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With the construction of the Central Washington Railway in 1889, Govan was designated as a place in Lincoln County WA. The discovery of a large sandbank in the area in the autumn of 1890 created a boom town atmosphere as a crew of workmen complete with a steam shovel, extracted sand for the railroad construction. The name is derived from R.B. Govan, a construction engineer employed by the Central Washington Railway. Govan has been the scene of several unsolved murders. Reported December 1902 as "The most brutal crime ever committed in the county." was the axe murder of Judge J.A. Lewis and his wife, Penelope. The elderly Lewis kept sums of money about the house. It was believed robbery was the motive. Govan's eventual demise was hastened in 1933 when the community was bypassed by US Route 2. Only one retail store remained in business as of 1940.
Built in 1906, the old red schoolhouse somehow manages to resist the prairie winds, and leaves ghost town hunters with a strong connection to a much older and very different hardworking America. Closed in 1942, sunlight now passes through its wooden siding. Not much remains inside but 50 years of school day memories.
www.ghosttownsofwashington.com/govan.html
Photo of the abandoned Govan School House captured via Minolta MD W.Rokkor-X 17mm F/4 lens. In the ghost town and unincorporated community of Govan. Columbia Plateau Region. Inland Northwest. Lincoln County, Washington. Early August 2018.
Exposure Time: 1/200 sec. * ISO Speed: ISO-100 * Aperture: F/11 * Bracketing: None * Color Temperature: 5550 K * Film Plug-In: Kodak Portra 160 VC
The X-Files is an American science fiction drama television series. FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are the investigators of X-Files: marginalized, unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena. Mulder is a believer in the existence of aliens and the paranormal while Scully, a skeptic, is assigned to make scientific analyses of Mulder's discoveries which could ultimately be used to debunk Mulder's work and thus return him to FBI mainstream...
...taken at Tate Modern...
London, United Kingdom...
On my daily walks with our Pooch- CUMIN- I often see mundane things, and more often than not- I observe the
kind of image that you'll see here....not necessarily DEATH- but odd bits, like a dead-bird-lying lifeless on a sidewalk.
Korsika - Cap Corse
Erbalunga
Cap Corse (Corsican: Capicorsu; Italian: Capo Corso), a geographical area of Corsica, is a 40 kilometres (25 mi) long peninsula located at the northern tip of the island. At the base of it is the second largest city in Corsica, Bastia. Cap Corse is also a Communauté de communes comprising 18 communes.
Numerous historians have termed Cap Corse "the Sacred Promontory" and have gone so far as to suppose the name came from a high concentration of early Christian settlements. This is a folk-etymology.
The term comes from the geographer Ptolemy, who called his first and northernmost location on Corsica the hieron achron in ancient Greek, transliterated by the Romans to sacrum promontorium. This is not the only point of land to be so-called; there were many others in the classical world, none of them Christian. The meaning is somewhat ambiguous, whether it was called that because of a temple placed there or whether as the end of the land it was sacred to the god of the sea. If the date of the Geography is taken arbitrarily to be 100 AD, and Ptolemy was working from earlier sources, a Christian association is highly unlikely. There is no evidence that Corsica was converted earlier than the 6th century AD, no evidence of any Christian communities in the area in Ptolemy's time, and the concentration of later Christian edifices is no greater than they are in any populated region of Corsica.
Ptolemy's interpretation of promontory also is not clear. It has been taken to mean the entire Cap Corse, the Pointe du Cap Corse, or some one of the small promontories on it. Sometimes it is associated with Macinaggio, but the problem remains unsolved.
There is some geographic justification for associating Ptolemy's entire tribe, the Vanacini, which are described as "more to the north", with Cap Corse, as it is a distinct geophysical environment. The Vanacini appear in a bronze tablet found in northern Corsica repeating a letter from the emperor Vespasian to "the magistrates and senators of the Vanacini" written about 72 AD, in Ptolemy's time. The Vanacini had bought some land from Colonia Mariana, a Roman colony in the vicinity of Bastia, and complained about the borders fixed by the procurator from whom they had bought it. The emperor on receiving the complaint appointed another procurator to arbitrate and wrote informing the complainants. The inscription is documentary evidence of the historicity of the Vanacini.
(Wikipedia)
Le Cap Corse est une péninsule d'environ 400 km2 de superficie, au nord-est de l'île de Corse. Élancée au nord vers la Ligurie, elle se rencontre à 33 km de la Capraia, à 83 km de Piombino, à 96 km de Livourne, à 160 km de Gênes et à moins de 175 km de la côte française. La pointe Nord du Cap (42° 50’ 2.34‘’ N) est située en deçà d’une ligne Est-Ouest qui passe par Toulon (43° 7’ 19.92’’ N) et même légèrement plus au Sud que l’île de Porquerolles (43° 0’ 2‘’ N), ce qui place le nord de la Corse à la même latitude que la partie la plus au sud de la France continentale (Pyrénées-Orientales, sud de Perpignan).
Dans l'Antiquité, le pays est dénommé Sacrum promuntorium. Il devient, au Moyen Âge, un territoire de seigneuries (San Colombano, Avogari, etc.). Il est partagé en cantons durant la Révolution.
« Le pays appelé le Cap-Corse a un circuit de quarante-huit à cinquante milles. Il est partagé en deux dans le sens de sa longueur par une montagne qui se prolonge du nord au midi. Les gens du pays l'appellent la Serra. C'est comme une chaîne dont la cime partage les eaux, qui vont se jeter dans la mer, les unes à l'est, les autres à l'ouest. »
— Agostino Giustiniani in Dialogo, traduction de Lucien Auguste Letteron in Histoire de la Corse - Description de la Corse – Tome I p. 7 - 1888.
Il est formé par une arête relativement élevée qui envoie en avant, à l'est et à l'ouest, des éperons et des contreforts qui délimitent des vallées parallèles où se sont installés les villages et les cultures.
« Dans le Cap-Corse, l'air est partout sain, l'eau bonne ; le vin est abondant, excellent et généralement blanc. Les vins de la côte extérieure sont plus renommés comme vins moûts ; ceux de la côte intérieure, lorsqu'ils sont clairs. La quantité de vin que l'on récolte dans le Cap-Corse est considérable ; on y récolte encore un peu d'huile, des figues et quelques autres fruits. Le sol est rebelle aux autres cultures, surtout à celle du blé. Les habitants sont bien habillés et plus polis que les autres Corses, grâce à leurs relations commerciales et au voisinage du continent. Il y a chez eux beaucoup de simplicité et de bonne foi. Leur unique commerce est celui des vins qu'ils vont vendre en terre ferme »
— Mgr Agostino Giustiniani in Dialogo, traduction de Lucien Auguste Letteron in Histoire de la Corse - Description de la Corse, Bulletin de la Société des sciences historiques & naturelles de la Corse – Tome I p. 8
Le Cap Corse est une péninsule schisteuse qui s'étend au nord d'une ligne Bastia - Saint-Florent, sur près de 40 km de long dans le sens nord-sud, et 10 à 15 km de large. La région est composée de schistes lustrés, dans lesquels dominent les schistes et quartzites amphiboliques ou pyroxéniques, avec, par places, des calcschistes micacés et des cipolins durs.
Quelques exceptions importantes apparaissent dans ce relief. Au nord du Cap, les schistes sont pénétrés par une masse de gabbros et de péridotites, d'où provient la pierre verte bien connue sous le nom de serpentine. Cette pierre d'une grande dureté forme les bosses du paysage, telles que les sommets comme l'Alticcione 1 139 mètres, les promontoires comme le Corno di Becco ou la pointe d'Agnello. De part et d'autre de cette nappe de roches vertes se trouvent deux accidents géologiques curieux. À l'ouest, presque tout le territoire de la commune d'Ersa est constitué par une couche de gneiss amphibolique, granitisé, sur lequel on retrouve les schistes lustrés ; tandis qu'à l'est, au nord et au sud de Macinaggio, le long de la côte, à Tamarone, comme à Finocchiarola, s'étalent les grès siliceux et à poudingues de l'époque Éocène, avec un lambeau triasique de cargneules et de calcaires.
La géologie très particulière du Cap Corse a donné lieu à une rareté géologique : l'amiante amphibiolique, une roche fibreuse susceptible d'être filée et tissée. Avec la première révolution industrielle, celle de la machine à vapeur, la demande d'amiante (matériau isolant et incombustible) est montée en flèche. L'amiante a été exploité industriellement à Canari dans une impressionnante carrière en gradins à ciel ouvert, de 1935 à 1965. Le site était à la fois une mine et une usine produisant un produit fini et mis en sacs. Fermée depuis 1966, la friche industrielle est diversement considérée : verrue industrielle au passé sinistre (le mésothéliome ou cancer de l'amiante sévissait parmi les ouvriers) pour les uns, c'est un lieu de visite (illégale) apprécié par d'autres, avec la mode de l'exploration urbaine.
L'orographie de la région s'explique ainsi : les schistes luisants et tendres donnent un relief doux, des versants lentement inclinés, des mamelons et des chaînes continus, telle que la crête de séparation entre Rogliano et Luri. Les bancs de cipolins dessinent des ruptures de pente et des plateaux abrupts, comme le Piano de Santarello. Les schistes amphiboliques en revanche ont des crêtes aiguës et dentelées, mais ce sont surtout les gabbros et les péridotites qui forment les plus fortes saillies, les dômes, les massifs compacts isolés au milieu des roches plus tendres.
Coucher sur le Monte Stello.
Une chaîne montagneuse, la Serra, s'étend tout le long du cap, depuis la Serra di Pignu (altitude 960 m) au sud, jusqu'au Monte di u Castellu (altitude 540 m) au nord. La Cima di e Follicie, haute de 1 324 mètres, en est le point culminant ; mais le Cap compte plus de dix autres sommets dépassant les 1 000 mètres d'altitude, dont le Monte Stello. Cette chaîne surgit des flots souvent tumultueux du Capo Bianco et de la Punta di Corno di Becco, par une levée de 333 m à la Punta de Pietra Campana et 359 m au Monte Maggiore. Elle se dirige en direction du sud-est vers la pointe de Torricella (562 m), traverser toute la péninsule et finir à la cime du Zuccarello 955 m et le défilé du Lancone.
La Serra est la ligne de partage des eaux. À l'est, la côte intérieure est baignée par la mer Tyrrhénienne et le littoral offre des paysages au relief collinaire contrastant avec les paysages aigus et abrupts de la côte extérieure baignée par la mer Méditerranée. Au nord, la côte est baignée par la mer Ligure.
Le littoral capcorsin, déchiqueté et accidenté, comprend peu de plages que l'on trouve uniquement au fond de ses anses. Le relief descend le plus souvent de façon abrupte dans la mer, et la route D80, qui fait le tour du Cap sur 110 km, de Bastia à Saint-Florent, offre un panorama de corniche. Un tiers des tours génoises, destinées à protéger la Corse d'attaques navales des Barbaresques, a été construit autour du cap.
(Wikipedia)
Erbalunga is an ancient village in Corsica, in the municipality of Brando in the French department of Haute-Corse. The town has been occupied since prehistory. The village is the site of the 16th century Torra d'Erbalunga.
The town's Saint-Érasme church (patron saint of the sailors) has a baroque facade. In the chapel adjacent to the church are 14th-century frescos, on which Sainte Catherine and Christ are pictured. The frescoes are a monument historique. The port sheltered the chapel of the cemetery Madona del Carmine.
To the north of Erbalunga, in the Cintolinu district, is the monastery of the Bénédictines du Saint Sacrement dating back to 1862. The church is dedicated to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus. It used to be a boarding school for girls.
(Wikipedia)
Erbalunga est un village ancien de caractère sur le littoral, remarquable par sa tour génoise ruinée construite au XVIe siècle sur un rocher à l'entrée de son port, classée aux Monuments Historiques. Il a été habité dès le XVIe siècle avec son château féodal. Erbalunga (on trouve aussi l'orthographe Herbalunga) et ses environs immédiats formaient un fief créé en 1438 à la mort de Mathieu De Gentile.
Erbalunga est aujourd'hui une marine agréable dans un site remarquable. Il est formé des quartiers de Poggiolo et de Curcianella au sud. Au nord sont les quartiers de Foce et de Sicolu. Les quartiers du vieil Erbalunga portent les noms de Calellu, Torre, Cima, Trave, Scalu, Casanova, Piandifora et Concia. Les maisons anciennes ont été construites autour de la marine d'Erbalunga, un petit port de pêche qui fut un des principaux ports de l'île du XIIe siècle au XVIIIe siècle.
À l'entrée de la marine se dresse la tour d'Erbalunga, reconstruite à la fin du XVIe siècle, partiellement ruinée.
Le village est devenu au fil du temps un repaire chic où artistes et notables y ont élus domicile.
On y trouve l'école, la mairie ainsi que la plupart des commerces de Brando. L'église Saint-Érasme (saint patron des marins) du XVIIe siècle s'orne d'une façade baroque. La marine abrite également la chapelle du cimetière Madona del Carmine.
Au nord d'Erbalunga, au quartier de Cintolinu se trouve le monastère des bénédictines de l'Adoration perpétuelle du Très Saint Sacrement, datant de 1862, avec une église dédiée au Cœur Eucharistique de Jésus. Il était autrefois un pensionnat de jeunes filles.
Plus au nord d'Erbalunga, sur une éminence (201 m) au sud de la tour ruinée de Sagro, la forteresse historique de Tesoro (dite parfois Tresoro) dresse ses murs d'enceinte et ses longues lignes de pierre.
(Wikipedia)
Cap Corse (korsisch Capicorsu, italienisch Capo Corso) ist eine Halbinsel im Norden Korsikas. Sie befindet sich im Département Haute-Corse.
Die Halbinsel hat eine Länge von ca. 40 km und eine Breite von ca. 10 km. An ihrem südöstlichen Ende befindet sich die Stadt Bastia. Die höchsten Erhebungen sind Monte Alticcione (1138 m), Monte Stello (1306 m) und Cima di e Follicie (1324 m) (mit der Höhle Grotta a l'Albucciu). Nördlich des Cap Corse liegt die kleine zur Gemeinde Ersa gehörende Insel Giraglia.
Das Cap Corse ist verhältnismäßig wenig touristisch erschlossen. Es ist eine bekannte Weinregion, das Cap gibt dem Wein Muscat du Cap Corse seinen Namen.
Die korsische Schutzpatronin Julia von Korsika lebte zeitweilig in der Gegend.
(Wikipedia)
When I saw this photograph I immediately thought of a book I read many years ago.
Kerstin Ekman was writing a sort of "Scandinavian Noir" many years before the term was coined. Blackwater, the book I read, involves an unsolved double murder in a remote part of northern Sweden. However, a warning, the book is not a straightforward crime novel! I'll quote part of a review on Amazon; " Blackwater is absolutely NOT a conventional plot-driven action thriller or police procedural. This novel is a profound study of individual psychology and and the impact of insular rural life in a harsh but very beautiful sub-arctic region."
Think, just taking and looking at a photograph can bring all this to mind.
Rushes Cemetery is home to the Cryptic Gravestone or Bean Marker.
The cryptic tombstone for Mr. Bean's two wives who died close together remained unsolved for over 100 years but was finally solved in the 1970's.
A new tombstone marker with the identical markings as the original was added in 1982 so other people could try to solve the puzzle and can be seen in this link: www.flickr.com/photos/31155442@N03/51006020761/in/photost...
The solution is as follows:
In memoriam Henrietta, Ist wife of S. Bean, M.D. who died 27th Sep. 1865, aged 23 years, 2 months and 17 days and Susanna his 2nd wife who died 27th April, 1867, aged 26 years, 10 months and 15 days, 2 better wives 1 man never had, they were gifts from God but are now in Heaven. May God help me so to meet them there. Reader meet us in heaven."
Korsika - Cap Corse
Cap Corse (Corsican: Capicorsu; Italian: Capo Corso), a geographical area of Corsica, is a 40 kilometres (25 mi) long peninsula located at the northern tip of the island. At the base of it is the second largest city in Corsica, Bastia. Cap Corse is also a Communauté de communes comprising 18 communes.
Numerous historians have termed Cap Corse "the Sacred Promontory" and have gone so far as to suppose the name came from a high concentration of early Christian settlements. This is a folk-etymology.
The term comes from the geographer Ptolemy, who called his first and northernmost location on Corsica the hieron achron in ancient Greek, transliterated by the Romans to sacrum promontorium. This is not the only point of land to be so-called; there were many others in the classical world, none of them Christian. The meaning is somewhat ambiguous, whether it was called that because of a temple placed there or whether as the end of the land it was sacred to the god of the sea. If the date of the Geography is taken arbitrarily to be 100 AD, and Ptolemy was working from earlier sources, a Christian association is highly unlikely. There is no evidence that Corsica was converted earlier than the 6th century AD, no evidence of any Christian communities in the area in Ptolemy's time, and the concentration of later Christian edifices is no greater than they are in any populated region of Corsica.
Ptolemy's interpretation of promontory also is not clear. It has been taken to mean the entire Cap Corse, the Pointe du Cap Corse, or some one of the small promontories on it. Sometimes it is associated with Macinaggio, but the problem remains unsolved.
There is some geographic justification for associating Ptolemy's entire tribe, the Vanacini, which are described as "more to the north", with Cap Corse, as it is a distinct geophysical environment. The Vanacini appear in a bronze tablet found in northern Corsica repeating a letter from the emperor Vespasian to "the magistrates and senators of the Vanacini" written about 72 AD, in Ptolemy's time. The Vanacini had bought some land from Colonia Mariana, a Roman colony in the vicinity of Bastia, and complained about the borders fixed by the procurator from whom they had bought it. The emperor on receiving the complaint appointed another procurator to arbitrate and wrote informing the complainants. The inscription is documentary evidence of the historicity of the Vanacini.
(Wikipedia)
Le Cap Corse est une péninsule d'environ 400 km2 de superficie, au nord-est de l'île de Corse. Élancée au nord vers la Ligurie, elle se rencontre à 33 km de la Capraia, à 83 km de Piombino, à 96 km de Livourne, à 160 km de Gênes et à moins de 175 km de la côte française. La pointe Nord du Cap (42° 50’ 2.34‘’ N) est située en deçà d’une ligne Est-Ouest qui passe par Toulon (43° 7’ 19.92’’ N) et même légèrement plus au Sud que l’île de Porquerolles (43° 0’ 2‘’ N), ce qui place le nord de la Corse à la même latitude que la partie la plus au sud de la France continentale (Pyrénées-Orientales, sud de Perpignan).
Dans l'Antiquité, le pays est dénommé Sacrum promuntorium. Il devient, au Moyen Âge, un territoire de seigneuries (San Colombano, Avogari, etc.). Il est partagé en cantons durant la Révolution.
« Le pays appelé le Cap-Corse a un circuit de quarante-huit à cinquante milles. Il est partagé en deux dans le sens de sa longueur par une montagne qui se prolonge du nord au midi. Les gens du pays l'appellent la Serra. C'est comme une chaîne dont la cime partage les eaux, qui vont se jeter dans la mer, les unes à l'est, les autres à l'ouest. »
— Agostino Giustiniani in Dialogo, traduction de Lucien Auguste Letteron in Histoire de la Corse - Description de la Corse – Tome I p. 7 - 1888.
Il est formé par une arête relativement élevée qui envoie en avant, à l'est et à l'ouest, des éperons et des contreforts qui délimitent des vallées parallèles où se sont installés les villages et les cultures.
« Dans le Cap-Corse, l'air est partout sain, l'eau bonne ; le vin est abondant, excellent et généralement blanc. Les vins de la côte extérieure sont plus renommés comme vins moûts ; ceux de la côte intérieure, lorsqu'ils sont clairs. La quantité de vin que l'on récolte dans le Cap-Corse est considérable ; on y récolte encore un peu d'huile, des figues et quelques autres fruits. Le sol est rebelle aux autres cultures, surtout à celle du blé. Les habitants sont bien habillés et plus polis que les autres Corses, grâce à leurs relations commerciales et au voisinage du continent. Il y a chez eux beaucoup de simplicité et de bonne foi. Leur unique commerce est celui des vins qu'ils vont vendre en terre ferme »
— Mgr Agostino Giustiniani in Dialogo, traduction de Lucien Auguste Letteron in Histoire de la Corse - Description de la Corse, Bulletin de la Société des sciences historiques & naturelles de la Corse – Tome I p. 8
Le Cap Corse est une péninsule schisteuse qui s'étend au nord d'une ligne Bastia - Saint-Florent, sur près de 40 km de long dans le sens nord-sud, et 10 à 15 km de large. La région est composée de schistes lustrés, dans lesquels dominent les schistes et quartzites amphiboliques ou pyroxéniques, avec, par places, des calcschistes micacés et des cipolins durs.
Quelques exceptions importantes apparaissent dans ce relief. Au nord du Cap, les schistes sont pénétrés par une masse de gabbros et de péridotites, d'où provient la pierre verte bien connue sous le nom de serpentine. Cette pierre d'une grande dureté forme les bosses du paysage, telles que les sommets comme l'Alticcione 1 139 mètres, les promontoires comme le Corno di Becco ou la pointe d'Agnello. De part et d'autre de cette nappe de roches vertes se trouvent deux accidents géologiques curieux. À l'ouest, presque tout le territoire de la commune d'Ersa est constitué par une couche de gneiss amphibolique, granitisé, sur lequel on retrouve les schistes lustrés ; tandis qu'à l'est, au nord et au sud de Macinaggio, le long de la côte, à Tamarone, comme à Finocchiarola, s'étalent les grès siliceux et à poudingues de l'époque Éocène, avec un lambeau triasique de cargneules et de calcaires.
La géologie très particulière du Cap Corse a donné lieu à une rareté géologique : l'amiante amphibiolique, une roche fibreuse susceptible d'être filée et tissée. Avec la première révolution industrielle, celle de la machine à vapeur, la demande d'amiante (matériau isolant et incombustible) est montée en flèche. L'amiante a été exploité industriellement à Canari dans une impressionnante carrière en gradins à ciel ouvert, de 1935 à 1965. Le site était à la fois une mine et une usine produisant un produit fini et mis en sacs. Fermée depuis 1966, la friche industrielle est diversement considérée : verrue industrielle au passé sinistre (le mésothéliome ou cancer de l'amiante sévissait parmi les ouvriers) pour les uns, c'est un lieu de visite (illégale) apprécié par d'autres, avec la mode de l'exploration urbaine.
L'orographie de la région s'explique ainsi : les schistes luisants et tendres donnent un relief doux, des versants lentement inclinés, des mamelons et des chaînes continus, telle que la crête de séparation entre Rogliano et Luri. Les bancs de cipolins dessinent des ruptures de pente et des plateaux abrupts, comme le Piano de Santarello. Les schistes amphiboliques en revanche ont des crêtes aiguës et dentelées, mais ce sont surtout les gabbros et les péridotites qui forment les plus fortes saillies, les dômes, les massifs compacts isolés au milieu des roches plus tendres.
Coucher sur le Monte Stello.
Une chaîne montagneuse, la Serra, s'étend tout le long du cap, depuis la Serra di Pignu (altitude 960 m) au sud, jusqu'au Monte di u Castellu (altitude 540 m) au nord. La Cima di e Follicie, haute de 1 324 mètres, en est le point culminant ; mais le Cap compte plus de dix autres sommets dépassant les 1 000 mètres d'altitude, dont le Monte Stello. Cette chaîne surgit des flots souvent tumultueux du Capo Bianco et de la Punta di Corno di Becco, par une levée de 333 m à la Punta de Pietra Campana et 359 m au Monte Maggiore. Elle se dirige en direction du sud-est vers la pointe de Torricella (562 m), traverser toute la péninsule et finir à la cime du Zuccarello 955 m et le défilé du Lancone.
La Serra est la ligne de partage des eaux. À l'est, la côte intérieure est baignée par la mer Tyrrhénienne et le littoral offre des paysages au relief collinaire contrastant avec les paysages aigus et abrupts de la côte extérieure baignée par la mer Méditerranée. Au nord, la côte est baignée par la mer Ligure.
Le littoral capcorsin, déchiqueté et accidenté, comprend peu de plages que l'on trouve uniquement au fond de ses anses. Le relief descend le plus souvent de façon abrupte dans la mer, et la route D80, qui fait le tour du Cap sur 110 km, de Bastia à Saint-Florent, offre un panorama de corniche. Un tiers des tours génoises, destinées à protéger la Corse d'attaques navales des Barbaresques, a été construit autour du cap.
(Wikipedia)
Cap Corse (korsisch Capicorsu, italienisch Capo Corso) ist eine Halbinsel im Norden Korsikas. Sie befindet sich im Département Haute-Corse.
Die Halbinsel hat eine Länge von ca. 40 km und eine Breite von ca. 10 km. An ihrem südöstlichen Ende befindet sich die Stadt Bastia. Die höchsten Erhebungen sind Monte Alticcione (1138 m), Monte Stello (1306 m) und Cima di e Follicie (1324 m) (mit der Höhle Grotta a l'Albucciu). Nördlich des Cap Corse liegt die kleine zur Gemeinde Ersa gehörende Insel Giraglia.
Das Cap Corse ist verhältnismäßig wenig touristisch erschlossen. Es ist eine bekannte Weinregion, das Cap gibt dem Wein Muscat du Cap Corse seinen Namen.
Die korsische Schutzpatronin Julia von Korsika lebte zeitweilig in der Gegend.
(Wikipedia)
**************************************************************************
So what was the highwayman I had danced with on that fateful evening
Twilights Ghost
Uncanny was an exclamation used a lot by my grandPappa; I used to love to hear him say it, even though it was years before I knew its meaning. Uncanny is also the best word I can use to describe the following story:
I’m not sure if what follows is a true “ghost” story. I always thought of ghosts as being wispy things that people always talk about seeing, but never touching. And that’s another issue, I do not believe in ghosts, so why is it that people like me are the ones these type of things happen too. I couldn’t tell you the number of people who upon have heard this story exclaim, oh you saw a ghost, wish it had been me. The ones who want to believe never seem to ever actually see one.
As you can see, I have never placed much faith into supernatural occurrences. Even though my GrandPappa would tell some pretty spooky stories to my sisters, cousins , and I during late night fires around the hearth, I never really thought it could ever happen in real life. Now the romantic medieval tales of knights and princesses that my Móraí wove were another story, so to speak. Those I would fantasize about, and would desire strongly to become true, impressionable young lady that I was, and still am I’ll admit.
And that’s the rub.
The tale I am about to tell, really happened to me, many years ago. But as luck would have it, it favors my GrandPappas tales more so than my dear Móraí s.
GrandPappa was the dean of English Prose , Chatwick college, Surry, but it was my Móraí who was known for her stories, one of which was even published . They livedhappily on campus in a small stone cottage that once had been the livery for the historically old estate that now made up the College’s main campus. A medieval looking cottage made for lighting the imaginations of young girls.
One tale of my Móraí I can still recall vividly was about a local highwayman for whom Abbot‘s Chase, the road bordering the campus, was supposedly named. Craig Abbot supposedly held up the coach that my grandmothers great grand aunt Sarah had been a passenger in You could almost taste the suspense on the air as the highwayman courteously ( for a highwayman) had Sarah hand over her jewels, when my Móraí reached the part where Aunt Sarah had her hand kissed and had pleaded with him not to take her emerald ring, which had been a family keepsake she had received on her 18st birthday, She would have us spellbound with apprehension as to what would happen next( although we would hear the story many times over, and knew the outcome, it was always the same feeling). The highwayman had smile, slipping off Aunt Sarah’s rings, but allowed her to keep the emerald’s she wore around her throat. Poor Aunt Sarah had loved that ring, and it was not a family secret of the grief it caused her to lose it. But, romance always would overshadow reality, and my sisters and I would talk through the evening wondering what had become of such a dashing figure as my grandmothers masked highwayman. But it still remained a story, and nothing more. I had always hoped that I would dream myself into one of my Móraí’s tales, but no dashing prince, or romantic highwayman ever did.
It was years later that I would learn that my romantic highwayman had met his fate by the old bridge on Abbots Chase and had been hung. Legend had it that he was buried in the ancient cemetery that could still be found in those days, and maybe still there, in a small wooded corner of the campus estate.
Years later, after my grandparents had both passed on, and their old stone cottage a distant, but still warm memory, I attended Chatwick college with no direct plans or purpose to be there, other than to walk the same halls as my grandfather.
My experience happened one evening as I was attending a Masque Ball for charity on a blustery Halloween‘s eve. The Ball was being held at the posh old Ryder house in Chatwick Parish . My Girlfriend, Tallie, did not want to go alone, as friends are want to do, and convinced, or rather conned, me into going. I found an old green satin gown with a matching sash, from which a long brooch dangled, It had been a relic from a cousins wedding. I removed the satin sash and bow and it became a rather respectable little gown. I was also sporting the shiny emerald necklace that we had found among my Grandmother’s things. It was pretty, with glittery emeralds surrounding a petite diamond pendant that sparkled like the real thing.
So anyway, there I was, all dressed up, bored to tears as the saying quite correctly goes,, and of course no male seemed to notice me, and I was too shy to ask someone to dance. I remember watching my, friend off dancing with a , handsome bloke in , of course, a prince charming outfit. As I was snickering to myself over an image placed in my mind concerning his green nylon pantaloons, someone stepped onto the hem of my long gown. Turning around I tripped into a tall, bearded saturnine man sporting a black hood and mask. He caught my fall, and twirled me onto the dance floor. He was really light on his feet and had these intense, icy eyes staring from his mask An executioner I joked to him, knowing full well he was dressed like my Móraí’s quixotic highwayman. He did not answer, only looked me over with those wistful eyes. Silent type I remember remarking to him, trying to force a smile, but it did not work. He just grinned, remaining mute and mysterious Thinking back I realized that he had never really said anything the whole time we danced. He spoke to me through his eyes, sad and morose; it said everything that I had needed to know. And It had been enough.
He kissed my hand when the dance was finished, and still not uttering a word, turned and made his way towards the black oak doors leading to the English Gardens. On a sudden whim, I followed him
He stopped at the steps outside; an turning , looked back at me, then led me down the stairs. The walk through the deserted moonlit Garden was surreal, like being in one of my Móraí’s romantic tales. Coming to a break in the hedge , he went through. I followed, walking right into a low hanging cobweb spanning the opening. I bent over to free my long hair of the sticky web, I looked around, that quickly he had deserted me. My highwayman was gone, like a phantom in the night, or more likely a will o wisp of my imagination. But he had seemed real enough, so I did not dwell on the subject, just turned and headed back inside, my skirts swishing along the cobblestone.
I walked back to the hall and rejoined my girlfriend, who was sitting with her frog prince. As she introduced me to him she stopped, and placed a hand to my throat, asking me where my necklace had gotten off to. With a start I realized that it was gone, and we spent the rest of the evening fruitlessly tracking it down. But it, like the masked highwayman, did not reappear.
Now, as I said in the beginning, I was never one to have dreams, and even if I did, none save one, ever remained with me. That one dream I still vividly recall came later that evening... I had declined my friends offer to join her and her boyfriend Charles( forever the frog prince to me), to go out after the party. Instead I went back to my room, and still in the gown, picked up a text that some professor actually thought a normal being could make sense of, and stated to half heatedly study. I found my thoughts drifting to the party and wondering if the mysterious highwayman would come back into my life.
Suddenly I was alone, walking along a misted Abbots Chase , my long gown again swishing along the stones. Just ahead of me sat a misty shrouded mounted figure, outlined in darkness. Steam emits into the chilly night air from his horses’ flared nostrils. It shakes its head awaiting its masters orders. The cloaked figure looks left, then look down into a tree lined valley. The distant sound of horses carries up, and a lone coach comes into view
The carriage horses have just strained to come up from a small valley, the driver cracks his whip to keep them moving. He does not hear what they do, and he assumes their neighs are in answer to his whip. So he is totally unprepared when the horseman, clocked and masked, rides out from the trees and points a sword at him. He pulls to a jerking stop. “Stand and deliver” is the command he hears, The man’s voice muffled from beneath his mask.
Dismounting, the rider strolls casually up to the carriage door, and invites the occupants to step out. They do so, a gentleman first, An older man with the detached look of a sour judge. A bright gold chain encircling his waist, diamond cufflinks glint in the moonlight. Behind him, in the shadows of the carriage, emits the pleasing, to the masked figure, sounds of a rustling dress.
Behind the Judge, the open carriage door is bathed in moonlight. A whisper of satin precedes the pretty lady that enters into view. Easy does it the masked rider says as he helps her down, his words rolling pleasantly with a kindly English accent. I shall, she answers, head held proudly.
His eyes focus on her necklace as it lays glistening along her throat. In my dream, the same necklace That I had found in my Móraí’s jewel case. She steps down into a pool of moon light, revealing the shimmering silver frock that adorns her pretty figure, the gowns long skirts come cascading out as she steps down to the ground. Her hair is up, and a set of drippy emerald earrings sway freely, twinkling merrily about its forlorn wearer. Diamond rings, one a bright emerald sparkle along her slender gloved fingers.
” Nice of you to come dressed up this lovely evening, my pretty lass.” He smiles gallantly in her eyes, she blushes . What do you want,” the judge asks in a commanding voice. With a twinkle in his eyes, the bandit answers, “Well that’s the problem you see, my steed I need your valuables to purchase his feed. That right rapskellian, he says to the horse behind him, who snorts upon hearing his name and tosses his head, mane flowing. His words come across in an almost embarrassed apology. The Highwayman approaches the Judge, his horse waiting patiently in the background.
The figure walks up to him, and holds out his hand, fingers beckoning. At a sign of hesitation, the sword is produced and pointed at his waist. He hands over his fat wallet, gold watch and chain. His diamond cufflinks and emerald pin are also given over.. The booty is placed in a pocket of the the highway man’s cloak . Thank you sir, the highwayman says in an almost civil manner.
The Highwayman moves to the pretty lady in silver. The moon is seen behind her, framing her face casting a light through so very soft long hair.
With puppy sad eyes she looks into his, her heart melting. He moves forward, his sword drawn, and he brings up his gloved hand, lifting her necklace from her throat . Yes, he whispers genially, this for starters now please raise your hands. The look he is giving the area where her diamonds lay upon her throat, just above her ample bosom, is one of lustful desire.
Your jewels, then, miss, he asks her with a daunting voice. Her mouth pursed in a whimper, she sadly lowers her hands , reaches behind and fumbled for her earrings, they explodes into dazzling light as she pulls them reluctantly free and lays them upon the outstretched palm. She slides the bracelets off each wrist, then looking sadly at her shimmering rings, she pulls off the two diamond ones from her gloved fingers. She stops at the emerald ring, she looks up at him, please sir, may I keep it. My lady he says , taking her hand up in his. I cannot let you keep it, though I can tell it has meaning to you. He pulls it off. I will let you keep your necklace however my lady, so that you may sparkle this evening. Realizing he will not bargain, she steps back and watches miserably as her pile of jewelry glistens in his palm.
The horse comes back into view, his head moving up and down, snorting. The highwayman, sheathing his sword, leaves the group and walks backwards to the horse. “I thank you my good gentleman and fine lady, your contribution this evening is greatly appreciated.” The Judge looks at him with scorn, the pretty lady smiles a sad little smile The figure on foot remounts, and rides off.
Suddenly a cold wind comes howling down the road, I tried to wake, but felt myself paralyzed as The Highwayman road off, soon after soldiers on horseback come thundering after him down the road. He is far ahead and I see him cross the bridge, he dismounts and slapping rapskellianon the flank, now rider less, the horse gallops off down Abbots Chase. The masked highwayman darts under the bridge. As the soldiers cross the bridge in hot pursuit, he salutes them from his hiding spot. As I watch, he then goes up and works on of the flagstones loose on the bottom of the bridge, creating a little hallow. It is here that he places his ill-gotten gains, moving the stone back in place he moves onto the road, suddenly he turns around, looking back. I start to look also, but then am aware of a key in my door. Reluctantly I tried to hold onto my dream as I hear my roommates call. As I woke, I found my hand searching in vain for the necklace I had lost, the one he had said I could keep in my dream,.
The next day I discussed my dream with my girlfriend and her boyfriend after lecture. He suggested we should visit the old bridge and look for the loose flagstone. I chided him for his silliness; it was only a dream after all, a remnant of one of my Móraí’s stories. But after they left, I had a sort of odd, haunting feeling. I remember feeling my throat again for the necklace that I had worn. I rose and walked along campus until I reached Abbots Chase. It was almost surreal as I walked down it .The sun disappeared under some blustery autumn clouds, it grew colder, everything around me took on a colorless pale. Off to one side I soon saw the old cemetery, and for the first time in my life I went into it, looking over its crumbling gravestones, reading faint names of those long ago forgotten. I found it, off in a corner by itself. A long tall stone, with carved writing, faint with age ; Craig Abbot was written, and below what looked like the word hung. With a start I realized that the date he had departed from this earth was the very date I had gone to the dance, and chillingly, the date of last evening when I had my dream. I ran my fingers along the etchings, and then still in somewhat of a daze, I went back to the old road and drifted to the bride a short ways off. Upon reaching it, I remembered in vivid detail the stone he had pried away in my dream. I went to it and moved it. It did not budge at first, but to my surprise, stated to wobble, then it come down, exposing a small cavity. Wondering what it meant, I reached inside and felt around. My fingers curled around a small, cold object. Pulling it out I discovered it was a ring, upon further examination it was an emerald ring, one just like the one taken from the pretty young lady in my dream, similar to the one my Móraí had said my Aunt Sarah Had lost to Craig Abbot.
As I finally write this down from my memory, I am wearing the ring I discovered hidden away.. It is very old, and very pretty. What connection, if any it has with my story, I am unsure, but obviously there are many to be made. So was the highwayman I had danced with on that fateful evening I had lost my necklace : a ghost, a figment of my dream, some materialization of the late, hung Craig Abbot. Or merely a flesh and blood rogue whose identity I never will discover? And the ring I am now wearing, could it possibly be Aunt Sarah’s? Much like a ghost, the real answer may never be found.
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Courtesy of Chatwick University Archives
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zentacuarelas.blogspot.com.es/
Moai are the famous giant statues of Easter Island. This island holds great number of unsolved mysteries.
Landscape watercolor art 6 x 8 in
Original Artwork
Sold
I'm not going to lie; several unsolved missing peoples cases have been haunting me and my intuition like that of 25 year old, Khayman Welch, who went missing in the Superstition Mountains Aug of 2020 during the pandemic. I haven't forgotten his story or the plight of his family three years later.
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All these missing individuals have or had mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters. The Superstition Wilderness has claimed many missing souls as well as other places in the Sonoran Desert Region. It's not only in low basin deserts where these strange happenings are unfolding; it's happening in places like the Grand Canyon and many other significant places where I guide tours of visitors to this land.
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There's a lot of dot connecting that I want to do or feel compelled to do as these cases and stories take up space in my reality and grow cold when it comes to the actual history of these mysteries. I'm allowing these darker energies to visit my sixth sense as I try to interpret them as an artist and researcher.
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Humans are attached to related phenomena that we can't always sense in the immediate reality and some of this is strongly present outside our perceived reality. One thing I know is certain, there is more to this reality than what our physical senses are capable of detecting. I know this because of my own third eye.
Keddie was named for surveyor Arthur W. Keddie, who surveyed the railroad cut through the mountains in Plumas County in the early 1900s. While thought to be a railroad town by me due to its proximity to the Keddie Wye on two different visits. This is the only history I can find. Keddie California seems to have a more recent gruesome history. This was not known to me during my visits and only learned at time of posting.
Caution this story is not for the squeamish. You have been warned so I don't want to hear about it. Not all history is romantice and pretty.
On April 12, 1981 in Cabin #28 in Keddie, Plumas County, California, the bodies of three individuals were discovered.
Glenna Sharp, 36, had been staying at the cabin for several months, along with her four children. On the night of April 11, 1981, Glenna was staying in the cabin with her daughter, Tina Sharp, 12, and three younger children (two of whom belonged to Glenna). They were later to be accompanied by her son, 15-year-old John Sharp and his buddy, 17-year-old Dana Wingate, who were seen that night hitchhiking from nearby Quincy. Sometime after John and Dana arrived at the cabin after being dropped off, by who is still yet unknown.
The following morning, Glenna's 14-year-old daughter, Sheila, who had spent the night with a friend at a neighboring cabin, found the dead bodies of her mother, brother, and brother's friend lying in the front living room; all had been bound with electrical wire and duct tape, and were beaten and stabbed beyond recognition. Tina Sharp was nowhere to be seen.
The savage nature of the crime was undeniable; the walls were covered with knife cuts, and the furniture had been destroyed. A sheriff patrol commander, Rod DeCrona, who arrived to the scene remarked that "There was blood sprayed absolutely everywhere". Upon examination of the bodies, it was clear that each of the victims had been bludgeoned with a claw hammer and stabbed repeatedly with steak knives. DeCrona also said that one of the knives discovered at the scene had been used so forcefully that the blade had bent entirely in half.
The case soon grew cold, and Tina Sharp's bizarre disappearance went unsolved as did the murders. The town of Keddie began to lose its visitors, and the resort turned into a ghost town. Three years after the crime, in 1984, the dismembered head of Tina Sharp was discovered near Feather Falls, roughly fifty miles downhill from the cabin resort. After this discovery no new information regarding the crime ever surfaced. No arrests have ever been made in regard to the crimes, nor have there been any solid leads as to the motivation of the killer(s). The murders remain unsolved to this day.
In 2004, Cabin 28 was demolished.
On March 24, 2016, a hammer matching the description of a hammer suspect Martin Smartt said he lost shortly before the murders was taken into evidence by Plumas County Special Investigator Mike Gamberg. Sheriff Hagwood stated, "the location it was found... It would have been intentionally put there. It would not have been accidentally misplaced.
Copyright © All Rights Reserved Images are the property of Prairie Fire Imaging and may not be reproduced without permission
Vintage postcard. Abel Fernandez (left) as William Youngfellow, Nicholas Georgiade as Enrico Rossi, Robert Stack as Elliot Ness and Paul Picerni as Lee Hobson in the TV series The Untouchables (1959-1963).
American actor Robert Stack (1919-2003) became a star as Deanne Durbin's young lover in Henry Koster's First love (1939). After the war, he had massive success with Douglas Sirk's drama Written on the Wind (1956) for which he was nominated for the Oscar. Internationally, he became famous as Elliot Ness in the TV series The Untouchables (1959-1963).
Robert Stack was born Charles Langford Modini Stack in Los Angeles, in 1919. His first name, selected by his mother, was changed to Robert by his father, a professional soldier Robert was the grandson of Marina Perrini, an opera singer at the Scala theatre in Milan. When little Robert was five, his father was transferred to the US embassy in France. Robert went to school in Paris and learnt French rather than his mother tongue. At 11, he returned to America, and at 13, he became a top athlete. His brother and he won the International Outboard Motor Championships, in Venice, Italy, and at age 16, he became a member of the All-American Skeet Team. He played polo, saxophone and clarinet at Southern California University. A broken wrist ended his career as a sports athlete. He took drama classes and made his stage debut at 20. He joined Universal Studios in 1939. In his first film, he starred as Deanne Durbin's young lover in First love (Henry Koster, 1939). He gave the teenage film star her first on-screen kiss. Around this "event," Universal producer Joe Pasternak provided a lot of publicity. Stack established himself as an actor and the following year he appeared as a young Nazi in The Mortal Storm (Frank Borzage, 1940) alongside Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart. Stack was reunited with Durbin in Pasternak's musical Nice Girl? (William A. Seiter, 1941). In 1942 he appeared as a Polish Air Force pilot in Ernst Lubitsch's comedy To Be or Not to Be (1942) starring Carole Lombard and Jack Benny. The plot concerns a troupe of actors in Nazi-occupied Warsaw who use their acting abilities to fool the occupying troops. The film has become recognised as a comedy classic. Stack played another pilot in Eagle Squadron (Arthur Lubin, 1942), a huge hit. Then Stack's career was interrupted by military service. He did duty as a gunnery instructor in the United States Navy during World War II.
After World War II, Robert Stack continued his career. He returned to the screen with roles in films such as Fighter Squadron (Raoul Walsh, 1948) with Edmond O'Brien and A Date with Judy (Richard Thorpe, 1948) with Elizabeth Taylor. In 1952 Stack starred in Bwana Devil (Arch Oboler, 1952), the first major film production in 3D. He played the second leading role alongside John Wayne in William A. Wellman's aviation drama It's Always Day (1954). Sam Fuller cast him in the lead of House of Bamboo (1955), shot in Japan. Stack enjoyed one of his greatest successes with Douglas Sirk's drama Written in the Wind (1956). He received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the alcoholic playboy Kyle Hadley. From the late 1950s Stack turned increasingly to television. Internationally, Robert became famous with his role in the television series The Untouchables in which he starred as the clean-cut Chicago police officer Eliot Ness during the Prohibition era. Around 120 episodes were made between 1959 and 1963. Other leading roles followed for Stack in the television series The Name of the Game (1968-1971), Most Wanted (1976) and Strike Force (1981). The multilingual Stack also took the lead role in the German-language film Die Hölle von Macao/The Hell of Macau (James Hill, 1966) alongside Elke Sommer, and he also appeared in French- or Italian-language productions. With advancing age, Stack also frequently took on deadpan comedy roles that lampooned his dramatic on-screen persona in films such as 1941 (Steven Spielberg, 1979), Airplane! (Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, 1980) or Caddyshack II (Allan Arkush, 1988). Between 1987 and 2002 he was the host of the television series Unsolved Mysteries, which was dedicated to mysterious murder cases. He worked as an actor until his death. In 1956 he married actress Rosemarie Bowe (1932-2019), to whom he was married until the end of his life. The couple had two children. Robert Stack died of pneumonia in 2003 in Beverly Hills at the age of 84 and was buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Raffles (1930 film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other film versions, see Raffles the Amateur Cracksman, Raffles (1925 film) and Raffles (1939 film).
Raffles
Poster of Raffles (1930 film).jpg
Directed byGeorge Fitzmaurice
Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast (uncredited and replaced by Fitzmaurice)
Produced bySamuel Goldwyn
Written byEugene Wiley Presbrey (play)
E. W. Hornung (play and novel)
Sidney Howard
StarringRonald Colman
Kay Francis
Edited byStuart Heisler
Production
company
Samuel Goldwyn Productions
Distributed byUnited Artists
Release datesJuly 24, 1930
Running time72 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Raffles (1930) is a comedy-mystery film produced by Samuel Goldwyn. It stars Ronald Colman as the titular character, a proper English gentleman who moonlights as a notorious jewel thief, and Kay Francis as his love interest. It is based on the 1906 play Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman by E. W. Hornung and Eugene Wiley Presbrey, which was in turn adapted from the 1899 novel of the same name by Hornung.
Oscar Lagerstrom was nominated for an Academy Award for Sound, Recording.[1]
The story had been filmed previously as Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman in 1917 with John Barrymore as Raffles, and again in 1925 by Universal Studios. A 1939 film version, also produced by Goldwyn, stars David Niven in the title role.
Contents [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Reception
5 References
6 External links
Plot[edit]
Gentleman jewel thief Raffles (Ronald Colman) decides to give up his criminal ways as the notorious "Amateur Cracksman" after falling in love with Lady Gwen (Kay Francis). However, when his friend Bunny Manders (Bramwell Fletcher) tries to commit suicide because of a gambling debt he cannot repay, Raffles decides to take on one more job for Bunny's sake. He joins Bunny and Gwen as guests of Lord and Lady Melrose, with an eye toward acquiring the Melrose necklace, once the property of Empress Joséphine.
Complications arise when a gang of thieves also decides to try for the necklace at the same time. Inspector Mackenzie of Scotland Yard (David Torrence) gets wind of their plot and shows up at the Melrose estate with his men. Burglar Crawshaw breaks into the house and succeeds in stealing the jewelry, only to have Raffles take it away from him. Crawshaw is caught by the police, but learns his robber's identity.
Meanwhile, both Gwen and Mackenzie suspect that Raffles is the famous jewel thief. When the necklace is not found, Mackenzie insists that all the guests remain inside, then quickly changes his mind. Gwen overhears Mackenzie tell one of his men that he intends to let Crawshaw escape, expecting the crook to go after Raffles and thereby incriminate him. She follows Raffles back to London to warn him.
Crawshaw does as Mackenzie anticipated. However, Raffles convinces Crawshaw that it is too dangerous to pursue his original goal with all the policemen around and helps him escape. Then, Raffles publicly confesses to being the Amateur Cracksman. When Lord Melrose shows up, Raffles reminds him of the reward he offered for the necklace's return (conveniently the same amount that Bunny owes) and produces the jewelry. Then, he outwits Mackenzie and escapes, after arranging with Gwen to meet her in Paris.
Cast[edit]
Ronald Colman as A.J. Raffles
Kay Francis as Gwen
Bramwell Fletcher as Bunny
Frances Dade as Ethel Crowley
David Torrence as Inspector McKenzie
Alison Skipworth as Lady Kitty Melrose
Frederick Kerr as Lord Harry Melrose
John Rogers as Crawshaw
Wilson Benge as Barraclough
Production[edit]
According to Robert Osborne, host on Turner Classic Movies, this was the last film that Samuel Goldwyn made in both a silent and talking version.
Reception[edit]
Raffles was a substantial hit with audiences and critics when it was released in the summer of 1930. The movie was release on DVD by Warner Archive Collection in 2014. Reviewing the disc (which also featured the David Niven 1939 version), Paul Mavis of DVDTalk.com wrote, Raffles cleanly mixes equal doses of humor and criminal derring-do, along with potent dashes of "Colmanized" romance for the actor's core female audience....Since this was written and shot prior to the enforcement of the Production Code, there's an enjoyably tolerant (and modern feeling) looseness to the Raffles character that's buttoned back up for the Niven remake."[2]
Built 1903 Architect - unknown .... in Neo-Tudor / Queen Anne style .... Ambrose Joseph Small (January 11, 1863 – vanished December 2, 1919) was a Canadian theatre magnate & self-made millionaire, who owned theatres in several Ontario cities including the Grand Opera House in Toronto, the Grand Opera House in Kingston, and the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario.
On 2 December 1919, Small disappeared and his body was never recovered, he was 56 years old. It was alleged at the time that Small's wife and her lover killed Small and cremated his body in the London Ontario Grand Opera theater furnace (one of Small's holdings). It was further alleged that a police inspector was involved in a "cover-up" of Small's disappearance. The police launched an extensive investigation in the disappearance of Ambrose Small. Small was officially declared dead in 1924. The case remained unsolved, until being officially closed in 1960 ....
Polaroid 110 Pathfinder and Fuji Instax 210 camera conversion. It looks somewhat crude, this is a sort of trial version, that I have built just to check, if that is a good idea, or not. I have seen some attempts to pair the original Instax 210 with the proper lens, but I do not think it is a good idea, cause the focusing problem stays unsolved. Therefore, the only way to do it is to integrate the camera with range finder and Fuji's film holder, bypassing existing electric circuit in order to use the rollers.
I've ways wanted a photo of me walking away. Especially into the unknown. And that's what "The Journey" represents.
Leaving behind my past and walking into the unknown. An unsolved mystery that's scary, but will be written and solved by me. One that I would look forward too.
The glowing gateways represent those little steps of significance and victories I've had along the path. To be ok to sometime be lost and wander around. Making sure that I don't trip over and fall while walking on rocky roads.
I'm not sure if I'll ever reach its end, but all I know and have been told is that the journey is more important than the end.
I spent time with this magnificent Orangutan today and felt very privileged to capture this portrait of him. The look in those wise old eyes touched my heart. Please take the time to see him in full-screen mode.
The orangutans are the two exclusively Asian species of extant great apes. Native to Indonesia and Malaysia, orangutans are currently found in only the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra.
In Malay orang means “person” and utan is derived from hutan, which means “forest.” Thus, orangutan literally means “person of the forest.”
Much is known about orangutan physiology and behavior. Yet there is one thing that is still unsolved – the exact reason why some male orangutans develop a flange while others do not. From the age of thirteen years (usually in captivity) past the age of thirty, males may develop flanges or cheek pads.
The destruction and degradation of the tropical rain forest, particularly lowland forest, in Borneo and Sumatra is the main reason orangutans are threatened with extinction.
This has been caused primarily by human activity (intense illegal logging, conversion of forest to palm oil plantations and timber estates, mining, clearing forest for settlements, and road construction) and also by large-scale fires facilitated by the El Nino weather phenomena. Additionally, the illegal animal trade has been a factor in the decline of wild orangutan populations. Finally, orangutans are occasionally hunted and eaten by some of the indigenous peoples of Borneo as well as migrant loggers and plantation workers who do not have dietary prohibitions against eating primate bushmeat.
During the past decade orangutan populations have probably decreased by 50% in the wild. Currently, the IUNC has classified the Bornean orangutan as Endangered and the Sumatran orangutan as Critically Endangered.
We found these guys like this last night. My husband seems to think this was an act done by little hands. However, I think life in a bath tub with three children was too rough and they just couldn't take it anymore.... Happy Toy-in-the-Frame Thursday!
Part B
It did rather put the creeps in me, one may play games, but never considers it a reality.
I just want to put it out, because it was something that remains a mystery,( and unsolved mysteries really have always gotten me goat) It concerns an incident that I believe hit a little too close to home for me. Read on, I’m sure you will understand.
I had all but forgotten this one, but I was driving home the other night and going a way I haven’t been by for in years. The street I was travlin lead past a boulevard that went up into a neighborhood located on a steep hill. As I passed, It quite clearly all came back to me.
My twin sister and her friend had Ginny had been invited to some big party. I remember them talkin about it, but didn’t really pay too much attention, nor did I even know what the bloody thing was all about, but I was soon to find out.
Late one evening, after I had gotten home from a late rugby practice round 9 o’clock, I got a call from me sister. They had been left without a ride home when of one Ginny’s cousins, the one who had given them the ride, had left early sick (pregnancy does that, or so I’ve heard.) I told them I would be right over, but they pleaded for me to let them stay on a wee bit, the do was still going strong.
I finally agreed to be there by 12:30am
They told me the friend’s house they were at. I knew it all too well! It was located at the end of a boulevard that ran up a steep hill. I did not care much for it, being a newer driver at the time, and my little 4 cylinder Bug was not the best on hills.
So I waited, probably grumbling a little, and left at the appointed time. It didn’t take more than 30 minutes to get there being that the route I took was all on main roads.
As I approached the corner to the boulevard, I see two fetching darlings wearing these long shiny dresses like one sees at weddings, standing on a small stretch of grass by a sidewalk. I will admit I was eyeing them over as I was getting closer, their tantalizingly clad shapely figures and jewelry shimmering ever so appealingly outlined in me car’s headlights.
Suddenly I coldly realized that the pair I was lusting over were me own Sister and our friend Ginny themselves, standing there putting on the show. Needless to say, my take on the situation was completely turned around on its bloody head.
The silly twits had apparently walked down from the party house to wait for me so I would not have to navigate the hill.
Which was wonderful of the girls, don’t get me wrong , but two young ladies, out alone fancy dressed like that, was a recipe for something quite unpleasant to swallow.
But I guess the idea of an Oscar party ( which I was informed afterwards was the theme of it ) is that one dresses up like screen stars, tuxedos and long gowns. So, the scene before me was of two rather attractive ladies in shiny dresses , one wearing pearls, the other in emerald rhinestones. The pair looked for the world like they were probably thumbing it, or worse…..
As the pair swished themselves into the back seat, my sister said thank you James, like I was that chauffer chap named James in a movie we had watched. It’s a bug, not a Rolls you silly twit, I teased, then I lectured, what gives with the pair of you standing out there all alone dressed like that. What if some stranger had tried to give you a ride, I asked?
Giggling, they said a truck had indeed pulled up and the occupants, two youths in flannel and rugby caps, asked them if they had needed a lift. They had said no, and they had playfully kept asking, before my sister finally shooed them off, saying help was on the way, as they started to open their doors to usher them in, a car slowed down and sis had said to them, and here he is. Then the truck left, and the other vehicle kept going on by also, wasn’t me,,, and for the life of her she couldn’t understand why all the cars that passed them had been slowing down.
So after they had situated themselves in their seats, I turned the car around in the boulevard and we were on our way. Before long I noticed a pair of headlights very close behind me, I could tell from the height that they belonged to a truck. I speed up a little, then turned the next corned to give the tailgater off my tail. In doing so , I jostling the girls who had been happily twittering amongst themselves about the party, both dolled up princesses rightly gave me the “look”.
As I turned the corner, I’ll be buggered if the truck did so also, a red truck with a black strip and a noticeably big dent in the door. A question popped into my mind.
Excuse me you two darlings, but I was wondering, I asked them looking up into the rearview mirror, they were looking at me like I had apparently been rudely cutting into their conversation. What did the truck that offered you a ride look like. Red and black my sister said, did it have a dent in the door I asked, I think so, Ginny thinking a sec, the answering decidedly, yes, why?
Because it is following us you silly birds! They turned, but could only make out headlights.
Nice try they chirped, you’re just trying to put one over, we know your tricks, and they went innocently back to their happy chitter chatter.
I turned a few more corners, rounded a park, the girls still paying no never mind, and the truck stayed the course right behind me, although they were not as close now…. Finally I made for a well-lit street and pulled over mid-way.
What’s up luv, Ginny asked innocently?.. I just tsked them, I told you, a red truck with a black stripe has been following us. We all looked back, the truck, headlights still on, had pulled over a few cars behind us. We waited for several rather long minutes; finally the truck pulled away, and speed by us.
So is it the truck I asked,( the two shadowy occupants had been wearing caps from what I could see) maybe Ginny’s voice said from the back, Sis just shrugged( her dangling rhinestone earrings glittering quite strikingly). I could tell the two young ladies still were not buying it. I looked back at the two of them, both smirking at me like I was pullin a leg or something, sitting there all pertly in their shiny dresses, decked out in their rather healthy collection of shimmery faux jewelry.
Cripes, I remember thinking at that moment that the pair of duffer’s in the truck may have been after filching the very jewels the lass’s were wearing , believin them to be real. Later I would think that if I hadn’t showed up, Shiny earrings and such would not have been the prigs only intent!
I Know,I know, I am assuming the worse here, they may have been a pair of rather pleasant chaps hoping to get the pretty young lass’s numbers . But one always likes to think the worse it seems.
Putting all such thoughts aside, I turned the car around in a driveway, and headed back by a different route. We were not followed again, and I was able to complete the trip with peace of mind.
I got Ginny back to her house and took Sis home without further incident.
But It has always vexed me to wonder what the two blighters in the truck had had going on in their heads, and what tricks they were planning up their weasely sleeves. Were my many assumptions correct, or was it all just a load of bosh. I know it really did bother me for a time, especially since no one believed me. Plus the fact is, as I have already stated, I’m rightly peeved when I am presented with a mystery that cannot readily be solved.
I guess I am wondering what anyone’s thoughts were on this story, or if anyone has ever experienced anything similar.
If you want to drop a line or leave it in the comments I would be quite interested to hear about it.
Thank You
The thinking was almost exclusively about his years in the Department and one particular high profile unsolved case, which had been thrust upon him very early in his career and that had left a profound impression on him: the mysterious disappearance of Dana Drayton, a well known socialite and heiress to part of the fortunes of two prominent Detroit families. Joe knew he would never solve the case by rehashing it, but he couldn’t suppress the notion that something critical had been overlooked in the investigation. Something seemingly insignificant, which might connect two other unmatching bits of information and thus become the key that unlocks the door to an answer. But did anyone want an answer at this point, so many years after the crime, if there ever was a crime? The public had long ago forgotten, the news media had nothing new to report and if they were going to resurrect cold cases, then the Jimmy Hoffa story had more bizarre theories to mine. Every couple years it seemed a new Hoffa burial site would get dug up only to become the latest dead end. The Dana Drayton case had none of that circus- like quality. And, although the odds were that whoever was a part of it was resting in a grave somewhere, Joe had to know who, where and why for his own peace of mind. It was as addictive as working on a jigsaw puzzle, and usually brought on a tide of memories: his role in the investigation, the influence of his mentor, Jack McGuire, and the backdrop of Detroit’s inexorable slide from a technology and societal pioneer, to a symbolic icon of the “Rust Belt,” depopulation, urban inner city crime, and municipal mismanagement and neglect.
qwikLoadr™ Videos...
Rush | Theatrical Trailer Ron Howard
[director/producer] • YouTube™
Gin Wigmore | New Rush Official! • Vimeo™
racingDaze | part III [11.6.21] Holeshot! gwennie2006! • YouTube™
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apolloHawk1 [1.31-2.2.24] GrfxDziner! • flickr™
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check out the latest blog from the
Deanna Cremin Memorial Foundation:
featuring, Evanescence, as well as Puddle of Mudd, and Blur...
Hocus, Pocus, We're Out of Focus... from GrfxDziner...
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Some others too...
featuring, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and AudioSlave...
Smoke and Mirrors, Fire too... from gwennie2006...
gwennie2006.blogspot.com/2009/10/smoke-and-mirrors-fire-t...
Blogger GrfxDziner | Powder Blue [thanks to you!]...
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Caltrans officials confirmed human remains are found inside a culvert pipeline that runs under the 55 Freeway in Costa Mesa. Officials sent a robot camera to inspect for blockages on Monday morning when it spotted what appears to be human remains 300 feet into the 26-inch pipe near the Baker Street offramp, according to California Highway Patrol. Crews can be seen working to flush out the human remains. The Costa Mesa Civic Center can be seen in the distance.
347/365
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*****
The Silken whisper of Flickering Desires
A Chronicle
Adapted from the Final Entry Entitled:
Their Regal Gambit
Subtitled:
While Sherlock Holmes vacationed
The first score had been made, now for the Coup de Grace! So far their little operation had gone as smooth as silk, or in this case, satin. Now just to make sure the husband of the silken gowned brunette displaying the jewels in question was still safely out of the picture! Then Mollie would let her husband know that with the coast clear, freeing him to stage his approach of the lady in the long swishing satin gown he had been keeping an eye on all evening. The one who was wearing the exquisite necklace of fiery flickering diamonds, just daring someone to expertly slip it away the throat of its unsuspecting owner.
And therein lay the rub, She happily thought….
As Mollie made her way down the quiet corridor to the gentlemen’s smoking lounge, she lovingly played through her mind the series of unfortunate ( or fortunate?) events that had led her and her husband to this place. It had all began with an innocent one named Tabitha…….
Mollies’ Flash back
They had first come across Tabitha at a resort casino deep in the Catskills. Mollie and her husband had been there about three days, scoping out the grounds, and its wealthy clientele. At the casino they both spotted Tabitha at the same time. She was seated at a baccarat table, really standing out in an elegant dress of gold and black striped silk and velvet Her well-toned body displayed numerous pieces of expensive jewelry. A fat little purse dangled, unheeded by her side. Tabitha had held Mollie’s attention mainly due to the strong resemblance she had to herself. Tabitha’s jewelry, a flashy diamond journey style necklace, matching earrings, wide diamond tennis bracelet, and multiple gem encrusted rings, had held Mollies pickpocket husbands’.
Mollie went on to the bar and watched as her husband waited for the seat next to Tabitha to become vacant. Then he sat, asking for chips, while unobtrusively eyeing Tabitha’s bracelet. He began striking up a conversation with Tabitha, finding her to be an easy mark. He soon learned from the chatty girl that she was a divorced, upper executive for a well-known digital arts company servicing the movie industry. It was during this conversation that Tabitha babbled about the upscale, invitation only(you know), black tie formal ball she would be attending in England the next month. Now, as her husband was keeping Tabitha occupied Mollie had walked by the pair, ‘tripping’ into her husband, who palmed off to her , the diamond bracelet which had been ever so subtly slipped from around the unwary Tabatha’s’ wrist. Walking away with the bracelet secured in her purse, Mollie made her way to their small bungalow. Her husband did not break in his conversation with Tabitha; a mark would seldom suspect a friendly person of stealing from her.
Later that evening, Mollie wore the pricy bracelet while mutually admiring it over a bottle of merlot with her husband. They discussed the high-class affair Tabitha had been bragging about. Wistfully, Mollie admitted it was a shame they had not received an invite. Her husband smiled, and pulled a thickly embossed and crested envelope from his pocket. Easily adopting a British accent, he said “The silly little twit was carrying this in her purse!” The envelope revealed a pair of invitations to the Princess’s Jubilee Royal Ball. As the pair continued to empty the bottle of fine merlot, what had started as speculation, turned towards reality, and soon plans had been laid.
As they lay in bed later that night, Mollie turned to her husband, just think about the jewels that will be worn at the English Ball, she shivered with the delightful thoughts. Do you remember the last time we were in England? Mollie looked at her husband slyly, you remember, the Wriggling Whelp Whispering Wisk! She stated teasingly. Mollie knew the quickest way to get her husband’s goat was coming up with silly phrases to describe his more outlandish endeavors. Such phrases like The Tingling Touch Ice Melt, The Slippery Slick Taffeta Pull, The Glossy Gowned Dangling Peel, or her personal favorite, The Ticklish Wedge Clam Dip, never failed to get a response. In this case the response was a brief pillow fight leading into a romantic interlude, ending up with them in bed as they reminisced about the last time they had “visited” England a few years back…..
It had proven a fairly profitable venture with the jewelry alone netting almost 100,000 pounds. It all had culminated quite nicely at one of the posh events they had crashed that final weekend. Their final score had come about from a rambunctious doe eyed Fourteen year old in a shiny dress who had been oblivious to the valuably delicious gold pendent studded with small rubies and emeralds that sparkled ever so invitingly as it swung from her throat. A pair of matching dangling earrings dripped from her ears as she has run around unminded by her elders. Mollie had indignantly stated to her husband that the antique trinkets were simply just too expensive for a child so squirminly young to be trusted with. Her husband then went about the task to prove his wife correct in her statement.
After talking a bit about the English Girls parents reaction to the unsolved disappearance of their daughters ultra-pricey pendent , Mollie came back to the present and asked if the lady in the maroon silk that her husband pointed out the previous evening would be wearing the same jewels to the dance tomorrow night? Or better her husband replied sleepily, good Mollie pronounced, I did like her emeralds.
In Merry Ole England
They had arrived in England several weeks before the Royal Ball and began the preparations.
In an irony of fate, the profit they had realized from poor Tabitha’s bracelet had paid for a large chunk of their little excursion. Keeping his accent, and adding a trim beard, Mollies husband looked radically different from the man Tabitha had encountered. During the weeks following their arrival, the pair had practiced like they always did before undertaking a new venture. But this time it was with a more daring edge, they quite simply could not afford being caught red handed in a foreign country. Mollie assumed her practice the role. That of the richly dressed, well jeweled quarry. Her husband would stalk and attempt to relieve her of a piece of her jewelry as she went about her business, shopping! The idea being that, If he was able to do so without being caught by an obviously aware Mollie, than he should have no problem at the Royal Ball. As it usually happened when they practiced in this manner, her husband did incredibly well. Mollie had had several pieces of jewelry vanish from her person during the week, without her noticing how or when.
The final night of practice Mollie decided to dress to kill. Looking quite devastating in a glossy gold halter and a long brown velvet skirt with gold stiletto heels clicking as she moved. A diamond heart pendant hung down from her neck, swaying provocatively out from between her breasts. A bracelet, similar to Tabitha’s purloined diamonds, was wrapped around her wrist.
She left their penthouse and made her way to the street outside. Some type of festival was going on as she waded through the crowded streets to the nightclub. Her rings sparkled as they kept rhythm with her swaying diamond waterfall earrings. Just daring her husband to make a move for any of them.
Mollie drank and danced the night away with no hide or hair of her husband until she returned late that evening to their apartment. She found him in the hot tub, smirking. She undressed and joined him. Okay, how did u do it she demanded? I felt nothing, no one bumped or brushed against me all evening that I was not aware of. He opened his fist, allowing her heart diamond pendant to dangle freely in front of her. A magician never reveals his tricks my little cat, he purred, as the pendant swayed in a sparkling arch.
Cat was short for “Cat Lady”, a moniker he had placed upon her when she had broken into a sleeping woman’s room and removed the jewels from her gold case, and even managed to slip off a ring she was wearing. The fact that she was passed out in a drunken stupor, still dressed in her long party gown, didn’t count , or so her husband teased.
You should have been a surgeon! , my dear, Mollie exclaimed with pride. Then she leaned towards him, her green eyes gleaming in earnest, time for a real practice run Mon Cherie, she said in dead seriousness. Then Her eyes opened wide, I got it she exclaimed, I’ll call it The Slinking Sneaky Shearing Snag she pronounced joyfully, getting a face full of water in reply to her effort. Okay Cat, let’s get down to business he retorted, I know just the affair. Mollie listened intensively as her Husband described their next plans, derived while eavesdropping on a couple of ladies shopping in a jewelers.
The next weekend (two weeks to the evening before the Royal Ball) Mollie found herself at a quaint upscale wedding reception held in the large gardens of a country church. She was attired in the same bewitching ensemble that she had been wearing on the final night of practice. Her only jewels were a recently acquired pair of sparkly cascading earrings set with emeralds and diamonds. The affair of the plump piqued peacock plucking she had mused while getting dressed. The only other exception was that the long fiery red hair she had inherited from her Irish namesake grandmother had been cut and dyed blond. Blue contacts had also been added to the disguise to hide her vivid green eyes.
They soon targeted an older jewel laden snob at the reception. An older lady , well jeweled, of the arrogant know it all, obey me totally type whom everyone tries to avoid. While Mollie engaged the mark in a mostly one sided conversation(the older ladies) the lady had become so deeply engrossed about talking about herself and her ties with royalty, that she never detected being relieved of a heirloom antique gold chain and jeweled pendent by Mollies husband who had approached her unnoticed from behind.
It was all Mollie could do no to bring attention to it by looking at the wickedly expensive piece as it was slipped up and away from the Dowager’s ruffled heavy satin blouse.
This time it was mollies turn to keep chatting as her husband headed to the door. He had almost made it when two youths ran into him as they scurried away from a rather sullen looking tween girl they had been teasing, and now were in possession of her purse. Mollie stole a look as she saw her husband topple onto the chasing girl. He managed to extracted himself from the girls long slinky gown that she had probably been forced into by an overly conceited mother. He apologized, and left the girl to go after her antagonizes. Later, when Mollie had caught up to him she teased him about his clumsiness. He just smiled, and pulled out from his vest pocket the most exquisitely matched pearls that the youth had been openly displaying from around her throat and wrist at the reception!
They were, most definitely, ready. The fated evening could not come soon enough. But it finally did.
They had had no problem with using the fancy invitations to gain entrance. Security was heavy, as expected, but with a very lax atmosphere. Mollie was wearing the salmon coloured gown she had had especially made for such occasions, her new blond hair style and the blue contacts. In a coup foray of sorts, Mollie wore the pearls that had been taken by her husband during his run in with the sullen girl at the wedding reception. Her husband was wearing his usual tux with a hand tied bowtie. His ruffled sleeves easily moved up and down along his wrists.
Mollie and her husband split up, each spending the first few hours mingling solo, and taking it all in as they thoroughly enjoyed the Ball and all its many stimulating attractions. It had gone smooth as silk. Spending the first few hours prowling while the guests liquored up Mollie scoping out exactly the right candidates. Dangling jewels with easy clasps were everywhere!, it was surprising how the best of jewel makers skimped on the clasps required to keep the expensive pieces in place. Clothing also made a difference. Silks and satins were quiet and slipped easily. Taffeta could be whispery, more of a challenge. Velvet could easily snag as a piece was being lifted. But these were the costliest of materials, and the wearers would logically be wearing the costlier of jewelry.
Mollie and her husband regrouped several hours later, unobtrusively under the pretense of dancing. Gently discussing their plans. They settled on three likely prospects amongst the almost three hundred present. The first was an older spinster type wearing a luxurious dress of embroidered navy silk and displaying jewelry studded with diamonds and sapphires. The second was a middle aged snotty blonde wearing a shamelessly low cut green silk taffeta gown (which Mollie secretly liked)wearing a thick gold bracelet studded with vulgarly large rubies surrounded by a sea of small sparkly diamonds. She was alone, and a heavy drinker. The third was a longshot. A lanky , flighty brunette wearing immensely valuable jewels of blindingly sparkling Diamonds. Her necklace alone was in the upper hundred thousand range, with a clasp that was one of the easiest to coax open. The only problem was that she came with an obviously newlywed husband who doted on her every move. Both were heavy drinkers, and if he would only leave his wife’s side for, say about fifteen minutes, the necklace would be theirs!
They had decided that any one of the three would produce results worth a king’s ransom, appropriately enough, all things considered. The plan was for her husband to take his time selecting the easiest jewel to acquire from amongst the ones the three marks were displaying , make his move, and pass it off to Mollie who would leave forthwith, while her husband stayed a little while longer to make sure everything remained calm before making his exit stage right via the hallway.
As Mollie went to her station, she saw the Blue silken lady, along with her sapphires and diamonds, leaving with a rather unsavory looking male, eyeing her with a look Mollie knew all too well. Mollie decided to follow them, thinking to herself that some women are just prone to being victimized. Good luck with that one Mollie thought unkindly, as she stole one last look at the ladies glistening sapphires, hope he leaves her with something she sarcastically wished wickedly to the couple’s backside as they went out the exit at the end of the hall. One down and out she thought. Then she spied the husband of the newlywed pair heading down the hall towards her with an older, grey bearded man. Getting close she heard them talking about the Gentlemen’s smoking lounge. Mollie decided to give her husband a signal, but when she found him he was already in the arms of the blond. Molly immediately noticed the absence of the jeweled bracelet from his partners’ wrist. She went back to her table. Immediately she was set upon by some drunken snob asking her to dance. She allowed herself to be taken up into his arms. Spending a few unenchanting minutes with Mr. two left feet, before her husband tapped him on the shoulder cutting in. They danced, Mollie placing a hand into his pocket and feeling something cold and metal wrapped her hand around it. Looking him in the eyes she told him about the now unguarded bride, as she palmed the willowy blonde’s bracelet. They decided to go for it, and as the music ended, Mollie made her way to the hall, where she secreted the blondes bracelet safely away
One down, one more to go! An exquisite necklace of flickering diamonds waiting to be nimbly slipped away from the throat of its unsuspecting wearer. Now just to make sure the husband of the silken gowned brunette displaying the jewels in question was still safely out of the picture! Then to let her husband know that with the coast clear, he was free to stage his approach of the lady in the long swishing satin gown he had been keeping a drooling eye on all evening. The one wearing the exquisite necklace of flickering diamonds waiting to be so expertly slipped away from the throat of its unsuspecting wearer.
She was able to see the groom in windowed room, the husband and his friend were smoking a pair of long cigars and drinking brandy in large glass snifters. Mollie passed unnoticed as she mad e her way to the ladies powder room. He was still there, only halfway through a long stogie as she passed again on her way back. Neither time was she observed. Mollie mad her way back to the Ballroom. She sat down at one side of the room, once again allowing the sights of so many bejeweled women to soak in. Her husband was dancing with a lady in a flowing red ball gown, jewels sparkling in abundance, not aware of the danger so close at hand, nor that even with her husband and his particular skill set so close to them, that at that moment nothing could be safer from his fingertips. Finally she caught her husband’s eye. Mollie innocently rubbed a finger along the side of her nose, a subtle signal that it was safe for him to precede.
Mollie was now uncharacteristically having butterflies in her stomach; it was a huge gamble, trying to get away with a pair of thefts in this inhospitable atmosphere. She kept second guessing herself, Bird in hand she kept thinking. But the lure was too great, and it was with a heavy sigh of relief when Mollie saw her husband finally kiss the hand of the young bride after their dance. Mollie could see that she was no longer sporting the thin silver necklace and its row of at least two caret diamonds that had been encircling her throat with their rippling flashy brilliance all evening. Molly stayed put, not daring to leave until her husband had brushed by her in passing and made his way out the hallway to the exit. She waited for a long fifteen minutes, then curling her hand around the necklace that had been dropped into her lap as he had passed; she gained the safety of the hallway. Just in time. For coming down the hallway was none other than the lady in the long luxurious gown and now bare throats groom and his distinguished looking friend. She passed by them, feeling the men eyeing her with roving wolfish gazes. Then she passed them, and proceeded unhindered to once again enter the ladies’ powder room where the necklace soon joined with the Blondes bracelet in its hiding spot.. Than calmly Mollie left, walking past two security Bobbies, virtually unnoticed. The Groom had been absolutely ignorant to the fact that his young Bride’s ridiculously valuable necklace had walked right past him out the door.
Mollie did not let herself really breathe until she had gained the safety of the street. She allowed herself to imagine the commotion as the news of the missing jewels were circulated around the cavernous Ballroom. There would be a flurry of activity, flashes and sparkles as the women checked themselves reassuringly that they were still in possession of their trinkets. Mollie would have loved to have stayed and watched, but obviously could not do so. She rejoined her husband at their meeting place and they drove off. They made their way to Ireland where they spent a cautious week touring before leaving for the states.
Once the profit was realized from their haul that eventful evening, including obnoxious Dowagers the jeweled antique pendent, and was added in to the modest amount they had already accumulated from previous adventures, Mollie and her husband were able to retire to Ireland and live quite an unpretentious life together in a small stone manor in the woods.
Courtesy of Chatwick University Archives
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Bios
Eva Arce
Human rights activist and mother of Silvia Arce who disappeared in Juarez on March 11, 1998. Eva Arce's daughter vanished in March 1998 along with a friend, Griselda Mares. The Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States has accepted her case.
Cynthia Bejarano
Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, and activist. She spearheaded the “Justice for Women” Symposium in Las Cruces in March 2006. Her research interests include youth and justice; U.S. border studies and violence; and race, class, and gender issues within the criminal justice system. Professor Bejarano was involved with community-based groups in the metropolitan Phoenix area and hopes to build strong community advocacy in the New Mexico, Texas, and Chihuahua tri-state area. She is also co-founder of Amigos de las Mujeres de Juárez, a non-profit organization working to end the violence against women in Chihuahua, Mexico and the borderlands. She is currently working on an anthology with colleague Rosa-Linda Fregoso focusing on feminicides and sexual assaults against women throughout Latin America, with the tentative title Gender Terrorism: Feminicides in the Américas.
Ilder Andrés Betancourt
Ilder Betancourt will graduate with a Masters in Psychology this June from Stanford University. His research has focused on Latino gangs, specifically in Los Angeles and El Salvador. He has the unusual distinction of having written two honors theses. For his first honors thesis, entitled “Relative Deprivation Mediating Street Gang Appeal,” he constructed and conducted the experimental paradigm used with Latino youth subjects in the Pico Union area of Los Angeles, looking for gang association that occurs at the local level. For his second thesis, “From LA to El Salvador: Displaying Street Performance for the Self,” he conducted field research in El Salvador where he interviewed deported ex-gang members. He is currently teaching for the third year in a row a student-initiated course on Latino gangs in the Chicana/o Studies Program, CCSRE.
Lawrence D. Bobo
Lawrence D. Bobo is the Martin Luther King Jr. Centennial Professor at Stanford University. He is in the Sociology Department and also serves as Director of both CCSRE and the Program in African and African American Studies. Professor Bobo is an elected member of the National Academy of Science, a former Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and former Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. His interests include race, ethnicity, politics, and social inequality. He is currently conducting research for the “Race, Crime, and Public Opinion” project.
Lydia Cacho
Journalist and writer, Lydia Cacho has published over 400 articles in Mexico, Spain, the United States and Canada. She is also the director of a crisis center for women and children who have been sexually abused in Cancun, Mexico. She recently received the 2007 Ginetta Sagan Award for Women’s and Children's Rights from Amnesty International for her work exposing a net of pederasts and child pornographers linked to powerful politicians and business people, as well as for her high-security shelter for victims of trafficking and violence in Cancun, Mexico. After her book Los demonios del Edén (The demons of Eden) was published, she received death threats and was kidnapped and incarcerated by the Mexican police. For 15 years she has researched, lectured, and published articles on violence against women in the State of Chihuahua and other parts of Mexico. She is an expert on issues concerning the corruption and impunity of the Mexican government. The Ginetta Sagan Award is given once a year to one woman in the world who stands out for her work on behalf of women’s and children’s rights. Lydia Cacho is the first Mexican to receive this prestigious award. She is also the author of the novel Muérdele el corazón (Bite his heart) based on the diary of a Mexican woman who dies of AIDS and is currently working on the book Trata y tráfico de mujeres en México (Trafficking in Persons: Women in Mexico).
Adriana Carmona
Human rights lawyer from the Centro de Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres (Center for Women's Human Rights) in Chihuahua City, Mexico. She has argued cases before the International Commission of Human Rights. She collaborates in the writing of reports for CEDAW and the United Nations in the area of human rights and feminicide. She is also a legislative advisor for the Congress of the State of Chihuahua and works with Justicia para Nuestras Hijas (Justice for Our Daughters), a non- government organization formed by relatives on behalf of the women who have disappeared or have been murdered in Juarez and Chihuahua, Mexico.
Carlos Castresana Fernández
Project Coordinator of the United Nations’ Office on Drugs & Crime, Mexican Regional Office. He is also Visiting Professor and Director of International Human Rights Programs at the University of San Francisco Center for Law and Global Justice. In 2003, he visited Ciudad Juarez as a UN Independent Commission Expert to participate in the review of the murder cases in the State of Chihuahua. In 2005, he was appointed Prosecutor of the Spanish Supreme Court. Professor Castresana authored the formal complaint and subsequent reports in the Argentina Case and the Pinochet Case before the Spanish Audiencia Nacional. Professor Castresana serves as an expert in international legal cooperation and other issues in Europe and Latin America. He received the National Human Rights Award in Spain in 1997, and was awarded an Honorary Doctoral Degree from Guadalajara University, Mexico in 2003. He received his law degree from the Complutense University, Madrid, Spain.
Lucha Castro
Human rights lawyer from the Centro de Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres (Center for Women’s Human Rights) in Chihuahua City, Mexico. She is also a legal advocate for Justicia para Nuestras Hijas (Justice for Our Daughters). She represents families of murdered women in the State of Chihuahua and also files the cases with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington DC, a commission that accused the Mexican government of violating the rights of victims and their families.
Norma Cruz
Norma Cruz is an activist for women’s human rights in Guatemala. She began her struggle for justice in 1999 as the result of her own personal experience in the case of her daughter Claudia María who was a victim of sexual violence. Deeply upsetting Guatemalan society, she and her supporters refused to keep silent and made public a reality that affects thousands of Guatemalan female children. Alter a long and dehumanizing legal process, a conviction was achieved in July of 2002, shattering with it the wall of impunity. During this legal process, Norma Cruz and her daughter established the Fundación Sobrevivientes (Survivors Foundation) and began to support hundreds of women who endure violence and seek justice. In July 2006, the Foundation opened the Centro de Atención, providing legal and psychological aid for these women. The Center’s shelter offers protection for women who are victims of intra-family violence and sexual violence, and provides support for families of women who are murdered. Their struggle is directed at bringing impunity to a halt and ending feminicide in Guatemala. In June of 2005, Norma Cruz was officially nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as part of the campaign “A Thousand Women for a Nobel Peace Prize.” In Killer’s Paradise, a new Canadian documentary focusing on feminicide in Guatemala, she analyzes the links between the murders of women and the civil war in Guatemala.
Paula Flores
An activist in the community of Lomas de Poleo in Ciudad Juarez, she is the mother of María Sagrario González Flores, who disappeared on March 11, 1998 in Juarez and was murdered in April, 1998. Her daughter is one of over 400 women who have been disappeared and slain in Juarez over the past 13 years. Paula Flores runs the María Sagrario Foundation, an organization that established the kindergarten Jardín de Niños Ma. Sagrario González Flores in Juarez.
Rosa-Linda Fregoso
Professor and Chair of Latin American and Latino Studies, and Feminist Studies, at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Rosa-Linda Fregoso received the second annual MLA Prize in United States Latina and Latino and Chicana and Chicano Literary and Cultural Studies for her book MeXicana Encounters: The Making of Social Identities on the Borderlands. Her interests include human rights, visual culture and and transnational feminist studies. Among her publications on feminicide is the recent article “’We Want Them Alive!’: The Politics and Culture of Human Rights.” Along with Cynthia Bejarano, she is co-editing a book tentatively entitled, Gender Terrorism: Feminicides in the Américas.
Judith Galarza
Mexican activist Judith Galarza Campos joined the struggle for human rights as a result of the forced disappearance of her sister Leticia Galarza Campos in 1978. From 1982 to 1996, she was President of the Independent Committee for Human Rights in Juarez. She was also President of the Association of Relatives of Missing Detainees (AFADM) from 1996 to 2000. Currently she is the Executive Secretary of the Latin American Federation of Associations of Relatives of Missing Detainees (FEDEFAM), headquartered in Venezuela. FEDEFAM provides assistance to families of “disappeared people” in all of Latin America. She has been a promoter of several family groups, among them the Association of Missing Children in Mexico in the 1980s. She is currently completing the degree of licenciatura in Education in Venezuela. On July 24th, she will be awarded the Theodor Häcker Prize in Esslingen, Germany. Häcker worked as a writer and translator during the Nazi period and was part of the Catholic resistance. First awarded in 1995, this prize is dedicated to persons who defend human rights "honorably, with special political valor.”
Marcela Lagarde
Maria Marcela Lagarde y de los Ríos is a Professor in the Graduate Program in Anthropology and Sociology as well as in the Degree Program in Gender and Development at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). She is also advisor to the Graduate Program in Gender Studies of the Guatemala Foundation and to the Program on Feminist Research at UNAM. She is the coordinator of the Casandra Workshops on feminist anthropology and advisor to the Gender Program of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research of UNAM. She is also the Secretary for the College of University Academics at UNAM, of which she became a member in 2002.
Marcela Lagarde is a major figure in Latin American feminism. She is the author of over one hundred articles and ten books. Her doctoral thesis, Los cautiverios de las mujeres: madresposas, monjas, putas, presas y locas (The captivities of women: mother-wives, nuns, prostitutes, prisoners and lunatics), has been reprinted a total of five times between 1990 and 2003. Her books examine topics such as the relationship between gender identity, feminism, human development and democracy; the relationship between ethnicity, gender and feminism; the theme of women’s power and autonomy; and feminist perspectives on love, self-concept, and the eve of the millennium.
Marcela Lagarde collaborates with feminist groups and women’s centers and institutes in Mexico, Latin America and Spain. She also works with organizations of international cooperation, labor unions and political parties focusing on women’s issues. She is a member of the Network of Researchers for the Life and Liberty of Women and other feminist networks. She is also a member of many editorial boards: of Hypatia, a collection of the Andalusian Institute for Women in Spain; of the journal Cuadernos Feministas, of the Editorial Series Diversidades Feministas published by the Center for Interdisciplinary Research at UNAM; and of the journal Pensamiento Iberoamericano, in Spain.
As to the topic that concerns us at this conference, it is Marcela Lagarde who coined the term “feminicide” to describe the situation in Juarez, Mexico. She has developed an analysis of what she calls “the politics of gender extermination” to examine the proliferation of violence in Mexico. Through her ideas, writings and activism, she wishes to leave an indelible mark on public policies.
Marcela Lagarde was a federal representative for the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) in the LIX Congress (2003-2006) and served as President of the Special Commission on Feminicide in the Republic of Mexico. It was the work of this Commission that disclosed that feminicide was not exclusive to Ciudad Juarez. Marcela Lagarde also promoted legislation establishing feminicide as a crime in the Federal Penal Code and helped pass the law Access to a Life Free of Violence for Women, which was established on February 2.
Marcela Lagarde is a member of the Mexican Academy on Human Rights (2006); of El Consejo Asesor del Centro de Formación Política Mujer y Ciudad, of the Diputación de Barcelona, España (2006); and of the Council to Prevent and Eradicate Discrimination in Mexico City (2006).
Among the many distinctions and honors Marcela Lagarde has received are the Maus Prize for the best doctoral thesis, the Medal of University Merit for 25 years of teaching at UNAM, and the Presea Águila Canacintra al Mérito Legislativo, awarded by the Cámara Nacional de la Industria de la Transformación in 2005. She also received the Omecíhuatl Medal in 2006. The Omecíhuatl Medal is awarded by the Women’s Institute of Mexico City to women who have distinguished themselves for their commitment, struggle and creativity and the defense of democracy. Also in 2006, she received the Hermila Galindo Prize from Mexico City’s Commission on Human Rights, for the defense of women’s human rights.
Miguel Méndez
Adelbert H. Sweet Professor of Law at Stanford University. After a litigation career in public interest law that included work for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and California Rural Legal Assistance, Miguel Méndez entered academia and has become a foremost expert, scholar, and teacher in the field of evidence law. An author of leading works on the laws of evidence in California, he writes about reforms in the federal and California evidence codes and on emerging issues in state substantive criminal law. He is a consultant to the California Law Revision Commission, a board member at Public Advocates, Inc., and an elected member of the American Law Institute.
Miguel David Meza Argueta
Falsely accused on July 14, 2003 and held for the murder of Neyra Azucena Cervantes by the judicial authorities in the city of Chihuahua, Mexico. The falseness of this accusation and incarceration was established by reports from Amnesty International, news articles, and testimonies from relatives of the murdered woman, including her mother, Sra. Patti Cervantes, who is also David’s aunt. After proving that Mexican authorities tortured him, he was set free in June 2006.
Paula Moya
Associate Professor in the English Department at Stanford University, Paula Moya served for three years as Director of the Undergraduate Program in CCSRE and as Chair of its Comparative Studies major. Her interests are Chicana/o cultural studies and feminist theory, incorporating 19th and 20th century American literatures, post-colonial literature and literary and cultural theory. Her main theoretical concern centers on the relationship between a subject's social location and her identity, and seeks to interrogate the epistemic and political consequences of social identity. For the past five years, she has been actively involved with the Future of Minority Studies research project (FMS), facilitating discussions about the democratizing role of minority identity and participation in a multicultural society.
Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi
Professor of the French and Comparative Literature Departments and Director of the Program in Modern Thought and Literature at Stanford University. Her fields are 20th-century French literature and Francophone literature from Africa and the Caribbean. Her interests include cultural relations between Europe, Africa and the Caribbean; travel writing; history and memory in literature; literature, intellectuals and society; and women writers. She recently served on the Executive Council of the Modern Language Association, where she represented the field of French.
Marisela Ortiz
Marisela Ortiz is the Director of Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa (Our Daughters on Their Way Back Home), a non-profit organization composed of mothers, family members and friends of murdered women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. A psychologist with a Masters degree in special education, she has taught at the Escuela Normal Superior de Chihuahua for the past 20 years, specializing in professional development. She continues to work with adolescents and also trains middle school teachers in her entire region.
David Palumbo-Liu
Professor of Comparative Literature, Director of the Undergraduate Program in CCSRE, and Chair of CCSRE’s Comparative Studies major at Stanford University. His fields of interest include social and cultural criticism; literary theory and criticism; and East Asian and Pacific Asian American studies. His current project addresses the role of contemporary humanistic literature with regard to the instruments and discourses of globalization, seeking to discover modes of affiliation and transnational ethical thinking. Professor Palumbo-Liu is most interested in issues regarding social theory, community, justice, globalization, and the specific role that literature and the humanities play in helping us address each of these areas.
Elena Poniatowska Amor
Journalist and novelist, Elena Poniatowska is one of Latin America's most distinguished and innovative living writers. Many of her works have been translated into English, including Querido Diego te abraza Quiela (Dear Diego), Hasta no verte, Jesús mío (Here's to You, Jesusa!); Nada, Nadie. Las voces del temblor (Nothing, Nobody: The Voices of the Mexican Earthquake); Tinísima; La noche de Tlatelolco. Testimonios de historia oral (Massacre in Mexico) and La piel del cielo (The Skin of the Sky). Translations of her work also exist in Polish, Danish, French, Dutch, Italian and German. Elena Poniatowska advocates for women and the poor in their struggle for social and economic justice, denounces the repression of that struggle, and blurs the boundaries between conventional literary forms.
Born in Paris, Elena Poniatowska is of Mexican and French descent. Her father was a Frenchman whose family was originally from Poland. She moved to Mexico in 1942 and began her work as a journalist at the newspaper Excelsior in 1953, where she published daily interviews during an entire year under the name "Hélene.'' She interviewed Diego Rivera, Octavio Paz, William Golding, Barry Goldwater, Dolores del Río, Cantinflas, María Félix, Juan Rulfo, and Linus Pauling, among others. From Excelsior she went to Novedades, where she drew an audience who followed her because of her unpredictable texts. She is a founder and a contributor of the leftist newspaper La Jornada, and continues to contribute to its pages.
In 1954 she published her first novel, Lilus Kikus. Chronicler of the 1985 earthquake and of the Chiapas conflict, she continues to meld her journalistic and literary work. She published Tinísima in 1992, a novel about the life of Tina Modotti, which was as successful as her novel Hasta no verte Jesús mío, about the life of a soldadera, or camp follower. Her next novel, La piel del cielo, won the Premio Alfaguara in 2001 and the prize for the best novel in Spanish awarded by the government of China. In 2004, Alfaguara published her novel El tren pasa primero, which brought to life the struggle of railroad workers and led to the reconstruction of railway stations in many parts of Mexico. During a 35-year period, she led a literary workshop that produced writers such as Silvia Molina, Guadalupe Loaeza y Rosa Nissan.
When Luis Echevarría, who had been Secretary of State during the massacre of 1968, was elected president, he awarded the Xavier Urrutia Literary Prize to Elena Poniatowska in 1971 for her book La noche de Tlatelolco. She rejected the prize asking who was going to award prizes to the dead.
She has been awarded many honorary doctoral degrees: by the University of Sinaloa, the University of Toluca, Columbia University and Manhattanville College in New York, Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, and the University of Pau in France. She is the only woman who has received the Mazatlán Prize in Literature on two occasions, and in 1979, she was the first woman to receive the National Prize for Journalism. In 1993, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and received the Gabriela Mistral Medal in Chile in 1997. She holds the rank of official in the French Legion of Honor, and in 2004 she received the Mary Moors Cabot Prize for Outstanding Work in Journalism. In 2006 the International Women’s Media Foundation awarded her the Courage in Journalism Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to these she has received many other prizes and awards.
Elena Poniatowska dedicates a good part of her life to writing novels, short stories, poems, articles, interviews, prologues, and book presentations. She was married to Dr. Guillermo Haro, the founder of modern astronomy in Mexico. She has three children, the oldest of whom is a scientist, and ten grandchildren. She lives in Chimalistac with 13 canaries and an unending line of visitors.
Lourdes Portillo
Lourdes Portillo was born in Chihuahua, Mexico and moved to the United States in 1960. Her films focus on the representation of Latina/o identity, human rights, social justice and Latin American realities. An equally important aspect of her filmmaking is experimenting with the documentary form. Her most recent film, Señorita Extraviada (Missing young woman), released in 2002, is a documentary about the disappearance and death of young women in Juarez and the search for truth and justice by their families and human rights groups. It received a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, the Best Documentary Prize at the Havana International Film Festival, and the Néstor Almendros Prize at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. It premiered on P.O.V. and received more than 20 prizes and awards around the world. The film inspired a number of governmental and non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International to conduct intensive investigations into the disappearances and murders of women in Juárez. Lourdes Portillo made her first film, a dramatic short called After the Earthquake, in 1979. Some of the other documentary, dramatic, experimental and performance films and videos she has made are the Academy Award-nominated Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (1986); La Ofrenda: The Days of the Dead (1988); Vida (1989); Columbus on Trial (1992); Mirrors of the Heart for the PBS series “Americas” (1993); The Devil Never Sleeps (1994); Sometimes My Feet Go Numb; 13 Days, a multi-media piece for a nationally toured play by the San Francisco Mime Troupe (1997); and Corpus (1999), a documentary about the late Tejana singer Selena.
Kris Samuelson
Professor in the Art and Art History Department at Stanford, where she is Director of the Film and Media Studies Program and the Documentary Film and Video MFA Program. She has also been a Professor in the Department of Communication, where she served as Chair from 2000-2003. Kris Samuelson has been an independent producer for twenty-eight years and was nominated for an Academy Award for her film Arthur and Lillie. She has received artist's fellowships from the NEA and the California Arts Council and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. From 1999-2006, Samuelson served on the Board of the Independent Television Service. Samuelson recently completed .Point 25, a multimedia concert and co-production with colleagues in Stockholm.
Rita Laura Segato
Professor of Anthropology at the University of Brasilia in Brazil, Rita Segato directs the National Research Council of Brazil’s research group on anthropology and human rights. She is also the project director for the non-government organization AGENDE, Ações em Gênero, Cidadania e Desenvolvimento ((Measures in Gender, Citizenship and Development). As part of her work on human rights, she was the co-author of the first affirmative action proposal for the inclusion of students of African and indigenous background in Brazilian higher education.
Her study on ethno-psychology and the construction of gender in the Yoruba religious tradition in Recife, Brazil was published in the book Santos e Daimones. O politeísmo afro-brasileiro e a tradição arquetipal (Saints and demons. African-Brazilian polytheism and the archetypal tradition), a second edition of which came out in 2005. A chapter from this book was translated and published as "Inventing Nature: Family, Sex and Gender In the Xango Cult" in 1997. Her essay “Gender, Politics, and Hybridism in the Transnationalization of the Yorùbá Culture” is included in the volume Òrìsà Devotion as World Religion to be published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
She has also carried out a comparative study of emerging political identities and multiculturalism within the United States, Brazil and Argentina. This study led to the publication in 2007 of the volume La Nación y sus Otros. Raza, etnicidad y diversidad religiosa en tiempos de Políticas de la Identidad (The nation and its Others: race, ethnicity and religious diversity in times of Identity Politics). Two of the articles included in this volume were published in English as "The Color-Blind Subject of Myth; or, Where to find Africa in the Nation" in 1998 and "Frontiers and Margins: The Untold Story of the Afro-Brazilian Religious Expansion to Argentina and Uruguay" in 1996.
Rita Segato carried out an extensive investigation among inmates convicted for sexual crimes in the city in which she resides, and published a book on gender and violence entitled Las estructuras elementales de la violencia (The elemental structures of violence) in 2003. In 2006 the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana published her essay “La escritura en el cuerpo de las mujeres asesinadas en Ciudad Juárez. Territorio, soberanía y crímenes de Segundo Estado” (Writing on the body of the murdered women of Juarez: Territory, sovereignty and crimes of the Second State). Her understanding of prison reality is the subject of her article “El sistema penal como pedagogía de la irresponsabilidad y el proyecto ‘habla preso: el derecho humano a la palabra en la cárcel’” (The penal system as a pedagogy of irresponsibility and the project prisoner talk: the right to speech in jail), accessible on the website of the Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas, Austin (http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/etext/llilas/cpa/spring03/culturaypaz/segato.pdf). Also part of this series of articles is “El color de la cárcel en América Latina. Apuntes sobre la colonialidad de la justicia en un continente en desconstrucción” (The color of jail in Latin America. Notes toward the coloniality of justice in a continent in the process of deconstruction).
Rita Segato is one of the most renowned experts on the subject of feminicide. Her most recent study is entitled “What is feminicide? Notes toward an Emerging Debate,” in which she argues that feminicide should be considered a special category of crimes against humanity in order to bring greater pressure on governments and international jurists to include it among the crimes prosecuted by the International Criminal Court of The Hague.
She has been an invited researcher at the Institute for Research in the Humanities of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and in the Department of Anthropology at Rice University in Houston, and a Visiting Professor at the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida, Gainesville.
Irene Simmons
Artist, university educator, activist and creator of the art installation “ReDressing Injustice.” The “Redressing Injustice” project brings public awareness to the hundreds of unsolved murders perpetrated against women living in Juarez, Mexico. The installation features over 400 dresses hanging on pink crosses that commemorate the victims of feminicide and protest the absence of justice in Juarez. Creatively transformed dresses are continually added to this collaborative endeavor by community members in the areas where the installation is shown. The installation has been featured at political rallies, social justice forums, and memorial events both nationally and internationally since 2003.
Guadalupe Valdés
Bonnie Katz Tenenbaum Professor in the School of Education and Professor in the Spanish and Portuguese Department at Stanford University. She works in the areas of sociolinguistics and applied linguistics. Much of Guadalupe Valdés’ work has focused on the English-Spanish bilingualism of Latinas and Latinos in the United States and on discovering and describing how two languages are developed, used, and maintained by individuals who become bilingual in immigrant communities. Her interests include language diversity; bilinguals and bilingualism; heritage languages among minority populations; and the teaching of Spanish to Hispanic bilinguals and monolingual speakers of English.
Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano
Professor in the Spanish and Portuguese Department and Chair of the Chicana/o Studies Program in CCSRE at Stanford University. Her interests include queer studies and feminist theories, and the confluence of race, gender and sexuality in cultural representations across a variety of media, especially with respect to imaginings of home, nation and family. Since 1994 she has been developing the digital archive Chicana Art, a database of images and information featuring women artists. She will offer a course on the films of Lourdes Portillo in Fall 2007.
Gwenda Yuzicappi
Standing Buffalo First Nation member and mother of 19-year-old missing Amber Redman, who disappeared in rural Saskatchewan, Canada on July 15, 2005. Her case was featured in "Stolen Sisters: Discrimination and Violence against Indigenous Women in Canada," a report released by Amnesty International that addresses the disproportionate number of First Nations women who have been abducted, and how these severe felonies have not been deemed a priority by numerous police forces.
Copyright 2007, Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, all rights reserved.
FEMINICIDE = SANCTIONED MURDER
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer. ~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
HFF!
ESO’s next step is to build a European extremely large optical/infrared telescope (E-ELT) with a 40-metre-class primary mirror. The E-ELT will be “the world’s biggest eye on the sky” — the only such telescope in the world. ESO is drawing up detailed construction plans together with the community. The E-ELT will address many of the most pressing unsolved questions in astronomy, and may, eventually, revolutionise our perception of the Universe, much as Galileo's telescope did 400 years ago.
Credit: ESO/S. Brunier
More information: www.eso.org/public/news/eso1018/
The face of the artist is nothing but his mask, since his real "I" remains invisible. According to Steiner, the head having become a kind of hologram of the body, then all the effort of spiritualization of the human being by the artist, will have to relate to the shape of the human head. This is what will happen with the design of the Goetheanum. Once more, we are faced with an objectification of the supersensible domain. The model of Gnostic art for Rudolf Steiner is of course as a work of art the Goetheanum in which he will give substance to his thought. 1965 The model of artistic gnosis for Raymond Abellio is of course a cabalistic diagram: the Universal Senaire Sphere which achieves the synthesis and the program of all his thought. Same. Through these images, we can grasp the artistic project of the first Goetheanum whose architectural elements, such as the columns, the capitals and the windows, owed nothing to chance, neither taste nor even less to functionality, but had to obey requirements particular esoteric and spiritual. The entire Goetheanum was to illustrate the foundations and 16 teachings of Anthroposophy, just as the art of Gothic cathedrals illustrated the foundations and various passages of the sacred history of Christianity. The scene of the Goetheanum was of course the apogee of his artistic project, with the column-seats where the twelve "apostrophes" should sit, next to the carved wooden ensemble, "The Representative of Humanity". which returns as a colored figure under the cupola.
In the rented hall of the Munich State Theatre, the Mystery Plays of Rudolf Steiner were performed each year between 1910 and 1913. The wish arose within the circle around Rudolf Steiner to build an appropriately designed building for these and for performances of eurhythmy. As there were many obstacles from the side of the authorities in Munich, it was decided to redesign the building to be erected on donated land in Dornach near Basel/Switzerland.
Construction began in 1913, meeting with delays during the First World War. Still incomplete, the building burnt down on New Year’s Eve of 1922/23.
The central element, already present in the project in Munich was the ground plan: 2 domes of different sizes resting on 2 large rotundas and interlinked with one another. Because of their particular proportions, they gave the impression both of a single, sculpted space, or also one consisting of 2 separate portions. The pillars along the interior of the building connected with earlier epochs in the development of architecture. Yet each pillar was sculpted individually with a base and a capital whose motifs were carved in such a manner that each new one derived its forms from elements of the previous one. It was Steiner’s attempt to incorporate into the design the laws underlying all development from one form to another in the living world, as in Goethe’s theory of metamorphosis, and to give to these new forms of artistic expression.
Architecture thereby departs from the static, “dead” state and begins to take on elements of a path of animated development. The arts of architecture, sculpture, painting and stained glass windows were united to create a space for the other arts – music, drama and eurhythmy. The building represents an effort to assist what slumbers in each human being as a higher element into full fruition
The First Goetheanum: A Centenary for Organic Architecture
John Paull*
University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia *Corresponding Author: j.paull@utas.edu.au, john.paull@mail.com
ABSTRACT
A century has elapsed since the inauguration (on 26 September, 1920) of a remarkable piece of architecture, Rudolf Steiner‟s Goetheanum, headquarters of the Anthroposophy movement, on a verdant hilltop on the outskirts of the Swiss village of Dornach, near Basel. The Goetheanum was an all timber structure, sitting on concrete footings and roofed with Norwegian slate. The building was begun in 1913, and construction progressed through the First World War. Rudolf Steiner‟s intention was to take architecture in a new and organic direction. On New Year‟s Eve, 31 December 1922, the Goetheanum hosted a Eurythmy performance followed by a lecture by Rudolf Steiner for members of the Anthroposophy Society. In the hours that followed, despite the fire-fighting efforts of the Anthroposophists and the local fire brigades, the building burned to the ground. The popular narrative is that the fire was arson but that was never proved. A local watchmaker and anthroposophist, Jakob Ott, was the only person to perish in the fire. He was falsely accused (in death) as „the arsonist‟ but the evidence is rather that he perished in his brave efforts at saving the Goetheanum. Rudolf Steiner saw the “calamity” as an opportunity “to change the sorrowful event into a blessing”. He promptly embarked on plans for a new building, Goetheanum II. This time there was to be “no wood”. The short-lived Goetheanum I had served as a placeholder for Goetheanum II. This new Goetheanum, Rudolf Steiner‟s finest work of organic architecture, is of steel reinforced concrete and today stands on the Dornach hill right on the site of the old Goetheanum.
Keywords: Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy, Goethe, Edith Maryon, Jakob Ott, Marie Steiner, fire, arson, disability, Dornach, Switzerland.
INTRODUCTION
The present Goetheanum building, located at Dornach, Switzerland, is one of the great buildings of the twentieth century (). The world has this building, Goetheanum II, because of three strokes of good luck (karma if you prefer), although they did not appear in that guise at the time. First, was a frustrating bureaucratic denial [1], second, was a catastrophic fire that Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) described as a “calamity” [2], and third was the arrival of a talented English sculptor who became one of Rudolf Steiner‟s closest colleagues [3].
The original Goetheanum was opened on 26 September, 1920. It was designed by the New Age philosopher, Rudolf Steiner. The first plan was to build a centre for Rudolf Steiner‟s Anthroposophy movement in Munich, but the city authorities denied building approval [1, 4]. It was a source of frustration and disappointment at the time, although it was really a stroke of great good fortune. As the Nazi ideology took root in Germany, Rudolf Steiner was unwelcome and threatened in Germany. After two decades of
living in Berlin, Rudolf Steiner relinquished his Berlin apartment in 1923 and never revisited Germany [5].
Alfred Hummel, who served as a member of the Building Office for the Goetheanum, explains of the denial of building approval: “this could be seen as good providence because the building would have run into great difficulties after the outbreak of World War 1. Munich would have been a place of great danger after 1933” [4: 2]. If the Goetheanum had been raised in Munich, it would have stood a good chance of destruction during World War II since the city was carpet bombed, including with magnesium incendiary bombs, in Allied raids. Such an alternative reality was never tested because shortly after the Munich denial, Dr Emil Grossheintz offered a site for the Goetheanum in Switzerland and Rudolf Steiner took up the offer [1].
The first Goetheanum was a building of very short life. Opened in 1920, it was burned to the ground at the end of 1922. This was a blow to the aspirations of the Anthroposophists and the multinational contingent of dedicated workers
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who had laboured through the war, many as volunteers, to create this unique building. Rudolf Steiner described it as a “calamity” [1]. But, the destruction proved to be a blessing in disguise because it allowed a rethink of the design. In place of the original rather quaint structure of Goetheanum I, there is now Goetheanum II, which is a truly remarkable and timeless masterpiece.
The English sculptor, Edith Maryon (1872- 1924), arrived in Dornach a few months before the outbreak of war in 1914, to devote her talents to the service of Rudolf Steiner and his Anthroposophy movement. Here she found her spiritual home and she devoted herself forthwith to „the cause‟. Goetheanum I was already designed and under construction by the time Edith Maryon arrived in Dornach, but she was the sculptor on hand, and by then established as one of Rudolf Steiner‟s close collaborators when Goetheanum II was conceived.
On the occasion of the centenary of the opening of Goetheanum I, the present paper, considers the dharma of the building, its reception, and its passing
Methods
Goetheanum I is, a century on from the opening, beyond living memory. The present account draws on contemporary documents of the time, to throw light on the building, its reception, and its calamitous demise. Documents drawn on include eye witness accounts, personal published and manuscript accounts, newspaper accounts, correspondence, and Rudolf Steiner‟s own comments, explanations and lectures. The original sources are quoted where appropriate.
Results
The Goetheanum with which this paper is concerned is the first Goetheanum, Rudolf Steiner referred to it as the “old Goetheanum”[6], the present paper will refer to it generally as „Goetheanum I‟. When building approval was denied in Munich [4], a devotee of Rudolf Steiner‟s Anthroposophy, the Zürich dentist Dr Emil Grosheintz, offered a site on the outskirts of the Swiss village of Dornach, the site of a famous Swiss battle of 1499 where Swabian invaders were repulsed [7]. Dornach is a brief commute (train or tram, about 15 km) to the city of Basel, which sits in the north west of Switzerland near the junction of three country borders (France, Germany and Switzerland).
The Goetheanum was a project of the New Age philosopher and mystic Rudolf Steiner. He had honed his skills as an orator and lecturer as
leader of the German section of the Theosophy Society [8]. Emerging differences between the Theosophists and Rudolf Steiner led to the establishment of a breakaway movement, the Anthroposophy Society. The Goetheanum was to be the home of the new Society, an administrative centre, and a performance space for Steiner‟s Mystery plays.
Rudolf Steiner went on to design various buildings in the growing enclave of Anthroposophists at Dornach [9], but the monumental Goetheanum I was the first venture into Anthroposophical architectural design on a grand scale, and the Goetheanum II was the apogee of Rudolf Steiner‟s architectural manifestations .
THE GREAT WAR
An Australian soldier, arriving in Europe in 1916, sent a postcard home: “Dear Dave, We have seen a lot of ruined towns & villages since we have been in France. This must have been a nice building once, now ruins, Keith” [10].
In the Europe of the time, destruction on an industrial scale was the order of the day. However, Switzerland remained neutral throughout, and her neutrality was honoured by all the belligerents for the duration.
Construction of the Goetheanum at Dornach began in 1913. Construction carried on through the years of World War I (1914-1918). The Russian artist, Assya Turgeniev, recalled: “Already at the beginning of hostilities Dr Steiner tried to speak to us about the background to the events of the war ... The stirred up chauvinistic moods of his listeners thrown together from all quarters of the globe (we were from about 17 different nations) that did not allow him to continue” [11: 99].
Marie Steiner wrote that, as the war stretched on, the work force was depleted by call-up notices: “one after another our artists were called away to the scene of the war. With very few exceptions, there remained only those men who belonged to neutral countries, and the women” [in 12: vii].
The Goetheanum was built during the Great War using volunteer and paid labour. They came and went. Amongst the privations and avalanche of news of death and destruction of the war: “the work went on as best it could and as far as our strength allowed” [11: 136]. “From all quarters of the globe people gathered in Dornach to help with the building. It was a motley, many-sided, multilingual company”[11: 57]. “Our carving group grew to about 70 in number, not counting those who put in a short appearance ... All financial affairs were
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attended to by Miss Stinde. For those who needed it she arranged a modest remuneration” [11: 58].
The artist Assya Turgeniev remembered: “we were only a bunch of dilettantes ... Only the knowledge that we were working together on a great future task and Dr Steiner‟s helping guidance brought order into this chaos. It remains a wonder that the work progresses without any kind of organisation” [11: 59].
With the outbreak of war, “A heavy gloom settled over Dornach ... a European war, was now on our very doorstep [11: 68]. Goetheanum volunteers were called up to return to their respective countries: “Many friends had been recruited and had to depart” [11: 69]. “Our group of wood- carvers grew less and less as further friends were called up” [11: 79].
Figure 1. View of the Goetheanum with blossom trees [source: 13].
A NEW STYLE OF ARCHITECTURE
Rudolf Steiner spoke of the Goetheanum, “The Dornach Building”, in a lecture to Anthro- posophists at The Hague in February 1921: “I have said that the style of this Goetheanum has arisen out of the same sources that gave birth to spiritual science. The endeavour to create a new style of imperfections which must accompany such architecture is accompanied by inevitable risks, by all the a first attempt” [14: 150]. Steiner elaborated: “there is not a single symbol, not a single allegory, but rather we have attempted to give everything a truly artistic form [14: 151].
Organic Architecture
Rudolf Steiner explained his Goetheanum as a manifestation of a new organic architecture: “Concrete and wood are both employed to give rise to an architectural style that may perhaps be described as the transition from previous geometrical, symmetrical, mechanical, static- dynamic architectural styles into an organic style” [14: 153]. The plinth was concrete and the superstructure was timber.
The Goetheanum was organic but not imitative of nature: “Not that some sort of organic form has been imitated in the Dornach building. That is not the case” [14: 154]. Rudolf Steiner informed his audience that: “The least and the greatest in an organic whole has its place in the organism, its absolutely right form. All this has passed over into the architectural conception of the Dornach building” [14: 154]
Rudolf Steiner acknowledged the German writer and polymath, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 -1832): “it has been my aim, in accordance with Goethe‟s theory of metamorphosis, to steep myself in nature‟s creation of organic forms, and from these to obtain organic forms that, when metamorphosed, might make a single whole of the Dornach building. In other words, organic forms of such a kind that each single form must be in precisely the place it is” [14: 154].
Windows, as all the elements of the Goetheanum, were conceived of as part of an organic whole: “we are handing over this auxiliary building [the Glass House, Glashaus] ... in order that they
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may create something that in the fairest sense may be a living member in the whole organism of our building” [12: 15].
Rudolf Steiner was aware already that not all would be won over to his organic architecture: "I well know how much may be said against this organic principle of building from the point of view of older architectural styles. This organic style, however, has been attempted in the architectural conception of the building at Dornach ... You will therefore find in the Dornach building certain organic forms... carved out of wood, as embodied in the capitals of the columns at the entrance” [14: 154-6]
THE OPENING
The Italian artist Ernesto Genoni, who later spent a year with Rudolf Steiner at Dornach (in 1924) [15, 16] and was a member of Rudolf Steiner‟s First Class, wrote two (somewhat cryptic) accounts of his first visit to the Goetheanum on the occasion of the inauguration (26 September, 1920).
In one account Ernesto Genoni relates: “In Milan I came in touch with the Anthroposophical Society where I took part for a whole year in the study of Anthroposophy. Then my sister Mrs [Rosa] Podreider, for certain business reasons, sent me to Lausanne and said „While you are there you can go as far as the Goetheanum‟. Eventually I arrived in Dornach at the inauguration of the first Goetheanum. There Mrs [Charlotte] Ferreri introduced me to Dr Steiner and I was received by him with great warmth. Unfortunately he was speaking in German which I did not know, but by his long handshake
and smiling expression of the face I could feel his sincere welcome. Here I would like to add this - That was the only time among all the people I met at the Goetheanum that anyone gave me a feeling that I was truly welcome ... So much did I feel this isolation that I decided to return to Italy” [17: 7].
In another account of his Goetheanum inauguration visit, Ernesto Genoni writes: “In autumn 1920 Rosa sent me to Lausanne for selling some opossum skins and then I went to Dornach. What a strange impression I received from the first view of the Goetheanum building ... The short conversation with Fräulein Vreede ... chilly! Frau Ferreri ... the meeting with the Doctor ... the bewildering impression of the interior of the Goetheanum. I could not enter in such saturated life of the spirit and after a few days I left ... the reproach from Miss Maryon. In the following years it was a painful search to find my way in life” [18: 19] (author‟s note: ellipses are in the original handwritten manuscript).
ART OF THE TOUR
Rudolf Steiner wanted the art of the Goetheanum to speak directly to the viewer without intermediary explanations: “Sometimes I had occasion to show visitors the Goetheanum personally. Then I used to say that all „explanation‟ of the forms and colours was in fact distasteful to me. Art does not want to be brought home to us through thoughts, but should rather be received in the immediate sight and feeling of it” [1: 3]. The photographs in the present paper offer an insight into the experience of Steiner‟s visitors (Figs. 1, 2 & 3).
Figure 2. Rear view of the Goetheanum with Heizhaus to the right (postcard)
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NEWS IN THE ANTIPODES
The Register newspaper in Adelaide, Australia‟s city of churches, informed its readers in 1925 about Rudolf Steiner and the Goetheanum: “a man who built a building large enough to contain an audience of a thousand people, roofed by intersecting domes, the larger of them slightly greater span than St Peter‟s, earned a title of serious consideration from all who profess the art of architecture. The building owed nothing to traditional styles. No effect was made by its designer to present an intellectual conception of what the temples of ancient Greece could contribute to the art of modern Europe, nor were the forms of medieval Gothic borrowed and adjusted. In no sense was it a drawing board design.” [19].
The Register continued: “It was conceived and designed, as architecture should be and must be, in three dimensions, and it had to be seen in three dimensions to be understood ... as a first effort in a new presentation of architecture it has probably no rival in the history of art” [19].
Readers in South Australia were informed that the Goetheanum: “was built on the summit of one of the foothills of the Jura mountains, near the village of Dornach, standing out against a background of rugged hills and rocky cliffs ... He deliberately discards the limitations of squares, and one feels that his construction is organic rather than static” [19].
Figure 3. Interior of the Goetheanum [source: 13]. Journal of Fine Arts V3 ● I2 ● 2020
The Name
Even the name of the Goetheanum apparently drew offence. „Wokeness' is not such a twenty- first century phenomenon as some might suppose. Rudolf Steiner explained: “Many people were scandalised at the very name, „Goetheanum‟, because they failed to consider the fundamental reason for this name, and how it is connected with all that is cultivated there as Anthroposophy ... this Anthroposophy is the spontaneous result of my devotion for more than four decades to Goethe‟s world-conception” [2: 1].
Of the name, Rudolf Steiner explained: “this Goetheanum was first called „Johannesbau‟ by those friends of the anthroposophical world- conception who made it possible to erect such a building ... for me this building is a Goetheanum, for I derived my world-view in a living way from Goethe ... I have always regarded this as a sort of token of gratitude for what can be gained from Goethe, an act of homage to the towering personality of Goethe ... the anthroposophical world-view feels the deepest gratitude for what has come into the world through Goethe” [2: 2].
Second Thoughts
Less than a year after the opening of the Goetheanum, and even while the building remained incomplete (it was never entirely completed), Rudolf Steiner revealed that he was thinking of a Goetheanum Mark 2.
At a lecture in Berne on 29 June 1921 titled „The Architectural Conception of the Goetheanum‟ Rudolf Steiner told his audience that: “Naturally one can criticise in every possible way this architectural style which has been formed out of spiritual science. But nothing that makes its first appearance is perfect, and I can assure you that I know all its flaws and that I would be the first to say: If I had to put up this building a second time, it would be out of the same background and out of the same laws, but in most of its details, and perhaps even totally, it would be different” [20: 42]. As events played out just eighteen months later, it proved to be a remarkably prescient statement.
Bad Timing
For sheer bad timing (and perhaps prolixity), a fund raising letter dated 25 December 1922 by the British Anthroposophical Society in London would be hard to beat. The letter explained that: “the Goetheanum expresses in a language of line, form and colour those thoughts and ideas which a knowledge of higher spiritual worlds
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produces in the artist. As a work of art the Goetheanum can only be compared, in its tendency to the supreme artistic achievements of humanity, for it produces in the onlooker the perception of that interpenetration of object and idea of which the true world of art is the outcome, while it raises him to that point within his inner being where an ideal spiritual world is felt to be born into physical reality”.
Then the fund raising letter gets to the point: “The Goetheanum still remains to be completed. The funds at Dr Steiner‟s disposal are drawing to an end. Money is urgently needed to carry on the work. The work MUST NOT STOP ... Let each give what he or she can. In the old days ladies sold their jewellery to enable the foundation stone to be laid” [21].
Just six days after the date of the London fund raiser letter, the Goetheanum burned to the ground (on the night of 31 December 1922). Rudolf Steiner described the occurrence as a “dreadful calamity”. He reminded his audience of “The terrible catastrophe of last New Year‟s Eve, the destruction by fire of the Goetheanum, which will remain a painful memory” [2: 1].
Rudolf Steiner explained that the Anthroposophical Society was misunderstood and that there was calumny afoot: “That dreadful calamity was just the occasion to bring to light what fantastic notions there are in the world linked with all that this Goetheanum in Dornach intended to do and all that was done in it. It was said that the most frightful superstitions were disseminated there, that all sorts of things inimical to religion were being practiced; and there is even talk of all kinds of spiritualistic seances, of nebulous mystic performances, and so on” [2: 1].
The Fire
A local newspaper, the Basler Nachricten reported the news of the New Year fire at the Goetheanum: “The Goetheanum in Dornach-Arlesheim is on fire, was the terrible alarm message that flew like wildfire ... just before the bells sounded in solemn ringing ... On New Year‟s Eve ... at 7 pm , the Goetheanum had a presentation of Eurythmy and a lecture by Rudolf Steiner ... The last audience had left the lecture hall by 9.45 pm ... immediately after the seriousness of the situation was clear, the calls for help were despatched to the surrounding villages and to Basel ... The Dornachers were the first to arrive at 11:45 pm, followed by the Arlesheimers a quarter of an hour later ... Because of repair work, there was scaffolding where the fire was first seen” [22].
Rudolf Steiner put the fire as starting between 5:15 pm and 6:20 pm [23].
Rudolf Steiner related that: “one hour after the last word had been spoken, I was summoned to the fire at the Goetheanum. At the fire of the Goetheanum we passed the whole of that New Year night”. He stated that it was “exactly at the moment in its evolution when the Goetheanum was ready to become the bearer of the renewal of spiritual life”[6].
A newspaper gave an account of the events: “When the double cupolas fell in, there shot up heavenwards a giant sheaf of fire, and a torrent of sparks threatened the whole neighbor-hood so that fire-men had to be sent in all directions to prevent the spread of disaster” [24]. Later, on New Year‟s Day “The sky was veiled in clouds as if to check the great outpouring of people which took place from Basel and its neighbor- hood. For nearly the whole population there was one urge: Off to Dornach! Hour after hour unbroken streams of people climbed the muddy roads and slippery fields, whilst other streams, equally unbroken, flowed down again” [24].
Rudolf Steiner later referred to “the pain for which there are no words” [1: 7]. However, on the day, as Albert Steffen relates, Rudolf Steiner kept his nerve and declared the continuance of the New Year‟s programme: “In the morning Dr Steiner ... was still there ... „We will go on with our lectures as notified‟, he said, and gave instructions that the pools of water in the „Schreinerei‟ (the temporary shed used for lectures) and the dirt carried in by muddied shoes should be removed” [25: 13].
Seat of the Fire
Albert Steffen (1884-1963), Anthroposophist, writer and editor, wrote of the seat of the fire: “Unfortunately a scaffolding, necessary for certain work, had been put up just in the place where the fire was first noticed” [25: 12]. A local Basel newspaper had reported likewise: “Because of repair work, there was scaffolding where the fire was first seen” [22].
Ninety nine years later, accounts of the Notre Dame Cathedral fire of 2019 are reminiscent of accounts of the Goetheanum fire. “The fire began at about 18:43 local time on Monday (15 April). Pictures show flames shooting up around the spire, shortly after the doors were shut to visitors for the day. The blaze spread rapidly along the wooden roof as onlookers gathered on the ground below” [26]. Another account states
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that: “Flames that began in the early evening burst through the roof of the centuries-old cathedral and engulfed the spire, which collapsed, quickly followed by the roof” [27]. Builder‟s scaffolding for repair work are also a part of the Notre Dame story: “Much of the roof was covered in scaffolding as part of a big renovation programme, which is being investigated as a possible cause of the blaze” [26]. Two leading candidates for the cause of the Notre Dame fire are identified: “The catastrophic fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral could have been caused by a burning cigarette or an electrical malfunction, French prosecutors said ... Prosecutors are now looking at the possibility of negligence” [28].
Of the Goetheanum fire, a Basel newspaper reported: “Dr Steiner ... According to him,, who will probably know his way around the construction of the building, the fire must have started between 5:00 and 7:00 in the evening .... The smoke was noticed a little after 10 pm in the so-called „white room‟ on the third floor” [23]. The room, the apparent seat of the fire, was used by one or some Eurythmists as a change room [23]. It was reported that “there were no electrical systems at the fire site”[22].A discarded cigarette butt, a neglected candle or a portable camp stove or heater (the outside temperature would have been hovering around 0o C), or a flimsy Eurythmy costume draped carelessly on a hot light bulb are candidates as potential ignition sources.
The Goetheanum was insured for CHF 3,800,000 and with a further CHF 500,000 for furniture and equipment [22]. A proof of contributory negligence would have voided or severely prejudiced an insurance claim. This, combined with the prevailing persecution complex of the Anthroposophists, was a great motivation for fuelling suspicions of arson. To this day, the cause of the Goetheanum blaze remains an open question [29]. The timely payout of the insurance facilitated the rebuild of the Goetheanum, and the local Building Insurance Act was revised “to protect the state institution against such disasters” [30].
Jakob Ott
One person lost their life in the fire. That was Jakob Ott, a watchmaker from nearby Arlesheim, and a member of the Anthroposophy Society.
Assya Tergeniev recorded that: “When the glowing ashes had cooled, some days later, a human skeleton with a deformed spine was found therein. This deformity was the same as
that of a watchmaker who had disappeared at the time of the fire. It was officially announced that he had come to grief while helping with the rescue work” [11: 129].
A Basel newspaper reported that “Human remains were found in the rubble of the burned- down Goetheanum on Wednesday [10 January]. It is not yet certain whether it is the missing watchmaker Ott ... These are the bones of a single person, who presumably fell from the floor of the dome into the depth of the basement. The skull was smashed ... no one apart from the watchmaker Ott has been missing since that fateful night ... the bone remains were almost completely covered with slate residue from the roof of the dome. The casualty must have plunged into the stage basement below the collapsing dome at 12 midnight. Although all fire-fighting teams had withdrawn at 11:30 pm in view of the building, which was at risk and could no longer be saved, it is easily possible that, due to the thick smoke, a person who might already have been stunned had not been noticed” [31].
Conspiracy theorists of the day, and later commentators, have attributed the fire to arson, but that is not proven, and even named the supposed arsonist as Jakob Ott, and that is proven false. Research of Günther Aschoff has established: “the 28-year-old watchmaker Jakob Ott from Neu-Arlesheim had died in the fire. But he could not have been the arsonist, because he was home all New Year's Eve, then in the evening at a choir rehearsal and at the year-end service in the Reformed Church. (He was a member of the Reformed Church and of the Anthroposophical Society, he procured many advertisements for the magazine "Das Goetheanum" and had also collected signatures for the naturalization of Rudolf Steiner). At about 22.30 he was on the tram on the way home. When he saw the clouds of smoke at the Goetheanum in the moonlit night, he ran up the mountain, to help, which he used to do whenever he was needed. He was present when the fire was extinguished in the small dome at the top of the building, but when the others had already retreated because of all the smoke”. Jakob Ott failed to evacuate likely because he was overcome by smoke or that he lost his footing [32].
Jakob Ott was reportedly just 1.5 metres tall, and a hunchback with “a backbone curvature due to an accident” [31]. Another account simply sated: “Ott had a hump” [30]. He was a man of modest means and lacking influential friends. As a disabled figure, Jakob Ott was a
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ready candidate for „othering‟ and he made a convenient scapegoat for the smug. A Basel newspaper reported: “Dr Steiner, whom we also interviewed regarding Ott ... He himself has no suspicion of Ott” [23]. Rudolf Steiner subsequently attended Jakob Ott‟s funeral [33].
It appears that Rudolf Steiner never referred to the fire as „arson‟. Albert Steffen wrote of „The destruction of the Goetheanum by fire”, he did not write of „by arson‟ [25]. Arson does not rate in the top ten causes of house fires [34]. Arson does not rate as one of the nominated “leading causes of warehouse structure fires” [35]. If the arson conspiracy theory fails, then the quest for „the arsonist‟ is extinguished.
The demonising of Jakob Ott has been an unworthy episode propagated by some who should have known better. One hysterical account about Jakob Ott appears to be mere flights of fancy, ungrounded in fact, and owes more to a fertile imagination than sound research [e.g. 36]. It appears that Marie Steiner has fuelled conspiracy theories: “One of the suspects was the watchmaker Jakob Ott from Allesheim , whose skeleton was found ten days after the fire in the ashes of the Goetheanum which had burned down. It was identified by a spinal defect. Later Marie Steiner wrote „From a skeleton that was discovered, it can be established that the arsonist was burned‟‟ [quoted in 33: 904].
Jakob Ott (1895-1923) died a miserable death by incineration, in a worthy cause of trying to save the Goetheanum. Whether he was overcome by smoke and/or lost his footing, the action of entering a burning building is the act of a brave man.
A Blessing
Exactly a year on from the fire, Rudolf Steiner reflected on the events of New Year‟s Eve, 1922, at the Goetheanum. The venue for the lectures was now the much less salubrious (and cold) Schreinerei, the carpentry workshop, adjacent to the site of the remnants of the fire [37].
Rudolf Steiner referred to the “painful memory” of the final lecture that he had delivered at the Goetheanum, what he now called “our old Goetheanum” [6]. Remembering the night, Rudolf Steiner reminded his listeners that; “the flames bust from our beloved Goetheanum ... but out of the very pain we pledge ourselves to remain loyal to the Spirit to which we erected the Goetheanum, building it up through ten years of work” [6].
Changing tack, Rudolf Steiner urged his audience to move on from the “tragedy” and offered them the recipe for doing just that: “if we are able to change the pain and grief into the impulses to action then we shall also change the sorrowful event into a blessing. The pain cannot thereby be made less, but it rests with us to find in the pain the urge to action ... Let us carry over the soul of the Goetheanum into the Cosmic New Year, lets try to erect in the new Goetheanum a worth memorial to the old!” [6: 4].
Beyond Wood
Goetheanum I was an all-timber construct. One of the building officers related that: “our first director had implored us not to use any iron nail, coach screw or sheet metal in the main wooden structure. These artificial building materials were not to be brought in connection with the noble organic timber” [4: 15]
A few months after the fire, Rudolf Steiner, writing in the April 1923 issue of the periodical „Anthroposophy‟, was quick to rule in a rebuild, that was never in doubt in his mind, while at the same time he ruled out rebuilding in timber: “In rebuilding the Goetheanum we shall probably need to think on different lines ... There can, of course, be no question of a second Building in wood” [38: 38].
In 1923 Rudolf Steiner wrote to the Central Administration of the local Swiss Canton Solothurn: “The new building will stand directly on the site of the old. With regard to the construction of the building as a whole, we bring to your attention that it is to be executed as a solid structure and that all its structural parts, all floors and bearing walls, as well as the roof trusses will be carried out in reinforced concrete. We plan to employ a purely steel construction for the support of the floor of the main stage alone. Timber will be used nowhere as a constructional element in the new building, but exclusively for doors, windows, flooring and floor construction over solid slab floors, for rafters and for fixtures and cladding. As roof material the same Norwegian slate as was used on the old Goetheanum is to be employed. ... We are convinced that the entire building, when completed in this type of construction, will be able to meet all requirements as to fire safety to an unusual degree” [39: 52].
Concrete
By the time of Goetheanum II, Rudolf Steiner already had some experience of reinforced
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concrete as a building medium. The rather fanciful Heizhaus (Boiler House) of 1914 [9], located nearby the Goetheanum, and still standing today, is a creative exercise in concrete. Rudolf Steiner described it as “a remarkable structure” and so it is [14] (Fig.2).
Rudolf Steiner was well aware of criticism of his first adventure in concrete, the Boiler House. He proffered this rejoinder: “This is what is subject to the most severe criticism from some quarters ... I undertook to create ... a shell of concrete - a material which is extremely difficult to mould artistically. Those who criticise this structure today do not pause to reflect what would stand there if no endeavour had been made to mould something out of concrete - a material so difficult to mould. There could be nothing but a brick chimney. I wonder if that would be more beautiful than this, which of course is only a first attempt to give a certain style to something made of concrete. It has many defects, for it is only a first attempt to mould something artistic out of materials such as concrete” [14: 157].
Edith Maryon, Sculptor
Edith Maryon (1872-1924) stepped into Rudolf Steiner‟s life in 1914. It was just before the outbreak of World War I and she quickly became one of his closest confidants. Edith Maryon was an English sculptor trained at the Royal College of Arts in London.
As a trained and skilled sculptor, Edith Maryon brought new skills into the inner sanctum of Rudolf Steiner‟s bevy of talented women, which included the mathematician Elizabeth Vreede and medical doctor Ita Wegman. Goetheanum I was already under construction when Edith Maryon arrived at Dornach. Edith Maryon however quickly proved her skills in collaborative architectural design not just of sculptural elements within Goetheanum I. Together they created the Eurythmy Houses I, II and III (Eurythmiehäuser), a little way down the Dornach hill from the Goetheanum [9].
Edith Maryon brought a feminine influence and a sculptor's panache. Under the collaborative influence of Edith Maryon, Rudolf Steiner was liberated from the overt Freudian features of his earlier creations with his phallic Boiler House and the double-breasted Glass House (Glashaus) and Goetheanum I.
The clay models for Goetheanum II were constructed during 1923, the year of closest
collaboration between Rudolf Steiner and Edith Maryon. At the end of the year, at the Christmas Conference of 1923 Rudolf Steiner appointed Edith Maryon as the head of the Sculpture Section (plastic arts) of the School of Spiritual Science of the Goetheanum [40]. Sadly, by then her health was deteriorating and she passed away four months later. Rudolf Steiner‟s own health took a blow at the close of the Christmas Conference on 31 December 1923. He struggled on through nine months of 1924, before retreating to his sick bed in September, and he passed away six months later.
It could be regarded as fortuitous that Goetheanum I was destroyed during Rudolf Steiner‟s own lifetime and that he and Edith Maryon had developed a close collaborative working embrace that could bring the clay sculptural models of Goetheanum II quickly to fruition. Goetheanum II is Rudolf Steiner‟s final contribution to his portfolio of Anthroposophic buildings and to organic architecture, and more than any of his prior works, it is a monumental and masterful work of sculpture.
CONCLUSION
The first Goetheanum was both success and failure. It was a bold experiment in organic design, a proof of concept that such a vision could be translated into reality, that despite the disruption of war, work could proceed, funds could be raised, a distinctive building could be manifested, and the enthusiasm and talent of a multitude of volunteers could be harnessed. However, an all timber building is a conflagration waiting to happen, it is just the timing of the conflagration that is the uncertainty. In the case of Goetheanum I, the conflagration came quickly, before even the building was completed, before a Mystery Play was ever performed in the space, remembering that a dedicated performance space for such plays had been a large part of the rationale for the building.
The dharma of Goetheanum I was to serve as a placeholder for Goetheanum II. The new Goetheanum took the money from the insurance of the demise of the old Goetheanum, and embraced the lesson that an all-timber construction is not a recipe for longevity. Goetheanum II harnessed the sculptural skills by then on hand, and brought them to the fore to create what is not only a magnificent sculpture in concrete, but is also a functioning building and a delight to work in. Flushed away is the quaintness of Goetheanum I. The new Goetheanum is a bold twentieth
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century building worthy of the twenty first century and beyond.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Thank you to to members of the Goetheanum Archive (Dokumentation am Goetheanum Bibliothek Kunstsammlung Archiv) for kind
assistance in navigating the collection and to DeepL.com/Translator and Google Translate for assistance with various translations.
REFERENCES
[1] Steiner, R., The Goetheanum in the ten years of its life, I. Anthroposophy, 1923. 2(1-2): p. 2-10.
[2] Steiner, R., What was the purpose of the Goetheanum and what is the task of Anthroposophy, A lecture at Basel, 9 April, 1923. 1923, Fremont, IL: Rudolf Steiner Archive, .
[3] Paull, J., A portrait of Edith Maryon: Artist and Anthroposophist. Journal of Fine Arts, 2018. 1(2): p. 8-15.
[4] Hummel, A., A Diary: Life and Work During the Building of the First Goetheanum. 2003, (Trans. Friedwart Bock from c.1955 German original), Aberdeen: Camphill Architects.
[5] Paull, J., Rudolf Steiner: At Home in Berlin. Journal of Biodynamics Tasmania, 2019. 132: p. 26-29.
[6] Steiner, R., World History in the Light of Anthroposophy, A lecture at Dornach, 31 December 1923. 1923, Fremont, IL: Rudolf Steiner Archive, .
[7] Fahrni, D., An Outline History of Switzerland From the Origins to the Present Day. 1997, Zürich: Pro Helvetia Arts, Council of Switzerland.
[8] Steiner, R., The Story of My Life. 1928, London: Anthroposophical Publishing Co.
[9] Kugler, J., ed. Architekturführer Goetheanumhügel die Dornacher Anthroposophen-Kolonie. 2011, Verlag Niggli: Zurich.
[10] Keith, Postcard (with handwritten message on rear): Ypres - La Salle Pauwels (Halles d'Ypres) avant et après le Bombardment. The Pauwels Gallery (Halles of Ypres) before the Bombard- ment and after. 1916, Paris: Visé Paris (private collection).
[11] Turgeniev, A., Reminiscences of Rudolf Steiner and Work on the First Goetheanum. 2003, Forest Row, UK: Temple Lodge.
[12] Steiner, R., Ways to A New Style in Architecture: Five lectures by Rudolf Steiner given during the building of the First Goetheanum, 1914. 1927, London: Anthroposophical Publishing Company.
[13] Uehli, E., Rudolf Steiner als Künstler. 1921, Stuttgart: Der Kommnede Tag.
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Steiner, R., The Dornach Building, Lecture at The Hague, 28 Feb 1921, in Rudolf Steiner Architecture, A. Beard, Editor. 2003, Sophia Books: Forest Row.
Paull, J., Ernesto Genoni: Australia's pioneer of biodynamic agriculture. Journal of Organics, 2014. 1(1): p. 57-81.
Paull, J., The Anthroposophic Art of Ernesto Genoni, Goetheanum, 1924. Journal of Organics, 2016. 3(2): p. 1-24.
Genoni, E., Personal memoir. c.1970, 9 pp., typewritten manuscript, last date mentioned is 1966, A4. Private collection.
Genoni, E., Personal memoir. c.1955, 26 pp., handwritten manuscript, last date mentioned is 1952, school exercise book. Private collection.
The Register, Modernity in Art - New Architectural Forms. The Register (Adelaide, Australia), 1925. 31 December: p. 5.
Biesantz, H. and A. Klingborg, The Goetheanum: Rudolf Steiner's Architectural Impulse. 1979, London: Rudolf Steiner Press.
Metaxa, G., Typed letter, Dear Friends and fellow members. 2 pages. 25 December. Anthroposophical Society. 1922, 46 Gloucester Place, London.
Basler Nachrichten, Das Goetheanum niedergebrannt. Basler Nachrichten, 1923. 2 January.
Basler Nachrichten, Zum Brand im Goetheanum - Ott in Verdacht als Brandstifter oder Mitwisser. Basler Nachrichten, 1923. 5 January.
National Zeitung, The account of the burning of the Goetheanum from the National Zeitung. Anthroposophy, 1923. 2(1-2, January- February): p. 18-19.
Steffen, A., The destruction of the Goetheanum by fire. Anthroposophy, 1923. 2(1-2): p. 10-13.
BBC News, Notre-Dame: The story of the fire in graphics and images. BBC News, 2019. 16 April.
ABC News, Notre Dame fire: Paris cathedral spire collapses as blaze tears through landmark. ABC News, 2019. 16 April.
Vandoorne, S., A. Crouin, and B. Britton, Notre Dame fire could have been started by a cigarette or an electrical fault, prosecutors say. CNN, 2019. 26 June.
Balzer, M., The unsolved Goetheanum case: A play is devoted to the fire of New Year'ds Eve 1922. Aargauer Zeitung, 2019. 2 May.
Basler Nachrichten, Zur Untersuchung über den Goetheanum-Brand. Basler Nachrichten, 1923. 11 January.
Neue Zürcher Nachrichten, Ein wichtiger Fund bei den Aufräumungsarbeiten am Goetheanum. Neue Zürcher Nachrichten, 1923. 13 January.
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[32] Aschoff, G., Neues vom Goetheanum-Brand. Das Goetheanum, 2007. 1-2.
[33] Prokofieff, S.O., May Human Beings Hear It!: The Mystery of the Christmas Conference. 2014, Forest Row, UK: Temple Lodge.
[34] Real Insurance, The most common causes of house fires. 2013, Sydney: Real Insurance.
[35] Campbell, R., Structure Fires in Warehouse Properties. 2016, Quincy, MA: National Fire Protection Association.
[36] Ravenscroft, T., The Spear of Destiny: The Occult Power Behind the Spear Which Pierced the Side of Christ and how Hitler inverted the Force in a bid to conquer the World. 1982, York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser Inc.
[37] Paull, J., Dr Rudolf Steiner's Shed: The Schreinerei at Dornach. Journal of Bio-Dynamics Tasmania, 2018. 127(September): p. 14-19.
[38] Steiner, R., The Goetheanum in the ten years of its life, VI. Anthroposophy, 1923. 2(4): p. 37-41.
[39] Raab, R., A. Klingborg, and A. Fant, Eloquent Concrete: How Rudolf Steiner Employed Reinforced Concrete. 1979, London: Rudolf Steiner Press.
[40] Steiner, M., Proceedings of the Founding Conference of the General Anthroposophical Society. 1944, Roneoed publication. "As edited and published by Marie Steiner in 1944. Translated by Frances E Dawson": "For Members of the General Anthroposophical Society".
A travesty of Justice
We are looking for the name (Melody?) and hopefully a photo of a somewhat obscure actress of the early silent film era. She apparently was the victim of a jewel robbery that occurred in her suite in New York City. Her story may have been used to inspire the cover from the Snappy Detective Stories July 1934 issue. We have not been able to find a copy and were wondering if any of the stories matched the cover illustration, and if any actual names were given.
She may have been the Lover (Wife?) of a wealthy, influential New York City Business man. One weekend, while he was out of town, she left his South Hampton mansion and went out partying to New York City for the weekend. During that time, she reported to police that she had been robbed in her penthouse suite by a masked burglar to the tune of 75,000 worth of jewelry... In what may have been a rather cruel twist of injustice, an elevator valet with a Juvenile criminal background was arrested for the crime, tried without any real evidence, convicted and put in prison. Years later He died under mysterious circumstances while still incarcerated in a New York Prison. The Ladies jewelry was never reported recovered.
The above info was, told to us by an old vaudeville magician who had performed with a young lady whose stage name of Melody was all he could remember. She eventually became a silent era ‘B’ actress under a name he could not recall. He thought she may have had a minor role as an actress appearing in the 1911 silent film version of the Poseidon Adventure.
Rumor had it that her apartment was never “burglarized” and that she made up the story to prevent the insanely jealous influential Businessman she was involved with from finding out the truth.
But then we came across another story gathered from article that appears to have been derived from some surviving pages (with no cover) out of an old pulp detective magazine of the prohibition era, Real Detective Tales. The ladies name was given as Melinda Victoria Scott se Hamot, but it may not have been her real name. If anyone knows what issue and year the below story derived from that article may have been published we would greatly appreciate it.
According to this article, Melinda was a silent film actress who had married a well to do gentleman and was known for the lavish jewelry she would show off. This lady had had been wearing some of her expensive jewelry while out on the town in N.Y.C. On this particular evening (sometime during the 1920’s) Melinda was being chaperoned for the evening by a male with a rather dubious background. This man was said to be a well-known City “raker”, a handsomely roguish man with a well-known reputation for escorting wealthy married ladies, as well as a reputation with the police as having connections with the underworld orchestrating burglaries. His given name was not mentioned. After attending a show and a couple of nightclubs, he insisted that Ms. Hamot go with him to a local underground gambling joint for a few (then illegal) drinks.
Late that evening (or early morning), a group of masked hoodlums held up the speakeasys’ patrons. It was believed that they were mainly after the money being gambled. But not only did they take all the money, but they also made the richly attired ladies present hand over all their jewels. Including those being worn by, we believe, our mystery women who supposedly was being robbed in her apartment at the same time.
Two weeks later the Actress’s male escort, throat slit, was found floating in the Hudson River.
Since some of the male patrons in attendance were in the governments’ employ, Tammany Hall took over the investigation and apparently hushed up the whole incident. The full story never made it to the local newspapers, although supposedly the New Yorker Magazine had some questions (could not find any reference) No crime was reported, no one was arrested, nor any of the property ever “reportedly” recovered. This was the gist of the article that we were able to read in the surviving pages of the old magazine.
We have been searching in the New York Times, but have failed to turn up any related story to the speakeasy hold up. Although we did find a few similar stories about women being bound and robbed of their jewels, but no exact matches to the penthouse robbery so far.
We strongly believe, based on the vaudevillian’s description of the lady and her mannerisms, that the Penthouse robbery victim, and the speakeasy robbery victim was one and the same Lady. We also think that there never was a penthouse robbery, and the jewels that the elevator valet was accused of stealing were actually relinquished to one of the thugs that held up the gambling joint. The main clue we don’t have is a name for the Lady. This would at least give us a starting point to investigate our theory.
If anyone out could shed some lights on this little mystery, especially the pulp detective magazines listed above, we would greatly appreciate it.
As a sidelight, the gambling joint’s robbery was closely reflected in the casino robbery scene from the movie” Uptown Saturday Night” Coincidence or not?
Bryggen i Bergen , also known as Tyskebryggen and Hansabryggen , comprises the old wooden buildings and fire-proof stone cellars in the historic city center of Bergen . The wharf was built around 1070, and from 1360 to 1754 was the seat of the German office in the city and the central hub for the Hanseatic trade in Norway. The Hansa company was also the Nordics' first trading company. The pier consists of approx. 13 acres with 61 listed buildings, and is on UNESCO's list of world heritage sites . Bryggen is the third most visited tourist attraction in Norway .
Streoket Bryggen
The area borders Bergenhus fortress in the north and along Øvregaten to Vetrlidsallmenningen in the south, down this and back along Bryggen's quay front on the east side of Vågen . The area north of the historic commercial farms is called Dreggen . Here is Bradbenken , which is the base for the school ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl , and the Dreggsallmenningen with St. Mary's Church from the 12th century, Bryggens Museum and Gustav Vigeland's statue by Snorre Sturlason . In the area there are also old clusters of wooden houses and more modern blocks of flats with hotels and commercial buildings, as well as the athletics hall Vikinghallen . South of the Dreggsallmenningen are the old Hanseatic wooden trading houses and the Schøtstuene, and south of the Nikolaikirkealmenningen brick apartment buildings in the same style. Farthest to the south is the Hanseatic Museum and the Meat Bazaar . The local archery corps is called Dræggens Buekorps . From Bryggen, Beffen runs a shuttle across Vågen to Munkebryggen on the Strandsiden .
The district is comprised of the basic districts Dreggen, Bryggen and Vetrlidsalmenningen, which had a total of 1,164 inhabitants on 1 January 2014 and an area of 0.16 km², but this includes smaller areas belonging to the districts Stølen and Fjellet east of Øvregaten and Lille Øvregaten , and smaller areas belonging to the Vågsbunnen area south of the Vetrlidsalmenningen.
Name
The name Bryggen or Bryggene can be traced back to the age of sagas . Late in the Middle Ages , in connection with the wharf's emergence as a Hanseatic trading post, the name form Tyskebryggen appears, in the same way that St. Mary's Church was referred to as the "German Church" because services were held in German there until 1868 . In the 17th and 18th centuries, the popular name form Garpebryggen was also common. In Norse, "garp" meant a core vessel, but applied to the German merchants, the term may have been intended ironically. Later, the form Tyskebryggen became dominant. On 25 May 1945, Bergen city council decided that the name should henceforth be Bryggen. The use of the name has been a source of controversy, and several have argued that Tyskebryggen is the most historically correct, and that the city council wishes to reverse the name decision. Lasse Bjørkhaug, former director of Stiftelsen Bryggen, has stated that he has noticed that "more and more people are now using the name Tyskebryggen again". In 2011, Venstre proposed in the city council that the official municipal name should be changed to Tyskebryggen. Hans-Carl Tveit from Venstre justified it by saying that "this is about taking history back. In 2016, Bergen will host the Hansadagen, and it would have been great to get the old name back before then." However, the proposal only received support from the Liberal Party and the independent representative Siv Gørbitz.
The commercial farms at Bryggen functioned as warehouses for goods for export and import. Grain from Central Europe was imported and dried fish from Northern Norway was exported. During the spring and autumn convention, the stalls were full of dried fish to be exported. Dried fish was an important commodity for the Catholic countries, which made use of the dried fish during Lent .
The front buildings at Bryggen were fitted out as seahouses. As a rule, these searooms were divided into packing sheds and farm sheds on the ground floor and outer living room, living room, inner living room and packing room on the second floor. The rooms on the third floor usually consisted of the master's room, the journeyman's room, the boy's room, sitting rooms and storerooms.
When the dried fish from the north reached Bryggen in Bergen, it was first unloaded and then collected in the warehouses for storage. The fish were not made ready for export until the spring or autumn gathering was over, as these were very busy periods. It was the farm boys who were responsible for preparing the fish for sale in the form of cutting the necks and spurs (tails) at each workstation. The dried fish wrecking, the quality determination and sorting of the dried fish, was left to the merchant's second-in-command, the journeyman or wrecker , with responsibility for assessing the value of the fish according to size and quality.
The trading community at Bryggen was strictly stratified, both in the Hanseatic period and later. Young men entered the community as room boys ( Stabenjungen ) with tasks related to daily life in the living rooms, after 3-4 years they advanced to schute boys ( Schutenjungen ) who had tasks, among other things, related to unloading and loading the Nordland jets . After a few more years, they were able to advance to journeyman , after passing an exam in trade theory, knowledge of goods and arithmetic. The office also had its own jurisdiction , as well as a separate school system where boys were apprenticed. There were strict living conditions, where it was forbidden for the members to associate with the inhabitants of Bergen. Hanseaters were also supposed to live in celibacy so that they did not have children who could lay claim to values such as their paternal inheritance. The ban was not complied with, and in Lübeck's archives there are wills in which repatriated Hanseatics name the frill they had in Bergen, and any children in the relationship.
Originally, the Germans were only allowed to "sit" (i.e. shop) in Bergen in the time between the cross mass in the spring (3 May) and the cross mass in the autumn (14 September); but gradually they became "winter sitters". Around 1259, several of them wintered in Bergen as tenants with Norwegian farm owners at Bryggen, and one German soon became a landlord himself. The winter sitting enabled advantageous acquisitions in the winter and early shipping in the spring. Nevertheless, the Germans refused to pay tithes in Bergen, so King Håkon decreed that foreigners who rented houses in the city for 12 months had to be considered permanent residents and were obliged to pay tithes and other things on an equal basis with Norwegians. In 1250, a peace and trade agreement was concluded between King Håkon and Lübeck as a guarantee for mutual free trade between Norwegians and Lübeckers, mutual help against raiders and conditions in Norway that had previously existed. However, the Germans were not satisfied with the legal certainty they experienced. The Norwegian Wreck Court exposed the Hanseatic League to regular looting when their ships were wrecked along the Norwegian coast. In addition, merchants from Hamburg thought they were exposed to a false accusation of murder in Bergen. This Magnus Lagabøte acquitted them for later.
The City Act of 1276 assumed that there were also foreigners among the residents of Norwegian housing estates, and specifies that they must share public burdens such as wheat patrol and wire tax , as well as "skipdrått" (i.e. towing ships ashore in the city). In the summer of 1278, German envoys negotiated several exemptions with Magnus Lagabøte in Tønsberg . A royal letter secured them exemption from ship's draught, which the city law otherwise imposed on all merchants who stayed three nights or more in Bergen, as well as the right to buy hides and butter in smaller lots on wharves and in vessels during the summer months. (Otherwise it was required by law that trade took place in houses or in squares.) Changes were also made to Norwegian stranding law, so that the Hanseatic League could keep all the goods they salvaged by their own efforts after a shipwreck. No one was allowed to remove wreckage that they had not declared.
Eric of Pomerania's dispute with the counts in Holstein became noticeable in Norway when the Hanseatic League decided to close the office at Bryggen. In the spring of 1427 they left Bergen, and did not return until six years later. In the meantime, Bergen had been subjected to two terrible attacks by the Vitalie brothers , who were also known for plundering Hanseatic property.
In 1440, complaints were received that German merchants who set up Dutch stalls on the Strand , chased the Dutch away and threw their goods into the mud. More than a hundred armed Hanseatic League were also said to have entered Bergen's council chamber on the Tuesday after St. Peter's Day (February 23), and chased the councilors with axes and machetes . The conflicts peaked with Olav Nilsson as chief of staff at Bergenhus . He maintained an intransigent line against the Hanseatic League and was deposed in 1453; but as late as 1455 he was back after pressuring Eric of Pomerania to reinstate himself. In the meantime he had operated as a privateer and plundered Hanseatic ships. Well, Nilsson could point out that the Hanseatic League only reluctantly submitted to Norwegian law; but they could not tolerate a former pirate as captain. In 1455, the town witnessed armed Hanseatic troops chasing Nilsson, the bishop and their entourage towards Nordnes where they sought refuge in Munkeliv monastery . While Nilsson climbed the tower, the Hanseatic set fire to the monastery. They paid for the reconstruction, but they refused to pay the fine to Nilsson's survivors. Of course, there was a legally binding judgment on such a fine, but King Christian I did not pursue the case as he had taken out large loans from the Hanseatic League for his warfare.
Bergen's power center
Bryggen used to be the center of the city's worldly power. Maria Gildeskåle is first mentioned in Magnus Lagabøte's town law of 1276, and was then the meeting place for the town council. The building was located next to Mariakirkegården and served as the city's first "town hall", the place where the city administration and the city meeting were supposed to gather according to the city law. The building is today a ruin, located between Bryggens Museum and St Mary's Church. Originally, the building was located as a rear or northern part of the Gullskoen wharf .
The new council chamber was built around 1300-15. It was located in the middle of Bryggen, by the Nikolaikirkealmenningen, where the square was also located. The council chamber was in use until the 1560s. Christoffer Valkendorf was sheriff of Bergenhus from 1556 to 1560 . After Valkendorf arrived in Bergen, several unsolved murders were committed in some of the city's many brothels . Valkendorf had a number of the brothels demolished, and to a large extent abolished the privileges and monopoly of the Hanseatic League in Bergen. The German craftsmen were forced to comply with Norwegian law and were given the choice between swearing allegiance to the king or leaving. In 1559, 59 German craftsmen had to leave. In the 1560s, Bergen's center of power was gradually moved from Tyskebryggen to its current location, at Christoffer Valkendorf's former private residence at Rådstuplass, what is today called the old town hall .
The brewery today
The historic wooden buildings from 1702 received cladding in the 19th century. The preserved buildings at Bryggen today consist of the following rows of farms, counted from the south: South and north Holmedalsgård , Bellgården , Jacobsfjorden (Hjortegården), Svensgården (double farm), Enhjørningen , south and north Bredsgård and Bugården (Bergen) .
Svensgården's head with three faces
Above the entrance to Svensgården hangs a carved head with three faces in wood, a copy of an original in marble . Conservator Jan Hendrich Lexow has argued in the yearbook for Stavanger museum in 1957 that the original was a gift to King Håkon Håkonsson from the German-Roman Emperor Frederick II. Lexow believed that the head was made by a sculptor in southern Italy as a symbol of the triune God . Frederick II held court in Palermo . He and King Håkon exchanged gifts, and Lexow believed that the head may have been just such a gift from the period 1230-40. Furthermore, he assumed that the head was given a central place in Store Kristkirke, which was located north of Håkonshallen and was the coronation church. When Store Kristkirke was demolished on orders from Eske Bille in 1531, Lexow believed that the Hanseatic League took care of the head and used it as a mark for Svensgården, which at the time was being rebuilt after a fire. Such marking of the farms was important at a time when many could neither read nor write. The head at Svensgården has few parallels in European art, and the design of the nose, mouth and beard points, in Lexow's opinion, to antiquity , when the Christian image of God was still influenced by portraits of Zeus .
Preservation and destruction
Throughout history, Bergen has experienced many fires, since the building mass mostly consisted of wood. The building structure has nevertheless been preserved, despite many fires and subsequent reconstructions. Awareness of Bryggen's cultural-historical value was awakened already when the traditional business at Bryggen came to an end. In 1900, the wooden buildings on both sides of Vågen were largely intact.
Research and documentation
Johan Wilhelm Olsen (also known as Johan Wiberg Olsen; 1829-98), who had run Nordic trade in Finnegården, established the Hanseatic Museum as early as 1872, and reckons July 26 as the opening day when King Oscar II visited the town and the museum. His son Christian Koren Wiberg continued the work and sold the museum to Bergen municipality in 1916. In 1899 he published Det tische Kontor i Bergen , a description of the old Hanseatic buildings with a number of illustrations.
In 1908, Koren Wiberg received support from the municipality and the Ancient Heritage Association to carry out excavations in the plot below the newly constructed Rosenkrantzgaten. Findings from the excavation were reproduced, among other things, in Contribution to Bergen's Cultural History . The excavations uncovered the so-called wine cellar , which in the Middle Ages was also the town hall. Koren Wiberg had found documents (from 1651) in Lübeck showing the location of the wine cellar, which he was able to confirm during the excavation. This town plan with a town hall/wine cellar located between the market square and the church was typical of North German (Hanseatic) trading towns.
During the excavations in the southern part of the Bryggen, Christian Koren Wiberg found deep foundations of rough logs laid together. The lafting formed "vessels" over 2 meters high, and about 1 meter wide and 2 meters long. The vessels were assembled and lowered into the water between piles, and then filled with gravel and stone. The logs were made of pine and in good condition when Koren Wiberg made his excavations. The foundations could be dated to the fires in 1413 and 1476 or earlier. According to Koren Wiberg, the first sea houses at Vågen were low and made of coarse, lath timber. They had pointed gables and corridors around the entire building. According to Koren Wiberg, Bryggen's facade was already painted from the 16th century. From 1550 it became common to build stone cellars in Bergen, probably to store goods in a fire-proof place, according to Koren Wiberg. Hans Nagel's bakery, mentioned in 1441, Koren Wiberg located at the modern Øvregaten 17 , where a bakery was also run in Koren Wiberg's time.
Murbryggen
Until 1901, the entire area between Dreggsallmenningen in the north and Kjøttbazaren in the south was a continuous series of wooden trading houses that had been rebuilt after the town fire in 1702 . The commercial farms south of the Nikolaikirkeallmenningen were then demolished and replaced with brick apartment buildings in the same style, designed by Jens Zetlitz Monrad Kielland , with the exception of the southernmost Finnegården , a museum that also includes the old Schøtstuene which was rebuilt in 1937–38 with partially original and partially reconstructed parts, in the area south of St. Mary's Church .
Conservation
After the first act on building conservation was passed in 1920, the conservation list from Bergen was adopted in 1927. The conservation covered all the buildings on Bryggen, so that the overall cultural environment was safeguarded.
The explosion at Vågen
The explosion accident on 20 April 1944 accelerated the plans to demolish the Bryggen, and Terboven received the support of all professionals in Bergen municipality in his desire to raze the area to the ground. Seen through Terboven's eyes, the labyrinthine system of farms was ideal for hiding resistance fighters, such as the Theta group and their radio transmitter . Strong forces in the local population nevertheless succeeded in obtaining support, not least from Professor Hermann Phleps of the Technical College in Danzig ( Gdańsk ), who made a thorough inspection of the destroyed buildings, and concluded that the "German quarter" could be saved with simple means. The real rescue was the emergency product "Domus plates", which got soaked in the rain and easily broke. But they were still useful, as they temporarily covered 8,000 square meters of roof space. The demolished roofs were not the only problem. The explosion had also lifted Bryggen into the air, and let it fall back down onto the ground, so that a jack had to be used to get the houses more or less at an angle again. But the safeguarding had been carried out, not least to the delight of architect Halvor Vreim from the Riksantikvaren , who had already written off the Bryggen.
The fire of 1955
A major fire on 4 July 1955 destroyed the northern half of the remaining old wooden trading yards. The fire was the start of Asbjørn Herteig's excavations of the area. In the spring of 1962, the excavations entered their seventh season, made possible by the use of civilian workers in the summer. One year, spring came so late that the civil workers had to chip away 13 inches of ice to get started.
The facades of the burned-down part were rebuilt as copies in 1980 , and form part of the SAS hotel located in the area. The Bryggens Museum is also located on the fire site with remains from the oldest times uncovered by the archaeological excavations, which added enormous source material to the research.
Inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List
Bryggen in Bergen was listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979 according to cultural criterion III , which refers to a place that "bears a unique, or at least rare, testimony of a cultural tradition or of a living or extinct civilization". In this connection, UNESCO points out that Bryggen bears witness to social organization and illustrates how the Hanseatic merchants in the 14th century utilized the space in their part of the city, and that it is a type of northern fondaco (combined trading depot, housing and ghetto for foreign merchants) which cannot be found anywhere else in the world, where the buildings have remained part of the urban landscape and preserve the memory of one of the oldest trading posts in Northern Europe.
Ownership and management
Most of the buildings on Bryggen are privately owned. "Stiftelsen Bryggen" currently owns 36 of the 61 buildings that are part of the world heritage. "Stiftelsen Bryggen" and "Friends of Bryggen" were formed in 1962. The purpose of the foundation is to preserve Bryggen in consultation with antiquarian authorities. The foundation is engaged in both rental of premises and security, maintenance and restoration work. Stiftelsen Bryggen has its own staff of carpenters with special expertise in traditional crafts . "Bryggen private farm owners' association" is an association of several private owners who together own 24 buildings. Bergen municipality owns Finnegården , the building that houses the Hanseatic Museum. All the buildings in private ownership can be renovated with up to 90% funding through a grant scheme administered by Vestland county municipality (formerly Hordaland). The listed buildings at Bryggen are managed as cultural monuments by the cultural heritage section of Vestland county municipality. The archaeological cultural monuments in the medieval grounds are managed by the Swedish National Archives . All archaeological work is 100% publicly funded and the necessary excavations are carried out by NIKU .
Other buildings in the area
Bryggen's museum is built where there were wharf yards until the big fire on 4 July 1955.
The Hanseatic Museum is located on the Bryggen, by the Fisketorget, and tells the story of Bergen and the Hanseatic League.
The meat market is the city's bazaar for foodstuffs, built in 1874 – 76 in the neo-Romanesque style .
Mariakirken in Bergen dates from the 12th century, and between 1408 and 1766 was the church of the Hanseatic League. Services were held in German here until 1868.
The Schøtstuene were the assembly houses for the residents of the commercial farms, used for meals and as party halls, court and meeting rooms, rebuilt in 1937 – 38 .
Streets in the district
Bradbench (Bergen)
Castle Street (Bergen)
Bryggen (Street in Bergen)
Sandbrogaten (Bergen)
The hook (Bergen)
Dreggsallmenningen (Bergen)
Upper Dreggsallmenningen (Bergen)
Øvregaten (Bergen)
Rosenkrantzgaten (Bergen)
Nikolaikircheallmenningen (Bergen)
Lodin Lepps street
Finnegårdsgaten (Bergen)
Vetrlids general
Bergen is a city and municipality in Vestland and a former county (until 1972) on Norway's west coast, surrounded by " De syv fjell ", and referred to as " Westland's capital". According to tradition, Bergen was founded by Olav Kyrre in 1070 with the name Bjørgvin , which means "the green meadow between the mountains".
Bergen is a trading and maritime city, and was Norway's capital in the country's heyday, later referred to as the Norgesveldet . Bergen became the seat of the Gulatinget from the year 1300. From approx. In 1360, the Hanseatic League had one of its head offices in Bergen, a trading activity that continued at Bryggen until 1899. Bergen was the seat of Bergenhus county and later Bergen stiftamt . The city of Bergen became its own county (county) in 1831 and was incorporated into Hordaland county in 1972. Bergen was the largest city in the Nordic countries until the 17th century and Norway's largest city until the 1830s, and has since been Norway's second largest city .
Bergen municipality had 291,940 inhabitants on 31 December 2023. Bergen township had 259,958 inhabitants per 6 October 2020. This was an increase of 2,871 inhabitants since 2019. [4] In 2023, the metropolitan region of Bergen and surrounding areas had 414,863 inhabitants.
Bergen is a city of residence for a number of important actors and institutions in culture, finance, health, research and education. The city is the seat of Vestland County Municipality , Gulating County Council and Bjørgvin Bishopric . Of the national government agencies , the Directorate of Fisheries , the Institute of Marine Research , the Norwegian Competition Authority , the Ship Registers and the Norwegian Navy's main base are located in Bergen.
Bergen is the center for marine, maritime and petroleum-related research environments and business clusters that are among the most complete and advanced in the world. Bergen has a strong and versatile business community, especially in banking and insurance, construction, trade and services, high technology, mass media, the food industry, tourism and transport. Bergen has one of the Nordic countries' busiest airports and one of Europe's largest and busiest ports [5] , and is the starting point for Hurtigruten and the Bergen Railway .
Bryggen in Bergen is listed on UNESCO's World Heritage List and reminds of the city's historical connection to the Hanseatic League . Bergen's city coat of arms with a silver three-towered castle standing on seven gold mountains is based on the city's old seal , which is considered Norway's oldest. Bergen's city song is called "Views from Ulrikken" .
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions”
Rainer Maria Rilke
i still can't remember her face, because when i took a photo, she looked back just for a moment and then crossed the road. i wonder what she looked like. only thing i can remember is her hair and this bag. strangers are mystic maybe some people are better to be left as unsolved puzzles.
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One gallery in the Canadian Museum of Human Rights is a permanent exhibit of the "REDress Project".
The REDress Project was started by Winnipeg-based Métis artist Jaime Black 2010.
Red dresses blowing in the wind are a reminder of the estimated 1,200 missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada.
The project kicked off at the University of Toronto where more than 100 red dresses donated from across Canada hung in campus trees.
According to the Native Women’s Association of Canada, Indigenous women are almost three times more likely to be killed by a stranger than non-Indigenous women, and nearly half of the cases remain unsolved.
Permission to use photo
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09 Dec 2018
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Hi Ted,
I am writing from Orca Book Publishers, a children’s book publisher based in Victoria. We are publishing a book for teens called I Am A Feminist, which is meant to help educate and empower young readers about the history of feminism and why it is still so important. We are hoping to include a photo from your Flickr page of Project REDress in the chapter that discussed intersectional feminism and its importance to women of colour and Indigenous women in particular. The image we would like to use is here and I’ve also attached it for reference:
Could we have your permission to use the image? We would be happy to send you a copy of the book upon its publication in Spring 2019.
Many thanks in advance for your kind assistance. We are hoping to go to the printer with this project on December 14, so the request is somewhat time sensitive.
All the best wishes,
Teresa Bubela
Art director (freelance) for I Am A Feminist
Orca Book Publishers
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06 Aug 2019
The book “I Am A Feminist” arrived today.
Delightful book, thank you Monique Polak.
Sunset on Lake Michigan from the Blisswood Resort near Good Hart in northern Michigan. The resort was made famous for the unsolved mass murder of the Robison family in 1968.
I’m in Isabella Steward Gardener Museum, Boston MA.
Some might wonder why does the museum display an empty frame? The name at the bottom is Rembrandt.
On March 18, 1990 the Rembrandt was stolen along with 12 other works of art in
in the early morning hours of March 18, 1990. Guards admitted two men posing as police officers responding to a disturbance call, and the thieves tied the guards up and looted the museum over the next hour. The case is unsolved; no arrests have been made and no works have been recovered. The stolen works have been valued at close to 600 million dollars by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and art dealers. The museum is offering a $10 million reward for information leading to the art's recovery, the largest bounty ever offered by a private institution.
Experts were puzzled by the choice of artwork, since more valuable works were left untouched.
Honey had fallen for the attractive rogue, whose eyes were only on her jewels.
From a Storyline Fall 1949
Rip Kirby is a popular American comic strip featuring the adventures of the eponymous lead character, a private detective created by Alex Raymond in 1946. Displaying the talents of more than a dozen writers and illustrators, the strip had a long run, spanning five decades.
After World War II, Raymond did not return to work on any of his previous successful comic strips (Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim, Secret Agent X-9) but instead began work on a new strip in which ex-Marine Rip Kirby returns from WWII and goes to work as a private detective, sometimes accompanied by his girlfriend, fashion model Judith Lynne "Honey" Dorian. Her given name and nickname were borrowed from the names of Raymond's three daughters.
Rip Kirby was based on the suggestion by King Features editor Ward Greene that Raymond try a "detective-type" strip. First published on March 4, 1946, the strip was given a huge promotional boost, even including fully painted promotional art, a rarity in comic strip promotions.[1] The strip enjoyed enormous success, and Raymond received the Reuben Award in 1949.[2]
During Raymond's years on the strip, the stories were initially written by Ward Greene and later, following Greene's death, by Fred Dickenson. Some sequences were also written by Raymond.
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Characters and story
Comics historian Don Markstein noted how the character of Remington "Rip" Kirby broke away from the usual pulp detective archetype:
"Circulation rose steadily during the strip's first few years — even though Rip wasn't the kind of private detective they were used to from pulp fiction. This one did more cogitating than fisticuffing, and smoked a leisurely pipe while he did it. He had a frail, balding assistant, Desmond (a former burglar), instead of a two-fisted sidekick. Instead of carrying on with an endless series of female clients, he had a steady girlfriend, Honey Dorian. If that wasn't enough, he even wore glasses! Even Kerry Drake didn't depart so far from the standard. If Rip was more sophisticated and urbane than the average fictional private eye, that's okay, because he was very successful — both for himself and for the people who wrote, drew and distributed him."
In 1956, Raymond was killed in a car crash. King Features quickly needed a replacement and found it in John Prentice.
Dickenson continued to write the series until the mid-1980s when he was forced to retire for health reasons. Prentice then took over the writing along with others. Prentice kept the strip going until his own death in 1999. The strip ended with Rip's retirement on June 26, 1999. Prentice received the National Cartoonists Society Story Comic Strip Award for 1966, 1967 and 1986 for his work on the strip.
Over the years of publication, the strip was ghosted and assisted by many artists and writers, including Frank Bolle (who completed the last episode), Al Williamson, and Gray Morrow
Vintage postcard.
American actor Robert Stack (1919-2003) became a star as Deanne Durbin's young lover in Henry Koster's First love (1939). After the war, he had massive success with Douglas Sirk's drama Written on the Wind (1956) for which he was nominated for the Oscar. Internationally, he became famous as Elliot Ness in the TV series The Untouchables (1959-1963).
Robert Stack was born Charles Langford Modini Stack in Los Angeles, in 1919. His first name, selected by his mother, was changed to Robert by his father, a professional soldier Robert was the grandson of Marina Perrini, an opera singer at the Scala theatre in Milan. When little Robert was five, his father was transferred to the US embassy in France. Robert went to school in Paris and learnt French rather than his mother tongue. At 11, he returned to America, and at 13, he became a top athlete. His brother and he won the International Outboard Motor Championships, in Venice, Italy, and at age 16, he became a member of the All-American Skeet Team. He played polo, saxophone and clarinet at Southern California University. A broken wrist ended his career as a sports athlete. He took drama classes and made his stage debut at 20. He joined Universal Studios in 1939. In his first film, he starred as Deanne Durbin's young lover in First love (Henry Koster, 1939). He gave the teenage film star her first on-screen kiss. Around this "event," Universal producer Joe Pasternak provided a lot of publicity. Stack established himself as an actor and the following year he appeared as a young Nazi in The Mortal Storm (Frank Borzage, 1940) alongside Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart. Stack was reunited with Durbin in Pasternak's musical Nice Girl? (William A. Seiter, 1941). In 1942 he appeared as a Polish Air Force pilot in Ernst Lubitsch's comedy To Be or Not to Be (1942) starring Carole Lombard and Jack Benny. The plot concerns a troupe of actors in Nazi-occupied Warsaw who use their acting abilities to fool the occupying troops. The film has become recognised as a comedy classic. Stack played another pilot in Eagle Squadron (Arthur Lubin, 1942), a huge hit. Then Stack's career was interrupted by military service. He did duty as a gunnery instructor in the United States Navy during World War II.
After World War II, Robert Stack continued his career. He returned to the screen with roles in films such as Fighter Squadron (Raoul Walsh, 1948) with Edmond O'Brien and A Date with Judy (Richard Thorpe, 1948) with Elizabeth Taylor. In 1952 Stack starred in Bwana Devil (Arch Oboler, 1952), the first major film production in 3D. He played the second leading role alongside John Wayne in William A. Wellman's aviation drama It's Always Day (1954). Sam Fuller cast him in the lead of House of Bamboo (1955), shot in Japan. Stack enjoyed one of his greatest successes with Douglas Sirk's drama Written in the Wind (1956). He received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the alcoholic playboy Kyle Hadley. From the late 1950s Stack turned increasingly to television. Internationally, Robert became famous with his role in the television series The Untouchables in which he starred as the clean-cut Chicago police officer Eliot Ness during the Prohibition era. Around 120 episodes were made between 1959 and 1963. Other leading roles followed for Stack in the television series The Name of the Game (1968-1971), Most Wanted (1976) and Strike Force (1981). The multilingual Stack also took the lead role in the German-language film Die Hölle von Macao/The Hell of Macau (James Hill, 1966) alongside Elke Sommer, and he also appeared in French- or Italian-language productions. With advancing age, Stack also frequently took on deadpan comedy roles that lampooned his dramatic on-screen persona in films such as 1941 (Steven Spielberg, 1979), Airplane! (Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, 1980) or Caddyshack II (Allan Arkush, 1988). Between 1987 and 2002 he was the host of the television series Unsolved Mysteries, which was dedicated to mysterious murder cases. He worked as an actor until his death. In 1956 he married actress Rosemarie Bowe (1932-2019), to whom he was married until the end of his life. The couple had two children. Robert Stack died of pneumonia in 2003 in Beverly Hills at the age of 84 and was buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
Cladonia uncialis
Cetraria aculeata (Coelocaulon aculeatum)
"C. muricata is similar to C. aculeata but is more compact and has smaller and less abundant pseudocyphellae. Some of our material is intermediate between these two spp, but most is more similar to C. muricata than C. aculeata. Lower elevation collections are often c. aculeata while high-elevation collections are more likely to be C. muricata. Recent work on the population genetics of these species revealed unsolved problems in w N Am." - McCune, Bruce, and Geiser, Linda (2023) Macrolichens of the Pacific Northwest, Third Edition, Revised and Expanded
Fidalgo Island, WA
my photos arranged by subject, e.g. mountains - www.flickr.com/photos/29750062@N06/collections
my lichen photos by genus - www.flickr.com/photos/29750062@N06/collections/7215762439...
Best True Fact Detective magazine cover, January circa 1950
HOWELL DODD
The study below was derived from facts uncovered while doing research for the following Doctorial dissertation:
Light to the shadows of their mind:
Criminal tatics and strategies
Criminology Department Dept.
Chatwick University
**************************** Story ***************************
Mae, had been having quite a rewarding chat with a charmingly attired young lady, all of seventeen, whom Mae had caught scurrying unsupervised amongst the Mansions’ other guests, when she suddenly felt a shocking vibe.
At the same time the seventeen year old turned her head away, her long hair swirling to behind her back, as she gazed at a sobbing lady treaded past her. The forlorn figure woefully alighting on a small stone bench located along a back wall. Mae, for a second blinded as the diamond in the girls swaying pearl earring caught the light of a chandelier, turned her head to watch also.
Making a call in judgment, Mae then finished her conversation with the fidgety young thing, letting her go on to rejoin the party. As she watched the silken and lace clad youth swirled away, a curiously pained expression crossed Mae’s face. She had almost convinced the pretty young thing to….
Oh well ,Mae said to herself, Trust in instinct. She then turned, focusing her attention to the limp, sobbing form now seated on the bench.
Oozing with compassion, Mae walked over to the weeping young lady. Sitting on the bench next to her Mae placed a comforting arm around her and drew her close. She handed the girl her silky laced handkerchief, to dry her eyes with,” Here my dear, you don’t want to stain that pretty gown!” Mae said, while lovingly pulling back the sobbing girls wave of corn silk coloured hair. The young lady took it, gratefully accepting this unknown woman’s sympathy. Taking the handkerchief with a gloved hand she buried her eyes into it ,rings and a bracelet twinkling merrily , mutely ignorant of their mistress’s wretchedness. Mae meet the girls sad gaze with her kind gypsy like eyes, gaining the poor young things’ confidence. Slowly Mae calmed her down enough to begin extracting the girl’s source of woe between racking sobs.
It seemed that the ladies fiancé had been dancing too close with a female friend of hers, and she was afraid he was going to call off the wedding after he snapped at her for bringing the matter to his attention. Mae patted the girl matronly on the back, telling her to go to the powder room to freshen up while she had a word with him on her account. The girl cheered up a little, really she said, hugging Mae that would be wonderful, and she obediently swept off without any question, so strong was Mae’s persuasiveness.
Ten minutes later Mae joined the girl in the powder room, telling her that it had all been a misunderstanding, and he wanted to meet with her in private to patch things up. As Mae spoke she helped straighten the girls luxuriously long satin gown, you want to look good for him she explained, watching a smile enchantingly brighten up her pretty face.
Collecting the girls wrap, Mae accompanied her out the back door leading into an ancient garden. Along one side an alley edged the street that separated the garden from the surrounding, rundown neighborhoods. The alley passed an old greenhouse, and it was there that Mae pointed out to the girl, “your fiancé awaits”, and without hesitation, the young lady allowed Mae to start to escort her there.
It was then that Mae saw the cop across the street by a vacant lot heading their way, although he had yet to spot the pair of ladies. Mae turned towards the young lady and explained that the policeman over there was a friend of hers and she wanted a word with him, besides, she winked, you don’t need my company inside there with him, she nodded towards the greenhouse, the girl smiled fetchingly, pressed Mae’s hand in thanks, and headed off, her gown swishing, stiletto heels clicking, along the cobblestone path. For a moment, Mae stared as the young lady, the flowing satin gown whispering along her petite figure as she went to the greenhouse to meet with her lover, and entirely different sort of stare, and then crossed the street to intercept the copper.
Mae walked past the copper tossing his way the sorta glance that she knew would pique his natural distrust, making him follow to see what mischief was going on!
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As Mae happily led the harness bull away from the garden she marveled over her good fortune, wondering over how things had worked to her benefit:
How such a lavish affair had been planned on that side of town in an old mansion, turned club.
How easily she had been able to slip through the tight security and crash the upscale party.
How lucky she had been to spy the young lady deep in misery before anyone else.
How easy it had been to convince the guilt ridden fiancé on what steps to take to win back his ladies hand, starting with waiting an hour in the upstairs gentlemen’s smoke lounge.
How pretty the young lady had looked when seductively she headed down the path to the greenhouse, the luxuriously sleek gown fluidly flowing, while opulent jewels flickered fire with each step.
How noisy those stiletto heels of the young lady were on the path, giving a loud notice of her approach as she went to the green house.
How quickly the look of lust upon the girls face would change to horror when she entered the greenhouse and encounter, not her fiancé, but Mae’s two masked partners lying in wait to rob anyone unlucky enough to cross their path.
How wicked the smiles would be of Mae’s confederates as one held the slippery, squirming figure of the young lady, while the other groped her body, picking it clean of anything of value.
Mae looked back and smiled smugly at the copper hot on her heels. Someone is going to be in trouble for leaving his post she thought. Just a couple more blocks should give them enough time in the greenhouse, and then Mae would easily give this flatfoot the slip. Mae’s mind went deliciously back to what should now be happening to the luckless lady in the long glossy gown, and how much Mae’s cut of the take would amount to. It was too bad she would miss the boys at work; Mae did so enjoy watching a good mugging.
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It had been the boys who had first spotted the ladies in colorfully long shiny gowns. Those gowns fluidly rustling along shapely figures crossing the street leading to ornate front doors of the old Hampton East club Mansion. But it had been their “sparklers” the glittering jewelry the ladies all seemed to be temptingly showing off, that had made their mouths wolfishly drool.
But, what they had seen when stealing peeks through slits in a velvet curtained window, had made them run to find Mae. They then breathlessly babbled on about the halfcocked, half-baked scheme they had dreamed up. “Even the young’uns had jools” they had excitedly told Mae. She figured that most of it was probably paste, who wears anything of value on the eastside she thought to herself. But just a glimmer of a possibility began to take seed, as she maternally continued to listen to the excited pair.
Mae decided to humor the pair of excitable petty thieves, she owed them some favors anyway, and Mae hated leaving a debt unpaid. Besides, business had been slow lately; it seemed that no one well to do these days need their fortune read. So, for no rhythm or reason other than to see what all the chatter had been about, Mae crashed the upscale event. She slipped inside through the large matching oak doors, without even a second glance from the old man wearing a loose uniform “guarding” the entrance.
Mae was amazed, even she could not have predicted the amazing displays of wealth, so tantalizingly close, and yet seemingly so far out of reach. Even the dangling “jools” worn with careless abandon by the “Young’uns” appeared to be the real McCoy! Although she had thought they were talking about girls a little younger than the solely 16 through 20 year olds she observed among the multitude of guests.
Mae was also surprised that she had been able to get this far, and so was now just beginning to think of ways to profit from the situation. One idea was also the simplest, find a tipsy lady shimmering in jewels and offer to read her fortune, targeting selected jewel adorned areas to do her readings and hope opportunity knocks. Another thought was to just wait by an exit and hope an inquisitive type wanders out, then follow and force them to the shed. If it was one of the “youn’uns” Mae could than renter and convince her wealthy mother to go and collect her daughter that Mae had seen going into the shed with a , gasp, boy! This last one was not as far-fetched as it sounded, given the antics that a lot of the guests were performing under Mae’s watchful eyes…
All in all, Mae was glad she had positioned the boys to wait in the old greenhouse, promising it would be worth their while. Mainly Mae had wanted to keep them out of mischief, too avoid having them upset her apple cart, and it appeared to have been a canny move on her part.
Still with no real purpose yet, she had started to shadow a fetchingly gowned young lady of about seventeen who was timidly weaving in and out amongst the groups of happily chatting guests. What Mae mostly desired was a closer scrutiny of the prettily dressed young girls savory pearls and delectable rings, so enticingly slippery upon the sweat glistened figure. Suddenly Mae had an epiphany, realizing exactly what to say to the pretty little miss to satisfy those desires, and more. Eagerly, she caught up to the darting little darling, and literally grabbed the young things attention.
The young miss, nervously looked around, as she played with her necklace, holding it with slender ringed fingers, as she innocently listened to the captivating dark haired stranger. Overly pretty teenage girls were so naïve and easy to manipulate, Mae thought, as she began to weave her story around the young thing that had fallen into the gypsies grasp.
The plan that had developed Mae’s in mind concerning the girl, was in her opinion, brilliant : for girls like this always travelled about in packs. And it was a good bet that if she ventured out into the night she would not be alone. Mae began to envision two or three similarly attired young ladies walking in the moonlit garden. Shimmering as they approached the garden shed, like so many high heeled, well jeweled Gretel’s heading to the witches’ tempting cottage. And Mae had the perfect fairy tale to tell this pretty girl, one that would spin around her like sticky strands of web that Mae would use to pull her away out into the night.
Mae started by charismatically complimented the teenager on her fine dress of silk and lace , she pleasantly straitening it for a “better look”, greedy emotions rising as she looked over the young ladies jewels. As she did this performance, Mae subtly started guiding the unquestioningly obedient girl towards a rear exit. But the girl innocently let out a squeal and pulled Mae over to the “cute little stone bench” one of several that lines a back, potted palm lined , wall . Mae helped the squirming young thing to a seat. As Mae started then to work on the girl, she scanned the area to see if anyone was watching. Seeing no signs of intervention, Mae asked for and obediently received, in turn, each of the girl’s excitedly sweaty palms.
Deeper and deeper the seventeen year old fell under Mae’s spell, listening enraptured as Mae began to “read” the girls fortune using her quivering palms. Mae, never letting the girls eyes fall away from her almost hypnotic gaze, began to delicately tug at the pretty rings encircling the slender fingers of the palms as she gently caressed them.
As the girl was told her fortune, the pretty young miss was totally caught under the enchantment of Mae’s eyes and sing-song way of speaking. Mae could see that she had captured the girl’s imagination as she wove her fortune telling into a romantic saga that would hopefully peak with the girl sneaking out to the cold shed where the hoodlums were waiting. Then, with delight, Mae saw a special gleam in the girl’s eyes that she knew all too well. A look she had seen before in previous clients, one that told her they were no longer completely aware of what was going on around them. The look that usually had her try to make a little extra profit from the situation!
She now did so by ever so slightly tighten her grip on the palm she held. Than with baited breath Mae began to work the girl’s jeweled rings over the knuckles of her warm slender fingers, her practiced eye watching the girls face for any sign that she was catching on to what was happening. Mae thought to herself, this is just coming together perfectly. Mae smiled broadly as she had a habit of doing when one of her wicked schemes was coming to fruitation. The girl smiled impishly in response, totally misinterpreting what that smile stood for. Never in her wildest dreams would she have guessed what this nice lady: with the deep black eyes from which she could not pull away from, who was so pleasantly stroking her palms while telling her fortune so enjoyably, was smiling about! Nor did she have the slightest of inklings that her Grandmother’s pretty rings were starting to vanish!
And that’s when It happened!
The girl’s deep concentration was broken as she saw a woeful figure heading to a nearby stone bench. Mae felt vibes coursing electrically through her body, her adrenalin mounting! Watching the sobbing newcomer, curled up on the bench, her long shiny gown splayed out over her knees, pooling around her feet. Her hands cupped her face, hiding it beneath waves of long corn silk coloured hair.
Mae’s eyes darted back to the young girl who was now innocently looking at Mae, with pretty questioning violet coloured eyes. Mae quickly weighed the consequences. Keep her bird in hand, or let it fly away and take a chance on enveloping the newcomer under her spell. Once again she envisioned a gaggle of Gretel’s in the garden, but then, with a sobering realization, a couple of Hansel’s horned in on the group. That would never do the Gypsy reasoned. Mae made her decision.
“Off you go my pretty miss; I see a friend is looking me.” Mae told her dismissingly. The girl looked around, still confused, but she gave Mae a chirping “okay” Mae, a warm smile spreading across her face, lifted up the girls long pearl necklace, fingering it as the girl’s violet eyes traveled to watch it. “C'est la vie, my pretty one “Not today, anyway she finished, sighing to herself, the girl only looked confused. Mae let the necklace go, watching the pearls fall back onto the girls lace covered chest. Without thinking more of it, she scampered off out of sight, her long gown flowing out.
Mae’s eyes changed from sparkly to pained, then to dead serious as she scanned the area around the miserable wretch in the corner. Then, a putting a smile across her face, she turned her focus totally on solacing and prizing the unhappy soul.
As Mae had sat next to the rich girl, her long fingers soothingly stroked the young lady into submission Mae faked an interest in consoling her and pretending to be concerned about the wretches sob story. She had actually been looking her over, appraising the shimmering jewels that had adorned the weeping young lady. The necklace and earrings dripped with small, but real flashy diamonds. The same size as the ones glistening on the thin tiara that held up the rich girl’s luxuriantly long hair. While she sniffled into Mae’s conveniently produced hankie, the young lady’s gem encrusted rings, wide diamond bracelet, and the fine jeweled brooch that held up the front of the slick satin gown were also closely examined.
Mae looked at the girl now walking next to her, innocently unaware of the fact that she had been led out here for one reason only, oblivious to the fact that she now presented nothing more than to the seemingly sweet lady walking next to her than the value of the jewels she wore. Mae smiled to herself, knowing that in the greenhouse her two muggers would miss nothing, the young girls jewels, her mink stole, fat silken purse, even the gown would all fetch a sweet price when sold.
While contemplating all this Mae had stayed ahead of the nosey cop and now had reached her destination. She quickly turned down a foggy alley she knew all too well. Just before she disappeared from view she gave the unfortunate girl one last thought.
Contemplating on whether her luck would change and she would be found first by her errant fiancé once he finished with his cigars and brandy, , or if her bad luck would hold she would be found by someone like that scoundrel Renauld, who specialized in kidnapping and white slavery among other nefarious activities?
Renauld to whom Mae owed a huge favor! Mae figured that some foreign sheik would bid high to add a petite fair skinned blond to his harem back in his country. Mae smiled smugly, licking her lips, It had shaped up to be ,indeed, a very good evening.
Coming soon
What fate had in mind
Please list as a favorite and comment if interested in the final act
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addendum est
As fate would have it, it was neither.
The flatfoot who had been following Mae was the first one to find the unconscious young lady. He had snuck into the shed for a nip from his flask. He started a little as he saw the heap on the floor.
Quickly making sure he was alone, he bent down and promptly searched the silky slip clad figure for anything left of value. Finding nothing, he slipped off her long satin gloves, pocketing them before he checked her pulse and pulled out his whistle to signal for help. He stopped when he saw something shine in a corner by the door.
Picking up the object he thought to himself, “A few more minutes wouldn’t hurt the poor lass” as he pocketed the item and left the greenhouse. The cop headed quickly to a nearby bar which was the hangout of a man that the policeman knew would put the Lass’s hotel key, dropped by whoever had stripped her of her valuables ( and he did not doubt they had been plentiful), to good use.
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So, I was tagged to do two different "all about me" memes. I'm just gonna combine them to save room.
Thank you to sammistarlight, ipleadsdafif and jnhotboy for tagging me!
TAGGED!
Name: Cori
Residence: CA
Occupation: Bookkeeper / Tax Preparer
Likes: Dolls (duh), 80's music, Brit-Coms, frogs, peanut butter, guacamole, the color orange
Dislikes: Bad drivers, assholes, mushrooms, blimps
Hobbies: My art
Things I'm not good at: Singing and dancing...but it doesn't stop me from trying
Places I have visited: I've been all over Europe and into Russia
All time faves: Judging by other answers I guess this is supposed to be TV and movies? Unsolved Mysteries and Back to the Future
Treatment for my stress: naps
Thrills: Concerts & the morning commute
Depressed: way too many naps
Top 5 Dolls I Want NOW:
1. Venus McFlytrap
2. Robecca Steam
3. La Dee Da "Runway Vacay" Sloane
4. Disney 11" Merida
5. Pullip Regen Noir (I don't particularly like the regens, but I want another Noir so this works)
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20 THINGS ABOUT ME
1. Here's the million-dollar question: Why on earth do I have photos of Tania Coleridge, Cher, Paula Prentiss and Ally Sheedy up above? These are the celebrities (so I'm told) that I most resemble. I don't necessarily agree.
2. I'm a Taurus born in the Year of The Dragon
3. In 2nd grade I broke a girl's arm for stealing one of my My Little Ponies (it was Medley if I recall)
4. In my spare time I search missing/unidentified person sites hoping to identify John/Jane Does.
5. My pinky toe-nails are "dead" and haven't grown in over 20 years
6. I love my Mini Cooper but if I could have any car in the world it would be a Morris Minor
7. I'm 5'11" and love to wear heels
8. My 1st two boyfriends ended up announcing they were really gay (haha fooled me!)
9. I hung out with the stoners in High School...and I was in all AP classes (except History, boo)...and my best friend was class valedictorian.
10. I didn't really play with dolls when I was little. I had some Barbies but much preferred playing with my stuffed animals and MLPs.
11. Speaking of stuffed animals, of the 100s I have owned in my lifetime only 5 are girls...I much prefer the company of boys I guess.
12. I'm FINALLY going to see Duran Duran in concert, almost 30 years since I scrounged together enough of my allowance to buy the "Seven and the Ragged Tiger" LP
13. Here's a big long list of the artists I've seen in concert: Aerosmith, Alice In Chains, Blink-182, Blur, Coldplay (X 2), Elvis Costello, The Cure, Dance Hall Crashers, Depeche Mode, Devo, Echo & The Bunnymen, Erasure, Guns N Roses, GWAR, Madness (X 2), Metallica, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Police (X 2), Poison, The Ramones, Rancid, Social Distortion, Soundgarden, The Spice Girls, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Gwen Stefani, Steve Miller Band, Sting, Stone Temple Pilots, Third Eye Blind, and Warrant
14. Here's some artists I'd like to see in concert: B-52s, Blondie, David Bowie, Garbage, New Order, No Doubt, Oingo Boingo, The Smiths, Squeeze, Talking Heads, U2
15. Here's some bands I would have LOVED to see in concert, but can't because someone done gone and died: The Beatles, The Clash, The Doors, INXS, Men At Work, Nirvana, Queen
16. Ummm, I'm finding it hard to come up with 20 things about myself. I'm kinda boring, lol!
17. I have a bad habit of overusing/misusing parentheses and ellipsis in my writing...(see what I mean)
18. I have been with my boyfriend for almost 12 years now...yikes!
19. I generally flip-off people the Italian way (i.e. flicking my fingers underneath my chin)
20. My favorite doll is my Pullip Principessa named Claudia. Just don't tell the other dolls, ok?
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
Due to increasing tensions in Europe which led to World War 2, AVRO Aircraft started developing combat aircraft, and as a subsidiary of Hawker, they had access to the Hurricane plans. At the time that the Hurricane was developed, RAF Fighter Command consisted of just 13 squadrons, each equipped with either the Hawker Fury, Hawker Demon, or the Bristol Bulldog – all of them biplanes with fixed-pitch wooden propellers and non-retractable undercarriages. After the Hurricane's first flight, Avro started working on a more refined and lighter aircraft, resulting in a similar if not higher top speed and improved maneuverability.
The result was Avro’s project 675, also known as the "Swallow". The aircraft was a very modern and lightweight all-metal construction, its profile resembled the Hawker Hurricane but its overall dimensions were smaller, the Swallow appeared more squatted and streamlined, almost like a race version. The wings were much thinner, too, and their shape reminded of the Supermarine Spitfire’s famous oval wings. Unlike the Spitfire, though, the Swallow’s main landing gear had a wide track and retracted inwards. The tail wheel was semi-retractable on the prototype, but it was replaced by a simpler, fixed tail wheel on production models.
The Swallow made its first flight on 30th December 1937 and the Royal Air Force was so impressed by its performance against the Hurricane that they ordered production to start immediately, after a few minor tweaks to certain parts of the aircraft had been made.
On 25 July 1939, the RAF accepted their first delivery of Avro Swallow Mk. Is. The first machines were allocated to No.1 Squadron, at the time based in France, where they were used in parallel to the Hurricanes for evaluation. These early machines were powered by a 1.030 hp (770 kW) Rolls-Royce Merlin Mk II liquid-cooled V-12, driving a wooden two-bladed, fixed-pitch propeller. The light aircraft achieved an impressive top speed of 347 mph (301 kn, 558 km/h) in level flight – the bigger and heavier Hurricane achieved only 314 mph (506 km/h) with a similar engine. Like the Hurricane, the Swallow was armed with eight unsynchronized 0.303 in (7.7 mm) Browning machine guns in the outer wings, outside of the propeller disc.
In spring 1940, Avro upgraded the serial production Swallow Mk.I's to Mk.IA standard: the original wooden propeller was replaced by a de Havilland or Rotol constant speed metal propeller with three blades, which considerably improved performance. Many aircraft were retrofitted with this update in the field workshops in the summer of 1940.
In parallel, production switched to the Swallow Mk. II: This new version, which reached the frontline units in July 1940, received an uprated engine, the improved Rolls-Royce Merlin III, which could deliver up to 1,310 hp (977 kW) with 100 octane fuel and +12 psi boost. With the standard 87 Octane fuel, engine performance did not improve much beyond the Merlin II's figures, though. A redesigned, more streamlined radiator bath was mounted, too, and altogether these measures boosted the Swallow’s top speed to 371 mph (597 km/h) at 20,000 ft (6,096 m). This was a considerable improvement; as a benchmark, the contemporary Hurricane II achieved only 340 mph (547 km/h).
However, several fundamental weak points of the Swallow remained unsolved: its limited range could not be boosted beyond 300 miles (500 km) and the light machine gun armament remained unchanged, because the Swallow’s thin wings hardly offered more space for heavier weapons or useful external stores like drop tanks. Despite these shortcomings, the pilots loved their agile fighter, who described the Swallow as an updated Hawker Fury biplane fighter and less as a direct competitor to the Hurricane.
Being a very agile aircraft, the Swallow Mk. II became the basis for a photo reconnaissance version, too, the PR Mk. II. This was not a true production variant of the Swallow, though, but rather the result of field modifications in the MTO where fast recce aircraft were direly needed. The RAF Service Depot at Heliopolis in Egypt had already converted several Hurricanes Is for photo reconnaissance duties in January 1941, and a similar equipment update was developed for the nimble Swallow, too, despite its limited range.
The first five Swallow Mk. IIs were modified in March 1941 and the machines were outfitted with a pair of F24 cameras with 8-inch focal length lenses in the lower rear fuselage, outwardly recognizable through a shallow ventral fairing behind the cooler. Some PR Mk. IIs (but not all of them) were also outfitted with dust filters, esp. those machines that were slated to operate in Palestine and Northern Africa. For night operations some PR Mk. IIs also received flame dampers (which markedly reduced the engine’s performance and were quickly removed again) or simpler glare shields above the exhaust stacks.
The machines quickly proved their worth in both day and night reconnaissance missions in the Eastern Mediterranean theatre of operations, and more field conversions followed. Alternative camera arrangements were developed, too, including one vertical and two oblique F24s with 14-inch focal length lenses. More Swallow Mk. IIs were converted in this manner in Malta during April (six) and in Egypt in October 1941 (four). A final batch, thought to be of 12 aircraft, was converted in late 1941.
Even though the Swallow PR Mk. IIs were initially left armed with the wing-mounted light machine guns, many aircraft lost their guns partly or even fully to lighten them further. Most had their wing tips clipped for better maneuverability at low altitudes, a feature of the Swallow Mk. III fighter that had been introduced in August 1941. Some machines furthermore received light makeshift underwing shackles for photoflash bombs, enabling night photography. These were not standardized, though, a typical field workshop donor were the light bomb shackles from the Westland Lysander army co-operation and liaison aircraft, which the Swallow PR Mk. IIs partly replaced. These allowed a total of four 20 lb (9.1 kg) bombs or flash bombs for night photography to be carried and released individually through retrofitted manual cable pulls. The mechanisms were simply mounted into the former machine gun bays and the pilot could release the flash bombs sequentially through the former gun trigger.
For duties closer to the front lines a small number of Swallow PR Mk. IIs were further converted to Tactical Reconnaissance (Tac R) aircraft. An additional radio was fitted for liaison with ground forces who were better placed to direct the aircraft, and the number of cameras was reduced to compensate for the gain of weight.
However, by 1942, the Swallow had already reached its limited development potential and became quickly outdated in almost any aspect. Since the Supermarine Spitfire had in the meantime been successfully introduced and promised a much bigger development potential, production of the Avro Swallow already ceased in late 1942 after 435 aircraft had been built. Around the same time, the Swallows were quickly phased out from front-line service, too. Several machines were retained as trainers, messenger aircraft or instructional airframes. 20 late production Mk. IIs were sold to the Irish Air Corps, and a further 50 aircraft were sent to Canada as advanced fighter trainers, where they served until the end of the hostilities in 1945.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 28 ft 1 in (8.57 m)
Wingspan: 33 ft 7 in (10.25 m)
Height: 8 ft 6 in (2.60 m)
Wing area: 153 ft² (16.40 m²)
Empty weight: 3,722 lb (1,720 kg)
Gross weight: 5,100 lb (2,315 kg)
Powerplant:
1× Rolls-Royce Merlin III liquid-cooled V-12, rated at 1,310 hp (977 kW) at 9,000 ft (2,700 m)
Performance:
Maximum speed: 381 mph (614 km/h) at 20,000 ft (6,096 m)
Range: 360 miles (580 km)
Service ceiling: 36,000 ft (10,970 m)
Rate of climb: 2,780 ft/min (14.1 m/s)
Wing loading: 29.8 lb/ft² (121.9 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.15 hp/lb (0.25 kW/kg)
Armament:
No internal guns
2x underwing hardpoints for a pair of 19-pound (8.6 kg) photoflash bombs each
The kit and its assembly:
This is the third incarnation of a whif that I have built some time ago for a Battle of Britain Group Build at whatifmodellers.com. This fictional machine – or better: its model – is based on a profile drawing conceived by fellow forum member nighthunter: an Avia B.135, outfitted with a Merlin engine, a ventral radiator in the style of a Hawker Hurricane, and with RAF markings. It was IIRC a nameless design, so that I created my own for it: the Avro 675 Swallow, inspired by the bird's slender wing and body that somehow resonates in the clean B.35 lines (at least for me).
I’ve already built two of these fictional aircraft as early WWII RAF fighters, but there was still potential in the basic concept – primarily as a canvas for the unusual livery (see below). The basis became, once again, the vintage KP Models B.35 fighter with a fixed landing gear. It’s a sleek and pretty aircraft, but the kit’s quality is rather so-so (the molds date back to 1974). Details are quite good, though, especially on the exterior, you get a mix of engraved and raised surface details. But the kit’s fit is mediocre at best, there is lots of flash and the interior is quite bleak. But, with some effort, things can be mended.
Many donation parts for the Swallow, beyond the Merlin engine, propeller and (underwing) radiator, and pitot, were taken in this case from a Revell 1:72 Spitfire Mk. V. Inside of the cockpit I used more Spitfire donor material, namely the floor, dashboard, seat and rear bulkhead/headrest with a radio set. The blurry, single-piece canopy was cut into three pieces for optional open display on the ground, but this was not a smart move since the material turned out to be very thin and, even worse, brittle – cracks were the unfortunate result.
New landing gear wells had to be carved out of the massive lower wing halves. Since the original drawn Swallow profile did not indicate the intended landing gear design, I went for an inward-retracting solution, using parts from the Spitfire and just mounted them these “the other way around”. Due to the oil cooler in one of the wing roots, though, the stance ended up a little wide, but it’s acceptable and I stuck to this solution as I already used it on former Swallow builds, too. But now I know why the real-world B.135 prototype had its landing gear retract outwards – it makes more sense from an engineering point of view.
The Merlin fitted very well onto the B.35 fuselage, diameter and shape are a very good match, even though there’s a small gap to bridge – but that’s nothing that could not be mended with a bit of 2C putty and PSR. A styrene tube inside of the donor engine holds a styrene pipe for a long metal axis with the propeller, so that it can spin freely. The large chin fairing for a dust filter is a transplant from an AZ Models Spitfire, it helps hide the ventral engine/fuselage intersection and adds another small twist to this fictional aircraft. From the same source came the exhaust stacks, Revell’s OOB parts are less detailed and featured sinkholes, even though the latter would later hardly be recognizable.
With the dust filter the Swallow now looks really ugly in a side view, it has something P-40E-ish about it, and the additional bulge behind the radiator for the cameras (certainly not the best place, but the PR Hurricanes had a similar arrangement) does not make the profile any better!
Further small mods include anti-glare panels above and behind the exhaust stacks (simple 0.5 mm styrene sheet), and the small underwing flash bombs were scratched from styrene profile material.
Painting and markings:
The livery was the true motivation to build this model, as a canvas to try it out: Long ago I came across a very interesting Hawker Hurricane camouflage in a dedicated book about this type, a simple all-over scheme in black blue, also known as “Bosun Blue”, together with very limited and toned-down markings. As far as I could find out this livery was used in the Middle East and later in India, too, for nighttime photo reconnaissance missions.
However, defining this color turned out to be very difficult, as I could not find any color picture of such an aircraft. I guess that it was not a defined color, but rather an individual field mix with whatever was at hand – probably roundel blue and black? Therefore, I mixed the obscure Bosun Blue myself, even though this took some sorting out and experiments. I initially considered pure Humbrol 104 (Oxford Blue) but found it to have a rather reddish hue. FS 35042 (USN Sea Blue) was rejected, too, because it was too greenish, even with some black added. I eventually settled on a mix of Humbrol 15 (Midnight Blue) and 33 (Flat Black), which appeared as a good compromise and also as a very dark variant of a cyan-heavy blue tone.
The cockpit interior and the inside of the landing gear wells were painted with RAF cockpit green (Humbrol 78), while the landing gear struts became aluminum (Humbrol 56) – pretty standard.
The decals/markings were puzzled together from various sources. Using a real-world RAF 208 Squadron MTO night photography Hurricane as benchmark I gave the aircraft a light blue individual code letter (decals taken from the Revell Spitfire Mk. V's OOB sheet, which has the letters’ Sky tone totally misprinted!). The spinner was painted in the same tone, mixed individually to match the letter.
Markings were apparently generally very limited on these machines, e. g. they did not carry any unit letter code) and the Type B roundels only on fuselage and upper wings. The latter were improvised, with wacky Type B-esque roundels from a Falkland era Sea Harrier placed on top of RAF roundels with yellow edges. The sources I consulted were uncertain whether these rings were yellow, white, or maybe even some other light color, but I went for yellow as it was the RAF's markings standard. Looks odd, but also pretty cool, esp. with the Type B roundels’ slightly off proportions.
The subdued two-color fin flash on the dark aircraft was/is unusual, too, and following real world practice on some PR Hurricanes I added a thin white edge for better contrast. The small black serial on a white background, as if it was left over from an overpainted former fuselage band, came from a Latvian Sopwith Camel (PrintScale sheet); in RAF service N8187 would have been used during the pre-WWII period and therefore a plausible match for the Swallow, even though it belongs to a batch of RN aircraft (It would probably have been a Fairey Fulmar)..
No black ink washing was applied to the model due to its dark overall color, just the cockpit and the landing gear were treated this way. Some light weathering and panel shading was done all over, and soot stains as well as light grey “heat-bleached” areas due to lean combustion around the exhausts were painted onto the fuselage. Finally, everything was sealed under a coat of matt acrylic varnish (Italeri) and wire antennae (stretched sprue material) were added.
A simple project, realized in a couple of days – thanks to the experience gathered during former builds of this fictional aircraft. However, the Avro Swallow looked already promising in nighthunter's original profile, almost like a missing link between the sturdy Hurricane and the more glorious Spitfire. The result looks very convincing, and the all-blue livery suits the aircraft well! . At first glance, the Swallow looks like an early Spitfire, but then you notice the different wings, the low canopy and the shorter but deeper tail. You might also think that it was a travestied Yak-3 or LaGG aircraft, but again the details don’t match, it’s a quite subtle creation.
I am amazed how good this thing looks overall, with its elegant, slender wings and the sleek fuselage lines – even though the dust filter and the camera fairing strongly ruin the side profile. Maybe another one will join my RAF Swallow collection someday, this time in Irish Air Corps colors.
Or rather, Clem wrote it and I helped 😅 It's a story that was inspired by Josie and their little friends. This is what it says officially on the back cover:
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When young Josie Harwood is forced to stay at Miss Gordy’s gloomy old house down the road, she’s prepared for the worst – a dreary waste of the holidays with a creepy old lady. But she soon finds out that Bramstone Hall harbours things far more unpleasant than Miss Gordy.
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An encounter with a creature emerging from the walls is a clear sign that something is terribly wrong at the Hall and the unsolved mystery of the children who went missing over a century ago is far from dead. As Josie finds herself increasingly drawn into their lost world, she must find the courage and determination to lift the children’s curse or doom them all to a fate worse than death.
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Haunting and surreal, The Lost Children of Gloam's End weaves together evocative original art and antique photographs in a magical tale of loss, love and redemption.
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So yes, there's actual words and pictures in there -- 280-some pages' worth. It's available in two versions -- black-and-white and full colour -- and you can find them on my website (www.umamibabydolls.com/shop) and on Amazon.
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If you do order from my website you'll get a signed copy (if you want) and some bookmark-postcard goodies 😄 Thank you so much for having a look and helping an artist out 💗
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#umamibaby #blythe #customblythe #dollphotography #toyphotography #blythelover #toyartistry #bookart #bookflatlay #bookishflatlay #justread #booksaremagic #readingcommunity #bookishlife #timetoread #booktok #bookstagram #kidbooks #bookloversofinstagram #readersofinstagram #kidsbookstagram #booknerdigan #bookstagram #sgart #miniatures #diorama #instadoll #ooakdoll #handmadetoy
I am proud to announce my very first solo art gallery showing. This will focus on some of my abandoned places photographs.
Info on the opening night: reception that happens this Friday night, 6PM - 8PM, at the Salem Art Gallery in Salem, MA. The Salem Art Gallery is located the Milton Room in The Stanic Temple.
This event is free and open to the public! Join us for the opening reception of the new exhibit at 6pm Friday 4/21/23.
FINDING BEAUTY IN THE DISSONANCE
Frank C. Grace finds beauty in an unsolved mystery; searching in the weird and creepy, in the local legends, and in historic locations that tell their own distinct story. 'Finding Beauty in the Dissonance' offers to reveal the hidden spectacle where others might not expect to find it - in utterly dilapidated buildings and all things left behind. No matter what Grace photographs, he aims for the final image to tell a story. To attempt to take one look deeper at a scene and wonder: What happened here? Why was it all just left behind?
Who used to live here?
"All these abandoned places have an impact on me when I am there with my camera. take a look around and soak it all in. These places have a story to tell so I intently listen with all my senses. The light, atmosphere, smell, colors and sounds, etc. I use a variety of different digital editing to convey what I felt while at these places. My aim is to uncover details and clues that are revealed in each scene so that the viewer gets transported."
'Finding Beauty in the Dissonance' pieces range from places where the story may be obvious, such as Chernobyl, to the not so obvious abandoned hotels, churches, and reportedly historically haunted spots. It aims to savor the beauty in the dissonance through Grace's lens - a unique perspective put forward of the places humans left behind. Juxtaposing decay and growth, in which nature's reclamations are left visible between cracked concrete and broken walls, with wide angles and tessellations of the seemingly mundane.
Tim sulked in the darkness of Stephanie Brown’s old apartment, standing amongst various boxes strewn about haphazardly. With the death of her parents and her sudden disappearance, her grandparents sold the property nearly a month back. However, no one had purchased it yet, and as a result much of the Brown’s property was sitting in various containers and boxes around the abandoned living space. Since seeing Stephanie after lunch with his father, Tim’s life had become completely consumed with finding her. There was something that did not strike him particularly well about seeing her in the hotel, stemming from the fact that she disappeared once he had gotten close. Unconsciously ruling out that she could be a hallucination brought on by his long nights with little sleep, Tim was certain she was watching him. For some reason, she was unable to speak to him directly, but she kept a close eye on him. This theory at least comforted Tim enough to take at least an hour a day to sleep, however he would not be able to rest properly once more until he figured out exactly where Stephanie had gone and why she showed up mysteriously days previous. Turning over a broken crate, Tim found bundles of letters stacked from bottom to top. He began reading the names on them to himself both quickly and quietly,
“Riley…Thomas…Anthony…William…Rose…” As he reached the bottom of the stack, he sighed, thinking that he might have to go through every letter for information before he saw a single envelope sticking out from underneath the overturned crate next to it. Picking the letter up, he realized that it was the only one that had been opened and emptied. Reading the name aloud to himself, he whispered, “…Harper Row…” The name sounded familiar, but it took a moment for Tim to process that Row had been the last name of Film Freak’s accomplice. Immediately thinking the worst, Tim assumed that Stephanie had fallen into a life of crime following her parents death, causing him to crumple the letter just as Alfred’s voice sounded through his earpiece,
“Good evening Master Tim, I have Batman on the other line, he’s requested I patch you through to him.”
“Put me through,” Tim said as he attempted to summon a happier tone while saying, “Robin reporting in.” The gruff voice of the Caped Crusader immediately replied,
“Tim, I’ve engaged the mercenaries.”
“Oh? How’s that treatin’ ya?” Tim asked sarcastically as his heart began to race. This could be it, for the first time in a long time he and Bruce were finally about to take to the skies together again.
“Confusing. These men are meant to be some of the fiercest warriors known to man, but they had one look at me and scampered.” Snickering to himself in the empty apartment, Tim answered,
“Ermmm, I’m not sure confusing is properly answering my question. As regards to why they’re running…maybe you’re finally at the stage where even people that haven’t met you are terrified of you. Don’t tell me it’s not what you’ve always wanted.” Unwavering as usual, Batman answered,
“Focus. They’ve split up and I’m in pursuit of the leader now.”
“Good to know.” Tim held his right hand in an excited fist and grit his teeth as Bruce finally said,
“I’m going to need your help to interrogate him.” Containing his excitement, Tim nodded to no one while thinking back to his training. One specific exercise came to mind to fit the situation best, so he asked if they would use,
“The headless nun scenario?”
“More or less.” Checking to make sure his staff was on his person as well as a sufficient number of batarangs, Tim affirmed that,
“I’m on my way.”
“Good. Lock onto my signal and rendezvous with me as soon as you can.” Heading for the second floor window closest to him, Tim climbed out while activating the GPS system on his wrist device.
“Roger, I’m tracking you now. Shouldn’t be long.”
“Thanks Tim.” There was silence as Tim leapt to the next building, running across the rooftop while retrieving his grappling gun. Then, he heard Bruce say something he was not expecting,
“I’m sorry I’ve had to interfere in your case.” Tim was in the midst of leaping from one building to the next, and nearly lost his concentration enough to fall down to the street below if not for shooting his grappling gun into a gargoyle above seconds before.
“Ah…it’s fine. This lead is pretty much a dead end just like all the rest.” Tim lied, as he intended to track down Harper Row himself to figure out her connection to Stephanie.
“Sorry to hear that. I know she means a lot to you.” Having just begun to associate his biological father as a father figure once more, Tim was surprised to see just how much the stoic man he had looked up to for so long understood him.
“How do you know I mean Steph? I didn’t tell Alfred which case I was investigating a new lead for.”
“I know you Tim, and I know this is the one case you refuse to let go unsolved.” In reality, Tim could remember all of the unsolved cases in even the years before he had been Robin, however Bruce was right in his assumption that this was a case he would never let go.
“Yeah. I hoped that I’d find something at her old house…but nothing.” The name Harper Row bounced across every inch of his brain as he attempted to think if he knew anything else about her while saying this, as if he became entirely lost he assured himself he would bring Bruce on board. However, now was not the time, with the Crimson Knight attempting to lay waste to Gotham, Bruce had bigger priorities.
“You’ll figure it out Tim, of that I’m certain.” Tim smirked a somewhat reassured smirk as he checked his wrist device in between grappling gun usage,
“Thanks Bruce. Alright I’m about three minutes out from your current position. Shouldn’t be too long.”
“Roger Robin, see you shortly.” Thinking of a way to quickly lighten the mood, Tim asked,
“Can I just ask one question though?”
“Of course.” Tim did his best imitation of the gravelly voice Bruce sometimes adapted as he said,
“Can I be the bad cop for a change?” Waiting for a laugh on the other end, he was met with a short period of silence before Bruce answered,
“You already know the answer to that.” Tim faked a whine as a response,
“Come on! How am I ever going to develop my bad cop skills if you keep hogging the role?”
“Just get here.” Bruce demanded this, pushing Tim to say,
“Yes sir!” Their communications channel cut out just as he finished speaking, and also as he landed on top of a building less than two minutes from Bruce’s location. Elation replacing the concern he had felt earlier, Tim hummed to himself as he pressed on for the last stretch towards the Iceberg Lounge,
“Nanananananananananananana Batman…Robin…Nananananananananananananananana kickin’ butt…kicin’ butt…”