So Close Your Eyes.......Hear the sound of that howling wind continuing like its been raging unrelentlessly for years. Your body shakes uncontrollably as the coldness cuts through every section that doesn't have the protection layers required against its brutality. Your hamstrings are cramping with every effort you make trying to retrieve your leg out of what seems like bottomless canyons of snow. And then you pause, focusing your eyes in amazement, on the beauty and light that lays out in front of you. Wondering if a radical movement, like when approaching a butterfly, will make it all dissapear. For a split second, all thought and pain have dissapeared. Im glad I have captured that memory!!

Thanks for looking....Stay Safe

"You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism."

Erma Bombeck

The series of American Flags around the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.

Here's to a better year in which people can band together and focus more on the similarities between each other rather than the differences. To me, the universal problems affecting all of us (in some way or another) will be a lot easier to see and seem a lot less uncontrollable once we take that first step.

Happy 4th of July, everyone!

(For some great thoughts by other Flickr members around the idea of independence day and the American flag evoking feeling from folks, I'd direct you to another American Flag shot)

On the way to support us with the uncontrollable wildfires around Älvdalen, Trängslet area.

.44 cal. Magnum single/double-action handgun.

A powerful handgun that superseded the FNX-45 as the US and Canadian Armed Forces' primary sidearm.

Using mighty .44 Magnum rounds in lieu of the more popular and traditional .45 ACP, this handgun may be a bit uncontrollable at times, but the stopping power it possesses is undeniable.

As the successor to the FNX-45, it shares the high modularity of the aforementioned pistol (as well as an extremely high magazine capacity), with replaceable iron sights, back strap, side plates, bottom rail, threaded barrel, 17 round magazine and even a slide stop piece. It is also completely ambidextrous.

Mirit Ben-Nun’s art exists within and beyond reality. She moves away from reality with aggressive and dense colorfulness which reveals an inner testimony of a threatened existence of women. The lines, points and shapes do not reproduce facts but emphasize the special charge of emotional coping.

Mirit Ben-Nun shows a rebellious spirit and tries to reach out to things not through wholeness but via searching for their expression and manifestation.

She explores personal identity and through it tries to define a complementary art, thereby illustrating the world and the nature of human culture. She focuses on the expressive dimension because of the exposure afforded by the uncontrollable moment that so much affects life in a rapidly changing global world.

The discourse between the inner world and the emerging reality is hyperactive and generates in Ben - Nun an endless sequence of works.

From the depths of feelings, dreams, anxieties and expressions arise rigid and exciting meanings of existence whose essence expresses restlessness and lack of adaptation.

Dora Woda

This was snapped, just before Hansel & Gretel teamed up with Tom & Huck, turned into river pirates and then robbed and drowned a mighty wizard, whom withdrew from civilisation into his floating mill house, to forge magical weapons against the evil orcs.

As clumsy Hansel leaned himself against a lever, controlling the paddle wheel speed, the wheel spun up, snapping the mill from its mooring. The mill skyrocketed (or, rather hydroplaned) downstream all the way to the sea, mashing bridges and dams to smithereens along its way and consequently unleashing unspeakable carnage upon the unsuspecting troll community, living underneath those very bridges.

Herds of billy goats, free of their natural predators, bred uncontrollably and grazed all surrounding forests and meadows (including the landmark giant beanstalk), down to bare ground, turning the land into a desert.

Hapless inhabitants of the Cloud Castle - its main beanstalk column severed - suddenly found themselves falling from the sky, air friction overheating their overweight bodies, turning upon impact into fat-bogs and quick-lards, strewn across the country.

While most of these posed a bit of a nuisance and potential malnutrition hazard for inhabitants, they were generally welcomed as a valuable natural resource. However, one particular piece of falling debris, had a rather severe side effect: the giants' chamberpot scored a direct ballistic hit at the high-energy magic research lab, belonging to the Porkpox School of Whichever Crafts and Wisearsery, cracking its thaumic damper hull and exposing its surroundings to raw magic radiation leakage, randomly turning pumpkins into Humvee-Yugo cross-breds and politicians into hot air balloons.

Meanwhile, Red Riding Hood Sorority, driven from their overgrazed forest playground, banded together with some (now homeless) wolf packs and launched a counter offensive against the goats - burning several villages, populated by the three little pigs' descendants in the process, roasting the tenants and using them as food rations for their campaign. However, they were soon overrun and eaten themselves by invading orcish hordes.

With the primary means of anti-orcish defence in form of wizards and whichever crafters out of commission, there was no one but Knights of the Orthogonal Desk left to be asked for help now.

Though them being not so much knights as a bunch of computer-club-dwelling geeks, their epic battles fought only in form of pen-and-paper RPGs, the Knights rejected any form of individual engagement even more than personal hygiene - but were nevertheless seduced by the promised life-long free beer & pizza supply. Thus, shunning any first-hand involvement, they cunningly succeed at luring an army of dwarves out of their mines, by planting misleading clues and false evidence, suggesting that the orcs' final goal is actually seizing the stockpiles of dwarfish gold.

Dwarf battle axes quickly turned the orcish horde into gravy, but the militant wing of the Committee for Equal Heights, realising it was all a ruse de guerre, set out to right the wrongs by shortening any and all remaining deceiving bastards, that call themselves the human race at knee height.

The racket awoke Cough, the magic weed-puffing dragon from his prolonged afternoon nap and as it dawned on him that a better part of a millennium passed since his last snack and puff already, things switched into higher gear and started to turn really interesting...

There. Now you know.

[This factual historic recount brought to you by Yours Truly. Some names have been changed to displease the guilty and blame the innocent.]

___

Two hand-held exposures [1/350, 1/235 sec]

Better large on black

PHOTOSHOP COMPOSITION: L'ESTASI DELL'ORO

This is my November choice. I wanted to evoke the deep and dark moodiness of this fantastic song. I will be doing this again as this is my first attempt in this CS area. I want to make this compostion even more moodier.

I have decided to give myself a monthly challemge with photography and CS5. The lesson is very simple, I have listed twelve of my favorite songs and each month I will take one of the song titles and compose a picture around it. My criteria is that the picture must be an original picture I have taken and that I use my CS5 skills to enhance the picture to meet the theme of the song title. Some will be direct some obscure. Listed below are the songs I will be using in the next twelve months. Here is my November compostion.

The Flesh Failures-Hair Original Cast Recording

The Uncontrollable Fire-U2

Wild Horses-Rolling Stones [June]*

Wonderwall-Ryan Adams [July]*

L'Estasi Dell'Oro-Ennio Morricone [November]*

Sorcerer-Tangerine Dream [September]*

Taxi to Heaven-Pray for Rain

White Room-Cream

Redemption Song-Bob Marley [August]*

Cruel Summer-Bananarama

The Celestials-Smashing Pumpkins

Every Step of the Way-Santana

Magical moments. Don't you just love it when after putting some thought and effort into something all the uncontrollable elements come together to create a magical moment. Having arrived early at St Monans and found the windmill (1st ever visit). Standing ready as the stillness and tranquillity of night becomes day, probably an event that very few people actually witness, luckily as a photographer I get more opportunities to witness this transformation.

LC Verse Spider-Man #14 "Banshee..."

"Aaaaagh!" She screams in agony as the parasite fuses to her skin, it slowly parts her stomach and crawls its way inside her as Norman watches her unfazed. "Hmm intersting." He states observing the parasite tear her chest open slowly sprouting out a mouthful of teeth, the parasite seems to imitate her scream of agony. "Make it stop!" She cries loudly in pain and Norman wages his hand through the air in dismay, "Hush Donna, let it take over." He smirks as the past site stops to a still, her face is left revealed and she drops to her knees in a old sweat. A moment passes and Donna begins getting to her feet groaning whilst the parasite heals her back to health. "Banshee." Norman mutters as he looms her up and down pleased. "We will call you Banshee, a suitable name." He chuckles. Donna twitches her head hearing the parasite whisper in her ear, she closes her eyes and whimpers slightly. Her eyes then open however are a black void. The parasite has taken control Banshee is in charge.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

"Father." It whispers into my ear as Norman Osborn approaches us, I feel a slight sense of excitement however that's only the Parasites emotions passing through my mind. "Hello Parasite." He smirks at us and the parasite takes control forcing me to look at him, we notice a woman walk by his side. Her eyes are empty and we know she has been controlled by another..."This is your lets call her sister, Banshee," my eyes widen in terror from inside the parasite noticing a large mouth torn into her stomach. "Brother..." She says sinisterly looking into our eyes my mouth opens uncontrollably as I hiss the words "hello sister..." I shudder from inside hearing words that are not my own. "Parasite father has a little job for you. I want you to get me Spider-Man, I want him alive." He looks at us and a cruel smile spreads across his lips I try and ask him why but my mouth won't open, the parasite won't let me it forces my mouth shut. Until it opens speaking the words "Yes father..." Norman nods his head and waves us away with his hand, my body is forced to move walking away as we make our way to capture Spider-Man.

See in Larger.

Juca has an uncontrollable hunger eating all the slippers in its path...

Juca tem fome incontrolável de comer todos os chinelos que encontra...

Wishing you all a great weekend!

Ótimo final de semana a todos!

I've just done my first session of innocent morning yoga today.

It wasn't harsh at all, the exercises where quite easy compared to what they can be.

Even though. I found whole body shivering. It was like an earthquake inside of me. And out of no where tears began racing out my eyes.

For some reason I knew that all that uncomfortable and uncontrollable shivering had to be caused by my turbulent mind.

I didn't want my muscles to work out. It didn't want me to become strong. It wants me to continue being best friends with the couch, depression and of course adobe photoshop. It wants my muscles to ace, and it wants to get rid of all the motivation I have to grow stronger.

But the fact is that I need to grow stronger. I can't, simply CAN'T stop focusing about my body's strength and health. To make a long story short it's because I was born 4 months early 20 years ago in a very small town called Narvik. In Narvik they didn't have the equipment/knowledge to deal with that kind of a problems. So they simply told my mom there was no chance and that I would surely die. I was brought to another hospital in Bodø, Norway where despite everything and everyone - I survived. I want to be that little Natasha again, that little fighting Natasha that wanted to live even though she only weighted 600-grams. Less than a kilo. She never gave up. She always knew I had the power to become the best I can be. I can't give up on her. Not after 20 years. I want to have her motivation to live again.

Now it's not any doctors telling me there's not chance and that I'm going to die regardless of what I do, it's my mind. The doctors of 20 years ago have in some way made their way inside of me and I have to fight the battle yet again.

What always has made this harder are the physical problems regarding this.

I guess I just need to breathe.

There are many towns in the world that go by the handle “Highland Park.” New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Florida all contain Highland Parks. So do the countries of New Zealand and Canada. We will spend the next 36 hours in the Highland Park located in northeast Los Angeles, California - a low-key working-class neighborhood with an exciting variety of dining and cultural options.

Friday

6pm: We start our weekend with a drink at Johnny’s on York Boulevard (4). The place is full. The speakers are buzzing at a moderate volume with the bass line from Devo’s “Uncontrollable Urge.” The foosball and pool tables make for great entertainment whether you're playing or just spectating. There's a nice not-trying-too-hard-to-be-cool vibe to the place.

8pm: You won't find any pizza in LA both better and cheaper than the Neapolitan-style pies at Folliero's (3). On most nights you're sure to catch a glimpse of Titina Folliero, whose father Tony started the restaurant in 1968. These days there are post-impressionist paintings of Los Angeles on the brick walls, which are earthquake-retrofitted with several massive I-beams. Dinners here are a solid tradition among local families. Some patrons say they have been coming since "before they were born"!

9:30pm: Across the street from Folliero’s is an old dive bar and bowling alley called Mr. T’s Bowl. Perhaps the best thing about this place is the sound man Arlo. Bands have been named after him. He seems to have no last name, even to his good friends. Arlo is renowned among the indie musicians of Los Angeles for A) giving a hoot, B) not being totally deaf, and C) being an extremely good egg. Between bands he spins Dave Brubeck and the Breeders.

Saturday

8am: Saturday morning breakfast is at Café de Leche, about two doors down from Johnny’s on York. Café de Leche is about as trendy as Highland Park gets. We would guess this is due to the proximity of Occidental College and the more affluent neighborhoods of Eagle Rock. The coffee is great, as are the pastries.

10am: Highland Park is a small neighborhood, quite navigable by bike. The Flying Pigeon both sells and rents bicycles (ask for Car - despite her name, she's an expert on bikes). With an elegant and reliable set of wheels we're ready to explore the rest of the day's activities under our own power.

12pm: On weekends, the house and gardens built by the renowned author, historian and bon vivant Charles Lummis are open to visitors. Lummis wrote many books about the American Southwest, worked for the LA Times, and founded the Southwest Museum, the first museum in Los Angeles. The walls of his house are constructed of big river rocks. The doors are carved from thick slabs of oak. Inside the Lummis house are objects and pictures related to his life and work. Outside, huge sycamore trees shade the gardens and walkways.

1:30pm: The Good Girl Dinette advertises "American diner meets Vietnamese comfort food", and the tightly edited menu offers such delights as rice noodle salads (6), curry pot pies, banh mi with spicy fries, and "Grandma's pho". Chef and owner Diep Tran is an enthusiastic member of the community and sources some of her ingredients from local urban farmers - she's even hoping to work out an arrangement with the community garden just two blocks away.

3pm: After lunch we visit Galco's (1), a strangely world-famous "mom and pop pop shop." It turns out that there are hundreds of varieties of carbonated drinks that few have heard of or tasted. These drinks have been shouldered off the grocery shelves by bigger brands that literally pay for retail space. One of the few places to try these hundreds of different soda pops from around the globe is Galco's. There's also time to look at some funky old shirts at a thrift store called Urchin, play a couple of used guitars at Future Music, and peruse the vinyl at Wombleton Records.

6pm: As the sun sets, we stop on the sidewalk to pick up a couple of excellent made-to-order tacos at a place with no name (5). These two guys don't need a name, apparently, because they know how to cook. Everything costs one dollar. Their advertising is strictly olfactory. There is always a throng of hungry people there.

7pm: We join the fleet of bikers touring the neighborhood art galleries, which all have openings on the second Saturday of every month. Along with the Future Studio, Clare Graham’s MorYork Gallery (7) is a crowd favorite. This place is huge and filled with astonishingly labor-intensive sculptures. You have never seen more buttons, wooden yardsticks, scrabble tiles, neck vertebrae, or pop tops. The MorYork is very art-creepy and not to be missed.

10pm: For a final drink and bite to eat just cross the street to The York. This being a Saturday night, a DJ is crankin' some old-school hip hop. The bartenders make a decent margarita (2), and the gastropub fare includes steak & fries, truffle mac & cheese, and shrimp bruschetta (they also do a weekend brunch).

Sunday

8am: Antigua Bread will set you up with coffee, but if you want more, we recommend the Antigua breakfast. It's a simple winning combo of eggs, frijoles and platanos con crema.

10am: What better way to spend your Sunday than with a round of miniature golf at the Arroyo Seco municipal golf course? Four bucks gets you nine holes with your own colored ball and club. Most of the holes initially appear pretty easy, but -- as they say -- hilarity ensues. The blades of the windmill seem to have a knack for interception. There is a hole where gravity exerts its force diagonally. The dollhouse architecture verges on the Escher-esque.

12pm: The Arroyo Seco Grill at the course is a relaxed and sunny place for a meal. From the outdoor seating, we can observe the progress of the next group of miniature golfers while we dine on classic all-American fare. You can't go wrong with a burger, a tuna salad sandwich, or an omelet (breakfast, of course, is served all day).

Lighting:

1) SB-800 with a diffusion dome high camera left, after careful soda-bottle curation

2) SB-900 with a 1/4 CTO gel in a Lumiquest LTp softbox camera left and a little behind the subject. Camera on a tripod partly blocking the path to the restroom, necessitating many pauses.

3) SB-900 with a 1/4 CTO gel through a semi-collapsed umbrella high camera right, and an SB-800 with a diffusion dome far camera left, wedged between a tower of pizza boxes and the wall, lighting the pizza-maker in the background.

4) SB-900 with a 3/4 CTO gel in a Lumiquest LTp softbox camera right, and a slow shutter speed to capture ambient light & motion. Bouncer asked what I was doing, and told me "some of our customers probably don't want to have their picture taken." I did not inquire as to the reason why.

5) bare SB-800 camera left for a cooler accent against the warm lights of the taco stand camera right.

6) window light behind the subject, and a white reflector camera right to bounce fill into the small bowl of charred pork.

7) ambient light from many, many sources (quite a few of them visible in the image!)

See an expanded set of images created in pursuit of this assignment here. I shot at almost every location in my itinerary, met so many local businessfolk, and had a fantastic time. It got me to visit places I'd only passed by before, and set me up with contacts for possible future work. I'd call it a rousing success!

Update: One of the photos I shot at the Good Girl Dinette and gave to the owner has been used in an LA Times interview with her!

website | twitter | google+

Note the ever-present family garden on the right side of the photo.

In the background is the empty lot where my friends and I played baseball. From the height of the grass and weeds, you can see why we lost so many baseballs...

**********************************

Some of the photos in this album are “originals” from the year that my family spent in Omaha in 1955-56. But the final 10 color photos were taken nearly 40 years later, as part of some research that I was doing for a novel called Do-Overs, the beginning of which can be found here on my website

www.yourdon.com/personal/fiction/doovers/index.html

and the relevant chapter (concerning Omaha) can be found here:

www.yourdon.com/personal/fiction/doovers/chapters/ch9.html

Before I get into the details, let me make a strong request — if you’re looking at these photos, and if you are getting any enjoyment at all of this brief look at some mundane Americana from 60+ years ago: find a similar episode in your own life, and write it down. Gather the pictures, clean them up, and upload them somewhere on the Internet where they can be found. Trust me: there will come a day when the only person on the planet who actually experienced those events is you. Your own memories may be fuzzy and incomplete; but they will be invaluable to your friends and family members, and to many generations of your descendants.

So, what do I remember about the year that I spent in Omaha? Not much at the moment, though I’m sure more details will occur to me in the days to come — and I’ll add them to these notes, along with additional photos that I’m tweaking and editing now.

For now, here is a random list of things I remember:

1. I attended the last couple months of 6th grade, and all of 7th grade, in one school. My parents moved from Omaha to Long Island, NY in the spring of my 7th grade school year; but unlike previous years, they made arrangements for me to stay with a neighbor’s family, so that I could finish the school year before joining them in New York.

2. Our dog, Blackie, traveled with us from our previous home in Riverside, and was with us until my parents left Omaha for New York; at that point, they gave him to some other family. For some reason, this had almost no impact on me. It was a case of “out of sight, out of mind” — when Blackie was gone, I spent my final three months in Omaha without ever thinking about him again.

3. Most days, I rode my bike to school; but Omaha was the place where one of my sisters first started attending first grade — in the same school where I was attending 6th grade. I remember walking her to school along Bellevue Avenue on the first morning, which seemed to take forever: it was about a mile away.

4. As noted in a previous Flickr album about my year in Riverside, I was a year younger than my classmates; but I was tall for my age, and thus looked “normal” at a quick glance. But because I was a year younger, I was incredibly shy and awkward in the presence of girls. Omaha was certainly not “sin city,” but by 6th grade and 7th grade, puberty was beginning to hit, and the girls had grown to the point where they were occasionally interested in boys. The school tried to accommodate this social development by teaching us the square dance (and forbidding the playing of songs by Elvis Presley, whose music was just beginning to be heard on the radio). I was an awful dancer, and even more of a shy misfit than my classmates; I continue to be an awful dancer today.

5. My bike ride to school was uneventful most days; but the final part of the ride was a steep downhill stretch on Avery Road, lasting three or four blocks. My friends and I usually raced downhill as fast as we could; but one day, my front bicycle wheel began to wobble on the downhill run, and my bike drifted uncontrollably to the side of the road and then off into a ditch. I got banged up pretty badly.

6. But this accident was nothing compared to my worst mishap: a neighborhood friend and I enjoyed playing “cowboys and Indians” in the woods near his home (and his younger brother usually tagged along). I had a bow and a few arrows for our adventure, and we often shot at trees a hundred feet away. Unfortunately, the arrows often disappeared into the underbrush (because we were lousy shots) and were difficult to find. Consequently, one of us came up with the clever idea of standing behind the “target” tree, so that we could see where the randomly-shot arrows landed. Through a series of miscommunications, I poked my head out from behind the tree just as my friend shot one of the arrows … and it skipped off the side of the tree and into my face, impaling itself into my cheek bone about an inch below my eye. An inch higher, and I would not be typing these words … (meanwhile, my friend's younger brother grew up to be an officer in the U.S. Air Force, and he tracked me down on the Internet, decades later).

7. In the summer of 1956, my parents decided to spend their summer vacation prospecting for uranium (seriously!) in the remote hills of eastern Utah, where my dad had grown up on the Utah-Colorado border. This entailed a long, long drive from Omaha; and it involved leaving me and my two sisters with my grandparents near Vernal, UT. My grandparents lived in a very small mining village outside of Vernal; and while they had electricity and various other modern conveniences, they also had an outhouse in the back yard. Trips to the “bathroom” in the middle of the night were quite an adventure. On the way back to Omaha at the end of this vacation trip (with no uranium ore having been found), we stopped for a couple of days of camping somewhere in the mountains of Colorado; you’ll see a couple of photos from that camping trip in this album.

8. There were no lizards in Omaha, and thus no opportunity for lizard-hunting with my slingshot—which had been a significant hobby in my previous homes in Riverside and Roswell. Indeed, there was almost nothing to shoot at … and I couldn’t find anyone with whom I could play (and hopefully win) marbles, to use as slingshot ammunition. But for reasons I never questioned or investigated (but about which I’m very curious now), there was a small vineyard in the field behind our house, and I was able to climb over the fence and retrieve dozens of small, hard, green grapes. They turned out to be excellent ammunition … but I never did find any lizards.

9. A few months before my parents left for New York, I told them about the latest craze sweeping the neighborhood: “English bikes,” with three speeds, thin tires, and hand-brakes. I desperately wanted one, but Dad said it was far too expensive for him to buy as a frivolous gift for me: at the time, English bikes had an outrageous price tag of $25. I was told that I would have to earn the money myself if I wanted one … and the going rate for young, scrawny kids who shoveled sidewalks, pulled weeds from gardens, and did babysitting chores, was 25 cents per hour. That works out to 100 hours of work … but I did it, over the course of the next few months, and when I got to New York, the first thing I did was buy my English bike.

10. Toward the end of my 7th-grade school year, everyone in my class was subjected to a vision test: we were lined up in alphabetical order, and one-by-one read off a series of letters that we could barely see on a large placard taped onto the classroom blackboard. Because my surname starts with a “Y,” I was usually near the end of the line … and by the time I got to the front, I had usually memorized the letters (because they never bothered to change them, from one student to the next) without even realizing it consciously. But on this particular occasion in 7th grade, for some reason, they decided to line us up in reverse alphabetical order … and I was the first in line. For the first time in my life, I realized that I could not see anything of the letters, and that I was woefully near-sighted.

11. When I got to New York, my parents took me to an optometrist to get my first set of glasses (and, yes, all of the neighborhood kids did begin taunting me immediately: “Four eyes! Four eyes!”) … and I’ve worn glasses ever since.

Three years after I arrived in New York, the glasses saved my vision when a home-brewed mix of gunpowder and powdered aluminum blew up in my face in the school chemistry lab (where I had an after-school volunteer job as a “lab assistant”). I suffered 2nd-degree burns on my face from the explosion, but the glasses protected my eyes. That, however, is a different story for a different time.

Love doesn't always come dressed in the package we want. It doesn't arrive on

our schedule and it doesn't follow our guidelines and rules. It is love. It is

intangible, unpredictable, and certainly uncontrollable. This is what makes it

so wonderful. We need to remember to be grateful and honored by its presence

in our lives. Be careful to not let it pass you by just because it doesn't present

itself the way you think it should.

-- Kimberly Kirberger

thanks warda and funkyah :**

Halloween 2 BJL

————————————————————————————————

“Don’t run just yet Milo, the transformation’s just taking hold!” Scarecrow stood in front of one of several devices hooked up to a variety of Gothamites as he said this. Behind him, Professor Milo made several advances towards the exit as he replied,

“This isn’t fear Crane. We’re creating monsters!”

“Evolving monster,” Scarecrow corrected the professor, “Langstrom’s formula was only the beginning. Our Man-Bats will be infused with our special brand of fear toxin. It’s a win-win situation for us, don’t you see?” The man closest to them began to twitch and scream uncontrollably as Scarecrow continued, “They resemble the Bat, and with a little dose of fear toxin delivered to them as well as through them to the people of Gotham…it will destroy the Batman’s name and spread fear across the city in a way more beautiful than I have ever dreamed!”

“It’s too dangerous,” Milo replied, holding his head, “D-do you hear what you’re saying?!? Fear toxin on normal human beings causes them to go into a frenzy, we can’t give it to something like…” As Milo was about to finish, the first Man-Bat completed its transformation. It screeched at a pitch that caused the professor to cover his ears while Scarecrow simply stepped closer to it with a syringe. Plunging it into the creature’s neck, another louder screech proved that the effects were taking hold.

“We have nothing to fear.” Scarecrow said to Milo just as the Man-Bat began to break out of its bonds. Before either could react, the former was tackled by a figure dropping in from the ceiling. Cursing, Scarecrow attempted to push the figure off of him only to realize that it was Batman himself.

“Mad scientist experiments on Halloween? What’s next? The dead coming back to life?” Jason dropped in atop the first Man-Bat device as Batman stood to reply,

“Make sure the Man-Bat doesn’t escape. It’s too dangerous…”

“No, it’s not. It’ll be fine-” Batman reeled back and landed a punch that knocked Scarecrow out in the middle of the sentence. Professor Milo attempted to run, using the Man-Bat beginning to destroy his device as a distraction, but was quickly stopped by a batarang knocking him to the ground.

“Nice hit, boss.” Jason said as the Man-Bat began to take off. Batman was in the process of disabling the next device as he demanded,

“Robin! Make sure it doesn’t escape!” Thinking fast, Jason retrieved his grappling gun and fired it into the Man-Bat’s foot. He held on for dear life as the creature dragged him through the air around Scarecrow’s laboratory. Rolling his eyes as he managed to dismantle the last of the Man-Bat devices, Batman pressed a button on his utility belt causing several small syringes to drop out. Each label indicated a different drug to be administered in case of a variety of situations. The two he chose were labeled ‘MAN-BAT LANGSTROM 52’ and ‘SCARECROW CRANE 15’, and he placed them between the knuckles on his right hand just as the Man-Bat dove towards him with Robin in tow. Reeling back once more, Batman landed a punch that connected the needles with the Man-Bat’s chest. With the needles stuck in the beast, Batman slammed it to the ground, bringing Robin down with it. Jason rolled for a moment, the rope from his grappling gun wrapping around his body as he did. Upon standing up, he managed to wiggle them off in time to see the Man-Bat revert into a normal Gothamite.

“We do some pretty awesome work.” Jason said as he observed the scene of Scarecrow, Milo, and the Man-Bat all lying passed out on the ground. As the two began to alert the GCPD of their position and clean up the mess, Jason turned to Batman and said, “By the way, I just wanted to say from the bottom of my heart this really beats trick or treating.” Smirking slightly, Batman patted Jason on the back, saying,

“Happy Halloween, Robin.”

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

Hey guys, Happy Halloween! A little explanation: I'm a little ahead in my main storyline Red Hood story (I have one more issue left in Volume 10 but it spoils some of Chris' Batman run and I don't wanna do that because he's building up to some BIG stuff). In the meantime I'll be releasing 3 Halloween inspired tales from Red Hood and the Outlaws' pasts to be festive and because in this case it was so much fun to write. Will release the second and third part tonight and possibly tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

“ Five minutes until detonation ”

“We get it! It was ten then nine then eight then seven then six…” Jason groaned angrily as he loaded the last of the mercenaries onto one of the trucks the Outlaws were commandeering. The plan was set: Ash had Tommy and most of the mercenaries in one vehicle while Scarlet drove the rest of the them in a smaller truck. Roy sat in the driver’s seat of the largest convoy truck, as he said,

“If I didn’t know any better I’d swear the Count…or Jim Henson…you know what, who did voice the Count?” Even beneath a mask, a look from Jason caused Roy to continue, “Ok, inappropriate time for that. But seriously, what is with Greene’s counting-security?” With that, Jason felt as if a weight had dropped through his throat and into his stomach. Greene was still lying trapped under his sword in the room the two of them had dueled. Looking to the stairs that led back up to Greene Manor, Jason turned to Roy and said,

“Go.”

“How about not without you?” Roy responded before the alarm spoke once again,

“ Four minutes until detonation ”

“I’ll meet you outside in three.” Jason said as he took off for the stairs leading back into Greene’s mansion.

“Jason, you crazy, stupid sonuvabi-” The mansion began to rumble before Roy could finish, so instead he turned the key of his truck and began to drive. Scarlet looked around for Jason, who had just disappeared up the stairs, and assumed he had gotten into the back of Roy’s convoy truck. As she and Ash started their respective vehicles, Jason found himself maneuvering around artifacts crashing to the ground. Somehow, the detonation procedure was causing what felt like a minor earthquake to hit Greene Manor. Reaching the door to the room where Green was, Jason was hit on the head by a large sculpture. The blow caused him to crash into the wall, sliding down it while attempting to regain his balance.

“ Three minutes until detonation ” Hearing this rekindled his strength, as he pulled himself back into a standing position before breaking down the door. Greene had moved slightly, as he now lie cape-less in front of a trail of blood, yet remained on his back. The old Red Hood was clearly weary as Jason bent down next to him and began to help him up. Confused, Greene asked,

“Why…? Why save me now?” Jason hoisted the man over his head, with his arms hanging over one side and legs over the other before saying,

“Because…honestly, Greene…I’m the better Red Hood, in every way. I prove that your way…how I used to be…it’s not the way, in everything that I do. It’s what defines me now…I’m giving you the chance to redefine yourself.” Silence from Greene proved more telling that Jason could have predicted, as he continued, “Now c’mon…we’re getting out of here-”

“ Two minutes until detonation ” As the security system said this, a panel opened in the fireplace nearby, revealing a massive amount of blue light. Small specks of white light floated out and began to rise to the ceiling along with a blue mist, both of which were enough to cause Jason to begin sprinting away. Running into the hallway, Jason asked,

“That’s what’s going to detonate?!?”

“It’s called the Starcatcher,” Greene said from his position behind Jason’s neck, “It’s meant to literally catch stars…the only problem is if it's not contained it can easily be set off by adding Earth’s levels of oxygen to it. By set off, of course, I mean…”

“Yeah, I get it. How big’s the explosion going to be?” Jason asked in a frenzy as he leapt over rubble to reach Tommy’s bedroom door.

“ One minute until detonation ” With those words, the entire manor began to shake uncontrollably with blue light shooting out of every door and window.

“Answer me Greene!!!” Jason demanded as he ran for the entrance hall.

“…I don’t know…” Reaching the main staircase, Jason bolted to the bottom before running into the main door. Kicking it as hard as he could was met with no reaction whatsoever, prompting him to yell,

“Greene, open the door, NOW!” Greene slipped off of Jason’s back and landed on his feet as he limped to a keypad nearby. Trembling, he punched in the code as fast as he could before a hum began to over take the mansion. Jason’s yells were drowned in the deafening hum, yet the two figures were still able to see the doors fly open. Both ran as fast as they could outside, and for a moment they could see Roy, Scarlet, Ash, and their trucks parked half a mile down the road before the world turned blue.

“…Detonation”

Lt. Col. Glenn Manning is accidentally exposed to the blast of a new weapon, a plutonium bomb. He is badly burned and isn’t expected to live. But he survives and he begins growing uncontrollably, until he reaches 50 feet tall. Reduced blood flow to his brain produces insanity and he proceeds to wreak havoc upon Las Vegas. Go Manning! A final showdown comes at Hoover Dam.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgpv7_4uonQ

Not to be outdone by the men, the women struck back with their own colossus a year later:

www.flickr.com/photos/57440551@N03/14513128493/in/album-7...

German postcard by Känguruhpress im Gebr. König Postkartenverlag, Köln, no. K. 2007. Photo: Julian Gotha.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982) was a German film director, screenwriter, film producer and actor. Fassbinder was part of the New German Cinema movement. Starting at age 21, Fassbinder made over forty films and TV dramas in fifteen years, along with directing numerous plays for the theatre. He also acted in nineteen of his own films as well as for other directors. Fassbinder died in 1982 at the age of 37 from a lethal cocktail of cocaine and barbiturates.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder was born in Bavaria in the small town of Bad Wörishofen in 1945. The aftermath of World War II deeply marked his childhood and the lives of his bourgeois family. He was the only child of Liselotte Pempeit, a translator and Helmut Fassbinder, a doctor who worked out of the couple's apartment in Sendlinger Strasse, near Munich's red light district. In 1951, his parents divorced. Helmut moved to Cologne while Liselotte raised her son as a single parent in Munich. In order to support herself and her child, Pempeit took in boarders and found employment as a German to English translator. When she was working, she often sent her son to the cinema in order to concentrate. Later in life, Fassbinder claimed that he saw a film nearly every day and sometimes as many as three or four. As he was often left alone, he became independent and uncontrollable. He clashed with his mother's younger lover Siggi, who lived with them when Fassbinder was around eight or nine years old. He had a similar difficult relationship with the much older journalist Wolff Eder, who became his stepfather in 1959. Early in his adolescence, Fassbinder identified as homosexual. As a teen, Fassbinder was sent to boarding school. His time there was marred by his repeated escape attempts and he eventually left school before any final examinations. At the age of 15, he moved to Cologne and stayed with his father for a couple of years while attending night school. To earn money, he worked small jobs and helped his father who rented shabby apartments to immigrant workers. Around this time, Fassbinder began writing short plays and stories and poems. In 1963, aged eighteen, Fassbinder returned to Munich with plans to attend night school with the idea to eventually study theatrical science. Following his mother's advice, he took acting lessons and from 1964 to 1966 attended the Fridl-Leonhard Studio for actors in Munich. There, he met Hanna Schygulla, who would become one of his most important actors. During this time, he made his first 8mm films and took on small acting roles, assistant director, and sound man. During this period, he also wrote the tragic-comic play: Drops on Hot Stones. To gain entry to the Berlin Film School, Fassbinder submitted a film version of his play Parallels. He also entered several 8 mm films including This Night (now considered lost) but he was turned down for admission, as were the later film directors Werner Schroeter and Rosa von Praunheim. He returned to Munich where he continued with his writing. He also made two short films, Der Stadtstreicher,/The City Tramp (1965) and Das Kleine Chaos/The Little Chaos (1966). Shot in black and white, they were financed by Fassbinder's lover, Christoph Roser, an aspiring actor, in exchange for leading roles. Fassbinder acted in both of these films which also featured Irm Hermann. In the latter, his mother – under the name of Lilo Pempeit – played the first of many parts in her son's films.

In 1967 Rainer Werner Fassbinder joined the Munich Action-Theater, where he was active as an actor, director and script writer. After two months he became the company's leader. In April 1968 Fassbinder directed the premiere production of his play Katzelmacher, the story of a foreign worker from Greece who becomes the object of intense racial, sexual, and political hatred among a group of Bavarian slackers. A few weeks later, in May 1968, the Action-Theater was disbanded after its theatre was wrecked by one of its founders, jealous of Fassbinder's growing power within the group. It promptly reformed as the Anti-Theater under Fassbinder's direction. The troupe lived and performed together. This close-knit group of young actors included among them Fassbinder, Peer Raben, Harry Baer and Kurt Raab, who along with Hanna Schygulla and Irm Hermann became the most important members of his cinematic stock company. Working with the Anti-Theater, Fassbinder continued writing, directing and acting. In the space of eighteen months he directed twelve plays. Of these twelve plays, four were written by Fassbinder; he rewrote five others. The style of his stage directing closely resembled that of his early films, a mixture of choreographed movement and static poses, taking its cues not from the traditions of stage theatre, but from musicals, cabaret, films and the student protest movement. Fassbinder used his theatrical work as a springboard for making films. Shot in black and white with a shoestring budget in April 1969, Fassbinder's first feature-length film, Liebe ist kälter als der Tod/Love is Colder than Death (1969), was a deconstruction of the American gangster films of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Fassbinder plays the lead role of Franz, a small-time pimp who is torn between his mistress Joanna, a prostitute (Hanna Schygulla), and his friend Bruno, a gangster sent after Franz by the syndicate that he has refused to join. His second film, Katzelmacher (1969), was received more positively, garnering five prizes after its debut at Mannheim. From then on, Fassbinder centered his efforts in his career as film director, but he maintained an intermittent foothold in the theatre until his death. Fassbinder’s first ten films (1969–1971) were an extension of his work in the theatre, shot usually with a static camera and with deliberately unnaturalistic dialogue. Wikipedia: “He was strongly influenced by Brecht's Verfremdungseffekt (alienation effect) and the French New Wave cinema, particularly the works of Jean-Luc Godard.” Fassbinder developed his rapid working methods early. Because he knew his actors and technicians so well, Fassbinder was able to complete as many as four or five films per year on extremely low budgets. This allowed him to compete successfully for the government grants needed to continue making films. Unlike the other major auteurs of the New German Cinema, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders, who started out making films, Fassbinder's stage background was evident throughout his work.

In 1971, Rainer Werner Fassbinder took an eight-month break from filmmaking. During this time, Fassbinder turned for a model to Hollywood melodrama, particularly the films German émigré Douglas Sirk made in Hollywood for Universal-International in the 1950s: All That Heaven Allows, Magnificent Obsession and Imitation of Life. Fassbinder was attracted to these films not only because of their entertainment value, but also for their depiction of various kinds of repression and exploitation. Fassbinder scored his first domestic commercial success with Händler der vier Jahreszeiten/The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971). Loneliness is a common theme in Fassbinder's work, together with the idea that power becomes a determining factor in all human relationships. His characters yearn for love, but seem condemned to exert an often violent control over those around them. A good example is Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant/The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) which was adapted by Fassbinder from his plays. Wildwechsel/Jailbait (1973 is a bleak story of teenage angst, set in industrial northern Germany during the 1950s. Like in many other of his films, Fassbinder analyses lower middle class life with characters who, unable to articulate their feelings, bury them in inane phrases and violent acts. Fassbinder first gained international success with Angst essen Seele auf/Fear Eats the Soul (1974). which won the International Critics Prize at Cannes and was acclaimed by critics everywhere as one of 1974's best films. Fear Eats the Soul was loosely inspired by Sirk's All That Heaven Allows (1955). It details the vicious response of family and community to a lonely aging white cleaning lady (Brigitte Mira) who marries a muscular, much younger black Moroccan immigrant worker. In these films, Fassbinder explored how deep-rooted prejudices about race, sex, sexual orientation, politics and class are inherent in society, while also tackling his trademark subject of the everyday fascism of family life and friendship. He learned how to handle all phases of production, from writing and acting to direction and theatre management. This versatility surfaced in his films where he served as composer, production designer, cinematographer, producer and editor.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s final films, from around 1977 until his death, were more varied, with international actors sometimes used and the stock company disbanded, although the casts of some films were still filled with Fassbinder regulars. Despair (1978) is based upon the 1936 novel of the same name by Vladimir Nabokov, adapted by Tom Stoppard and featuring Dirk Bogarde. It was made on a budget of 6,000,000 DEM, exceeding the total cost of Fassbinder's first fifteen films. In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden/In a Year of Thirteen Moons (1978) is Fassbinder most personal and bleakest work. The film follows the tragic life of Elvira, a transsexual formerly known as Erwin. In the last few days before her suicide, she decides to visit some of the important people and places in her life. Fassbinder became increasingly more idiosyncratic in terms of plot, form and subject matter in films like his greatest success Die Ehe der Maria Braun/The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), Die Dritte Generation/The Third Generation (1979) and Querelle (1982). Returning to his explorations of German history, Fassbinder finally realized his dream of adapting Alfred Döblin's 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980). A television series running more than 13 hours, it was the culmination of the director's inter-related themes of love, life, and power. Fassbinder took on the Nazi period with Lili Marleen (1981), an international co production, shot in English and with a large budget. The script was vaguely based on the autobiography of World War II singer Lale Andersen, The Sky Has Many Colors. He articulated his themes in the bourgeois milieu with his trilogy about women in post-fascist Germany: Die Ehe der Maria Braun/The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), Lola (1981) and Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss/Veronika Voss (1982), for which he won the Golden Bear at the 32nd Berlin International Film Festival. Fassbinder did not live to see the premiere of his last film, Querelle (1982), based on Jean Genet's novel Querelle de Brest. The plot follows the title character, a handsome sailor (Brad Davis) who is a thief and hustler. Frustrated in a homoerotic relationship with his own brother, Querelle betrays those who love him and pays them even with murder.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder had sexual relationships with both men and women. He rarely kept his professional and personal life separate and was known to cast family, friends and lovers in his films. Early in his career, he had a lasting, but fractured relationship with Irm Hermann, a former secretary whom he forced to become an actress. Fassbinder usually cast her in unglamorous roles, most notably as the unfaithful wife in The Merchant of Four Seasons and the silent abused assistant in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. In 1969, while portraying the lead role in the T.V film Baal under the direction of Volker Schlöndorff, Fassbinder met Günther Kaufmann, a black Bavarian actor who had a minor role in the film. Despite the fact that Kaufmann was married and had two children, Fassbinder fell madly in love with him. The two began a turbulent affair which ultimately affected the production of Baal. Fassbinder tried to buy Kaufmann's love by casting him in major roles in his films and buying him expensive gifts. The relationship came to an end when Kaufmann became romantically involved with composer Peer Raben. After the end of their relationship, Fassbinder continued to cast Kaufmann in his films, albeit in minor roles. Kaufmann appeared in fourteen of Fassbinder's films, with the lead role in Whity (1971). Although he claimed to be opposed to matrimony as an institution, in 1970 Fassbinder married Ingrid Caven, an actress who regularly appeared in his films. Their wedding reception was recycled in the film he was making at that time, The American Soldier. Their relationship of mutual admiration survived the complete failure of their two-year marriage. In 1971, Fassbinder began a relationship with El Hedi ben Salem, a Moroccan Berber who had left his wife and five children the previous year, after meeting him at a gay bathhouse in Paris. Over the next three years, Salem appeared in several Fassbinder productions. His best known role was Ali in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974). Their three-year relationship was punctuated with jealousy, violence and heavy drug and alcohol use. Fassbinder finally ended the relationship in 1974 due to Salem's chronic alcoholism and tendency to become violent when he drank. Shortly after the breakup, Salem went to France where he was arrested and imprisoned. He hanged himself while in custody in 1977. News of Salem's suicide was kept from Fassbinder for years. He eventually found out about his former lover's death shortly before his own death in 1982 and dedicated his last film, Querelle, to Salem. Fassbinder's next lover was Armin Meier. Meier was a near illiterate former butcher who had spent his early years in an orphanage. He also appeared in several Fassbinder films in this period. After Fassbinder ended the relationship in 1978, Meier deliberately consumed four bottles of sleeping pills and alcohol in the kitchen of the apartment he and Fassbinder had previously shared. His body was found a week later. In the last four years of his life, his companion was Juliane Lorenz), the editor of his films during the last years of his life. On the night of 10 June 1982, Fassbinder took an overdose of cocaine and sleeping pills. When he was found, an unfinished script for a film on Rosa Luxemburg was lying next to him. His death marked the end of New German Cinema.

Steve Cohn at IMDb: “Above all, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a rebel whose life and art was marked by gross contradiction. Known for his trademark leather jacket and grungy appearance, Fassbinder cruised the bar scene by night, looking for sex and drugs, yet he maintained a flawless work ethic by day. Actors and actresses recount disturbing stories of his brutality toward them, yet his pictures demonstrate his deep sensitivity to social misfits and his hatred of institutionalized violence.”

Sources: Steve Cohn (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Made Explore ...May 6, 2009 #497

On the back of each I wrote one of the following peace quotes.

Symptoms of Inner Peace

* A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than on fears based on past experience

* An unmistakable ability to enjoy the moment

* A loss of interest in judging other people

* A loss of interest in judging self

* A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others

* An inability to worry (this is a very serious symptom!)

* Frequent overwhelming episodes of appreciation

* Frequent acts of smiling

* An increasing tendency to let things happen rather than to make them happen

* An increased susceptibility to the love extended by others as well as the uncontrollable urge to extend it.

-Unknown

When the power of love overcomes the love of power,

the world will know peace.

— Jimi Hendrix

If in our daily life we can smile,

if we can be peaceful and happy,

not only we, but everyone

will profit from it. This

is the most basic kind

of peace work.

— Thich Nhat Hanh

I really like these quotes on peace. Wouldn't it be great if there was an easy "how to " but I really think each soul has their on unique path there. I do know I have to work at it all the time.....my own path to peace

German postcard by Verlag Hias Schaschko, München (Munich), no. 214. Photo: Mario Mach. Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Rosel Zech, winning the Golden Bear award for Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss/Veronika Voss (1982) at the 32nd Berlin International Film Festival.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982) was a German film director, screenwriter, film producer and actor. Fassbinder was part of the New German Cinema movement. Starting at age 21, Fassbinder made over forty films and TV dramas in fifteen years, along with directing numerous plays for the theatre. He also acted in nineteen of his own films as well as for other directors. Fassbinder died in 1982 at the age of 37 from a lethal cocktail of cocaine and barbiturates.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder was born in Bavaria in the small town of Bad Wörishofen in 1945. The aftermath of World War II deeply marked his childhood and the lives of his bourgeois family. He was the only child of Liselotte Pempeit, a translator and Helmut Fassbinder, a doctor who worked out of the couple's apartment in Sendlinger Strasse, near Munich's red light district. In 1951, his parents divorced. Helmut moved to Cologne while Liselotte raised her son as a single parent in Munich. In order to support herself and her child, Pempeit took in boarders and found employment as a German to English translator. When she was working, she often sent her son to the cinema in order to concentrate. Later in life, Fassbinder claimed that he saw a film nearly every day and sometimes as many as three or four. As he was often left alone, he became independent and uncontrollable. He clashed with his mother's younger lover Siggi, who lived with them when Fassbinder was around eight or nine years old. He had a similar difficult relationship with the much older journalist Wolff Eder, who became his stepfather in 1959. Early in his adolescence, Fassbinder identified as homosexual. As a teen, Fassbinder was sent to boarding school. His time there was marred by his repeated escape attempts and he eventually left school before any final examinations. At the age of 15, he moved to Cologne and stayed with his father for a couple of years while attending night school. To earn money, he worked small jobs and helped his father who rented shabby apartments to immigrant workers. Around this time, Fassbinder began writing short plays and stories and poems. In 1963, aged eighteen, Fassbinder returned to Munich with plans to attend night school with the idea to eventually study theatrical science. Following his mother's advice, he took acting lessons and from 1964 to 1966 attended the Fridl-Leonhard Studio for actors in Munich. There, he met Hanna Schygulla, who would become one of his most important actors. During this time, he made his first 8mm films and took on small acting roles, assistant director, and sound man. During this period, he also wrote the tragic-comic play: Drops on Hot Stones. To gain entry to the Berlin Film School, Fassbinder submitted a film version of his play Parallels. He also entered several 8 mm films including This Night (now considered lost) but he was turned down for admission, as were the later film directors Werner Schroeter and Rosa von Praunheim. He returned to Munich where he continued with his writing. He also made two short films, Der Stadtstreicher,/The City Tramp (1965) and Das Kleine Chaos/The Little Chaos (1966). Shot in black and white, they were financed by Fassbinder's lover, Christoph Roser, an aspiring actor, in exchange for leading roles. Fassbinder acted in both of these films which also featured Irm Hermann. In the latter, his mother – under the name of Lilo Pempeit – played the first of many parts in her son's films.

In 1967 Rainer Werner Fassbinder joined the Munich Action-Theater, where he was active as an actor, director and script writer. After two months he became the company's leader. In April 1968 Fassbinder directed the premiere production of his play Katzelmacher, the story of a foreign worker from Greece who becomes the object of intense racial, sexual, and political hatred among a group of Bavarian slackers. A few weeks later, in May 1968, the Action-Theater was disbanded after its theatre was wrecked by one of its founders, jealous of Fassbinder's growing power within the group. It promptly reformed as the Anti-Theater under Fassbinder's direction. The troupe lived and performed together. This close-knit group of young actors included among them Fassbinder, Peer Raben, Harry Baer and Kurt Raab, who along with Hanna Schygulla and Irm Hermann became the most important members of his cinematic stock company. Working with the Anti-Theater, Fassbinder continued writing, directing and acting. In the space of eighteen months he directed twelve plays. Of these twelve plays, four were written by Fassbinder; he rewrote five others. The style of his stage directing closely resembled that of his early films, a mixture of choreographed movement and static poses, taking its cues not from the traditions of stage theatre, but from musicals, cabaret, films and the student protest movement. Fassbinder used his theatrical work as a springboard for making films. Shot in black and white with a shoestring budget in April 1969, Fassbinder's first feature-length film, Liebe ist kälter als der Tod/Love is Colder than Death (1969), was a deconstruction of the American gangster films of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Fassbinder plays the lead role of Franz, a small-time pimp who is torn between his mistress Joanna, a prostitute (Hanna Schygulla), and his friend Bruno, a gangster sent after Franz by the syndicate that he has refused to join. His second film, Katzelmacher (1969), was received more positively, garnering five prizes after its debut at Mannheim. From then on, Fassbinder centered his efforts in his career as film director, but he maintained an intermittent foothold in the theatre until his death. Fassbinder’s first ten films (1969–1971) were an extension of his work in the theatre, shot usually with a static camera and with deliberately unnaturalistic dialogue. Wikipedia: “He was strongly influenced by Brecht's Verfremdungseffekt (alienation effect) and the French New Wave cinema, particularly the works of Jean-Luc Godard.” Fassbinder developed his rapid working methods early. Because he knew his actors and technicians so well, Fassbinder was able to complete as many as four or five films per year on extremely low budgets. This allowed him to compete successfully for the government grants needed to continue making films. Unlike the other major auteurs of the New German Cinema, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders, who started out making films, Fassbinder's stage background was evident throughout his work.

In 1971, Rainer Werner Fassbinder took an eight-month break from filmmaking. During this time, Fassbinder turned for a model to Hollywood melodrama, particularly the films German émigré Douglas Sirk made in Hollywood for Universal-International in the 1950s: All That Heaven Allows, Magnificent Obsession and Imitation of Life. Fassbinder was attracted to these films not only because of their entertainment value, but also for their depiction of various kinds of repression and exploitation. Fassbinder scored his first domestic commercial success with Händler der vier Jahreszeiten/The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971). Loneliness is a common theme in Fassbinder's work, together with the idea that power becomes a determining factor in all human relationships. His characters yearn for love, but seem condemned to exert an often violent control over those around them. A good example is Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant/The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) which was adapted by Fassbinder from his plays. Wildwechsel/Jailbait (1973 is a bleak story of teenage angst, set in industrial northern Germany during the 1950s. Like in many other of his films, Fassbinder analyses lower middle class life with characters who, unable to articulate their feelings, bury them in inane phrases and violent acts. Fassbinder first gained international success with Angst essen Seele auf/Fear Eats the Soul (1974). which won the International Critics Prize at Cannes and was acclaimed by critics everywhere as one of 1974's best films. Fear Eats the Soul was loosely inspired by Sirk's All That Heaven Allows (1955). It details the vicious response of family and community to a lonely aging white cleaning lady (Brigitte Mira) who marries a muscular, much younger black Moroccan immigrant worker. In these films, Fassbinder explored how deep-rooted prejudices about race, sex, sexual orientation, politics and class are inherent in society, while also tackling his trademark subject of the everyday fascism of family life and friendship. He learned how to handle all phases of production, from writing and acting to direction and theatre management. This versatility surfaced in his films where he served as composer, production designer, cinematographer, producer and editor.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s final films, from around 1977 until his death, were more varied, with international actors sometimes used and the stock company disbanded, although the casts of some films were still filled with Fassbinder regulars. Despair (1978) is based upon the 1936 novel of the same name by Vladimir Nabokov, adapted by Tom Stoppard and featuring Dirk Bogarde. It was made on a budget of 6,000,000 DEM, exceeding the total cost of Fassbinder's first fifteen films. In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden/In a Year of Thirteen Moons (1978) is Fassbinder most personal and bleakest work. The film follows the tragic life of Elvira, a transsexual formerly known as Erwin. In the last few days before her suicide, she decides to visit some of the important people and places in her life. Fassbinder became increasingly more idiosyncratic in terms of plot, form and subject matter in films like his greatest success Die Ehe der Maria Braun/The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), Die Dritte Generation/The Third Generation (1979) and Querelle (1982). Returning to his explorations of German history, Fassbinder finally realized his dream of adapting Alfred Döblin's 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980). A television series running more than 13 hours, it was the culmination of the director's inter-related themes of love, life, and power. Fassbinder took on the Nazi period with Lili Marleen (1981), an international co production, shot in English and with a large budget. The script was vaguely based on the autobiography of World War II singer Lale Andersen, The Sky Has Many Colors. He articulated his themes in the bourgeois milieu with his trilogy about women in post-fascist Germany: Die Ehe der Maria Braun/The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), Lola (1981) and Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss/Veronika Voss (1982), for which he won the Golden Bear at the 32nd Berlin International Film Festival. Fassbinder did not live to see the premiere of his last film, Querelle (1982), based on Jean Genet's novel Querelle de Brest. The plot follows the title character, a handsome sailor (Brad Davis) who is a thief and hustler. Frustrated in a homoerotic relationship with his own brother, Querelle betrays those who love him and pays them even with murder.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder had sexual relationships with both men and women. He rarely kept his professional and personal life separate and was known to cast family, friends and lovers in his films. Early in his career, he had a lasting, but fractured relationship with Irm Hermann, a former secretary whom he forced to become an actress. Fassbinder usually cast her in unglamorous roles, most notably as the unfaithful wife in The Merchant of Four Seasons and the silent abused assistant in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. In 1969, while portraying the lead role in the T.V film Baal under the direction of Volker Schlöndorff, Fassbinder met Günther Kaufmann, a black Bavarian actor who had a minor role in the film. Despite the fact that Kaufmann was married and had two children, Fassbinder fell madly in love with him. The two began a turbulent affair which ultimately affected the production of Baal. Fassbinder tried to buy Kaufmann's love by casting him in major roles in his films and buying him expensive gifts. The relationship came to an end when Kaufmann became romantically involved with composer Peer Raben. After the end of their relationship, Fassbinder continued to cast Kaufmann in his films, albeit in minor roles. Kaufmann appeared in fourteen of Fassbinder's films, with the lead role in Whity (1971). Although he claimed to be opposed to matrimony as an institution, in 1970 Fassbinder married Ingrid Caven, an actress who regularly appeared in his films. Their wedding reception was recycled in the film he was making at that time, The American Soldier. Their relationship of mutual admiration survived the complete failure of their two-year marriage. In 1971, Fassbinder began a relationship with El Hedi ben Salem, a Moroccan Berber who had left his wife and five children the previous year, after meeting him at a gay bathhouse in Paris. Over the next three years, Salem appeared in several Fassbinder productions. His best known role was Ali in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974). Their three-year relationship was punctuated with jealousy, violence and heavy drug and alcohol use. Fassbinder finally ended the relationship in 1974 due to Salem's chronic alcoholism and tendency to become violent when he drank. Shortly after the breakup, Salem went to France where he was arrested and imprisoned. He hanged himself while in custody in 1977. News of Salem's suicide was kept from Fassbinder for years. He eventually found out about his former lover's death shortly before his own death in 1982 and dedicated his last film, Querelle, to Salem. Fassbinder's next lover was Armin Meier. Meier was a near illiterate former butcher who had spent his early years in an orphanage. He also appeared in several Fassbinder films in this period. After Fassbinder ended the relationship in 1978, Meier deliberately consumed four bottles of sleeping pills and alcohol in the kitchen of the apartment he and Fassbinder had previously shared. His body was found a week later. In the last four years of his life, his companion was Juliane Lorenz), the editor of his films during the last years of his life. On the night of 10 June 1982, Fassbinder took an overdose of cocaine and sleeping pills. When he was found, an unfinished script for a film on Rosa Luxemburg was lying next to him. His death marked the end of New German Cinema.

Steve Cohn at IMDb: “Above all, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a rebel whose life and art was marked by gross contradiction. Known for his trademark leather jacket and grungy appearance, Fassbinder cruised the bar scene by night, looking for sex and drugs, yet he maintained a flawless work ethic by day. Actors and actresses recount disturbing stories of his brutality toward them, yet his pictures demonstrate his deep sensitivity to social misfits and his hatred of institutionalized violence.”

Sources: Steve Cohn (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

These tiny butterfly-like drones are the result of an experimental project to create and observe simple self-replicating biomechanical organisms.

Unfortunately, following a breach at the facility where they were created, these 'iron monarch drones' escaped into the wild and began reproducing in huge, uncontrollable numbers.

Efforts to cull the population have so far been unsuccessful, and the drones have become a common sight all over the globe.

I'm not sure it's the snow I enjoy the most, it's the uncontrollable reaction in the body language of the people going about their business.

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etsy shop

I couldn't paint for quite a while. Kind of lost somewhere...

I know every each time if I am at such lost stage, the only thing I could do is to walk away, stop forcing myself to paint. Otherwise it just becomes worse.

Finally I have the feeling back to me again.

I like watercolor. It is so uncontrollable, yet, it gives such a transparent and fluid beauty to the water scene especially. In this painting, I used the old oil painting brush to add some dried touch to the buildings. It took me 3 hours to complete this watercolor-Venice.

I hope to hear the comments from you my flickr friends.

Swiss-British-German postcard by News Productions, Baulmes and Stroud Filmwelt Berlin, Bakede, no. 56537. Photo: Collection Cinémathèque Suisse / Nero Film. Peter Lorre in M – Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder/M (Fritz Lang, 1931).

Peter Lorre (1904–1964) with his trademark large, popped eyes, his toothy grin and his raspy voice was an American actor of Jewish Austro-Hungarian descent. He was an international sensation as the psychopathic child murderer in Fritz Lang’s M – Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder/M (1931). He later became a popular actor in two British Hitchcock films and a series of Hollywood crime films and mysteries. Although he was frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner in the US, he also became the star of the successful Mr. Moto detective series.

Peter Lorre was born László Löwenstein in 1904 in the Austro-Hungarian town of Ružomberok in Slovakia, then known by its Hungarian name Rózsahegy. He was the first child of Jewish couple Alajos Löwenstein and Elvira Freischberger. His father was the chief bookkeeper at a local textile mill. Besides working as a bookkeeper, Alajos Löwenstein also served as a lieutenant in the Austrian army reserve, which meant that he was often away on military manoeuvres. When Lorre was four years old, his mother died, probably of food poisoning, leaving Alajos with three very young sons, the youngest only a couple of months old. He soon remarried, to his wife's best friend, Melanie Klein, with whom he had two more children. However, Lorre and his stepmother never got along, and this coloured his childhood memories. At the outbreak of the Second Balkan War in 1913, Alajos moved the family to Vienna, anticipating that this would lead to a larger conflict and that he would be called up. He was, at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, and served on the Eastern front during the winter of 1914-1915, before being put in charge of a prison camp due to heart trouble. As a youth Peter Lorre ran away from home, worked as a bank clerk, and, after stage training in Vienna, made his acting debut in Zurich, Switzerland at the age of 17. In Vienna, he worked with the Viennese Art Nouveau artist and puppeteer Richard Teschner. He then moved to the then German town of Breslau, and later to Zürich. In the late 1920s, Peter Lorre moved to Berlin, where the young and short (165 cm) actor worked with German playwright Bertolt Brecht. He made his film debut in a bit role in the Austrian silent film Die Verschwundene Frau/The Vanished Woman (Karl Leitner, 1929), followed by another small part in the German drama Der weiße Teufel/The White Devil (Alexandre Volkoff, 1930) starring Ivan Mozzhukhin. On stage and in the cinema, Lorre played a role in Brecht's Mann ist Mann/ A Man's a Man (Bertolt Brecht, Carl Koch, 1930) and as Dr Nakamura in the stage musical Happy End (music by composer Kurt Weill), alongside Brecht's wife Helene Weigel, Oskar Homolka and Kurt Gerron.

Peter Lorre became much better known after director Fritz Lang cast him in the lead role of Hans Beckert, the mentally ill child murderer in the classic thriller M – Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder/M (1931). Later, the Nazi propaganda film The Eternal Jew (1940) used an excerpt from the climactic scene in M in which Lorre is trapped by vengeful citizens. His passionate plea that his compulsion is uncontrollable, says the voice-over, makes him sympathetic and is an example of attempts by Jewish artists to corrupt public morals. M was Lang’s first sound film and he revealed the expressive possibilities for combining sound and visuals. Lorre's character whistles the tune In the Hall of the Mountain King from Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1. ( Lorre himself could not whistle – it is Lang who is heard.) The film was one of the first to use a leitmotif, associating In the Hall of the Mountain King with the Lorre character. Later in the film, the mere sound of the song lets the audience know that he is nearby, off-screen. This association of a musical theme with a particular character or situation, a technique borrowed from opera, is now a film staple. Lorre’s next role was the German musical comedy Bomben auf Monte Carlo/Monte Carlo Madness (Hanns Schwarz, 1931) starring Hans Albers and Anna Sten. That year he also co-starred in the comedy Die Koffer des Herrn O.F./The Trunks of Mr. O.F. (Alexis Granowsky, 1931) starring Alfred Abel, and Harald Paulsen. In 1932 Lorre appeared again alongside Hans Albers in the drama Der weiße Dämon/The White Demon (Kurt Gerron, 1932) and the Science Fiction film F.P.1 antwortet nicht/F.P.1 Doesn't Respond (Karl Hartl, 1932) about an air station in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Curt Siodmak had written the story after Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight. It was the last German film that either Siodmak or Peter Lorre, who played a secondary character, would make in Germany before the war.

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Peter Lorre took refuge in Paris, where he appeared with Jean Gabin and Michel Simon in the charming comedy Du haut en bas/High and Low (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1933). Then Lorre moved on to London. There Ivor Montagu, Alfred Hitchcock's associate producer for The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), reminded the director about Lorre's performance in M. They first considered him to play the assassin in the film but wanted to use him in a larger role, despite his limited command of English at the time, which Lorre overcame by learning much of his part phonetically. The Man Who Knew Too Much was one of the most successful and critically acclaimed films of Hitchcock's British period. Lorre also was featured in Hitchcock's Secret Agent (Alfred Hitchcock, 1936), opposite John Gielgud and Madeleine Carroll. Lorre settled in Hollywood in 1935, where he specialized in playing sinister foreigners, beginning as the love-obsessed surgeon in the horror film Mad Love (Karl Freund, 1935), and as Raskolnikov in the Fyodor Dostoevsky adaptation Crime and Punishment (Josef von Sternberg, 1936). He starred in a series of eight Mr. Moto movies for Twentieth Century Fox, a parallel to the better-known Charlie Chan series. Lorre played the ever-polite (albeit well-versed in karate) Japanese detective Mr. Moto. According to Wikipedia, he did not enjoy these films — and twisted his shoulder during a stunt in Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (Norman Foster, 1939) — but they were lucrative for the studio. When the series folded in 1939, Lorre freelanced in villainous roles at several studios. In 1940, he co-starred with fellow horror actors Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in the comedy You'll Find Out (David Butler, 1940), a vehicle for bandleader and radio personality Kay Kyser.

In 1941, Peter Lorre became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He enjoyed considerable popularity as a featured player in Warner Bros. suspense and adventure films. Lorre played the role of effeminate thief Joel Cairo opposite Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941), a classic film noir based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett. The Maltese Falcon was Huston's directorial debut and was nominated for three Academy Awards. Then Lorre portrayed the character Ugarte in Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942). One of his co-stars in both films was Sydney Greenstreet with whom he made 9 films. Most of them were variations on Casablanca, including Background to Danger (Raoul Walsh, 1943), with George Raft; Passage to Marseille (Michael Curtiz, 1944), reuniting them with Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains, and Three Strangers (Jean Negulesco, 1946). The latter was a suspense film about three people who are joint partners on a winning lottery ticket starring top-billed Greenstreet, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and third-billed Lorre cast against type by the director as the romantic lead. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “As far as director Jean Negulesco was concerned, Lorre was the finest actor in Hollywood; Negulesco fought bitterly with the studio brass for permission to cast Lorre as the sympathetic leading man in The Mask of Dimitrios (1946), in which the diminutive actor gave one of his finest and subtlest performances.” Greenstreet and Lorre's final film together was the suspense thriller The Verdict (1946), director Don Siegel's first film. Lorre branched out into comedy with the role of Dr. Einstein in Frank Capra's version of Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), starring Cary Grant and Raymond Massey.

After World War II, Peter Lorre's acting career in Hollywood experienced a downturn, whereupon he concentrated on radio and stage work. An exception was the horror classic The Beast with Five Fingers (Robert Florey, 1946). In Germany Lorre co-wrote, directed, and starred in Der Verlorene/The Lost One (1951), an art film in the film noir idiom. Hal Erickson: “In keeping with Lorre's established screen persona, this is a tale of stark terror, disillusionment, and defeatism. The actor stars as Dr. Rothe, a German research scientist who during WW2 discovers that his fiancée has been selling his scientific secrets to the British. In a fit of pique, he murders her but is not punished for the crime, which is passed off by the Nazi authorities as justifiable homicide. (...) Not entirely successful, Der Verlorene is still a fascinating exercise in fatalism from one of the cinema's most distinctive talents.” Lorre then returned to the United States where he appeared as a character actor in television and feature films, often parodying his 'creepy' image. In 1954, he was the first actor to play a James Bond villain when he portrayed Le Chiffre in a television adaptation of Casino Royale, opposite Barry Nelson as an American James Bond and Linda Christian as the first Bond girl. Lorre starred alongside Kirk Douglas and James Mason in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Richard Fleischer, 1954), and appeared in a supporting role in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (Irwin Allen, 1961). He worked with Roger Corman on several low-budget films, including two of the director's Edgar Allan Poe cycle (Tales of Terror, 1962 and The Raven, 1963). He was married three times: actress Celia Lovsky (1934–1945); actress Kaaren Verne (1945–1950) and Anne Marie Brenning (1953-1964, his death). In 1953, Brenning bore his only child, Catharine. In later life, Catharine made headlines after serial killer Kenneth Bianchi confessed to police investigators after his arrest that he and his cousin and fellow Hillside Strangler Angelo Buono, disguised as police officers, had stopped her in 1977 with the intent of abducting and murdering her, but let her go upon learning that she was the daughter of Peter Lorre. It was only after Bianchi was arrested that Catharine realized whom she had met. Catharine died in 1985 of complications arising from diabetes. Lorre had suffered for years from chronic gallbladder troubles, for which doctors had prescribed morphine. Lorre became trapped between the constant pain and addiction to morphine to ease the problem. It was during the period of the Mr. Moto films that Lorre struggled and overcame his addiction. Abruptly gaining a hundred pounds in a very short period and never fully recovering from his addiction to morphine, Lorre suffered many personal and career disappointments in his later years. His final film was the Jerry Lewis comedy The Patsy (Jerry Lewis, 1964) in which, ironically, the dourly demonic Lorre played a director of comedy films. A few months after completing this film, Peter Lorre died of a stroke in 1964 in Los Angeles. He was 59.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Ed Stephan (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

5 Image HDR/DRI, 5x3 15 image 180° multi-row panorama. Potong Pasir, Singapore.

Took me a while to post-process, but the composition was the biggest issue here. Not even sure including the extra walls at the side really mattered, but somehow frames the centre more efficiently working with a rather stale looking scene.

It was also a deliberate decision to remove/clone out the crown of another tree located at the bottom; the tree's crown bothered me as it appears random and unnecessary to be part of the scene. Never do I resort the use of cloning techniques to remove an object this much, (I try to achieve truthfulness as much as possible) but this is one of those times I had no other choice but had to.

If I may say, this part of Potong Pasir appears run-down and unmaintained: paint walls are peeling off, hedges are growing uncontrollably near the highway - all these elements are just perfect for the camera.

250215 UPDATE:

- Added signature

- Fixed minor pano mismatch

- Straighten the buildings

So B&M had a Christmas star for 50p... Ideal for a instant tool no DIY required.

I plan to experiment more with this as it changes colour and even flashes uncontrollably so all experimentation.

Keep an eye for the "Chrimbo ball".

"With the elder Jhakri shaman on my left saying frantic incantations over me and flinging water and dried rice at me (hard) while I pound the drum so hard with a snake-stick that my right index finger erupts in blisters, eyes rolled back into my head and screaming like the heat-death of the universe until my central nervous system overloads and leaves me shaking uncontrollably across the floor in the slick of my own sweat, while a lithe naked boy dances around the periphery blowing the Azathothian music of chaos on the hollowed-out legbone of a Bengal tiger.

And that, dear friends and readers, is how we bring the ROCK"

(excerpted by How I Spent My Summer Vacation, by Jason Louv, in Generation Hex)

Mind Over Matter

An accomplished though conceited young archer once dared a Zen master famed for his prowess in archery, to a test of their skills. The youth’s proficiency was extraordinary. His first arrow found its target, a far off bull’s eye, with ease; with his next shot, he split the first arrow into two. “Think you can match that?” he asked the old man condescendingly. Instead of responding, the elderly monk gestured to the young man to follow him higher up the mountain. After some time, they arrived at a deep gorge. An old and decidedly unsteady log spanned the distance to the other side. The master serenely walked to the middle of the log, aimed at a distant tree and in a clean movement, loosed an arrow that flew straight into the tree trunk. “Your turn now,” said he, stepping back casually onto the cliff edge. The youth stared into the chasm yawning below and trembled uncontrollably. He could not put a foot onto the log, much less take aim at anything beyond. The master observed, “You have great control over your bow, but little with the mind that lets loose the arrow!”

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One neighbor's dog crosses our yard to go bark at the other neighbor's dogs, who are kept behind a fence. He knows he's not supposed to, but he gets these uncontrollable urges...he's a dog, 'ya know...

Basanta Utsav literally means the 'celebration of spring'. ...

Annually celebrated in March, the festival is an occassion to invite the colourful spring season with utmost warmth. What is appreciated is the grace and diginified manner in which Vasant Utsav is celebrated in Bengal as compared to uncontrollable Holi witnessed in most parts of India. The beautiful tradition of celebrating spring festival in Bengal was first started by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan.

Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery ( BLM ) (17 November 1887 – 24 March 1976) suffered from "an overbearing conceit and an uncontrollable urge for self-promotion." General Hastings Ismay, who was at the time Winston Churchill's chief staff officer and trusted military adviser, once stated of Montgomery: "I have come to the conclusion that his love of publicity is a disease, like alcoholism or taking drugs, and that it sends him equally mad”

There was always a photographer in the background, he was always willing to participate in any publicity opportunity, whether in Ireland in 1921, where he was brigade major in the 17th Infantry Brigade stationed in County Cork, Ireland, carrying out counter-insurgency operations during the final stages of the Irish War of Independence, or on taking command of the Eighth Army in Africa on 13 August 1942, he was always willing to pose for the camera.

( thanks to Jeff Wharton for photo of re enactor Monty, nationlinfantrymuseum.org and National Library of Ireland for background photos )

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It's a company meal out and his company is very much about the family image, so it's time to be the dutiful wife and mother-to-be. Plus his boss might stop hitting on me now he sees I'm taken and spoken for, but the old goat will probably make a crass comment about how much fun we must have had getting me into this state, at which point I'll blush uncontrollably as the hormones are all over the place.

Twin knights with opposite elements, but the same goal. Ahkuva is brutal and almost uncontrollably aggressive. He destroys whatever he feels is in his way. Unlike his brother, he eviscerates his enemies. When he kills, his target is a fraction of their former self. HIs favorite moments are when his brother says "have at it" at which point he goes to decimate villages.

4th Wall: These took a long time to make. Ahkuva, the shadow knight has been done for a while, but I wanted to make sure they got done right and photographed together. Ahkuva was easier to build because I had the parts ready. He uses a measure of old gunmetal, new gunmetal, and the new flat silver color, and they mesh together well because of how they're spaced out. I like the way he turned out. Comments are of course welcome.

Basanta Utsav literally means the 'celebration of spring'. ...

Annually celebrated in March, the festival is an occassion to invite the colourful spring season with utmost warmth. What is appreciated is the grace and diginified manner in which Vasant Utsav is celebrated in Bengal as compared to uncontrollable Holi witnessed in most parts of India.

The beautiful tradition of celebrating spring festival in Bengal was first started by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan.

"Mom" Bem-te-vi know that their little ones have an uncontrollable hunger. Therefore, it spares no effort to let them "lined stomach" and mouth shut ...

And remember that the menu is varied ... From fruits, passing insects and even lizards ....

Photos: Yuri Borba | Series LIFE

السلام عليكم

..

Hey yo..

2011 is at the door…

Remember

Life is short, break the rules,

Forgive quickly,

love truly,

laugh uncontrollably,

and

never regret anything that made you smile.

Happy New Year 2011

2011 على الابواب

تذكر..

أكسر القواعد ، فـ الحياة قصيرة

سامح بسرعه..

حب بصدق..

أضحك بعمق..

ولا تتأسف على شي جعلك تبتسم :)

كل عام وانتم بخير

.

.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

:*:About me:*:Flickr:*:Twitter:*:Facebook:*:Ask me:*:Push Me:*:SayAt.me:*:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Copyright © By Abdullah H. AlJaber / Aj

All copyrights to Aj and may not be used without permission.

ممنوع تستخدم اي صورهـ من عندي بدون ماتقولي وتستأذن مني :\ :D

Isle of Eigg, Inner Hebrides, Scotland.

This sledgehammer was lying on the side of the mail box next to the road. It made me wonder if mailmen "go postal" in the UK or is it just an American phenomenon?

"Going postal", in American slang, means becoming extremely and uncontrollably angry, often to the point of violence, and usually in a workplace environment. The expression derives from a series of incidents in which United States Postal Service workers shot and killed managers, fellow workers, and members of the police or general public in acts of mass murder.

Tech Info:

Nikon D800E, AF-S 60mm f/2.8G Micro.

Post-processed in Lr 5.4 and Ps CS6.

I found a stash of USGS copies I made some time ago so I am taking a retouching break for some USGS originals I found. I found this ranch house on a hill. Although the Virginia Dale store (Stage Station) is closed now, it was always a stop on the route from northern Colorado especially to the transcontinental Union Pacific route through Laramie, Wyoming. The Robber's Roost was within a mile of Virginia Dale when W.H. Jackson found and shot it.

A later rail link trying to make a connection to southern Wyoming was attempted and graded past Virginia Dale at a later time. A tunnel was dug northwest of Virginia Dale. eDDie tracked the route and tunnel on Google maps as far as it was graded. The Union Pacific and the Denver Pacific joined to torpedo the new route. It's on our bucket list of future photos. I shot a couple of grave markers at the little church cemetery.

Here is a clip from the internet:

Virginia Dale, Colorado Stage Station Treasure

Overland Trail Team

"In 1863, a stagecoach along the Overland Trail carrying an army payroll of $60,000 (which would be about $1 million dollars today) in ten and twenty dollar gold coins was destined for Fort Sanders (at Laramie) in Wyoming Territory. The gold shipment represented several months of back pay for the soldiers at Fort Sanders; however, the unfortunate soldiers never saw the gold.

Only about a mile from the Virginia Dale Station, the stage was robbed by six masked outlaws at Long View Hill. The gang took the strongbox from the stage and headed west towards the wooded foothills, where they blew the lock off of the box, removed the gold coins, and buried the treasure.

However, before they could spend their ill-gained wealth, the bandits were pursued and killed by the U.S. Cavalry. The Cavalry later found the iron strong box in a nearby creek, the sides and bottom gone, riddled with bullet holes – and, obviously, empty.

The Overland Trail stage line was regularly terrorized by outlaws, where the surrounding area provided multiple opportunistic hideouts. One hideout, labeled the Robbers Roost atop Table Mountain, was so popular that the outlaws built a cabin there. Table Mountain, only about a mile northeast of the Virginia Dale Stage Station, was a perfect hideout, as it is difficult to climb with practically perpendicular cliffs and a rim of shale.

At the time, it was rumored that Joseph 'Jack' Slade, the former Station Master was the leader of the gang. Jack Slade, not as famous as many other outlaw characters, was nevertheless, as notorious as many of them. Slade was said to have had an uncontrollable temper, was a heavy drinker, and had murdered in the past.

The gold taken by the robbers at Virginia Dale has never been found."

Brave little tomboy Clover ain't so tough afterall! Heehee! Takes a boss sometimes to put one in their place!!

This picture is not a reference to the 1959 original movie and 2000 remake (though both are excellent and *thoroughly* depressing movies; well worth the effort in watching the remake as I think it superior to the original).

Most likely the only movies that'll have the biggest impact and haunt you for the rest of your life...and yes...I wept uncontrollably at the end of watching the remake.

Instead it refers to the fact that we live minutes away from the Beach.

Panoramic shot taken a few weeks back at the half-way point of a long hike Chizuko and I took down to Salt Creek Beach.

Southern California.

PHOTOSHOP COMPOSITION: The Celestials

This my early April submission.

I have decided to give myself a monthly challenge with photography and CS5. The lesson is very simple, I have listed twelve of my favorite songs and each month I will take one of the song titles and compose a picture around it. My criteria is that the picture must be an original picture I have taken and that I use my CS6 skills to enhance the picture to meet the theme of the song title. Some will be direct some obscure. Listed below are the songs I will be using in the next twelve months.

The Flesh Failures-Hair Original Cast Recording [February]*

The Uncontrollable Fire-U2 [January]*

Wild Horses-Rolling Stones [June]*

Wonderwall-Ryan Adams [July]*

L'Estasi Dell'Oro-Ennio Morricone [November]*

Sorcerer-Tangerine Dream [September]*

Taxi to Heaven-Pray for Rain [December]*

White Room-Cream [October]*

Redemption Song-Bob Marley [August]*

Cruel Summer-Bananarama [March]*

The Celestials-Smashing Pumpkins [April]*

Every Step of the Way-Santana [December]*

BANE: CONQUEST # 8

By trying to abduct the infant Naja-Naja, Bane has made an enemy of Kobra. And the cult won’t stop until he’s dead. A global manhunt for the Man Who Broke the Bat begins but he’s not one to run or hide. With his trusted comrades Bird, Trogg and Zombie he plots a strategy to take the fight to the underworld empire run by Valentina. Bane’s original creators continue their epic tale of mayhem, revenge...and conquest!

DEATHSTROKE (2016-) # 26

“THE FALL OF SLADE” part one! Finally convinced that their leader is missing, Team Defiance begins the search for Deathstroke only to discover his situation is even more dire than expected. Meanwhile, Deathstroke—after being kidnapped by the Secret Society of Super-Villains—finds his past catching up with him when his former friend and ally Dr. Ikon confronts the repentant killer while repressing his own uncontrollable rage.

BATMAN/TMNT II # 1

The team behind the smash-hit crossover series is back to reunite the Dark Knight and the Heroes in a Half-Shell. When Donatello goes looking for a new mentor to help him improve his fighting skills, he opens a doorway to another reality, hoping to summon the Turtles’ one-time ally, Batman. But instead, he gets sent to Gotham City and someone else comes through the open portal—Bane! Suddenly, there’s a new gang boss in New York and he’s out to unite all the other bad guys under him. Can Donnie get back in time and bring Batman with him to help his brothers before Bane causes irreparable destruction? Co-published with IDW.

AMAZING SPIDERMAN: VENOM INC # 1

VENOM INC. Part 6 The symbiotic super villain called Maniac has seized control of all of New York's major crime families, and he's now got his sights set on the entire city! To make matters worse, he's also got a cadre of super villains under his symbiotic spell, and Spider-Man, Venom and their allies are the only things standing in their way! The final chapter of VENOM INC!

SHIRTLESS BEAR-FIGHTER TPB

After being betrayed by the bears that raised him, the legendary SHIRTLESS BEAR-FIGHTER wanders the forest he’s sworn to protect, fist-fighting bears, eating flapjacks, and being the angriest man the world has ever known! When wild-eyed, super-strong bears attack the citizens of Major City, Shirtless ventures into the human world to do what he does best...PUNCH THOSE BEARS IN THE FACE! But all is not as it seems. Someone is manipulating Shirtless...and only by confronting the demons of his past can Shirtless hope to save his future! A heart-filled, hilarious tall tale for the ages...you don't want to miss SHIRTLESS BEAR-FIGHTER! Collects SHIRTLESS BEAR-FIGHTER! #1-5

BETTY & VERONICA: VIXENS # 1

NEW ONGOING SERIES! The toughest gang in Riverdale is one you'd least expect: the Vixens, led by Riverdale High's own Betty and Veronica!

MR. HIGGINS COMES HOME

Preparations begin at Castle Golga for the annual festival of the undead, as a pair of fearless vampire killers question a man hidden away in a monastery on the Baltic Sea. The mysterious Mr. Higgins wants nothing more than to avoid the scene of his wife's death, and the truth about what happened to him in that castle. However, these heroic men sworn to rid the world of the vampire scourge, inspire Higgins to venture out and to end the only suffering he really cares about--his own.

This send-up of classic vampire stories sees Mignola teaming with British artist Warwick Johnson-Cadwell (Solid State Tank Girl, No. 1 Car Spotter) for an original graphic novel as outlandish as The Amazing Screw-On Head.

BATMAN WHITE KNIGHT # 3

Tragedy strikes, and the Bat-family face the fight of their lives against an army of super-villains and waning public support. A new discovery reinforces Jack’s plot to jeopardize the Dark Knight’s standing in Gotham City, and Harley’s obsession with The Joker reaches a new height—and threatens to change the game for good!

THE SHADOW/BATMAN # 3

Centuries ago, the Silent Seven put their hand around the world's neck. They've never let go. From generation to generation, the famed invisible hand guiding the global economy, guiding progress, has been a clenched fist. But with their previous leader murdered in the street, who is currently at the helm of this shadow conspiracy, and how have they maintained their quiet threat for so long? Batman and the Shadow may not have the answer, but it's a good thing Bruce Wayne and Allard Cranston do.

shot in the East Village Manhattan from a WINDOW SILL........................

collapsed...............

i watched him fall.

collapsed.................

he lost faith in us all.

collapsed

on a cemented floor..........

collapsed

he couldnt take his life anymore

collapsed

he meant nothing to anyone

collapsed ...............

not from illness, poverty or old age

collapsed.............

recently purchased a second hand gun

collapsed

from envy, pride ,and uncontrollable rage

Photography’s new conscience

linktr.ee/GlennLosack

linktr.ee/GlennLosack

glosack.wixsite.com/tbws

First piercing to make me laugh uncontrollably then almost faint.

Project 365 ~ Dislikes

ODT - April 9 ~ Stressed

Warning...this stunt can be hazardous to your health and have serious side effects. Symptoms may be nauseau, nervousness, diarrhea, constipation, agiation, loss of hearing and vision, uncontrollable urges to use profane language and may lead to serious injury or ultimately death. Don't try this without consulting a professional.

I really get don't like it when I have to get in rush hour traffic... especially if it's raining. Besides it makes my driving and shooting a little more stressful.

The Grade I Starlet Stakes at Los Alamitos.

By 1953, the US Navy had already bought the F3H Demon fighter, but McDonnell Aircraft felt it could improve on the Demon’s design. A full-scale mockup of the F3H-G was built, and it was designed as an aircraft with a modular nose, with different versions for attack, reconnaissance, fighter, and interceptor. The Navy passed on the F3H-G, so McDonnell continued to tinker with the design, expanding it to a two-seat aircraft with J79 engines and a large number of hardpoints as an all-weather multirole fighter. Once more the Navy had little interest in this “Super Demon,” but it proposed instead that the design be reworked into a fleet air defense interceptor. Finally, the Navy accepted McDonnell’s aircraft as the F4H-1 Phantom II—having turned down McDonnell’s proposal to name it the F4H-1 Satan.

The Phantom II needed work before the first prototype took to the air in May 1958. Instability and problems at high angles of attack led to the fairly conventional design to be changed: the nose was lowered to accommodate the radar and give the pilot better vision, the wingtips bent upwards, and the tailplanes bent downwards. This gave the Phantom a hideous appearance, which one pilot likened to it having its nose stepped on while it was kicked in the rear end. Nonetheless, it worked, and flight testing of the F4H-1 went smoothly. It entered the fleet in 1960 after beating the heavily modified XF8U-3 Crusader III for the role of fleet defense, although the Phantom also retained a useful bomb-carrying capability, making it a multirole fighter. Under Project High Jump, Skyburner, and Sageburner, the F4H-1 also set a number of performance records.

Production F4H-1s, which differed only slightly from the preproduction aircraft, were designated F-4B in 1962. They would see their first combat operations, of sorts, in the Cuban Missile Crisis the same year, and then actual combat in 1964, when F-4Bs participated in Operation Pierce Arrow, the forerunner to Operation Rolling Thunder over North Vietnam. F-4Bs also were the first American fighters to score aerial kills during the war, first over a Chinese MiG-17 in April 1965 and then a North Vietnamese MiG-17 in June.

In combat, F-4 pilots had learned that they were at a severe disadvantage against North Vietnamese fighters, which were smaller and far more nimble than the big Phantom. The MiG-17 and MiG-21 could easily turn inside the F-4s, which risked going into an uncontrollable spin at certain angles of attack. Lack of training on the part of US Navy pilots, poor missiles and restrictive Rules of Engagement also gave the North Vietnamese advantages. The F-4 had, however, shown that it could hold its own if the pilot played to the Phantom’s strengths: incredible speed and acceleration, a good radar, and good performance in the vertical. While kill ratios were low, at least the F-4B was holding its own. The Marines would also use the F-4B extensively in South Vietnam, strictly as a fighter-bomber as they rarely ventured into North Vietnam. 170 F-4Bs were lost to enemy action or accidents over Vietnam in both Navy and Marine Corps service. Beginning in 1969, under Project Bee Line, the Navy began modifying most surviving F-4Bs to F-4N standard, though F-4Bs would serve until the end of the Vietnam War, with the last Navy F-4Bs not being converted until 1974 and the Marines not converting theirs until 1979.

One of my most popular pics on my Flickr page is one Dad took of two F-4Bs of VMFA-321 ("Hells' Angels"), but it wasn't until recently that I found this shot of just one of the aircraft, Bureau Number 153064. Both F-4s had stopped in for an overnight stop at Malmstrom AFB, Montana, on their way back to their home base at Andrews AFB, Maryland--hence the red, white and blue motif! (Note also the travel pod on the inboard starboard wing station.)

153064 had started its career with VF-121 ("Pacemakers"), the Pacific Fleet Replacement Air Group, before serving in Vietnam with VMFA-323 ("Death Rattlers") and VMFA-115 ("Able Eagles"), both at Da Nang. Following its war service, it was transferred to VMFA-321, and would remain with the squadron until 1981, by which time it had been upgraded to a F-4N. 153064 finished its career with VMFA-531 ("Grey Ghosts") at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina before retirement in 1982. It was sent to NAS China Lake, California and expended as a ground target--a sad end for a beautiful aircraft.

This really is a pleasing study of a F-4, and I'm surprised I hadn't posted it before.

German postcard by Verlag Hias Schaschko, München (Munich), no. 211. Photo: Patrick la Banca, ca. 1980.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982) was a German film director, screenwriter, film producer and actor. Fassbinder was part of the New German Cinema movement. Starting at age 21, Fassbinder made over forty films and TV dramas in fifteen years, along with directing numerous plays for the theatre. He also acted in nineteen of his own films as well as for other directors. Fassbinder died in 1982 at the age of 37 from a lethal cocktail of cocaine and barbiturates.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder was born in Bavaria in the small town of Bad Wörishofen in 1945. The aftermath of World War II deeply marked his childhood and the lives of his bourgeois family. He was the only child of Liselotte Pempeit, a translator and Helmut Fassbinder, a doctor who worked out of the couple's apartment in Sendlinger Strasse, near Munich's red light district. In 1951, his parents divorced. Helmut moved to Cologne while Liselotte raised her son as a single parent in Munich. In order to support herself and her child, Pempeit took in boarders and found employment as a German to English translator. When she was working, she often sent her son to the cinema in order to concentrate. Later in life, Fassbinder claimed that he saw a film nearly every day and sometimes as many as three or four. As he was often left alone, he became independent and uncontrollable. He clashed with his mother's younger lover Siggi, who lived with them when Fassbinder was around eight or nine years old. He had a similar difficult relationship with the much older journalist Wolff Eder, who became his stepfather in 1959. Early in his adolescence, Fassbinder identified as homosexual. As a teen, Fassbinder was sent to boarding school. His time there was marred by his repeated escape attempts and he eventually left school before any final examinations. At the age of 15, he moved to Cologne and stayed with his father for a couple of years while attending night school. To earn money, he worked small jobs and helped his father who rented shabby apartments to immigrant workers. Around this time, Fassbinder began writing short plays and stories and poems. In 1963, aged eighteen, Fassbinder returned to Munich with plans to attend night school with the idea to eventually study theatrical science. Following his mother's advice, he took acting lessons and from 1964 to 1966 attended the Fridl-Leonhard Studio for actors in Munich. There, he met Hanna Schygulla, who would become one of his most important actors. During this time, he made his first 8mm films and took on small acting roles, assistant director, and sound man. During this period, he also wrote the tragic-comic play: Drops on Hot Stones. To gain entry to the Berlin Film School, Fassbinder submitted a film version of his play Parallels. He also entered several 8 mm films including This Night (now considered lost) but he was turned down for admission, as were the later film directors Werner Schroeter and Rosa von Praunheim. He returned to Munich where he continued with his writing. He also made two short films, Der Stadtstreicher,/The City Tramp (1965) and Das Kleine Chaos/The Little Chaos (1966). Shot in black and white, they were financed by Fassbinder's lover, Christoph Roser, an aspiring actor, in exchange for leading roles. Fassbinder acted in both of these films which also featured Irm Hermann. In the latter, his mother – under the name of Lilo Pempeit – played the first of many parts in her son's films.

In 1967 Rainer Werner Fassbinder joined the Munich Action-Theater, where he was active as an actor, director and script writer. After two months he became the company's leader. In April 1968 Fassbinder directed the premiere production of his play Katzelmacher, the story of a foreign worker from Greece who becomes the object of intense racial, sexual, and political hatred among a group of Bavarian slackers. A few weeks later, in May 1968, the Action-Theater was disbanded after its theatre was wrecked by one of its founders, jealous of Fassbinder's growing power within the group. It promptly reformed as the Anti-Theater under Fassbinder's direction. The troupe lived and performed together. This close-knit group of young actors included among them Fassbinder, Peer Raben, Harry Baer and Kurt Raab, who along with Hanna Schygulla and Irm Hermann became the most important members of his cinematic stock company. Working with the Anti-Theater, Fassbinder continued writing, directing and acting. In the space of eighteen months he directed twelve plays. Of these twelve plays, four were written by Fassbinder; he rewrote five others. The style of his stage directing closely resembled that of his early films, a mixture of choreographed movement and static poses, taking its cues not from the traditions of stage theatre, but from musicals, cabaret, films and the student protest movement. Fassbinder used his theatrical work as a springboard for making films. Shot in black and white with a shoestring budget in April 1969, Fassbinder's first feature-length film, Liebe ist kälter als der Tod/Love is Colder than Death (1969), was a deconstruction of the American gangster films of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Fassbinder plays the lead role of Franz, a small-time pimp who is torn between his mistress Joanna, a prostitute (Hanna Schygulla), and his friend Bruno, a gangster sent after Franz by the syndicate that he has refused to join. His second film, Katzelmacher (1969), was received more positively, garnering five prizes after its debut at Mannheim. From then on, Fassbinder centered his efforts in his career as film director, but he maintained an intermittent foothold in the theatre until his death. Fassbinder’s first ten films (1969–1971) were an extension of his work in the theatre, shot usually with a static camera and with deliberately unnaturalistic dialogue. Wikipedia: “He was strongly influenced by Brecht's Verfremdungseffekt (alienation effect) and the French New Wave cinema, particularly the works of Jean-Luc Godard.” Fassbinder developed his rapid working methods early. Because he knew his actors and technicians so well, Fassbinder was able to complete as many as four or five films per year on extremely low budgets. This allowed him to compete successfully for the government grants needed to continue making films. Unlike the other major auteurs of the New German Cinema, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders, who started out making films, Fassbinder's stage background was evident throughout his work.

In 1971, Rainer Werner Fassbinder took an eight-month break from filmmaking. During this time, Fassbinder turned for a model to Hollywood melodrama, particularly the films German émigré Douglas Sirk made in Hollywood for Universal-International in the 1950s: All That Heaven Allows, Magnificent Obsession and Imitation of Life. Fassbinder was attracted to these films not only because of their entertainment value, but also for their depiction of various kinds of repression and exploitation. Fassbinder scored his first domestic commercial success with Händler der vier Jahreszeiten/The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971). Loneliness is a common theme in Fassbinder's work, together with the idea that power becomes a determining factor in all human relationships. His characters yearn for love, but seem condemned to exert an often violent control over those around them. A good example is Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant/The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) which was adapted by Fassbinder from his plays. Wildwechsel/Jailbait (1973 is a bleak story of teenage angst, set in industrial northern Germany during the 1950s. Like in many other of his films, Fassbinder analyses lower middle class life with characters who, unable to articulate their feelings, bury them in inane phrases and violent acts. Fassbinder first gained international success with Angst essen Seele auf/Fear Eats the Soul (1974). which won the International Critics Prize at Cannes and was acclaimed by critics everywhere as one of 1974's best films. Fear Eats the Soul was loosely inspired by Sirk's All That Heaven Allows (1955). It details the vicious response of family and community to a lonely aging white cleaning lady (Brigitte Mira) who marries a muscular, much younger black Moroccan immigrant worker. In these films, Fassbinder explored how deep-rooted prejudices about race, sex, sexual orientation, politics and class are inherent in society, while also tackling his trademark subject of the everyday fascism of family life and friendship. He learned how to handle all phases of production, from writing and acting to direction and theatre management. This versatility surfaced in his films where he served as composer, production designer, cinematographer, producer and editor.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s final films, from around 1977 until his death, were more varied, with international actors sometimes used and the stock company disbanded, although the casts of some films were still filled with Fassbinder regulars. Despair (1978) is based upon the 1936 novel of the same name by Vladimir Nabokov, adapted by Tom Stoppard and featuring Dirk Bogarde. It was made on a budget of 6,000,000 DEM, exceeding the total cost of Fassbinder's first fifteen films. In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden/In a Year of Thirteen Moons (1978) is Fassbinder most personal and bleakest work. The film follows the tragic life of Elvira, a transsexual formerly known as Erwin. In the last few days before her suicide, she decides to visit some of the important people and places in her life. Fassbinder became increasingly more idiosyncratic in terms of plot, form and subject matter in films like his greatest success Die Ehe der Maria Braun/The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), Die Dritte Generation/The Third Generation (1979) and Querelle (1982). Returning to his explorations of German history, Fassbinder finally realized his dream of adapting Alfred Döblin's 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980). A television series running more than 13 hours, it was the culmination of the director's inter-related themes of love, life, and power. Fassbinder took on the Nazi period with Lili Marleen (1981), an international co production, shot in English and with a large budget. The script was vaguely based on the autobiography of World War II singer Lale Andersen, The Sky Has Many Colors. He articulated his themes in the bourgeois milieu with his trilogy about women in post-fascist Germany: Die Ehe der Maria Braun/The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), Lola (1981) and Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss/Veronika Voss (1982), for which he won the Golden Bear at the 32nd Berlin International Film Festival. Fassbinder did not live to see the premiere of his last film, Querelle (1982), based on Jean Genet's novel Querelle de Brest. The plot follows the title character, a handsome sailor (Brad Davis) who is a thief and hustler. Frustrated in a homoerotic relationship with his own brother, Querelle betrays those who love him and pays them even with murder.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder had sexual relationships with both men and women. He rarely kept his professional and personal life separate and was known to cast family, friends and lovers in his films. Early in his career, he had a lasting, but fractured relationship with Irm Hermann, a former secretary whom he forced to become an actress. Fassbinder usually cast her in unglamorous roles, most notably as the unfaithful wife in The Merchant of Four Seasons and the silent abused assistant in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. In 1969, while portraying the lead role in the T.V film Baal under the direction of Volker Schlöndorff, Fassbinder met Günther Kaufmann, a black Bavarian actor who had a minor role in the film. Despite the fact that Kaufmann was married and had two children, Fassbinder fell madly in love with him. The two began a turbulent affair which ultimately affected the production of Baal. Fassbinder tried to buy Kaufmann's love by casting him in major roles in his films and buying him expensive gifts. The relationship came to an end when Kaufmann became romantically involved with composer Peer Raben. After the end of their relationship, Fassbinder continued to cast Kaufmann in his films, albeit in minor roles. Kaufmann appeared in fourteen of Fassbinder's films, with the lead role in Whity (1971). Although he claimed to be opposed to matrimony as an institution, in 1970 Fassbinder married Ingrid Caven, an actress who regularly appeared in his films. Their wedding reception was recycled in the film he was making at that time, The American Soldier. Their relationship of mutual admiration survived the complete failure of their two-year marriage. In 1971, Fassbinder began a relationship with El Hedi ben Salem, a Moroccan Berber who had left his wife and five children the previous year, after meeting him at a gay bathhouse in Paris. Over the next three years, Salem appeared in several Fassbinder productions. His best known role was Ali in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974). Their three-year relationship was punctuated with jealousy, violence and heavy drug and alcohol use. Fassbinder finally ended the relationship in 1974 due to Salem's chronic alcoholism and tendency to become violent when he drank. Shortly after the breakup, Salem went to France where he was arrested and imprisoned. He hanged himself while in custody in 1977. News of Salem's suicide was kept from Fassbinder for years. He eventually found out about his former lover's death shortly before his own death in 1982 and dedicated his last film, Querelle, to Salem. Fassbinder's next lover was Armin Meier. Meier was a near illiterate former butcher who had spent his early years in an orphanage. He also appeared in several Fassbinder films in this period. After Fassbinder ended the relationship in 1978, Meier deliberately consumed four bottles of sleeping pills and alcohol in the kitchen of the apartment he and Fassbinder had previously shared. His body was found a week later. In the last four years of his life, his companion was Juliane Lorenz), the editor of his films during the last years of his life. On the night of 10 June 1982, Fassbinder took an overdose of cocaine and sleeping pills. When he was found, an unfinished script for a film on Rosa Luxemburg was lying next to him. His death marked the end of New German Cinema.

Steve Cohn at IMDb: “Above all, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a rebel whose life and art was marked by gross contradiction. Known for his trademark leather jacket and grungy appearance, Fassbinder cruised the bar scene by night, looking for sex and drugs, yet he maintained a flawless work ethic by day. Actors and actresses recount disturbing stories of his brutality toward them, yet his pictures demonstrate his deep sensitivity to social misfits and his hatred of institutionalized violence.”

Sources: Steve Cohn (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.