You hesitate as the others peer back through an overgrown opening and wave you on. Legend has it that when this asylum closed it doors, the insane were simply released from the grounds, making their way back in to live among the shadows. You shake away the thought and slip inside, trading the light of the day for the darkened inards of the hospital and set to work exploring your surroundings. Overturned wheelchairs, shattered equipment and strewn medical records are the subjects of your attention as you wander down the corridors. After some time, your ears can no longer hear your comrades and a look back closes the hall in on you as you realize you are alone. The once innocent shadows now slither ominously toward you and you instinctly slink into the safety of the light. Calling out to the others as you head back yields no response as you pass the nurse's stations and patients' rooms and you stop just past them at a set of double doors marking off the surgical wing. An uneasy feeling takes hold at the sight of someone's sick joke of blood in an uncanny shade of maroon paint streaking the corroded metal. Pushing the doors into the darkness sends a chill down your spine and you pull your light from your bag. More paint stains the floor in drag marks and smudged hand prints and only your echo returns as you enter the abyss. With each step, your heart beats just a little harder and the light's stream flickers crazily as your hands shake uncontrollably. Coming to the end of the hall it's here that the paint takes on a fresher look and turning into the last room you stop, paralyzed in fear, as your light illuminates the scene before you. A forboding figure sits perched on a dilapitated instrument cart, dressed in filthy surgical scrubs. As he slowly looks up the sinister eyes offer no familiarity above the mask and you quickly avoid his gaze, lowering your eyes to take note of the rusty hatchet he is twisting in his hands. It becomes clear in an instant that the droplets falling from this repulsive weapon are fresh blood as it collects in a thick pool at his feet. He has been waiting for you. You try screaming but the ability has failed you and instead the halls reverberate with the cackling laughter of the insane as your last realization before you succumb to his torture is that the dark legend is true.

 

-Caption Courtesy of: Olivia Wolfe-

 

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just looking at this makes me salivate uncontrollably.

Well the sun had gone most certainly behind the cloud by this point, not that it was going to put me off, however having had full sun all morning it was a little disappointing to say the least however not been one to give up because the sun isn't out although the brightness had been lost I went for a shot and it's fair to say I'm happy with the results the Class 20 locomotives numbered 20308 leading 20312 both operated by Direct Rail Services, DRS, who operate the York based RHTT circuits around West, South and East Yorkshire this train at work as it passes through Smithy Wood between Chapeltown and Ecclesfield on the Barnsley Line is 3S13 the 11:17 Grimsby Town to Malton RHTT heading into Sheffield before turning back and heading towards Wakefield in reverse on the Barnsley Line. The two Class 20's hauling the FEA bodied Network Rail water tanks which spray high pressure jets onto the railheads to prevent the build up of adhesion on the line caused by leaves which can present danger to the railway as trains become unable to move forwards and brakes become severely compromised meaning trains can split uncontrollably past signals at danger and the potential for an accident becomes great which is why trains are delayed due to leaves on the line however the RHTT designed to stop cancellations, delays and the likes.

“She had six husbands, money – and one lover too many.”

 

From the back cover:

 

Philip Marlowe, private eye, knew that Terry’s wife, Sylvia Lennox, had millions and an uncontrollable passion for men.

 

“Did you ever find her with a man in that guest house?” he asked him.

 

Terry shook his head. “I never tried. It wouldn’t have been difficult. It never has been.”

 

“Lots of men, huh? But you went back and married her again.”

 

“Hell,” said Terry, “she’s been married five times, not including me. And one of them would go back at the crook of her finger. And not just for a million bucks.”

 

That was the night Sylvia was murdered, lying on the bed nude as a mermaid.

 

And, though he had only seen her once, the cops threw Philip Marlowe in jail on suspicion of murder.

 

This picture has been taken while the sequoia trees that are part of Yosemite national park were uncontrollably burning. While the sun rose you could see the smoke very well in the sky

but they got it made

 

this came out a little grainy, but not too bad! :) The water felt nice today, but it was rather chilly outside, so when i got out of the water, i ended up shaking uncontrollably for a while. Worth it? Definately.

 

**900 views!

 

+++ in comments!

Photo of Luffenholtz Beach, looking toward Trinidad and Trinidad Head captured via Minolta MD Zoom Rokkor-X 75-200mm f/4.5 lens and Bracketing method of photography, and in the census-designated place of Westhaven-Moonstone via Scenic Drive, County Road 4M310, post-mile marker 1.23. Humboldt County. Late January 2014.

The Postcard

 

A Colourmaster postcard that was distributed by Dragon Publishing Ltd. of Llandeilo. The photography was by Roger Vlitos.

 

On the divided back of the card is printed:

 

'Dylan's Writing Shed,

Laugharne, Dyfed.

In this converted garage with

views over the Taf estuary and

Sir John's Hill, Dylan Thomas

wrote much of his finest poetry.

Along with his last home, The

Boat House, it is preserved in

memory of the poet.'

 

Dylan Thomas

 

Dylan Marlais Thomas, who was born in Swansea on the 27th. October 1914, was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night' and 'And Death Shall Have No Dominion.'

 

Dylan's other work included 'Under Milk Wood' as well as stories and radio broadcasts such as 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' and 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog'.

 

He became widely popular in his lifetime, and remained so after his death at the age of 39 in New York City. By then he had acquired a reputation, which he had encouraged, as a roistering, drunken and doomed poet.

 

In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas, an undistinguished pupil, left school to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post, only to leave under pressure 18 months later.

 

Many of his works appeared in print while he was still a teenager. In 1934, the publication of 'Light Breaks Where no Sun Shines' caught the attention of the literary world.

 

While living in London, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara. They married in 1937, and had three children: Llewelyn, Aeronwy and Colm.

 

Thomas came to be appreciated as a popular poet during his lifetime, though he found it hard to earn a living as a writer. He began augmenting his income with reading tours and radio broadcasts. His radio recordings for the BBC during the late 1940's brought him to the public's attention, and he was frequently used by the BBC as an accessible voice of the literary scene.

 

Thomas first travelled to the United States in the 1950's. His readings there brought him a degree of fame, while his erratic behaviour and drinking worsened. His time in the United States cemented his legend, however, and he went on to record to vinyl such works as 'A Child's Christmas in Wales'.

 

During his fourth trip to New York in 1953, Thomas became gravely ill and fell into a coma. He died on the 9th. November 1953, and his body was returned to Wales. On the 25th. November 1953, he was laid to rest in St Martin's churchyard in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire.

 

Although Thomas wrote exclusively in the English language, he has been acknowledged as one of the most important Welsh poets of the 20th century. He is noted for his original, rhythmic and ingenious use of words and imagery. He is regarded by many as one of the great modern poets, and he still remains popular with the public.

 

Dylan Thomas - The Early Years

 

Dylan was born at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, the son of Florence Hannah (née Williams; 1882–1958), a seamstress, and David John Thomas (1876–1952), a teacher. His father had a first-class honours degree in English from University College, Aberystwyth and ambitions to rise above his position teaching English literature at the local grammar school.

 

Thomas had one sibling, Nancy Marles (1906–1953), who was eight years his senior. The children spoke only English, though their parents were bilingual in English and Welsh, and David Thomas gave Welsh lessons at home.

 

Thomas's father chose the name Dylan, which means 'Son of the Sea', after Dylan ail Don, a character in The Mabinogion. Dylan's middle name, Marlais, was given in honour of his great-uncle, William Thomas, a Unitarian minister and poet whose bardic name was Gwilym Marles.

 

Dylan caused his mother to worry that he might be teased as the 'Dull One.' When he broadcast on Welsh BBC, early in his career, he was introduced using this pronunciation. Thomas favoured the Anglicised pronunciation, and gave instructions that it should be spoken as 'Dillan.'

 

The red-brick semi-detached house at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive (in the respectable area of the Uplands), in which Thomas was born and lived until he was 23, had been bought by his parents a few months before his birth.

 

Dylan's childhood featured regular summer trips to the Llansteffan Peninsula, a Welsh-speaking part of Carmarthenshire, where his maternal relatives were the sixth generation to farm there.

 

In the land between Llangain and Llansteffan, his mother's family, the Williamses and their close relatives, worked a dozen farms with over a thousand acres between them. The memory of Fernhill, a dilapidated 15-acre farm rented by his maternal aunt, Ann Jones, and her husband, Jim, is evoked in the 1945 lyrical poem 'Fern Hill', but is portrayed more accurately in his short story, 'The Peaches'.

 

Thomas had bronchitis and asthma in childhood, and struggled with these throughout his life. He was indulged by his mother and enjoyed being mollycoddled, a trait he carried into adulthood, and he was skilful in gaining attention and sympathy.

 

Thomas's formal education began at Mrs Hole's Dame School, a private school on Mirador Crescent, a few streets away from his home. He described his experience there in Reminiscences of Childhood:

 

"Never was there such a dame school as ours,

so firm and kind and smelling of galoshes, with

the sweet and fumbled music of the piano lessons

drifting down from upstairs to the lonely schoolroom,

where only the sometimes tearful wicked sat over

undone sums, or to repent a little crime – the pulling

of a girl's hair during geography, the sly shin kick

under the table during English literature".

 

In October 1925, Dylan Thomas enrolled at Swansea Grammar School for boys, in Mount Pleasant, where his father taught English. He was an undistinguished pupil who shied away from school, preferring reading.

 

In his first year, one of his poems was published in the school's magazine, and before he left he became its editor. In June 1928, Thomas won the school's mile race, held at St. Helen's Ground; he carried a newspaper photograph of his victory with him until his death.

 

During his final school years Dylan began writing poetry in notebooks; the first poem, dated 27th. April 1930, is entitled 'Osiris, Come to Isis'.

 

In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas left school to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post, only to leave under pressure 18 months later. Thomas continued to work as a freelance journalist for several years, during which time he remained at Cwmdonkin Drive and continued to add to his notebooks, amassing 200 poems in four books between 1930 and 1934. Of the 90 poems he published, half were written during these years.

 

In his free time, Dylan joined the amateur dramatic group at the Little Theatre in Mumbles, visited the cinema in Uplands, took walks along Swansea Bay, and frequented Swansea's pubs, especially the Antelope and the Mermaid Hotels in Mumbles.

 

In the Kardomah Café, close to the newspaper office in Castle Street, he met his creative contemporaries, including his friend the poet Vernon Watkins.

 

1933–1939

 

In 1933, Thomas visited London for probably the first time.

 

Thomas was a teenager when many of the poems for which he became famous were published:

 

-- 'And Death Shall Have no Dominion'

-- 'Before I Knocked'

-- 'The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower'.

 

'And Death Shall Have no Dominion' appeared in the New English Weekly in May 1933:

 

'And death shall have no dominion.

Dead men naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the

west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and

the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they

shall rise again

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion'.

 

When 'Light Breaks Where no Sun Shines' appeared in The Listener in 1934, it caught the attention of three senior figures in literary London - T. S. Eliot, Geoffrey Grigson and Stephen Spender. They contacted Thomas, and his first poetry volume, '18 Poems', was published in December 1934.

 

'18 Poems' was noted for its visionary qualities which led to critic Desmond Hawkins writing that:

 

"The work is the sort of bomb

that bursts no more than once

in three years".

 

The volume was critically acclaimed, and won a contest run by the Sunday Referee, netting him new admirers from the London poetry world, including Edith Sitwell and Edwin Muir. The anthology was published by Fortune Press, in part a vanity publisher that did not pay its writers, and expected them to buy a certain number of copies themselves. A similar arrangement was used by other new authors, including Philip Larkin.

 

In September 1935, Thomas met Vernon Watkins, thus beginning a lifelong friendship. Dylan introduced Watkins, working at Lloyds Bank at the time, to his friends. The group of writers, musicians and artists became known as "The Kardomah Gang".

 

In those days, Thomas used to frequent the cinema on Mondays with Tom Warner who, like Watkins, had recently suffered a nervous breakdown. After these trips, Warner would bring Thomas back for supper with his aunt.

 

On one occasion, when she served him a boiled egg, she had to cut its top off for him, as Thomas did not know how to do this. This was because his mother had done it for him all his life, an example of her coddling him. Years later, his wife Caitlin would still have to prepare his eggs for him.

 

In December 1935, Thomas contributed the poem 'The Hand That Signed the Paper' to Issue 18 of the bi-monthly New Verse.

 

In 1936, Dylan's next collection 'Twenty-five Poems' received much critical praise. In 1938, Thomas won the Oscar Blumenthal Prize for Poetry; it was also the year in which New Directions offered to be his publisher in the United States. In all, he wrote half his poems while living at Cwmdonkin Drive before moving to London. It was the time that Thomas's reputation for heavy drinking developed.

 

In early 1936, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara (1913–94), a 22-year-old blonde-haired, blue-eyed dancer of Irish and French descent. She had run away from home, intent on making a career in dance, and at the age of 18 joined the chorus line at the London Palladium.

 

Introduced by Augustus John, Caitlin's lover, they met in The Wheatsheaf pub on Rathbone Place in London's West End. Laying his head on her lap, a drunken Thomas proposed. Thomas liked to comment that he and Caitlin were in bed together ten minutes after they first met.

 

Although Caitlin initially continued her relationship with Augustus John, she and Thomas began a correspondence, and by the second half of 1936 they were courting. They married at the register office in Penzance, Cornwall, on the 11th. July 1937.

 

In early 1938, they moved to Wales, renting a cottage in the village of Laugharne, Carmarthenshire. Their first child, Llewelyn Edouard, was born on the 30th. January 1939.

 

By the late 1930's, Thomas was embraced as the "Poetic Herald" for a group of English poets, the New Apocalyptics. However Thomas refused to align himself with them, and declined to sign their manifesto.

 

He later stated that:

 

"They are intellectual muckpots

leaning on a theory".

 

Despite Dylan's rejection, many of the group, including Henry Treece, modelled their work on Thomas's.

 

During the politically charged atmosphere of the 1930's, Thomas's sympathies were very much with the radical left, to the point of holding close links with the communists, as well as being decidedly pacifist and anti-fascist. He was a supporter of the left-wing No More War Movement, and boasted about participating in demonstrations against the British Union of Fascists.

 

1939–1945

 

In 1939, a collection of 16 poems and seven of the 20 short stories published by Thomas in magazines since 1934, appeared as 'The Map of Love'.

 

Ten stories in his next book, 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog' (1940), were based less on lavish fantasy than those in 'The Map of Love', and more on real-life romances featuring himself in Wales.

 

Sales of both books were poor, resulting in Thomas living on meagre fees from writing and reviewing. At this time he borrowed heavily from friends and acquaintances.

 

Hounded by creditors, Thomas and his family left Laugharne in July 1940 and moved to the home of critic John Davenport in Marshfield, Gloucestershire. There Thomas collaborated with Davenport on the satire 'The Death of the King's Canary', though due to fears of libel, the work was not published until 1976.

 

At the outset of the Second World War, Thomas was worried about conscription, and referred to his ailment as "An Unreliable Lung".

 

Coughing sometimes confined him to bed, and he had a history of bringing up blood and mucus. After initially seeking employment in a reserved occupation, he managed to be classified Grade III, which meant that he would be among the last to be called up for service.

 

Saddened to see his friends going on active service, Dylan continued drinking, and struggled to support his family. He wrote begging letters to random literary figures asking for support, a plan he hoped would provide a long-term regular income. Thomas supplemented his income by writing scripts for the BBC, which not only gave him additional earnings but also provided evidence that he was engaged in essential war work.

 

In February 1941, Swansea was bombed by the Luftwaffe in a three night blitz. Castle Street was one of many streets that suffered badly; rows of shops, including the Kardomah Café, were destroyed. Thomas walked through the bombed-out shell of the town centre with his friend Bert Trick. Upset at the sight, he concluded:

 

"Our Swansea is dead".

 

Soon after the bombing raids, he wrote a radio play, 'Return Journey Home', which described the café as being "razed to the snow". The play was first broadcast on the 15th. June 1947. The Kardomah Café reopened on Portland Street after the war.

 

In May 1941, Thomas and Caitlin left their son with his grandmother at Blashford and moved to London. Thomas hoped to find employment in the film industry, and wrote to the director of the films division of the Ministry of Information (MOI). After initially being rebuffed, he found work with Strand Films, providing him with his first regular income since the Daily Post. Strand produced films for the MOI; Thomas scripted at least five films in 1942.

 

In five film projects, between 1942 and 1945, the Ministry of Information (MOI) commissioned Thomas to script a series of documentaries about both urban planning and wartime patriotism, all in partnership with director John Eldridge:

 

-- 'Wales: Green Mountain, Black Mountain'.

-- 'New Towns for Old' (on post-war reconstruction).

-- 'Fuel for Battle'.

-- 'Our Country' (1945) was a romantic tour of Great Britain set to Thomas's poetry.

-- 'A City Reborn'.

 

Other projects included:

 

-- 'This Is Colour' (a history of the British dyeing industry).

-- 'These Are The Men' (1943), a more ambitious piece in which Thomas's verse accompanied Leni Riefenstahl's footage of an early Nuremberg Rally.

-- 'Conquest of a Germ' (1944) explored the use of early antibiotics in the fight against pneumonia and tuberculosis.

 

In early 1943, Thomas began a relationship with Pamela Glendower; one of several affairs he had during his marriage. The affairs either ran out of steam or were halted after Caitlin discovered his infidelity.

 

In March 1943, Caitlin gave birth to a daughter, Aeronwy, in London. They lived in a run-down studio in Chelsea, made up of a single large room with a curtain to separate the kitchen.

 

The Thomas family made several escapes back to Wales during the war. Between 1941 and 1943, they lived intermittently in Plas Gelli, Talsarn, in Cardiganshire. Plas Gelli sits close by the River Aeron, after whom Aeronwy is thought to have been named. Some of Thomas’ letters from Gelli can be found in his 'Collected Letters'.

 

The Thomases shared the mansion with his childhood friends from Swansea, Vera and Evelyn Phillips. Vera's friendship with the Thomases in nearby New Quay is portrayed in the 2008 film, 'The Edge of Love'.

 

In July 1944, with the threat of German flying bombs landing on London, Thomas moved to the family cottage at Blaencwm near Llangain, Carmarthenshire, where he resumed writing poetry, completing 'Holy Spring' and 'Vision and Prayer'.

 

In September 1944, the Thomas family moved to New Quay in Cardiganshire (Ceredigion), where they rented Majoda, a wood and asbestos bungalow on the cliffs overlooking Cardigan Bay. It was here that Thomas wrote the radio piece 'Quite Early One Morning', a sketch for his later work, 'Under Milk Wood'.

 

Of the poetry written at this time, of note is 'Fern Hill', believed to have been started while living in New Quay, but completed at Blaencwm in mid-1945. Dylan's first biographer, Constantine FitzGibbon wrote that:

 

"His nine months in New Quay were a second

flowering, a period of fertility that recalls the

earliest days, with a great outpouring of poems

and a good deal of other material".

 

His second biographer, Paul Ferris, concurred:

 

"On the grounds of output, the bungalow

deserves a plaque of its own."

 

The Dylan Thomas scholar, Walford Davies, has noted that:

 

"New Quay was crucial in supplementing

the gallery of characters Thomas had to

hand for writing 'Under Milk Wood'."

 

Dylan Thomas's Broadcasting Years 1945–1949

 

Although Thomas had previously written for the BBC, it was a minor and intermittent source of income. In 1943, he wrote and recorded a 15-minute talk entitled 'Reminiscences of Childhood' for the Welsh BBC.

 

In December 1944, he recorded 'Quite Early One Morning' (produced by Aneirin Talfan Davies, again for the Welsh BBC), but when Davies offered it for national broadcast, BBC London initially turned it down.

 

However on the 31st. August 1945, the BBC Home Service broadcast 'Quite Early One Morning' nationally, and in the three subsequent years, Dylan made over a hundred broadcasts for the BBC, not only for his poetry readings, but for discussions and critiques.

 

In the second half of 1945, Dylan began reading for the BBC Radio programme, 'Book of Verse', that was broadcast weekly to the Far East. This provided Thomas with a regular income, and brought him into contact with Louis MacNeice, a congenial drinking companion whose advice Thomas cherished.

 

On the 29th. September 1946, the BBC began transmitting the Third Programme, a high-culture network which provided further opportunities for Thomas.

 

He appeared in the play 'Comus' for the Third Programme, the day after the network launched, and his rich, sonorous voice led to character parts, including the lead in Aeschylus's 'Agamemnon', and Satan in an adaptation of 'Paradise Lost'.

 

Thomas remained a popular guest on radio talk shows for the BBC, who stated:

 

"He is useful should a younger

generation poet be needed".

 

He had an uneasy relationship with BBC management, and a staff job was never an option, with drinking cited as the problem. Despite this, Thomas became a familiar radio voice and well-known celebrity within Great Britain.

 

By late September 1945, the Thomases had left Wales, and were living with various friends in London. In December, they moved to Oxford to live in a summerhouse on the banks of the Cherwell. It belonged to the historian, A. J. P. Taylor. His wife, Margaret, became Thomas’s most committed patron.

 

The publication of 'Deaths and Entrances' in February 1946 was a major turning point for Thomas. Poet and critic Walter J. Turner commented in The Spectator:

 

"This book alone, in my opinion,

ranks him as a major poet".

 

From 'In my Craft or Sullen Art,' 'Deaths and Entrances' (1946):

 

'Not for the proud man apart

From the raging moon, I write

On these spindrift pages

Nor for the towering dead

With their nightingales and psalms

But for the lovers, their arms

Round the griefs of the ages,

Who pay no praise or wages

Nor heed my craft or art'.

 

The following year, in April 1947, the Thomases travelled to Italy, after Thomas had been awarded a Society of Authors scholarship. They stayed first in villas near Rapallo and then Florence, before moving to a hotel in Rio Marina on the island of Elba.

 

On their return to England Thomas and his family moved, in September 1947, into the Manor House in South Leigh, just west of Oxford, found for him by Margaret Taylor.

 

He continued with his work for the BBC, completed a number of film scripts, and worked further on his ideas for 'Under Milk Wood'.

 

In March 1949 Thomas travelled to Prague. He had been invited by the Czech government to attend the inauguration of the Czechoslovak Writers' Union. Jiřina Hauková, who had previously published translations of some of Thomas' poems, was his guide and interpreter.

 

In her memoir, Hauková recalls that at a party in Prague, Thomas narrated the first version of his radio play 'Under Milk Wood.' She describes how he outlined the plot about a town that was declared insane, and then portrayed the predicament of an eccentric organist and a baker with two wives.

 

A month later, in May 1949, Thomas and his family moved to his final home, the Boat House at Laugharne, purchased for him at a cost of £2,500 in April 1949 by Margaret Taylor.

 

Thomas acquired a garage a hundred yards from the house on a cliff ledge which he turned into his writing shed, and where he wrote several of his most acclaimed poems. To see a photograph of the interior of Dylan's shed, please search for the tag 55DTW96

 

Just before moving into the Boat House, Thomas rented Pelican House opposite his regular drinking den, Brown's Hotel, for his parents. They both lived there from 1949 until Dylan's father 'D.J.' died on the 16th. December 1952. His mother continued to live there until 1953.

 

Caitlin gave birth to their third child, a boy named Colm Garan Hart, on the 25th. July 1949.

 

In October 1949, the New Zealand poet Allen Curnow came to visit Thomas at the Boat House, who took him to his writing shed. Curnow recalls:

 

"Dylan fished out a draft to show me

of the unfinished 'Under Milk Wood'

that was then called 'The Town That

Was Mad'."

 

Dylan Thomas's American tours, 1950–1953

 

(a) The First American Tour

 

The American poet John Brinnin invited Thomas to New York, where in 1950 they embarked on a lucrative three-month tour of arts centres and campuses.

 

The tour, which began in front of an audience of a thousand at the Kaufmann Auditorium in the Poetry Centre in New York, took in a further 40 venues. During the tour, Thomas was invited to many parties and functions, and on several occasions became drunk - going out of his way to shock people - and was a difficult guest.

 

Dylan drank before some of his readings, although it is argued that he may have pretended to be more affected by the alcohol than he actually was.

 

The writer Elizabeth Hardwick recalled how intoxicated a performer he could be, and how the tension would build before a performance:

 

"Would he arrive only to break

down on the stage?

Would some dismaying scene

take place at the faculty party?

Would he be offensive, violent,

obscene?"

 

Dylan's wife Caitlin said in her memoir:

 

"Nobody ever needed encouragement

less, and he was drowned in it."

 

On returning to Great Britain, Thomas began work on two further poems, 'In the White Giant's Thigh', which he read on the Third Programme in September 1950:

 

'Who once were a bloom of wayside

brides in the hawed house

And heard the lewd, wooed field

flow to the coming frost,

The scurrying, furred small friars

squeal in the dowse

Of day, in the thistle aisles, till the

white owl crossed.'

 

He also worked on the incomplete 'In Country Heaven'.

 

In October 1950, Thomas sent a draft of the first 39 pages of 'The Town That Was Mad' to the BBC. The task of seeing this work through to production was assigned to the BBC's Douglas Cleverdon, who had been responsible for casting Thomas in 'Paradise Lost'.

 

However, despite Cleverdon's urgings, the script slipped from Thomas's priorities, and in early 1951 he took a trip to Iran to work on a film for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The film was never made, with Thomas returning to Wales in February, though his time there allowed him to provide a few minutes of material for a BBC documentary, 'Persian Oil'.

 

Early in 1951 Thomas wrote two poems, which Thomas's principal biographer, Paul Ferris, describes as "unusually blunt." One was the ribald 'Lament', and the other was an ode, in the form of a villanelle, to his dying father 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night". (A villanelle is a pastoral or lyrical poem of nineteen lines, with only two rhymes throughout, and some lines repeated).

 

Despite a range of wealthy patrons, including Margaret Taylor, Princess Marguerite Caetani and Marged Howard-Stepney, Thomas was still in financial difficulty, and he wrote several begging letters to notable literary figures, including the likes of T. S. Eliot.

 

Margaret Taylor was not keen on Thomas taking another trip to the United States, and thought that if he had a permanent address in London he would be able to gain steady work there. She bought a property, 54 Delancey Street, in Camden Town, and in late 1951 Thomas and Caitlin lived in the basement flat. Thomas described the flat as his "London House of Horror", and did not return there after his 1952 tour of America.

 

(b) The Second American Tour

 

Thomas undertook a second tour of the United States in 1952, this time with Caitlin - after she had discovered that he had been unfaithful on his earlier trip. They drank heavily, and Thomas began to suffer with gout and lung problems.

 

It was during this tour that the above photograph was taken.

 

The second tour was the most intensive of the four, taking in 46 engagements.

 

The trip also resulted in Thomas recording his first poetry to vinyl, which Caedmon Records released in America later that year. One of his works recorded during this time, 'A Child's Christmas in Wales', became his most popular prose work in America. The recording was a 2008 selection for the United States National Recording Registry, which stated that:

 

"It is credited with launching the

audiobook industry in the United

States".

 

(c) The Third American Tour

 

In April 1953, Thomas returned alone for a third tour of America. He performed a "work in progress" version of 'Under Milk Wood', solo, for the first time at Harvard University on the 3rd. May 1953. A week later, the work was performed with a full cast at the Poetry Centre in New York.

 

Dylan met the deadline only after being locked in a room by Brinnin's assistant, Liz Reitell, and was still editing the script on the afternoon of the performance; its last lines were handed to the actors as they put on their makeup.

 

During this penultimate tour, Thomas met the composer Igor Stravinsky. Igor had become an admirer of Dylan after having been introduced to his poetry by W. H. Auden. They had discussions about collaborating on a "musical theatrical work" for which Dylan would provide the libretto on the theme of:

 

"The rediscovery of love and

language in what might be left

after the world after the bomb."

 

The shock of Thomas's death later in the year moved Stravinsky to compose his 'In Memoriam Dylan Thomas' for tenor, string quartet and four trombones. The work's first performance in Los Angeles in 1954 was introduced with a tribute to Thomas from Aldous Huxley.

 

Thomas spent the last nine or ten days of his third tour in New York mostly in the company of Reitell, with whom he had an affair.

 

During this time, Thomas fractured his arm falling down a flight of stairs when drunk. Reitell's doctor, Milton Feltenstein, put his arm in plaster, and treated him for gout and gastritis.

 

After returning home, Thomas worked on 'Under Milk Wood' in Wales before sending the original manuscript to Douglas Cleverdon on the 15th. October 1953. It was copied and returned to Thomas, who lost it in a pub in London and required a duplicate to take to America.

 

(d) The Fourth American Tour

 

Thomas flew to the States on the 19th. October 1953 for what would be his final tour. He died in New York before the BBC could record 'Under Milk Wood'. Richard Burton featured in its first broadcast in 1954, and was joined by Elizabeth Taylor in a subsequent film. In 1954, the play won the Prix Italia for literary or dramatic programmes.

 

Thomas's last collection 'Collected Poems, 1934–1952', published when he was 38, won the Foyle poetry prize. Reviewing the volume, critic Philip Toynbee declared that:

 

"Thomas is the greatest living

poet in the English language".

 

There followed a series of distressing events for Dylan. His father died from pneumonia just before Christmas 1952. In the first few months of 1953, his sister died from liver cancer, one of his patrons took an overdose of sleeping pills, three friends died at an early age, and Caitlin had an abortion.

 

Thomas left Laugharne on the 9th. October 1953 on the first leg of his trip to America. He called on his mother, Florence, to say goodbye:

 

"He always felt that he had to get

out from this country because of

his chest being so bad."

 

Thomas had suffered from chest problems for most of his life, though they began in earnest soon after he moved in May 1949 to the Boat House at Laugharne - the "Bronchial Heronry", as he called it. Within weeks of moving in, he visited a local doctor, who prescribed medicine for both his chest and throat.

 

Whilst waiting in London before his flight in October 1953, Thomas stayed with the comedian Harry Locke and worked on 'Under Milk Wood'. Locke noted that Thomas was having trouble with his chest, with terrible coughing fits that made him go purple in the face. He was also using an inhaler to help his breathing.

 

There were reports, too, that Thomas was also having blackouts. His visit to the BBC producer Philip Burton a few days before he left for New York, was interrupted by a blackout. On his last night in London, he had another in the company of his fellow poet Louis MacNeice.

 

Thomas arrived in New York on the 20th. October 1953 to undertake further performances of 'Under Milk Wood', organised by John Brinnin, his American agent and Director of the Poetry Centre. Brinnin did not travel to New York, but remained in Boston in order to write.

 

He handed responsibility to his assistant, Liz Reitell, who was keen to see Thomas for the first time since their three-week romance early in the year. She met Thomas at Idlewild Airport and was shocked at his appearance. He looked pale, delicate and shaky, not his usual robust self:

 

"He was very ill when he got here."

 

After being taken by Reitell to check in at the Chelsea Hotel, Thomas took the first rehearsal of 'Under Milk Wood'. They then went to the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, before returning to the Chelsea Hotel.

 

(Bob Dylan, formerly Robert Zimmerman, used to perform at the White Horse; Dylan Thomas was his favourite poet, and it is highly likely that Bob adopted Dylan's first name as his surname).

 

The next day, Reitell invited Thomas to her apartment, but he declined. They went sightseeing, but Thomas felt unwell, and retired to his bed for the rest of the afternoon. Reitell gave him half a grain (32.4 milligrams) of phenobarbitone to help him sleep, and spent the night at the hotel with him.

 

Two days later, on the 23rd. October 1953, at the third rehearsal, Thomas said he was too ill to take part, but he struggled on, shivering and burning with fever, before collapsing on the stage.

 

The next day, 24th. October, Reitell took Thomas to see her doctor, Milton Feltenstein, who administered cortisone injections. Thomas made it through the first performance that evening, but collapsed immediately afterwards.

 

Dylan told a friend who had come back-stage:

 

"This circus out there has taken

the life out of me for now."

 

Reitell later said:

 

"Feltenstein was rather a wild doctor

who thought injections would cure

anything".

 

At the next performance on the 25th. October, his fellow actors realised that Thomas was very ill:

 

"He was desperately ill…we didn’t think

that he would be able to do the last

performance because he was so ill…

Dylan literally couldn’t speak he was so

ill…still my greatest memory of it is that

he had no voice."

 

On the evening of the 27th. October, Thomas attended his 39th. birthday party, but felt unwell, and returned to his hotel after an hour. The next day, he took part in 'Poetry and the Film', a recorded symposium at Cinema 16.

 

A turning point came on the 2nd. November. Air pollution in New York had risen significantly, and exacerbated chest illnesses such as Thomas's. By the end of the month, over 200 New Yorkers had died from the smog.

 

On the 3rd. November, Thomas spent most of the day in his room, entertaining various friends. He went out in the evening to keep two drink appointments. After returning to the hotel, he went out again for a drink at 2 am. After drinking at the White Horse, Thomas returned to the Hotel Chelsea, declaring:

 

"I've had eighteen straight

whiskies. I think that's the

record!"

 

However the barman and the owner of the pub who served him later commented that Thomas could not have drunk more than half that amount.

 

Thomas had an appointment at a clam house in New Jersey with Todd on the 4th. November. When Todd telephoned the Chelsea that morning, Thomas said he was feeling ill, and postponed the engagement. Todd thought that Dylan sounded "terrible".

 

The poet, Harvey Breit, was another to phone that morning. He thought that Thomas sounded "bad". Thomas' voice, recalled Breit, was "low and hoarse". Harvey had wanted to say:

 

"You sound as though from the tomb".

 

However instead Harvey told Thomas that he sounded like Louis Armstrong.

 

Later, Thomas went drinking with Reitell at the White Horse and, feeling sick again, returned to the hotel. Dr. Feltenstein came to see him three times that day, administering the cortisone secretant ACTH by injection and, on his third visit, half a grain (32.4 milligrams) of morphine sulphate, which affected Thomas' breathing.

 

Reitell became increasingly concerned, and telephoned Feltenstein for advice. He suggested that she get male assistance, so she called upon the artist Jack Heliker, who arrived before 11 pm. At midnight on the 5th. November, Thomas's breathing became more difficult, and his face turned blue.

 

Reitell phoned Feltenstein who arrived at the hotel at about 1 am, and called for an ambulance. It then took another hour for the ambulance to arrive at St. Vincent's, even though it was only a few blocks from the Chelsea.

 

Thomas was admitted to the emergency ward at St Vincent's Hospital at 1:58 am. He was comatose, and his medical notes stated that:

 

"The impression upon admission was acute

alcoholic encephalopathy damage to the brain

by alcohol, for which the patient was treated

without response".

 

Feltenstein then took control of Thomas's care, even though he did not have admitting rights at St. Vincent's. The hospital's senior brain specialist, Dr. C. G. Gutierrez-Mahoney, was not called to examine Thomas until the afternoon of the 6th. November, thirty-six hours after Thomas' admission.

 

Dylan's wife Caitlin flew to America the following day, and was taken to the hospital, by which time a tracheotomy had been performed. Her reported first words were:

 

"Is the bloody man dead yet?"

 

Caitlin was allowed to see Thomas only for 40 minutes in the morning, but returned in the afternoon and, in a drunken rage, threatened to kill John Brinnin. When she became uncontrollable, she was put in a straitjacket and committed, by Feltenstein, to the River Crest private psychiatric detox clinic on Long Island.

 

It is now believed that Thomas had been suffering from bronchitis, pneumonia and emphysema before his admission to St Vincent's. In their 2004 paper, 'Death by Neglect', D. N. Thomas and Dr Simon Barton disclose that Thomas was found to have pneumonia when he was admitted to hospital in a coma.

 

Doctors took three hours to restore his breathing, using artificial respiration and oxygen. Summarising their findings, they conclude:

 

"The medical notes indicate that, on admission,

Dylan's bronchial disease was found to be very

extensive, affecting upper, mid and lower lung

fields, both left and right."

 

The forensic pathologist, Professor Bernard Knight, concurs:

 

"Death was clearly due to a severe lung infection

with extensive advanced bronchopneumonia.

The severity of the chest infection, with greyish

consolidated areas of well-established pneumonia,

suggests that it had started before admission to

hospital."

 

Thomas died at noon on the 9th. November 1953, having never recovered from his coma. He was 39 years of age when he died.

 

Aftermath of Dylan Thomas's Death

 

Rumours circulated of a brain haemorrhage, followed by competing reports of a mugging, or even that Thomas had drunk himself to death. Later, speculation arose about drugs and diabetes.

 

At the post-mortem, the pathologist found three causes of death - pneumonia, brain swelling and a fatty liver. Despite Dylan's heavy drinking, his liver showed no sign of cirrhosis.

 

The publication of John Brinnin's 1955 biography 'Dylan Thomas in America' cemented Thomas's legacy as the "doomed poet". Brinnin focuses on Thomas's last few years, and paints a picture of him as a drunk and a philanderer.

 

Later biographies have criticised Brinnin's view, especially his coverage of Thomas's death. David Thomas in 'Fatal Neglect: Who Killed Dylan Thomas?' claims that Brinnin, along with Reitell and Feltenstein, were culpable.

 

FitzGibbon's 1965 biography ignores Thomas's heavy drinking and skims over his death, giving just two pages in his detailed book to Thomas's demise.

 

Ferris in his 1989 biography includes Thomas's heavy drinking, but is more critical of those around him in his final days, and does not draw the conclusion that he drank himself to death.

 

Many sources have criticised Feltenstein's role and actions, especially his incorrect diagnosis of delirium tremens and the high dose of morphine he administered. Dr C. G. de Gutierrez-Mahoney, the doctor who treated Thomas while at St. Vincent's, concluded that Feltenstein's failure to see that Thomas was gravely ill and have him admitted to hospital sooner was even more culpable than his use of morphine.

 

Caitlin Thomas's autobiographies, 'Caitlin Thomas - Leftover Life to Kill' (1957) and 'My Life with Dylan Thomas: Double Drink Story' (1997), describe the effects of alcohol on the poet and on their relationship:

 

"Ours was not only a love story, it was

a drink story, because without alcohol

it would never had got on its rocking

feet. The bar was our altar."

 

Biographer Andrew Lycett ascribed the decline in Thomas's health to an alcoholic co-dependent relationship with his wife, who deeply resented his extramarital affairs.

 

In contrast, Dylan biographers Andrew Sinclair and George Tremlett express the view that Thomas was not an alcoholic. Tremlett argues that many of Thomas's health issues stemmed from undiagnosed diabetes.

 

Thomas died intestate, with assets worth £100. His body was brought back to Wales for burial in the village churchyard at Laugharne. Dylan's funeral, which Brinnin did not attend, took place at St Martin's Church in Laugharne on the 24th. November 1953.

 

Six friends from the village carried Thomas's coffin. Caitlin, without her customary hat, walked behind the coffin, with his childhood friend Daniel Jones at her arm and her mother by her side. The procession to the church was filmed, and the wake took place at Brown's Hotel. Thomas's fellow poet and long-time friend Vernon Watkins wrote The Times obituary.

 

Thomas's widow, Caitlin, died in 1994, and was laid to rest alongside him. Dylan's mother Florence died in August 1958. Thomas's elder son, Llewelyn, died in 2000, his daughter, Aeronwy in 2009, and his youngest son Colm in 2012.

 

Dylan Thomas's Poetry

 

Thomas's refusal to align with any literary group or movement has made him and his work difficult to categorise. Although influenced by the modern symbolism and surrealism movements, he refused to follow such creeds. Instead, critics view Thomas as part of the modernism and romanticism movements, though attempts to pigeon-hole him within a particular neo-romantic school have been unsuccessful.

 

Elder Olson, in his 1954 critical study of Thomas's poetry, wrote:

 

"There is a further characteristic which

distinguished Thomas's work from that

of other poets. It was unclassifiable."

 

Olson went on to say that in a postmodern age that continually attempted to demand that poetry have social reference, none could be found in Thomas's work, and that his work was so obscure that critics could not analyse it.

 

Thomas's verbal style played against strict verse forms, such as in the villanelle 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night'.

 

His images appear carefully ordered in a patterned sequence, and his major theme was the unity of all life, the continuing process of life and death, and new life that linked the generations.

 

Thomas saw biology as a magical transformation producing unity out of diversity, and in his poetry sought a poetic ritual to celebrate this unity. He saw men and women locked in cycles of growth, love, procreation, new growth, death, and new life. Therefore, each image engenders its opposite.

 

Thomas derived his closely woven, sometimes self-contradictory images from the Bible, Welsh folklore, preaching, and Sigmund Freud. Explaining the source of his imagery, Thomas wrote in a letter to Glyn Jones:

 

"My own obscurity is quite an unfashionable one,

based, as it is, on a preconceived symbolism

derived (I'm afraid all this sounds woolly and

pretentious) from the cosmic significance of the

human anatomy".

 

Thomas's early poetry was noted for its verbal density, alliteration, sprung rhythm and internal rhyme, and some critics detected the influence of the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins, had taught himself Welsh, and used sprung verse, bringing some features of Welsh poetic metre into his work.

 

However when Henry Treece wrote to Thomas comparing his style to that of Hopkins, Thomas wrote back denying any such influence. Thomas greatly admired Thomas Hardy, who is regarded as an influence. When Thomas travelled in America, he recited some of Hardy's work in his readings.

 

Other poets from whom critics believe Thomas drew influence include James Joyce, Arthur Rimbaud and D. H. Lawrence.

 

William York Tindall, in his 1962 study, 'A Reader's Guide to Dylan Thomas', finds comparison between Thomas's and Joyce's wordplay, while he notes the themes of rebirth and nature are common to the works of Lawrence and Thomas.

 

Although Thomas described himself as the "Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive", he stated that the phrase "Swansea's Rimbaud" was coined by the poet Roy Campbell.

 

Critics have explored the origins of Thomas's mythological pasts in his works such as 'The Orchards', which Ann Elizabeth Mayer believes reflects the Welsh myths of the Mabinogion.

 

Thomas's poetry is notable for its musicality, most clear in 'Fern Hill', 'In Country Sleep', 'Ballad of the Long-legged Bait' and 'In the White Giant's Thigh' from Under Milk Wood.

 

Thomas once confided that the poems which had most influenced him were Mother Goose rhymes which his parents taught him when he was a child:

 

"I should say I wanted to write poetry in the

beginning because I had fallen in love with

words.

The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes,

and before I could read them for myself I had

come to love the words of them. The words

alone.

What the words stood for was of a very

secondary importance ... I fell in love, that is

the only expression I can think of, at once,

and am still at the mercy of words, though

sometimes now, knowing a little of their

behaviour very well, I think I can influence

them slightly and have even learned to beat

them now and then, which they appear to

enjoy.

I tumbled for words at once. And, when I began

to read the nursery rhymes for myself, and, later,

to read other verses and ballads, I knew that I

had discovered the most important things, to

me, that could be ever."

 

Thomas became an accomplished writer of prose poetry, with collections such as 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog' (1940) and 'Quite Early One Morning' (1954) showing he was capable of writing moving short stories. His first published prose work, 'After the Fair', appeared in The New English Weekly on the 15th. March 1934.

 

Jacob Korg believes that one can classify Thomas's fiction work into two main bodies:

 

-- Vigorous fantasies in a poetic style

-- After 1939, more straightforward

narratives.

 

Korg surmises that Thomas approached his prose writing as an alternate poetic form, which allowed him to produce complex, involuted narratives that do not allow the reader to rest.

 

Dylan Thomas as a Welsh Poet

 

Thomas disliked being regarded as a provincial poet, and decried any notion of 'Welshness' in his poetry. When he wrote to Stephen Spender in 1952, thanking him for a review of his Collected Poems, he added:

 

"Oh, & I forgot. I'm not influenced by

Welsh bardic poetry. I can't read Welsh."

 

Despite this, his work was rooted in the geography of Wales. Thomas acknowledged that he returned to Wales when he had difficulty writing, and John Ackerman argues that:

 

"Dylan's inspiration and imagination

were rooted in his Welsh background".

 

Caitlin Thomas wrote that:

 

"He worked in a fanatically narrow groove,

although there was nothing narrow about

the depth and understanding of his feelings.

The groove of direct hereditary descent in

the land of his birth, which he never in

thought, and hardly in body, moved out of."

 

Head of Programmes Wales at the BBC, Aneirin Talfan Davies, who commissioned several of Thomas's early radio talks, believed that the poet's whole attitude is that of the medieval bards.

 

Kenneth O. Morgan counter-argues that it is a difficult enterprise to find traces of cynghanedd (consonant harmony) or cerdd dafod (tongue-craft) in Thomas's poetry. Instead he believes that Dylan's work, especially his earlier, more autobiographical poems, are rooted in a changing country which echoes the Welshness of the past and the Anglicisation of the new industrial nation:

 

"Rural and urban, chapel-going and profane,

Welsh and English, unforgiving and deeply

compassionate."

 

Fellow poet and critic Glyn Jones believed that any traces of cynghanedd in Thomas's work were accidental, although he felt that Dylan consciously employed one element of Welsh metrics: that of counting syllables per line instead of feet. Constantine Fitzgibbon, who was his first in-depth biographer, wrote:

 

"No major English poet has

ever been as Welsh as Dylan".

 

Although Dylan had a deep connection with Wales, he disliked Welsh nationalism. He once wrote:

 

"Land of my fathers, and

my fathers can keep it".

 

While often attributed to Thomas himself, this line actually comes from the character Owen Morgan-Vaughan, in the screenplay Thomas wrote for the 1948 British melodrama 'The Three Weird Sisters'.

 

Robert Pocock, a friend from the BBC, recalled:

 

"I only once heard Dylan express an

opinion on Welsh Nationalism.

He used three words. Two of them

were Welsh Nationalism."

 

Although not expressed as strongly, Glyn Jones believed that he and Thomas's friendship cooled in the later years because he had not rejected enough of the elements that Thomas disliked, i.e. "Welsh nationalism and a sort of hill farm morality".

 

Apologetically, in a letter to Keidrych Rhys, editor of the literary magazine 'Wales', Thomas's father wrote:

 

"I'm afraid Dylan isn't much

of a Welshman".

 

FitzGibbon asserts that Thomas's negativity towards Welsh nationalism was fostered by his father's hostility towards the Welsh language.

 

Critical Appraisal of Dylan Thomas's Work

 

Thomas's work and stature as a poet have been much debated by critics and biographers since his death. Critical studies have been clouded by Thomas's personality and mythology, especially his drunken persona and death in New York.

 

When Seamus Heaney gave an Oxford lecture on the poet, he opened by addressing the assembly:

 

"Dylan Thomas is now as much

a case history as a chapter in the

history of poetry".

 

He queried how 'Thomas the Poet' is one of his forgotten attributes. David Holbrook, who has written three books about Thomas, stated in his 1962 publication 'Llareggub Revisited':

 

"The strangest feature of Dylan Thomas's

notoriety - not that he is bogus, but that

attitudes to poetry attached themselves

to him which not only threaten the prestige,

effectiveness and accessibility to English

poetry, but also destroyed his true voice

and, at last, him."

 

The Poetry Archive notes that:

 

"Dylan Thomas's detractors accuse him

of being drunk on language as well as

whiskey, but whilst there's no doubt that

the sound of language is central to his

style, he was also a disciplined writer

who re-drafted obsessively".

 

Many critics have argued that Thomas's work is too narrow, and that he suffers from verbal extravagance. However those who have championed his work have found the criticism baffling. Robert Lowell wrote in 1947:

 

"Nothing could be more wrongheaded

than the English disputes about Dylan

Thomas's greatness ... He is a dazzling

obscure writer who can be enjoyed

without understanding."

 

Kenneth Rexroth said, on reading 'Eighteen Poems':

 

"The reeling excitement of a poetry-intoxicated

schoolboy smote the Philistine as hard a blow

with one small book as Swinburne had with

Poems and Ballads."

 

Philip Larkin, in a letter to Kingsley Amis in 1948, wrote that:

 

"No one can stick words into us

like pins... like Thomas can".

 

However he followed that by stating that:

 

"Dylan doesn't use his words

to any advantage".

 

Amis was far harsher, finding little of merit in Dylan's work, and claiming that:

 

"He is frothing at the mouth

with piss."

 

In 1956, the publication of the anthology 'New Lines' featuring works by the British collective The Movement, which included Amis and Larkin amongst its number, set out a vision of modern poetry that was damning towards the poets of the 1940's. Thomas's work in particular was criticised. David Lodge, writing about The Movement in 1981 stated:

 

"Dylan Thomas was made to stand for

everything they detest, verbal obscurity,

metaphysical pretentiousness, and

romantic rhapsodizing".

 

Despite criticism by sections of academia, Thomas's work has been embraced by readers more so than many of his contemporaries, and is one of the few modern poets whose name is recognised by the general public.

 

In 2009, over 18,000 votes were cast in a BBC poll to find the UK's favourite poet; Thomas was placed 10th.

 

Several of Dylan's poems have passed into the cultural mainstream, and his work has been used by authors, musicians and film and television writers.

 

The long-running BBC Radio programme, 'Desert Island Discs', in which guests usually choose their favourite songs, has heard 50 participants select a Dylan Thomas recording.

 

John Goodby states that this popularity with the reading public allows Thomas's work to be classed as vulgar and common. He also cites that despite a brief period during the 1960's when Thomas was considered a cultural icon, the poet has been marginalized in critical circles due to his exuberance, in both life and work, and his refusal to know his place.

 

Goodby believes that Thomas has been mainly snubbed since the 1970's and has become: "... an embarrassment to twentieth-century poetry criticism", his work failing to fit standard narratives, and thus being ignored rather than studied.

 

Memorials to Dylan Thomas

 

In Swansea's maritime quarter is the Dylan Thomas Theatre, the home of the Swansea Little Theatre of which Thomas was once a member. The former Guildhall built in 1825 is now occupied by the Dylan Thomas Centre, a literature centre, where exhibitions and lectures are held and which is a setting for the annual Dylan Thomas Festival. Outside the centre stands a bronze statue of Thomas by John Doubleday.

 

Another monument to Thomas stands in Cwmdonkin Park, one of Dylan's favourite childhood haunts, close to his birthplace. The memorial is a small rock in an enclosed garden within the park, cut by and inscribed by the late sculptor Ronald Cour with the closing lines from Fern Hill:

 

'Oh as I was young and easy

in the mercy of his means

Time held me green and dying

Though I sang in my chains like

the sea'.

 

Thomas's home in Laugharne, the Boathouse, is now a museum run by Carmarthenshire County Council. Thomas's writing shed is also preserved.

 

In 2004, the Dylan Thomas Prize was created in his honour, awarded to the best published writer in English under the age of 30. In 2005, the Dylan Thomas Screenplay Award was established. The prize, administered by the Dylan Thomas Centre, is awarded at the annual Swansea Bay Film Festival.

 

In 1982 a plaque was unveiled in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. The plaque is also inscribed with the last two lines of 'Fern Hill'.

 

In 2014, the Royal Patron of The Dylan Thomas 100 Festival was Charles, Prince of Wales, who made a recording of 'Fern Hill' for the event.

 

In 2014, to celebrate the centenary of Thomas's birth, the British Council Wales undertook a year-long programme of cultural and educational works. Highlights included a touring replica of Thomas's work shed, Sir Peter Blake's exhibition of illustrations based on 'Under Milk Wood', and a 36-hour marathon of readings, which included Michael Sheen and Sir Ian McKellen performing Thomas's work.

 

Towamensing Trails, Pennsylvania named one of its streets, Thomas Lane, in Dylan's honour.

 

List of Works by Dylan Thomas

 

-- 'The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas: The New Centenary Edition', edited and with Introduction by John Goodby. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2014.

-- 'The Notebook Poems 1930–34', edited by Ralph Maud. London: Dent, 1989.

-- 'Dylan Thomas: The Film Scripts', edited by John Ackerman. London: Dent 1995.

-- 'Dylan Thomas: Early Prose Writings', edited by Walford Davies. London: Dent 1971.

-- 'Collected Stories', edited by Walford Davies. London: Dent, 1983.

-- 'Under Milk Wood: A Play for Voices', edited by Walford Davies and Ralph Maud. London: Dent, 1995.

-- 'On The Air With Dylan Thomas: The Broadcasts', edited by Ralph Maud. New York: New Directions, 1991.

 

Correspondence

 

-- 'Dylan Thomas: The Collected Letters', edited by Paul Ferris (2017), 2 vols. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Vol I: 1931–1939

Vol II: 1939–1953.

-- 'Letters to Vernon Watkins', edited by Vernon Watkins (1957). London: Dent.

 

Posthumous Film Adaptations

 

-- 2016: Dominion, written and directed by Steven Bernstein, examines the final hours of Dylan Thomas.

-- 2014: Set Fire to the Stars, with Thomas portrayed by Celyn Jones, and John Brinnin by Elijah Wood.

-- 2014: Under Milk Wood BBC, starring Charlotte Church, Tom Jones, Griff Rhys-Jones and Michael Sheen.

-- 2014: Interstellar. The poem is featured throughout the film as a recurring theme regarding the perseverance of humanity.

-- 2009: A Child's Christmas in Wales, BAFTA Best Short Film. Animation, with soundtrack in Welsh and English. Director: Dave Unwin. Extras include filmed comments from Aeronwy Thomas.

-- 2007: Dylan Thomas: A War Films Anthology (DDHE/IWM).

-- 1996: Independence Day. Before the attack, the President paraphrases Thomas's "Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night".

-- 1992: Rebecca's Daughters, starring Peter O'Toole and Joely Richardson.

-- 1987: A Child's Christmas in Wales, directed by Don McBrearty.

-- 1972: Under Milk Wood, starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Peter O'Toole.

 

Opera Adaptation

 

-- 1973: Unter dem Milchwald, by German composer Walter Steffens on his own libretto using Erich Fried's translation of 'Under Milk Wood' into German, Hamburg State Opera. Also at the Staatstheater Kassel in 1977.

 

Final Thoughts From Dylan Thomas

 

"Somebody's boring me.

I think it's me."

 

"Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

 

"When one burns one's bridges,

what a very nice fire it makes."

 

"I think, that if I touched the earth,

It would crumble; It is so sad and

beautiful, so tremulously like a dream."

 

"An alcoholic is someone you don't like,

who drinks as much as you do."

 

"I hold a beast, an angel, and a madman in me,

and my enquiry is as to their working, and my

problem is their subjugation and victory, down

throw and upheaval, and my effort is their self-

expression."

 

"The only sea I saw was the seesaw sea

with you riding on it. Lie down, lie easy.

Let me shipwreck in your thighs."

 

"Why do men think you can pick love up

and re-light it like a candle? Women know

when love is over."

 

"Poetry is not the most important thing in life.

I'd much rather lie in a hot bath reading

Agatha Christie and sucking sweets."

 

"And now, gentlemen, like your manners,

I must leave you."

 

"My education was the liberty I had to read

indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes

hanging out."

 

"I'm a freak user of words, not a poet."

 

"Our discreditable secret is that we don't

know anything at all, and our horrid inner

secret is that we don't care that we don't."

 

"It snowed last year too: I made a snowman

and my brother knocked it down and I knocked

my brother down and then we had tea."

 

"Though lovers be lost love shall not."

 

"Man’s wants remain unsatisfied till death.

Then, when his soul is naked, is he one

with the man in the wind, and the west moon,

with the harmonious thunder of the sun."

 

"And books which told me everything

about the wasp, except why."

 

"We are not wholly bad or good, who live

our lives under Milk Wood."

 

"Love is the last light spoken."

 

"... an ugly, lovely town ... crawling, sprawling ...

by the side of a long and splendid curving

shore. This sea-town was my world."

 

"I do not need any friends. I prefer enemies.

They are better company, and their feelings

towards you are always genuine."

 

"This poem has been called obscure. I refuse

to believe that it is obscurer than pity, violence,

or suffering. But being a poem, not a lifetime,

it is more compressed."

 

"One: I am a Welshman; two: I am a drunkard;

three: I am a lover of the human race, especially

of women."

 

"I believe in New Yorkers. Whether they've ever

questioned the dream in which they live, I wouldn't

know, because I won't ever dare ask that question."

 

"These poems, with all their crudities, doubts and

confusions, are written for the love of man and in

praise of God, and I'd be a damn fool if they weren't."

 

"Before you let the sun in, mind he wipes his shoes."

 

"Nothing grows in our garden, only washing.

And babies."

 

"Make gentle the life of this world."

 

"A worm tells summer better than the clock,

the slug's a living calendar of days; what shall

it tell me if a timeless insect says the world

wears away?"

 

"Time passes. Listen. Time passes. Come

closer now. Only you can hear the houses

sleeping in the streets in the slow deep salt

and silent black, bandaged night."

 

"Rhianon, he said, hold my hand, Rhianon.

She did not hear him, but stood over his bed

and fixed him with an unbroken sorrow. Hold

my hand, he said, and then: Why are you

putting the sheet over my face?"

 

"Come on up, boys - I'm dead."

 

"Life is a terrible thing, thank God."

 

found this old Gothic church-like castle while browsing through my old pictures, a pity i tore it down...

 

Café Frequenters Episode 27

 

( 2006-07-31 Malmö. Sweden )

 

Hello all you people at te Unemployment office!

 

My Name is Johnny Browne and I will soon contact you in person...

But before I do that I want to write about my precent situation and my wishes and expectations on becoming a subscriber to your services!

 

Because my precent wellbeing and mental health is weak, not on a high!

...and my memory and power to process stress is low!

 

It is easier for me to at forehand write down important stuff that I need to say because the meeting with you in person will be very stressful and at that moment I won´t be able to express my self the way I wish due to my precent mental state!

 

For about three years ago "I started to get a hod of my life" which had been falling been towards hell in an abyss swallowing me while accelerating towards a crash at the bottom...

I had at the time been without what so ever sort of income for more than three months, rent debt and other bills were amounting unpayed and I was very frail and a nervous wreck.

 

...an important step towards my recovery and finding a job was the help and services of "Work and integration" and especially my support and ombudsman Rita Petterson, loads of credit to her, she did a wonderful piece of work and took me serious...

 

We Managed to get me an intern at Hotel Quantity here in Malmö, I had found my inner strength again and nothing could stop me, I was gonna get my life back together and get back on the right tracks...

 

Because of me working hard and proved med skilled in the profession I got a real employment...

 

But really, the work the work and the harsh work culture was stressful and started to grid me down... but I thought that if I have a work it would be easy to find a better job before I got too far down, I thought it would help me get a more sustainable work with the credibility being employed...

 

Then at 2005 bad luck struck with a big sledgehammer in my head, my boss and her two senior cleaners all got sick the very same summer and me and another cleaner was forced to step in to the world of managing hotel cleaning, we had to take turns in being the cleaning administrator (and still do our ordinary house keeping work), we had to learn a lot in an extremely short time, planning the cleaning, write shedules, the computer programme all the different things we wern´t trained for an at this very time our hotel had managed to get the room reservations for a big international sporting game in town, the hotel was fully booked all summer, the few of us that was still working, had to work longer, faster and more because of the lack of cleaners (3 where sick)

We worked 9-10 hours a day...

we started to clean six rooms an hour instead of four before to make ends meet, I had to give up my extra evening work doing phone interviews because of the Pressure of working more at the hotel...

 

...at first I thought what doesn´t kill me makes me stronger and that if it didn´t physically kill me my mind would endure...

 

But at the end of summer I was a wreck, my hands had started to shiver uncontrollably when ever I wasn´t working (at work my hands didn´t shake)

I could hardly even hold a cup of coffee without my shaking hands would spill coffee all over...

 

I felt embarrassed in front of people looking like someone with parkingsons, so my social life took a dip downwards, I stopped seeing friends and family, stopped going to cafés...

 

I still have these trembles, but the are very slowly fading away, but when I am exposed to any form of stress they usually return...

Like my last work pass 8 days in a row with my "Boss-phone" constantly ringing and people wanting, this or that, a schedule , finding lost property or wanting me to take different decisions... it makes me start to shake in the end...

 

Right now I am looking for a new job in Denmark across the sound, I hope I will find one, and any way I find people there easier to talk to and I get more replies on my applied works, like "we are sorry, but please return in a few months we might have room for you then.."

Instead of complete silence or people angry about applying for the job they advertised for???

I apologize for this letter turning rather long but I just want to explain my precent status and I want you to see that I am a living breathing person and not just a statistic in your computer files...

 

That I why I now ask you people at the office to really try to help me, I don´t want to meet another tired uncaring person who complain about my private dressing fashion or that I act to effeminate or that my movements doesn´t come across as non-serious because of my characteristic way of moving... (YES! this have happened in the past)

So Please I want the respect that i deserve as a human with specific needs, dream, ideas and personality, not a block that is gonna be trimmed to a square to fit in the wall of other Square blocks...

 

I am no Longer strong so I need someone to help me, someone who takes his/her job seriously as I did take my work... Not a Bully who pushes my head under the water line I have had to many of those...

 

I hope you all understand where I come from and hopefully you might help my towards new steps towards a brighter future...

 

Thanks for listening!

 

A hope full Johnny sends his greetings!

  

Jan. 14 - Feb 5th, 2011 at Roq La Rue Gallery. www.roqlarue.com.

 

mandygreer.wordpress.com

 

Costume made in collaboration with Haruko Nishimura/Degenerate Art Ensemble for the Yokai ghost doll "Shiro" character in "Sonic Tales" from October 2009

 

model: Ella Wei

 

About “Honey and Lightening”

 

“Honey and Lightening” is a show of installation chambers, sculptures of talismanic birds and a series of staged photographs all revolving around examining the mercurial nature of human desire. The substances honey and lightening both have literary, mythical and archetypal references to the occurrence and evolution of desire and it’s fading. I see one as the slow ooze of pleasure and the other as the dangerous, uncontrollable and inexplicably instant occurrence of magnetism between two bodies.

 

Two installation chambers create full body experiences of these ephemeral phenomena and crystallize them in tangible form as a way to signify the human longing for a perfect stasis of experience – which is impossible as emotion begins to degrade, evolve, fold in upon itself after the initial strike.

 

The Honey Moon chamber is a 10 foot tall mirrored jewelry box spanning 12 feet, enclosing a giant engorged golden chandelier formation encrusted with tens of thousands of gold-colored trinkets – the cheapest of the trashiest materials but representing the purest element from the bowels of the earth that has induced lust to the point of violence since pre-history. This giant mass of gold, as well as the body of the viewer, is reflected infinitely in 35 mirrored panels that create a simultaneously claustrophobic and expansive encounter that memorializes a temporary event. The mythology of honey, a bodily fluid produced from flowers, has long been associated with the ooze of erotic perfection. An ambrosial month of drinking honey-wine has followed the wedding ceremony since the Pharaohs. But locked up in the folklore of this transitional period is that the delirium ends and the state of bliss is forever sought after.

 

The Cherry Tree Root chamber is, in a way, a reverence to my own experience with Colpo di fulmine — “love at first sight” in Italian, which literally translate to “lightning strike”, and a craving to re-experience a place and time that no longer exists. Recently digging a 16 foot deep foundation hole, my husband and I removed 72 tons of dirt from our property to build a studio, exposing deep and gnarled roots that seems like frozen solidified lightening, long forgotten, dug up by us to lay the foundation for the rooms we hope we’ll die in. The root chamber is like entering this underground world hidden from view of long- ago electric ephemeral desires that have now turned into strong and sturdy roots- not as flashy as lightening but quietly enduring and growing. The roots are battered beautiful twisting accumulations of crocheted scraps of fabric I’ve saved for years, old ropes and remnants of past installations, hand-spun hair, rabbit fur and old clothes, all coated in the dirt from below my family’s foundation.

 

Creating a chamber to recede into is an homage to Jeffry Michell’s 2001 installation “Hanabuki”, the site of our own lightening strike, a catalytic phenomenon that lasted a millisecond. Like life itself beginning with lightening striking the primordial soup, the mythology of celestial fire recognizes its ability to create fast irreversible transformation. Despite the impossibility of it, I made my chamber as a way to revisit and remember the secret place Jeffry made, the fur-lined hut that was a pleasure palace where I fell in love, presided over by little dancing gods spreading the joys of the pleasure in all bodies, a beginning of something that seemed temporary and ill-fated but really turned out to be deep-rooted like an ancient tree.

 

The installation also includes a gathering of talismanic birds made of leather and more than a thousand individually cut and sewn silk and satin feathers, representing my imminent needs but using imagery used by a variety of ancient peoples and cultures — a desire for protection, for a guide, and harbingers of happiness in the form of a raptors. In photographs, close friends and my husband play out roles that tie into the everyday events of their lives, but represented as re-interpreted gods and goddesses such as Hecate, Demeter and the Green Man. The photos speak to themes of cross-roads, the double pull of isolation vs. community, a power buried in the beginnings of motherhood and the visceral erotic pull of the earth, volatile but buried like a dormant volcano.

 

Sponsored in part by by the City of Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs CityArtist Grant and 4Culture/King County Lodging Tax Revenue.

  

[Nakoma is over Pocahontas's crying her eyes out. A few days ago she found out the Kocoum is back to his old ways and has been seeing the Nerissa woman again! Nakoma has no clue what to do and needs some good advice. As the two talk Willow and Lake try and play with each other while in their mothers laps.]

 

N: [Sobbing uncontrollably] I just don't understand. What dose she have that I don't? We have a nice home, two beautiful little girls, great paying jobs. I don't get it. He goes after that women who can't even support herself! He even took a DNA test proving he isn't the father of her child, so what is so freaking important about her?!

 

P: How did you even find out?

 

N: That....woman had the nerve to call me. She sent me text messages between them, pictures, everything! They were talking about he didn't love me and that I was too old and all sorts of mean things. One screen shot of their messages even said that he might as well leave me and be with her and he agreed! He freaking agreed!! [Nakoma starts to cry even harder]

 

P: I'm so sorry Nakoma..

 

N: What am I suppose to tell River and Lake? Daddy went to live with another lady? Daddy doesn't love Mommy? I'm trying so hard to keep everything together, but it's hard. It's not fair either! How come he gets to walk away without any burdens.

 

P: He threw away years of love and commitment and a wonderful family. He'll understand that eventually and when he does it will hit him like a ton of bricks.

 

N: I just can't believe it. What is so special about her that he needs to hurt me...no..our family like this...AGAIN!?

 

P: I don't know, but what are you going to do?

 

N: I have no clue. So far I kicked him out. Thank God I didn't put him on the lease to the house. I guess the next step is a divorce.

 

P: Are you sure about that?

 

N: Absolutely. He'll just keep hurting me and the girls if I continue to forgive him. If he finds that Nerissa girl so special then they can be together. It's time to put the girls and I first. I just don't know how I'll manage being a single mother.

 

P: It will be hard, but you're strong. You'll turn this situation around and make it work out like you do for everything. If you need anything though please don't hesitate to ask. I'm here for you.

 

N: Thanks, P. I'll be holding you to that.

------

 

Aww. Poor Nakoma ='(

I like being nowhere better than at the edge of the ocean. It is the joining of two worlds and it always makes for spectacular photography. This appeared like many other drab, gray days at the beach but if one stood at just the right spot and looked hard enough it was anything but drab and gray. Photography is never inhibited by the weather, but photographers can be. I think if you look just right, there is something remarkable to always be found, no matter where or when you are.

 

Often I think I should start carrying a little point and shoot camera loaded with standard color film and take the "standard" snapshot of scenes at the same time I shoot them with my usual cameras, just to provide that comparison. For this photo, I knew the drab, gray, low contrast scene would look more interesting shot with high contrast film so I loaded up a roll of Ortho film in my Pentax 67, or maybe this was when I still had my 6x7... Normally the contrast of that film is uncontrollable but when shot in very flat light, it can produce some spectacular results. I ended up liking this shot and the warm tone that the print came out with. And yes I am pretty sure I got my feet wet taking it.

(sn 53-7786) (c/n 083-1001)-Location is Edwards AFB-Lockheed Chief Test Pilot Anthony "Tony" LeVier in the Lockheed XF-104-LO Starfighter prototype cocpit. Sent to me by "Tony" in the late 1950s. On July 11, 1957, Lockheed engineering test pilot William C. “Bill” Park, Jr. was flying the first XF-104 as chase for F-104A flight tests when the prototype developed uncontrollable tail flutter. Pilot Bill Park was forced to eject when the entire tail group was ripped from the airplane.

Jan. 14 - Feb 4th, 2011 at Roq La Rue Gallery. www.roqlarue.com.

 

mandygreer.wordpress.com

 

About “Honey and Lightening”

 

“Honey and Lightening” is a show of installation chambers, sculptures of talismanic birds and a series of staged photographs all revolving around examining the mercurial nature of human desire. The substances honey and lightening both have literary, mythical and archetypal references to the occurrence and evolution of desire and it’s fading. I see one as the slow ooze of pleasure and the other as the dangerous, uncontrollable and inexplicably instant occurrence of magnetism between two bodies.

 

The installation also includes a gathering of talismanic birds made of leather and more than a thousand individually cut and sewn silk and satin feathers, representing my imminent needs but using imagery used by a variety of ancient peoples and cultures — a desire for protection, for a guide, and harbingers of happiness in the form of a raptors. In photographs, close friends and my husband play out roles that tie into the everyday events of their lives, but represented as re-interpreted gods and goddesses such as Hecate, Demeter and the Green Man. The photos speak to themes of cross-roads, the double pull of isolation vs. community, a power buried in the beginnings of motherhood and the visceral erotic pull of the earth, volatile but buried like a dormant volcano.

 

Sponsored in part by by the City of Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs CityArtist Grant and 4Culture/King County Lodging Tax Revenue.

 

Model: Sara Kennedy (and unborn Max)

Photo/imaging: Mandy Greer

Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything. - Mark Twain

Vaudeville Games

A villainous study in 2 actes.

Acte 1

 

When I first saw the two of them, I knew that they were up to something no good.

  

It had been a pleasant afternoon spent amusing myself by mixing in during a black-tied occasion haunted by a group of the ultra-rich.

  

The place was an elegantly large, leased Ballroom, where a wedding reception with what seemed like a thousand gaily attired attendees had been in progress most of the afternoon. I had been amazed, dazzled may be a better word, when I had first walked in as the guests had already begun to gather. I had never seen a such a beautifully sparkling display of lovely jewels being worn by the ladies and lassies in attendance to a mere wedding reception before. I thought I was at some sort of convention for a Tiffanies or DeBeers, with models in long flowing gowns of satin, silk, and taffeta, all loaded to the gills with enticing jewels.

  

Later I learned, to my benefit, that a good number of them would be attending a local catholic charities ball held at the Cathedral’s large main hall later that evenin. Which explains the total overkillin with the fancy dress, and baubles.

  

Now, with the females in attendance wearing ample jewels expensive enough that any piece would have been profitable, there would be a temptation even the most unskilled of thieves could not resist. This is precisely one of the reasons why I was there. And I was determined to make the most out of the situation in all ways possible!

  

I soon found meself shadowing an unsuspecting, rather dipsy, female partier, whose steady drinking habit had first piqued my interest. She was wearing too many jewels than was good for her ( in my opinion), totally taking away notice from the rather fetching long taffeta gown she was poshly wearing over her delightfully young figure. I caught up to her just as she was making yet another quick swirling turn , letting her brush up against me. Almost on que ( and with the help of a foot on her dress’s hem) she lost her balance and I held her gloved arm to help steady her up. In the process I snagged one of her vulgarly large diamond bracelets from her satin clad wrist, secreting it to my vest pocket in the commotion.

  

I walked away, realizing yet once again, that the thrill I used to receive when lifting a piece of jewelry from a lady had noticeably been diminishing over the course of the last couple of years. Like any profession that has been worked at for a while, it had almost become too routinely easy anymore; my almost ghostlike hovering over receptions, ballroom dances and the ilk. Admiring the rich gowns and dresses, and savoring their sparkling jewels were becoming almost mundane. Even the snagging of a flashy bauble or two along the way was losing its appeal. Even though it was my primary source for putting the bread on the table , I felt sometimes that I needed a break. Sure, I held a second, loosely related, profession to seem respectable to the outside world, but it did not pay nearly as much. I sighed deeply to myself, wallowing in my rather dubious self-pity as I made my way through the thickly congregated crowd of guests at the reception. I also was finding meself pining for my place of birth, Merry old England( or wales to be specific) and a sweet ginger haired lass who I had once known, and still kept in touch with for the 7 long years since I had left my homeland.

  

With those thoughts whirling about in me head, I made my way to the bar, deciding to now settled back to have a few free drinks and try to enjoy the show. Soon I found myself cheered up, even lazily toying with the idea of making a second score later that evening. And then, well now, given what valuables were being displayed, it was not surprising that soon I spotted a second source of amusement. For it was at that point that I saw the two of them making their way in.

  

There appeared to be only two of them, together; An older woman, grandmotherly in appearance, with long silver hair, and a foxy expression. Along with the “Grandmother” was what appeared to be her 16 year old granddaughter. “Granddaughter” was a slender sprite with a long sheet of freely hanging long silky blonde hair and deep enchantingly blue eyes, and a rather charming smile, with was noticeably pasted upon her impish face as she took it in all the splendor.

  

The grandmother wore a blue silk skirt and white silky top, ¾ sleeved. The granddaughter was wearing a tea length black satin skirt and a gold satin long sleeved blouse with ruffles and frills, which was uncharacteristic when compared to the dresses and long gowns of the other girls around her age in attendance. The “Grandmother” was adorned with silver chains, and earrings. The “Granddaughter” wore ruby earrings and matching necklace, like the kind of imitation jewelry one receives as a promotion when buying overpriced perfume. Both newcomers out of place with some of the fancier costumes and gems on display, worn by the older rich ladies as well as quite a number of their younger female issue’s as well.

  

The granddaughter also wore gold plated rings and bracelets, so pick pocketing was probably not her game; she was probably the “ferret” or the lure. But the grandmother on the other hand, had clean fingers, nimble and long and with nothing around her bare wrists, and decidedly was dressed for quick movements; she was probably the dip, or lift. They also did not appear to be known personally by any of the other guests in attendance, but in a gathering that large, with so many snobs ignoring everything that was going on outside their immediate area, this was not surprising. After all, I was there not really knowing anyone either, except for the ones who had hired me.

  

The pair split off on their own separate courses. The granddaughter soon began mingling with girls in her own age bracket, whom, as was typical of the very rich, were totally unsupervised by any adult. I noticed she was mingling with only those who displayed the most expensive clothing, then zeroing in upon those wearing the largest quantity of expensive jewelry. The Grandmother soon fell into step with a group of older ladies, whose blazing jewels had attracted her notice.

  

The playing field was getting too crowded I thought, and so I made myself content by watching the (pair) work the room. I wasn’t shocked: Hunting grounds this fertile were bound to attract multiple predators. The appetite of my curiosity was wetted and I drifted to a corner table with my refilled drink ( an old fashion) , where I could watch over them without notice.

  

The grandmother was ever watchful, as she chatted up her new, satin gowned, acquaintances, but did not appear to be posed to strike. Her eyes were relentlessly on the move, I figured she was on the look for something special, and was ready to pounce when the situation arose.

  

Meanwhile the granddaughter seemed to have hooked one. A shy fifteen-year-old clad in a eye-catching sky blue long satin sheath gown, with a matching cape that hung from her shoulders to her elbows. The cut of her gown, and her heavy makeup, made the 15 year old look far too much like an adult. Her dangling earrings were at least a full caret, a long thin gold chain dangling from her gowns neckline held diamond studded heart with a sapphire center that swished expensively against her soft gown. A matching ring and bracelet to the pendent rounded out her jewels. But her cape also had a sapphire pin that swayed, shooting out flames of fiery brilliance, whenever the lights caught it.

  

I looked for the grandmother, she was now chatting to a young be speckled twenty something, diamonds glittered from the thin necklace that hung shimmering down the front of her satin turtleneck like blouse, an ideal setup. A long, midnight black, tiered skirt fell flowing to her feet, with a diamond brooch centered on the satin sash that encircled her waist. Rings glittered from the fingers that nervously twirled a locket of long , hanging hair as she talked to the “Grandmother”, who had her hand (seemingly nonchalantly) upon the girl’s silken covered shoulder as she made conversation.

  

I turned my attention back to the “Granddaughter” locating her by the stage, whispering conspiratorially into her newly made friends ear, the girl’s dangling earring shining ever so richly. I watched as the pair left and started to wander towards the dance floor, where they started to watch the dancing couples assembling for the bands next piece. As they stood there the “grandmother” walked up to the pair, and the “granddaughter” introduced her to her new found friend in the shiny blue sheath gown.

  

As they did so, I looked around for the be speckled 20 something the “grandmother” had been chatting up, she couldn’t have gotten far. I soon spotted her on the dance floor, in the arms of a young man in a monkey suite. I quickly noticed that her necklace was noticeably no longer adorning the neckline of her pretty blouse. I had a good idea where it was, but how had it been accomplished, removed from around her neck without notice, ahh, that was the rub. I was sorry I had missed the performance of the disappearing necklace trick!

  

My analysis of the pairs game had been spot on, and it was obvious that they were not armatures by any means. It appeared that the “Grandmother was the expert, The younger looking “Granddaughter “ probably her protégé. I quickly looked back at the small group of three hovering on the edge of the dance floor not wanting to miss a trick.

  

The three were chatted on, the “grandmother” admiring the young ladies gown flowing liquidly down over her perky figure. As she then admired blue gowns glimmering necklace, the “granddaughter” had moved and positioned herself behind the unwary young lady. As the necklace was raised I saw her look about and reach up, pulling up and back the chain, efficiently unhooking it. The grandmother held onto the pendant with one hand as she lifted the unsuspecting girls satin gloved hand with her other , all the while chatting her up. Then ever so slowly the “Grandmother” pulled the necklace down freeing it from around the unsuspecting lass’s neck, letting it drop to the carpeted floor at her feet. The “granddaughter” scrunched down behind their cute victim, ( totally unaware that she was being robbed), and reaching around, scarfed the necklace up, stood and moved off. The “grandmother gave the unwilling girl a hug, and when they broke off I noticed the sapphire pin had been lifted, adding unwary insult to undiscovered injury. I saw the girl in the blue sheath look around for her new friend, but the “Granddaughter” had disappeared, moving off to greener pastures.

  

I soon spotted the “granddaughter” as she resurfaced, obviously she was on the move again, which was surprising, I would have not risked any further attempts so soon if I had been in her dainty heels. I watched, trying to spot her next victim. She headed over towards a table that she had passed earlier, on one of the chairs was a mink jacket, and another was a feathery boa that I had seen her admiring, fingering on the then deserted table.

  

But the chair that the mink was hanging from now had an occupant. A girl of about 15, wearing a soft velvet dress with long sleeves, had picked up the boa and was sitting on the chair wearing it. She was happily playing with the long feather boa, not a concern in the world. I looked her over, on one side of her dress was a diamond sunburst pin, and on her chubby fingers, were two diamond rings, small but real, and from her ears dangled a pair of long pear shaped diamonds suspended from diamond solitaries clasped to her earlobes.... I was amazed that she would have been trusted to wear such valuable trinkets, but I was not surprised that she was in all probability about to lose them!

  

The “granddaughter” came upon the girl and asked if she could try on the boa. The unsuspecting girl helped her happily on with it , then the “granddaughter picked up one end, tickling the richly clad lass with the fluffy feathers, then allowed the girl to do the same, eyeing her victims shimmering rings in the process.

  

The grandmother soon approached to join in the fun. She put on the boa next and tickled both girls with its ends, getting them to giggle uncontrollably. The two devious ladies’s routine had been well honed, as their chosen victim became caught up in the middle of the pair’s rapid fire bantering, and teasing. But it was not all play for two of the three! The 15 year olds diamond starburst pin was the first item to disappear! As the giggling girl, her eyes closed, was doubled over trying to catch a breath, the “Grandmother” took rude advantage of the situation by smoothly reaching under and unsnapping the shimmering pin from the bent over girl’s shiny dress as it had fallen loosely away from her chest for a few seconds. Soon the purloined pin was followed by her sparkling rings, slipped off her fingers when it was her turn to have her hands held behind her by the “Grandmother” and be tickled with the boa by the “Granddaughter” during the course of their horsing around. I thought the pair were finished at that point, but no, they were going for the full Tribeca!

  

The “Grandmother” held the young ladies attention by kneeling in front of the 15 year old, and helping her on with the boa, wrapping it around the girls neck. As this was being done, the “granddaughter busied herself with coolly slipping off each of the girls old fashioned dangling clasp earrings ! I watched in wonder as the laughing girls expensive earrings were each effortlessly plucked away. The giggling 15 year old clad in the velvet dress had been stripped (tickled) of all her jewels with surgical precision, as the boa was being wily used to its full feathery advantage, and she had never noticed a thing!

  

The “Grandmother” then stood and moved off to one side, as the girls continued to giggle and play. Unnoticed, she gingerly lifting the mink from the chair behind the now less shimmering 15-year-old, as said child was still being entertained by the “granddaughter”, who I saw had now her hand inside a purse laying on the table behind their cheerful victim. The “grandmother”, carrying the expensive mink over her arm, slipped around and out of sight down the hidden entrance to a side corridor that I knew led down to the building’s work area. The show was probably ending. The pair had acted swiftly, and I knew they would be fished out soon. But I waited; the “granddaughter” was still there, apparently in no hurry to follow the “Grandmother” and disappear down the corridor with her. So probably there may possibly be another act to their scoundrel like play I surmised, although it was risking it in my professional opinion.

 

End Acte 1

  

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

 

Finished 3rd

 

For my video; youtu.be/CJC_4kup0fs

  

Gr.5 +2.0, 43, Germany Martini Racing Porsche System,

Drivers; Manfred Schurti, Germany Rolf Stommelen,

Porsche 935/78,

Porsche, 3.2L, Turbo, Flat-6

 

Rolf Johann Stommelen (11 July 1943 – 24 April 1983) was a racing driver from Siegen, Germany. He participated in 63 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, achieving one podium, and scored a total of 14 championship points. He also participated in several non-Championship Formula One races.

 

One of the best endurance sports car racing drivers of the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, Stommelen won the 24 Hours of Daytona four times; in 1968, 1978, 1980 and 1982 and the Targa Florio in 1967 in a Porsche 910.

 

Stommelen was killed in a crash during the Los Angeles Times Grand Prix 6 hour International Motor Sports Association GT Championship event at Riverside International Raceway on 24 April 1983. He was competing in a John Fitzpatrick entered Porsche 935 with co-driver Derek Bell. Stommelen had just taken over the car from Bell and was running in second place when the rear wing broke due to mechanical failure at 190 mph (310 km/h). The car became uncontrollable, slammed against a concrete wall, somersaulted and caught fire. Stommelen died of head injuries

 

Manfred Schurti (born 24 December 1941) is a former touring and prototype racing car driver from Liechtenstein mainly known for racing factory-entered Porsches.

Two's company, three's a crowd. The emotion got to me. The blur in the foreground is due to me sobbing uncontrollably. Scene by the Nottingham canal.

Teaser for short film collaboration between Sarah Lee & Jeff Dotson, exploring the edge of the sea, where beauty unfolds between human interaction with the uncontrollable forces of nature.

 

vimeo.com/64489756

 

go to kainos.hisarahlee.com for more info and updates on release.

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

I used 2 of Stephanie's layouts in her gallery for inspiration. Love all of her layouts and this came together pretty quickly for me...thanks to loads of inspiration today. Hope to start another lift sometime soon...there are so many I love. Look at my photostream to see the 2 layouts I lifted for today's layout. Some of you may remember me posting about when this happened during last October's LOAD...yes, I cried uncontrollably.

You know when I said I knew little about love? That wasn't true. I know a lot about love.

I've seen it, seen centuries and centuries of it, and it was the only thing that made watching your world bearable. All those wars. Pain, lies, hate... Made me want to turn away and never look down again. But to see the way that mankind loves... I mean, you could search to the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful. So, yes, I know that love is unconditional. But I also know it can be unpredictable, unexpected, uncontrollable, unbearable and strangely easy to mistake for loathing, and... What I'm trying to say, Tristan, is... I think I love you.

My heart... It feels like my chest can barely contain it. Like it doesn't belong to me any more. It belongs to you. And if you wanted it, I'd wish for nothing in exchange — no gifts, no goods, no demonstrations of devotion. Nothing but knowing you loved me, too. Just your heart, in exchange for mine.

- "Stardust"

  

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5 PJL

  

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Waking up hours later, Jason found the large computer monitor near his bed ablaze with static. Scarlet sat on the edge of the bed, cleaning her sniper rifle before noticing he had woken up and saying,

  

“Mornin’ sleeping beauty.” Jason sat up and immediately asked,

  

“What happened to the computer…and wait…where’s Roy?” Roy’s bag, quiver, and bow all sat on the ground in front of his bed, but there was no sign of him.

  

“We’re not sure…it turned on in the middle of the night and we thought we saw someone looking at us through it but…nah. And Roy’ll be back in a sec, just went to pick something up.” As if on queue, Roy opened the door upstairs and made his way through the shop above. Reaching the basement, Jason couldn’t help to smirk through his growing anxiety: Roy was wearing his old red and black spandex. Noticing Jason’s surprised expression, Roy quickly said,

  

“Scarlet and I got to talking last night and I realized I probably can’t and shouldn’t go out in anything else. I mean, I would prefer a new suit…this one’s a bit tight…but oh well,” Jason nodded while grabbing for the package to make sure it was still in his jacket. Sure enough it was, causing him to breath a short sigh of relief as Roy continued, “So…you were about to elaborate earlier?” Jason looked from Roy to Scarlet, who understood the meaning and explained to the former that,

  

“Roy wanted to know more about me. Ya know, before all of this. You could probably…I mean, you SHOULD probably be able to recite this by heart but I’ll say it for now I guess…” Scarlet set down her rifle and began to tell her story, “Basically I came to Gotham to start a new life with my dad…something like…five years ago? Wow, it’s been a while…anyway, we came to Gotham so he could get a better job with the help of my Uncle Lev. That a-hole. Lev worked for Professor Pyg, a serial killer who would do all sorts of nasty stuff to his ‘patients’. Good old Uncle Lev sold us out to Pyg to pay for his rent for the month. Pyg got my dad…he was unrecognizable by the time the freak was through with him. He put my dad and I in the same room overnight before Lev was coming for his payment…that was not a fun night. Dad was…he…um…”

  

“Pyg made him into a dollotron,” Jason said, “Felt no pain, but also felt no emotion. Couldn’t talk outside of grunts and moans…it was horrible.” Roy’s eyebrows were raised high during the whole story, prompting him to say,

  

“I’m sorry…that must’ve been terrible.”

  

“It got better,” Scarlet said with a solemn nod, uncharacteristic of her eternally happy persona, “‘Cause the next morning, as I was being wheeled out to the operating table, I heard something. Gunshots. All around me. Pyg was getting nervous, so he quickly began strapping me to the table as my Uncle Lev attempted to bar the doors. But it was no use…” Scarlet’s smile was slowly returning as she looked to Jason, who’d moved to the couch nearby, “…the Red Hood broke the door down and slammed my jackass uncle against the wall. Pyg tried to throw whatever knives he had around him at him but he dodged every one. In fact, he managed to dodge one perfectly so that it impaled Lev to the wall. Sure, for a second I felt bad…but I just kept remembering what he’d allowed my father to become. Red Hood took out Pyg in mere seconds. The fat bastard wouldn’tve been able to hold his own in any kind of fight, I was just glad I got a front row seat to his death. I remember the gunshot that killed him. Broke his stupid porcelain mask in half and went straight through his eye…taking everything on the inside out too. Then, the Red Hood saved me,” Again, Scarlet looked to Jason, who blushed slightly while nervously holding the package inside his jacket, “He told me about how my uncle had apparently done some dealings with some guy named the Joker…and he needed to be killed as part of some greater plan that would stop the madman forever. He told me about how Pyg was nothing compared to the Joker, and in that moment I realized that with no family left and men like Pyg still on the loose I needed to take action in some way. He was reluctant at first, but after I repeatedly told him about my time hunting with my dad and proficiency with a sniper rifle he let me join his crusade. We…um…had to take care of my dad first…” Jason finally stood up and walked over to her, putting an arm around her as she finished, “…but then things got really good for a while. We recruited some new guys, took down one of Gotham’s kingpins of crime, and somewhere along the way I fell for that chivalrous murderer who saved me from being a weird doll thing.” Roy nodded, sitting down on his bed as he said,

  

“That’s amazing. I’m jealous…mostly because your story involves you keeping both arms at the end, but anyway, wanna hear mine? Wanna hear the secrets of protecting Star City with the good old Emerald Archer?” Jason and Scarlet nodded, and Roy nearly began to speak before suddenly the monitor’s static stopped. All three heads turned to the screen to see a face looking back at them. Scarlet and Roy both looked confused, but Jason smiled and stepped forward, saying,

  

“Hello Alfred.” The aging butler smiled back, saying,

  

“It seems your roster has expanded Master Todd, very good, as we’re going to need as many helping hands as we can recruit.” Confused, Jason asked,

  

“Helping hands…what do you mean? Has something happened…?” Sighing, Alfred said,

  

“It would be best if…he explained. One moment sir.” He stepped away from the camera as Jason turned to Scarlet, seeing her smiling uncontrollably,

  

“Are we gonna meet Batman?” She asked, excitedly.

  

“I think you are…” Jason said as he noticed Roy had stood up and joined the two of them in front of the monitor. For a moment, the screen became a hybrid of the shot of the Batcave and static before finally the Batman stood at the camera. Jason nodded at him, saying, “Thank you. Thank you so much Br-”

  

“You can thank me later,” Batman said quickly. Jason noticed that he looked slightly more flustered than their last encounter, even when the two had believed Robin and Alfred to be dead, “Jason…we need to talk.”

J. M William Turner

British, 1775-1851

Oil on canvas

Cleveland Museum of Art

 

On the night of October 16, 1834, fire consumed the housed of parliament in London. Londoners gathered along the banks of the river Thames to gaze in awe at the horrifying spectacle. Initially, a low tide made it difficult to pump water to firefighting equipment on land; likewise it hampered steamers towing equipment up the river. Although the tides eventually shifted, the effort was futile, as the fire burned uncontrollably for hours. Turner records this as the steamers in the lower-right corner head toward the flames.

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.

On Black

 

Alright well, I don't know if i like the text on this image... It makes it kind of cheesy, but it looked so bare without it ;0

SO feedback please!

 

And note to self, don't take photos after you over-slept because, they just don't turn out.

Damn, I had the most disturbing dream last night. What i remember, (I'm not going to bore you with the whole thing), but in the end, this lady was driving somewhere in a carriage, thing (this was in the 1800s, mind you) and her 2 kids, on the inside, asked her what they could eat because they were hungry. She told them there was a bag behind them full of food. I don't know WHY but the boy grabbed a water squirter... thing, that was full of some unknown substance and sprayed the substance in his mouth, then he did the same thing to his sister and after a while they started coughing uncontrollably. The mom didn't hear, and after about 10 minutes, the driver looked back and he goes 'Oh miss!' and she turns around and lets out the most disturbing scream, and that's when i wake up. kfdjgnfjlk It makes me shudder.

 

Getting to the point unknown thing about me #9:

My favorite colour is yellow. Mmn, yellow

 

Enjoy the photo

 

#267

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 )

.

"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.

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...

 

Today's story and sketch "by me" you see Carl "Crop Circle" Gofish, You see him piloting

his Very Old Vintage Stearman 75 Bi Plane, that he was given when he retired from the

Postal Aircraft company as there first pilot. But I should start Carl's story at the beginning

and that would be when he was in Wichita Kansas one night flying his "ICC" Intergalactic Crop

Cutter, over a field of Rye, it was a beautiful geometric cutting, which he had sketched

on his "ICC" crop cutter program on his journey from Lippo the Blue Moon, to Earth

through worm hole 10, which was a grueling two day trip in those days. But his tragedy

started when the "ICC" was struck by a bolt of lightning, just when he was about to

finish the last cuts. The craft went into a "UW" Uncontrollable Wobbly, he was lucky and

was able to wobble into the barn you see in this sketch, which he has called home sense

that night.

The owners actually abandoned the barn style ranch house that same night, and moved away

to Portland, telling stories for many years of their close encounter with an Alien life form.

With his "ICC" broken beyond repair, he was grounded until one afternoon he was walking

down a goat path in front of the Stearman Aircraft Company down the way, Carl could read

English and he noticed a help wanted poster on the front gate, test pilot wanted.

Well at the time there were only a couple of pilots who lived in Kitty Hawk, and they

were happy building bicycles and doing some weekend sport flying. Desperate as they were

at Stearman for a pilot, they hired Carl, with a requirement he had to wear tinted goggles

to cover his very big black eyes, and a flying hat the company made for him. It was

a great job for many years, until he was hired away by the Post office and was the first

Air Mail Pilot, but that is a story for another time, until then taa ta the Rod Blog.

.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.

  

Untamed longing, a broken innocence

 

When I was nearly 15, I worked odd jobs at a Baptist church. Cleaning, setting the pews in perfect order and chasing birds that sneaked inside. I was an altar girl. The reverend, a seasoned american missionary, would give me coins and call me an angel, gently caressing my cheek. Yet, my body was changing, my mind a whirlwind of chaos, and my desires surged uncontrollably. The air grew thick with the perfume of temptation, suffocating and intoxicating. As the weeks went by, I found myself caught between his unexpected tenderness and my own desire to reaffirm my femininity. Confused by the warmth of his touch and the intensity of my own needs, I finally decided to surrender to my desires, allowing myself to be swept away by the very emotions I’d tried so hard to resist.The angel became a demon, pulling that man of faith into the fiery realms of both hell and paradise.

And as in all stories of forbidden deeds and sins, this one did not have a happy ending...

 

This photograph and its story took place in 2008

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

 

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

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.

 

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.

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.

 

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.

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.

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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!