In a land far far away, surrounded by green & blue, lodges my dream of living. Where the sky is aglow with subtle colors, where the soft cloud touches your soul with tender affection, where the lush green soothes your mind with a gentle breeze. Where your harrowing pain turns into nonentity under the vastness of beauty, where your self-importance gives way to sublime benevolence. The place, where life itself is alive........where reality yields satisfaction. Where a day transcends a whole lifetime in this multitude.

 

[Dedicated to the departing B.K. and emergent Z.K. May B.K. never come back with his twisted undercurrents and Z.K. find his lost sense of direction and faith.]

 

A bit biGGer

Walking Madonna sculpture designed by Elisabeth Frink and located outside Salisbury Cathedral, in Salisbury, Wiltshire.

 

Initially a temporary installation that became permanent, Walking Madonna sits in the Cathedral close. Dwarfed by the Cathedral, she is life size. A rare piece by Elizabeth Frink, in that the sculpture depicts a woman, Walking Madonna is positioned with her back to the Cathedral, moving towards the outside world.

 

British sculptor and printmaker, Elisabeth Frink was part of a group of post-war British sculptors, known as the ‘Geometry of Fear School’. A term coined by Herbert Read for the sculptors who participated in the ground-breaking British pavilion at the 1952 Venice Biennale; sculptors in post-war Britain whose work was directly informed by both the horrors of the Holocaust and WWII and the undercurrent of unease of the Cold War. Frink’s subject matter was mostly men, birds and animals.

 

Later in her career she produced monumental heads and several winged figures. The distinctive aesthetic of her sculptures was achieved by a process of plastering an armature, then carving directly into the plaster and finally casting it in bronze. During her career Frink exhibited widely both at home and abroad. She passed away the week after the installation of her monumental final piece Risen Christ, for Liverpool Cathedral.

 

Stephen Gardiner, Frink's official biographer, said of her final piece: ‘This awesome work, beautiful, clear and commanding, a vivid mirror-image of the artist's mind and spirit, created against fearful odds, was a perfect memorial for a remarkable great individual.’

 

Information Source:

www.artandchristianity.org/elisabeth-frink-walking-madonna

 

untitled. selangor, march 2010.

  

Moving along in a traffic jam in the dusk the car is like a log in a jammed river overflooded, nothing can move without jostling, some squeezing, bumping and grinding as the objects press pass each other in perambulation that seems not that their own, as if they are dragged by that invisible river's undercurrent. Sitting in these vehicles the passengers do not feel like they are driving anymore, the road is not their motorway on which they thrust themselves pass at speed; instead they are prisoners in a prison they cannot abandon and walk away from – pitching and yawing forward at a crawl in the dark amidst the high cliffs of lights – they can stare at minute features of each mile marker and scoring of the guardrail, the broken tarmac patterns and each lamp post with it spray painted number in the sodium glow. They study the glow of the mobile phone screen … deciding whom to call ... conversations otherwise lost. They study the screen of their garmin, running their minds on glow of streets and their named locations they should have already reached. Their destination is in the future, the distance, the destiny arrested.

 

....... with humble apologies to jack k. & 大道

Italian postcard by Grafiche Biondetti S.R.L., Verona. Image: Disney. Publicity still for Robin Hood (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1973).

 

The twenty-first Disney animated feature film Robin Hood (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1973) is an imaginative version of the Robin Hood legend. Fun and romance abound as the swashbuckling hero of Sherwood Forest and his valiant sidekick Little John plot one daring adventure after another to outwit the greedy prince John. Eatly on in the film, Robin and Little John happen upon the royal entourage which is taking Prince John and his counselor, Sir Hiss, to Nottingham in order to tax the people there. Disguised as female fortune-tellers, Robin and Little John effectively steal from Prince John all the gold they can carry and run off into the forest, leaving Prince John sucking his thumb in humiliation. In Nottingham, Robin uses Friar Tuck to smuggle the stolen gold back to the peasants. Later Robin sees Maid Marian, she and Robin had once been sweethearts as children, but were forced to part ways when she moved to London. But she is mistaken: Robin can't stop thinking about her. But since Robin is an outlaw he and Marian wait for marriage. Seething with rage, that Robin is winning, John triples the taxes, making the bleak situation in Nottingham even worse. One night, Robin Hood, disguised again as the beggar, learns that Friar Tuck is in jail and will rescue him, save Nottingham once and for all and give Prince John the justice that has been coming to him for a long time...

 

Robin Hood is generally considered to be one of the weakest Disney animated classics, but I totally disagree. Yes, this version of Robin Hood has animals in the roles of the characters, but it works superbly! Robin Hood as a clever fox is a natural choice. And naturally, Maid Marian is a vixen. Prince John and King Richard as lions are also logical choices. But John is a mane-less lion, who starts sucking his thumb whenever anyone mentions his mother. He is silly, but with a truly evil undercurrent. The Sheriff of Nottingham is also deliciously nasty ("Upsy-daisy"), Other hilarious characters are the vultures Trigger, and Nutsy, and Sir Hiss, the snake. They provide the delicious humour to the film. Sir Hiss is smarter than any of the other bad guys, but the humor with him is that Prince John never believes him until it's too late, and abuses him afterwards. Trigger's 'old Betsy' (a crossbow) provides plenty of laughs, especially when it goes off. And Nutsy is so stupid he says "One o'clock and all's well!" when it's three o'clock, and when told to set his brain ahead a couple hours, he doesn't know if he has to add or subtract two hours. Apart from the great characters and their witty and smart dialogues , the film has beautiful background artwork e especially in the love scene, and the music is also good, with the hard and gritty song 'Not in Nottingham' as a highlight. Robin Hood was a box office hit at the time and it was initially received with positive reviews from film critics who praised the voice cast, animation, and humor, but its critical reception became gradually mixed since its release and recycled scenes of animation have been noted. But despite these flaws, Robin Hood is still a very entertaining Disney classic.

 

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it.

- William Styron

 

Story in capturing undercurrents

* * * * * * * *

 

Myanmar, previously known as Burma, what a surprisingly amazing place. We booked this holiday to get out of our comfort zone of easy beach holidays in the Maldives. There were several times when we wondered why we did it, travel in Myanmar consists mainly of long, sometimes tedious journeys on outdated transport systems. But now, in hindsight, we realise that this was the only way to truly get a feel of how the country and people are living day to day. And by far, more so than any other holiday we have had, the people are the most memorable thing we brought back with us. They are totally charming, polite, honest, resilient, hard working and most of all truly happy people. Their sincerely happy smiles, some of which we thankfully managed to capture in our photo's, are what we mostly remember and will stay with us forever.

 

We all know, or think we know, about the bad old days of the Burmese regime, so we obviously had a few reservations about what we were letting ourselves in for, but as it turned out, Myanmar must be the safest place we have ever been to. There is zero crime here, 85% of the country are buddhists and all the people seem to be true to Buddha's teachings of compassion, honesty, right mindedness, right living and non-harming to any living thing. Admittedly, although the country is now a democracy, the military still retains a certain amount of power, so I guess there is still an undercurrent going on albeit out of sight of the regular tourist. However, all the people we spoke to are so much happier now, they are more or less free to speak openly, without fear of reprisals and they all feel positive about the path the country is on now.

 

As for the landscape, what can I say, there is nowhere like it on earth! Outside the cities the whole country seems to be in some sort of 200 year old time warp. The people are mostly farmers on small plots of land using ox carts to plough the fields and living in houses made of bamboo, wood and matting. The wierdest thing is most of them have solar power, mainly for a bit of light and to charge their mobile phones! Everyone is on their phone here.....just like the rest of the world I guess. Also, there are temples, pagodas and stupas everywhere you look, especially in Bagan, which is like the Mecca of Myanmar. We were there for the Full Moon Festival where thousands of Burmese monks and Myanmar people gather from all over the country to celebrate for three days at the Ananda Pagoda in Bagan. After possibly days travelling they stay awake for most of the three days and nights watching entertainment which includes dance, theatre, chants, recitations and singing as well as stand up comedy. Amazing belief.

 

A word about One Stop Travel & Tours the Myanmar company we booked with. We found them via recommendations on Tripadvisor and so glad we used them. They never asked for a deposit, they booked all our hotels, train & boat journeys, balloon ride and one internal flight all on an email handshake! We just paid them in US Dollars on arrival, saving us thousands on UK travel brochure rates, and they never let us down once. The guides were all good guys and always there to greet us at the various destinations on our tour/trek, sometimes waiting hours when the transport was late. A special thanks to Leo our Yangon guide and Eaint at the One Stop office. After leaving our Nikon Coolpix A camera charger at home we trawled the shops of Yangon eventually finding a replacement.......only to leave it plugged in the wall at our next hotel in Mandalay! We were now a ten hour boat journey away in Bagan, but a call to Eaint at the One Stop office and they got it to us two days later just before we moved on! A huge thank you to all at One Stop as this holiday produced without doubt our most amazing photographs ever!

 

Myanmar has been open to mainstream tourism for five years now, a lot of the people speak English now so it is relatively easy to holiday there. We are so glad we went there before it really changes, there is still a huge amount of charm and old worldliness about the place that you will not find in any other country. If you are prepared to switch off from the 21st century and just accept it for what it is you will be richly rewarded with amazing memories of a landscape like no other and a fascinating people who are genuinely happy to see you.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

To view the rest of my Photography Collection click on Link below:

www.flickr.com/photos/nevillewootton/albums

 

* * * * * * * *

 

Photography & Equipment sponsored by my web business:

www.inlinefilters.co.uk

 

We are UK's leading Filter Specialists, selling online to the Plant, Agricultural, Commercial Vehicle and Marine Industries.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

PLEASE NOTE: I take Photographs purely as a hobby these days so am happy to share them with anyone who enjoys them or has a use for them. If you do use them an accreditation would be nice and if you benefit from them financially a donation to www.sightsavers.org would be really nice.

 

* * * * * * * *

The Good Thief

 

by James Buchanan

 

$5.95

192 pages / 77000 words

ISBN: 978-1-60370-249-2, 1-60370-249-0

Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc

 

Buy Link:

www.torquerebooks.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product...

&products_id=775

 

Working construction provides Caesar with a great way to cover up his real

job; stealing whatever he can get his hands on. Which is why the guy he has

a fling with could be really bad for business. Nate is a cop, and Caesar

worries that he might be tempting fate if he sees Nate again, even if he

wants to.

 

When Caesar discovers something far worse than some petty thievery on one of

his jobs, though, he knows he has to report it to Nate, and the two of them

try to find a way to keep Caesar safe until he can testify, even as the

sparks fly between them. Can Nate protect Caesar and teach him that there

are ways to be a good guy as well as a thief?

 

Review

 

Alexa Snow, author of Sleeping Stone and Clear Cut, writes:

 

When Caesar's brother drags him to a Hollywood hills party in the hopes of

netting him a job, Caesar doesn't expect much. He overhears an argument

between an incredibly hot guy and who he assumes is the hot guy's

girlfriend. Instead, he discovers that the 'girlfriend' is a sister; even

better, a sister who's more than happy to help her brother Nate meet someone

new. Nate and Caesar have both had too much to drink, and they go back to

Nate's place for a round of very hot sex, then collapse for the night. In

the morning, hungover, Caesar makes a startling discovery -- Nate is a cop.

 

Which wouldn't matter so much, except that Caesar's a thief with arrest and

conviction records a mile long.

 

Life being what it is, it doesn't take long for Nate to find out about

Caesar's past, but somehow they can't seem to stay away from each other.

When Caesar accidentally finds evidence of horrific crimes being committed,

his first instinct is to go to Nate for help, an act which kicks off a chain

of events even more complicated than either of them could have imagined...

and puts both their lives in jeopardy.

 

This story is a fascinating one; the plot contains enough twists and turns

to satisfy the most jaded reader. The characters are interesting and

believable, crafted with care. There's also a subtle undercurrent of humor

running through the book, as well as a well-balanced collection of sex

scenes that are hot and in-character. Contemporary and compelling! Very much

recommended.

 

Sample

 

Trying for casual, but coming off strained, Caesar choked out, "I'm gay."

 

She blinked. Her shoulders slumped. "Well, hell, this is Los Angeles. All I

ever meet are gay men... or really ugly ones." Then he got a broad, friendly

smile. "So you were watching us fight? That means you were checking out one

of the two of us, hmm?" Caesar failed miserably at trying not to be

embarrassed. Again, the seductive look came out. "My brother's single, too."

Her eyes got even brighter. "And we have the exact same taste. We're twins

you know."

 

Uhng, he had such a thing for blonds. Especially ones with tight asses and

green eyes. The mental image sent his hormones into overdrive. "Really?" His

gaze slid toward the door where that sexy, tight ass had disappeared.

 

"Yep, exactly the same taste in men." Looking at her empty glass, she

sighed. "Come on." An arm threaded through his. "I need another drink and

then I can introduce you." She smiled. "By the way, I'm Carol."

 

He returned the smile. "Caesar." They stepped back into the house and the

crush of people. First he snagged another beer for himself and more wine for

Carol. Then they were on the hunt for a blond man with a tight, fine ass.

"Are you sure this is okay?"

 

"Oh, hell, yes." She smirked, squeezing his bicep. "Trust me, Nate will just

adore you. And he's got to be just frustrated as all hell by now. I bring

him to these gigs, he wanders around drooling over everybody, goes home

alone and then tells me about what he should have said over the next week.

He just needs to get laid. Oh!" With a jerk on his arm, Carol stopped dead.

"I didn't mean it like that. It sounded like I'm pimping him out or

something."

 

Caesar almost contradicted her, then thought better of it. No sense humoring

a drunk too much. "You make him sound pretty desperate."

 

"Not desperate." Mortified, she lifted her glass to cover her mouth. After

gulping down more wine, she continued. "The one place we're not the same,"

her free hand fluttered up and down her torso, "besides the obvious, is I'm

the party girl. Outgoing. Gregarious. Nate's more the quiet, shy type. He's

no bumbling virgin, had a few longish relationships." Blond hair whipped

loose as Carol shook her head and led him down a narrow set of stairs. If he

remembered correctly there was a game room on the bottom floor. Caesar was

very good at memorizing the floor plans of houses he visited, even when he

didn't mean to. "But his current job makes it real hard for him to meet

people. They change up his shift a lot."

 

Caesar missed a step and had to grab the rail to keep from toppling onto

Carol. "What does he do?"

 

Since she was in front of him, Caesar couldn't get a read on her face, but

he thought she hesitated before responding. "Security." A shorter pause.

"I'll let him tell you about it. Nate hates it when I ramble about his life

to other people." At the bottom of the stairs she looked back at him and

smiled. "I see the wallflower now."

 

Caesar did, too: a well-built guy holding up a piece of wall and cradling a

beer. The guy absently watched a pool game in progress, in which two

chorus-line starlets were skunking a pair of guys. Big, meaty guys in crummy

clothes; Caesar pegged them as either grips or set construction.

 

Carol danced around the pool cues and headed for her brother. "Nate," she

burbled, "you've been hiding from me. I want you to meet someone."

 

Nate's whole body slid into a long-suffering slump. Then he rolled his eyes.

"You're drunk."

 

"Yep." She slid under his arm. "And you're gay." Bumping his hip she added,

"Gay Nathan Reilly meet hot, gay guy Caesar whose last name I don't know."

 

Nate's green eyes went wide as he glared at his sister. A comic, wide-eyed

stare met his, with the addition of a tongue half stuck out of her mouth. If

Caesar had any doubts about their twin status, that little exchange of

sibling love put them to rest.

 

"But." Carol drew out the word. "Who was checking out your butt earlier on

the patio."

 

This was the most unusual, and funny, introduction Caesar'd ever had. "Hi."

He took a swallow of his beer and hooked his thumb in his jeans' pocket.

"You have quite a sister."

 

"You don't know the half of it." Nate growled.

 

Now Carol wiggled out from under her sibling's embrace. "My work here is

done. You're talking to someone. Ciao, boys." A finger dance of a wave

dismissed them. "Use condoms."

 

Buy it here:

www.torquerebooks.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product...

&products_id=775

Y resulta que en la superficie todo parece tranquilo, sin embargo corrientes ocultas se mueven en su interior, modificando, alterando, deshaciendo el trabajo de tanto tiempo.

 

It turns out that on the surface everything seems quiet, yet undercurrents move inside, modifying, altering, undoing the work that was done before.

This view shows two imposing churches in the centre of Oslo: the copper-domed Trinity Church and Saint Olav’s Church in the background. Hints of blossoms evoke a change of season, and William H. Johnson (Florence, South Carolina, 1901 - Central Islip, New York, 1970) painted intense, expressionistic hues in the buildings and streets, perhaps to capture the emotional undercurrents of a grey, late-winter day.

 

[Oil on burlap, 64.2 x 79.4 cm]

 

Poster for Undercurrents, a show on NPR's music station in dallas.

mixed media abstract

Lessons from the past, are often the guidebooks to the future. Through in-depth analysis and rigorous research, Drik has critiqued and drawn inferences from the recent political history of the nation. Through presenting facts and connecting the dots, the publication department has brought out numerous high quality publications that provide rare insights into the complex undercurrents and political intrigue that the nation is immersed in. Author: Rahnuma Ahmed

Italian postcard by Corna, Brussels, no. 5 / 3303. Image: Walt Disney Productions. Publicity still for Robin Hood (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1973).

 

The twenty-first Disney animated feature film Robin Hood (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1973) is an imaginative version of the Robin Hood legend. Fun and romance abound as the swashbuckling hero of Sherwood Forest and his valiant sidekick Little John plot one daring adventure after another to outwit the greedy Prince John. Early on in the film, Robin and Little John happen upon the royal entourage which is taking Prince John and his counselor, Sir Hiss, to Nottingham in order to tax the people there. Disguised as female fortune-tellers, Robin and Little John effectively steal from Prince John all the gold they can carry and run off into the forest, leaving Prince John sucking his thumb in humiliation. In Nottingham, Robin uses Friar Tuck to smuggle the stolen gold back to the peasants. Later Robin sees Maid Marian, she and Robin had once been sweethearts as children but were forced to part ways when she moved to London. But she is mistaken: Robin can't stop thinking about her. But since Robin is an outlaw he and Marian wait for marriage. Seething with rage, that Robin is winning, John triples the taxes, making the bleak situation in Nottingham even worse. One night, Robin Hood, disguised again as the beggar, learns that Friar Tuck is in jail and will rescue him, save Nottingham once and for all and give Prince John the justice that has been coming to him for a long time...

 

Robin Hood is generally considered to be one of the weakest Disney animated classics, but I totally disagree. Yes, this version of Robin Hood has animals in the roles of the characters, but it works superbly! Robin Hood as a clever fox is a natural choice. And naturally, Maid Marian is a vixen. Prince John and King Richard as lions are also logical choices. But John is a mane-less lion, who starts sucking his thumb whenever anyone mentions his mother. He is silly, but with a truly evil undercurrent. The Sheriff of Nottingham is also deliciously nasty ("Upsy-daisy"), Other hilarious characters are the vultures Trigger, and Nutsy, and Sir Hiss, the snake. They provide delicious humour to the film. Sir Hiss is smarter than any of the other bad guys, but the humor with him is that Prince John never believes him until it's too late, and abuses him afterward. Trigger's 'old Betsy' (a crossbow) provides plenty of laughs, especially when it goes off. And Nutsy is so stupid he says "One o'clock and all's well!" when it's three o'clock, and when told to set his brain ahead a couple of hours, he doesn't know if he has to add or subtract two hours. Apart from the great characters and their witty and smart dialogues, the film has beautiful background artwork e especially in the love scene, and the music is also good, with the hard and gritty song 'Not in Nottingham' as a highlight. Robin Hood was a box office hit at the time and it was initially received with positive reviews from film critics who praised the voice cast, animation, and humor, but its critical reception became gradually mixed since its release and recycled scenes of animation have been noted. But despite these flaws, Robin Hood is still a very entertaining Disney classic.

 

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

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

Italian postcard by Grafiche Biondetti S.R.L., Verona, no. 3717. Image: Walt Disney Productions. Publicity still for Robin Hood (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1973).

 

The twenty-first Disney animated feature film Robin Hood (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1973) is an imaginative version of the Robin Hood legend. Fun and romance abound as the swashbuckling hero of Sherwood Forest and his valiant sidekick Little John plot one daring adventure after another to outwit the greedy Prince John. Early on in the film, Robin and Little John happen upon the royal entourage which is taking Prince John and his counselor, Sir Hiss, to Nottingham in order to tax the people there. Disguised as female fortune-tellers, Robin and Little John effectively steal from Prince John all the gold they can carry and run off into the forest, leaving Prince John sucking his thumb in humiliation. In Nottingham, Robin uses Friar Tuck to smuggle the stolen gold back to the peasants. Later Robin sees Maid Marian, she and Robin had once been sweethearts as children but were forced to part ways when she moved to London. But she is mistaken: Robin can't stop thinking about her. But since Robin is an outlaw he and Marian wait for marriage. Seething with rage, that Robin is winning, John triples the taxes, making the bleak situation in Nottingham even worse. One night, Robin Hood, disguised again as the beggar, learns that Friar Tuck is in jail and will rescue him, save Nottingham once and for all and give Prince John the justice that has been coming to him for a long time...

 

Robin Hood is generally considered to be one of the weakest Disney animated classics, but I totally disagree. Yes, this version of Robin Hood has animals in the roles of the characters, but it works superbly! Robin Hood as a clever fox is a natural choice. And naturally, Maid Marian is a vixen. Prince John and King Richard as lions are also logical choices. But John is a mane-less lion, who starts sucking his thumb whenever anyone mentions his mother. He is silly, but with a truly evil undercurrent. The Sheriff of Nottingham is also deliciously nasty ("Upsy-daisy"), Other hilarious characters are the vultures Trigger, and Nutsy, and Sir Hiss, the snake. They provide delicious humour to the film. Sir Hiss is smarter than any of the other bad guys, but the humor with him is that Prince John never believes him until it's too late, and abuses him afterward. Trigger's 'old Betsy' (a crossbow) provides plenty of laughs, especially when it goes off. And Nutsy is so stupid he says "One o'clock and all's well!" when it's three o'clock, and when told to set his brain ahead a couple of hours, he doesn't know if he has to add or subtract two hours. Apart from the great characters and their witty and smart dialogues, the film has beautiful background artwork e especially in the love scene, and the music is also good, with the hard and gritty song 'Not in Nottingham' as a highlight. Robin Hood was a box office hit at the time and it was initially received with positive reviews from film critics who praised the voice cast, animation, and humor, but its critical reception became gradually mixed since its release and recycled scenes of animation have been noted. But despite these flaws, Robin Hood is still a very entertaining Disney classic.

 

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

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

Will YOU sing along to my daily anthem?? Come on, its the finale! DO IT!!!!!!!!

 

This is the er, "grand" finale of my project. And it just so happens to be my least favorite. XP Oh well... this song was written about Davids brother, Adam (see yesterdays pic), and thats whats with the title. The cap. letters spell "ADAM" Lol i just figured that out yesterday!!

 

Break your neck for some substance

This is temporary sanity, an exercise in vanity

So long, to the ordinary day wrought with fictitious tales

Of how there's any other way

Hold on to anything at all

It's a long way down between the summer and the fall

If I told you that you're everything,

Would you sing along?

Would you sing along?

 

It's a daily anthem

Would you sing my song,

At the top of your lungs?

And we'll all sing along,

We'll all sing along

 

It's a half-baked blessing

For the lessons I've learned,

Never deserved.

And we'll all sing along,

We'll all sing along

 

Now the verses take hold,

A gentle undercurrent or more years to grow old

Say goodbye to the cold

And try to begin everything: there's life

 

As we sing your daily anthem,

Would you sing my song,

At the top of your lungs?

And we'll all sing along,

We'll all sing along

 

It's a half-baked blessing

For the lessons I've learned,

Never deserved.

And we'll all sing along,

We'll all sing along

 

"Practice Kindness"

artwork by Diane Marie Kramer

a gentle reminder to the world today!

mediums used: watercolor, paper, ink, pencil, lipstick

 

There were some protesting going on in MI yesterday...at the Capitol.... protesting the current lock down....it greatly disturbed me...all night long. People are becoming unstable....and there is an undercurrent of fear, and violence.... I hope people will practice kindness and also practice keeping safe ....and to honor this rule for all people.

 

- some alternatives to establishment protocols. Her website is besafebemindful.com thanks!

Yugoslavian postcard by Izrada 'Nas glas', Smederovo.

 

Robert Taylor (1911-1969) was called "The Man with the Perfect Profile". He won his first leading role in Magnificent Obsession (1935). His popularity increased during the late 1930s and 1940s with appearances in A Yank at Oxford (1938), Waterloo Bridge (1940), and Bataan (1943). He was the quintessential MGM company man until the demise of the studio system in the late 1950s.

 

Robert Taylor was born Spangler Arlington Brugh in 1911, in Filley, Nebraska. Taylor was the only child of Ruth Adaline (née Stanhope) and Spangler Andrew Brugh, a farmer turned doctor. During his early life, the family moved several times, and by September 1917, the Brughs had moved to Beatrice, Nebraska, where they remained for 16 years. As a teenager, Taylor was a track and field star and played the cello in his high school orchestra. Upon graduation, he enrolled at Doane College in Crete, Nebraska. While at Doane, he took cello lessons from Professor Herbert E. Gray, whom he admired and idolised. After Professor Gray announced he was accepting a new position at Pomona College in Claremont, California, Taylor moved to California and enrolled at Pomona. He joined the campus theater group and was eventually spotted by an MGM talent scout in 1932 after a production of Journey's End. He signed a seven-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The studio changed his name to Robert Taylor. He made his film debut on loan-out to Fox in the comedy Handy Andy (David Butler, 1934) starring Will Rogers. His first leading role came by accident. In 1934 Taylor was on the MGM payroll as "the test boy," a male juvenile who would be filmed opposite various young ingenues in screen tests. In late 1934, when MGM began production of its new short-subject series Crime Does Not Pay with the dramatic short Buried Loot (George B. Seitz, 1935), the actor who had been cast fell ill and could not appear. The director sent for the test boy to substitute for the missing actor. Taylor's dramatic performance, as an embezzler who deliberately disfigures himself to avoid detection, was so memorable that Taylor immediately was signed for feature films. In 1935, Irene Dunne requested him for her leading man in Magnificent Obsession (John M. Stahl, 1935), again on loan-out, this time to then struggling Universal Pictures. He played a happy-go-lucky party guy who inadvertently causes blindness to the young lady he wishes to impress and then becomes a doctor in order to cure her. The film was a big hit, and Taylor had a taste of instant box-office stardom. Along with his good looks, Taylor already showed solid dramatic skill in Camille (George Cukor, 1936) with Greta Garbo. Throughout the late 1930s, Taylor appeared in films of varying genres including the musicals Broadway Melody of 1936 (Roy Del Ruth, 1935) and Broadway Melody of 1938 (Roy Del Ruth, 1937), and the British comedy A Yank at Oxford (Jack Conway, 1938) with Lionel Barrymore and Vivien Leigh.

 

Throughout 1940 and 1941 Robert Taylor argued in favour of American entry into World War II and was sharply critical of the isolationist movement. During this time he said he was "100% pro-British". In 1940, he reteamed with Vivien Leigh in Mervyn LeRoy's drama Waterloo Bridge, a personal favorite by both Leigh and Taylor. After being given the nickname "The Man with the Perfect Profile", Taylor began breaking away from his perfect leading man image and began appearing in darker roles beginning in 1941. That year, he portrayed Billy Bonney (better known as Billy the Kid) in Billy the Kid (David Miller, 1941). The next year, he played the title role in the Film Noir Johnny Eager (Mervyn LeRoy, 1942) with Lana Turner. After playing a tough sergeant in the World War II drama Bataan (Tay Garnett, 1943), Taylor contributed to the war effort by becoming a flying instructor in the U.S. Naval Air Corps. During this time, he also starred in instructional films and narrated the documentary The Fighting Lady (Edward Steichen, 1944). After the war, he appeared in edgy roles in the Film Noirs Undercurrent (Vincente Minnelli, 1946) opposite Katharine Hepburn, and High Wall (Curtis Bernhardt, 1947). In 1949, he co-starred with Elizabeth Taylor in the Film Noir Conspirator (Victor Saville, 1949), which Hedda Hopper described as "another one of Taylor's pro-British films". Taylor responded to this by saying "And it won't be the last!" However, both Hopper and Taylor were members of the anticommunist organisation the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Taylor landed the role of General Marcus Vinicius in Quo Vadis (Mervyn LeRoy, 1950) with Deborah Kerr. The epic film was a hit, grossing US$11 million in its first run. The following year, he starred in the film version of Walter Scott's classic Ivanhoe (Richard Thorpe, 1951), again with Elizabeth Taylor. It was followed by two more historical adventure films, Knights of the Round Table (Richard Thorpe, 1953) and The Adventures of Quentin Durward (Richard Thorpe, 1955), all filmed in England. Of the three only Ivanhoe was a critical and financial success. Taylor also filmed Valley of the Kings (Robert Pirosh, 1954) in Egypt.

 

By the mid-1950s, Robert Taylor began to concentrate on Westerns, his preferred genre. He starred in a comedy Western Many Rivers to Cross (Roy Rowland, 1955) co-starring Eleanor Parker. In 1958, he shared the lead with Richard Widmark in the edgy Western The Law and Jake Wade (John Sturges, 1958). William McPeak at IMDb: "That he usually comes across on screen as having a confident, commanding presence is more of a testimony to his acting talent than his actual personality. He held rigid right-wing political beliefs that he refused to question and, when confronted with an opposing viewpoint, would simply reject it outright. He rarely, if ever, felt the need to be introspective. Taylor simply felt blessed to be working behind the walls of MGM. His affection for the studio would blind him to the fact that boss Louis B. Mayer masterfully manipulated him for nearly two decades, keeping Taylor's salary the lowest of any major Hollywood star. But this is also indicative of how much trust he placed in the hands of the studio's leaders. Indeed, Taylor remained the quintessential MGM company man and would be rewarded by remaining employed there until the demise of the studio system in the late 1950s."In 1958, he left MGM and formed Robert Taylor Productions, and the following year, he starred in the television series The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor (1959–1962). Following the end of the series in 1962, Taylor continued to appear in films and television shows, including A House Is Not a Home and two episodes of Hondo. In 1963, NBC filmed but never aired, four episodes of what was to have been The Robert Taylor Show, a series based on case files from the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The project was suddenly dropped for lack of coordination with HEW. In the same year, he filmed Miracle of the White Stallions for Walt Disney Productions. In 1964, Taylor co-starred with his former wife Barbara Stanwyck in William Castle's psychological horror film The Night Walker. Taylor traveled to Europe to film the Western Savage Pampas (Hugo Fregonese, 1966), the adventure film The Glass Sphinx (Luigi Scattini, 1967), and the comedy spy-thriller The Day the Hot Line Got Hot (Etienne Périer, 1968) with Charles Boyer. In 1965, Taylor took over the role of narrator in the television series Death Valley Days when Ronald Reagan left to pursue a career in politics. Taylor would remain with the series until his death in 1969. Taylor married Barbara Stanwyck in 1939 and they divorced in 1951. Taylor met German actress Ursula Thiess in 1952. They married in 1954. The couple had two children, a son, Terrance, (1955), and a daughter, Tessa, (1959). Taylor was stepfather to Thiess' two children from her previous marriage, Manuela and Michael Thiess. On 26 May 1969, shortly before Taylor's death at only 57 from lung cancer, Ursula Thiess found the body of her son, Michael, in a West Los Angeles motel room. He died from a drug overdose. One month before his death, Michael had been released from a mental hospital. In 1964, he spent a year in a reformatory for attempting to poison his father with insecticide.

 

Sources: William McPeak (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

Picturesque “sea of cloud" landscape photos from Huang Shan. No subtle humour, no subversive undercurrents in my choice of framing or subject matter, no little incongruous detail which you might reflect on later and find ambiguity in. Just scenery. Sequenced in the right context I hope can perhaps throw photos like these into a larger exploration of the Chinese landscape and people, as a kind of visual palate cleanser… much in the way climbing up a mountain to feel all that space and breath all that fresh subtropical air was a cleansing experience for me after living in Beijing. Huang Shan wasn’t a complete escape from modernity though. Pockets of urban China’s chaotic brashness had been transplanted into this serene environment via tourism infrastructure, and via the tourists themselves; the intrusive tour guide megaphones, the “visual pollution" of bright yellow plastic rain ponchos (ok, I was wearing a bright red waterproof jacket which was equally bad…). For a while, I tried rather unsuccessfully to compose photographs which would hint at this conflict zone between the natural serenity of the mountain and that transplanted urbanity, but simply being in that zone threatened to ruin the experience I had come in search of. I much prefer Chinese urbanity actually IN urban China. The sheer human energy of a crowded market, or perhaps the awe of speeding through the Shanghai skyline at night, for example, might in their own way be compared to standing watching the clouds from the summit of Huang Shan…

 

Huang Shan, Mamiya 6, June 2013

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2299/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / Schostal.

 

Robert Taylor (1911- 1969) was called "The Man with the Perfect Profile". He won his first leading role in Magnificent Obsession (1935). His popularity increased during the late 1930s and 1940s with appearances in A Yank at Oxford (1938), Waterloo Bridge (1940), and Bataan (1943). He was the quintessential MGM company man until the demise of the studio system in the late 1950s.

 

Robert Taylor was born Spangler Arlington Brugh in 1911, in Filley, Nebraska. Taylor was the only child of Ruth Adaline (née Stanhope) and Spangler Andrew Brugh, a farmer turned doctor. During his early life, the family moved several times, and by September 1917, the Brughs had moved to Beatrice, Nebraska, where they remained for 16 years. As a teenager, Taylor was a track and field star and played the cello in his high school orchestra. Upon graduation, he enrolled at Doane College in Crete, Nebraska. While at Doane, he took cello lessons from Professor Herbert E. Gray, whom he admired and idolised. After Professor Gray announced he was accepting a new position at Pomona College in Claremont, California, Taylor moved to California and enrolled at Pomona. He joined the campus theater group and was eventually spotted by an MGM talent scout in 1932 after a production of Journey's End. He signed a seven-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The studio changed his name to Robert Taylor. He made his film debut on loan-out to Fox in the comedy Handy Andy (David Butler, 1934) starring Will Rogers. His first leading role came by accident. In 1934 Taylor was on the MGM payroll as "the test boy," a male juvenile who would be filmed opposite various young ingenues in screen tests. In late 1934, when MGM began production of its new short-subject series Crime Does Not Pay with the dramatic short Buried Loot (George B. Seitz, 1935), the actor who had been cast fell ill and could not appear. The director sent for the test boy to substitute for the missing actor. Taylor's dramatic performance, as an embezzler who deliberately disfigures himself to avoid detection, was so memorable that Taylor immediately was signed for feature films. In 1935, Irene Dunne requested him for her leading man in Magnificent Obsession (John M. Stahl, 1935), again on loan-out, this time to then struggling Universal Pictures. He played a happy-go-lucky party guy who inadvertently causes blindness to the young lady he wishes to impress and then becomes a doctor in order to cure her. The film was a big hit, and Taylor had a taste of instant box-office stardom. Along with his good looks, Taylor already showed solid dramatic skill in Camille (George Cukor, 1936) with Greta Garbo. Throughout the late 1930s, Taylor appeared in films of varying genres including the musicals Broadway Melody of 1936 (Roy Del Ruth, 1935) and Broadway Melody of 1938 (Roy Del Ruth, 1937), and the British comedy A Yank at Oxford (Jack Conway, 1938) with Lionel Barrymore and Vivien Leigh.

 

Throughout 1940 and 1941 Robert Taylor argued in favour of American entry into World War II and was sharply critical of the isolationist movement. During this time he said he was "100% pro-British". In 1940, he reteamed with Vivien Leigh in Mervyn LeRoy's drama Waterloo Bridge, a personal favorite by both Leigh and Taylor. After being given the nickname "The Man with the Perfect Profile", Taylor began breaking away from his perfect leading man image and began appearing in darker roles beginning in 1941. That year, he portrayed Billy Bonney (better known as Billy the Kid) in Billy the Kid (David Miller, 1941). The next year, he played the title role in the Film Noir Johnny Eager (Mervyn LeRoy, 1942) with Lana Turner. After playing a tough sergeant in the World War II drama Bataan (Tay Garnett, 1943), Taylor contributed to the war effort by becoming a flying instructor in the U.S. Naval Air Corps. During this time, he also starred in instructional films and narrated the documentary The Fighting Lady (Edward Steichen, 1944). After the war, he appeared in edgy roles in the Film Noirs Undercurrent (Vincente Minnelli, 1946) opposite Katharine Hepburn, and High Wall (Curtis Bernhardt, 1947). In 1949, he co-starred with Elizabeth Taylor in the Film Noir Conspirator (Victor Saville, 1949), which Hedda Hopper described as "another one of Taylor's pro-British films". Taylor responded to this by saying "And it won't be the last!" However, both Hopper and Taylor were members of the anticommunist organisation the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Taylor landed the role of General Marcus Vinicius in Quo Vadis (Mervyn LeRoy, 1950) with Deborah Kerr. The epic film was a hit, grossing US$11 million in its first run. The following year, he starred in the film version of Walter Scott's classic Ivanhoe (Richard Thorpe, 1951), again with Elizabeth Taylor. It was followed by two more historical adventure films, Knights of the Round Table (Richard Thorpe, 1953) and The Adventures of Quentin Durward (Richard Thorpe, 1955), all filmed in England. Of the three only Ivanhoe was a critical and financial success. Taylor also filmed Valley of the Kings (Robert Pirosh, 1954) in Egypt.

 

By the mid-1950s, Robert Taylor began to concentrate on Westerns, his preferred genre. He starred in a comedy Western Many Rivers to Cross (Roy Rowland, 1955) co-starring Eleanor Parker. In 1958, he shared the lead with Richard Widmark in the edgy Western The Law and Jake Wade (John Sturges, 1958). William McPeak at IMDb: "That he usually comes across on screen as having a confident, commanding presence is more of a testimony to his acting talent than his actual personality. He held rigid right-wing political beliefs that he refused to question and, when confronted with an opposing viewpoint, would simply reject it outright. He rarely, if ever, felt the need to be introspective. Taylor simply felt blessed to be working behind the walls of MGM. His affection for the studio would blind him to the fact that boss Louis B. Mayer masterfully manipulated him for nearly two decades, keeping Taylor's salary the lowest of any major Hollywood star. But this is also indicative of how much trust he placed in the hands of the studio's leaders. Indeed, Taylor remained the quintessential MGM company man and would be rewarded by remaining employed there until the demise of the studio system in the late 1950s."In 1958, he left MGM and formed Robert Taylor Productions, and the following year, he starred in the television series The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor (1959–1962). Following the end of the series in 1962, Taylor continued to appear in films and television shows, including A House Is Not a Home and two episodes of Hondo. In 1963, NBC filmed but never aired, four episodes of what was to have been The Robert Taylor Show, a series based on case files from the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The project was suddenly dropped for lack of coordination with HEW. In the same year, he filmed Miracle of the White Stallions for Walt Disney Productions. In 1964, Taylor co-starred with his former wife Barbara Stanwyck in William Castle's psychological horror film The Night Walker. Taylor traveled to Europe to film the Western Savage Pampas (Hugo Fregonese, 1966), the adventure film The Glass Sphinx (Luigi Scattini, 1967), and the comedy spy-thriller The Day the Hot Line Got Hot (Etienne Périer, 1968) with Charles Boyer. In 1965, Taylor took over the role of narrator in the television series Death Valley Days when Ronald Reagan left to pursue a career in politics. Taylor would remain with the series until his death in 1969. Taylor married Barbara Stanwyck in 1939 and they divorced in 1951. Taylor met German actress Ursula Thiess in 1952. They married in 1954. The couple had two children, a son, Terrance, (1955), and a daughter, Tessa, (1959). Taylor was stepfather to Thiess' two children from her previous marriage, Manuela and Michael Thiess. On 26 May 1969, shortly before Taylor's death at only 57 from lung cancer, Ursula Thiess found the body of her son, Michael, in a West Los Angeles motel room. He died from a drug overdose. One month before his death, Michael had been released from a mental hospital. In 1964, he spent a year in a reformatory for attempting to poison his father with insecticide.

 

Sources: William McPeak (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

French postcard by Erpé, no. 548. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

 

Robert Taylor (1911- 1969) was called "The Man with the Perfect Profile". He won his first leading role in Magnificent Obsession (1935). His popularity increased during the late 1930s and 1940s with appearances in A Yank at Oxford (1938), Waterloo Bridge (1940), and Bataan (1943). He was the quintessential MGM company man until the demise of the studio system in the late 1950s.

 

Robert Taylor was born Spangler Arlington Brugh in 1911, in Filley, Nebraska. Taylor was the only child of Ruth Adaline (née Stanhope) and Spangler Andrew Brugh, a farmer turned doctor. During his early life, the family moved several times, and by September 1917, the Brughs had moved to Beatrice, Nebraska, where they remained for 16 years. As a teenager, Taylor was a track and field star and played the cello in his high school orchestra. Upon graduation, he enrolled at Doane College in Crete, Nebraska. While at Doane, he took cello lessons from Professor Herbert E. Gray, whom he admired and idolised. After Professor Gray announced he was accepting a new position at Pomona College in Claremont, California, Taylor moved to California and enrolled at Pomona. He joined the campus theater group and was eventually spotted by an MGM talent scout in 1932 after a production of Journey's End. He signed a seven-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The studio changed his name to Robert Taylor. He made his film debut on loan-out to Fox in the comedy Handy Andy (David Butler, 1934) starring Will Rogers. His first leading role came by accident. In 1934 Taylor was on the MGM payroll as "the test boy," a male juvenile who would be filmed opposite various young ingenues in screen tests. In late 1934, when MGM began production of its new short-subject series Crime Does Not Pay with the dramatic short Buried Loot (George B. Seitz, 1935), the actor who had been cast fell ill and could not appear. The director sent for the test boy to substitute for the missing actor. Taylor's dramatic performance, as an embezzler who deliberately disfigures himself to avoid detection, was so memorable that Taylor immediately was signed for feature films. In 1935, Irene Dunne requested him for her leading man in Magnificent Obsession (John M. Stahl, 1935), again on loan-out, this time to then struggling Universal Pictures. He played a happy-go-lucky party guy who inadvertently causes blindness to the young lady he wishes to impress and then becomes a doctor in order to cure her. The film was a big hit, and Taylor had a taste of instant box-office stardom. Along with his good looks, Taylor already showed solid dramatic skill in Camille (George Cukor, 1936) with Greta Garbo. Throughout the late 1930s, Taylor appeared in films of varying genres including the musicals Broadway Melody of 1936 (Roy Del Ruth, 1935) and Broadway Melody of 1938 (Roy Del Ruth, 1937), and the British comedy A Yank at Oxford (Jack Conway, 1938) with Lionel Barrymore and Vivien Leigh.

 

Throughout 1940 and 1941 Robert Taylor argued in favour of American entry into World War II and was sharply critical of the isolationist movement. During this time he said he was "100% pro-British". In 1940, he reteamed with Vivien Leigh in Mervyn LeRoy's drama Waterloo Bridge, a personal favorite by both Leigh and Taylor. After being given the nickname "The Man with the Perfect Profile", Taylor began breaking away from his perfect leading man image and began appearing in darker roles beginning in 1941. That year, he portrayed Billy Bonney (better known as Billy the Kid) in Billy the Kid (David Miller, 1941). The next year, he played the title role in the Film Noir Johnny Eager (Mervyn LeRoy, 1942) with Lana Turner. After playing a tough sergeant in the World War II drama Bataan (Tay Garnett, 1943), Taylor contributed to the war effort by becoming a flying instructor in the U.S. Naval Air Corps. During this time, he also starred in instructional films and narrated the documentary The Fighting Lady (Edward Steichen, 1944). After the war, he appeared in edgy roles in the Film Noirs Undercurrent (Vincente Minnelli, 1946) opposite Katharine Hepburn, and High Wall (Curtis Bernhardt, 1947). In 1949, he co-starred with Elizabeth Taylor in the Film Noir Conspirator (Victor Saville, 1949), which Hedda Hopper described as "another one of Taylor's pro-British films". Taylor responded to this by saying "And it won't be the last!" However, both Hopper and Taylor were members of the anticommunist organisation the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Taylor landed the role of General Marcus Vinicius in Quo Vadis (Mervyn LeRoy, 1950) with Deborah Kerr. The epic film was a hit, grossing US$11 million in its first run. The following year, he starred in the film version of Walter Scott's classic Ivanhoe (Richard Thorpe, 1951), again with Elizabeth Taylor. It was followed by two more historical adventure films, Knights of the Round Table (Richard Thorpe, 1953) and The Adventures of Quentin Durward (Richard Thorpe, 1955), all filmed in England. Of the three only Ivanhoe was a critical and financial success. Taylor also filmed Valley of the Kings (Robert Pirosh, 1954) in Egypt.

 

By the mid-1950s, Robert Taylor began to concentrate on Westerns, his preferred genre. He starred in a comedy Western Many Rivers to Cross (Roy Rowland, 1955) co-starring Eleanor Parker. In 1958, he shared the lead with Richard Widmark in the edgy Western The Law and Jake Wade (John Sturges, 1958). William McPeak at IMDb: "That he usually comes across on screen as having a confident, commanding presence is more of a testimony to his acting talent than his actual personality. He held rigid right-wing political beliefs that he refused to question and, when confronted with an opposing viewpoint, would simply reject it outright. He rarely, if ever, felt the need to be introspective. Taylor simply felt blessed to be working behind the walls of MGM. His affection for the studio would blind him to the fact that boss Louis B. Mayer masterfully manipulated him for nearly two decades, keeping Taylor's salary the lowest of any major Hollywood star. But this is also indicative of how much trust he placed in the hands of the studio's leaders. Indeed, Taylor remained the quintessential MGM company man and would be rewarded by remaining employed there until the demise of the studio system in the late 1950s."In 1958, he left MGM and formed Robert Taylor Productions, and the following year, he starred in the television series The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor (1959–1962). Following the end of the series in 1962, Taylor continued to appear in films and television shows, including A House Is Not a Home and two episodes of Hondo. In 1963, NBC filmed but never aired, four episodes of what was to have been The Robert Taylor Show, a series based on case files from the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The project was suddenly dropped for lack of coordination with HEW. In the same year, he filmed Miracle of the White Stallions for Walt Disney Productions. In 1964, Taylor co-starred with his former wife Barbara Stanwyck in William Castle's psychological horror film The Night Walker. Taylor traveled to Europe to film the Western Savage Pampas (Hugo Fregonese, 1966), the adventure film The Glass Sphinx (Luigi Scattini, 1967), and the comedy spy-thriller The Day the Hot Line Got Hot (Etienne Périer, 1968) with Charles Boyer. In 1965, Taylor took over the role of narrator in the television series Death Valley Days when Ronald Reagan left to pursue a career in politics. Taylor would remain with the series until his death in 1969. Taylor married Barbara Stanwyck in 1939 and they divorced in 1951. Taylor met German actress Ursula Thiess in 1952. They married in 1954. The couple had two children, a son, Terrance, (1955), and a daughter, Tessa, (1959). Taylor was stepfather to Thiess' two children from her previous marriage, Manuela and Michael Thiess. On 26 May 1969, shortly before Taylor's death at only 57 from lung cancer, Ursula Thiess found the body of her son, Michael, in a West Los Angeles motel room. He died from a drug overdose. One month before his death, Michael had been released from a mental hospital. In 1964, he spent a year in a reformatory for attempting to poison his father with insecticide.

 

Sources: William McPeak (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

One might have thought after contracting COVID, Donald Trump would alter his behavior and his message: that the coronavirus is a disease to be taken seriously and prevention should be a top priority. But that hasn’t happened. His primary concern during his three-day stay at Walter Reed Medical Center was that he looked weak. That’s what viruses do to our bodies. But to Trump, weakness reflected a more deeply seeded issue. It made him look vulnerable: something he has feared for decades, growing up as the son of Fred Trump. He could never tolerate that. But with the looming election, this became a liability he had to bury.

 

During that time, his doctors gave daily updates. But the media questioned these rosy accounts, and it became apparent that his primary physician, Dr. Sean Conley, was not telling the public the whole truth. We have since learned that all staff attending to the president had to sign nondisclosure agreements. In “normal” times, Trump is a difficult man. As a patient, he did his best to control the narrative surrounding his illness. He tried to look robust and able-bodied. He tweeted that he felt “great,” better than he had 20 years ago. But that was the steroids talking. The White House released photos showing him at work in the hospital’s presidential suite. In reality, they were staged; he was signing his name to blank sheets of paper. On Sunday afternoon, he took a joyride to well-wishers standing on the sidewalk in front of the hospital. Seen only through a bullet-proof glass window of his hermetically sealed limousine, politicians and the media criticized him for leaving the hospital while he was ill and contagious and endangering the lives of the Secret Service agents who rode with him. Others’ safety took a backseat to his image.

 

Many remarked he did not look well and the wall of privacy the doctors built around his condition began to erode. It was clear the president had been on oxygen numerous times, indicating his oxygen level was below normal. Not a good sign for a COVID patient. We still don’t know when he first tested positive or when he will no longer be contagious. The White House won’t release those facts.

 

On Monday, October 5, President Trump announced he was returning to the White House. It’s clear the decision was his. As his helicopter landed on the South Lawn, he walked up the stairs to the balcony. As he reached the top, out of breath, he turned to the cameras and defiantly tore off his mask. Only his most ardent supporters believed he had been cured, as he had tweeted that day.

 

The disease has put a halt to his rallies. He is now in a new bubble, not one filled with his base, but a quarantine. He hasn’t left the White House since his return. Tweeting, a call to Fox Business News, and staged videos have been his only engagements with the outside. The West Wing is virtually empty. Over 34 staffers and other officials close to the president have caught COVID. He continues to refuse to wear a mask, putting those still working there at risk. Most egregiously, he tweeted “Don’t be afraid of COVID,” an irresponsible statement from a man who still has the virus and as leader of a country that has experienced over 210,000 deaths from the disease. He still wants to debate Joe Biden face-to-face on October 15. But, for safety's sake, the debate commission decided the event will be virtual. He’s rejected that and plans to hold a rally instead. We still don’t know how much longer he will be contagious. He won’t release any information.

 

Where Donald Trump’s brazen behavior has, over the course of his presidency, been labeled “the new normal,” his actions since contracting COVID-19 have hit a new low. But Trump has always been in that altered state. Perhaps drug-induced from the beginning, it is built on a foundation of insecurity and privilege. Many have noted that the steroids he’s taking are responsible for his erratic behavior. And it has given the pundits and politicians license to voice their concern with greater urgency—the disease, the drugs, and the president’s denials have given critics permission to state what previously had become an undercurrent in this administration.

 

Nine months into Donald Trump’s presidency he defended white supremacists in Charlottesville by saying they included “some very fine people" Four years later, he has downplayed the pandemic and his COVID infection for his own personal gain. The steroids have only magnified what he already is and has been. Will this be his final defiance? Not yet.

  

Feel free to pass this poster on. It's free to download here (click on the down arrow just to the lower right of the image).

 

See the rest of the posters from the Chamomile Tea Party! Digital high res downloads are free here (click the down arrow on the lower right side of the image). Other options are available. And join our Facebook group.

 

Follow the history of our country's political intransigence from 2010-2018 through a six-part exhibit of these posters on Google Arts & Culture.

Illustration by Gustav Doré (1832 – 1883) after Antonio Canova.

 

Baron von Munchausen is a fictional German nobleman created by the German writer Rudolf Erich Raspe in his 1785 book "Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels". The character is loosely based on a real baron, Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchhausen (1720-1797).

After hearing some of Münchhausen's stories, Raspe adapted them anonymously into literary form, first in German as ephemeral magazine pieces and then in English as the book, which was first published in Oxford.. The book was soon translated into other European languages, including a German version.

The fictional Baron's exploits, narrated in the first person, focus on his impossible achievements as a sportsman, soldier, and traveller, for instance riding on a cannonball, fighting a forty-foot crocodile, and travelling to the Moon. Intentionally comedic, the stories play on the absurdity and inconsistency of Munchausen's claims, and contain an undercurrent of social satire.

again an abstract geometric artwork.....could be the front of a building...think the idea of windows & doors works better in this one.....

 

thanks for looking in...appreciated...best bigger.......hope you have a Great Day

I don’t want no drama

 

I don’t know whether to blame my introverted nature, my awkward family, or my upbringing in a cultish religion, but I’ve always struggled with social cues. For the most part, I just give up and pretend happy oblivion.

 

Tango drama refers to the cliques and trysts that are the electric undercurrent to tango culture. While I consider myself an observant person, I’m also a very logical person, and have a hard time reading the irrational subtext of looks, touches, and words in this culture. For the most part, I bumble through class and milongas completely ignorant of the tango drama.

 

The only part of tango drama that I really get is the dress. I find it especially entertaining to create one outfit that takes me from cubicle to dancefloor.

 

Coat, Russell Taylor (vintage). Sweater, thrifted. Dress, Adrianna Papell (consignment). Boots, Steve Madden. Sunglasses, Aerie. Earrings, flea market. Belt, Express.

These waves are ferocious! There's always gotta be one person who refuses to heed the warning to stay out of the water due to strong undercurrents! Zoom in to find him!

Vintage postcard. Image: Walt Disney Productions, 1974. Publicity still for Robin Hood (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1973).

 

The twenty-first Disney animated feature film Robin Hood (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1973) is an imaginative version of the Robin Hood legend. Fun and romance abound as the swashbuckling hero of Sherwood Forest and his valiant sidekick Little John plot one daring adventure after another to outwit the greedy Prince John. Early on in the film, Robin and Little John happen upon the royal entourage which is taking Prince John and his counselor, Sir Hiss, to Nottingham in order to tax the people there. Disguised as female fortune-tellers, Robin and Little John effectively steal from Prince John all the gold they can carry and run off into the forest, leaving Prince John sucking his thumb in humiliation. In Nottingham, Robin uses Friar Tuck to smuggle the stolen gold back to the peasants. Later Robin sees Maid Marian, she and Robin had once been sweethearts as children but were forced to part ways when she moved to London. But she is mistaken: Robin can't stop thinking about her. But since Robin is an outlaw he and Marian wait for marriage. Seething with rage, that Robin is winning, John triples the taxes, making the bleak situation in Nottingham even worse. One night, Robin Hood, disguised again as the beggar, learns that Friar Tuck is in jail and will rescue him, save Nottingham once and for all and give Prince John the justice that has been coming to him for a long time...

 

Robin Hood is generally considered to be one of the weakest Disney animated classics, but I totally disagree. Yes, this version of Robin Hood has animals in the roles of the characters, but it works superbly! Robin Hood as a clever fox is a natural choice. And naturally, Maid Marian is a vixen. Prince John and King Richard as lions are also logical choices. But John is a mane-less lion, who starts sucking his thumb whenever anyone mentions his mother. He is silly, but with a truly evil undercurrent. The Sheriff of Nottingham is also deliciously nasty ("Upsy-daisy"), Other hilarious characters are the vultures Trigger, and Nutsy, and Sir Hiss, the snake. They provide delicious humour to the film. Sir Hiss is smarter than any of the other bad guys, but the humor with him is that Prince John never believes him until it's too late, and abuses him afterward. Trigger's 'old Betsy' (a crossbow) provides plenty of laughs, especially when it goes off. And Nutsy is so stupid he says "One o'clock and all's well!" when it's three o'clock, and when told to set his brain ahead a couple of hours, he doesn't know if he has to add or subtract two hours. Apart from the great characters and their witty and smart dialogues, the film has beautiful background artwork e especially in the love scene, and the music is also good, with the hard and gritty song 'Not in Nottingham' as a highlight. Robin Hood was a box office hit at the time and it was initially received with positive reviews from film critics who praised the voice cast, animation, and humor, but its critical reception became gradually mixed since its release and recycled scenes of animation have been noted. But despite these flaws, Robin Hood is still a very entertaining Disney classic.

 

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

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Paris

 

Of Liszt's smaller Tone-Poems, thirteen in number, No.III, Les Preludes, is probably the best known and most popular, as it is in many respects the one most characteristic of Liszt's original methods. Its origin is traceable to the Poetic Meditations of Lamartine, though the actual undercurrent of the work is defined by Liszt in a "preface" of his own, the lines of which: "What is our Life but a series of Preludes to that unknown chant, the first solemn note of which is sounded by Death?" supply the title of the Tone-Poem. The composition is a continuous unit, divided into four Episodes, remotely analogous to the four Movements of the Traditional Symphony. These Episodes are called: (1) Dawn of Existence; Love; (2) Storms of Life; (3) Refuge and Consolation in Rural life; (4) Strife and Conquest. The structural plan does not---with its poetic, realistic aim it could not---conform to any of the classic designs. But it presents two clearly defined, well-contrasted, effective and extremely engaging Themes, treated with superlative skill, and alternating in a fairly regular manner, suggestive of a Rondo-form. The Motive which accompanies Theme B in the third Episode assumes almost the importance of a third Theme, since it constitutes the proper basis of that entire Episode.

 

You should really watch this large on black... thanks :)

One of the most characteristic and poorly-understood features of the Mysteries is the naked lion-headed figure often found in Mithraic temples, named by the modern scholars with descriptive terms such as leontocephaline (lion-headed) or leontocephalus (lion-head). He is entwined by a serpent (or two serpents, like a caduceus), with the snake’s head often resting on the lion’s head. The lion’s mouth is often open, giving a horrifying impression. He is usually represented as having four wings, two keys (sometimes a single key), and a scepter in his hand. Sometimes the figure is standing on a globe inscribed with a diagonal cross. In the figure shown here, the four wings carry the symbols of the four seasons, and a thunderbolt is engraved on the breast. At the base of the statue are the hammer and tongs of Vulcan, the cock, and the wand of Mercury. A variation the same figure, but with a human head instead of the lion-mask, is also found, but is rare..Although animal-headed figures are prevalent in contemporary Egyptian and Gnostic mythological representations, an exact parallel to the Mithraic leontocephaline figure has not been found.[47] The name of the figure has been deciphered from dedicatory inscriptions to be Arimanius, a Latinized form of the name Ahriman – a demonic figure in the Zoroastrian pantheon. Arimanius is known from inscriptions to have been a god in the Mithraic cult as seen, for example, in images from the Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae (CIMRM) such as 222 from Ostia, 369 from Rome, and 1773 and 1775 from Pannonia.Some scholars identify the lion-man as Aion, or Zurvan, or Cronus, or Chronos, while others assert that it is a version of the Zoroastrian Ahriman.[There is also speculation that the figure is the Gnostic demiurge, (Ariel) Ialdabaoth.[51] Although the exact identity of the lion-headed figure is debated by scholars, it is largely agreed that the god is associated with time and seasonal change.] An occultist, D. J. Cooper, speculates to the contrary that the lion-headed figure is not a god, but rather represents the spiritual state achieved in Mithraism's "adept" level, the Leo (lion) degree.

Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries, was a mystery religion centred around the god Mithras that was practised in the Roman Empire from about the 1st to the 4th century. The religion was inspired by Persian worship of the god Mithra (proto-Indo-Iranian Mitra), though the Greek Mithras was linked to a new and distinctive imagery, and the level of continuity between Persian and Greco-Roman practice is debated.[1] The mysteries were popular in the Roman military.Worshippers of Mithras had a complex system of seven grades of initiation and communal ritual meals. Initiates called themselves syndexioi, those “united by the handshake”.[3] They met in underground temples, called mithraea, which survive in large numbers. The cult appears to have had its centre in Rome.Numerous archaeological finds, including meeting places, monuments and artifacts, have contributed to modern knowledge about Mithraism throughout the Roman Empire. The iconic scenes of Mithras show him being born from a rock, slaughtering a bull, and sharing a banquet with the god Sol (the Sun). About 420 sites have yielded materials related to the cult. Among the items found are about 1000 inscriptions, 700 examples of the bull-killing scene (tauroctony), and about 400 other monuments.[6] It has been estimated that there would have been at least 680 mithraea in Rome. No written narratives or theology from the religion survive; limited information can be derived from the inscriptions and brief or passing references in Greek and Latin literature. Interpretation of the physical evidence remains problematic and contested.The Romans regarded the mysteries as having Persian or Zoroastrian sources. Since the early 1970s the dominant scholarship has noted dissimilarities between Persian Mithra-worship and the Roman Mithraic mysteries. In this context, Mithraism has sometimes been viewed as a rival of early Christianity with similarities such as liberator-saviour, hierarchy of adepts (bishops, presbyters, deacons), communal meal and a hard struggle of Good and Evil (bull-killing/crucifixion).The name Mithras (Latin, equivalent to Greek "Μίθρας",is a form of Mithra, the name of an Old Persian god – a relationship understood by Mithraic scholars since the days of Franz Cumont. An early example of the Greek form of the name is in a 4th century BCE work by Xenophon, the Cyropaedia, which is a biography of the Persian king Cyrus the Great.The exact form of a Latin or classical Greek word varies due to the grammatical process of declension. There is archeological evidence that in Latin worshippers wrote the nominative form of the god’s name as "Mithras". However, in Porphyry’s Greek text De Abstinentia («Περὶ ἀποχῆς ἐμψύχων»), there is a reference to the now-lost histories of the Mithraic mysteries by Euboulus and Pallas, the wording of which suggests that these authors treated the name "Mithra" as an indeclinable foreign word.Related deity-names in other languages include.Sanskrit Mitra (मित्रः), the name of a god praised in the Rig Veda. In Sanskrit, "mitra" means "friend" or "friendship".the form mi-it-ra-, found in an inscribed peace treaty between the Hittites and the kingdom of Mitanni, from about 1400 BCE.Iranian "Mithra" and Sanskrit "Mitra" are believed to come from an Indo-Iranian word mitra meaning contract / agreement / covenant.Modern historians have different conceptions about whether these names refer to the same god or not. John R. Hinnells has written of Mitra / Mithra / Mithras as a single deity worshipped in several different religions.On the other hand, David Ulansey considers the bull-slaying Mithras to be a new god who began to be worshipped in the 1st Century BCE, and to whom an old name was applied.Mary Boyce, a researcher of ancient Iranian religions, writes that even though Roman Empire Mithraism seems to have had less Iranian content than historians used to think, none the less “as the name Mithras alone shows, this content was of some importance.”.Mithra was the god of light, purity, goodness, truth and occupied an important place in the faith of the ancient India-European peoples.There are various opinions on the spread of the Mithra (or Mithras, Mitra) cult, but the most reliable one is the first written protocol about the Mithraic cult from 14th century BC.In the treaty text signed between the powerful kingdom of Mitanni (Mitanni was situated in the North of Armenian Plateau) of king Shativaza (unknown-1350 BC), and the Hittite king of Suppiluliuma (1380-1346 BC) we can see the name of Mithra. So the Mithraic cult was mentioned in Persian cuneiform inscriptions and in the Indian Vedic texts since the fourth century BC.As a result of the religious revolution of Ardashir II, the Sassanid King of Persia in 395 AD, the cults of Mithra and Anahita, the Iranian goddess, were imported to Persia and combined with Zoroastrianism. In the first century BC the cult of Mithra penetrated into Rome, and in the third century AD this religion had become international and spread from India to the Black Sea, from the Balkans to Britain and Spain. Now there are more than four hundred Mithraic temple ruins throughout the Europe.So at first, in fourth century BC this cult spread from the Armenian Plateau to South Persia and India and in first century BC to North-West Europe. The Mysteries of Mithras.....The upper grades, known as the “Participants,” were: 4th . Lion, of the element of FireI died as a mineral and became a vegetable, I passed away as vegetation and became animal. Leaving the animal state I became man. Why should I fear? When was I less through death? I shall once more die: from manhood, to soar with angels: and I must pass beyond angelhood—all perish but God. When I have given up my angel self, I shall be what no mind has conceived.—Jalaluddin Rum.Perhaps it was fitting to begin the following article on the Mithraic Mysteries on the day of the recent Winter Solstice. According to tradition, the god Mithras was born of (“sprang from”) the rock on the shortest day of the year, his birthday celebration occurring on December 25, marking the return of Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun.Prior to the vision of Roman Emperor Constantine later establishing Christianity as state religion, a fraternity centered upon the Rites of Mithras once captivated the Western world. Originating in India and later spreading to Persia, Mithraism moved across Europe along with the sprawl of the late Roman Empire.Plutarch, in his Life of Pompey credits the introduction of Mithraism in Rome to pirates arriving from Cilicia, an ancient region south of the Tarsus Mountains in southeast Asia Minor along the Mediterranean Sea.The Indo-Persian myth describing Ahura-Mazda’s battle of Light against Darkness casts Mithras as an associate of the Sun.As the tale begins, Mithras captures the wild bull, the first creation of Ahura-Mazda, and confines it within a cave. The bull escapes, and the Sun sends his messenger the Raven to look for it. Mithras is also sent by Ahura-Mazda and with the help of his dog, he recaptures the beast. He drags it back to the cave and straddles it, cutting the bull’s throat. From the resulting issue of blood springs corn, wheat, and other forms of life. In retaliation, Ahriman, the Chief of Darkness, orders his minions, the ant, snake, and scorpion, to drink up the miraculous fluid, but to no avail: it spreads all over the world giving it life. In a gesture of acknowledgement, the Sun kneels before Mithras offering a crown to seal a covenant with him. The two part ways after a sacramental meal.As we shall see, the reenactment of the myth in the rites of initiation involved passing through seven grades that correspond to seven planets. The worship of Mithras at this time required the construction of a Mithraea, a temple in the form of an underground vault or “cave.” The temple interior consisted of a torch-lit hall with side benches culminating in a central sculpted image of Mithras. Adorned with a Phrygian (“Persian”) cap, he is depicted holding a bull by the nostrils from behind in the act of stabbing it in the neck with a dagger. His image is often accompanied by two torchbearers, possibly representing the Sun and the Moon: Cautes, with upraised torch, and Cautopates, with torch pointed earthward. The ceiling of the sanctuary was painted to resemble the starry “cave” of the night sky. Franz Cumont has mapped the dispersion of various Mithraea across Europe and Asia Minor. The number of them, and of other related Mithraic artifacts is astounding, and indeed, many temples remain intact to this day.

Roman Mithraism appropriated and adapted occult knowledge from the Pythagorean Mysteries, through the astronomical revelations of Hipparchus and the later speculations of the Stoics.Accordingly, Mithraic scholar David Ulansey feels that The Rites of Mithra may be explained by examining the astral religion of the Hellenistic period. The position of the images depicted in the sanctuary suggest that they are directly related to constellations observable at that time: the bull to Taurus, scorpion to Scorpio, snake to Hydra, raven to Corvus, dog to Canus minor, lion to Leo major.Ulansey connects Mithras with the Greek god Perseus of the constellation just above Taurus, who was also known as “the Persian.” Perseus was popularly worshipped in Cilicia, home to the pirates described by Plutarch. In myth, Perseus kills the Gorgon and similarly, as we have seen, Mithras kills the bull. The astral adaptation is a metaphor for the precession of the equinoxes signaling the end of the Age of Taurus, and the beginning of the Age of Aries. Mithras is seen as a diety with the power to move the universe on its cosmic axis, one who controls Fate. Identification with such a God through ritual would seem to confer similar gifts upon the initiate, bestowing the promise of everlasting life.8)One writer has labeled Mithraism “the Alchemy of the Roman World.”

However, initiation into the Mysteries of Mithras in a Roman Mithraea involved austerities and hardships that would make the most rugged Freemason of today blanch.10) The candidate entered the ritual space blindfolded and naked. An oath of secrecy was obtained. Ordeals by fire, by branding upon the forehead, scourging, striking with the leg of a bull, as well as the laying on of hands, pouring on of water, and the bestowing of a solar crown upon the head are reported. Masks and costumes representing key figures found in the myth were worn by participants who had previously achieved the various grades in the hierarchy of the Rite.The “grades” accompanying initiation correspond to the principal participants and their activity found within the myth.The lower grades, known collectively as “Servitors” were in ascending order: 1st. Raven, of the element of Air, is under the sign of Mercury messenger of the gods. Symbols of this degree include the raven, cup, and caduceus of Mercury. 2nd. Bride(groom?), of the element of Water, is under the sign of Venus. Fragments suggest that symbols of this degree included a lamp and a crown. The joining of hands was part of this grade, hence the allusion to a “wedding ceremony.” 3rd. Soldier, of the element of Earth, is under the sign of Mars. Symbols are the soldier’s pouch worn over his shoulder, a helmet, and a lance.The upper grades, known as the “Participants,” were: 4th . Lion, of the element of Fire, under the sign of Jupiter. Symbols of this degree include a fire shovel, a sistrum, and thunderbolts. 5th. Persian, of the element of Water, under the sign of the Moon. Symbols include a hooked knife, a scythe or plow, and the moon and a star. 6th. Courier of the Sun, of the element of Fire, under the sign of the Sun. Symbols are a torch, crown, and a whip (to drive his chariot across the sky). 7th. Father (Pater) under the sign of Saturn. Symbols include a ring or dish, a staff, the Phrygian cap, and a sickle. The holder of this highest rank dressed like Mithras himself. During initiations and other regular ritual activity including sacramental meals, the holders of the various grades were regarded as the earthly representatives of celestial, archetypal participants in the myth.Were the Rites of Mithras “co-alchemic?” Not in the Roman rite, which was most popular among men in the military. At its peak, it was a warrior’s religion. However, evidence suggests that there were fraternal relationships with women from the Cybele-cult, who possibly shared the taurobolium—a “baptism” in bull’s blood, with initiates of Mithraism. This point is controversial, and it is not clear how it may have been performed in a typically small Mithraea.A final sculptural image of Mithras depicts him as the Aeonic Mithras, the Mithraic Cronus, representative of Boundless Time.According to Armenian ancient beliefs, 365 saints are living in the heart of the Sun and each of them is the owner of one day of the year, appointed in order to prevent evil.It is said that within the salty sea (Lake of the Van), there was a rock, and when heaven was darkened the light fell on the rock and shortly after was born Mithra, almost naked but with a Phrygian hat on his head, and torch in his left hand, and it illuminated the world. By killing the bull, Mithra was creating the world from its parts.Strabo chronicled that during the ruling of Achaemenid Empire the Armenian Satrap donated 20,000 horses to the annual Mithra celebration. The observations dedicated to Mithra were celebrated by Armenians in the Month of Areg, which coincided with Iranian month of Mithra. The Armenian seventh month is named Mehekan and each month’s eighth day was called Mithra.Mithra, the god of light, kindness and contracts was indeed born from the very rock—this characteristic is affirmed either by archaeological finds or by the Geghard temple in Armenia, which is carved into the rocky landscape.In 1953-54 during research in Eskikale (Turkey) a tunnel was unearthed which reached depths of 160 meters (525 feet) consisting of a long mountain slope ending with two circular rooms. It is similar to the tunnel at Bagaritch in Upper Armenia with the temple complex dedicated to Mithra.From the mythological point of view, tunnels are the place of birth of Mithra as it said “the beam, separated from the star, penetrates into the depths of the tunnel, giving birth to Mithra, from where he ascended to heaven.” The carved temple of Geghard has also been seen as the birthplace of Mithra during the pre-Christian period.In Vedic texts Mithra is the god who protected the Sun and is always mentioned with Varuna.In Indian sources Mithra is the god of love, light, tenderness and sun shine. The closeness and affection of Mithra and Varuna is inseparable and stable. Varuna is the god of heaven and night. Mithra is the god of light, sunshine and day. These gods of night and day are fellows in cult rituals. Varuna is also the god of waters and seas , and is the husband of Varun, god of wine.Vedic texts are notable for the main ritual of the Mithraic cult, such as sacrificing a bull, which penetrated to Europe. One of the noblest gods is Soma (in Avesta, the primary collection of religious texts of Zoroastrianism, he is instead named Haoma). Soma is the god of invincible power, the god who cures all the diseases. It is Soma who gave life, wealth, and wish fulfillment.In Sanskrit, the name Soma is used for the Moon. They are the same only by name, however, as all the characteristics of the Moon are attributed to a goddess of plants. So, they believed the moon presided over healing plants and thus sacrificed oblations and offerings in worship rituals.Also Soma is the name of a sacred plant. From the leaf of this plant was made a strong alcoholic beverage loved by the gods, and which was dedicated to the gods. During rituals, priests drank this beverage in order to come close to and join with the gods. Soma was the life deity and life essence, and even though the gods received their eternity from this beverage, mortal men could attain temporary ‘eternity’ by drinking the beverage too, allegorically meaning the joining with the God and Essence.According to legend a riot arose between the gods. The god Shiva got involved in the formidable fighting and in one stoke divided god Soma in two, which demonstrates the tradition of sacred bull killing.In other versions the gods decided to kill Soma. The god Wayuu ordered the execution and asked help from Mithra-Varuna. Mithra refused to help and said, “I wish love, boon and affection to everybody.” At the end Mithra agreed to participate in ritual killing in order to benefit from the sacrifice. After the killing they crushed Soma between two stones. It was Mithra’s responsibility to spill on the ground the part of his Soma juice from which would germinate the plants and the animals.In pictures and sculptures of the bull sacrifice ritual, Mithra is often seen turning his face and eyes away, indicating the rejection or distaste of this action. But the bull is the source of life, and the ritual is necessary.“A Being with lion’s head, and eagles wings, and brute’s feet, and human body, enwrapped with a serpent, standing on a globe and holding the keys of life and death in its two hands….The Autozoon, or Living Creature in itself the summation of all forms of life, including man.”14)“It was this God, that the adepts of the mysteries placed at the head of the celestial hierarchy, and considered the first Principal.”15) Surrounded by the signs of the zodiac, he is the winged, invincible Soul emerging from the Cosmic Egg, coiled in the form of the rising serpent representing the manifestation of matter out of the central mystery of Eternity.The fraternal Mithraic Rites fulfill the function of a Mystery School designed to join the temporal nature of the initiate with the Eternal Reality of Spiritual Truth. Establishing a Golden Chain linking Heaven and Earth through the intermediary of human experience, the follower of Mithras walks a path mirroring that of the stars moving through the Universe, and beyond, into a timeless realm that truly, no mind may conceive.Mithraism.......Lion-headed figure... He will say: 'Where ... ?One of the most characteristic and poorly-understood features of the Mysteries is the naked lion-headed figure often found in Mithraic temples, named by the modern scholars with descriptive terms such as leontocephaline (lion-headed) or leontocephalus (lion-head). He is entwined by a serpent (or two serpents, like a caduceus), with the snake’s head often resting on the lion’s head. The lion’s mouth is often open, giving a horrifying impression. He is usually represented as having four wings, two keys (sometimes a single key), and a scepter in his hand. Sometimes the figure is standing on a globe inscribed with a diagonal cross. In the figure shown here, the four wings carry the symbols of the four seasons, and a thunderbolt is engraved on the breast. At the base of the statue are the hammer and tongs of Vulcan, the cock, and the wand of Mercury. A variation the same figure, but with a human head instead of the lion-mask, is also found, but is rare.Although animal-headed figures are prevalent in contemporary Egyptian and Gnostic mythological representations, an exact parallel to the Mithraic leontocephaline figure has not been found.The name of the figure has been deciphered from dedicatory inscriptions to be Arimanius, a Latinized form of the name Ahriman – a demonic figure in the Zoroastrian pantheon. Arimanius is known from inscriptions to have been a god in the Mithraic cult as seen, for example, in images from the Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae (CIMRM) such as 222 from Ostia, 369 from Rome, and 1773 and 1775 from Pannonia.Some scholars identify the lion-man as Aion, or Zurvan, or Cronus, or Chronos, while others assert that it is a version of the Zoroastrian Ahriman.There is also speculation that the figure is the Gnostic demiurge, (Ariel) Ialdabaoth.[51] Although the exact identity of the lion-headed figure is debated by scholars, it is largely agreed that the god is associated with time and seasonal change.[52] An occultist, D. J. Cooper, speculates to the contrary that the lion-headed figure is not a god, but rather represents the spiritual state achieved in Mithraism's "adept" level, the Leo (lion) degree. According to M. J. Vermaseren, the Mithraic New Year and the birthday of Mithras was on December 25.[54][55] However, Beck disagrees strongly.[56] Clauss states: "the Mithraic Mysteries had no public ceremonies of its own. The festival of Natalis Invicti, held on 25 December, was a general festival of the Sun, and by no means specific to the Mysteries of Mithras."Mithraic initiates were required to swear an oath of secrecy and dedication,[58] and some grade rituals involved the recital of a catechism, wherein the initiate was asked a series of questions pertaining to the initiation symbolism and had to reply with specific answers. An example of such a catechism, apparently pertaining to the Leo grade, was discovered in a fragmentary Egyptian papyrus (P.Berolinensis 21196), He will say: 'Where ... ?... he is/(you are?) there (then/thereupon?) at a loss?' Say: ... Say: 'Night'. He will say: 'Where ... ?' ... Say: 'All things ...' (He will say): '... you are called ... ?' Say: 'Because of the summery ...' ... having become ... he/it has the fiery ... (He will say): '... did you receive/inherit?' Say: 'In a pit'. He will say: 'Where is your ...?... (Say): '...(in the...) Leonteion.' He will say: 'Will you gird?' The (heavenly?) ...(Say): '... death'. He will say: 'Why, having girded yourself, ...?' '... this (has?) four tassels. Very sharp and ... '... much'. He will say: ...? (Say: '... because of/through?) hot and cold'. He will say: ...? (Say): '... red ... linen'. He will say: 'Why?' Say: '... red border; the linen, however, ...' (He will say): '... has been wrapped?' Say: 'The savior's ...' He will say: 'Who is the father?' Say: 'The one who (begets?) everything ...' (He will say): '('How ?)... did you become a Leo?' Say: 'By the ... of the father'. ... Say: 'Drink and food'. He will say '...Almost no Mithraic scripture or first-hand account of its highly secret rituals survives;[29] with the exception of the aforementioned oath and catechism, and the document known as the Mithras Liturgy, from 4th century Egypt, whose status as a Mithraist text has been questioned by scholars including Franz Cumont.[60][61] The walls of Mithraea were commonly whitewashed, and where this survives it tends to carry extensive repositories of graffiti; and these, together with inscriptions on Mithraic monuments, form the main source for Mithraic texts.Nevertheless, it is clear from the archeology of numerous Mithraea that most rituals were associated with feasting – as eating utensils and food residues are almost invariably found. These tend to include both animal bones and also very large quantities of fruit residues.[63] The presence of large amounts of cherry-stones in particular would tend to confirm mid-summer (late June, early July) as a season especially associated with Mithraic festivities. The Virunum album, in the form of an inscribed bronze plaque, records a Mithraic festival of commemoration as taking place on 26 June 184. Beck argues that religious celebrations on this date are indicative of special significance being given to the Summer solstice; but this time of the year coincides with ancient recognition of the solar maximum at midsummer, whilst iconographically identical holidays such as Litha, St John's Eve, and Jāņi are observed also.For their feasts, Mithraic initiates reclined on stone benches arranged along the longer sides of the Mithraeum – typically there might be room for 15 to 30 diners, but very rarely many more than 40 men.[64] Counterpart dining rooms, or triclinia, were to be found above ground in the precincts of almost any temple or religious sanctuary in the Roman empire, and such rooms were commonly used for their regular feasts by Roman 'clubs', or collegia. Mithraic feasts probably performed a very similar function for Mithraists as the collegia did for those entitled to join them; indeed, since qualification for Roman collegia tended to be restricted to particular families, localities or traditional trades, Mithraism may have functioned in part as providing clubs for the unclubbed.[65] However, the size of the Mithraeum is not necessarily an indication of the size of the congregation.Each Mithraeum had several altars at the further end, underneath the representation of the tauroctony, and also commonly contained considerable numbers of subsidiary altars, both in the main Mithraeum chamber and in the ante-chamber or narthex. These altars, which are of the standard Roman pattern, each carry a named dedicatory inscription from a particular initiate, who dedicated the altar to Mithras "in fulfillment of his vow", in gratitude for favours received. Burned residues of animal entrails are commonly found on the main altars indicating regular sacrificial use. However, Mithraea do not commonly appear to have been provided with facilities for ritual slaughter of sacrificial animals (a highly specialised function in Roman religion), and it may be presumed that a Mithraeum would have made arrangements for this service to be provided for them in co-operation with the professional victimarius[68] of the civic cult. Prayers were addressed to the Sun three times a day, and Sunday was especially sacred.It is doubtful whether Mithraism had a monolithic and internally consistent doctrine.It may have varied from location to location.However, the iconography is relatively coherent.[38] It had no predominant sanctuary or cultic centre; and, although each Mithraeum had its own officers and functionaries, there was no central supervisory authority. In some Mithraea, such as that at Dura Europos, wall paintings depict prophets carrying scrolls,[72] but no named Mithraic sages are known, nor does any reference give the title of any Mithraic scripture or teaching. It is known that intitates could transfer with their grades from one Mithraeum to another.HomeThe Red Cap of Liberty is also known as the Phrygian Cap, Mithraic Cap, sacrificial Cap, mitre and in French as the bonnet de laLiberté or bonnet rouge. It symbolizes the sacred acts of Initiation, Sacrifice, Liberty, Revolution, Enlightenment, and Brotherhood...It has been worn by various Abrahamic priesthoods over the last few thousand years and also newly emancipated slaves since the time of Ancient Rome. The red cap not only an ancient symbol, it is one of the oldest magical talismans that is still in use to this very day by various religions, secret societies, and governments all around the world.British Alchemist and Rosicrucian, Hargrave Jennings had written, "The Phrygian Cap, the classic Mithraic Cap, sacrificial Cap, and mitre all derive from one common ancestor." He continues, The whole is a sign of “initiation,” and of baptism of a peculiar kind. The Phrygian cap, ever after this first inauguration, has stood as the sign of the “Enlightened.” The heroic figures in most Gnostic Gems, which we give in our illustrations, have caps of this kind.""Mithras, God of the Sunset, low on the Western main. Thou descending immortal, immortal to rise again! Now when the watch is ended, now when the wine is drawn, Mithras, also a soldier, keep us pure till the dawn!”~From Song to Mithras, Rudyard Kipling."The significance of Mithraism as the first historical, pan-Eurasian religion has never been fully appreciated by European scholarship, which persistently has tried to draw an Iron Curtain between the East and West. In various forms, however, Mithraism has left an indelible and defining mark on the religious history of that vast continent. Christianity was at the same time the greatest benefactor as well as the most destructive scourge of Mithraic tradition. While destroying or vandalizing the material cultural remains of that once great religion, early Christians also copied and co-opted its outward forms in many details, building upon its successes and learning from its limitations. Indeed, both literally and figuratively, Christianity was built upon Mithraic foundations.2Such dependence was a great liability to a Church claiming a new and original dispensation, and every effort was made to suppress the commonalities. For the most part, this meant emphasizing the more obvious (and superficial) mythological and dogmatic differences, but this was hardly enough to demonstrate an essential practical difference between the visionary Eucharistic practices of the two competing Mystery Religions. In fact, the shared gnosis seemed to validate the syncretism and co-option that had so obviously occurred—even in the outward expressions—of the old and new “official” religions of the Empire. For the ancients, such a situation was the norm; that the unitive experiences elicited by the various Mysteries all demonstrated an essential and universal identification not only between the rites of particular gods and goddesses, but also between deities and the celebrant, and between the celebrant and the co-creative Cosmos as a whole.

Given such an underlying assumption of gnosis as a kind of basic and defining experience at the esoteric core of all the Mysteries, dogmatic and doctrinal differences were only of marginal concern and interest, and crass literal interpretations were easily abandoned in favor of a mythological richness infused and sacralized by a common gnosis.Mithraism, as we have shown, was a key and formative element in the radical syncretism that characterized much of Classical spirituality. Considered in these terms, it is important to note that Christianity came to stand in polar opposition to this synthesizing and comparatively tolerant attitude toward other religions. In fact, it is justifiable to consider the Christian claim, that of being the sole source of Salvation, as the only truly original and distinguishing characteristic of the new religion—this along with its insistence on the literal historical veracity of its Savior and His miracles. While Imperial Rome was singularly influential in popularizing and codifying both religions, we must recognize a common ecstatic and communal thread in them that starts in the earliest strata of Indo-European traditions and extends even into the present—intact in its esoteric, entheogenic essence.At the very root of the Mithraic Mysteries lay esoteric mythological, astrological, and pharmacological lore that was not easily to be suppressed, let alone destroyed. The long and almost unbelievably complex history of Mithraism in Eurasia had inseparably woven its mythopoeia into the very fabric of religious-intellectual, artistic, and literary culture throughout the Persian and Classical worlds. As Mithraism faded as a world religion, its venerable esoteric cannon became a river, fed by streams of derivative and original gnostic tradition. It is quite clearly this ancient torrent that sustained and characterized the post-Christian Hermetic and literary undercurrent, erupting throughout history in the various popular gnostic revivals, which were, repeatedly (and often violently), suppressed by the Church Triumphant, which opposed personal mysticism and insisted on imposing itself politically as the essential mediator with the deity.Surviving into modern times, and deriving from uncertain and legendary sources, Freemasonry3 is the most notable of the secret societies that have perpetuated the pre-Christian Mysteries. Although it is true that over the centuries the Masons have been accused of all manner of conspiratorial and diabolical activity (as has been the case with other ‘secret’ societies throughout history), this has been done with largely circumstantial evidence, partial understanding and paranoid zealotry. There can be no doubt, however, that Masonic lodges were indeed hotbeds of pro-revolutionary sentiment and the philosophies of the Enlightenment that opposed the feudal “Ancién Regime” with a “New World Order.”4 This new philosophy, in turn, was illuminated and inspired by the Classical Revival that had first found popular expression during the Renaissance. There can also be no doubt that Masonic membership was often made up of the social and intellectual elite who were the driving force behind the Revolutions that established the political reality of a new social paradigm—a paradigm that is at least as defining a characteristic of ‘modernity’ as the Industrial Revolution.Claiming to be the inheritors and preservers of ancient mysteries via direct lines of descent going back at least the time of the Knights Templar, Masonic symbolism does seem to betray a cohesive and accurate synopsis of the ancient Mysteries. Iconographic items such as the Sun, the all-seeing disembodied eye, the ouroboros, the sacred evergreen, and, most importantly for us, the red Phrygian cap atop a spear or Sword of the Accord are all elements well known to the ancient religions, possessing profound meanings to those initiates who learned of their true significance and interconnection.While most of these symbols are common to alchemical and Masonic imagery, the origins of the so-called ‘liberty pole’ and ‘liberty cap’ are less familiar. It goes without saying, however, that all elements are to be understood as cryptic references that simultaneously conceal and reveal arcane mysteries. The fundamental innovation promulgated in the revolutionary ideal is the dependence upon a kind of Natural Law—as well as the necessary and ongoing revelation of the natural, inalienable and sacred rights of citizens—as the nourishing and necessary spirit upon which a republican democracy might stand. Similarly, Thomas Jefferson appealed to the need for ‘eternal vigilance’ on the part of citizens in maintaining such a government.

While the American Revolution unfolded a world removed from the entrenched monarchies of Europe, the philosophical and political culture in which its revolutionary ideas fermented was fundamentally Continental. Encouraged by the American success, a democratic fervor set Europe—and especially France—ablaze with a call for an inevitable and radical reappraisal of basic political and social suppositions.The uncanny

correspondence between Mithraic, Alchemic, and revolutionary esoteric symbolism is clearly displayed in the various illuminated versions of the Declaration of the Rights of Man (Déclaration des droits de l’homme).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism

Italian postcard by B.F.F. (Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze) Edit., no. 3551. Photo: George Hurrell / Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM).

 

Robert Taylor (1911-1969) was called "The Man with the Perfect Profile". He won his first leading role in Magnificent Obsession (1935). His popularity increased during the late 1930s and 1940s with appearances in A Yank at Oxford (1938), Waterloo Bridge (1940), and Bataan (1943). He was the quintessential MGM company man until the demise of the studio system in the late 1950s.

 

Robert Taylor was born Spangler Arlington Brugh in 1911, in Filley, Nebraska. Taylor was the only child of Ruth Adaline (née Stanhope) and Spangler Andrew Brugh, a farmer turned doctor. During his early life, the family moved several times, and by September 1917, the Brughs had moved to Beatrice, Nebraska, where they remained for 16 years. As a teenager, Taylor was a track and field star and played the cello in his high school orchestra. Upon graduation, he enrolled at Doane College in Crete, Nebraska. While at Doane, he took cello lessons from Professor Herbert E. Gray, whom he admired and idolised. After Professor Gray announced he was accepting a new position at Pomona College in Claremont, California, Taylor moved to California and enrolled at Pomona. He joined the campus theater group and was eventually spotted by an MGM talent scout in 1932 after a production of Journey's End. He signed a seven-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The studio changed his name to Robert Taylor. He made his film debut on loan-out to Fox in the comedy Handy Andy (David Butler, 1934) starring Will Rogers. His first leading role came by accident. In 1934 Taylor was on the MGM payroll as "the test boy," a male juvenile who would be filmed opposite various young ingenues in screen tests. In late 1934, when MGM began production of its new short-subject series Crime Does Not Pay with the dramatic short Buried Loot (George B. Seitz, 1935), the actor who had been cast fell ill and could not appear. The director sent for the test boy to substitute for the missing actor. Taylor's dramatic performance, as an embezzler who deliberately disfigures himself to avoid detection, was so memorable that Taylor immediately was signed for feature films. In 1935, Irene Dunne requested him for her leading man in Magnificent Obsession (John M. Stahl, 1935), again on loan-out, this time to then struggling Universal Pictures. He played a happy-go-lucky party guy who inadvertently causes blindness to the young lady he wishes to impress and then becomes a doctor in order to cure her. The film was a big hit, and Taylor had a taste of instant box-office stardom. Along with his good looks, Taylor already showed solid dramatic skill in Camille (George Cukor, 1936) with Greta Garbo. Throughout the late 1930s, Taylor appeared in films of varying genres including the musicals Broadway Melody of 1936 (Roy Del Ruth, 1935) and Broadway Melody of 1938 (Roy Del Ruth, 1937), and the British comedy A Yank at Oxford (Jack Conway, 1938) with Lionel Barrymore and Vivien Leigh.

 

Throughout 1940 and 1941 Robert Taylor argued in favour of American entry into World War II and was sharply critical of the isolationist movement. During this time he said he was "100% pro-British". In 1940, he reteamed with Vivien Leigh in Mervyn LeRoy's drama Waterloo Bridge, a personal favorite by both Leigh and Taylor. After being given the nickname "The Man with the Perfect Profile", Taylor began breaking away from his perfect leading man image and began appearing in darker roles beginning in 1941. That year, he portrayed Billy Bonney (better known as Billy the Kid) in Billy the Kid (David Miller, 1941). The next year, he played the title role in the Film Noir Johnny Eager (Mervyn LeRoy, 1942) with Lana Turner. After playing a tough sergeant in the World War II drama Bataan (Tay Garnett, 1943), Taylor contributed to the war effort by becoming a flying instructor in the U.S. Naval Air Corps. During this time, he also starred in instructional films and narrated the documentary The Fighting Lady (Edward Steichen, 1944). After the war, he appeared in edgy roles in the Film Noirs Undercurrent (Vincente Minnelli, 1946) opposite Katharine Hepburn, and High Wall (Curtis Bernhardt, 1947). In 1949, he co-starred with Elizabeth Taylor in the Film Noir Conspirator (Victor Saville, 1949), which Hedda Hopper described as "another one of Taylor's pro-British films". Taylor responded to this by saying "And it won't be the last!" However, both Hopper and Taylor were members of the anticommunist organisation the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Taylor landed the role of General Marcus Vinicius in Quo Vadis (Mervyn LeRoy, 1950) with Deborah Kerr. The epic film was a hit, grossing US$11 million in its first run. The following year, he starred in the film version of Walter Scott's classic Ivanhoe (Richard Thorpe, 1951), again with Elizabeth Taylor. It was followed by two more historical adventure films, Knights of the Round Table (Richard Thorpe, 1953) and The Adventures of Quentin Durward (Richard Thorpe, 1955), all filmed in England. Of the three only Ivanhoe was a critical and financial success. Taylor also filmed Valley of the Kings (Robert Pirosh, 1954) in Egypt.

 

By the mid-1950s, Robert Taylor began to concentrate on Westerns, his preferred genre. He starred in a comedy Western Many Rivers to Cross (Roy Rowland, 1955) co-starring Eleanor Parker. In 1958, he shared the lead with Richard Widmark in the edgy Western The Law and Jake Wade (John Sturges, 1958). William McPeak at IMDb: "That he usually comes across on screen as having a confident, commanding presence is more of a testimony to his acting talent than his actual personality. He held rigid right-wing political beliefs that he refused to question and, when confronted with an opposing viewpoint, would simply reject it outright. He rarely, if ever, felt the need to be introspective. Taylor simply felt blessed to be working behind the walls of MGM. His affection for the studio would blind him to the fact that boss Louis B. Mayer masterfully manipulated him for nearly two decades, keeping Taylor's salary the lowest of any major Hollywood star. But this is also indicative of how much trust he placed in the hands of the studio's leaders. Indeed, Taylor remained the quintessential MGM company man and would be rewarded by remaining employed there until the demise of the studio system in the late 1950s."In 1958, he left MGM and formed Robert Taylor Productions, and the following year, he starred in the television series The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor (1959–1962). Following the end of the series in 1962, Taylor continued to appear in films and television shows, including A House Is Not a Home and two episodes of Hondo. In 1963, NBC filmed but never aired, four episodes of what was to have been The Robert Taylor Show, a series based on case files from the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The project was suddenly dropped for lack of coordination with HEW. In the same year, he filmed Miracle of the White Stallions for Walt Disney Productions. In 1964, Taylor co-starred with his former wife Barbara Stanwyck in William Castle's psychological horror film The Night Walker. Taylor traveled to Europe to film the Western Savage Pampas (Hugo Fregonese, 1966), the adventure film The Glass Sphinx (Luigi Scattini, 1967), and the comedy spy-thriller The Day the Hot Line Got Hot (Etienne Périer, 1968) with Charles Boyer. In 1965, Taylor took over the role of narrator in the television series Death Valley Days when Ronald Reagan left to pursue a career in politics. Taylor would remain with the series until his death in 1969. Taylor married Barbara Stanwyck in 1939 and they divorced in 1951. Taylor met German actress Ursula Thiess in 1952. They married in 1954. The couple had two children, a son, Terrance, (1955), and a daughter, Tessa, (1959). Taylor was stepfather to Thiess' two children from her previous marriage, Manuela and Michael Thiess. On 26 May 1969, shortly before Taylor's death at only 57 from lung cancer, Ursula Thiess found the body of her son, Michael, in a West Los Angeles motel room. He died from a drug overdose. One month before his death, Michael had been released from a mental hospital. In 1964, he spent a year in a reformatory for attempting to poison his father with insecticide.

 

Sources: William McPeak (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

West-German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no. 1252. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Robert Taylor in Quo Vadis? (Mervyn leRoy, 1951).

 

Robert Taylor (1911- 1969) was called "The Man with the Perfect Profile". He won his first leading role in Magnificent Obsession (1935). His popularity increased during the late 1930s and 1940s with appearances in A Yank at Oxford (1938), Waterloo Bridge (1940), and Bataan (1943). He was the quintessential MGM company man until the demise of the studio system in the late 1950s.

 

Robert Taylor was born Spangler Arlington Brugh in 1911, in Filley, Nebraska. Taylor was the only child of Ruth Adaline (née Stanhope) and Spangler Andrew Brugh, a farmer turned doctor. During his early life, the family moved several times, and by September 1917, the Brughs had moved to Beatrice, Nebraska, where they remained for 16 years. As a teenager, Taylor was a track and field star and played the cello in his high school orchestra. Upon graduation, he enrolled at Doane College in Crete, Nebraska. While at Doane, he took cello lessons from Professor Herbert E. Gray, whom he admired and idolised. After Professor Gray announced he was accepting a new position at Pomona College in Claremont, California, Taylor moved to California and enrolled at Pomona. He joined the campus theater group and was eventually spotted by an MGM talent scout in 1932 after a production of Journey's End. He signed a seven-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The studio changed his name to Robert Taylor. He made his film debut on loan-out to Fox in the comedy Handy Andy (David Butler, 1934) starring Will Rogers. His first leading role came by accident. In 1934 Taylor was on the MGM payroll as "the test boy," a male juvenile who would be filmed opposite various young ingenues in screen tests. In late 1934, when MGM began production of its new short-subject series Crime Does Not Pay with the dramatic short Buried Loot (George B. Seitz, 1935), the actor who had been cast fell ill and could not appear. The director sent for the test boy to substitute for the missing actor. Taylor's dramatic performance, as an embezzler who deliberately disfigures himself to avoid detection, was so memorable that Taylor immediately was signed for feature films. In 1935, Irene Dunne requested him for her leading man in Magnificent Obsession (John M. Stahl, 1935), again on loan-out, this time to then struggling Universal Pictures. He played a happy-go-lucky party guy who inadvertently causes blindness to the young lady he wishes to impress and then becomes a doctor in order to cure her. The film was a big hit, and Taylor had a taste of instant box-office stardom. Along with his good looks, Taylor already showed solid dramatic skill in Camille (George Cukor, 1936) with Greta Garbo. Throughout the late 1930s, Taylor appeared in films of varying genres including the musicals Broadway Melody of 1936 (Roy Del Ruth, 1935) and Broadway Melody of 1938 (Roy Del Ruth, 1937), and the British comedy A Yank at Oxford (Jack Conway, 1938) with Lionel Barrymore and Vivien Leigh.

 

Throughout 1940 and 1941 Robert Taylor argued in favour of American entry into World War II and was sharply critical of the isolationist movement. During this time he said he was "100% pro-British". In 1940, he reteamed with Vivien Leigh in Mervyn LeRoy's drama Waterloo Bridge, a personal favorite by both Leigh and Taylor. After being given the nickname "The Man with the Perfect Profile", Taylor began breaking away from his perfect leading man image and began appearing in darker roles beginning in 1941. That year, he portrayed Billy Bonney (better known as Billy the Kid) in Billy the Kid (David Miller, 1941). The next year, he played the title role in the Film Noir Johnny Eager (Mervyn LeRoy, 1942) with Lana Turner. After playing a tough sergeant in the World War II drama Bataan (Tay Garnett, 1943), Taylor contributed to the war effort by becoming a flying instructor in the U.S. Naval Air Corps. During this time, he also starred in instructional films and narrated the documentary The Fighting Lady (Edward Steichen, 1944). After the war, he appeared in edgy roles in the Film Noirs Undercurrent (Vincente Minnelli, 1946) opposite Katharine Hepburn, and High Wall (Curtis Bernhardt, 1947). In 1949, he co-starred with Elizabeth Taylor in the Film Noir Conspirator (Victor Saville, 1949), which Hedda Hopper described as "another one of Taylor's pro-British films". Taylor responded to this by saying "And it won't be the last!" However, both Hopper and Taylor were members of the anticommunist organisation the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Taylor landed the role of General Marcus Vinicius in Quo Vadis (Mervyn LeRoy, 1950) with Deborah Kerr. The epic film was a hit, grossing US$11 million in its first run. The following year, he starred in the film version of Walter Scott's classic Ivanhoe (Richard Thorpe, 1951), again with Elizabeth Taylor. It was followed by two more historical adventure films, Knights of the Round Table (Richard Thorpe, 1953) and The Adventures of Quentin Durward (Richard Thorpe, 1955), all filmed in England. Of the three only Ivanhoe was a critical and financial success. Taylor also filmed Valley of the Kings (Robert Pirosh, 1954) in Egypt.

 

By the mid-1950s, Robert Taylor began to concentrate on Westerns, his preferred genre. He starred in a comedy Western Many Rivers to Cross (Roy Rowland, 1955) co-starring Eleanor Parker. In 1958, he shared the lead with Richard Widmark in the edgy Western The Law and Jake Wade (John Sturges, 1958). William McPeak at IMDb: "That he usually comes across on screen as having a confident, commanding presence is more of a testimony to his acting talent than his actual personality. He held rigid right-wing political beliefs that he refused to question and, when confronted with an opposing viewpoint, would simply reject it outright. He rarely, if ever, felt the need to be introspective. Taylor simply felt blessed to be working behind the walls of MGM. His affection for the studio would blind him to the fact that boss Louis B. Mayer masterfully manipulated him for nearly two decades, keeping Taylor's salary the lowest of any major Hollywood star. But this is also indicative of how much trust he placed in the hands of the studio's leaders. Indeed, Taylor remained the quintessential MGM company man and would be rewarded by remaining employed there until the demise of the studio system in the late 1950s."In 1958, he left MGM and formed Robert Taylor Productions, and the following year, he starred in the television series The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor (1959–1962). Following the end of the series in 1962, Taylor continued to appear in films and television shows, including A House Is Not a Home and two episodes of Hondo. In 1963, NBC filmed but never aired, four episodes of what was to have been The Robert Taylor Show, a series based on case files from the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The project was suddenly dropped for lack of coordination with HEW. In the same year, he filmed Miracle of the White Stallions for Walt Disney Productions. In 1964, Taylor co-starred with his former wife Barbara Stanwyck in William Castle's psychological horror film The Night Walker. Taylor traveled to Europe to film the Western Savage Pampas (Hugo Fregonese, 1966), the adventure film The Glass Sphinx (Luigi Scattini, 1967), and the comedy spy-thriller The Day the Hot Line Got Hot (Etienne Périer, 1968) with Charles Boyer. In 1965, Taylor took over the role of narrator in the television series Death Valley Days when Ronald Reagan left to pursue a career in politics. Taylor would remain with the series until his death in 1969. Taylor married Barbara Stanwyck in 1939 and they divorced in 1951. Taylor met German actress Ursula Thiess in 1952. They married in 1954. The couple had two children, a son, Terrance, (1955), and a daughter, Tessa, (1959). Taylor was stepfather to Thiess' two children from her previous marriage, Manuela and Michael Thiess. On 26 May 1969, shortly before Taylor's death at only 57 from lung cancer, Ursula Thiess found the body of her son, Michael, in a West Los Angeles motel room. He died from a drug overdose. One month before his death, Michael had been released from a mental hospital. In 1964, he spent a year in a reformatory for attempting to poison his father with insecticide.

 

Sources: William McPeak (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

Theme Song: Where Eagles Have Been by Wolfmother

 

Nothing's quite what it seems in the City of Dreams

You say it's not the real world

It seems so real to me

And I know that we're never turning back

Can you see what I see, girl?

 

Day 7 - Fourth Dream: The Tragedy of a Tormentor's Sired One

 

Tears still pooled in my eyes as the last dream faded into the back void of darkness. I held back sniffling, breathing in deeply, then sighing out slowly as I tried to regain my composure. My heart trembled in my chest as I became anxious of the next dream that I was sure soon to come. There was some hope I would not to have to revisit my fourth Felix, since I spent much time in my previous life trying to purge her from my memory. Not that all was bad with her, but...

 

Just then, I felt it come to me again - that state of dreaming. I felt myself being teleported once more.

 

"Oh shit, what now?"

 

I blinked my eyes and found that my fourth Felix was nowhere to be found. Instead, I saw a figure of a female placed upright in a chair at the end of a table. Rope was tied around her waist up to her shoulders. Gauze was tied to her ankles, around the feet of the chair that held her captive.

 

Is that? No..., it can't be, can it?

 

In my hand was a bottle of smelling salt that I put below the girl's nose for her to get a whiff of. It caused her to regain consciousness. She stirred, slowly at first, looking pained, then more so came to. Her eyes flicked open like searchlights, scanning the room. She paused on the hairs, the dim light, and the dirty walls, but then fixated on my ears and looked down at my tail. She shook her head quickly and started struggling to try and free herself.

 

A grin came to my face behind my mask. "Can you tell who I am, soldier?"

 

The girl, dressed in the United Aerospace Corporation's private standard military outfit, shook her head from side to side. She looked frightened. Her eyes widened with fear. It appeared she didn't notice anything else but my ears and tail that were showing at that moment, and remained fixated on me.

 

My eyes glimmered gladly at her recognition of my feline traits. "Good, for now..." I came up close to her and pushed the chair she was sitting in. It fell backwards with a cracking sound as it hit the hard pavement of the sewer. Her helmet hit the floor with a bang, then fell off, wobbling away and out of reach. Her earpiece fell out as well, and her head whipped back. She gasped in sudden pain and looked at me disoriented.

 

I sensed her confusion. "What, soldier, you don't understand why you're here, hmm?"

 

She shook her head slowly from side to side, twice, and stared up at me from her position on the floor.

 

Leaning down, I crouched in front of her. "It's because you've been messing with my family, that's why." I gave a glare at her, with a soft, yet angry growl.

 

The military girl began to realize what family of cats I meant. She furiously tried to pull free again from the ropes, but they wouldn't give.

 

I laughed, almost insanely, at her vain struggles, then hissed at her. "Yesss, soldier," I then growled through my words in a gravel tone, "If you're guessing the Catwalkers, then you are very right indeed."

 

The girl quivered in fright within her bondage. It caused her chair to shake on the floor. Her eyes were wide-opened, and her breathing picked up. She shook her head in desperation, trying to negate what all happened.

 

Watching her efforts to break free from the rope and process what was happening, I asked, "What's wrong soldier, you showing your fear?"

 

She shook her head no, but paused. Though looking away and not responding, she still trembled.

 

Leaning down, I approached her in a feral crawl. My masked face was close enough to hers that she could feel the warm growling breath breathe out my mask, "Good." I brought my left hand to her chin, forcing her to look me straight in my eyes. "A soldier is trained to show no fear, is that not so?"

 

Her breathing picked up pace, faster and faster. She started bucking against the restraints, desperate to get away from me. I purred in her face as she shook and squirmed.

 

Sighing, I brushed my unsheathed claws over her cheek. "You don't seem to be a very solid soldier. You show your fear too easily. Are you really all that certain a soldier is what you're supposed to be?"

 

The soldier girl forced herself to calm down. Looking directly at her captor, she nodded. Although, her face looked uncertain.

 

My eyes pierced through hers, sensing her uncertainty. "Your body gestures say 'yes,' but your eyes..., they are saying something else." I flashed a fierce look into her eyes. "Are you sure you want to be a soldier? Answer me!" I barked out, though in a feline growl, as if a Leutenant or General.

 

She nodded hurriedly. Yet her captor's message sank in. Her eyes had a dead, haunted look of failure.

 

I saw through her eyes again, shaking my head slowly. Pulling her up by her sides firmly and not too gentle, I placed and her and her chair in an upright position. Then I looked her in the eyes again with a sigh, which came out in a slight hiss. "Don't you know that cats can sense fears and other emotions?" I said this as matter of fact to her, even if the truth of it might not be known for certain.

 

She shrugged, then gestured with her chin toward her vest's top chest pocket. Being unable to open it with her teeth, she signaled for me to open it.

 

Opening the pouch, I looked over what was inside. "Identification pieces hmm?" I couldn't bear to say 'dog tags' myself. "Are these relics of yours, of your family history?"

 

The soldier girl nodded for me to read them. And so I did:

 

Kichiro Ashbourne. Captain. It was dated from the 3rd Global War.

Daisuke Ashbourne, USMC, Colonel. It pre-dated WWIII

Kyle Ashbourne, USMC, Major. It pre-dated WWIII and Daisuke

 

"Ah, a family of soldiers." I tried to look disinterested, "A fairly long line for a human I suppose." I then sighed as a sudden sorrowful reminiscent caught me. "I don't have hardly anything but memories of my family, from so long ago, nearly predating World War II."

 

The captive sighed as well in slight relief. She came to a realization that her captor didn't seem too intent on goring her, for the moment at least. She sulked glumly as she passively looked at the dog tags her abductor held in his hands.

 

Sitting down, I mrred and took off my mask. "No more shadows for now, soldier. But I ask you this: How old do you think I am?"

 

After a few moments of being paused in thought, she tapped her left foot 3 times, then her right foot once after a few seconds' pause.

 

My ears perked at the sounding of her taps. "Do you guess 31 years of age?"

 

She gave an affirmative glance and gesture.

 

"Good enough guess." I chuffed in slight humor. "I'm almost flattered you'd think me so young. Though I say I am 28 in human years, my actual age is much older than even your generational line in these tags here." I showed her them, and then placed them back in her pocket.

 

The girl cocked her head, listening with a curious intrigue.

 

I laughed at her look.

 

"You see, I am nearly 196 years of age in your human years. I have seen those wars or your fathers, and grandfathers, maybe even your great grandfathers. Not that I care. You live long enough, you see plenty and live through plenty." I sighed, "But even still, you never forget your childhood. And sadly, the tragedies are often remembered more vividly than the good times."

 

Her eyes locked on me. In addition to her fearfulness, there was an undercurrent of surprise and sympathy.

 

I continued to sense her fear and, strangely, felt those other emotions that I had not quite expected her to have. "You can relax soldier." I chuckled, "I am not a vampire. I just have a natural long life - or the full nine lives, of nearly a millennium that I can live."

 

Reaching down, the soldier girl tried to pull her sharpie out of her vest with her teeth.

 

I looked towards her. "You want to write something, soldier?"

 

She half-nodded. Pinning the pen in her teeth, she wrote on the table. "Aew?"

 

I quirked at the strange writing, then worded out what she was trying to spell. "How what?" I looked at the girl with caution. My eyes firmly gazed upon her to hold her attention to my words. "If I loosen the upper ropes to let loose your hands to write, can I trust you to not do anything stupid?"

 

She thinks, then wiggled her right leg, which still had her pistol.

 

I nodded, and got up to take her pistol out and frisked her for any other potential weapons. Looking over the collection on the table, there was found two grenades, the pistol, a couple spare clips, a combat knife, and a set of handcuffs.

 

"Well armed," I grinned with a bit of a smirk, "and seems you have a few tricks up your sleeve soldier."

 

Once the rope was loosened enough around her chest, she slipped one arm free within several minutes of work. Tightening the ropes so they were once again snug around her chest, I moved the arsenal of her private stash further down the table out of her reach. Giving her back her pen with a pad to write on I said, "Ok, now write what you have to say."

 

She jotted on the edge of the legal pad. "How are you that old?"

 

To answer, I began to tell some of my life's story:

 

"I am not a cat. That is, I'm not like the breed you see in this city. Not like the most common one of this new generation, that is. I was born almost 30 years before the experiments began that developed this breed you see today. You see, I was born of a 'pure' breed. It went by many names, such as werecats, or leopard men. But we called ourselves Feles by our traditional native tongue."

 

I continued on to tell of the early development of the Feles - their ancient history, and finally, my own tragic story about my personal life. How my village was destroyed, and how I saw the death of my parents at the hands of humans. After finishing the telling the story, I tied her arm back up and sedated her with enough tranquilizer to keep her out until I returned the next day.

 

On the next day, I walked into the room with my mask still on. My figure at first entry was that of a shadow with glowing golden eyes.

 

The girl was waking up when I came in. Sudden movement brought her quickly to a nervous focus. Her eyes jumped around the room, trying to figure out if anything had changed since last night. But no, nothing yet. She sighed, relieved, and slumped against the rope that held her tight within her chair. It forced her to control her breathing in an attempt to stave off any visible signs of nervousness. She let out a rasping cough and looked up at the sound of the door opening. After twice trembling, she settled down.

 

I walked up closer, the mask still on. My familiar voice proceeded from the darkness. "Did you sleep well soldier?"

 

She shrugged noncommittally, then coughed dryly again.

 

I took off my mask, smirked. "Yeah, I didn't figure on the mildew and all. But my family for some reason keeps releasing you without trying to figure out why you keep coming back." I shook my head and sighed about such foolishness. Bringing out a bottle with pills in it, I put a couple of them before her lips. "Here swallow these."

 

She nibbled them out of my palm like a horse eating an apple.

 

I smiled. "Good. It seems you trust me more then." I then shrugged with a chuckle. "Either way, it's nothing poisonous. Just something to help with the allergens down here."

 

Finishing the pills, the soldier girl looked up at me. She pointed at the legal pad and sharpie with her chin. I nodded, and loosened the ropes so she could free her writing hand. "So you have something to say, or 'write' that is?"

 

She nodded back to me gratefully, then reached over to the pad and wrote two words:

 

WATER PLEASE

 

I agreed to the request and got out my flask that I brought with me while patrolling the rooftops. "You're in luck. I refilled this with water recently, and not," I coughed to clear my throat, "my usual drink to pass the night." The flask, though, still had a hint of alcohol as it was brought down to her lips to drink.

 

Drinking from the flask, she emptied the whole thing in moments. Finished refreshing herself, she put it back on the table and picked up the pen again.

 

So.... She paused, the pen tip hovering above the paper, then completed the thought of her main concern, am I going to be killed?

 

I read what she wrote, then shook my head with. "I'll admit, soldier, I wanted to kill you the very first time you came up to the Den."

 

The girl looked down unhappily.

 

Oh. She paused. Could I write some letters before I die, then?

 

I shook my head again. "You didn't hear me correctly, soldier. I said I wanted to kill you, not that I still do."

 

She perked up and up looked at me. Her brow furrowed.

 

"You look at me confused. " I grinned. "Who's the human soldier that's afraid of cats and yet still manages to keep coming up to the Den?"

 

The girl shook her head at her own illogical behavior and picked up the pen.

 

1st time: wasn't scared of cats.

2nd time: wasn't scared of cats.

3rd time: wasn't lucid.

4th time: ... no offense, but Sgt. McCallen scares me more than all of you.

 

"Is that so soldier?" I laughed, then murred, "But here's the problem. I can't take you back to the Den as you are. 'Cause I'm sure my family is fed up with you. And, I'm assuming you don't want to go back to military base and be a soldier?"

 

She nodded understandingly at the first one, then shrugged after the second one. Then she jotted down:

 

I don't even know anymore...

 

"Well, I don't want to kill you..., " I murred some more with a smirk, "And I don't really see sending you back to the military base yet again as an option." I turned around and pondered a bit by the wall, then grinned. "I think I know what to do with you now." Looking back at her, I gave a wider grin.

 

The soldier girl looked nervously at me. That she was uncertain what my grin meant would have been an understatement. She grabbed the legal pad, drew a giant question mark that filled the whole page, then clutched it to her chest like a shield.

 

I continued to grin and looked at her as I spoke. "You came up to the Den the first night speaking of a certain distaste for cats. I hadn't told you until last night about what humans had done to my village and family - killing my mother and father viciously as mere four legged animals for trophy and experimentation...."

 

Her breath she drew sharply. She shook her head from side to side as if doing so could change what she was hearing. Her eyes scanned the table, trying to see where her pistol was.

 

I shook my head as I took off the gloves I used for combat. "I already stored your weapons out of reach soldier. You wouldn't think a ninja would be so dumb to leave such things lying around, now would you?" I took out a vial and a syringe.

 

The girl tried unsuccessfully to pull free of the chair, then raised her single fist for a last stand. Of course, tied to a chair, and against an enemy with superior strength, speed, and training, it didn't make for such a great finale for her.

 

After taking the fluid in the vial and injecting it into the syringe, I placed the empty glass on the table and again came close to her. Smiling at her, I replied "It will be easier, and safer for you to let me tie your arms back up, but, " keeping my own hands in a defensive position, I added, "If you would rather make it harder, I'll be ready."

 

She looked up at me sadly, then grabbed the sharpie.

 

Will it hurt? and, Is it only vengeance?

 

I shrugged, "The needle may sting, but I don't know what your reaction will be."

 

She looked at me scared. Poison?

 

I grasped her arm, quickly, before she could put up a fight. Pushing her arm back down to her side, I tied the rope around her again. I laughed, "Not poison. Not to me, anyways. But your scientists likely would call it a virus or parasite. Though it is neither." I injected the fluid into her neck. It was mixed with my DNA, and a sedative to keep whoever was injected with it asleep through the first stage of the changes.

 

The girl looked up at me with pleading eyes, then the needle briefly, then back to me. Her actions began slowing down due to the sedative.

 

Taking the syringe out, I responded with a chuckle. "Sleep tight soldier. You'll be in for a surprise when you wake up."

 

She tugged against the restraints, and tried to escape. However, she soon slumped forward unconscious.

 

Later, when she regained consciousness - evidenced by a change in her breathing, but was yet to open her eyes. I walked back in. My flask was refilled, as well as her own bottle I found on her earlier. I also brought sushi and fresh tuna from the sushi bar, putting it on the table in front of her. I grinned, noticing her breathing and said, "Good, it didn't kill you soldier."

 

She looked up at me miserably. Not being certain what the injection did to her, she tried to figure out what had changed since the previous night.

 

Noticing her stare, I pouted. "Aww, is that any way to look at the cat that brought you some food?" I placed the sushi in front of her, as well as a slab of the tuna and watched to see what her first reactions might be.

 

It seemed at first that maybe the girl didn't like tuna, since she looked at it somewhat apprehensively. After giving it a sniff, and with surprising speed, she lunged forward in her chair to snatch up a piece of sushi with her teeth, gulping it down.

 

I chuckled at her reaction. "Interesting." I tried to perceive if feline fangs had grown in and shrugged. "Oh well, if they haven't formed now, they likely will sooner or later." Smiling, I looked at the girl. "A good meal, eh soldier?"

 

Lunging again, she gulped down another piece of sushi, then stopped, choking on it. She looked up at me in horror and shook her head rapidly. It appeared she thought I could undo what had already been started.

 

I shook my head back, "Nah uh, soldier. You know what they say, 'What doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger!'" I laughed, and then realized the ropes may not be strong enough to hold her. I murred before finding some chain links in the corner, and some spare cuffs - presumably from some human 'party' down here some time ago likely - , and then fastened the chains around her and cuffed her legs together. "This is only for safety measure ki..., uhm, I mean soldier," I coughed, then chuckled at almost calling her a kitten. In a second thought of precaution, I saw her handcuffs, yanked them from her belt and fastened them on her wrists. "Oh those come in handy, now, don't they soldier?"

 

The soldier girl turned in the chair so that she was looking at her captor over the back of her chair. Tears were sliding down her face again, and she appeared utterly destroyed. I slowly brought my face to hers, brushing her cheek lightly with my whiskers and grinned as I saw little wiry buds beginning to show. "Ah yes, you'll have a set of whiskers like mine soon as well soldier." I then purred my warm breath on her before pulling my face back.

 

She turned around dejectedly, and looked at the remains of the tuna in front of her. I murred with a frown. "Awws, is that any way to be, especially toward your sire?" I then purred in her human ear and said in a whisper, "Those will soon shrivel up, to be replaced with cute pointy ones on your head."

 

The girl leaned her head against my side, still crying, unable to help it. I crouched down. Fatherly like instincts kicked in as I hugged her. My chest purred soothingly. "Now, now. I told you I wasn't going to kill you..."

 

She rested her head on my shoulder. I felt her chest stop heaving as strongly as she calmed down, pressed against me as tightly as she can be.

 

I continued my soft purring, smiling. "See? It isn't so bad being a cat, hmmm?"

 

Shrugging, she then opened her mouth to say something. It came out sounding like a combination of a meow and a purring.

 

I chuckled a bit. "Hmmm... Heh, sounds like you might be feral for a bit." I shrugged. "No bother, your human mute stage was not much different..., besides the mewing and purring your doing now."

 

The girl purred something, as if trying to communicate. I purred back, instinctively. She purred again, desolately - evoking visions of loneliness, calming down a little.

 

Grooming her hair, I felt tiny bumps, likely where the cat ears were growing in. I sighed, through my comforting purrs, "Don't worry, even if the Pride rejects you, you will always be a part of my personal family, my sired Feles." I grinned with a mew.

 

She seemed to calm down, and the crying stopped spreading tears all over my shoulder. She lifted her head up and looked at me with a grin, then purred gratefully.

 

I smiled, giving a light nip to her nose, "See? Being a cat isn't so bad..."

 

She grinned and shrugged, then purred.

 

Holding her head to my chest, I looked at her like a father seeing his newborn child. I continued to purr, watching her intently, then sighed, with a murr. " I can't unchain you yet though..." I pouted, tugging on some of the chains.

 

She nodded understandingly, then murred at the remains of the tuna and licked her lips contentedly.

 

I smiled and then took a piece of sushi, bringing it down towards her lips. She grabbed it happily between her teeth and munched it down. I mewed happily, "That's right my sired one, eat up. You'll need all the energy you can get for your changes."

 

And so was born my Sired Feles. Satomi Ashbourne, as I mentioned in the pondering of the previous dream. It was probably one of my most favorite experiences roleplaying in AW. Just as interesting was a reaction of an old friend of mine at hearing the news of my making a sire as noted in the transcript of the general chat log, as I remember it from that night:

 

[19:28] You: ((hey Dui xD))

[19:28] : Satomi Ashbourne OOC : Hi Dui! (I don't think you'll have any more problems with me any more :)

[19:29] Dui Zhang: ((oh, there you are))

[19:29] Dui Zhang: ((is Ioh about to kill you, or has he charmed you into submission?))

[19:29] : Satomi Ashbourne OOC : I'M GROWING EARS!! AND WHISKERS!!

[19:30] You: ((well... I sired her, sorta, grafted her with my DNA <.<))

[19:31] Dui Zhang: ((*headsmacks* This ought to be interesting))

[19:32] You: (hehe, haven't told Tobers yet either xD))

[19:32] : Satomi Ashbourne OOC : it's amusing, how many connotations "interesting" has in the English language :P

[19:32] Dui Zhang: ((going to lie down now... head is spinning))

[19:32] You: ((hehe))

 

That roleplay came to change many things, and would bring about my promotion in the Pride to Tormentor. It also brought about some copy-cat RP scenarios that tried to do similar things as I had done that night with Satomi. That was one drawback, as I would have rather hoped people would consider being more creative. But hey, I can at least say I caused a trend in that city, for what it's worth. Not that I cared about setting any. I just wanted to tell the story, and have amazing RP with friends that I could trust. At least thought I could then anyways....

 

Oh fine, I'll admit it, I wanted to build a family too. And I almost had it then with Aspira and Satomi. Although, it wasn't going to be an easy road, as shown in the aftermath. For you see, capturing a girl serving in the military doesn't go without an eventual rescue by the military. It seemed strange, then, being that after her being made a cat, it essentially made Satomi a fugitive. If nothing, the military compound's scientists could have decided to try and change her back to human, and all my efforts would have been lost. But, instead, Satomi was released, and soon I had to pick her up and find a place for her. As will be noted, the Pride was not going to be able to help, for obvious reasons. But still, I sired Satomi, and she became someone for me to protect, then, both from the military and my own family in the city.

 

So here I was on a rooftop, waiting to hear back from Aspira. Someone walked onto the roof and tapped my shoulder as I waited. I turned around, then looked up, somewhat distracted in thought, "Oh hey Shadey."

 

Aspira then landed on the roof softly still speaking into her cellphone. "Ok under the pier?"

 

Seeing Aspira, I sighed, and said to her, "Yeah, that was the initial plan."

 

Shadey waved to Aspira and said to me "Can you do me a favor?"

 

Aspira tilted her head. "So under the pier Ioh?"

 

I blinked, "What do you mean? It's too late..." I then sighed, still feeling I failed Satomi and that she was still in the hands of the military.

 

Shadey tilted her head to the side curiously.

 

Aspira sighed and shook her head. "She wants to meet us, and told me to ask you..." She held her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone.

 

I murred, realizing Shadey's not in the know. I then blinked again, "Who?" Then paused, "You mean..." I looked at Aspira with hopeful eyes.

 

Shadey sighed shaking her head. "Well do me a favor and tell Tober or Linds I need to talk to them. I have places I need to go, but they know how to get in touch with me."

 

Aspira nodded her head. "Yes. The pier or else where? I have to give an answer."

 

I nodded, "If I see them, I'll tell them Shades." I looked to Aspira, "But how... where is she?"

 

Aspira looked to Shadey. "We will make sure Ioh doesn't forget to let them know." She gave her a small smile, her hand still over the phone.

 

Shadey smiled at them and says "Ok, thanks. I gotta run kitties, have fun!"

 

I nodded and waved as Shadey departed from the rooftop.

 

Aspira gave a 'just give me an answer' look to Ioh. "It doesn't matter I just need a meeting place."

 

"Has she told you what happened or anything?"

 

She shook her head. "Ioh. I need a meeting place. Please." She begged me softly, still covering the PDA in her hand.

 

"Well, alright. Meet on the pier, and If you don't hear anything from me in about 15 to 20 minutes, call for backup. I'm going to check the Med Center."

 

"NO IOH! Listen to me. We are going to the pier." Aspira uncovered the phone and spoke into it. "The pier. Meet us, but be careful!"

 

I blinked. "Are you talking with her?"

 

Aspira sighed and hung her head. "Yes Ioh. I was hinting that to you when Shadey was here." Her cheeks blushed as she sighed softly. She then spoke again into the phone. "Call if there's trouble!"

 

I nodded, showing myself shaken up for the first time. "I’m sorry Kitten, just been a ... long day...." I hugged her tightly, then whispered, "Thank you," in her ear. I then released her from the hug and said, "Let's go."

 

Aspira flipped her PDA closed and hugged Ioh. When she stopped, she looked at her invisible watch. "I waited for over an hour and went looking for you... let's go." She turned and leaped off the roof.

 

On the ground, I walked up to Aspira, who was watching me in anticipation. She whispered, "I think it will be safer out of sight, not in so open view of up there. Now just waiting on 'it'"

 

I looked around, then to Aspira, "So, this is where we're to meet her?"

 

"Ioh you heard me say it." Aspira sighed softly, then shook her head and moved close to me, nuzzling my neck with another sigh.

 

I nodded, sighing in return, still clearly shook up. But her nuzzling my neck relaxed me a bit. A soft purr formed in my chest. It was yet audible, but the vibrations could be slightly felt.

 

Aspira purred back softly so that I could hear it and so that it would calm me some more. "I love you Ioh, but what the hell is going on? One minute I'm getting messages saying meet here then you never show. What happened? I got scared and even looked for you." She then sighed in relief as Satomi looked up, then scrunched her nose seeing the ears and tail.

 

"I'm sorry Kitten...," I gave a look of failure and sadness, "I just... wanted to protect the Pride. Protect you..., I ....," I saw Satomi, her bandaged ribs and bullet wound, "I'm sorry....," I murred.

 

Satomi limped up toward us and nodded curtly.

 

Aspira mewed softly to me. "I know Ioh. It's just things are getting so crazy." She bowed her head so that her chin touched her chest, her black locks falling in front of her face.

 

Satomi nodded to Aspira. She pointed to her right shoulder and raised an eyebrow, inquiring after her injury.

 

Aspira watched Satomi for a moment then sighed hanging her head again. "You shot me. And I nearly bled to death... trying to help you."

 

"I owe you both an apology, " I said between the two, mumbling a bit. "Aspira, for making you worry about me. And you, Satomi for well, everything I did. I had no right, I just was ... overprotective I guess." I looked down into the sand.

 

Satomi looked at Aspira, not understanding. She shook her head no.

 

Aspira nodded to Satomi. "Yes you shot me. And at some point you shot Elise. And all Elise and Johnny tried to do was help you too."

 

Satomi nodded sadly at the mention of Elise, but then she mimed shooting Aspira and shook her head no.

 

I looked at Aspira, then purred in her ear to calm her down. "Enough Kitten. She's been through a lot. Can you see the changes?" Motions her to look at Satomi's ears and tail.

 

Aspira nodded. "It was inadvertent. You were aiming at my head." She laughed softly, sarcastically. "You shot. Missed. And the bullet hit the wall, then came back and hit me in the shoulder." She turned and showed her the back of her shoulder so she could see the entry wound. She nodded to me and sighed softly while turning bright red as her eyes teared up. "Yes Ioh. I can."

 

Satomi looked really sad in realizing she shot Aspira. She turned to stare at the ocean. Her tail jumped about clumsily.

 

I looked to my Felix, "Aspie... she's my Sired. Though I intended to hold the vial for much longer, hoping a human might come along willingly, I guess I saw an opportunity for a certain lesson, a certain justice to come from this. But still, no matter, I had no right."

 

Satomi scooted forward and leaned against my leg, looking at the ocean. She spoke up from around Ioh's knees. "I may not have chosen it, but it was a valuable lesson nevertheless."

 

Aspira listened to me. Her shoulders slumped and the tears spilled over her eyelashes as she turned away to face the street. At that moment she seemed so much shorter. Smaller. More fragile than ever. A soft choked mew escaped her lips as her head dropped to look down upon the sand. Tears wet it, turning a deep brown before her feet.

 

I looked down at Satomi and sighed. I then looked over at Aspira and brought my right hand to her shoulder. "Aspie. " I then paused, and mewed, "Kitten." I heard Satomi, but waited for Aspira's response.

 

Aspira pulled her shoulder from my grasp. "I'm supposed to be your Kitten Ioh. I'm supposed to spend my life with you. But you have kept every bit of this from me until now. We were together one minute then you were gone the next. Then when you showed up again you said you were 'on special business.' And now this." Her body felt weak, as she tried to hold herself together. "How can I do this if you hide things from me until after they are done Ioh Kitty?"

 

Murring I replied, "At the time, I felt I had to do this alone. The Matrons didn't seem to be handling it, and I went out and sought to preempt Satomi's potential attack." I looked down to the ground, "I guess I was worried you wouldn't understand, that maybe... maybe you'd ... hate me, if you knew what I was about to do." I then muttered, looking shameful, "Maybe those should have been indicators that I shouldn't have done this... I don't know anymore."

 

Satomi just hugged herself tighter against my leg. With her finger, she drew a small house in the sand, then an arrow going into it. I looked down, seeing the house, "What is this?"

 

Satomi replied, " I need a bed and at least one other cat to get advice from."

 

Aspira turned back to face me. Tears rolled down her face like water down a river. "Ioh, I would of understood. It's that you hid ALL of it from me and didn't tell me anything." Her voice was all choked up as she spoke but tried to hide it. "Ioh I love you. You know that. But I wish you would have talked with me about it."

 

Satomi looked up suddenly. She began realizing what the discussion over head had been about. She looked nervous suddenly. "The Matrons don't know?

 

Aspira looked at Satomi. "I didn't know. What makes you think they would?"

 

"I'm sorry Aspie." I replied, "I'll try not to do anything like this again." I looked between the two, then said, "Aspie, you are my Kitten. My love. And I should not hide things from you." I looked to Satomi, "And Satomi is my sired one, like a daughter to me now. I owe it to you both to be more up front from here on out."

 

Satomi started to tremble. "Tober's going to kill me."

 

"Satomi, I did this to you of my own will, as a vigilante," I began to say, then added, "And no, if there's anyone Tobers might kill, it's me."

 

"But she'll kill me for shooting Elise, and, I guess, Aspira too..."

 

Aspira sighed softly and turned to walk up the beach. "I need to go for a walk Ioh." She could barely whisper it as she walked toward the steps. "I just need time to think."

 

I shook my head. "It was the perceived inaction that made me do this." I watched Aspira head off and sighed, "I really screwed up...," I said, not to any one in particular.

 

Satomi looked like she had been condemned. "Could we meet with the Matron? I... I can't take any more open threats."

 

"I'll leave a message with the Matrons, and see what goes from there." I mrred, but looked to her and smiled, "I'm still not going to let them do anything to kill you, if they decide to do anything at all, ok?"

 

Satomi nodded, grateful for that modicum of security. "I just want one night's sleep without being scared."

 

I nodded, instinctively massaging her ears to comfort her. "Just try not to worry, ok?"

 

Satomi grinned at the novel sensation. "I was afraid to touch them. That feels nice though." She got more serious after enjoying the ear-massage. "Is Aspira going to be okay?" She noticed Dui overhead and pointed up to a rooftop.

 

I shrugged, then perked my ears and looked toward where Satomi was pointing, "What you see Sat?" I then hopped up to look around.

 

Satomi shrugged. "She's gone." She then looked at the military patch on her vest, and wondered if she could rip it off. She then successfully de-badged the vest.

 

I sighed, then chuckled for no apparent reason. I then smiled, watching Satomi, then murred, thinking of Aspira. "Sat? I need to check on Aspie. You have some place safe you can go, or should I take you home first?"

 

And so, once I was certain Satomi had a place to go that was safe, I wandered after Aspira. Not really knowing where to go. It was only by chance that I was led to the Church, entering from the side door in back. There was organ music playing, and for some reason it drew me in. I then found Aspira as she played the organ, pouring her whole heart and soul into it, whatever song popped into her head. It played out through her fingers. I watched from behind her at first. I walked around towards the Organ, to walk up next to Aspira. I sighed more audibly now, then mewed, looking kinda sheepish, and said, "Uh, Kitten?"

 

Aspira turned her head to look at me, but in some weird way she didn't seem to realize I was there. It was as if she was only hearing me. Turning back to the organ she blinked back more tears then hung her head, as if she began realizing something - like the moment someone gets an epiphany or is dumbfounded by their own foolishness. I blinked at her reaction, not sure what to think. I saw her crying, thinking she was still upset with me for what I had done. The only words that could come to me were, "I'm sorry..."

 

Hearing my words she turned her head to look at me. Only this time she seemed to recognize that I was standing there. My figure was likely blurred from her tears. Quickly she stood and wrapped her arms around me and felt shook up as she nuzzled my neck. I murred as I tried to explain. "It is not the same. What you have from me. It is far different than what I gave to Satomi. Satomi is like a daughter, but you are my love, Kitten. In that, you have more than my DNA"

 

Aspira shook her head. "But the point is I have to share YOU with her. Someone I tried so much to help but she just continued to hurt OUR family. And now I have to share you with her. And you didn't even ask if that was ok.

 

I don't find it ok, Ioh. But I love you. So I will have to suffice. I just... I guess I'm just jeal..." She cut herself off and shook her head. "No I'm not. I'm just upset that I have to share you with a woman that tried to kill me. I don't care if she has changed Ioh."

 

She pointed to her shoulder and hung her head. "I almost DIED! Trying to save her. I almost died, Ioh. Right on the front doorstep of the Den. I don't know if you looked but there are big stains on the walls and the ground."

 

I sighed and nodded. "I wanted to kill her. At first, I thought to bind her up and torment her for what she did to our family, our Pride. But you know what I saw in her? In her eyes?"

 

Aspira shook her head and pulled back from Ioh. "You didn't see your family. You saw a crazy military woman, of all things, that was just begging so that she could get out and run back to the military. So that THEY can attack us."

 

I brought my head down looking at the floor as she pushed me. I shook my head. "I saw her fear. Both the rational and the irrational. I saw the identification tags (I still couldn't bring himself to call them 'dog tags') of her family, and I realized something then. She was just a scared child following the orders of her superiors."

 

She shook her head. "Still. It was no reason to go behind my back."

 

Despite the protests, things were looking to be where I might have had a family with Aspira and Satomi. But, about that time did things continue to grow crazy. As soon after we talked plans for marriage, Aspira had gotten raped by the yaoi bunny mentioned before. Somewhere in between that I had a relation in AW on an alt character grow. That relationship brought about my fourth Felix, and pretty much destroyed what could have been with me and Aspie, as well as ruined chances to RP out the relationship between me and my sired one.

 

I'm not sure what happened with Satomi. The last RP I had with her in AW, she had been abducted by vampires. I was to try and save her from them. But, time and circumstances did not allow for it. The assumption I can only have for what happened to Satomi is that she was killed, and therefore, my sired one was dead in world. The only way I come to this conclusion is that her player, while I was trying to see if I could set up the rescue PMed me, "I'm sorry."

 

I know she, her player, isn't dead. Or at least wasn't before my untimely death in the real world. I knew of a couple other characters she played in RP in AW. And, when I was still alive, at least one of her characters was still active, and of whom I had various RPs with before. But still, losing my sired was like losing a child. And yet, I am to blame for putting the events in place that took away the opportunities.

 

*sighs*

 

And so the torments of my personal Purgatory continue...

 

I had a vision of festive days

She's like an eagle in the misty haze

Break my chains, girl,

show me to the land where people live together

and try to understand

A snapshot of Berlin how it used to be. Close to The Berlin Wall this area used to be a quiet backwater, once the heart of the city but now somewhere not too busy most of the time where one could enjoy the slightly surreal blend of monuments that have lost all meaning and beautifully ugly functional U-Bahn architecture and of course the political undercurrent that had made this place how it was. They seemed rather bland at the time but anyone who liked the sounds of the MCW Metrobus would have loved MAN buses like 3295 of 1983 which was then still quite new.

Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky (Russian: Владимир Семёнович Высоцкий, IPA: [vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr sʲɪˈmʲɵnəvʲɪtɕ vɨˈsotskʲɪj]; 25 January 1938 – 25 July 1980), was a Soviet singer-songwriter, poet, and actor who had an immense and enduring effect on Soviet culture. He became widely known for his unique singing style and for his lyrics, which featured social and political commentary in often humorous street-jargon. He was also a prominent stage- and screen-actor. Though the official Soviet cultural establishment largely ignored his work, he was remarkably popular during his lifetime, and to this day exerts significant influence on many of Russia's musicians and actors.

 

Vysotsky was born in Moscow at the 3rd Meshchanskaya St. (61/2) maternity hospital. His father, Semyon Volfovich (Vladimirovich) (1915–1997), was a colonel in the Soviet army, originally from Kiev. Vladimir's mother, Nina Maksimovna, (née Seryogina, 1912–2003) was Russian, and worked as a German language translator.[3] Vysotsky's family lived in a Moscow communal flat in harsh conditions, and had serious financial difficulties. When Vladimir was 10 months old, Nina had to return to her office in the Transcript bureau of the Soviet Ministry of Geodesy and Cartography (engaged in making German maps available for the Soviet military) so as to help her husband earn their family's living.

 

Vladimir's theatrical inclinations became obvious at an early age, and were supported by his paternal grandmother Dora Bronshteyn, a theater fan. The boy used to recite poems, standing on a chair and "flinging hair backwards, like a real poet," often using in his public speeches expressions he could hardly have heard at home. Once, at the age of two, when he had tired of the family's guests' poetry requests, he, according to his mother, sat himself under the New-year tree with a frustrated air about him and sighed: "You silly tossers! Give a child some respite!" His sense of humor was extraordinary, but often baffling for people around him. A three-year-old could jeer his father in a bathroom with unexpected poetic improvisation ("Now look what's here before us / Our goat's to shave himself!") or appall unwanted guests with some street folk song, promptly steering them away. Vysotsky remembered those first three years of his life in the autobiographical Ballad of Childhood (Баллада о детстве, 1975), one of his best-known songs.

 

As World War II broke out, Semyon Vysotsky, a military reserve officer, joined the Soviet army and went to fight the Nazis. Nina and Vladimir were evacuated to the village of Vorontsovka, in Orenburg Oblast where the boy had to spend six days a week in a kindergarten and his mother worked for twelve hours a day in a chemical factory. In 1943, both returned to their Moscow apartment at 1st Meschanskaya St., 126. In September 1945, Vladimir joined the 1st class of the 273rd Moscow Rostokino region School.

 

In December 1946, Vysotsky's parents divorced. From 1947 to 1949, Vladimir lived with Semyon Vladimirovich (then an army Major) and his Armenian wife, Yevgenya Stepanovna Liholatova, whom the boy called "aunt Zhenya", at a military base in Eberswalde in the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany (later East Germany). "We decided that our son would stay with me. Vladimir came to stay with me in January 1947, and my second wife, Yevgenia, became Vladimir's second mother for many years to come. They had much in common and liked each other, which made me really happy," Semyon Vysotsky later remembered. Here living conditions, compared to those of Nina's communal Moscow flat, were infinitely better; the family occupied the whole floor of a two-storeyed house, and the boy had a room to himself for the first time in his life. In 1949 along with his stepmother Vladimir returned to Moscow. There he joined the 5th class of the Moscow 128th School and settled at Bolshoy Karetny [ru], 15 (where they had to themselves two rooms of a four-roomed flat), with "auntie Zhenya" (who was just 28 at the time), a woman of great kindness and warmth whom he later remembered as his second mother. In 1953 Vysotsky, now much interested in theater and cinema, joined the Drama courses led by Vladimir Bogomolov.[7] "No one in my family has had anything to do with arts, no actors or directors were there among them. But my mother admired theater and from the earliest age... each and every Saturday I've been taken up with her to watch one play or the other. And all of this, it probably stayed with me," he later reminisced. The same year he received his first ever guitar, a birthday present from Nina Maksimovna; a close friend, bard and a future well-known Soviet pop lyricist Igor Kokhanovsky taught him basic chords. In 1955 Vladimir re-settled into his mother's new home at 1st Meshchanskaya, 76. In June of the same year he graduated from school with five A's.

 

In 1955, Vladimir enrolled into the Moscow State University of Civil Engineering, but dropped out after just one semester to pursue an acting career. In June 1956 he joined Boris Vershilov's class at the Moscow Art Theatre Studio-Institute. It was there that he met the 3rd course student Iza Zhukova who four years later became his wife; soon the two lovers settled at the 1st Meschanskaya flat, in a common room, shielded off by a folding screen. It was also in the Studio that Vysotsky met Bulat Okudzhava for the first time, an already popular underground bard. He was even more impressed by his Russian literature teacher Andrey Sinyavsky who along with his wife often invited students to his home to stage improvised disputes and concerts. In 1958 Vysotsky's got his first Moscow Art Theatre role: that of Porfiry Petrovich in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. In 1959 he was cast in his first cinema role, that of student Petya in Vasily Ordynsky's The Yearlings (Сверстницы). On 20 June 1960, Vysotsky graduated from the MAT theater institute and joined the Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre (led by Boris Ravenskikh at the time) where he spent (with intervals) almost three troubled years. These were marred by numerous administrative sanctions, due to "lack of discipline" and occasional drunken sprees which were a reaction, mainly, to the lack of serious roles and his inability to realise his artistic potential. A short stint in 1962 at the Moscow Theater of Miniatures (administered at the time by Vladimir Polyakov) ended with him being fired, officially "for a total lack of sense of humour."

 

Vysotsky's second and third films, Dima Gorin's Career and 713 Requests Permission to Land, were interesting only for the fact that in both he had to be beaten up (in the first case by Aleksandr Demyanenko). "That was the way cinema greeted me," he later jokingly remarked. In 1961, Vysotsky wrote his first ever proper song, called "Tattoo" (Татуировка), which started a long and colourful cycle of artfully stylized criminal underworld romantic stories, full of undercurrents and witty social comments. In June 1963, while shooting Penalty Kick (directed by Veniamin Dorman and starring Mikhail Pugovkin), Vysotsky used the Gorky Film Studio to record an hour-long reel-to-reel cassette of his own songs; copies of it quickly spread and the author's name became known in Moscow and elsewhere (although many of these songs were often being referred to as either "traditional" or "anonymous"). Just several months later Riga-based chess grandmaster Mikhail Tal was heard praising the author of "Bolshoy Karetny" (Большой Каретный) and Anna Akhmatova (in a conversation with Joseph Brodsky) was quoting Vysotsky's number "I was the soul of a bad company..." taking it apparently for some brilliant piece of anonymous street folklore. In October 1964 Vysotsky recorded in chronological order 48 of his own songs, his first self-made Complete works of... compilation, which boosted his popularity as a new Moscow folk underground star.

 

In 1964, director Yuri Lyubimov invited Vysotsky to join the newly created Taganka Theatre. "'I've written some songs of my own. Won't you listen?' – he asked. I agreed to listen to just one of them, expecting our meeting to last for no more than five minutes. Instead I ended up listening to him for an entire 1.5 hours," Lyubimov remembered years later of this first audition. On 19 September 1964, Vysotsky debuted in Bertolt Brecht's The Good Person of Szechwan as the Second God (not to count two minor roles). A month later he came on stage as a dragoon captain (Bela's father) in Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time. It was in Taganka that Vysotsky started to sing on stage; the War theme becoming prominent in his musical repertoire. In 1965 Vysotsky appeared in the experimental Poet and Theater (Поэт и Театр, February) show, based on Andrey Voznesensky's work and then Ten Days that Shook the World (after John Reed's book, April) and was commissioned by Lyubimov to write songs exclusively for Taganka's new World War II play. The Fallen and the Living (Павшие и Живые), premiered in October 1965, featured Vysotsky's "Stars" (Звёзды), "The Soldiers of Heeresgruppe Mitte" (Солдаты группы "Центр") and "Penal Battalions" (Штрафные батальоны), the striking examples of a completely new kind of a war song, never heard in his country before. As veteran screenwriter Nikolay Erdman put it (in conversation with Lyubimov), "Professionally, I can well understand how Mayakovsky or Seryozha Yesenin were doing it. How Volodya Vysotsky does it is totally beyond me." With his songs – in effect, miniature theatrical dramatizations (usually with a protagonist and full of dialogues), Vysotsky instantly achieved such level of credibility that real life former prisoners, war veterans, boxers, footballers refused to believe that the author himself had never served his time in prisons and labor camps, or fought in the War, or been a boxing/football professional. After the second of the two concerts at the Leningrad Molecular Physics institute (that was his actual debut as a solo musical performer) Vysotsky left a note for his fans in a journal which ended with words: "Now that you've heard all these songs, please, don't you make a mistake of mixing me with my characters, I am not like them at all. With love, Vysotsky, 20 April 1965, XX c." Excuses of this kind he had to make throughout his performing career. At least one of Vysotsky's song themes – that of alcoholic abuse – was worryingly autobiographical, though. By the time his breakthrough came in 1967, he'd suffered several physical breakdowns and once was sent (by Taganka's boss) to a rehabilitation clinic, a visit he on several occasions repeated since.

 

Brecht's Life of Galileo (premiered on 17 May 1966), transformed by Lyubimov into a powerful allegory of Soviet intelligentsia's set of moral and intellectual dilemmas, brought Vysotsky his first leading theater role (along with some fitness lessons: he had to perform numerous acrobatic tricks on stage). Press reaction was mixed, some reviewers disliked the actor's overt emotionalism, but it was for the first time ever that Vysotsky's name appeared in Soviet papers. Film directors now were treating him with respect. Viktor Turov's war film I Come from the Childhood where Vysotsky got his first ever "serious" (neither comical, nor villainous) role in cinema, featured two of his songs: a spontaneous piece called "When It's Cold" (Холода) and a dark, Unknown soldier theme-inspired classic "Common Graves" (На братских могилах), sung behind the screen by the legendary Mark Bernes.

 

Stanislav Govorukhin and Boris Durov's The Vertical (1967), a mountain climbing drama, starring Vysotsky (as Volodya the radioman), brought him all-round recognition and fame. Four of the numbers used in the film (including "Song of a Friend [fi]" (Песня о друге), released in 1968 by the Soviet recording industry monopolist Melodiya disc to become an unofficial hit) were written literally on the spot, nearby Elbrus, inspired by professional climbers' tales and one curious hotel bar conversation with a German guest who 25 years ago happened to climb these very mountains in a capacity of an Edelweiss division fighter. Another 1967 film, Kira Muratova's Brief Encounters featured Vysotsky as the geologist Maxim (paste-bearded again) with a now trademark off-the-cuff musical piece, a melancholy improvisation called "Things to Do" (Дела). All the while Vysotsky continued working hard at Taganka, with another important role under his belt (that of Mayakovsky or, rather one of the latter character's five different versions) in the experimental piece called Listen! (Послушайте!), and now regularly gave semi-official concerts where audiences greeted him as a cult hero.

 

In the end of 1967 Vysotsky got another pivotal theater role, that of Khlopusha [ru] in Pugachov (a play based on a poem by Sergei Yesenin), often described as one of Taganka's finest. "He put into his performance all the things that he excelled at and, on the other hand, it was Pugachyov that made him discover his own potential," – Soviet critic Natalya Krymova wrote years later. Several weeks after the premiere, infuriated by the actor's increasing unreliability triggered by worsening drinking problems, Lyubimov fired him – only to let him back again several months later (and thus begin the humiliating sacked-then-pardoned routine which continued for years). In June 1968 a Vysotsky-slagging campaign was launched in the Soviet press. First Sovetskaya Rossiya commented on the "epidemic spread of immoral, smutty songs," allegedly promoting "criminal world values, alcoholism, vice and immorality" and condemned their author for "sowing seeds of evil." Then Komsomolskaya Pravda linked Vysotsky with black market dealers selling his tapes somewhere in Siberia. Composer Dmitry Kabalevsky speaking from the Union of Soviet Composers' Committee tribune criticised the Soviet radio for giving an ideologically dubious, "low-life product" like "Song of a Friend" (Песня о друге) an unwarranted airplay. Playwright Alexander Stein who in his Last Parade play used several of Vysotsky's songs, was chastised by a Ministry of Culture official for "providing a tribune for this anti-Soviet scum." The phraseology prompted commentators in the West to make parallels between Vysotsky and Mikhail Zoschenko, another Soviet author who'd been officially labeled "scum" some 20 years ago.

 

Two of Vysotsky's 1968 films, Gennady Poloka's Intervention (premiered in May 1987) where he was cast as Brodsky, a dodgy even if highly artistic character, and Yevgeny Karelov's Two Comrades Were Serving (a gun-toting White Army officer Brusentsov who in the course of the film shoots his friend, his horse, Oleg Yankovsky's good guy character and, finally himself) – were severely censored, first of them shelved for twenty years. At least four of Vysotsky's 1968 songs, "Save Our Souls" (Спасите наши души), "The Wolfhunt" (Охота на волков), "Gypsy Variations" (Моя цыганская) and "The Steam-bath in White" (Банька по-белому), were hailed later as masterpieces. It was at this point that 'proper' love songs started to appear in Vysotsky's repertoire, documenting the beginning of his passionate love affair with French actress Marina Vlady.

 

In 1969 Vysotsky starred in two films: The Master of Taiga where he played a villainous Siberian timber-floating brigadier, and more entertaining Dangerous Tour. The latter was criticized in the Soviet press for taking a farcical approach to the subject of the Bolshevik underground activities but for a wider Soviet audience this was an important opportunity to enjoy the charismatic actor's presence on big screen. In 1970, after visiting the dislodged Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at his dacha and having a lengthy conversation with him, Vysotsky embarked on a massive and by Soviet standards dangerously commercial concert tour in Soviet Central Asia and then brought Marina Vlady to director Viktor Turov's place so as to investigate her Belarusian roots. The pair finally wed on 1 December 1970 (causing furore among the Moscow cultural and political elite) and spent a honeymoon in Georgia. This was the highly productive period for Vysotsky, resulting in numerous new songs, including the anthemic "I Hate" (Я не люблю), sentimental "Lyricale" (Лирическая) and dramatic war epics "He Didn't Return from the Battle" (Он не вернулся из боя) and "The Earth Song" (Песня о Земле) among many others.

 

In 1971 a drinking spree-related nervous breakdown brought Vysotsky to the Moscow Kashchenko clinic [ru]. By this time he has been suffering from alcoholism. Many of his songs from this period deal, either directly or metaphorically, with alcoholism and insanity. Partially recovered (due to the encouraging presence of Marina Vladi), Vysotsky embarked on a successful Ukrainian concert tour and wrote a cluster of new songs. On 29 November 1971 Taganka's Hamlet premiered, a groundbreaking Lyubimov's production with Vysotsky in the leading role, that of a lone intellectual rebel, rising to fight the cruel state machine.

 

Also in 1971 Vysotsky was invited to play the lead in The Sannikov Land, the screen adaptation of Vladimir Obruchev's science fiction,[47] which he wrote several songs for, but was suddenly dropped for the reason of his face "being too scandalously recognisable" as a state official put it. One of the songs written for the film, a doom-laden epic allegory "Capricious Horses" (Кони привередливые), became one of the singer's signature tunes. Two of Vysotsky's 1972 film roles were somewhat meditative: an anonymous American journalist in The Fourth One and the "righteous guy" von Koren in The Bad Good Man (based on Anton Chekov's Duel). The latter brought Vysotsky the Best Male Role prize at the V Taormina Film Fest. This philosophical slant rubbed off onto some of his new works of the time: "A Singer at the Microphone" (Певец у микрофона), "The Tightrope Walker" (Канатоходец), two new war songs ("We Spin the Earth", "Black Pea-Coats") and "The Grief" (Беда), a folkish girl's lament, later recorded by Marina Vladi and subsequently covered by several female performers. Popular proved to be his 1972 humorous songs: "Mishka Shifman" (Мишка Шифман), satirizing the leaving-for-Israel routine, "Victim of the Television" which ridiculed the concept of "political consciousness," and "The Honour of the Chess Crown" (Честь шахматной короны) about an ever-fearless "simple Soviet man" challenging the much feared American champion Bobby Fischer to a match.

 

In 1972 he stepped up in Soviet Estonian TV where he presented his songs and gave an interview. The name of the show was "Young Man from Taganka" (Noormees Tagankalt).

 

In April 1973 Vysotsky visited Poland and France. Predictable problems concerning the official permission were sorted after the French Communist Party leader Georges Marchais made a personal phone call to Leonid Brezhnev who, according to Marina Vlady's memoirs, rather sympathized with the stellar couple. Having found on return a potentially dangerous lawsuit brought against him (concerning some unsanctioned concerts in Siberia the year before), Vysotsky wrote a defiant letter to the Minister of Culture Pyotr Demichev. As a result, he was granted the status of a philharmonic artist, 11.5 roubles per concert now guaranteed. Still the 900 rubles fine had to be paid according to the court verdict, which was a substantial sum, considering his monthly salary at the theater was 110 rubles. That year Vysotsky wrote some thirty songs for "Alice in Wonderland," an audioplay where he himself has been given several minor roles. His best known songs of 1973 included "The Others' Track" (Чужая колея), "The Flight Interrupted" (Прерванный полёт) and "The Monument", all pondering on his achievements and legacy.

 

In 1974 Melodiya released the 7" EP, featuring four of Vysotsky's war songs ("He Never Returned From the Battle", "The New Times Song", "Common Graves", and "The Earth Song") which represented a tiny portion of his creative work, owned by millions on tape. In September of that year Vysotsky received his first state award, the Honorary Diploma of the Uzbek SSR following a tour with fellow actors from the Taganka Theatre in Uzbekistan. A year later he was granted the USSR Union of Cinematographers' membership. This meant he was not an "anti-Soviet scum" now, rather an unlikely link between the official Soviet cinema elite and the "progressive-thinking artists of the West." More films followed, among them The Only Road (a Soviet-Yugoslav joint venture, premiered on 10 January 1975 in Belgrade) and a science fiction movie The Flight of Mr. McKinley (1975). Out of nine ballads that he wrote for the latter only two have made it into the soundtrack. This was the height of his popularity, when, as described in Vlady's book about her husband, walking down the street on a summer night, one could hear Vysotsky's recognizable voice coming literally from every open window. Among the songs written at the time, were humorous "The Instruction before the Trip Abroad", lyrical "Of the Dead Pilot" and philosophical "The Strange House". In 1975 Vysotsky made his third trip to France where he rather riskily visited his former tutor (and now a celebrated dissident emigre) Andrey Sinyavsky. Artist Mikhail Shemyakin, his new Paris friend (or a "bottle-sharer", in Vladi's terms), recorded Vysotsky in his home studio. After a brief stay in England Vysotsky crossed the ocean and made his first Mexican concerts in April. Back in Moscow, there were changes at Taganka: Lyubimov went to Milan's La Scala on a contract and Anatoly Efros has been brought in, a director of radically different approach. His project, Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, caused a sensation. Critics praised Alla Demidova (as Ranevskaya) and Vysotsky (as Lopakhin) powerful interplay, some describing it as one of the most dazzling in the history of the Soviet theater. Lyubimov, who disliked the piece, accused Efros of giving his actors "the stardom malaise." The 1976 Taganka's visit to Bulgaria resulted in Vysotskys's interview there being filmed and 15 songs recorded by Balkanton record label. On return Lyubimov made a move which many thought outrageous: declaring himself "unable to work with this Mr. Vysotsky anymore" he gave the role of Hamlet to Valery Zolotukhin, the latter's best friend. That was the time, reportedly, when stressed out Vysotsky started taking amphetamines.

 

Another Belorussian voyage completed, Marina and Vladimir went for France and from there (without any official permission given, or asked for) flew to the North America. In New York Vysotsky met, among other people, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Joseph Brodsky. In a televised one-hour interview with Dan Rather he stressed he was "not a dissident, just an artist, who's never had any intentions to leave his country where people loved him and his songs." At home this unauthorized venture into the Western world bore no repercussions: by this time Soviet authorities were divided as regards the "Vysotsky controversy" up to the highest level; while Mikhail Suslov detested the bard, Brezhnev loved him to such an extent that once, while in hospital, asked him to perform live in his daughter Galina's home, listening to this concert on the telephone. In 1976 appeared "The Domes", "The Rope" and the "Medieval" cycle, including "The Ballad of Love".

 

In September Vysotsky with Taganka made a trip to Yugoslavia where Hamlet won the annual BITEF festival's first prize, and then to Hungary for a two-week concert tour. Back in Moscow Lyubimov's production of The Master & Margarita featured Vysotsky as Ivan Bezdomny; a modest role, somewhat recompensed by an important Svidrigailov slot in Yury Karyakin's take on Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Vysotsky's new songs of this period include "The History of Illness" cycle concerning his health problems, humorous "Why Did the Savages Eat Captain Cook", the metaphorical "Ballad of the Truth and the Lie", as well as "Two Fates", the chilling story of a self-absorbed alcoholic hunted by two malevolent witches, his two-faced destiny. In 1977 Vysotsky's health deteriorated (heart, kidneys, liver failures, jaw infection and nervous breakdown) to such an extent that in April he found himself in Moscow clinic's reanimation center in the state of physical and mental collapse.

 

In 1977 Vysotsky made an unlikely appearance in New York City on the American television show 60 Minutes, which falsely stated that Vysotsky had spent time in the Soviet prison system, the Gulag. That year saw the release of three Vysotsky's LPs in France (including the one that had been recorded by RCA in Canada the previous year); arranged and accompanied by guitarist Kostya Kazansky, the singer for the first time ever enjoyed the relatively sophisticated musical background. In August he performed in Hollywood before members of New York City film cast and (according to Vladi) was greeted warmly by the likes of Liza Minnelli and Robert De Niro. Some more concerts in Los Angeles were followed by the appearance at the French Communist paper L’Humanité annual event. In December Taganka left for France, its Hamlet (Vysotsky back in the lead) gaining fine reviews.

 

1978 started with the March–April series of concerts in Moscow and Ukraine. In May Vysotsky embarked upon a new major film project: The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed (Место встречи изменить нельзя) about two detectives fighting crime in late 1940s Russia, directed by Stanislav Govorukhin. The film (premiered on 11 November 1978 on the Soviet Central TV) presented Vysotsky as Zheglov, a ruthless and charismatic cop teaching his milder partner Sharapov (actor Vladimir Konkin) his art of crime-solving. Vysotsky also became engaged in Taganka's Genre-seeking show (performing some of his own songs) and played Aleksander Blok in Anatoly Efros' The Lady Stranger (Незнакомка) radio play (premiered on air on 10 July 1979 and later released as a double LP).

 

In November 1978 Vysotsky took part in the underground censorship-defying literary project Metropolis, inspired and organized by Vasily Aksenov. In January 1979 Vysotsky again visited America with highly successful series of concerts. That was the point (according to biographer Vladimir Novikov) when a glimpse of new, clean life of a respectable international actor and performer all but made Vysotsky seriously reconsider his priorities. What followed though, was a return to the self-destructive theater and concert tours schedule, personal doctor Anatoly Fedotov now not only his companion, but part of Taganka's crew. "Who was this Anatoly? Just a man who in every possible situation would try to provide drugs. And he did provide. In such moments Volodya trusted him totally," Oksana Afanasyeva, Vysotsky's Moscow girlfriend (who was near him for most of the last year of his life and, on occasion, herself served as a drug courier) remembered. In July 1979, after a series of Central Asia concerts, Vysotsky collapsed, experienced clinical death and was resuscitated by Fedotov (who injected caffeine into the heart directly), colleague and close friend Vsevolod Abdulov helping with heart massage. In January 1980 Vysotsky asked Lyubimov for a year's leave. "Up to you, but on condition that Hamlet is yours," was the answer. The songwriting showed signs of slowing down, as Vysotsky began switching from songs to more conventional poetry. Still, of nearly 800 poems by Vysotsky only one has been published in the Soviet Union while he was alive. Not a single performance or interview was broadcast by the Soviet television in his lifetime.

 

In May 1979, being in a practice studio of the MSU Faculty of Journalism, Vysotsky recorded a video letter to American actor and film producer Warren Beatty, looking for both a personal meeting with Beatty and an opportunity to get a role in Reds film, to be produced and directed by the latter. While recording, Vysotsky made a few attempts to speak English, trying to overcome the language barrier. This video letter never reached Beatty. It was broadcast for the first time more than three decades later, on the night of 24 January 2013 (local time) by Rossiya 1 channel, along with records of TV channels of Italy, Mexico, Poland, USA and from private collections, in Vladimir Vysotsky. A letter to Warren Beatty film by Alexander Kovanovsky and Igor Rakhmanov. While recording this video, Vysotsky had a rare opportunity to perform for a camera, being still unable to do it with Soviet television.

 

On 22 January 1980, Vysotsky entered the Moscow Ostankino TV Center to record his one and only studio concert for the Soviet television. What proved to be an exhausting affair (his concentration lacking, he had to plod through several takes for each song) was premiered on the Soviet TV eight years later. The last six months of his life saw Vysotsky appearing on stage sporadically, fueled by heavy dosages of drugs and alcohol. His performances were often erratic. Occasionally Vysotsky paid visits to Sklifosofsky [ru] institute's ER unit, but would not hear of Marina Vlady's suggestions for him to take long-term rehabilitation course in a Western clinic. Yet he kept writing, mostly poetry and even prose, but songs as well. The last song he performed was the agonizing "My Sorrow, My Anguish" and his final poem, written one week prior to his death was "A Letter to Marina": "I'm less than fifty, but the time is short / By you and God protected, life and limb / I have a song or two to sing before the Lord / I have a way to make my peace with him."

 

Although several theories of the ultimate cause of the singer's death persist to this day, given what is now known about cardiovascular disease, it seems likely that by the time of his death Vysotsky had an advanced coronary condition brought about by years of tobacco, alcohol and drug abuse, as well as his grueling work schedule and the stress of the constant harassment by the government. Towards the end, most of Vysotsky's closest friends had become aware of the ominous signs and were convinced that his demise was only a matter of time. Clear evidence of this can be seen in a video ostensibly shot by the Japanese NHK channel only months before Vysotsky's death, where he appears visibly unwell, breathing heavily and slurring his speech. Accounts by Vysotsky's close friends and colleagues concerning his last hours were compiled in the book by V. Perevozchikov.

 

Vysotsky suffered from alcoholism for most of his life. Sometime around 1977, he started using amphetamines and other prescription narcotics in an attempt to counteract the debilitating hangovers and eventually to rid himself of alcohol addiction. While these attempts were partially successful, he ended up trading alcoholism for a severe drug dependency that was fast spiralling out of control. He was reduced to begging some of his close friends in the medical profession for supplies of drugs, often using his acting skills to collapse in a medical office and imitate a seizure or some other condition requiring a painkiller injection. On 25 July 1979 (a year to the day before his death) he suffered a cardiac arrest and was clinically dead for several minutes during a concert tour of Soviet Uzbekistan, after injecting himself with a wrong kind of painkiller he had previously obtained from a dentist's office.

 

Fully aware of the dangers of his condition, Vysotsky made several attempts to cure himself of his addiction. He underwent an experimental (and ultimately discredited) blood purification procedure offered by a leading drug rehabilitation specialist in Moscow. He also went to an isolated retreat in France with his wife Marina in the spring of 1980 as a way of forcefully depriving himself of any access to drugs. After these attempts failed, Vysotsky returned to Moscow to find his life in an increasingly stressful state of disarray. He had been a defendant in two criminal trials, one for a car wreck he had caused some months earlier, and one for an alleged conspiracy to sell unauthorized concert tickets (he eventually received a suspended sentence and a probation in the first case, and the charges in the second were dismissed, although several of his co-defendants were found guilty). He also unsuccessfully fought the film studio authorities for the rights to direct a movie called The Green Phaeton. Relations with his wife Marina were deteriorating, and he was torn between his loyalty to her and his love for his mistress Oksana Afanasyeva. He had also developed severe inflammation in one of his legs, making his concert performances extremely challenging.

 

In a final desperate attempt to overcome his drug addiction, partially prompted by his inability to obtain drugs through his usual channels (the authorities had imposed a strict monitoring of the medical institutions to prevent illicit drug distribution during the 1980 Olympics), he relapsed into alcohol and went on a prolonged drinking binge (apparently consuming copious amounts of champagne due to a prevalent misconception at the time that it was better than vodka at countering the effects of drug withdrawal).

 

On 3 July 1980, Vysotsky gave a performance at a suburban Moscow concert hall. One of the stage managers recalls that he looked visibly unhealthy ("gray-faced", as she puts it) and complained of not feeling too good, while another says she was surprised by his request for champagne before the start of the show, as he had always been known for completely abstaining from drink before his concerts. On 16 July Vysotsky gave his last public concert in Kaliningrad. On 18 July, Vysotsky played Hamlet for the last time at the Taganka Theatre. From around 21 July, several of his close friends were on a round-the-clock watch at his apartment, carefully monitoring his alcohol intake and hoping against all odds that his drug dependency would soon be overcome and they would then be able to bring him back from the brink. The effects of drug withdrawal were clearly getting the better of him, as he got increasingly restless, moaned and screamed in pain, and at times fell into memory lapses, failing to recognize at first some of his visitors, including his son Arkadiy. At one point, Vysotsky's personal physician A. Fedotov (the same doctor who had brought him back from clinical death a year earlier in Uzbekistan) attempted to sedate him, inadvertently causing asphyxiation from which he was barely saved. On 24 July, Vysotsky told his mother that he thought he was going to die that day, and then made similar remarks to a few of the friends present at the apartment, who begged him to stop such talk and keep his spirits up. But soon thereafter, Oksana Afanasyeva saw him clench his chest several times, which led her to suspect that he was genuinely suffering from a cardiovascular condition. She informed Fedotov of this but was told not to worry, as he was going to monitor Vysotsky's condition all night. In the evening, after drinking relatively small amounts of alcohol, the moaning and groaning Vysotsky was sedated by Fedotov, who then sat down on the couch next to him but fell asleep. Fedotov awoke in the early hours of 25 July to an unusual silence and found Vysotsky dead in his bed with his eyes wide open, apparently of a myocardial infarction, as he later certified. This was contradicted by Fedotov's colleagues, Sklifosovsky Emergency Medical Institute physicians L. Sul'povar and S. Scherbakov (who had demanded the actor's immediate hospitalization on 23 July but were allegedly rebuffed by Fedotov), who insisted that Fedotov's incompetent sedation combined with alcohol was what killed Vysotsky. An autopsy was prevented by Vysotsky's parents (who were eager to have their son's drug addiction remain secret), so the true cause of death remains unknown.

 

No official announcement of the actor's death was made, only a brief obituary appeared in the Moscow newspaper Vechernyaya Moskva, and a note informing of Vysotsky's death and cancellation of the Hamlet performance was put out at the entrance to the Taganka Theatre (the story goes that not a single ticket holder took advantage of the refund offer). Despite this, by the end of the day, millions had learned of Vysotsky's death. On 28 July, he lay in state at the Taganka Theatre. After a mourning ceremony involving an unauthorized mass gathering of unprecedented scale, Vysotsky was buried at the Vagankovskoye Cemetery in Moscow. The attendance at the Olympic events dropped noticeably on that day, as scores of spectators left to attend the funeral. Tens of thousands of people lined the streets to catch a glimpse of his coffin.

 

According to author Valery Perevozchikov part of the blame for his death lay with the group of associates who surrounded him in the last years of his life. This inner circle were all people under the influence of his strong character, combined with a material interest in the large sums of money his concerts earned. This list included Valerii Yankelovich, manager of the Taganka Theatre and prime organiser of his non-sanctioned concerts; Anatoly Fedotov, his personal doctor; Vadim Tumanov, gold prospector (and personal friend) from Siberia; Oksana Afanasyeva (later Yarmolnik), his mistress the last three years of his life; Ivan Bortnik, a fellow actor; and Leonid Sul'povar, a department head at the Sklifosovski hospital who was responsible for much of the supply of drugs.

 

Vysotsky's associates had all put in efforts to supply his drug habit, which kept him going in the last years of his life. Under their influence, he was able to continue to perform all over the country, up to a week before his death. Due to illegal (i.e. non-state-sanctioned) sales of tickets and other underground methods, these concerts pulled in sums of money unimaginable in Soviet times, when almost everyone received nearly the same small salary. The payouts and gathering of money were a constant source of danger, and Yankelovich and others were needed to organise them.

 

Some money went to Vysotsky, the rest was distributed amongst this circle. At first this was a reasonable return on their efforts; however, as his addiction progressed and his body developed resistance, the frequency and amount of drugs needed to keep Vysotsky going became unmanageable. This culminated at the time of the Moscow Olympics which coincided with the last days of his life, when supplies of drugs were monitored more strictly than usual, and some of the doctors involved in supplying Vysotsky were already behind bars (normally the doctors had to account for every ampule, thus drugs were transferred to an empty container, while the patients received a substitute or placebo instead). In the last few days Vysotsky became uncontrollable, his shouting could be heard all over the apartment building on Malaya Gruzinskaya St. where he lived amongst VIP's. Several days before his death, in a state of stupor he went on a high speed drive around Moscow in an attempt to obtain drugs and alcohol – when many high-ranking people saw him. This increased the likelihood of him being forcibly admitted to the hospital, and the consequent danger to the circle supplying his habit. As his state of health declined, and it became obvious that he might die, his associates gathered to decide what to do with him. They came up with no firm decision. They did not want him admitted officially, as his drug addiction would become public and they would fall under suspicion, although some of them admitted that any ordinary person in his condition would have been admitted immediately.

 

On Vysotsky's death his associates and relatives put in much effort to prevent a post-mortem being carried out. This despite the fairly unusual circumstances: he died aged 42 under heavy sedation with an improvised cocktail of sedatives and stimulants, including the toxic chloral hydrate, provided by his personal doctor who had been supplying him with narcotics the previous three years. This doctor, being the only one present at his side when death occurred, had a few days earlier been seen to display elementary negligence in treating the sedated Vysotsky. On the night of his death, Arkadii Vysotsky (his son), who tried to visit his father in his apartment, was rudely refused entry by Yankelovich, even though there was a lack of people able to care for him. Subsequently, the Soviet police commenced a manslaughter investigation which was dropped due to the absence of evidence taken at the time of death.

 

Vysotsky's first wife was Iza Zhukova. They met in 1956, being both MAT theater institute students, lived for some time at Vysotsky's mother's flat in Moscow, after her graduation (Iza was 2 years older) spent months in different cities (her – in Kiev, then Rostov) and finally married on 25 April 1960.

 

He met his second wife Lyudmila Abramova in 1961, while shooting the film 713 Requests Permission to Land. They married in 1965 and had two sons, Arkady (born 1962) and Nikita (born 1964).

 

While still married to Lyudmila Abramova, Vysotsky began a romantic relationship with Tatyana Ivanenko, a Taganka actress, then, in 1967 fell in love with Marina Vlady, a French actress of Russian descent, who was working at Mosfilm on a joint Soviet-French production at that time. Marina had been married before and had three children, while Vladimir had two. They were married in 1969. For 10 years the two maintained a long-distance relationship as Marina compromised her career in France to spend more time in Moscow, and Vladimir's friends pulled strings for him to be allowed to travel abroad to stay with his wife. Marina eventually joined the Communist Party of France, which essentially gave her an unlimited-entry visa into the Soviet Union, and provided Vladimir with some immunity against prosecution by the government, which was becoming weary of his covertly anti-Soviet lyrics and his odds-defying popularity with the masses. The problems of his long-distance relationship with Vlady inspired several of Vysotsky's songs.

 

In the autumn of 1981 Vysotsky's first collection of poetry was officially published in the USSR, called The Nerve (Нерв). Its first edition (25,000 copies) was sold out instantly. In 1982 the second one followed (100,000), then the 3rd (1988, 200,000), followed in the 1990s by several more. The material for it was compiled by Robert Rozhdestvensky, an officially laurelled Soviet poet. Also in 1981 Yuri Lyubimov staged at Taganka a new music and poetry production called Vladimir Vysotsky which was promptly banned and officially premiered on 25 January 1989.

 

In 1982 the motion picture The Ballad of the Valiant Knight Ivanhoe was produced in the Soviet Union and in 1983 the movie was released to the public. Four songs by Vysotsky were featured in the film.

 

In 1986 the official Vysotsky poetic heritage committee was formed (with Robert Rozhdestvensky at the helm, theater critic Natalya Krymova being both the instigator and the organizer). Despite some opposition from the conservatives (Yegor Ligachev was the latter's political leader, Stanislav Kunyaev of Nash Sovremennik represented its literary flank) Vysotsky was rewarded posthumously with the USSR State Prize. The official formula – "for creating the character of Zheglov and artistic achievements as a singer-songwriter" was much derided from both the left and the right. In 1988 the Selected Works of... (edited by N. Krymova) compilation was published, preceded by I Will Surely Return... (Я, конечно, вернусь...) book of fellow actors' memoirs and Vysotsky's verses, some published for the first time. In 1990 two volumes of extensive The Works of... were published, financed by the late poet's father Semyon Vysotsky. Even more ambitious publication series, self-proclaimed "the first ever academical edition" (the latter assertion being dismissed by sceptics) compiled and edited by Sergey Zhiltsov, were published in Tula (1994–1998, 5 volumes), Germany (1994, 7 volumes) and Moscow (1997, 4 volumes).

 

In 1989 the official Vysotsky Museum opened in Moscow, with the magazine of its own called Vagant (edited by Sergey Zaitsev) devoted entirely to Vysotsky's legacy. In 1996 it became an independent publication and was closed in 2002.

 

In the years to come, Vysotsky's grave became a site of pilgrimage for several generations of his fans, the youngest of whom were born after his death. His tombstone also became the subject of controversy, as his widow had wished for a simple abstract slab, while his parents insisted on a realistic gilded statue. Although probably too solemn to have inspired Vysotsky himself, the statue is believed by some to be full of metaphors and symbols reminiscent of the singer's life.

 

In 1995 in Moscow the Vysotsky monument was officially opened at Strastnoy Boulevard, by the Petrovsky Gates. Among those present were the bard's parents, two of his sons, first wife Iza, renown poets Yevtushenko and Voznesensky. "Vysotsky had always been telling the truth. Only once he was wrong when he sang in one of his songs: 'They will never erect me a monument in a square like that by Petrovskye Vorota'", Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov said in his speech.[95] A further monument to Vysotsky was erected in 2014 at Rostov-on-Don.

 

In October 2004, a monument to Vysotsky was erected in the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica, near the Millennium Bridge. His son, Nikita Vysotsky, attended the unveiling. The statue was designed by Russian sculptor Alexander Taratinov, who also designed a monument to Alexander Pushkin in Podgorica. The bronze statue shows Vysotsky standing on a pedestal, with his one hand raised and the other holding a guitar. Next to the figure lies a bronze skull – a reference to Vysotsky's monumental lead performances in Shakespeare's Hamlet. On the pedestal the last lines from a poem of Vysotsky's, dedicated to Montenegro, are carved.

 

The Vysotsky business center & semi-skyscraper was officially opened in Yekaterinburg, in 2011. It is the tallest building in Russia outside of Moscow, has 54 floors, total height: 188.3 m (618 ft). On the third floor of the business center is the Vysotsky Museum. Behind the building is a bronze sculpture of Vladimir Vysotsky and his third wife, a French actress Marina Vlady.

 

In 2011 a controversial movie Vysotsky. Thank You For Being Alive was released, script written by his son, Nikita Vysotsky. The actor Sergey Bezrukov portrayed Vysotsky, using a combination of a mask and CGI effects. The film tells about Vysotsky's illegal underground performances, problems with KGB and drugs, and subsequent clinical death in 1979.

 

Shortly after Vysotsky's death, many Russian bards started writing songs and poems about his life and death. The best known are Yuri Vizbor's "Letter to Vysotsky" (1982) and Bulat Okudzhava's "About Volodya Vysotsky" (1980). In Poland, Jacek Kaczmarski based some of his songs on those of Vysotsky, such as his first song (1977) was based on "The Wolfhunt", and dedicated to his memory the song "Epitafium dla Włodzimierza Wysockiego" ("Epitaph for Vladimir Vysotsky").

 

Every year on Vysotsky's birthday festivals are held throughout Russia and in many communities throughout the world, especially in Europe. Vysotsky's impact in Russia is often compared to that of Wolf Biermann in Germany, Bob Dylan in America, or Georges Brassens and Jacques Brel in France.

 

The asteroid 2374 Vladvysotskij, discovered by Lyudmila Zhuravleva, was named after Vysotsky.

 

During the Annual Q&A Event Direct Line with Vladimir Putin, Alexey Venediktov asked Putin to name a street in Moscow after the singer Vladimir Vysotsky, who, though considered one of the greatest Russian artists, has no street named after him in Moscow almost 30 years after his death. Venediktov stated a Russian law that allowed the President to do so and promote a law suggestion to name a street by decree. Putin answered that he would talk to Mayor of Moscow and would solve this problem. In July 2015 former Upper and Lower Tagansky Dead-ends (Верхний и Нижний Таганские тупики) in Moscow were reorganized into Vladimir Vysotsky Street.

 

The Sata Kieli Cultural Association, [Finland], organizes the annual International Vladimir Vysotsky Festival (Vysotski Fest), where Vysotsky's singers from different countries perform in Helsinki and other Finnish cities. They sing Vysotsky in different languages and in different arrangements.

 

Two brothers and singers from Finland, Mika and Turkka Mali, over the course of their more than 30-year musical career, have translated into Finnish, recorded and on numerous occasions publicly performed songs of Vladimir Vysotsky.

 

Throughout his lengthy musical career, Jaromír Nohavica, a famed Czech singer, translated and performed numerous songs of Vladimir Vysotsky, most notably Песня о друге (Píseň o příteli – Song about a friend).

 

The Museum of Vladimir Vysotsky in Koszalin dedicated to Vladimir Vysotsky was founded by Marlena Zimna (1969–2016) in May 1994, in her apartment, in the city of Koszalin, in Poland. Since then the museum has collected over 19,500 exhibits from different countries and currently holds Vladimir Vysotsky' personal items, autographs, drawings, letters, photographs and a large library containing unique film footage, vinyl records, CDs and DVDs. A special place in the collection holds a Vladimir Vysotsky's guitar, on which he played at a concert in Casablanca in April 1976. Vladimir Vysotsky presented this guitar to Moroccan journalist Hassan El-Sayed together with an autograph (an extract from Vladimir Vysotsky's song "What Happened in Africa"), written in Russian right on the guitar.

 

In January 2023, a monument to the outstanding actor, singer and poet Vladimir Vysotsky was unveiled in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, in the square near the Rodina House of Culture. Author Vladimir Chebotarev.

 

After her husband's death, urged by her friend Simone Signoret, Marina Vlady wrote a book called The Aborted Flight about her years together with Vysotsky. The book paid tribute to Vladimir's talent and rich persona, yet was uncompromising in its depiction of his addictions and the problems that they caused in their marriage. Written in French (and published in France in 1987), it was translated into Russian in tandem by Vlady and a professional translator and came out in 1989 in the USSR. Totally credible from the specialists' point of view, the book caused controversy, among other things, by shocking revelations about the difficult father-and-son relationship (or rather, the lack of any), implying that Vysotsky-senior (while his son was alive) was deeply ashamed of him and his songs which he deemed "anti-Soviet" and reported his own son to the KGB. Also in 1989 another important book of memoirs was published in the USSR, providing a bulk of priceless material for the host of future biographers, Alla Demidova's Vladimir Vysotsky, the One I Know and Love. Among other publications of note were Valery Zolotukhin's Vysotsky's Secret (2000), a series of Valery Perevozchikov's books (His Dying Hour, The Unknown Vysotsky and others) containing detailed accounts and interviews dealing with the bard's life's major controversies (the mystery surrounding his death, the truth behind Vysotsky Sr.'s alleged KGB reports, the true nature of Vladimir Vysotsky's relations with his mother Nina's second husband Georgy Bartosh etc.), Iza Zhukova's Short Happiness for a Lifetime and the late bard's sister-in-law Irena Vysotskaya's My Brother Vysotsky. The Beginnings (both 2005).

 

A group of enthusiasts has created a non-profit project – the mobile application "Vysotsky"

 

The multifaceted talent of Vysotsky is often described by the term "bard" (бард) that Vysotsky has never been enthusiastic about. He thought of himself mainly as an actor and poet rather than a singer, and once remarked, "I do not belong to what people call bards or minstrels or whatever." With the advent of portable tape-recorders in the Soviet Union, Vysotsky's music became available to the masses in the form of home-made reel-to-reel audio tape recordings (later on cassette tapes).

 

Vysotsky accompanied himself on a Russian seven-string guitar, with a raspy voice singing ballads of love, peace, war, everyday Soviet life and of the human condition. He was largely perceived as the voice of honesty, at times sarcastically jabbing at the Soviet government, which made him a target for surveillance and threats. In France, he has been compared with Georges Brassens; in Russia, however, he was more frequently compared with Joe Dassin, partly because they were the same age and died in the same year, although their ideologies, biographies, and musical styles are very different. Vysotsky's lyrics and style greatly influenced Jacek Kaczmarski, a Polish songwriter and singer who touched on similar themes.

 

The songs – over 600 of them – were written about almost any imaginable theme. The earliest were blatnaya pesnya ("outlaw songs"). These songs were based either on the life of the common people in Moscow or on life in the crime people, sometimes in Gulag. Vysotsky slowly grew out of this phase and started singing more serious, though often satirical, songs. Many of these songs were about war. These war songs were not written to glorify war, but rather to expose the listener to the emotions of those in extreme, life-threatening situations. Most Soviet veterans would say that Vysotsky's war songs described the truth of war far more accurately than more official "patriotic" songs.

 

Nearly all of Vysotsky's songs are in the first person, although he is almost never the narrator. When singing his criminal songs, he would adopt the accent and intonation of a Moscow thief, and when singing war songs, he would sing from the point of view of a soldier. In many of his philosophical songs, he adopted the role of inanimate objects. This created some confusion about Vysotsky's background, especially during the early years when information could not be passed around very easily. Using his acting talent, the poet played his role so well that until told otherwise, many of his fans believed that he was, indeed, a criminal or war veteran. Vysotsky's father said that "War veterans thought the author of the songs to be one of them, as if he had participated in the war together with them." The same could be said about mountain climbers; on multiple occasions, Vysotsky was sent pictures of mountain climbers' graves with quotes from his lyrics etched on the tombstones.

 

Not being officially recognized as a poet and singer, Vysotsky performed wherever and whenever he could – in the theater (where he worked), at universities, in private apartments, village clubs, and in the open air. It was not unusual for him to give several concerts in one day. He used to sleep little, using the night hours to write. With few exceptions, he wasn't allowed to publish his recordings with "Melodiya", which held a monopoly on the Soviet music industry. His songs were passed on through amateur, fairly low quality recordings on vinyl discs and magnetic tape, resulting in his immense popularity. Cosmonauts even took his music on cassette into orbit.

 

Musically, virtually all of Vysotsky's songs were written in a minor key, and tended to employ from three to seven chords. Vysotsky composed his songs and played them exclusively on the Russian seven string guitar, often tuned a tone or a tone-and-a-half below the traditional Russian "Open G major" tuning. This guitar, with its specific Russian tuning, makes a slight yet notable difference in chord voicings than the standard tuned six string Spanish (classical) guitar, and it became a staple of his sound. Because Vysotsky tuned down a tone and a half, his strings had less tension, which also colored the sound.

 

His earliest songs were usually written in C minor (with the guitar tuned a tone down from DGBDGBD to CFACFAC)

 

Songs written in this key include "Stars" (Zvyozdy), "My friend left for Magadan" (Moy drug uyekhal v Magadan), and most of his "outlaw songs".

 

At around 1970, Vysotsky began writing and playing exclusively in A minor (guitar tuned to CFACFAC), which he continued doing until his death.

 

Vysotsky used his fingers instead of a pick to pluck and strum, as was the tradition with Russian guitar playing. He used a variety of finger picking and strumming techniques. One of his favorite was to play an alternating bass with his thumb as he plucked or strummed with his other fingers.

 

Often, Vysotsky would neglect to check the tuning of his guitar, which is particularly noticeable on earlier recordings. According to some accounts, Vysotsky would get upset when friends would attempt to tune his guitar, leading some to believe that he preferred to play slightly out of tune as a stylistic choice. Much of this is also attributable to the fact that a guitar that is tuned down more than 1 whole step (Vysotsky would sometimes tune as much as 2 and a half steps down) is prone to intonation problems.

 

Vysotsky had a unique singing style. He had an unusual habit of elongating consonants instead of vowels in his songs. So when a syllable is sung for a prolonged period of time, he would elongate the consonant instead of the vowel in that syllable.

 

The Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky Statue is a prominent monument located in Voronezh, Russian Federation, dedicated to the legendary Russian singer-songwriter, actor, and poet Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky. This statue stands as a tribute to Vysotsky's immense contributions to Russian culture and his enduring legacy.

 

Vladimir Vysotsky was born on January 25, 1938, in Moscow, Russia. He quickly gained recognition for his unique artistic style, characterized by his powerful voice, poetic lyrics, and charismatic stage presence. Vysotsky's songs captured the essence of the Soviet era, addressing social issues, human emotions, and political satire. His music resonated deeply with the masses, and he became an iconic figure in Russian popular culture.

 

The idea of erecting a statue in Voronezh to honor Vladimir Vysotsky was conceived to commemorate his connection to the city. Vysotsky had a special relationship with Voronezh, as he spent a significant portion of his early career performing in local theaters and interacting with the local artistic community. The statue serves as a reminder of this bond and celebrates his artistic contributions.

 

The Vysotsky Statue was unveiled on November 18, 2009, in front of the Voronezh Academic Drama Theater, where Vysotsky performed numerous times. The monument was created by renowned Russian sculptor Grigory Pototsky. Standing at approximately 5 meters tall, the bronze statue captures Vysotsky in a dynamic pose, holding a guitar and singing passionately.

 

The sculpture depicts Vysotsky in mid-performance, capturing his energy and intensity on stage. The attention to detail in the statue is remarkable, with intricate facial features, flowing hair, and realistic clothing. The sculptor aimed to convey Vysotsky's passion and charisma through the artwork, and the statue successfully embodies these qualities.

 

The location of the statue, in front of the Voronezh Academic Drama Theater, is significant. It symbolizes Vysotsky's strong ties to the theater and his impact on the performing arts. The statue serves as a meeting point for admirers of Vysotsky's work, attracting locals and tourists alike. It has become an iconic landmark in Voronezh, attracting visitors who come to pay their respects and celebrate Vysotsky's artistic legacy.

 

The statue's unveiling was accompanied by a grand ceremony, attended by government officials, artists, and Vysotsky's fans. The event highlighted the significance of Vysotsky's artistic contributions and celebrated his enduring influen

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Universal, 15 Chapters, 1938. Starring Larry “Buster” Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Charles Middleton, Frank Shannon, Beatrice Roberts, Richard Alexander, Donald Kerr, C. Montague Shaw, Wheeler Oakman.

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars picks up almost exactly where Flash Gordon left off, with our courageous trio of interplanetary adventurers–Flash Gordon (Larry “Buster” Crabbe), Dale Arden (Jean Rogers), and Dr. Zarkov (Frank Shannon)–returning to Earth from the planet Mongo. They are greeted to a royal welcome, since their voyage has saved the Earth from being destroyed by the late Emperor Ming of Mongo. Zarkov, however, attempts to curb the Earthlings’ ebullience by cautioning them that the defeat and death of Ming does not mean that their planet is free from other threats of extraterrestrial invasion. As usual, Zarkov is correct; shortly after his warning speech, the Martian Queen Azura (Beatrice Roberts) begins an operation designed to siphon off the “nitron” (aka nitrogen) in the Earth’s atmosphere. Azura’s primary goal is to create nitron-powered weapons with which to wage a war against her mortal foes, the Clay People of Mars. She’s indifferent to the devastating effect that it will have on the Earth, while her chief adviser and military consultant regards the destruction of Earth as the main attraction of the plan. That adviser is none other than Ming (Charles Middleton), still very much alive and longing for revenge on Flash and Zarkov for toppling him from his throne and driving him into exile on Mars.

As the Earth begins to experience catastrophic floods and storms, due to the effects of Azura’s “Nitron Lamp,” Zarkov, Flash, and Dale launch another interplanetary trip to discover the cause of the catastrophes, which Zarkov has determined are due to a beam that emanates from outer space. They discover an unexpected stowaway aboard after takeoff–reporter “Happy” Hapgood (Donald Kerr), who had set out to track down Zarkov and get his opinion of the world-wide disasters. Not long after arriving on Mars, our quartet of Earth adventurers find themselves embroiled in the war between Azura and the Clay People. The latter are one-time rivals of the Queen, who have been transformed into living clay by Azura’s magical powers and banished to underground caverns from whence they carry on a guerilla war against Azura’s forces. The Clay People’s king enlists the aid of Flash and his party, as both of them want to stop Azura’s nitron-collecting plans, and, with additional aid from Prince Barin (Richard Alexander)–who arrives on Mars to try to convince the Martians to expel Ming–Flash and his party pit themselves against Azura’s magic, Ming’s machinations, Ming’s savage allies the Forest People, and many other hazards, in their quest to save the Earth.

 

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars is fully as good as the first Flash Gordon serial, although its strengths are in slightly different areas. While Trip to Mars doesn’t measure up to Flash Gordon when it comes to colorful characters and fantastic monsters, its focused plotline surpasses the episodic story of the earlier serial. In Flash Gordon, the protagonists merely responded to the perpetual perils that were hurled at them by Ming, King Vultan, and King Kala, while Ming’s own plans for destroying the Earth were largely abandoned after the first chapter in favor of his attempts to marry Dale and destroy Flash. In Trip to Mars, Flash, Dale, and Zarkov initiate events instead of just coping with them, and Ming’s new grand design drives the plot far more strongly than his earlier one, giving the good guys a clear-cut objective (the destruction of the Nitron Lamp) beyond simple escape from Mongo.

While Trip to Mars has no characters to rival Flash Gordon’s King Vultan and no bizarre beasts like the Orangopoid or the Fire Dragon, it still has excellent other-worldly atmosphere. The sets are not as varied and intricate as in the first serial, but still surpass the backdrops of almost any other chapterplay. Especially striking are Ming’s “powerhouse,” with its laboratory equipment and its disintegration room, Azura’s massive palace with its unique architectural design (particularly the futuristic pocket doors), the Clay People’s eerie caves, and the wonderfully-designed realm of the Forest People, with its twisted trees, climbing vines, hidden tunnels amid tree roots, and treehouse-like observation platforms.

 

In addition to the big sets, there are dozens of other major and minor props and special effects that make Trips to Mars memorably atmospheric; there’s the the Martians’ flying capes, the Martian televiewer screens (which are cleverly incorporated into the recap sequences at the beginning of each chapter), the Clay People’s vapor-healing chamber, and the bridge of light that connects Azura’s rocket tower to the rest of her palace and is powered by a simple switch like any Earthling lamp (the scene where Flash and Zarkov are first forced to cross the unsafe-looking thing is quite funny), to name but a few. I also appreciate the fact that Azura’s spaceship squadrons–her “stratosleds”–are designed differently than any of the ships in the first Flash Gordon serial; one would expect the aerial fleets of differing planets to differ in appearance. Another neat touch of internal consistency is the use of three completely different forms of salute by the three principal Martian races–Queen Azura’s subjects, the Clay People, and the Forest People.

The serial’s screenplay maintains good continuity with the previous Flash outing, despite being the work of a completely different team of writers–Ray Trampe, Norman S. Hall, Wyndham Gittens, and Herbert Dalmas. The new writing team avoids any of the clunky lines that occasionally crept into Flash Gordon’s dialogue exchanges; they also, despite having to resort to a few flashbacks to the first serial for padding purposes, manage to make their plot fit its fifteen-chapter length quite nicely. The major plot thread of the heroes’ attempts to destroy Ming and Azura’s Nitron Lamp is skillfully interwoven with several subplots–the Clay People’s efforts to regain their natural shape, the attempts by both Flash and Ming to get hold of the Black Sapphire of Kalu (a talisman that can neutralize Azura’s magic), and Ming’s plot to undermine Azura and seize the Martian throne.

Trip to Mars’ script wisely spreads its plot developments over the course of the serial, instead of introducing all its ideas in the first chapter and letting them tread water until the final one: the Clay People aren’t introduced till the second chapter or the Forest People until the sixth, while Prince Barin first arrives in Chapter Seven. The Nitron Lamp is destroyed in Chapter Nine and rebuilt over the course of the following chapters until it must be destroyed again at the climax, and one of the principal villains is killed off in Chapter Thirteen.

The cliffhangers aren’t quite as varied as in the first Flash serial, due to the lack of the various monsters that frequently attacked Flash for chapter-ending purposes in the earlier outing. However, writers still manage to avoid excessive repetition; for instance, while there are three chapter endings involving stratosled crashes, each one is set up differently–the first has Flash crashing a stratosled into another stratosled to stop it from bombing Dale and Happy, the second has a stratosled crashing on top of Flash and Zarkov, and the third has Flash and the pilots of a ’sled grapping for the controls as it soars towards yet another crash. There’s also an excellent cliffhanger in which Flash, Dale, Happy, and Zarkov are surrounded by an ever-narrowing ring of fire in the Forest People’s kingdom, and a memorably unusual one that has a hypnotized Dale stabbing an unsuspecting Flash in the back.

 

Though Trip to Mars has no swordfights or wrestling matches corresponding to those in Flash Gordon, it still features a nice variety of action scenes–including stratosled dogfights, fights among the vines and treetops of the Forest Kingdom, and chases through Azura’s big palace; the palace sequence in Chapter Five, which has the nimble Flash vaulting through windows to avoid the guards, is a particular standout. Directors Ford Beebe (a Universal serial veteran) and Robert Hill (a talented director who rarely escaped from low-budget independent serials and B-films) do a fine job of orchestrating these action scenes, assisted by stuntmen Eddie Parker (doubling Buster Crabbe), George DeNormand, Tom Steele, Bud Wolfe, and Jerry Frank. All of the aforementioned stuntmen, except Parker, also pop up in minor acting roles.

The performances in Trip to Mars are all first-rate; the returning actors from the first serial are all just as good as they were in Flash Gordon, while the new major players fit in smoothly. Buster Crabbe’s Flash is just as tough, chipper, athletic, and likable as in the first serial–and a good deal more wise and resourceful than before, improvising strategy and coming up with plans in tough situations instead of just trying to batter his way out. Frank Shannon’s Zarkov, as consequence of Flash’s new-found intelligence, has a reduced part, not guiding the good guys’ actions as he did in the first serial; he still functions as the scientific brains of the group, though, and is still as intense, serious, and sincere as before.

Jean Rogers, with her long blonde hair bobbed and dyed brown to better match the comic-strip version of Dale Arden (she’s also dressed in less arresting fashion), isn’t as stunning as in Flash Gordon, but is still a warm, welcome, and lovely presence. Her part here is smaller than in the first serial, though, since Ming is not romantically interested in her this time out (Ming, though no gentleman, evidently prefers blondes). Richard Alexander’s Prince Barin is a lot more self-assured when it comes to delivering dialogue this time around (helped, no doubt, by the absence of any overly high-flown lines), while his convincingly royal bearing and his commanding size are as effective as before.

Charles Middleton’s Ming is even more entertainingly sinister here than he was in Flash Gordon, getting a good deal more screen time and given a more devilish appearance by a notably forked beard. Though still given opportunities to break into tyrannical and bloodthirsty rages (particularly in his insane rant in the final chapter), Middleton spends much of the serial displaying duplicity and sly subtlety instead, since his Ming must pretend to friendship with Azura even while plotting against her. Middleton carries off this slightly more multi-faceted version of Ming masterfully, winning a few laughs with his crafty cynicism while remaining thoroughly sinister and hateful.

 

Beatrice Roberts does a fine job as Queen Azura, eschewing the sneering, aggressive demeanor of other serial villainesses for a regal, dignified manner (with a wryly humorous undercurrent) that contrasts interestingly with her often cruel behavior. Her Azura comes off as selfish and ruthless, but not an abusive tyrant like Ming. Donald Kerr as reporter Happy Hapgood, the other principal new character, is as controversial among fans as most other serial comedy-relief characters are. Speaking for myself, though, I found him quite likable and entertaining; he provides an amusingly commonplace point-of-view towards the fantastic world of Mars and is never obtrusive, gratingly stupid, or obnoxious. Additionally, his character is allowed to be quite heroic and helpful when the chips are down, a far cry from one-dimensional cowardly “comic” pests like Sonny Ray in Perils of Pauline or Lee Ford in SOS Coast Guard.

Wheeler Oakman is very good as Tarnak, Ming’s wily lab assistant and co-conspirator against Azura. C. Montague Shaw, concealed under heavy makeup for most of the serial, conveys an impressive air of ruined dignity as the King of the Clay People and manages to seem both sinister and sympathetic at different times. Usual hero Kane Richmond brings appropriate depth of characterization to his key role as a Martian pilot, who proves instrumental in helping Flash overthrow Ming in the later chapters. Anthony Warde has a small part as Toran, king of the Forest People, but extracts as much snarling nastiness as possible from the role. Future director Thomas Carr is his second-in-command, Kenne Duncan is the officer in charge of Azura’s airdrome, Lane Chandler and Jack Mulhall both appear as pilots of her Death Squadron, and Warner Richmond has a small role as one of Ming’s palace cohorts.

 

Hooper Atchley and James Blaine pop up as self-important Earth scientists, propounding ingenious and inaccurate theories as to the causes of the damage brought about by the Nitron Lamp, while Edwin Stanley is the general presiding over a council comprised of these two and additional savants. Louis Merrill (a radio actor who played character roles in several feature films) has a brief but memorable turn as the blunt and slightly uncouth Dr. Metz, who alone among the scientists has the humility to admit that Zarkov is the only one capable of unravelling the riddle of the disasters. Merrill’s characterization is so vivid that one wishes the actor had taken a larger part in this chapterplay or in other serials.

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars is a nearly ideal sequel, in that it manages to preserve the basic strengths of its predecessor while deviating from it in some areas and improving on it in others. It’s also a nearly ideal serial, independent of its relation to the earlier Flash Gordon; it balances good acting, atmosphere, action, and plotting in such fine style that it would still be a notable achievement if it were the sole entry in the Flash Gordon series.

  

Flash, Dale, and Dr. Zarkov return from their former space adventures only to find that their enemy, Ming the Merciless of planet Mongo, has a new weapon: a deadly ray that crosses space to wreak havoc on earth. Earth's only hope is for our heroes to take off again and stop the ray at its source on Mars, where they (and a stowaway) familiar to sci-fi serial fans as Happy Hapgood the space traveling reporter). Must battle Ming's ally, Queen Azura, who turns her enemies into lumpish clay people.With the aid of the Clay People and Prince Barin, Flash and his friends are triumphant in destroying the ray and putting an end to the scheme of Ming the Merciless. Can they survive 15 chapters of deadly perils? Find out next week...

The Deadly Ray From Mars was an edited version of the 1938 Universal serial "Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars" that was released to TV in a syndication package in 1966.

Mars Attacks the World was the feature version of the 1938 serial titled Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars. aka "Space Soldiers' Trip to Mars" - USA (TV title)

Mars Attacks the World is the feature compilation version of the serial Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars, while Rocket Ship is the the feature compilation of the serial Flash Gordon.

Jean Rogers as Dale Arden

Charles Middelton as Emperor Ming

Frank Shannon as Dr. Zarkov

Beatrice Roberts as Queen Azura

Richard Alexander as Prince Barin

Montague Shaw as The Clay King

Donald Kerr as Happy Hapgood the space traveling reporter.

The title of this serial was originally going to be "Flash Gordon and the Witch Queen of Mongo." It was changed so that Universal could save money by shooting the outdoor scenes on the back lot and not have to build costly sets, and by reusing the set for Emperor Ming's palace.

In the stock footage from Flash Gordon, shown in this film, as Flash is telling The Clay People about his previous encounter with Emperor Ming, Ming is bald and Dale Arden has blond hair. In this sequel, Ming has "pasted on" hair and Dale is a brunette. It has been reported that Jean Rogers (Dale Arden) had many other film roles pending at that time (1938) which had called for her to portray a brunette.

King Features Syndicate released the 3 Flash Gordon serials as well as "Buck Rogers," Red Barry", "Ace Drummond" and other comic strip cliffhangers to US TV in 1951. Because the television show Flash Gordon, starring Steve Holland as Flash, was in syndication in late 1953, the three Universal Pictures Flash Gordon theatrical serials were retitled for TV broadcast. Flash Gordon became "Space Soldiers", Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars became "Space Soldiers' Trip to Mars", and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe became "Space Soldiers Conquer the Universe". To this day both the 3 original "Flash Gordon" serial titles and the 3 "Space Soldiers" titles are used.

Chapter Titles:

1. New Worlds To Conquer

2. The Living Dead

3. Queen of Magic

4. Ancient Enemies

5. The Boomerang

6. Treemen of Mars

7. Prisoner of Monga

8. Black Sapphire of Kalu

9. Symbol of Death

10. Incense of Forgetfulness

11. Human Bait

12. Ming the Merciless

13. Miracle of Magic

14. Beasts at Bay

15. An Eyes For An Eye

  

Sunflower, drying, detail.

Corrected for red, blue and cyan lines (sensor dust tracks).

Screenshot of scanned backlit original.

William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. What he called his prophetic works were said by 20th-century critic Northrop Frye to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language".[2] His visual artistry led 21st-century critic Jonathan Jones to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced".[3] In 2002, Blake was placed at number 38 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.[4] While he lived in London his entire life, except for three years spent in Felpham,[5] he produced a diverse and symbolically rich œuvre, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God"[6] or "human existence itself".[7]

 

Although Blake was considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, he is held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have been characterised as part of the Romantic movement and as "Pre-Romantic".[8] A committed Christian who was hostile to the Church of England (indeed, to almost all forms of organised religion), Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American Revolutions.[9] Though later he rejected many of these political beliefs, he maintained an amiable relationship with the political activist Thomas Paine; he was also influenced by thinkers such as Emanuel Swedenborg.[10] Despite these known influences, the singularity of Blake's work makes him difficult to classify. The 19th-century scholar William Michael Rossetti characterised him as a "glorious luminary",[11] and "a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors"

 

Blake's first collection of poems, Poetical Sketches, was printed around 1783.[31] After his father's death, Blake and former fellow apprentice James Parker opened a print shop in 1784, and began working with radical publisher Joseph Johnson.[32] Johnson's house was a meeting-place for some leading English intellectual dissidents of the time: theologian and scientist Joseph Priestley, philosopher Richard Price, artist John Henry Fuseli,[33] early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and English revolutionary Thomas Paine. Along with William Wordsworth and William Godwin, Blake had great hopes for the French and American revolutions and wore a Phrygian cap in solidarity with the French revolutionaries, but despaired with the rise of Robespierre and the Reign of Terror in France. In 1784 Blake composed his unfinished manuscript An Island in the Moon.

 

Blake illustrated Original Stories from Real Life (2nd edition, 1791) by Mary Wollstonecraft. They seem to have shared some views on sexual equality and the institution of marriage, but there is no evidence proving that they met. In 1793's Visions of the Daughters of Albion, Blake condemned the cruel absurdity of enforced chastity and marriage without love and defended the right of women to complete self-fulfilment.

 

From 1790 to 1800, William Blake lived in North Lambeth, London, at 13 Hercules Buildings, Hercules Road.[34] The property was demolished in 1918, but the site is now marked with a plaque.[35] There is a series of 70 mosaics commemorating Blake in the nearby railway tunnels of Waterloo Station.[36][37][38] The mosaics largely reproduce illustrations from Blake's illuminated books, The Songs of Innocence and Experience, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and the prophetic books.

 

In 1788, aged 31, Blake experimented with relief etching, a method he used to produce most of his books, paintings, pamphlets and poems. The process is also referred to as illuminated printing, and the finished products as illuminated books or prints. Illuminated printing involved writing the text of the poems on copper plates with pens and brushes, using an acid-resistant medium. Illustrations could appear alongside words in the manner of earlier illuminated manuscripts. He then etched the plates in acid to dissolve the untreated copper and leave the design standing in relief (hence the name).

 

This is a reversal of the usual method of etching, where the lines of the design are exposed to the acid, and the plate printed by the intaglio method. Relief etching (which Blake referred to as "stereotype" in The Ghost of Abel) was intended as a means for producing his illuminated books more quickly than via intaglio. Stereotype, a process invented in 1725, consisted of making a metal cast from a wood engraving, but Blake's innovation was, as described above, very different. The pages printed from these plates were hand-coloured in water colours and stitched together to form a volume. Blake used illuminated printing for most of his well-known works, including Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The Book of Thel, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Jerusalem.

 

Although Blake has become better known for his relief etching, his commercial work largely consisted of intaglio engraving, the standard process of engraving in the 18th century in which the artist incised an image into the copper plate, a complex and laborious process, with plates taking months or years to complete, but as Blake's contemporary, John Boydell, realised, such engraving offered a "missing link with commerce", enabling artists to connect with a mass audience and became an immensely important activity by the end of the 18th century.[40]

 

Europe Supported by Africa and America is an engraving by Blake dating to 1792 held in the collection of the University of Arizona Museum of Art. It depicts three attractive women embracing one another. Black Africa and White Europe hold hands in a gesture of equality as the barren earth blooms beneath their feet. Europe wears a string of pearls while her sisters Africa and America, wearing slave bracelets, are depicted as "contented slaves".[41] Some scholars have speculated that the bracelets represents the historical fact while the handclasp Stedman's "ardent wish": "we only differ in color, but are certainly all created by the same Hand."[41] Others have said it "expresses the climate of opinion in which the questions of color and slavery were at that time being considered, and which Blake's writings reflect".[42] The engraving was for a book written by Blake's friend John Gabriel Stedman called The Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796).[43]

 

Blake employed intaglio engraving in his own work, such as for the illustrations of the Book of Job, completed just before his death. Most critical work has concentrated on Blake's relief etching as a technique because it is the most innovative aspect of his art, but a 2009 study drew attention to Blake's surviving plates, including those for the Book of Job: they demonstrate that he made frequent use of a technique known as "repoussage", a means of obliterating mistakes by hammering them out by hitting the back of the plate. Such techniques, typical of engraving work of the time, are very different to the much faster and fluid way of drawing on a plate that Blake employed for his relief etching, and indicates why the engravings took so long to complete.

 

The commission for Dante's Divine Comedy came to Blake in 1826 through Linnell, with the aim of producing a series of engravings. Blake's death in 1827 cut short the enterprise, and only a handful of watercolours were completed, with only seven of the engravings arriving at proof form. Even so, they have earned praise:

 

'[T]he Dante watercolours are among Blake's richest achievements, engaging fully with the problem of illustrating a poem of this complexity. The mastery of watercolour has reached an even higher level than before, and is used to extraordinary effect in differentiating the atmosphere of the three states of being in the poem.

 

Blake's illustrations of the poem are not merely accompanying works, but rather seem to critically revise, or furnish commentary on, certain spiritual or moral aspects of the text.

 

Because the project was never completed, Blake's intent may be obscured. Some indicators bolster the impression that Blake's illustrations in their totality would take issue with the text they accompany: In the margin of Homer Bearing the Sword and His Companions, Blake notes, "Every thing in Dantes Comedia shews That for Tyrannical Purposes he has made This World the Foundation of All & the Goddess Nature & not the Holy Ghost." Blake seems to dissent from Dante's admiration of the poetic works of ancient Greece, and from the apparent glee with which Dante allots punishments in Hell (as evidenced by the grim humour of the cantos).

 

At the same time, Blake shared Dante's distrust of materialism and the corruptive nature of power, and clearly relished the opportunity to represent the atmosphere and imagery of Dante's work pictorially. Even as he seemed to be near death, Blake's central preoccupation was his feverish work on the illustrations to Dante's Inferno; he is said to have spent one of the very last shillings he possessed on a pencil to continue sketching.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake

Marina Beach

 

2nd Largest Beach In The World.

 

The Marina is a primarily sandy beach, with an average width of 300 m (980 ft) and the width at the widest stretch is 437 m (1,434 ft). Bathing and swimming at the Marina are legally prohibited because of the dangers, as the undercurrent is very turbulent. It is one of the most crowded beaches in the country and attracts about 30,000 visitors a day during weekdays and 50,000 visitors a day during the weekends and on holidays. During summer months, about 15,000 to 20,000 people visit the beach daily.

 

Flora and fauna.

 

Marina Beach lies on the stretch of coast where olive ridley sea turtles, a species classified as Schedule 1 of the Indian Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 (critically endangered), nest during mating season, chiefly between late October and April peaking from mid-January to mid-February. The Ennore–Mamallapuram zone, on which the beach lies, is one of the three major nesting grounds on the Indian coast. However, with the expansion of the shrimp trawling fishery in the eastern coast of India in the mid-1970s, several individuals of the species are washed ashore dead every year. The eggs laid by the females along the beach are also sold in the local market by the fishermen and traders. In 1977, a recovery program was started by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute. Many volunteer organizations in the city, such as the Students' Sea Turtle Conservation Network and the Sea Turtle Protection Force of the TREE Foundation, get involved in conservation of the species along the coast.

Business Cards design for my friends of Undercurrent.

Silver and Magenta stamp foil on White board of 500grs

Because it is Mense Mariae, the Month of Mary, here is the second part of the little reflection on our Lady in Chapter 33 of Merton's Book, New Seeds of Contemplation. Emphasis in bold and my comments in Italic

 

***

 

The genuine significance of Catholic devotion to Mary is to be seen in the light of the Incarnation itself. The Church cannot separate the Son and the Mother. Because the Church conceives of the Incarnation as God's descent into flesh and into time, and His great gift of Himself to His creatures, she also believes that the one who was closest to Him in this great mystery was the one who participated most perfectly in the gift. (In a perfected sense, she is "Co-Redemptrix"-- With the Redeemer, united to Him perfectly more than anyone else.) When a room is heated by an open fire, surely there is nothing strange in the fact that those who stand closest to the fireplace are the ones who are warmest. (Another sanjuanist imagery.) And when God comes into the world through the instrumentality of one of His servants, then there is nothing surprising about the fact that His chosen instrument should have the greatest and most intimate share in the divine gift.

 

Mary, who was empty of all egotism, free from all sin, was as pure as the glass of a very clean window that has no other function than to admit the light of the sun. (Sanjuanist imagery) If we rejoice in that light, we implicitly praise the cleanness of the window. And of course, it might be argued that in such a case, we might well forget the window altogether. This is true. And yet the Son of God, in emptying Himself of His majestic power, having become a child, abandoning Himself in complete dependence to the loving care of a human Mother, in a certain sense draws our attention once again to her. (Merton's train of thought is interesting. Because Mary is perfectly absolved in God, our contemplation of God would justify us completely forgetting about her. However, God again draws attention to her in His kenosis which entailed submission and dependence on his creature and lowly Handmaid. This is the undercurrent in Merton's work: The focus is not on what humans have done but on what God has done) The Light has wished to remind us of the window, because He is grateful to her and because He has an infinitely tender and personal love for her. (A very spousal imagery of love.) If He asks us to share in this love, it is certainly a great grace and a privilege, and one of the most important aspects of this privilege is that it enables us to some extent to appreciate the mystery of God's great love and respect for His creatures. ("Not because of who I am, but because of what You've done. Not because of what I've done but because of Who You are...")

 

That God should assume Mary into Heaven is not just a glorification of a 'Mother Goddess.' Quite the contrary, it is the expression of the divine love for humanity, and a very special manifestation of God's respect for His creatures, His desire to do honor to the beings He has made in His own image, and most particularly His respect for the body which was destined to be the temple of His glory. If Mary is believed to be assumed into heaven, it is because God desires it to be glorified in us too, and it is for this reason that His Son, taking flesh, came into the world.(Again, the themes of recapitulation and theosis surface again. Following the tradition of the Eastern Fathers, the Incarnation is central to our understanding of the mysteries of faith. Christ became human to unite us, with Mary as first, to His Divine and Triune Life.)

 

In all the great mystery of Mary, then, one thing remains most clear: that of herself she is nothing, and that God has for our sakes delighted to manifest His glory and His love in her. (Again, we see the pulse of Merton's work: Not what she has done but what HE has done for her.)

 

It is because she is, of all the saints, the most perfectly poor and most perfectly hidden, the one who has absolutely nothing whatever that she attempts to possess as her own, that she can most fully communicate to the rest of us the grace of the infinitely selfless God. And we will most truly possess Him when we have emptied ourselves and become poor and hidden as she is, resembling Him by resembling her. (Following the great sanjuanist paradigm, it is Mary's poverty, her nothingness, that enabled her to be the most sublime vehicle for this self-giving God.)

 

And all our sanctity depends on her maternal love.(Again, this is a BOLD assertion, that our holiness depends on Mary) The ones she desires to share the joy of her own poverty and simplicity, the ones whom she wills to be hidden as she is hidden, are the ones who share her closeness to God. (Mary is All-Holy One, the Panagia. Thus our holiness is absorbed in her perfected sanctity.)

 

It is a tremendous grace, then, and a great privilege when a person living in the world we have to live in suddenly loses his interest in the things that absorb that world, and discovers in his own soul an appetite for poverty and solitude. And the most precious of all the gifts of nature or grace is the desire to be hidden and to vanish from the sign of men and be accounted as nothing by the world and to disappear from one's own self-conscious consideration and vanish into nothingness in the immense poverty that is the adoration of God. (When everything orients towards God, it is at once a supreme poverty for the soul as it is fully emptied and full adoration to God. The paradigm of St. John of the Cross applied to Mary and to us--NADA for TODA.)

 

This absolute emptiness, this poverty, this obscurity holds within it the secret of all joy because it is full of God. (Again, borrowed from St. John of the Cross) To seek this emptiness is true devotion to the Mother of God. To find it is to find her. And to be hidden in its depths is to be full of God as she is full of Him, and to share in her mission of bringing Him to all men. (...and women.)

 

Yet all generations must call her blessed, because they all receive through her obedience whatever supernatural life and joy is granted to them. (Reminds me of St. Irenaeus-- "so the knot of Eye's disobedience received its unloosing through the obedience of Mary." Adv. Haer. iii.34.) And it is necessary that the world should acknowledge her and that the praise of God's great work in her should be sung in poetry and that cathedrals should be built in her name. For unless our Lady is recognized as the Mother of God and as the Queen of all the saints and angels and as the hope of the world, faith in God will remain incomplete. How can we ask HIm for all the things He would have us hope for if we do not know, by contemplating the sanctity of the Immaculate Virgin, what great things He has power to accomplish in the souls of men. (Amen! All is oriented towards God--Mary illustrates the power of God.)

 

And so, the more we are hidden in the depths where her secret is discovered, the more we will want to praise her name in the world and glorify, in her, the God Who made her His shining tabernacle. Yet we will not altogether trust our own talent to find words in which to praise her: for even if we could sing of her as did Dante or St. Bernard, we would still have little to say of her compared with the Church who alone knows how to praise her adequately and who dares to apply to her the inspired words God uses of in His own Wisdom. Thus we find her living in the midst of Scripture, and unless we find her, also, hidden in Scripture where and in whatever promises contain her Son, we shall not fully know the life that is in Scripture. (Zing! Merton smashes the 'Protestant' assertion that Catholic devotion to Mary is contrary to Scripture.)

 

It is she, who in these last days, is destined by the merciful delegation of God, to manifest the power He has given her, because of her poverty, and save the last men living in the ruins of a burnt world. (Here, we see, understandably, Merton's mild apocalyptic worldview, living in a world recently emerging from two world wars and the threat of the Nuclear annihilation. Very reminiscent of the Fatima message.) But if the world's last stage, by the wickedness of men, is likely to be made the most terrible, yet by the clemency of the Blessed Virgin will it also be, for the poor who have received His mercy, the most victorious and the most joyful.

  

MY THOUGHTS

Merton strongly emphasizes that Mary does not stand on her own right, as her mystery cannot be comprehended apart from God's work of salvation. The Church's understanding of Mary is both Theocentric and Incarnational. The importance of Mary does not so much depend what she has done but rather on the great things that He who is Mighty has done for her. In Mary, one sees the power of God perfectly at work.

 

Merton's understanding of Mary is nestled in the imagery offered by St. John of the Cross:"Although the fire has penetrated the wood, transformed it, and united it with itself, yet as this fire grows hotter and continues to burn, so the wood becomes much more incandescent and inflamed, even to the point of flaring up and shooting out flames from itself. It should be understood that the soul now speaking has reached this enkindled degree, and is so inwardly transformed in the fire of love and elevated by it that it is not merely united to this fire but produces within it a living flame. The soul feels this and speaks of it thus in these stanzas with intimate and delicate sweetness of love, burning in love's flame, and stressing in these stanzas some of the effects of this love." -- (St John of the Cross, "The Living Flame of Love", Prologue 3-4)

 

This, for Merton, is Mary's role in the economy of salvation. The wood, consumed in the fire, tells us less of the wood and more of the potency of the flame.

It is within this backdrop that one can understand Merton's bold statements on the Mother of God: That our holiness is dependent on the Blessed Virgin and that she is necessary in understanding Scripture. Since Mary is perfected in holiness, all who walk on the road of sanctity will undoubtedly encounter her, she who fully embodies the holiness of the elect. Therefore, to fully appreciate the transforming power of the Word, one must encounter Mary in whom the seed of the Word produced a rich and perfect harvest. In Mary, fully alive in God, one sees the fullness which the Redemption of Christ wrought for the sons and daughter of Adam and Eve.

Thus, Mary, whose sublime holiness is born out of her profound poverty, becomes the fullest human example of the life of grace. She is truly and fully alive in Christ, a living witness to the salutary power of the Word, transforming those who are pure and lowly of heart. Mary, glorified in Christ, is a sign of eschatological hope for all humanity.

We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined he also called; and those he called he also justified; and those he justified he also glorified. (Romans 12:28-30)

Blessed are you, Mary, called by God according to His purpose and fully conformed to the image of his Son.

Blessed are you, Mother of the Lord, in whom our created holiness is perfected!

Blessed are you, Woman of the Word, a sign of sure hope and solace to the people of God during its sojourn on earth. (LG, 68)

Blessed are you, Mary, Icon of grace and hope in Christ.

Mother of God, All-Holy One, you who show us the way, intercede for us, now, always and at the hour of our death. Amen.

  

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ2HUfD0QSw&feature=share&amp...

Universal, 15 Chapters, 1938. Starring Larry “Buster” Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Charles Middleton, Frank Shannon, Beatrice Roberts, Richard Alexander, Donald Kerr, C. Montague Shaw, Wheeler Oakman.

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars picks up almost exactly where Flash Gordon left off, with our courageous trio of interplanetary adventurers–Flash Gordon (Larry “Buster” Crabbe), Dale Arden (Jean Rogers), and Dr. Zarkov (Frank Shannon)–returning to Earth from the planet Mongo. They are greeted to a royal welcome, since their voyage has saved the Earth from being destroyed by the late Emperor Ming of Mongo. Zarkov, however, attempts to curb the Earthlings’ ebullience by cautioning them that the defeat and death of Ming does not mean that their planet is free from other threats of extraterrestrial invasion. As usual, Zarkov is correct; shortly after his warning speech, the Martian Queen Azura (Beatrice Roberts) begins an operation designed to siphon off the “nitron” (aka nitrogen) in the Earth’s atmosphere. Azura’s primary goal is to create nitron-powered weapons with which to wage a war against her mortal foes, the Clay People of Mars. She’s indifferent to the devastating effect that it will have on the Earth, while her chief adviser and military consultant regards the destruction of Earth as the main attraction of the plan. That adviser is none other than Ming (Charles Middleton), still very much alive and longing for revenge on Flash and Zarkov for toppling him from his throne and driving him into exile on Mars.

As the Earth begins to experience catastrophic floods and storms, due to the effects of Azura’s “Nitron Lamp,” Zarkov, Flash, and Dale launch another interplanetary trip to discover the cause of the catastrophes, which Zarkov has determined are due to a beam that emanates from outer space. They discover an unexpected stowaway aboard after takeoff–reporter “Happy” Hapgood (Donald Kerr), who had set out to track down Zarkov and get his opinion of the world-wide disasters. Not long after arriving on Mars, our quartet of Earth adventurers find themselves embroiled in the war between Azura and the Clay People. The latter are one-time rivals of the Queen, who have been transformed into living clay by Azura’s magical powers and banished to underground caverns from whence they carry on a guerilla war against Azura’s forces. The Clay People’s king enlists the aid of Flash and his party, as both of them want to stop Azura’s nitron-collecting plans, and, with additional aid from Prince Barin (Richard Alexander)–who arrives on Mars to try to convince the Martians to expel Ming–Flash and his party pit themselves against Azura’s magic, Ming’s machinations, Ming’s savage allies the Forest People, and many other hazards, in their quest to save the Earth.

 

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars is fully as good as the first Flash Gordon serial, although its strengths are in slightly different areas. While Trip to Mars doesn’t measure up to Flash Gordon when it comes to colorful characters and fantastic monsters, its focused plotline surpasses the episodic story of the earlier serial. In Flash Gordon, the protagonists merely responded to the perpetual perils that were hurled at them by Ming, King Vultan, and King Kala, while Ming’s own plans for destroying the Earth were largely abandoned after the first chapter in favor of his attempts to marry Dale and destroy Flash. In Trip to Mars, Flash, Dale, and Zarkov initiate events instead of just coping with them, and Ming’s new grand design drives the plot far more strongly than his earlier one, giving the good guys a clear-cut objective (the destruction of the Nitron Lamp) beyond simple escape from Mongo.

While Trip to Mars has no characters to rival Flash Gordon’s King Vultan and no bizarre beasts like the Orangopoid or the Fire Dragon, it still has excellent other-worldly atmosphere. The sets are not as varied and intricate as in the first serial, but still surpass the backdrops of almost any other chapterplay. Especially striking are Ming’s “powerhouse,” with its laboratory equipment and its disintegration room, Azura’s massive palace with its unique architectural design (particularly the futuristic pocket doors), the Clay People’s eerie caves, and the wonderfully-designed realm of the Forest People, with its twisted trees, climbing vines, hidden tunnels amid tree roots, and treehouse-like observation platforms.

 

In addition to the big sets, there are dozens of other major and minor props and special effects that make Trips to Mars memorably atmospheric; there’s the the Martians’ flying capes, the Martian televiewer screens (which are cleverly incorporated into the recap sequences at the beginning of each chapter), the Clay People’s vapor-healing chamber, and the bridge of light that connects Azura’s rocket tower to the rest of her palace and is powered by a simple switch like any Earthling lamp (the scene where Flash and Zarkov are first forced to cross the unsafe-looking thing is quite funny), to name but a few. I also appreciate the fact that Azura’s spaceship squadrons–her “stratosleds”–are designed differently than any of the ships in the first Flash Gordon serial; one would expect the aerial fleets of differing planets to differ in appearance. Another neat touch of internal consistency is the use of three completely different forms of salute by the three principal Martian races–Queen Azura’s subjects, the Clay People, and the Forest People.

The serial’s screenplay maintains good continuity with the previous Flash outing, despite being the work of a completely different team of writers–Ray Trampe, Norman S. Hall, Wyndham Gittens, and Herbert Dalmas. The new writing team avoids any of the clunky lines that occasionally crept into Flash Gordon’s dialogue exchanges; they also, despite having to resort to a few flashbacks to the first serial for padding purposes, manage to make their plot fit its fifteen-chapter length quite nicely. The major plot thread of the heroes’ attempts to destroy Ming and Azura’s Nitron Lamp is skillfully interwoven with several subplots–the Clay People’s efforts to regain their natural shape, the attempts by both Flash and Ming to get hold of the Black Sapphire of Kalu (a talisman that can neutralize Azura’s magic), and Ming’s plot to undermine Azura and seize the Martian throne.

Trip to Mars’ script wisely spreads its plot developments over the course of the serial, instead of introducing all its ideas in the first chapter and letting them tread water until the final one: the Clay People aren’t introduced till the second chapter or the Forest People until the sixth, while Prince Barin first arrives in Chapter Seven. The Nitron Lamp is destroyed in Chapter Nine and rebuilt over the course of the following chapters until it must be destroyed again at the climax, and one of the principal villains is killed off in Chapter Thirteen.

The cliffhangers aren’t quite as varied as in the first Flash serial, due to the lack of the various monsters that frequently attacked Flash for chapter-ending purposes in the earlier outing. However, writers still manage to avoid excessive repetition; for instance, while there are three chapter endings involving stratosled crashes, each one is set up differently–the first has Flash crashing a stratosled into another stratosled to stop it from bombing Dale and Happy, the second has a stratosled crashing on top of Flash and Zarkov, and the third has Flash and the pilots of a ’sled grapping for the controls as it soars towards yet another crash. There’s also an excellent cliffhanger in which Flash, Dale, Happy, and Zarkov are surrounded by an ever-narrowing ring of fire in the Forest People’s kingdom, and a memorably unusual one that has a hypnotized Dale stabbing an unsuspecting Flash in the back.

 

Though Trip to Mars has no swordfights or wrestling matches corresponding to those in Flash Gordon, it still features a nice variety of action scenes–including stratosled dogfights, fights among the vines and treetops of the Forest Kingdom, and chases through Azura’s big palace; the palace sequence in Chapter Five, which has the nimble Flash vaulting through windows to avoid the guards, is a particular standout. Directors Ford Beebe (a Universal serial veteran) and Robert Hill (a talented director who rarely escaped from low-budget independent serials and B-films) do a fine job of orchestrating these action scenes, assisted by stuntmen Eddie Parker (doubling Buster Crabbe), George DeNormand, Tom Steele, Bud Wolfe, and Jerry Frank. All of the aforementioned stuntmen, except Parker, also pop up in minor acting roles.

The performances in Trip to Mars are all first-rate; the returning actors from the first serial are all just as good as they were in Flash Gordon, while the new major players fit in smoothly. Buster Crabbe’s Flash is just as tough, chipper, athletic, and likable as in the first serial–and a good deal more wise and resourceful than before, improvising strategy and coming up with plans in tough situations instead of just trying to batter his way out. Frank Shannon’s Zarkov, as consequence of Flash’s new-found intelligence, has a reduced part, not guiding the good guys’ actions as he did in the first serial; he still functions as the scientific brains of the group, though, and is still as intense, serious, and sincere as before.

Jean Rogers, with her long blonde hair bobbed and dyed brown to better match the comic-strip version of Dale Arden (she’s also dressed in less arresting fashion), isn’t as stunning as in Flash Gordon, but is still a warm, welcome, and lovely presence. Her part here is smaller than in the first serial, though, since Ming is not romantically interested in her this time out (Ming, though no gentleman, evidently prefers blondes). Richard Alexander’s Prince Barin is a lot more self-assured when it comes to delivering dialogue this time around (helped, no doubt, by the absence of any overly high-flown lines), while his convincingly royal bearing and his commanding size are as effective as before.

Charles Middleton’s Ming is even more entertainingly sinister here than he was in Flash Gordon, getting a good deal more screen time and given a more devilish appearance by a notably forked beard. Though still given opportunities to break into tyrannical and bloodthirsty rages (particularly in his insane rant in the final chapter), Middleton spends much of the serial displaying duplicity and sly subtlety instead, since his Ming must pretend to friendship with Azura even while plotting against her. Middleton carries off this slightly more multi-faceted version of Ming masterfully, winning a few laughs with his crafty cynicism while remaining thoroughly sinister and hateful.

 

Beatrice Roberts does a fine job as Queen Azura, eschewing the sneering, aggressive demeanor of other serial villainesses for a regal, dignified manner (with a wryly humorous undercurrent) that contrasts interestingly with her often cruel behavior. Her Azura comes off as selfish and ruthless, but not an abusive tyrant like Ming. Donald Kerr as reporter Happy Hapgood, the other principal new character, is as controversial among fans as most other serial comedy-relief characters are. Speaking for myself, though, I found him quite likable and entertaining; he provides an amusingly commonplace point-of-view towards the fantastic world of Mars and is never obtrusive, gratingly stupid, or obnoxious. Additionally, his character is allowed to be quite heroic and helpful when the chips are down, a far cry from one-dimensional cowardly “comic” pests like Sonny Ray in Perils of Pauline or Lee Ford in SOS Coast Guard.

Wheeler Oakman is very good as Tarnak, Ming’s wily lab assistant and co-conspirator against Azura. C. Montague Shaw, concealed under heavy makeup for most of the serial, conveys an impressive air of ruined dignity as the King of the Clay People and manages to seem both sinister and sympathetic at different times. Usual hero Kane Richmond brings appropriate depth of characterization to his key role as a Martian pilot, who proves instrumental in helping Flash overthrow Ming in the later chapters. Anthony Warde has a small part as Toran, king of the Forest People, but extracts as much snarling nastiness as possible from the role. Future director Thomas Carr is his second-in-command, Kenne Duncan is the officer in charge of Azura’s airdrome, Lane Chandler and Jack Mulhall both appear as pilots of her Death Squadron, and Warner Richmond has a small role as one of Ming’s palace cohorts.

 

Hooper Atchley and James Blaine pop up as self-important Earth scientists, propounding ingenious and inaccurate theories as to the causes of the damage brought about by the Nitron Lamp, while Edwin Stanley is the general presiding over a council comprised of these two and additional savants. Louis Merrill (a radio actor who played character roles in several feature films) has a brief but memorable turn as the blunt and slightly uncouth Dr. Metz, who alone among the scientists has the humility to admit that Zarkov is the only one capable of unravelling the riddle of the disasters. Merrill’s characterization is so vivid that one wishes the actor had taken a larger part in this chapterplay or in other serials.

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars is a nearly ideal sequel, in that it manages to preserve the basic strengths of its predecessor while deviating from it in some areas and improving on it in others. It’s also a nearly ideal serial, independent of its relation to the earlier Flash Gordon; it balances good acting, atmosphere, action, and plotting in such fine style that it would still be a notable achievement if it were the sole entry in the Flash Gordon series.

  

Flash, Dale, and Dr. Zarkov return from their former space adventures only to find that their enemy, Ming the Merciless of planet Mongo, has a new weapon: a deadly ray that crosses space to wreak havoc on earth. Earth's only hope is for our heroes to take off again and stop the ray at its source on Mars, where they (and a stowaway) familiar to sci-fi serial fans as Happy Hapgood the space traveling reporter). Must battle Ming's ally, Queen Azura, who turns her enemies into lumpish clay people.With the aid of the Clay People and Prince Barin, Flash and his friends are triumphant in destroying the ray and putting an end to the scheme of Ming the Merciless. Can they survive 15 chapters of deadly perils? Find out next week...

The Deadly Ray From Mars was an edited version of the 1938 Universal serial "Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars" that was released to TV in a syndication package in 1966.

Mars Attacks the World was the feature version of the 1938 serial titled Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars. aka "Space Soldiers' Trip to Mars" - USA (TV title)

Mars Attacks the World is the feature compilation version of the serial Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars, while Rocket Ship is the the feature compilation of the serial Flash Gordon.

Jean Rogers as Dale Arden

Charles Middelton as Emperor Ming

Frank Shannon as Dr. Zarkov

Beatrice Roberts as Queen Azura

Richard Alexander as Prince Barin

Montague Shaw as The Clay King

Donald Kerr as Happy Hapgood the space traveling reporter.

The title of this serial was originally going to be "Flash Gordon and the Witch Queen of Mongo." It was changed so that Universal could save money by shooting the outdoor scenes on the back lot and not have to build costly sets, and by reusing the set for Emperor Ming's palace.

In the stock footage from Flash Gordon, shown in this film, as Flash is telling The Clay People about his previous encounter with Emperor Ming, Ming is bald and Dale Arden has blond hair. In this sequel, Ming has "pasted on" hair and Dale is a brunette. It has been reported that Jean Rogers (Dale Arden) had many other film roles pending at that time (1938) which had called for her to portray a brunette.

King Features Syndicate released the 3 Flash Gordon serials as well as "Buck Rogers," Red Barry", "Ace Drummond" and other comic strip cliffhangers to US TV in 1951. Because the television show Flash Gordon, starring Steve Holland as Flash, was in syndication in late 1953, the three Universal Pictures Flash Gordon theatrical serials were retitled for TV broadcast. Flash Gordon became "Space Soldiers", Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars became "Space Soldiers' Trip to Mars", and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe became "Space Soldiers Conquer the Universe". To this day both the 3 original "Flash Gordon" serial titles and the 3 "Space Soldiers" titles are used.

Chapter Titles:

1. New Worlds To Conquer

2. The Living Dead

3. Queen of Magic

4. Ancient Enemies

5. The Boomerang

6. Treemen of Mars

7. Prisoner of Monga

8. Black Sapphire of Kalu

9. Symbol of Death

10. Incense of Forgetfulness

11. Human Bait

12. Ming the Merciless

13. Miracle of Magic

14. Beasts at Bay

15. An Eyes For An Eye

  

But even the most beautiful experiences come and go. More fundamental, perhaps, than any experience is the undercurrent of peace that has never left me since then. Sometimes it is very strong, almost palpable, and others can feel it too. At other times, it is somewhere in the background, like a distant melody.

 

Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

Teaching a human being takes the gift of time and attention. Moldeling being one takes even more. This image was captured far away from Nevada, but it reflects the way that parents instill in their children their attitudes and values.

 

The tragic 2017 concert shootings in Las Vegas demonstrate an undercurrent of anger in U.S. society--probably well beyond in the world at this time. Can we bend time and attitudes? Can we deliberately exercise our acknowledgement of the human condition? Can we let that car merge in front of us? Can we dump our sense of self-urgency and embrace helping and sharing with one another? How might we teach humans as we would hope the little one in this image might emerge in the future through our own examples each day, hour, and minute? It's up to us. What we say, what we do, and what we think matters to everyone around us.

 

What can you and I do today, and everyday, to make the world a better, and more tolerant place in the moments like the ones captured and shared on FLICKR.COM by all of us who come together here?

 

I wish every television and radio personality would devote 59 seconds to reminding us all to care about one another as we drive to work, play, shop and go about our day-to-day activities.

 

I will not post another photograph for 59 days to honor the victims of the Las Vegas mass shooting tragedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

I have now included additional tag interests across camera brands in order to help attract and deliver my message.

A STONE HOLDING ONTO THE SAND DUE TO THE UNDERCURRENT.

Ecstasy

  

A warmth

A chill

Plateau

Massive Hill

 

Breath held

Resounding laughter

Hesitation, fear

Delicate joy, sparkling tear.

 

Sensitive, aware

Delicate treasure

Fragile, bare

 

Obvious

Occluded

Everything noticed

Nothing Excluded

 

Remembered

Forgotten

Pensively counted

Offered, applauded.

 

A dance, a song

So perfect... belong

Undercurrents, surfacely said...

 

Pale lemon yellow. Burgundy red.