretentious song on this list, but it was also a serious contender for the best song of the year.
7 - Ashley Monroe – “Hands On You” – Mainstream country yet the most genuinely erotic song of a year filled with sex-drenched songs. “I wish I would've laid my hands on you/ Shown you a thing or two/I wish I would've pushed you against the wall/Lock the door and bathroom stall, windows and the screen/I wish you would've laid your hands on me/That kind gon' bring me to my knees/I wish I would've let you lay me down/'Cause I wouldn't be here wishing now/ I wish I would've laid my hands on you”
6 – Wussy – “Gloria” – “Now he checks the page again/To find the thing he might have missed/Is she a phantom or a memory/Or the girl that you once kissed/So he is typing in her name to prove/That she does not exist/Her name is Gloria”
5 - Fuse ODG, KiDi, Kuami Eugene – “New African Girl” – The most hopeful song of the year came from this British-Ghanaian group: “African girl show them…. Aaah show them/ Ghanaian girl show them…/ Aaaahh show them Cameroonian girl, show them… / Aaahh show them Jamaican girl show them… / aaahh show them our skin so smooth/ Like lotion baby girl come wine that thing/ She got a big bum bum/ Bigger than the ocean/ Are you gonna gimme that thing yeah/ I want to be with you for life/ Oh let me take you on a ride/ yeah I give you what you want ooh cia bella/Let your body talk talk/Make your body talk talk/You African girl talk talk (Oh lord of mercy )/ bad gal talk”
4 - Priscilla Renea – “Jonjo” – The most genuinely poetic song of the year, about a girl and her brother and a treehouse. Purportedly country music, though I’m skeptical that any of Ms. Renea’s songs will ever crack those unsubtle charts.
3 - Childish Gambino – “This Is America” – If videos counted, this would be number 1. But why should Atlanta win everything?
2 - girl in red – “i wanna be your girlfriend”- “Oh hannah/I wanna feel you close/Oh hannah/Come lie with my bones”
1 - Bastian Baker – “Blame It on Me” – “Driving, the gun’s in the seat between us/It might be loaded, it might be loaded/And someday I won’t have to ask that question/It’s always loaded, it’s always loaded/And it all breaks down when you fire that gun” ---– “I’d have walked away, but the blood is on both of our hands.”
2018 February Alphabet Month
The verdict is in: The Jewel Thief has been sentenced to jail. The evidence on the table clearly put her away. The lawyer filed a brief, but the judge said it was too brief. But this judge did not want any clowning around in his courtroom. He demanded odor in the court. And he got odor alright!
2018 February 19
"A noun sentence, no verb
to it or in it: to the sea the scent of the bed
after making love ... a salty perfume
or a sour one. A noun sentence: my wounded joy
like the sunset at your strange windows.
My flower green like the phoenix. My heart exceeding
my need, hesitant between two doors:
entry a joke, and exit
a labyrinth. Where is my shadow—my guide amid
the crowdedness on the road to judgment day? And I
as an ancient stone of two dark colors in the city wall,
chestnut and black, a protruding insensitivity
toward my visitors and the interpretation of shadows. Wishing
for the present tense a foothold for walking behind me
or ahead of me, barefoot. Where
is my second road to the staircase of expanse? Where
is futility? Where is the road to the road?
And where are we, the marching on the footpath of the present
tense, where are we? Our talk a predicate
and a subject before the sea, and the elusive foam
of speech the dots on the letters,
wishing for the present tense a foothold
on the pavement ..."
by Mahmoud Darwish
translated by Fady Joudah