View allAll Photos Tagged Unblinking
In LACMA. Definitely see Large
Paul Cadmus (1904-1999)
In the gorgeous, occasionally garish, always gratifying works of the great American artist Paul Cadmus, sailors and sunbathers, models and mannequins, nitwits and nudes all are suffused with a sensuality born equally of idyllic splendor and urban squalor, natural grace and graceful artifice. Active since the 1930s as a renderer of pretty boys and ugly ploys, Cadmus has spent many remarkable decades honing a singularly complex style of idealized sexuality and vivid displeasure in justly celebrated paintings, drawings and etchings of nude figures, fantastical scenes and supercharged allegories.
While often working quite deliberately in the genres of social satire and community critique, Cadmus is just as compelling when exploring the personal and political proclivities of bodies in rest and motion. Male bodies, that is. More than most artists of his substantial stature, Cadmus has detailed with exquisite tenderness and unblinking bluntness the manner in which gay males--and the gay male gaze--represent the polemics of aesthetics.
Think of it this way: Cadmus's nudes--and, to a lesser yet still relevant extant, his studies of societal strata--offer us an opportunity to consider that beauty, though woundingly, agonizingly, deliciously seductive, also can be a ruthless guise, a four-letter word, an escape from Alcatraz, and a narcissistic, velvet-lined trap. Beauty, in fact, is everything your parents told you was bad for you as a child. Cadmus, to our enormous benefit, understands that beauty is bodies, brains, buttocks, bathtubs, bicycles, Bach, bravado and bad behavior; beauty is all things B.
Born in New York City in 1904, Cadmus was encouraged by his parents (artists both) to pursue his creative desires. After abandoning a career in advertising, Cadmus studied fine art and traveled throughout Europe in the early 1930s with his lover and fellow painter, Jared French. While gallivanting about Mallorca in an expatriate fever dream, Cadmus learned much from French, who tolerated his pal's slavish devotion to the means and methods of the Old Masters yet also encouraged him--quite wisely--to transcend the trappings of art-historical tradition and hone his own unique style.
What should we call it, this strangely anachronistic blend of neoclassical composition, Renaissance brush strokes (a la Luca Signorelli), figurative verisimilitude and surreal displacement? Cadmus's style is peculiar: his technique is exacting, his figures are elongated or oddly foreshortened, he's equally adept with charcoal and egg tempera, and his tableaux reflect realities of the wrong side of the tracks and fantasies of the right side. He's also, I'd venture, a leftist.
So what do we call Cadmus's style? Let's continue to ponder as we follow him back from Europa to the U.S., where he signed on as an employee of the federally funded Public Works of Art Project. His first major work for the PWAP was the infamous "The Fleet's In!," which answers the musical question: what can you do with a drunken sailor? In this extraordinary canvas, a gaggle of randy sailors on leave strike deals with hookers, ogle t and a, and get a little too friendly with each other, all while wearing (or planning to strip out of) unusually tight trousers.
When a certain uptight Admiral Hugh Rodman ordered the removal of the painting from an exhibition of government -sponsored paintings at the Corcoran Gallery of Art--where, fifty years later, Mr. Mapplethorpe's pictures suffered the same indignity--on the grounds of obscenity, Cadmus's name was splashed across newspaper headlines as savvy critics rallied behind him. With faux-naïve self-effacement, Cadmus did his best to appear nonplused by the brouhaha, though in retrospect it seems that he basked in the scandal and recognized it as a kick-start to his career as a serious artist. All this for an image of sailors who had never heard of--and never would have heeded--the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
Continuing to play the role of observer rather than participant, Cadmus gained confidence as an arbiter of moral judgment with his "Aspects of Suburban Life" series, commissioned in 1936 by the Treasury Relief Art Project as murals for a post office in the tony Long Island suburb of Port Washington. Not surprisingly, given their ruthless critique of noblesse oblige slumming and socioeconomic inequality, the murals were deemed "unsuitable for a federal building" and Cadmus was politely shown the door. "Hinky Dinky Parley Voo," in which the dregs of society drink to the dregs around a bar, didn't exactly endear Cadmus to the no-nothings, either.
But if the government wouldn't have him, friends and lovers were plentiful and uniformly supportive. Writer Monroe Wheeler and photographer George Platt Lynes were close associates of Cadmus's for years, as were E.M. Forster, Tennessee Williams, Christopher Isherwood and George Ballanchine. Excursions to Fire Island were not uncommon. Once there, Cadmus utilized his close-knit group as subject matter for portraiture. Sometimes they'd pose for him in the modest glory of their soft skin.
From the 1930s on, Cadmus steadfastly has painted the male nude within a milieu in which, as he says, "heterosexuality has always ruled." Given his clear-cut understanding of this identity-based power dynamic, perhaps the queerest thing about Cadmus and his work is his (and its) reluctance to fully acknowledge the queer content that appears so overt to contemporary viewers who know all the insider signs. While Cadmus always has been "out,' his reluctance to speak at length regarding the recognizably gay aspects of his oeuvre stems, I think, both from his reluctance to be pigeonholed and from the fact that he came of age among a generation of gay men who typically didn't have "we're here, we're queer, get used to it" tattooed on their foreheads.
As much as some younger artists would like to see Cadmus adopt the persona of nonagenarian poster boy for Gay Y2K, he's generally content to let his images speak for themselves. That's his choice to make; more perplexing, frankly, is the majority of critical writing on Cadmus that blatantly ignores his gay perspective and homoerotic imagery. Lincoln Kirstein, founding director of the New York City Ballet and the artist's self-defined bisexual brother-in-law (married to Cadmus's sister, Fidelma), wrote the "definitive" Cadmus monograph with nary a mention of the artist's crucial homoeroticism, preferring to tiptoe around the truth with statements like, "As for sexual factors, he has without ostentation or polemic long celebrated somatic health in boys and young men for its symbolic range of human possibility. His addiction to aspects of physical splendor has never been provocative, sly, nor ambitious to proselytize."
I wish Kirstein had taken a more careful look at the slender lad sporting a box kite and a noticeable bulge in "Aviator," or the mine's-bigger-than-yours posturing and relentless cruising on display in "Y.M.C.A. Locker Room". Even more telling is "Manikins," in which two small artist's models lovingly do the nasty atop a copy of Corydon, André Gide's plea for queer rights. Never before or since has the body politic been represented so charmingly.
Despite what Kirstein and others have--or haven't--said, Cadmus's work clearly has been heavily informed by his sexuality; his male nudes and satiric swipes exude a coolly palpable sensuality. Cadmus isn't homogenic, however. In "Sunday Sun," a hetero couple seek out precious rays of light amid the Dickensian grime of their oppressive urban sprawl.
In "Subway Symphony," Cadmus trains his compassionate yet keenly wicked eye on a sideshow of grotesques, from ridiculous hippies to religious zealots, all of whom are having a bad hair day. While some viewers object to Cadmus's cruel reduction of the masses to broad stereotypes, the artist insists on his secular humanitarianism: "Will it be said that I am anti-Semitic, anti-black, anti-white, anti-hard hat, anti-ALL, anti-people? I am NOT. I am anti a society that makes people this way, that makes humanoids of humans, an environment that causes this…I am FOR human beings as individuals."
One human being in particular who Cadmus has been for as an individual is Jon Andersson, a cabaret singer with whom the artist has been linked for more than thirty years. In "The Haircut," Andersson snips his older partner's distinguished white locks. In an ongoing series of chalk and crayon drawings, Cadmus depicts Andersson as muse, thinker, sleeper, lover and Beauty incarnate.
Recalling portraits by Michelangelo, Ingres and Degas, Cadmus's images of Andersson illustrate his comment on the drawing process: "I specialize in male nudes. I've done many more males than females. I like to do females too, but they're sort of harder to come by in a way. And they don't generally pose as well as men. They have a tendency to faint. I think--and I don't know whether this is just my own idea--that men are vainer than women in that they work harder at their posing. Maybe women think that they're so lovely that they don't have to pose well, I'm not sure." In any event, the subtle highlighting of genitals, hands and feet in Cadmus's portraits of Andersson suggest that male beauty is a mystery that the artist never truly desires to solve.
Paul Cadmus has plumbed the depths of this mystery throughout his long and illustrious career, producing canvases slowly but steadily at a rate of two or three per year.
Beautifully written by Steven Jenkins
...Deeper she went, into the heart of the forest's maze, where the trees grow closer, and the sun thinned, unable to penetrate the thick roof of leaves.
Midway along her journey, she stopped to gather the last of the season's wildflowers, thinking to take a small bouquet to her Grandmother. There she sat for a time, absorbed in examining tiny details – the threads of veins, almost-translucent petals - and half-listening to the chorus of the wind and flutter-flap of distant bird wings.
A sudden startled scatter of noise alerted her, and three ravens took wing behind her, gusting over her head.
She was suddenly aware of the clean scent of dusk and snowfall and pine. And the tiny hairs on the back of her neck that began to raise a split second before she looked up.
The wolf.
She processed it on a visceral level before her brain could fully absorb the raw shock. And she saw it all with startling clarity. The mane of fur which gathered in a nimbus cloud around his shoulders, the long muzzle and glimpses of the glistening white teeth below. And the gaze – that uncommon blue stare, with unblinking eyes.
..............
This was drawn for my brother Tom, for Christmas - as was the story that accompanies it. I've been toying with the idea of writing my own version of the Red Riding Hood tale for some time - but also wanted to dedicate a story and an illustration to my amazing brother. He has long been a great lover of wolves, so this seemed like the ideal opportunity.
A little snippet of the story is above... and should you wish, you can read the entire tale (which is too long to post in its entirety here) over at my blog: steeringfornorthart.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/red-riding-hoo...
There will hopefully be more Wolf and Red illustrations to come, throughout next year....
Brown Hare / lepus europaeus. Orford Marshes, Suffolk. 26/02/19.
'ON AMBER ALERT.'
We found this solitary hare hunkered down low between the tussocks. It was only the haunches, poking just above the grassline, that gave the position away.
If the image is viewed larger, you can make out one unblinking amber eye firmly focused on us.
Feeling optimistic we might observe it for a while, we carefully drew to a halt but the hare had other ideas. Seconds later it was up and away.
Notice a tuft of white fur resting on the grass. It could indicate this was the scene of some earlier 'boxing' activity.
Or, the hare could be a female who had previously fought off contender(s), then found refuge here, grooming battle-loosened fur before settling.
Either activity would have been great to watch ... far more preferable to another exit run!
BEST VIEWED LARGE.
In a dark basement, shrouded by shadow and cold, stands a lowly criminal mastermind. He once stood tall; once proud. He was notorious – one no one dared cross. But those days are gone. Now he stands a shadow of the man – no, not a man, the thing – he once was. His casing gathers dust, his glass bowl coated in a thin layer of grime, and in the week since last he went outside, vast networks of cobwebs have risen around him like clothes lines across the Venice canals. Which is strange, since no spiders live down here. He doesn’t speak unless spoken to. He doesn’t sleep, he can’t sleep. His shame, like the shadows, shrouds him.
He is the Brain. And once, that name meant something.
He is pulled from his meditative state by the muffled sound of footsteps from above. To the side of him from the dark corner comes a forlorn grunt, and into view shuffles a great lumbering beast of knotted dark hair, body odour and self-pity. He tugs his pants up around his waist – the only item of clothing on his body – and joins his master.
These used to be too small, he thinks to himself.
Mallah: She’s coming.
Mallah looks tentatively toward the only door in the basement – a heavy slab of chromed metal resting at the top of a creaky flight of wooden stairs. He looks back to his master but says nothing, his eyes drifting over to the wall covered in carved tally marks. He sighs.
Brain: Oui. Play your part.
The footsteps stop in front of the door and the sound of a heavy set of keys turning fills the dank silence. Light pours into the room as the door slowly swings open. Mallah shields his eyes with one arm, and throws the other across the Brain’s dome. As his sight gradually returns, he sees her frail old figure stood atop the stairs.
Madame Pamplemousse: Good morning gentlemen!
Madame Pamplemousse is a strange one. She’s mysterious in all the ways grapefruits aren’t. She certainly appears relatively normal, anyway. To any passer-by she would seem frightfully average, just another delicate old woman with paper-thin skin stretched over a skeletal frame like canvas over tent poles. With soft grey hair hanging in curls around her tight face and receded eyes that, despite their age, shine brighter than they have any right to. And deep dimples that, as she speaks, form in the corners of her mouth like canyons from decades of incessant smiling, with a thin row of mangled old teeth peeking out from her narrow dry lips.
Thankfully she never gets any passers-by. Which is fortunate, because Madame Pamplemousse is most certainly not normal. But if I told you why I’d be spoiling the fun now, wouldn’t I?
For a brief moment there is silence. Then, almost on cue, the Brain comes alive.
Brain: Good morning, Madame! What a most splendid day it is today, non? Not that we see much of it down ‘ere, ‘ey Mallah?
Mallah hesitates.
Brain: I said: ‘Ey Mallah?
Mallah: Oh ah, no. No we don’t! We don’t see it, because we are down ‘ere, aren’t we master? In this most wonderful basement!
Brain: Oui!
Madame Pamplemousse burst out into hysterical laughter, and so too does Brain, albeit slightly less sincere.
Madame Pamplemousse: Oh, you boys! So funny. ‘Ow lucky I am to ‘ave such pleasant ‘ouseguests!
Brain: Laugh Mallah.
Mallah: Ah ha ha! Ah ha! Ah ha ha ha!
Brain: And ‘ow lucky we are to ‘ave such a pleasant ‘ost, non?
Madame Pamplemousse blushes and bats away his flattery.
Madame Pamplemousse: So kind, monsieur Brain. I think someone knows what time it is, ‘ey?
Brain: Oha ha, I certainly do.
Madame Pamplemousse steps back from the door and gestures towards the hallway.
Brain: Pick me up Mallah!
Mallah quickly sweeps the cobwebs off his master and gathers him in his thick arms. As they ascend the stairs, Madame Pamplemousse turns to them.
Madame Pamplemousse: Do excuse the mess, my loves. Little Pierre ‘ad some friends over for a play date, didn’t you Little Pierre?
As if summoned from thin air, a small, ugly frog of a boy with dull eyes and a bowl haircut appears to the side of Mallah and walks with them.
Little Pierre: Play.
Mallah flinches at the sight of him and tries his best not to drop his master.
Mallah: Didn’t know you ‘ad any friends, Little Pierre.
Brain: Mallah!
Madame Pamplemousse: What was that, my love?
Brain: Nothing!
If he still had eyes they would be daggers. Mallah knows and promptly shuts up.
Madame Pamplemousse: You were making funny face masks, weren’t you my little sugarpip?
Little Pierre: Play.
Madame Pamplemousse chuckles and grins disdainfully as they walk into the kitchen.
Madame Pamplemousse: ‘ere we are.
She reaches for a key hung on a rack above the fridge and takes it over to a wooden door on the other side of the room. Little Pierre stares at Mallah with those dull, unblinking eyes, and Mallah stares nervously back.
Mallah: ‘E’s looking right at me, master.
Brain: Shut up. ‘E’s only a child you fool.
Mallah: But master!
Brain: Silence!
A glob of saliva drips from Little Pierre’s mouth as Madame Pamplemousse opens the door and turns to them.
Madame Pamplemousse: You know the rules. Thirty minutes outside, stay where I can see you. Any funny business and I do not ‘esitate to call… you know who. This is a punishment, not a ‘oliday camp, non?
Brain/Mallah: Oui, Madame Pamplemousse.
Madame Pamplemousse: Marvellous. ‘Ave fun. Little Pierre, darling, with me now.
She takes Little Pierre by the hand and wanders out of the kitchen, his dull eyes still fixed on Mallah. Mallah adjusts his grip on Brain and the pair head out the back door and onto the porch. He sets his master next to a little wooden bench with all the grace of a reversing dump truck, and sighs as he sits. They silently stare out into the horizon for a few moments, before Mallah turns to look over his shoulder.
Mallah: She’s gone.
If he could express emotion, thinks the Brain, Madame Pamplemousse would not fall for this rouse one second longer.
Brain: We ‘ave to get out of ‘ere.
Mallah says nothing, just staring out into the distance. And they continue to stare, staring into nothingness – quite literally – into the barren white void of nothingness surrounding the house. There’s no horizon. There’s no sky. No light; no dark. Just the house. The bench. And a pair of criminal masterminds.
Pictured laying prone in a shell scrape is a soldier from C Sqn Household Cavalry Regiment during Exercise IRON SCOUT 3...The Household Cavalry Regiment is an Armoured Cavalry regiment equipped with CVR(T) recognisance vehicles (soon to receive the new AJAX vehicle) that allow the Regiment to project forward large distances and provide the forward recognisance for 1 (Armoured) Brigade. The Squadron used this demanding exercise to continue their work towards mounted excellence, refining their manoeuvres at night and seizing opportunities that the weather presented to close undetected towards the enemy. They worked alongside 4/73 (Sphinx) Special Observation Post Battery and 216 (Parachute) Signals Squadron to provide by day or by night, and in any weather, unblinking surveillance.
-------------------------------------------------------
© Crown Copyright 2014
Photographer: Cpl Tim Jones
Image 45161837.jpg from www.defenceimages.mod.uk
This image is available for high resolution download at www.defenceimagery.mod.uk subject to the terms and conditions of the Open Government License at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/. Search for image number 45161837.jpg
For latest news visit www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-defence
Follow us:
The whole woods are wet still, but the streams are looking sleepy. They've already taken the worst of melting snow and high lake overflow, so things seem somewhat summery already. Easy to cross with a few careful hops, and it's only ankle-deep if you misplace a step. The only green things are more or less eternal, and there'll be no sign of new growth in the dark places for weeks yet. Just pine needles, moss, and some species of fern that survives the winter. The rest is a sea of brown history, last year's leaves spread around on the leaves from the year before. It'll never get terribly alive down here, steady shade making sure of keeping things on the down-low. It's the kind of place I'll come looking for when the sun is high and glaring, hiding from that wild-minded, wide unblinking eye.
April 12, 2023
Wallbrook, Nova Scotia
facebook | instagram | tumblr | youtube | etsy
You can support my work
get things in the mail
and see everything
first on Patreon
A Noel In Black.
The doors to the homeless shelter shut in ten minutes, but Caleb needed another drink. It was Christmas Eve 1970, and he was wandering the streets of Eureka, California in a tattered and filthy Santa suit, crimson hat perched atop his head, dirty beard pulled down around his neck, a streak of vomit running down his left leg.
When the Salvation Army gave him the costume, days ago—how many now? Three? Four?—it had been brand new and shiny clean, but he had gone AWOL as soon as he had begged up enough money for a good drunk. He couldn’t believe how easy it was to get money begging in a Santa Suit during the holidays, especially when people thought they were giving to the Salvation Army. Too bad, he thought, that the racket had to end tonight. Fuck it, he was headed to the nearest bar and had a pocket full of money.
Bells on bob-tail ring, making spirits bright. Oh what fun it is to sing a sleighing song tonight.
Finally managing to make eye contact with the simian faced bartender who was absent-mindedly pushing a dishtowel up and down a pint glass, Caleb waved a fiver in the air, a wry smile of what the fuck? on his face. Red and green Christmas tree lights flickered over the bottles and mirrors and off in the corner the Ghost of Christmas Past grinned its horrid smile. The bartender nodded acknowledgment and strutted over.
“Yeah? Whaddya want?”
“Beer and a whiskey.”
“What kinda beer? What kinda whiskey?”
“The cheapest.”
The bartender got him his drinks, took the twenty, and left his change in front of him on the bar.
Sipping the bitter medicine, Caleb noticed a woman a few stools down trying to draw his attention, a jet of blue smoke issuing from her cherry-red lips as she raised and lowered her thickly-penciled eyebrows. He could tell she had done her best to look good tonight: lots of eye makeup, newer, hipper-looking clothes, but he could see the age in her face, recognized her need like a bad smell. Battered, needy women gave off a stink of desperation he’d learned to recognize over the years. Those years since he’d been back from the war. He’d had his fair share of these types. Always good for a warm bed and a hot meal, but too crazy to spend any real time with.
“Hey there, Santa. Buy a girl a drink?”
“Sure thing, honey.” Caleb glanced at the barkeep. “Give the lady what she wants.”
She slid down next to him as the grim faced bartender mixed a rum and coke, speared a lime with a tiny sword and dropped it in the glass. “I’ve always had a thing for Santa,” she whispered. “Coming in late at night to punish the naughty and reward the nice.”
“Yeah, and what are you, darling? Naughty or nice?”
“I’ve always thought I was a little of both.”
“Ha. What’s your name, baby?”
“Sandra. They call me Sandy around here. But I think of myself as Sandra.”
“All right, Sandra. What’s your story?”
“Just a local girl, been in the same place too long. What about you, Santa? Don’t you gotta lot of work to do tonight?”
Caleb laughed, that deep, reassuring laugh he’d mastered over the years, to put people—women especially—at ease. They talked for a while. Then Caleb ordered a pitcher of beer and a couple more shots and they moved to a corner booth. Sandra talked on and on, chain smoking Salems while he drank his beer and sipped his whiskey, watching as the room began to spin in slow, psychedelic and nauseating circles.
“You’re awful quiet.”
“I’ve been told that before.”
“How’d you get them scars on your neck?”
Caleb put his hand to his neck, let it drift down to the dirty fake beard, and pulled the knotted grey and black mess of hair over to cover his throat. And that wicked Ghost of Christmas Past with sunken eyes and yellow teeth whispered, “Tell her.” And so Caleb did.
“In the war.”
“You were over in ‘Nam, huh?”
“Yeah, two tours.”
“And then what? You come back to have these damn hippies spiting at you? I feel for you, sweetie. My daddy died in France fighting Nazis. Now my brother is in the Navy while this country goes to shit. You got these bastards like that dirty Abbey Hoffman saying to steal everything. And this Charlie Manson Family killing movie stars.” She laughed, shook her head and sipped her drink. “It’s enough to make you sick.”
They grew quiet. “So, you going to tell me about those scars, or what?”
“Well, I was a Kootchie Kootie. A tunnel rat. You know what that is?”
“Oh, yeah. You were one of those guys that go down in those gook holes?”
“Sure was. Infantry. 1st Reconnaissance Squadron.” He sighed, not wanting to get into it, but once he started it was hard to stop. “I was working three clicks west of Duc Pho in the Quang Ngai province. I was down in a tunnel. Just me, my .45 and a flash light. Looking out for booby traps and rats and spiders, and this animal. . . it came out of nowhere. Fucking attacked me. Just latched onto my shoulder and wouldn’t let go.”
“Oh, baby. You was attacked by an animal down in one of those tunnels?”
“Yeah. But when I killed it, when I shot it . . . ” He couldn’t tell her the rest. He couldn’t tell her how after he had shot that thing, the muzzle blast a blinding light, the report deafening, after he had filled that monster full of holes and watched it drop, it had looked just like a little girl. Just a tiny, raven-haired girl, all shot up and bloody, when moments ago it had been a beast: a mess of lurching fangs and drool.
His mouth moved up and down silently. He couldn’t say anything. Then, with an incredible effort, what he had managed to say was, “I think I brought something back with me. I . . . I . . . I don’t know.”
“You brought something back with you? You mean like that agent orange stuff, honey?”
“No, something different. Something, something. . .”
“What? In your head?”
He wanted to say, no, something in my blood: I brought back something in my blood that makes me a monster; but instead, he just nodded yes, his face a knot, visibly fighting to not break down in tears.
“Oh, baby, oh, baby, I understand.”
The room was twirling now at a breakneck speed. He was going to be sick. He pulled away from her and vomited on the floor.
“Son of a bitch!” the bartender shouted. “Who’s going to clean that up?”
Caleb hung over the edge of the booth, retching and dry heaving.
“Fuck you, Sam. He’s a veteran! He fought for this country, got attacked down in one of them gook holes. What the fuck you ever done?”
“I don’t care if he was on the beach at Normandy. Get him the fuck out of here!”
“You’re a piece of work. A real piece of work, know that, Sam? Where’s your sense of Christmas spirit?”
The bartender stomped up to her, eyes bulging, an accusing finger extended. “Get your cheap-whore ass out of here, bitch, and take your Santa Claus friend with you. Got me?” he grabbed her face in his hand and jerked her chin up so that he could look her in the eye. “This bar ain’t no place for you any more, Sandy. You make my customers sick. Everyone who’s wanted to has fucked you, and none of them’s too proud of it either. You'se don’t belong here. Find some other place to haunt, you cheap skank.” With that he tossed her head aside and stormed back behind the bar.
We wish you a merry Christmas. We wish you a merry Christmas. We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
Sandra walked Caleb back to the motel room she rented by the month, holding him up the whole way while he leaned against her mumbling and pointing to ghosts she could not see. Once they were back at her room she helped him out of his Santa outfit and got him into the tub. In the heat of the steamy water he regained a semblance of consciousness, came back to himself. When he looked up he saw her through the mist, leaning in the doorway, staring at him. She had changed and was now wearing nothing but a silk kimono. He had to admit she didn’t look that bad.
“How you feeling, Santa?”
“Good. I feel . . .” he paused, unsure what to say, how he actually felt. “Good.”
She knelt down beside the tub, ran her finger over the surface of the water. “Thirsty?” she asked, holding up a tumbler of Scotch and water.
“As a matter of fact, I am.”
Taking the glass into his hands, he took a sip. Handing it back to her she gave him a penetrating stare that he found hard to decipher and then leaned in to kiss him. She tasted of whiskey, cigarettes and peppermint. But it was good, the way she gently ran her tongue over his upper lip before she pulled away, and Caleb felt himself growing aroused.
“Now that you’re all cleaned up, why don’t we get you to bed.”
“Sounds good, baby.”
“Dry yourself off. I’ll be waiting.” With that she disappeared out the door.
He got up from the tub and dried himself the best he could with the cheap, tiny towels the motel provided. When he entered the room she was already on the bed, prone on her back and naked. She may have had a butter face but her body was to die for, and she knew how to flaunt it. He started towards her but she held up her hand, palm out toward him, and exclaimed, “Stop right there, mister. The Santa suit. Put it on.”
He gave her a questioning half grimace and then smiled. “You serious?”
“I told you: I gotta thing for Santa.”
Smirking, he pulled on the dirty jacket and set the conical hat atop his head. “Better?”
“Oh, yeah, baby. I’ve been so naughty. I need to be punished.”
With that she burst out in playful laughter, turned over onto all fours, and stuck her ass into the air, whispering over her shoulder, “Come and get it, Santa.”
He approached the bed and, still standing, he pulled himself into her. She let out a deep moan and he began to move, slowly. He was still drunk as hell and the room was spinning slightly but he could feel that primal urge within to rock and rotate. He began to lunge faster, and faster, and then, suddenly, it was happening again.
Fuck. No. No. No. It was happening again. He could feel himself beginning to change as he thrust against her. A part of him wanted to run away, to bolt through the door and into the night so that he wouldn’t hurt her. But another part of him wanted this. It felt good. It felt so fucking good to let go and let the animal inside him take over. Still pounding, Sandra moaning beneath him, he watched in wonder as his fingers—tightly gripping her bony hips—became claws and a thick mat of fur began to weave itself up his arms. Thrusting against her with all his might he lifted his face and began to howl as his mouth filled with sharp, gleaming fangs.
Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus, right down Santa Claus lane!
Margaret Ashton was the manager of the Lone Pine motel. She had been across the street visiting with her daughter and grandson in their two-story, cookie-cutter house, and she was just walking back to the motel office when she heard the screaming in room 308. It was that cheap-tramp Sandy’s room. Margaret had been waiting for an excuse to evict her and marched up to the door, ready to throw her out, Christmas Eve or not. But as she grew closer and heard the urgency to the screams, the gut-wrenching terror of the squeals, she grew hesitant and stopped. Suddenly, without warning, the window shattered, showering her with glass and splintered wood. She fell back and slipped to the ground, watching in utter disbelief as the craziest thing she had ever seen in her life of fifty-six years came tumbling down atop her. It was a wolf. A huge monster of a wolf, with a snarling mouth of fangs dripping blood and drool. And it was wearing a red coat lined in white fur with a Santa cap perched atop its head.
From his bedroom window her grandson Tommy watched the entire thing.
Later that night homicide detectives would interview the little boy. Tearfully he would relate how he had seen his grandmother ripped to shreds by some kind of beast in a Santa suit. One of the uniformed officers standing idly in the background would then turn to his partner and whisper under his breath, “Looks like grandma got run over by a werewolf, walking home from his house Christmas Eve.”
God, the Easter Bunny, and the Ghost of Christmas Present watched as two-year-old Annabelle toddled out the door of her street-level apartment and onto the sidewalk, a thumb stuck in her mouth and dragging a Barbie doll along by the hair. God looked like the guy from the Dos Equis commercials: an incredibly good looking older gentleman with white hair, perfectly coifed, and a nicely trimmed beard, in a tuxedo. The Ghost of Christmas Present looked extremely bored and kept yawning. The Easter Bunny was an out-of-work writer who needed a shave, dressed in a pink bunny outfit.
“Cute kid,” the Easter Bunny commented.
“I wouldn’t get too attached,” the Ghost of Christmas Present replied, disinterestedly stifling a yawn.
Annabelle’s parents were fighting again and they could all hear their voices echoing out from the apartment.
“Just how many Quaaludes did you take? You can’t even look at me. Jesus, wake up, bitch, I’m talking to you.”
“Fuck off, Henry. You always were a bore.”
“You dumb cunt. I oughta slap the stupid right offa your face.”
When the wolf came galloping down the middle of the street in its blood soaked Santa suit the Easter Bunny turned to God and said, “You gotta be putting me on, man.”
God rolled his eyes.
The wolf grabbed the baby in its mouth and threw the child upward into the night sky where she hung suspended in the moonlight for a moment, tiny arms and legs kicking, and then tumbled down, landing on the street with a thud. The beast leapt at her, sinking its fangs into her neck and thrashing its head side to side until the tiny figure ceased to struggle and lay limp in its mouth.
“It’s probably for the best,” the Ghost of Christmas Past said.
“What? Why?” the Easter Bunny asked, scratching at the stubble on his face.
“You want to tell him, God? Or should I?”
God gestured with his hands, as if to say, “Go ahead. It’s all you.”
“If Annabelle had lived through this night, after being molested by her stepfather and stepbrother, she would have become a heroin addict by fourteen and a prostitute by fifteen. She then would have gotten picked up by a notorious serial killer who after raping her for days would finally kill her by trying to give her a lobotomy with a cordless drill. Her life taken like this, quickly and mercifully, is a blessing, a thing of joy. A Christmas miracle.”
“Is this true?” the Easter Bunny asked God.
God grinned and nodded.
“You don’t say much, do you?” the Easter Bunny asked God.
God just shrugged.
Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la la la la la. ‘Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la la la la la.
Father Mulligan was cleaning up after midnight mass when he heard the click-clack of claws on the wooden floor. He paused, chalice in one hand, ciborium in the other, and listened.
“Hello?” he called out, his voice echoing throughout the empty chapel. “Who’s there?”
Beneath the pounding of blood in his ears he distinctly heard panting, like that of a large animal. “Hello?”
Deep in the dark recess of the hall something stirred, moved, and then came slinking out of the shadows: a large creature walking on all fours, its eyes alight and flickering like yellow flames. The beast came forward slowly down the aisle, Santa hat drooping down one side of its head, a dead baby hung limply in its mouth. The wolf approached the altar and came so close that the priest could smell it, a feral odor of blood and musk. It spit the baby to the floor where it landed with a horrible smack.
But the priest didn’t run. He stood his ground, murmuring prayers beneath his breath. He knew why the beast was there, why this spawn of evil had come. It was here to punish him. Punish him for the things he had done to all those little boys. So many. First in Ireland when he had just been doing what had been done to him when he was an altar boy. Then, after coming to America, in Philadelphia, where for years the urban darkness of poverty and city life had let him run rampant. Not yet here in California, where he had been sent quickly by the diocese so as not to cause a scandal. But he had his eyes on a few of the boys in his congregation. Some of the poorer ones who he thought wouldn’t tell.
Seeing the monster here was a blessing and death would be a mercy. He fell to his knees, kissed his stole, and lifted his neck to the beast. But instead of taking him by the throat, the beast spun him around by the shoulders so that the priest fell face first to the floor. With one quick jerking motion the monster shredded the priest’s pants and mounted him. The priest cried out in pain and surprise as the wolf forcibly entered him and warm blood began to trickle down his leg.
God, the Easter Bunny and the Ghost of Christmas Present stood at the back of the chapel watching. The Easter Bunny had taken off his hood of rabbit ears and was puffing on an e-cigarette and furiously tapping away on an iPad mini. “Been blogging about this whole thing, and, yeah, a lot of people see that as offensive. I mean, what the fuck? You got a werewolf dressed like Santa Claus raping a child molesting priest on Christmas Eve?”
The Ghost of Christmas Present laughed heartily. “Well, I hate to say I told you so, but . . .”
“You got nothing to say about this, God?” the Easter Bunny asked, momentarily looking away from his iPad.
God tilted his head to the left, his thin lips bending into a sad frown, and, raising his eyebrows in an, “Oh, well,” manner, shrugged again.
Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let Earth receive her king!
Gravy Brain Jane was out of her mind on LSD and had nowhere to go. She had a thousand tabs of purple sunshine on her but the connect had never shown and wasn’t answering the phone. Exasperated and befuddled, her vision a swirling cyclone of light and darkness, she stumbled from the Greyhound Station to a small clearing in a copse of woods. She sat leaning against a tree, the branches dripping and melting around her, the sky a miasma of spiraling stars and galaxies. She giggled and mumbled, “No sense makes sense,” to herself.
Charlie had sent a message from prison that she should deliver the acid here. If Charlie said it would work out, it would work out. She was sure of that. She had thought the other passengers on the bus would have been startled and scared by the X that Sandy and Squeaky had helped her burn into her forehead with hot bobby pins, but no one had noticed at all.
The Easter Bunny, who wasn’t even wearing his rabbit outfit anymore, and was now just dressed in his usual black jeans and t-shirt, was pacing back and forth irritably. He turned to the Ghost of Christmas Present and asked, slightly argumentatively, “Well, where’s God?”
“Oh, he couldn’t make it. Had a concert to catch.”
“A concert? What are you talking about?”
“Well, it was Skynard and you know how he loves Free Bird.”
“Typical.”
Gravy Brain Jane giggled when she saw the beast slowly creeping towards her. She had been taught to love coyotes when the family was in the desert of Death Valley. Back on the ranch Charlie had taught them to break down the final walls society imposed on them by having them fellate the stray dogs.
“Hey there, beautiful,” she said. The wolf just stared at her with its unblinking yellow eyes.
From their glimmer and spark she knew just what the creature wanted. It wanted what all men want and she had been taught the ways of a free love society. Giggling she squirmed from her panties and lifted her skirt with a vacant grin. She knew that in love there is no wrong. That submission is a gift and that you should never learn not to love. Charlie had taught her well.
She spread her legs, exposing herself, and the beast crept up to her and lowered its snout to her and began to lap at her in quick, greedy, licks. She gripped his ears tight, her head thrown back, and thought about how groovy and sexy it was to be pleasured by the beast, to have death and life so close, to lay your hands upon the monster and be free in love. As she bucked and lurched and felt herself climax she thought about how the Son of Man had taught her that death is only another orgasm, that everything in the universe is in and out and in and out in a cosmic orgy, babies coming out, galaxies sinking into black holes, knives plunging in, blood pouring out. Wow! Talk about the Big Bang!
The beast crawled atop her and slipped itself into her. When it shuddered and released itself inside her she knew within her heart that she would be with child. This was a happy moment. A glorious moment in time. Another Christmas miracle. Oh, joyous night. She would name this child Stewart, Stewart Kirby, after her grandfather.
Afterwards, the beast lay against her, spent. She stroked its fur with her nails and gently kissed its blood drenched snout. In this way the beast kept the girl warm through the coldest hours of the night.
Silent Night. Holy Night. All is calm. All is bright.
Free in the moonlight as snow began to fall, bathed in the stink of congealing human blood, the taste of flesh and woman fresh on its lips and tongue, the lycanthrope ran, the stars above him a smear of spilled milk, the moon a cataract eye aglow in malignancy.
On the First Day of Christmas my true love gave to me. . .
Caleb awoke in the morning naked and freezing, enveloped in the scent of the Douglas fir and redwood. He shivered and looked about. Snow was falling heavily, blanketing the earth in white. Beside him lay his tattered Santa costume, by some miracle the hat still clung to his head.
He glanced above the towering tree tops to the shelter of the sky and saw there a light both majestic and bizarre. Seemingly fake, like a bad special effect from a cheap television show. And in that glaring gleam of white, he saw a black figure descend: The Ghost of Christmas Future who spoke in a deep and sultry voice while extending out a hand, “Do you wish to come with me?”
In his mind all he could hear was Bing Crosby crooning I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas, and a million worlds passed before his eyes. Birthday cakes with only a few candles to blow out. His mother’s smile as she tugged on thread, sewing patches on a Cub Scout sash. Playing catch with his dad who bought him that special glove for little league and would oil it with him in the falling sun of the suburban evening. Watching Kennedy’s skull explode on television, Jackie screeching and trying desperately to crawl away. The Howdy Doodie show. Lee Harvey Oswald grimacing in pain and turning as Ruby put a bullet in his side. That gnarled old apple tree in the backyard, how that ancient tree would fill with tiny white blossoms in the spring so that you could not tell how old and bent it really was, its age hidden in its blooming. How those tiny petals fell in early summer, glistening in the amber light, a shimmering rain of flowers cascading down and lying white as snow on the ground. Sweat streaming down his brow as he pushed a lawnmower, that smell of fresh-cut grass, such a vibrant green it made his head hurt. Behind the baseball dugout with Betty Connors on a warm summer night: his first kiss. How she had moved away soon after and he had never seen her again. His draft card: that plain and innocuous envelope of a pale yellow color that they’d all dreaded and all expected. Telling his father, “Guess I’m going to war, pops.” And his father just nodding back stoically. His gal Sally, with her beehive hairdo, who wouldn’t let him fuck her no matter how hard he begged and pleaded, telling her he didn’t want to go to war a virgin. The ancient apple tree in autumn, loaded with ripe fruit. The bumpy ride over the Pacific in a military transport plane. The Vietnamese whore who spread her legs for a single American dollar. Paddy fields burned and incinerated so that no water stood within them and the rice stalks withered. January 1968. Tet: The New Year, a time to worship ancestors. An intricate barrage of hellfire. Medivac choppers stuffed with bloody men and boys. Fire fights, flares illuminating the night, the thunder of mortars and sparks of muzzle flash. A landscape of smoke and exploding ordinances. Those mornings when the bombers flew in and the ground shook like jelly. Seeing men he knew dancing and screaming in flames. Splintered, broken trees, smoke billowing in the distance. The Pickle Switch and canisters of napalm. VC bodies dressed in black lying in horrible piles. A rifle on the ground with a stream of ammunition dripping out of it. “I dare you to pick up that dead man’s gun.” “Yeah, right.” The tunnels. And the idea of winter, just the concept of it in that hot, hot land where all is hidden from you, taken, and there is nothing to believe in or hope for, but you imagine that tree back home nonetheless, barren and without leaves and fruit, draped in snow and frozen. The way the men whispered when they found a dead body, till all you hear is whispers of body, body, body. Then the beast appears who is really only a little girl. How could you have thought that a little girl was a monster? There was no monster, just a little girl, you made everything else up. But now there is a monster, just as sure as there are ghosts, an Easter Bunny and a God. It’s you. You’re the monster. You’re the beast. And you think to yourself, “What have I done? What did I do?” Then, as you face this ultimate truth, the cold takes you. And when would spring come again? Certainly not in this lifetime, and not on this earth. So, “Yes,” you say to the cold and the winter. To the Ghost of Christmas Future who holds nothing forth but death. “Yes. Take me. Just take me away and let me be free.” An affirmation to end the rest of your negations.
And you let go of that aching, awful, agonizing pain of being a man of flesh and blood, the cold slowing down your heart, and give in to death.
And as you slip away, into the embrace of the Ghost of Christmas Future, you wonder, “Was it real? Was any of it real at all?”
And in the heavens a laughing God finally breaks his silence and answers: “There is no such thing as real. It’s all just a dream within a dream.”
Story written by: HumboldtLycanthrope
Behold this study in AI, a Forest River A213HWESP A-frame camping trailer morphed into a steampunk nightmare, a shimmering, brass-clawed leviathan squatting on a sun-blistered patch of dirt like a rogue AI’s vision of Victorian chaos unleashed! Its jagged, angular frame stabs at the sky, a reckless middle finger to conformity, studded with porthole windows and brass fittings that wail with the echoes of 19th-century lunacy, as if an AI had chugged Jules Verne’s entire bibliography and vomited up a blueprint for madness, slapped onto a tow hitch. Strapped to its rear, that leather suitcase—oh, man, it’s a weathered, digital relic, packed to the brim with propane, the precious lifeblood of the camping wild, a volatile elixir ready to ignite the fires of adventure in this untamed, simulated frontier. The whole rig hunkers down on its wheels, brass flashing like the icy, unblinking gaze of a neural net gone rogue, poised to drag you into the glitchy, uncharted wilderness of a coded wasteland. This ain’t just a camper—it’s an AI’s unhinged dream of liberty, a binary-fueled rocket to the brink of reason, and I’m already half-crazed just downloading its chaotic data stream!
Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts. Garry Winogrand
The Unblinking Eye
Ilford FP4 plus Sheet Film @ ASA80
The Recipe
5 mins pre soak
20 mins Ilford ID11 @ 1:3 plus 20% stand
Stop 60 secs
5 mins Ilford Fixer
10 mins wash
Ilfotol Wetting Agent
My neighbors just got a new kitten. When I walk by in the late afternoon, he's there in the window, staring at me. He never blinks. He's tiny, but patient.
Best viewed large.
Night comes and goes with little possibility of sleep. As the first rays of morning penetrate their small cell, Larry and Rita finish catching Niles up on everything that’s happened, and how they came to be here. Niles listens with astute interest as Larry finishes the tale, clenching his fists when he gets to Eric’s betrayal. They share the gloom of their cell in silence. Niles looks over to Cliff, staring pensively at the ground. He hasn’t said a word since they got here.
Niles: Cliff? You haven’t said anything all night. What’s troubling you?
Cliff pulls his gaze from the floor, Brain’s words still echoing through his mind.
Cliff: Huh? Yeah, I’m fine.
The four of them sit there for an hour or so, attempting despite the humidity of the morning to go to sleep. It doesn’t come. After a while, Rita sits up and finally plucks up the courage to ask the question they’ve all been wanting to ask since they arrived.
Rita: Niles… what did you mean before, when you said you had to leave? Where were you going? And no dodging the question this time!
Larry and Cliff look at Niles. Niles fidgets uncomfortably against the wall. He takes a moment before answering.
Niles: It’s… complicated.
They watch him eagerly.
Niles: There’s a lot I can’t tell you. Not because I don’t want to, believe me… but because it would be irresponsible of me. However, due to the current circumstances…
He looks around the cell.
Niles: I may not have much choice. Perhaps I was wrong to think you all unready…
He takes a long, drawn out breath. He is about to speak, but before the words can see the light of day a rumbling noise comes from behind the door. All of them look over to it as it is heaved open and Mallah, grin on his leathery face, barges in.
Mallah: It’s time.
Before anyone can protest, he grabs Niles under the shoulders and hauls him onto his back. Larry jumps up, but halts as Niles raises a hand to him.
Niles: Listen to me! Find Senec – tell him Niles Caulder sent you! He’ll know what needs to be done…
Mallah slams the door shut behind him, and just like that he’s gone. Larry looks round to the others, and is comforted by the fact they look just as confused as he is.
====================
Every step Mallah takes causes Niles great discomfort as he bounces around on his back. Mallah adjusts his grip, pulling Niles’ arms over his shoulders. Niles murmurs uncomfortably.
Niles: Don’t you get tired of lugging people around all day? It seems that’s all you do.
Mallah looks ahead and grunts.
Mallah: I enjoy it. Keeps the mind active.
Niles: But I remember you, Mallah. You used to be such an excitable little chimp; so full of life. What happened?
Mallah: Life grinds you down. I read Sartre and smoke cigarettes now. What more can I say?
Niles sighs as Mallah walks into the central room decked out with machinery. Niles isn’t surprised to see Brain, proudly stood to the side of the machine he had called ‘The White Room’. As he is dumped on the ground, he spots a forlorn looking Eric Morden sat on a crate at the edge of the room, looking at his feet. Mallah steps over Niles and joins Brain.
Brain: Niles Caulder… after all these years, our debt will be settled.
Niles sits up on his arms and groans.
Niles: Oh not this nonsense again. If you’re going to kill me bloody well get on with it.
Brain scoffs obnoxiously.
Brain: And ruin all my fun? Oh no no mon cheri, we do this on my terms I am afraid. Mallah, prepare ‘im.
Mallah moves around the other side of the machine and disappears out of view.
Brain: Mallah will momentarily administer a small, epidermal injection to your spine. Following this, you will lose all control of your body and will be completely paralysed.
Niles: Afraid I’m going to run away, are you?
Brain: Silence!
Niles smirks.
Brain: You will then be placed inside the void of the White Room, where you will be subject to… uhm… torture… of the mind… and soul…
Niles frowns and holds up a hand.
Niles: A moment, if you would. Are you even remotely certain of what this thing will do?
Brain pauses for a second.
Brain: The creators of the machine left detailed instructions…
Niles: Yes, on how to build the thing. But do you actually know what it will do to me once I’m inside?
Brain pauses again.
Brain: Well… not exactly, no.
Niles sighs.
Niles: So you don’t even know if this thing will work?
Mallah re-emerges from round the machine, clutching a syringe and a straitjacket.
Mallah: Of course it will you ‘airless monkey! I ‘ave worked long and ‘ard to ensure this machine is in perfect working condition! Your death will be as unpleasant as it needs to be!
He joins Brain and glares at Niles on the floor.
Niles: Your master here didn’t sound so certain.
Mallah looks round at Brain.
Mallah: Really, my love?
Brain: Of course not! I know ‘ow ‘ard you ‘ave worked! It is impossible it will fail!
Niles: If you’re so uncertain why don’t you test it out?
Brain and Mallah go quiet. Brain considers for a moment and laughs mockingly at Niles.
Brain: Very good, Caulder, very good. And who would you ‘ave me test it on, eh? Myself, perhaps? Mallah? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice and… you shall not again!
Niles chuckles along with them for a moment and turns and points over to the corner of the room.
Niles: What about him?
Eric, still sat moping on his crate, is startled and looks over at them. Mallah looks at Brain for a second and shrugs. Brain goes quiet, and after a moment whispers under his mechanical breath.
Brain: Everything ‘appens for a reason…
He snaps back into life.
Brain: Fine Caulder. ‘Ave it your way. Mallah, prepare ‘im!
Mallah rushes across the room. Before Eric can even register what’s going on, he is pulled to his feet and dragged over to face the White Room. He tries to plead with Brain, but a meek grunting sound is all his mouth can produce. Mallah forces his arms into the straitjacket and secures it tightly around his body. He then seizes Eric by his scalp, pulling him into the air like a wet dishcloth, and jabs the needle into the base of his spine. He squirms, thrashing his legs about wildly, then goes still. A bead of sweat drips down his forehead and into his wet, unblinking eye. He tries to scream, but it makes it as far as his throat and gives up – it’s like his jaw is wired shut. Niles watches with morbid fascination as Mallah holds his rigid body securely against his chest and pulls the door to the White Room open.
Niles notices how the machine’s interior seems to go on forever, like a morose optical illusion; a terrible white horizon stretching out into a bleak infinity. Mallah drops Eric down on a single seat in what must be the centre of the machine and closes the door on him. Niles shifts uncomfortably on the ground. Mallah goes to a control panel next to the machine and presses a couple of buttons. A terrible mechanical sound fills the air as the White Room buzzes into life, and Niles is suddenly aware how glad he is to be out here and not inside the machine, now vibrating angrily. Mallah grabs a lever, the lights in the compound flickering madly, and pulls it down.
====================
Larry paces around the cell anxiously. He watches Cliff as he tries and fails one more time to pry the door off its hinges and fall back against the wall, defeated.
Larry: We can’t give up this easily!
Rita sits on the ground, replaying Niles’ final words in her head.
Rita: What did Niles mean – ‘find Senec?’ What’s Senec?
Larry: That’s not gonna matter if we can’t get out of here. Come on big guy, one more try!
Cliff holds his hands up.
Cliff: It won’t budge man, I’m tellin’ ya. Can’t Casper the unfriendly ghost come out?
Larry: He doesn’t exactly take requests, Cliff…
Cliff: How convenient…
Rita: BOYS!
She stands up, arms to her side, and glares at them. Larry is about to reply, before he realises why she’s shut them up. The walls of their cell begin to shake as if hit by a minor earthquake, and the single bulb suspended from the ceiling starts to flicker.
Larry: Oh god… Niles…
He opens his jacket and puts a hand on his chest. Nothing.
Larry: Come on, please…
Cliff goes over to him and stares at his chest, like a hapless father watching his wife in labour. He raises his fists encouragingly and bounces up and down on his knees.
Cliff: Yeah, c’mon buddy… you can do it! I didn’t mean what I said before!
They both stare at Larry’s chest as the tremors intensify. As nothing continues stubbornly to happen, Rita takes a breath and unbeknownst to the boys kneels down.
Rita: Here goes nothing…
She focuses all her attention on her right hand. She pictures herself as the hulking mass of flesh in her bed, as the puddle on the floor of the cave, as a monster hiding away from the world… and remembers Cliff’s words: ‘I don’t think you’re a monster…’ Her arm melts. She grits her teeth and concentrates all her energy on her now flat right arm, keeping the rest of her body together. Her arm shifts, and she winces as she imagines it twisting along the ground. After a few seconds her arm responds, and it begins to stretch out across the ground of their cell and towards the door like a fleshly, shapeless snake. It reaches the gap underneath the door and pushes through it to the outside. She winces as she focuses her attention on now getting it to move upwards, and sure enough it does. She feels it winding its way up the cool metal door of their cell like a rapid growing vine, stopping as it reaches the bolt on the outside of the door. She shuts her eyes, imagines herself undoing it, and opens her eyes in surprise as she hears the bolt slide out of its lock and the cell door creak open.
Larry and Cliff don’t move. Rita falls back against the ground, exhausted, and focuses on reforming her arm.
Rita: A woman’s work is never done.
Larry and Cliff dart over to her, lifting her up gently.
Larry: Rita… wow…
Rita: Niles…
Cliff pushes the door open fully and makes a break for it, followed closely by Larry and a recovering Rita. The three of them run down the corridor and towards the source of the noise, careful to maintain their balance as the corridor around them shakes violently. They burst into the compound’s central room and freeze when they lay their eyes upon the White Room, shuddering aggressively and smoking. The wires sprouting out from its roof tremble as brilliant white light radiates out from a single window on its door, casting deep shadows around the room. They spot the Brain and Mallah, embracing to the side of it, and a deep dread fills their hearts. They are about to cry out for it to stop, but notice Niles, sprawled across the ground before it and covering his eyes. They rush over to him.
Rita: Niles! What’s happening?
He holds up a hand.
Niles: I think we may be about to find out…
They stare at the White Room as its movement reaches an erratic crescendo and ends. They shield their eyes from the dazzling white light that fills the room as the door erupts off its hinges and a silhouetted figure emerges from within.
Atrium entrance way in a long abandoned girls school in Belgium. This old school was pretty high up on last falls' Eurotrip to-do list. Unfortunately the only information we had on the place going in was a one-liner from a fellow photographer who wrote us to say: "hop tall barbed wire fence in the middle of a busy street, there may be an old women who gives you the Evil eye." We arrived mid morning and sure enough the school is right in the middle of a dense city block with active buildings adjoining it from both sides. We find the fence in question and I climb up to get a better view of the long drop down into the back courtyard. As I'm trying to navigate the barbed wire strands I hear a voice behind me say: "there's a woman." I look back, and directly behind me is an old woman staring out an open window of the next door neighbors house. She says nothing but glares at me unblinking, Evil-eye in full force. Feeling horribly uncomfortable, we decide to try an alternative option. Sure enough the front door on the other side of the block is open. With the Evil-eye averted, we photographed the old school with it's beautiful columned atrium in relative peace.
"the moon just stood there, staring back at us
like a a big unblinking eye"
messing around with texture, circles, and astronomy
One of the wonderful women I encountered while on my mohair shoot. I loved her whole attitude and the way she carried herself. Her hands never stopped doing her work and she looked at me a little shyly but with a great sense of who she was as a woman.
This issue is from Peter Parker's perspective.
----
God, it's freezing outside. I'm not sure how much longer I can wear my tights in weather like this. My nipples could probably cut through glass right now. Hopefully there are statistics on the internet to convince me that there's less crime during winter months. At this point, that’s all the incentive I'd need to spend more time indoors. But I can't just quit over something as trivial as the temperature. If worse comes to worst, I'll just ask MJ to knit a spider-scarf for me. Warm, yet fashionable.
I'm currently perched on a roof listening to the police scanner app that I recently downloaded. I'm not sure why I never thought of doing that until now. It’s definitely more effective than sitting around and waiting for police cars to speed by, that's for sure. I bought a pair of Bluetooth earbuds, too. I made that investment because I kept ripping out my old pair's auxiliary cord while on the go. But the best part of that purchase is that I no longer have to lodge my phone in my—.
The scanner interrupts my thoughts to tell me that an officer is en route to respond to a disturbance. The perp is a man dressed as a clown. I can't ignore this. It's my chance to become the hero that Gotham deserves. And it's a chance to get off of this freezing roof, too.
I leap from ledge to ledge until I'm near the area mentioned on the scanner. Underfoot is a man caked in makeup. His getup is ridiculously flashy, to the extent that it's painful to look at. As I descend the wall, he catches sight of me. Unfazed by my abilities, he smirks. Probably because he saw me on the news and felt like wasting my time. “I'm Clown-9!” he declares.
“Say again?”
“I’m Clown-9, because when I wear this outfit, I'm on cloud nine!”
“So it's a sex thing, then?”
I drop down and get closer. He stares at me with unblinking eyes. “Stop clowning around, Spider-Man!”
“You didn't.”
“I did.”
God damn it, his humor is too advanced for me. How am I even supposed to respond to that?
Before I can properly retort, my cellphone starts ringing. I fiddle around until I can pry it out of my costume. Clown-9 awkwardly watches this play out.
“The cops are going to be here any second, 'Clown-9!’” I yell over my ringtone.
“You're not going to beat me up?” he asks, as if he's disappointed.
“Are you a masochist? No, of course I'm not going to beat you up. I guess the joke's on you, Clown-9.” I say and then immediately cringe at myself.
He remains silent, so I run off and start scaling the building I came from earlier. I glance at the caller ID displayed on my phone and notice that it says “Daily Bugle.” Excited by what that must mean, I press the button to answer the call. It has to be about those pictures I submitted.
“Hello,” I say while in the middle of climbing. The good thing about stick 'em powers is that dropping my phone is pretty much out of the question.
“Hi, I'm Ben Urich from the Daily Bugle. I just saw your entry to our contest and I'd like to discuss something about it with you in person,” says a man on the other end.
I quickly glance below me to see some of New York's finest putting cuffs on a clown. I hope he was just loitering and he's not the new Gacy.
“Oh, uh, okay. When's a good time to meet?” I say while directing my attention back to the call and climbing.
“You tell me when you're available,” he says.
“Anytime this week should work. I don't have to worry about school since I go to Midtown. They cancelled it after the incident,” I say with an elongated sigh, assuming he heard the news. He does work for the Daily Bugle, after all.
“Would you be able to drop by my home office later today? I'll cover the taxi fare.”
“Don't worry about the taxi, just give me the address and a time,” I say, excited to receive the payment for the pictures.
“Sure thing. I'll text them to you.”
If you come to me at this moment
Your minutes will become hours
Your hours will become days
And your days will become a lifetime
To the Princess of the Elephants
I dissapeared exactly one year ago
On that day, I received a letter
It called me back to the place
where my life with the Elephants began
Please forgive me for the silence between us
has been unbroken for one year
This letter breaks that silence
It marks the first of my
three hundred and sixty five letters to you
One for each day of silence
I will never be more myself,
than in these letters
They are my maps of the bird path
And they are all that I know
To be true
You will remember everything
All will be as before
In the begining of time,
the skies were filled with flying elephants
Every night they lay down
in the same place in the sky
And dreamt with one eye open
When you gaze up at the stars at night
You are looking into the unblinking eyes
of elephants, who sleep with one eye open
To best keep watch over us
Ever since my house burnt down
I see the moon more clearly
I gazed upon all the Edens that have fallen in me
I saw Edens that I had held in my hands,
but let go
I saw promises I did not keep
Pains I did not sooth
Wounds I did not heal
Tears I did not shed
I saw deaths I did not mourn
Prayers I did not answer
Doors I did not open
Doors I did not close
Lovers I left behind
And dreams I did not live
I saw all that was offered to me,
that I could not accept
I saw the letters I wished for,
but never received
I saw all that could have been,
but never will be
An elephant with his trunk raised
is a letter to the stars
A breaching whale is a letter
from the bottom of the sea
These images are a letter to my dreams
My heart is like an old house,
who's windows have not been opened for years
But now I hear the windows opening
I remember the cranes floating above
the melting snows of the Himalayas
Sleeping on tails of manatees
The songs of the bearded seals
The bark of the zeebra
The clicks of the sand
The ears of the caracals
The sway of the elephants
The breaching of whales
And the silhouette of the eland
I remember the curl of the meerkat's toes
Floating on the Ganges
Sailing on the Nile
Endless seas and thousands of miles of rivers
...I remember father to children...
...And the taste...I remember...
...and the pealing of the peach...
I remember everything
But I do not remember ever having left
remember your dreams
remember
The longer I watch the Savanna elephants,
the more I listen, the more that i open,
they remind me of who I am
May the guardian elephants hear my wish
to collaborate with all the musicians of nature's orchestra
I want to see through the eyes of the elephant
I want to join the dance that has no steps
I want to become the dance
I can't tell if you are getting closer or farther away
I long for the serenity I found
when I looked upon your face
Perhaps if your face could be returned to me now,
I would find it easier to recover
the face I seemed to have lost
My own
Feather to fire
fire to blood
blood to bone
bone to marrow
marrow to ashes
ashes to snow
feather to fire
fire to blood
What matters, is not
what is written on the page,
what matters, is
what is written in the heart.
So burn the letters
And lay their ashes on the snow
At the river's edge
When spring comes and the snow melts
And the river rizes
Return to the banks of the river
And reread my letters with your eyes closed
Let the words and the images
wash over your body like waves
Reread the letters,
with your hand cupped over your ear
Page, after page, after page
Listen to the songs of Eden
Fly the bird path
Fly
Brisbane August 10, 2014 Queensland, Australia. We fly home later today.
After four years working closely with Yayoi Kusama and the Public Art Unit in Brisbane, Sydney based Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery were finally able to announce the opening of the epic outdoor sculpture Eyes are Singing Out at Brisbane’s Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law on the 30th of August.
Composed of 350 enamelled steel eyes secured onto a 90 metre long arcing concrete wall, the sculpture is the only permanent artwork of Yayoi Kusama’s in Australia and is the largest artwork by this significant artist internationally.
The various eye designs that are utilised for the installation were created by Kusama using ink and brush and then translated into the steel and enamel pieces that cover the wall which spans one entire city centre block between Roma and George Streets.
Installed in conjunction with the construction of the new Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law building as designed by Professor John Hockings of the highly acclaimed architectural firm Architectus, Eyes are Singing Out is a poignant reminder of the power and responsibility bestowed upon the guardians of law and justice.
”In a time when public accountability is of the utmost importance Kusama’s eyes not only look back at you, they surround the courts with looking” explains Jay Younger, the curator of the project. “Metaphorically the process of justice is made transparent through the building’s glass façade to the unblinking eyes, forever watching.”
Often described as the “window to the soul”, the eye is presented by Kusama as not only for looking out from within, but also for looking in from without. In her artist’s statement, Kusama says that “There is no end to the glorification of the peoples around the world. Their beautiful souls, having turned into hundreds of millions of eyes, continue to watch our future.”
Artist’s Statement:
"The numerous eyes that we dreamed about have spread into the whole sky, carrying with them a message of visual sensation.
It is a message of world peace and the overflowing happiness of humankind we have been praying for all the time.
There is no end to the glorification of the peoples around the world.
Their beautiful souls, having turned into hundreds of millions of eyes, continue to watch our future.
These eyes will keep on singing out louder and louder that love is forever and infinite, to the ends of the universe."
For more Info: www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/829205/yayoi-kusamas-epi...
The Wild Reindeer Of Sunny California
In the middle of the cotton and polyester blend field of snow stood the majestic wild reindeer of sunny California, unmoving, its fur thick and black as night, its eyes unblinking. I slowly crept up to the beast striving not to startle it. I reached out softly and stroked its back gently as I whispered into its ear. It seemed to calm it for it sat down, momentarily relaxing. It reached up with its hind leg and vigorously scratched its ear, ridding it of whatever unwanted thing or creature was in there. The little gold bells on its grandiose antlers jingled as it scratched, distracting the wild reindeer momentarily. Jingle Jingle Jingle. Its eyes wide, it searched the horizon for the mysterious sound. In the distance, on the edge of the field near the square caves of white, it spotted another of its kind lying down, facing it with a pursuant look. It stared back.
It was strange seeing another of its kind, being as rare as they are, but against all odds there it was across the field at the edge of the world. It glanced away from the new arrival to scout other areas for just a moment. Seeing nothing else, it turned back, the new arrival seemed minutely closer. It cocked its head slightly to the left wondering was it really closer, when the mysterious jingling came back. Jingle Jingle Jingle. Madly, it looked around for the source of the sound. Not able to locate the sound he turned back to the new arrival. It was closer, almost half the distance it was before. It was still lying down, facing it, its eyes staring unwaveringly.
Its eyes glared at the new arrival as it dropped its own body down to the ground in quick motion. Jingle Jingle Jingle. Frantically, its head swinging in all directions, the sound getting louder and stronger, it searched to no avail for that horrible sound. It turned its attention back to the new arrival, it was gone. With a quick jerk to the left it saw nothing. Jingle Jingle Jingle. A quick jerk to the right, it was too late, all he could see was black fur flying at his face at supersonic speed.
The new arrival attacked from the right, flying through the air like a bad walnut chucked out of a hole in a tree by a really mad squirrel. It could feel the front legs of its attacker wrap around the back of its head, teeth bared, biting into its antlers. Jingle Jingle Jingle. The sound drove the wild reindeer insane, he fought back. Bringing its hind legs in and under the new arrival, it pushed with all its might and flung the brute over its head and onto its back. Jingle Jingle Jingle. Its mind foaming from the horrible sound, it leapt and attacked back. A swipe with its hoof connected directly to its attackers antlers. Jingle Jingle Jingle. The wild reindeer's ears pricked up, the sound, the maddening sound, it was the new arrivals antlers. With a new ferocity it attacked, with its site on stopping the horrible sound.
Arms entangled, legs flaying, bodies rolling as one, they fought, each going for the majestic antlers of the others. They rolled and fought across the great field, crashing and bumping. Jingle Jingle Jingle. I dove out of the way, escaping being crushed, or worse yet, scratched. They crashed into the square caves of white so strong it created a great avalanche. Little bits of antlers flew from the big ball of fur rolling across the field. Jingle jingle jingle. I could not believe my eyes. I stared in wonder, watching in awe as these great and rare creatures…
Suddenly and unexpectedly, I was dragged out of my hypnotic state as I watched the majestic creatures do battle. The earth shook and the heavens above opened up as a big booming voice emanated,
"Oh good gawd, take those damn antlers off the cats before they kill themselves!"
View on Black or I'll put Antlers on you too!
Our Daily Challenge: Red White and Blue
Robert Frank (19 November 1924 – 9 September 2019), one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century, whose visually raw and personally expressive style was pivotal in changing the course of documentary photography, died on Monday, 9 September, in Inverness, Nova Scotia. He was 94.
**************
“ 'Patriotism, optimism, and scrubbed suburban living were the rule of the day,' Charlie LeDuff wrote about Mr. Frank in Vanity Fair magazine in 2008. 'Myth was important then. And along comes Robert Frank, the hairy homunculus, the European Jew with his 35-mm. Leica, taking snaps of old angry white men, young angry black men, severe disapproving southern ladies, Indians in saloons, he/shes in New York alleyways, alienation on the assembly line, segregation south of the Mason-Dixon line, bitterness, dissipation, discontent.' ”
***************
“Driving across the country in a used Ford in the mid-1950s, Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank used his outsider’s view to produce what many consider the most striking and revealing collection of images of postwar America.
Other photographers were focusing on the optimism and prosperity of the 1950s, but Mr. Frank gazed through the unblinking eye of his Leica and saw a much bleaker prospect. Bedazzled but also troubled by his adopted country, he revealed a nation beset by despair and nagging inequality.
The resulting book, 'The Americans,' published in this country in 1959, inspired generations of photographers, writers, filmmakers and musicians and made Mr. Frank one of the most important visual artists of the 20th century.
While driving in Arkansas in November 1955, he was stopped by police officers. Noticing that he spoke with a foreign accent and had a bottle of Hennessy cognac in his glove box, the officers asked Mr. Frank if he was a “commie.” He spent several hours in the local jail.
'That trip I got to like black people so much more than white people,' he later said.”
***************
▶ Image via Pace/MacGill (The Americans)
▶ Uploaded by Yours For Good Fermentables.com.
▶ For a larger image, type 'L' (without the quotation marks).
— Follow on web: YoursForGoodFermentables.com.
— Follow on Twitter: @Cizauskas.
— Follow on Facebook: YoursForGoodFermentables.
— Follow on Instagram: @tcizauskas.
▶ Commercial use requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.
As the evening drew on, the contrasts between the bright fireworks and the dying campfire only grew. Bright beacons of fire and spark gave way to flashes that left after-images burning behind your eyes. The camera did its work, unblinking and we who reveled beneath the glow of the stars, those made by hydrogen in fusion billions of miles away and those made in cheap Chinese factories, kept watch during that night.
Well, I USED to get flowers. Now, not so much.
On a recent trip up the San Gorgonio Mountain we stopped to enjoy a cool view of Big Bear Lake. We were being One with Nature when a voice from behind me called out, I got you something. I turned around and there was a beautiful little flower being held out towards me which I took. I stared at it for a minute unblinking, eyes glazed over. Then ...
OHMYGAWD!, I whaled!
YOU KILLED IT!
I dropped to my knees
WHAT IF AN ANIMAL WAS MEANT TO EAT THAT! IT"S GONNA DIE OF STARVATION NOW!
I slapped my hands up to the sides of my face
WHAT IF THAT WAS GOING TO SEED AND IT'S THE LAST ONE ON THE PLANET! THE WHOLE ECO SYSTEM HAS BEEN THROWN OFF!
I wiped fake tears from my cheek
OHHHHH GAWD!, THE PLANET IS DOOMED!
WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!
That's when I threw myself on the ground and rolled around as if in agony.
Then, very softly came the words ... Give me back the (CENSORED CENSORD BLEEP CENSORED) Flower.
I stood up, dusted my self off, picked up the undamaged flower and replied
No, it's cute. I think I'll keep it.
View being overly dramatic
for
The Flickr Lounge | Nature
A Barred Owl at Hawthorne Park, Surrey, BC, late this afternoon, August 30, 2017.
This is the first time I've seen an owl in the wild, and I couldn't believe my eyes at first. It was just sitting at the edge of the path. I was surprised by its size and it looked very much like a toy, sitting so unbelievably still and quiet, with its large, dark eyes unblinking. It was really exciting and incredible to have such a close first encounter.
There are plans by the city to put a road through Hawthorne Park. The City says that there will be added acreage, amenities, trees and habitat by the end, but I enjoy the tranquility the park offers now, with no through traffic, and I am pretty sure this owl and other creatures that make the park home like it the way it is too.
This is a McLaren 765LT Coupe.
Introducing the new McLaren 765LT. Born from fearless supercar engineering.
cars.mclaren.com/en/super-series/765lt
Aggressive. Pure. Created with singular vision
At McLaren, we do not fear the unknown. We do not fear the challenge. The new McLaren 765LT has a legend to live up to: Longtail. Every car that's carried this name has been unique. Extreme and utterly focused around the driver. All about maximum engagement. Searing performance. Sensational handling.
Uncompromising. Singular. Focused. shaped by the pursuit of driving purity. The 765LT. Taking the perfectly formed 720S closer to the edge. With a powerful presence and aggressive design language that deliver incredible performance. Less weight. More downforce. Aerodynamic innovation. Bespoke carbon fibre body panels shape an iconic elongated profile. Suspension is lowered. And the front track is wider. The message is clear: nothing gets in the way of dynamic ability. Everything is here for a reason. Inside the McLaren 765 Long Tail, the unblinking sense of purpose and minimal clarity continue. There's lightweight Alcantara®. And the seats used in the awe-inspiring McLaren P1™. Sculpted carbon fibre is everywhere. The Longtail story continues.
And this is the most powerful LT yet, with a shattering 765PS. Just 765 will ever be produced. For the lucky few, the next chapter is beginning…
www.caranddriver.com/mclaren/765lt
The McLaren 765LT is a supercar that makes track performance a priority and lets most creature comforts fall by the wayside. With a 755-horsepower twin-turbocharged V-8 mounted amidships, it’s wickedly quick, and its lightweight construction makes it a missile around the racetrack. Its “LT” name refers to the fact that it’s a “longtail” version of the 720S, with which it shares many components. The simplistic interior has a no-nonsense feel, and the standard retractable convertible top on the Spider version adds a bit of weight but shouldn’t detract too much from the pure driving experience.
Special car, supercar
Now come into my black lodge and...um...not really sure how to finish that one. Not really sure I want anyone to come to my black lodge. Almost certain I don't want to be in it myself. It's kinda weird and the gum is pretty old and fousty. I do like the flooring though. Hence the pants. It's not exactly the same but close enough.
The weirdest things happen in this weird place of weird weirdness and peculiarity. I mean curtains everywhere. The walls are covered in them. And you know what's weird? No fire extinguishers. These things are a fire hazard. They could go fouf or prouff or shamouf, you know one of those burny inferno noises. There's no fire exits either. This place is a death trap.
Of course the deathiest trap is in the shape of something that looks just like myself but does this weird smiley thing. Bearing those teeth with a fixed grimace that's painfully stuck on the face. Almost like a death mask, with wide, unblinking eyes that look right through you into your soul.
I'm pretty certain that's how I look at work.
Dear god nooo. He's chasing me....oh and he's stopped. Looks like my evil doppelgänger doesn't like to run either. Think the rest of this pursuit will be leisurely and strollful. That's fine with me. Just watch me power walk into oblivion.
found this on a website called Unblinking Eye. I have used the Improved A and Borax A formulas with great results. Tiny amount of Phenidone needed. 4/10's of a gram to 50ml alcohol then you extract the small quantity from the table and then dilute 1:3 even further for film
In the stillness between heartbeats,
a golden mirror opens —
worlds folded into silence.
It sees the tremor of a leaf,
the ghost of dusk,
the truth that hides from daylight.
One gaze, ancient and unblinking,
and you remember:
night, too, is a kind of wisdom.
Over the weekend, my wife and I visited Longwood Gardens and discovered a wide-eyed ram amidst the other delicate sculptures and ornamentation. He probably won't stay that way for long, but it gave us a chuckle :)
Not to be messed with! One of Australia's deadliest reptiles, this one was safely behind strong glass in the snake collection of Australia Zoo. I think the unblinking eye is the most disconcerting feature of these sleek reptiles.
Name: Krahhu
Element: Iron
Primary Color: Gold
Tool: Spear-headed Mace
Mask: Unknown
In the depths of the caves within the region of earth, Krahhu guards the legendary Golden Mask of Earth. Like the vast supply of iron lying inside the caves, he waits patiently, unmoving, unblinking. He, if you can call Krahhu a "he" after having become nothing but a shell only striving to guard the mask, allows none to approach. Not even the protector's are allowed to draw near, lest he rises from his comatose state and moves the metals in the soil according to his will.
Inspired by a Image and Text by Emi Boz. Thnk you for the Inspiration.
"Even darkness has a purr."
In the silence of a forgotten crypt, where candlelight trembles and moonlight filters through broken stained glass, a small black kitten sits atop a coffin — clutching a heart-shaped balloon marked by an unblinking eye.
Its fur shimmers in violet hues, eyes reflecting both innocence and mischief. A tiny dagger rests in its paw — not as a threat, but as a symbol of balance between kindness and chaos.
"I’m Nice but, Also Evil — does that make sense?"
Perhaps it does. For even in darkness, gentleness survives — and even in light, a shadow smiles back.
Done in AI, Finalized in Photoshop.
Really, the conditions were awfully awful. The new site for the rock garden was just a barren bit of grass, on a slope, facing the afternoon sun and perpendicular to the prevailing Spring gale. How, in an arboretum, are there no trees?
With a buffeting wind and unblinking glare, wrangling a heavy macro lens was never going to be fun. I still had the mewling and bawling toddler ringing in my ears as much as the roaring wind had my poor old ears drumming. Yet, in this maelstrom I was determined, for better or worse, to memorialise this rusty-looking nondescript boulder. It's actually worst. I should go back on a better day. Here's my dilemma. This rock is full of stories; but they are inconspicuous until someone tells them. This is the Middledale Diorite, source of one of the world's most widely used standards in U-Pb radiometric dating: Temora-2.
Part of the significance, to me at least, is that I spent a few mostly happy years quite near the source of this boulder. Temora had been a gold mining town. You know the drill: 20,000 people, 50 pubs, a main street built wide enough to turn a bullock dray because, well they could afford it, and everyone looking for their own version of the Mother Shipton nugget, then bust; only 7 pubs when I left. Sheep and wheat kept it alive, and the railway junction moved all of those riches, plus the produce of the Ardlethan tin mine and Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area off to distant markets. The railway's mostly gone now: roundhouse gone, turntable too, the big dam that watered the engines filled in, branch lines mostly closed. It struggles on. While all of this was happening, this boulder just sat inconspicuously on a hillside, out past the high school and hospital, waiting to be famous.
Here's my other distraction. There's another voice in my ear. I just happen to be trying to wrangle a front-heavy macro set up with my eyes watering in the gale and standing upright becoming a challenge when I hear someone ask: "Ah, you've found Temora-2?" Who could imagine that someone familiar with this blob of a boulder would turn up at just this moment? Yes, he said, I collected that, and use the zircons from it everyday in my work; we've got tonnes of it out the back…
That's the thing! This rusty boulder, and its siblings contain zircons which are uniformly 416.78±0.33 million years old. For someone interested in these things, a bit of this now certified standard is like Temora's gold. I recall, probably half a century ago now, when a distinguished and excited chap showed me where he was going to build the world's first effective ion microprobe for fine scale radiometric dating. He did it, without my help as I was just his visitor, and today it has evolved into a SHRIMP: Sensitive High-Resolution Ion Microprobe. A quiet one, he never skited about being NASA's choice to determine the age of moon rocks brought back by the Apollo missions, nor did he give up driving his distinctive Rover P3. He died in May this year, but his legacy lives on. Of course, to a familiar tune, it's another Aussie invention that's been sold to a Chinese buyer. But that piece of equipment is likely what has made this inconspicuous rock famous.
Taken on a safari in Namibia in 2024. The lioness just finished her breakfast. Fresh blood smeared across her muzzle. With saliva dripping, her unblinking stare may suggest her next target?
We were surprised to look out our Las Vegas hotel window and see the giant MGM lion looking in at us. But we didn't back down and stared unblinking at him until he gave in and turned away.
Please visit my Kreative People group: Highlight Gallery
The Toronto City Hall, or New City Hall, is the seat of the municipal government of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the city's most distinctive landmarks. Designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell (with Heikki Castrén, Bengt Lundsten, and Seppo Valjus) and landscape architect Richard Strong, and engineered by Hannskarl Bandel, the building opened in 1965. It was built to replace Old City Hall, which was built in 1899. The current city hall, located at Nathan Phillips Square, is actually Toronto's fourth and was built in order to replace the former city hall due to a shortage of space. The area of Toronto City Hall and the civic square was formerly the location of Toronto's Old Chinatown, which was expropriated and bulldozed during the mid-1950s in preparation for a new civic building.
In 1958, an international architectural competition was launched by Mayor Nathan Phillips in order to find a design for the new city hall. Revell's winning proposal came first among submissions from 42 countries. It consists of near-twin towers surrounding a white disk-like council chamber, which is mounted on a raised platform with entrances located below. There is also a ramp from connecting the square to the podium roof, from which there is access to the council chamber. The two towers are of unequal height, the east tower being taller than the west. The building was nicknamed "The Eye of the Government" because it resembles a large eye in a plan view. Revell died a year before New City Hall was completed.
While the building's base is rectangular, its two towers are curved in cross-section and rise to differing heights. The east tower is 27 storeys (99.5 metres (326 ft)) tall and the west tower is 20 storeys (79.4 metres (260 ft)). Between the towers is the saucer-like council chamber, and the overall arrangement is somewhat like two hands cradling the chamber. The outer concrete surfaces of the towers have been ribbed, to prevent collapse of the fabric as a result of the expansion of the exterior surfaces, and the tearing apart of the fabric as a result of differences in air pressure on the two sides of each wing-like tower during the high winds characteristic of the Great Lakes. The north, west, and east elevations are more abstract and sculptural in contrast with the extensive glazing of south elevation facing the square; each presents a view of concave panels of concrete textured with split-faced strips of Botticino marble. To the east of the square is Old City Hall which is now a courthouse. From the air, the building is seen as a giant unblinking eye, thus the building's original nickname of "The Eye of Government".
The design for the public space in front of the new city hall, Nathan Phillips Square, was part of the competition. The square's reflecting pool and concrete arches, fountain, and overhead walkways were thus also part of Revell's submission. It has since seen several monuments, sculptures, and other works of public art added, and was renovated, but it continues to complement the city hall with its original Modernist design elements.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_City_Hall
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...
Taken at the October 24th, 2012 campaign event of Governor Mitt Romney at Reno, Nevada.
It was very challenging to get decent shots of the event. A dark arena, long distance to subject requiring a long (shaky) slow lens and then a heavy crop, plus crazy mixed white balance lighting conspired to keep me on my toes.
It was amusing to watch the iPhone/Android crowd attempt to grab pics and video of their guy. Most of their shots were VERY blurry and had disturbing colors, like an impressionist painting of a bad LSD trip (oh, wait, I just remembered where we were...)
September, the china dog, and his partner October, were placed on this mantle on June 14th 1923. Their mission was to observe and absorb human emotion. This they have done without questioning why, and over the decades they have witnessed with their unblinking eyes, joy, fear, loneliness, jealousy, greed, lust and indifference. They continue their silent vigil and one day, the ground will shudder and shake, and they will topple onto the stone hearth below, their mysterious purpose shattered and forgotten.
seen in historic Kirkland House in Ladner B.C. on this day two years ago.
May 2010. Karrak Lake, Nunavut.
I spent the summer working with the Canadian Wildlife Service at a remote arctic field camp. Three of us were flown by Twin Otter, 300km from Cambridge Bay. We had to dig our way down to the front door of our cabin because no one had been there all winter.
We spent the next couple weeks trapping and tagging arctic foxes for a population study. Most days were spent baiting traps, and engaging in one's boredom as you waited for something to wander by. I almost didn't bring my camera that day. The light was dull and flat, and it felt like it was going to be an epically uneventful day.
It was my turn to spend the day alone. It was silent and overcast; not a breath of wind. There were a few caribou in the area when I set up my tent. I was 200m from the trap, which was placed up on a ridge by a large, prominent boulder. I settled down to read for the next few hours, occasionally checking the trap through my scope.
On one of my checks, I saw some shapes moving along the ridge toward the boulder. At first I thought they were caribou, but I quickly realized they were wolves. I counted six trotting along the ridge. I grabbed my camera, poked it out from the small opening in the tent, and started taking pictures.
A few wolves stopped to sniff at the trap, while a couple others went over to investigate my skidoo tracks. Another wolf wandered down the ridge in my direction, but it didn't seem to have noticed my tent. I decided to shift and get into a more comfortable position, just in case the wolves decided to come closer.
I removed my lens from my small viewing hole. That's when I saw three more wolves immediately outside my tent. It was unnerving that I hadn't heard them approach. One wolf was walking directly toward me with a low, unblinking gaze. I put my lens back in the opening, and started shooting again. It continued to close in, coming to within 3 metres of me.
My heart was pounding. I didn't know whether I should be incredibly excited, or somewhat concerned that there was a pack of wolves just outside my tent. I stayed crouched where I was, eye level with the wolf, trying not to move. The wolf stopped and stood firm, directly in front of the opening of my tent. It stared at me, sometimes cocking its head at the sound of my shutter. I couldn't believe that this was happening.
After a few minutes, the wolves started wandering off, disappearing out of view over the ridge. The closest wolf was the last to leave, walking around the back of my tent to sniff at my skidoo. I kept taking pictures. The wolf circled around the front of the tent again, glancing back at me one last time before heading off with the others, leaving me alone once more.
I remember the silence and the dull, flat light that made the snow and sky blend together.
This is a McLaren 765LT Coupe.
Introducing the new McLaren 765LT. Born from fearless supercar engineering.
cars.mclaren.com/en/super-series/765lt
Aggressive. Pure. Created with singular vision
At McLaren, we do not fear the unknown. We do not fear the challenge. The new McLaren 765LT has a legend to live up to: Longtail. Every car that's carried this name has been unique. Extreme and utterly focused around the driver. All about maximum engagement. Searing performance. Sensational handling.
Uncompromising. Singular. Focused. shaped by the pursuit of driving purity. The 765LT. Taking the perfectly formed 720S closer to the edge. With a powerful presence and aggressive design language that deliver incredible performance. Less weight. More downforce. Aerodynamic innovation. Bespoke carbon fibre body panels shape an iconic elongated profile. Suspension is lowered. And the front track is wider. The message is clear: nothing gets in the way of dynamic ability. Everything is here for a reason. Inside the McLaren 765 Long Tail, the unblinking sense of purpose and minimal clarity continue. There's lightweight Alcantara®. And the seats used in the awe-inspiring McLaren P1™. Sculpted carbon fibre is everywhere. The Longtail story continues.
And this is the most powerful LT yet, with a shattering 765PS. Just 765 will ever be produced. For the lucky few, the next chapter is beginning…
www.caranddriver.com/mclaren/765lt
The McLaren 765LT is a supercar that makes track performance a priority and lets most creature comforts fall by the wayside. With a 755-horsepower twin-turbocharged V-8 mounted amidships, it’s wickedly quick, and its lightweight construction makes it a missile around the racetrack. Its “LT” name refers to the fact that it’s a “longtail” version of the 720S, with which it shares many components. The simplistic interior has a no-nonsense feel, and the standard retractable convertible top on the Spider version adds a bit of weight but shouldn’t detract too much from the pure driving experience.
Special car, supercar
& I wish my voice would echo through galaxies and such
In the darkness we are suspended led forward by near and far stars of hope, our hearts singing timid at first, but with gaining strength as we fight and push and believe for the truth and life and beauty that hovers just before our unblinking eyes.
We reach out and touch it, for it is ours. For it is here, and it is now.
Not For The Faint Of Heart (Front View) -
Bird dung spiders always generate extreme reaction in people, you either love or loathe them. Desiring to entice flies, this cow plop attracts my attention instead. I find the eyes rather distinctive, they are poles apart from a beady lynx and the large unblinking salticidaes. In fact, they remind me of self-adhesive wiggly eyes, bringing cartoons stickers to life. If you have no chemistry with spiders, you’ll probably perceived a crook’s gaze in those eyes. Stare for a minute to believe, they can imprison and reduce you to ashes.