About Raymond, Washington:

 

"Raymond — Thumbnail History"

 

By Jennifer Ott

 

Posted 9/28/2010

 

HistoryLink.org Essay 9590

========================

 

The blanket of old growth forest that covered the Willapa Hills surrounding Raymond, on the Willapa River in Pacific County, fueled the town's growth from a handful of farms to a mill town bustling with trains filled with freshly cut logs, mills running 24 hours a day, and ships laden with lumber bound for the East Coast, South American, San Francisco, and Hawaii in less than a decade after its founding in 1903.

 

When a combination of overharvesting, environmental laws, and changes in the global market severely reduced logging and milling in the 1980s and 1990s, Raymond residents looked to new, more sustainable ways to utilize the surrounding hills, rivers, and bay to create jobs and sustain their community.

 

First Peoples

 

The Willapa River, with headwaters in the Willapa Hills, winds through the Willapa Valley until it is reaches the sea at Willapa Bay.

 

A few miles upstream from the river's mouth, the South Fork of the Willapa joins the main river. Sloughs thread through the lowland forming what is called the Island, though it is not technically completely encircled by water.

 

Prior to contact with Europeans, three tribes lived around the Willapa's mouth, the Shoalwater (or Willapa) Chinook, the Lower Chehalis, and, seasonally, the Kwalhiloqua.

 

Epidemic diseases brought by European and white American traders wreaked havoc in the Indian communities because they lacked immunities to the diseases. A malaria epidemic in the 1830s, probably brought to the area by sailors who had been in the tropics, decimated tribes in the lower Columbia River region.

 

After the epidemic, the Kwalhioqua all but disappeared, and the few remaining individuals joined the Willapa Chinook and Lower Chehalis. The northern part of Willapa Bay and the Willapa River formed a boundary between the Chinooks to the south and the Lower Chehalis to the north. The two groups intermarried and traded often.

 

These are the people who oystermen met when they came to Willapa Bay in the 1850s to harvest shellfish for the San Francisco market. The Indians worked with the oystermen in harvesting the shellfish.

 

Loggers, Farmers, and Indians

 

It was not long before the area's forests attracted loggers and sawmill operators. Brothers John (b. ca. 1830) and Valentine Riddell (b. ca. 1817) established a mill at what would become South Bend in 1869. Others followed, included John Adams' mill on the north side of the junction of the Willapa River with the South Fork.

 

Several farmers staked claims in the vicinity of the junction. The community, known as Riverside, had a school in 1875 and a post office.

 

The Indians in the area continued to work with oystermen, and in the more recently established salmon canneries and saw mills. They also continued to visit their traditional gathering places for berries and other plant materials.

 

The tribes had not yet formally agreed to allow the white Americans to live on their land, so, in February 1855, Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens (1818-1862) met with the Quinault, Queets, Lower Chehalis, Upper Chehalis, Shoalwater Bay, Chinook, and Cowlitz tribes at the Chehalis River Treaty Council (at the location of Cosmopolis today). The tribes did not object to ceding their lands, but once they heard the terms of the treaty they rejected the provision that required them to move to a shared reservation away from their traditional lands with the location of the reservation to be determined later. The tribes refused to accept those conditions and Stevens left without an agreement.

 

The absence of a treaty did not prevent white settlers from claiming lands along the Willapa River, thereby leaving less and less room for the Indians to live.

 

On September 22, 1866 President Andrew Johnson (1808-1875) established the Shoalwater Bay Tribes Reservation by reserving 335 acres near Tokeland for the Lower Chehalis and Willapa Chinook who lived along Willapa Bay. The reservation is and has been used by a number of the tribes' members, but many also live in the surrounding communities (and elsewhere).

 

Raymond is Formed

 

In 1889 the promise of a Northern Pacific Railway terminus in South Bend, just downstream from the river junction, led to a land boom. Lots in South Bend and along the river in both directions sold for incredible profits until 1893 when a national financial panic led to a bust in South Bend. South Bend had the county seat and retained the railroad and some operating mills, but a grant of land to the Northern Pacific on the waterfront tied up many of its choicest industrial sites.

 

Upriver, at the river junction, a group of residents, some with Homestead Act claims and others who had bought land at low prices following the bust in South Bend, formed the Raymond Land and Development Company in 1903.

 

Incorporators of the land company included Leslie (1874-1961) (often referred to as L. V.) and Stella (1875-1960) Raymond, who had a farm on the Island. Stella had inherited the land from her father, Captain George Johnson (1823-1882), who had established a Homestead Act Claim for almost 179 acres. Presumably Johnson or the Raymonds purchased part of their holdings, because they brought 310 acres to the partnership.

 

L. V. and Stella, who married in 1897, moved to the farm in 1899 and Raymond became the name of the town that grew up on and around their land. L. V. served as the town's first postmaster, first Northern Pacific Railway agent, and developed a water system for the town.

 

The Raymonds donated land and their time to community projects, such as a playfield and the fire department. A bequest from the Raymonds established the Raymond Foundation in 1962 as a non-profit organization to fund scholarships and community development projects.

 

Building a River Town

 

Alexander C. Little (1860-1932) was also a partner in the land company. After a career in local and state politics that included serving as Aberdeen's mayor, helping elect Governor John R. Rogers, and serving on the State Fisheries Commission, in 1903 Little decided to shift to the private sector. According to Pacific County historian Douglas Allen, "Raymond was named for L. V. but from the beginning A.C. Little formed the character of the town" (Allen, 65).

 

According to Allen, Little contributed two key elements to the town's success. First, he recommended that the land company offer free riverfront lots to mills, thereby ensuring an economic foundation for the town.

 

Second, Little brought Harry C. Heermans (1852-1943) into the partnership. Heermans's engineering background helped solve issues associated with building a town on a river. The sloughs that laced the land rose and fell with the tides, but uphill development would have taken mills too far from the riverfront. Besides, the hills surrounding the river junction rose abruptly and would have posed their own engineering challenges.

 

Other incorporators of the land company included J. B. Duryea, Winfield S. Cram (b.1866), and John T. Welsh (1866-1954). A second land company, the Great West Land Company, also formed in 1903, had some of the same investors and also worked to develop the town.

 

In 1903, the first mill, operated by Jacob Siler and Winfield Cram, began operations. Several more mills, including the West Coast Veneer & Manufacturing Company mill run by Little, followed and businesses grew up nearby.

 

On April 16, 1904, the Raymond Land Company filed a plat for the town of Raymond. The business district consisted of a store, a saloon, and a mess house that served mill workers. A drug store and hotel were coming soon.

 

Lots Sold by the Gallon

 

To allow people to cross the water-sodden landscape, the town constructed 2,900 feet of elevated wooden sidewalks. These sidewalks ran down either side of what would become 1st Street, which was really an open space onto which the buildings fronted. Additional wooden sidewalks crossed the void at regular intervals.

 

Lillian Smith (1875-1960), a teacher from Michigan who came to teach in Raymond for a year not long after the town's founding, remembered her first impressions of the town,

 

"At first I seemed to be crossing the river no matter what street I took. It was like losing oneself with Alice on the other side of the Looking Glass where you had to keep going in order to stand still, and vice versa. Imagine streets like long bridges built on piles driven into the slough (pronounced slu). Wooden railings on either side, and beyond these narrower wooden bridges of sidewalk width, these too with railings — a perfect maze of railings, necessary to keep careless pedestrians from falling into the slough" (Smith, 3).

 

Still, the town's location provided enough benefits to outweigh the difficulties of being what Smith called, "an amphibious town" (Smith, 6). It was located at the head of navigable waters, close to the bay and to the forests that fed its mills. It also had access to the Northern Pacific Railway, without having had to give up its waterfront lots the way South Bend had.

 

Navigation on the river depended on assistance from the Army Corps of Engineers. Early in its history Willapa Bay was known as Shoalwater Bay because of its many shallow areas. These made ideal oyster grounds, but limited ships' access to ports. The Corps, under the provisions of several different Rivers and Harbors Acts, had dredged the river up to Willapa City, just upstream from the Raymond townsite, and kept it clear of snags. The Corps also maintained a channel through the bar at the mouth of the bay.

 

Businesses besides lumber mills diversified the economy. In 1907 Stewart L. Dennis (1873-1952) and Perry W. Shepard (b. ca. 1871) formed a transfer company that would become an important retail business in Pacific County, now known as the Dennis Company, and John W. Dickie and his son, David, came to Raymond to establish a boatyard.

 

The Dickies had worked in the San Francisco Bay area and, according to local historian Ina E. Dickie, came to Raymond because the more-isolated Willapa Bay offered better access to lumber and to employees who accepted lower wages and had not yet formed unions. Dickie & Son built steamships -- the first was the Willapa -- at Raymond over the next several years. All were built for the coastwise lumber trade, which was booming following the 1906 earthquake and fires in San Francisco.

 

On August 6, 1907, voters approved a measure to incorporate the town of Raymond. A handful of residents resisted the town's boundaries because they included some outlying farms in anticipation of the town's growth.

 

Little served as the first mayor, an office he would hold for 10 of the next 11 years. When asked in 1910 to serve as president of the Southwest Washington Development Association, Little replied that he was "disqualified because of his partiality for the place where lots are sold by the gallon at high tide" ("Southwest Part of the State Unites").

 

A Lumber Town

 

The first council consisted of seven men: C. Frank Cathcart, president of Raymond Transfer and Storage and Northern Pacific agent, Winfield S. Cram, Timothy H. Donovan, superintendent of the Pacific & Eastern Railway and Sunset Timber Company, Floyd Lewis, real estate agent, Charles Myers, sawyer at the Siler Mill, L. V. Raymond, and Willard G. Shumway a clerk. P. T. Johnson served as the first treasurer and Neal Stupp as the clerk and secretary.

 

By 1910 the population had increased to 2,540, but that was just the start of the flood of new residents. In 1911, there were about 5,000 people in Raymond. They were needed for the kind of production boasted of by a promotional brochure from 1912. It lists the output of the towns mills for the previous year as 27,834,779 board feet of lumber, 226,712,250 shingles, 105 million berry baskets (made from veneer), and 33 million pieces of lath for plaster walls. The newcomers included business people, mill owners, mill workers, and loggers from all parts of the world.

 

Labor v. Capital

 

The 1910s, although economically prosperous, saw a series of disputes between labor unions and mill owners up and down the West Coast. Working conditions in the lumber industry were dismal and lumber workers struck for better wages and better logging camp conditions.

 

On March 25, 1912, mill workers in Raymond walked off the job to prevent the lumber companies from using their Raymond mills to replace lost production at Grays Harbor mills, where workers had begun a strike two weeks earlier.

 

The town's business community's response was swift and severe. They held a meeting the second day of the strike. A. C. Little led the discussion, railing against the strike's organizers, the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the Wobblies. The meeting participants decided that they should protect "any man who might want to work" ("Strikes Close Raymond Mills"). To that stated end, several committees formed to support the effort. Over the next several days the sheriff swore in 460 deputies to "protect property and the working men" ("Strikes Close Raymond Mills").

 

To prevent the mill workers from gathering, the city closed all the saloons and brothels for the duration of the strikes. Likewise, three "Socialists speakers," were arrested upon disembarking the Raymond depot ("Strikes Close Raymond Mills").

 

A few days later, on March 30, 1912, the mill owners blew their whistles for the start of work. Anyone who did not heed to the call found themselves and their families rounded up by about 200 men with rifles and shotguns and loaded onto a railroad car bound for Centralia. The South Bend Journal identified those who refused to work as Finns and Greeks.

 

The Greek workers were taken to Centralia, where the Greek consul from Tacoma, Hans Heldner, met them and protested their treatment. The Finns had been removed by boat to Nahcotta. From there they traveled on to Astoria where there was a large Finnish American community.

 

After the strike ended, the South Bend Journal said that the Greek mill workers asked to return, but, "American flags have been hoisted on the mills and only Americans or civilized foreigners need apply" ("Agitators Banished from Raymond"). Other strikes would come to Raymond and labor unions led fights for improved safety, better conditions, and higher pay.

 

Despite labor problems, the mills kept prospering in Raymond. In 1912 there were 14 mills in operation. They used an average of 50 railroad cars full of logs from logging camps in the surrounding hills.

 

The mills produced an average of 20 railroad cars a day of lumber and other forest products. These included shingles, cascara bark, used for medications, doors, and window frames.

 

Growth and Development

 

In 1912 the town also started to fill the sloughs that ran through town so residents could have actual streets and so that houses would not flood at high tide.

 

In 1915 the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad began passenger and freight service between Raymond and Puget Sound.

 

The mayors of Raymond and South Bend presented the railroad's representatives with a wooden key "symbolical [sic] of the freedom of Willapa Harbor" (Krantz).

 

The train service was a vital link between the Willapa River towns and the interior of Washington. Not until 1917 would a road through the Willapa Hills open. The precursor of State Route 6, it was not reliably useable. It featured steep switchbacks and its gravel surface routinely suffered from water damage.

 

The late 1910s saw Raymond operating at full bore. Six saw mills, two veneer plants, a box factory, five shingle mills, and a woodworking plant were joined by the Sanderson & Porter shipyard, which employed 1,000 workers in building ships for the United States Navy during World War I. In the postwar era, the population dropped to about 4,500.

 

Port of Willapa Harbor

 

In 1928 residents of Raymond joined with South Bend to form the Port of Willapa Harbor, a public port district. The Port built a public dock on land between Raymond and South Bend that allowed smaller sawmills access to the river. This facilitated the transport of logs, which could be floated down the river from logging camps in the Willapa Hills, and the shipping of finished lumber. Before the public dock was completed in 1930, sawmills and other forest-products factories that did not have riverfront property had to send their goods to Grays Harbor or Puget Sound via the railroad, adding significantly to transport costs and time.

 

The Port dedicated the dock on October 8, 1930, and the city of South Bend dedicated a reconstructed city dock and improved slip. The same day, state highway officials led a celebration of the opening of Highway 101 between Aberdeen and Raymond-South Bend. For the first time travelers could follow a road through the Willapa Hills to the north of South Bend. It also connected Aberdeen with Ilwaco and the Long Beach Peninsula. This provided drivers with a direct route to the ferries that crossed the Columbia River to Astoria.

 

The Port's dock housed a sawmill, owned first by Ralph Tozier (1920-2005) and then Ben Cheney (1905-1971), who owned Cheney Lumber Company. According to Med Nicholson, writing in the Sou'wester, in 1945, Cheney was faced with a problem of wasted wood that resulted from cutting logs for ties. In order to square up the logs, large slabs were cut off each of four sides. Cheney had the insight that the slabs were eight feet long (the length of railroad ties) and house ceilings were eight and one-half feet tall. At the time home builders were buying studs in 10- and 12-foot lengths and cutting them down, also resulting in a lot of wasted wood. Cheney cut the slabs into a "Cheney Stud," what are now known as eight-foot two-by-four and sold them to home builders. Eight-foot ceilings became standard in houses, "putting to use an enormous amount of formerly wasted timber and incidentally saving American homeowners uncounted millions of dollars in heating expense" ("The Ben Cheney Story," 10).

 

Raymond's Great Depression

 

Unfortunately, the advantages presented by the new port and highway were hampered by the Great Depression. The economic downturn resulted in drastically decreased demand for lumber and Raymond residents struggled to find jobs. The decline of the Great Depression would reduce the town's population to 4,000. A steady decline after the Depression brought the population to just under 3,000 by 1990, where it has stayed since.

 

Though circumstances improved slightly when Weyerhaeuser purchased two mills in Raymond and one in South Bend and reorganized them in 1931, larger economic forces made it nearly impossible for commerce to continue in Raymond. In 1932 the Raymond Chamber of Commerce, faced with a near stoppage of business following the failure of the First Willapa Harbor National Bank, printed its own currency called "oyster money" to carry people over until real money became available again.

 

The Port of Willapa Harbor continued its efforts to improve the port's facilities. The Army Corps of Engineers carried out at federally funded dredging and channel straightening project on the river in 1936. The dredge spoils created Jensen Island and the new channel allowed deeper-draft boats to reach Raymond.

 

Logging and Lumber

 

A 1954 report by Nathaniel H. Engle and Delbert C. Hastings of the University of Washington's Bureau of Business Research, draws an interesting portrait of Pacific County's average male citizen as delineated by the 1950 Federal Census:

 

"Mr. Average Citizen of Pacific County, at the last census, 1950, was white and 33 years of age. He had had two years of high school education. He was employed as a laborer or an operative in the lumber industry. His income for the year was about $3,042. He was married and had two children. He lived in a 4 or 5 room house in good condition, with hot and cold running water, toilet, and bath. He had mechanical refrigeration, and a radio, but no central heating. His home was worth close to $4,000 and was owned clear of debt. Thus Pacific County's average citizen rates as a substantial American wage earner, somewhat better off, on the whole, than the average American, although not quite up to the average in Washington state" (Engle and Hastings, 5).

 

The lumber industry supported a significant number of these "average" residents. Where Grays Harbor had nearly cleared much its surrounding forest lands in the 1920s, Pacific County still had considerable standing timber in the 1950s. In 1951 more than 66 million board feet of logs and more than 90 million board feet of lumber left Raymond on ships and railroad cars. This may have been the result of a high concentration of ownership by large companies such as Weyerhaeuser, which owned 380 square miles (nearly half of the county), Crown-Zellerbach, owner of 60 square miles, and Rayonier, owner of 50 square miles.

 

Engle and Hastings described the logging companies' success as resulting from the companies' willingness to use sustained yield practices, rather than cutting the forests as quickly as the mills could cut the logs. Sustained yield did lead to more selective and more reseeding, but it did not maintain forests that could support diverse ecosystems because most of the reseeding was of single, productive species such as Douglas fir. Wildlife populations were further damaged by hunting programs designed to eliminate animals such as deer or bear that browsed on seedlings and new growth on older trees.

 

In 1954 and 1955, Weyerhaeuser carried out a two-part renovation of the old Willapa Lumber Company mill that it had acquired in 1931. First they replaced all the mill's facilities and then they rebuilt the mill itself. This mill, known as Mill W, remains in operation in 2010, the last softwood lumber mill in operation in Raymond,

 

In the 1970s the region saw another lumber boom. According to Richard Buck, of The Seattle Times, a new generation of baby boomers began buying houses, which increased the demand for lumber, leading to increased competition and prices. Prices reached $337 per 1,000 board feet.

 

The next decade, the declines in the national economy devastated the local economy rather than driving it. Prices dropped by two-thirds to $102 per 1,000 board feet in 1985. According to Buck this was due to a decline in housing starts and the increase in the value of the dollar and interest rates, which made Canadian lumber cheaper. Also, deregulation of the transportation industry increased the disadvantage West Coast lumber mills had compared to Southern and Midwestern lumber mills' proximity to East Coast markets.

 

In addition to the economic forces battering the lumber industry, in the late 1980s the local environment could no longer support the intense logging of the previous century. Historical overharvest and increased environmental regulations reduced the acreage of public forestland open to logging. In 1990, the Northern Spotted Owl was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. With the owl's listing, communities in Pacific County had to adjust to reduced logging and fewer jobs at the area's sawmills. The effects of the environmental regulations were compounded by plant modernization, which also led to fewer jobs in the mills. Many smaller mills could not compete with the larger companies' more efficient mills and a number went out of business.

 

The closure of the federal forests combined with changes in how Weyerhaeuser managed its lands and utilized mills in Pacific County led to the closure of numerous mills. This, in turn, led to fewer jobs in the forest products industry, as well as other sectors of the county's economy.

 

According to a Seattle Times article, "Some residents liken the area to a Third World nation, an underdeveloped colony whose resources are removed by 'foreign' corporations. Weyerhaeuser, they note, owns more than 50 percent of the land in Pacific County" (Hatch). Additionally, they accused Weyerhaeuser of using profits gained in Pacific County to build the very mills in the American South, where wages were lower, that undermined the viability of Raymond's mills. Although there is certainly a component of anger at outside companies taking a tremendous amount of natural resources out of the surrounding hills without investing a significant portion of the resulting profits in the local community, this sentiment also reflects the frustration that resulted from one company owning so much of the county's land and making decisions driven by the global market.

 

Strategies for Change

 

Raymond residents have created multiple strategies to address the changes to the regional economy. When one mill, the Mayr Brothers sawmill, closed in 1986, the Port of Willapa Harbor bought the land and buildings and leased them to Pacific Hardwoods. When that mill closed in 2001, a group of Raymond investors banded together and reopened it as Willapa Bay Hardwoods, employing 35 people. It planned to cut 17.5 million board feet a year, a far more sustainable volume than during the boom years.

 

The Port of Willapa Harbor has been involved in other economic development projects. The Port developed two industrial parks and received grants to construct light manufacturing buildings at one of the industrial parks and at the Port dock. A variety of industries have leased Port buildings, including a chitosan (a natural polymer produced from shellfish shells) producer, seafood processors, and an airplane prototype design company. Additionally, some of the buildings are used by retail stores, including a saw shop and a health club.

 

The Raymond community, in conjunction with the city government and the Port of Willapa Harbor, has developed attractions that will draw tourists to the region as a way to build the economy. The former railroad bed across the Willapa Hills has been turned into a hiking and biking trail. The city has begun redeveloping its riverfront and a regional consortium developed the Willapa Water Trail, which small boats can follow to explore Willapa Bay.

 

Over the past century the environment in and around Raymond has attracted people, many of whom have sought to remove as much of it as possible for sale in markets far from Pacific County. The town's future lies in a more sustainable use of those resources, including the intangible ones that have to be experienced in person.

This essay made possible by:

Washington State Department of Commerce

 

www.historylink.org/File/9590

Harland & Wolff workers posing with the Olympic's propellers before its launch from dry dock after a two month refit. (Belfast, Ireland, Jan 1924).

 

The RMS Olympic and Titanic utilized an advanced propulsion system for the time designed by chief engineer Alexander Carlisle that consisted of two reciprocating engines and a steam turbine. The two outer propellers each had three blades that measured seven metres in diameter and were driven by their own four-cylinder triple-expansion piston engines that produced up to 15,000Hp each. The middle propeller had four blades on Olympic (Titanic had a three bladed central propeller) and measured five metres in diameter was driven by a low-pressure Parsons steam turbine that was powered by the exhaust steam from the piston engines and produced 16,000Hp. The propulsion system was powered by 24 double-ended and five single-ended Scotch boilers that generated steam at a pressure of 215Psi. The Olympic's total power output was estimated at 51,000 shaft horsepower, enabling it to reach a maximum speed of 23 knots (43Km/h). That speed for its size was comparable to some of the fastest ocean liners of the day such as the Cunard Line's RMS Mauretania and RMS Lusitania that could reach speeds of up to 26 knots (48 Km/h).

 

Following the Titanic disaster, the Olympic under went a major upgrade and refit starting in October 1912. A double hull was added, as well as increasing the watertight bulkhead height to the deck level. At the same time new parlour suites were added and the Cafe Parisian that was originally exclusive to Titanic. During World War I, the Olympic was requisitioned by the Admiralty and was converted into a troopship transporting up to 6,000 soldiers across the Atlantic. After the war, the Olympic underwent another major refit in 1919 which involved converting her from a coal-burner to an oil-burner reducing her fuel consumption, crew size and time spent port. She received new boilers, propellers, generators and electrical wiring. Her interiors were also renovated with new flooring, furniture and lighting.

  

Original Image Source: External link.

Crop, repair, upscale, colorize: RyanN81

Information Source: External link

Video of Olympic Repairs 1929: External link (Thanks to Titanic Films by Mark)

  

Música (abrir en nueva pestaña) / Music (Open link in new tab): Edith Piaf - Milord.

 

Una toma, tal y como salió de la cámara, de un modelo de metal a escala 1/43 del Simca "Présidence" de 1958 que, como solemos decir los albaceteños, "me ferié" ;-) para mi colección, y también como recuerdo, en la pasada XIV Concentración Nacional de automóviles clásicos y antiguos de la Feria de Albacete, efectuada con el objetivo de enfoque manual Tamron Adaptall SP 90mm f/2.5 Macro 52B, acoplado a mi Sony ILCE 5100.

El Simca Présidence se presentó en 1958, siendo la versión más lujosa de la serie "Vedette", heredada de a adquisición de Ford Francia por Simca en 1954. El Présidence estaba dotado de un lujoso interior e incluso de un radio teléfono (pionero en ello en Europa), además del característico y exclusivo kit Continental de la rueda de repuesto trasera. Con el Présidence, Simca introdujo sus coches en las comitivas oficiales del Eliseo.

 

Mi página en Facebook.

 

-English:

An Straight Out of the Camera capture of a Simca "Présidence" (1958) 1/43 scale metal model that I bought as a souvenir for my collection in the last National Meeting of classic and antique cars held at Albacete Fair, made with the Tamron Adaptall SP 90mm f / 2.5 Macro 52B manual focus lens, mounted on my Sony ILCE 5100.

The Simca Présidence was introduced in 1958, being the top-of-the-line model of the "Vedette" series, inherited from the acquisition of Ford France by Simca in 1954. This Présidence version featured a luxurious interior, a radiotelephone (a European first) and an exclusive continental kit (rear spare wheel). With the Présidence, Simca entered with its cars in the official retinues of the Elysée Palace.

 

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Imagen protegida por Plaghunter / Image protected by Plaghunter

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These_narwhal_males_are_utilizing_the_helix-spiraled_tusk_that_protrudes_through_their_upper_lip_as_a_sort_of_sword_in_this_epic_Arctic_battle._This_behavior_is_known_as__tusking__and_helps_male_narwhals_to_maintain_social_dominance_hierarchies._Foun.jpg

Utilizing trackage rights on Amtrak's Springfield Line, Pan Am Railways GP40 #351 leads southbound Pan Am Southern train EDPL (East Deerfield, MA to Plainville, CT) across the Farmington River at Windsor, CT on March 16, 2010.

Utilizing the apples we picked a few days before at the orchard, I baked this spicy cake with honey and olive oil. It is the perfect autumn dessert to be enjoyed with a nice cup of tea on a misty, cool day.

The recipe is on he blog.

Another build utilizing some old Znap elements. Seats two minifigures and has fold down ladders and opening cab for them. Extra weapons storage behind the seats as well. I made two different missile loadout options: one simply for aesthetics, and the other using technic missile launchers on a ball joint arm for play potential. Threw in the small comm tower as a bonus, since I wanted to use the Insectoids legs.

 

As usual, see more photos on Brickbuilt.

 

Tutorials | Creations | Featured Tutorials | Build Logs

The AL model utilized a 6.6L straight 8 Knight Slide Valve engine.

 

Muckenthaler Center - Fullerton, CA

 

Left click or press L to enlarge

Música (abrir en nueva pestaña) / Music (Open link in new tab): Alonso Mudarra - Gallarda.

 

Otra vista de esta calle desde el extremo contrario. Todas las calles de Albarracín tienen una muy atractiva y grata intemporal atmósfera. Paseando por ellas, uno puede sentirse en otra época. Canon EOS 50D con Tamron SP 17 f/3.5 51B Adaptall de enfoque manual.

 

Finalista española Yahoo! "Picture of the Day" 09/01/2013

es.noticias.yahoo.com/calle-los-palacios-2-albarrac%C3%AD...

 

-English:

Another view of this street from the opposite end. Streets in Albarracin have a very attractive and pleasant timeless atmosphere. Walking through them, you can feel that you are in a different time of the History. Canon EOS 50D and Tamron SP 17 f/3.5 51B Adaptall manual lens.

 

Spanish finalist in Yahoo! Picture of the Day 09/01/2013.

uk.news.yahoo.com/los-palacios-street-recesvintus-0000537...

es.noticias.yahoo.com/calle-los-palacios-2-albarracín-lo...

 

© Francisco García Ríos 2013 - All Rights Reserved / Reservados todos los derechos.

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Taken by my daughter at my request

 

Hastings-Sunrise, Vancouver, British Columbia

 

The Dodge 330 is a full-size automobile that was marketed by Dodge from 1962 to 1964 (1965 in Canada). Available in 2-door or 4-door sedan body designs utilizing the B-body

 

Engine

3.7 litres (225 cu in) Slant-6 I6

5.2 litres (318 cu in) A V8

5.9 litres (361 cu in) B V8

6.3 litres (383 cu in) B V8

7.0 litres (426 cu in) RB V8

 

Shed after breeding season and utilized by rodents as a source of calcium.

ALT3 has a coupon right now!!

✨ The code: INFLUENCER

1) Utilization Limit: 3 Uses

2) Deal Offered: 20% off

3) Deal Valid: Mainstore Only

maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Fifty%20Two/64/126/21

4) Deal Ends: July 20th

  

Alt3-Monique Faceskin (Alt3 Fantasy Tone Enchanted)

Genus Morph

Comes in Velour tones and ALT3 Tones

Coming soon to The Fifty

maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Fifty%20Two/249/123/777 (cam sim for now <3 )

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ALT3-Garden Party Eyegloss

Warehouse Sale

maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Rotten/128/141/23

Garden Party Eyegloss is a set of 18 total HD eyeshadow appliers for both GENUS and Lelutka EVOX heads

- Purchase per head brand

- Opacity and tinting via head HUD.

Please try the demo!!

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ALT3-Heavy Lash Kit

Rigged Eyelashes for Genus Morph

Almond, Bunny, Cat, Foxy, Mono, Puppy, Round

ALT3 Mainstore: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Fifty%20Two/65/125/22

 

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Alt3 - Waifu Bodyskin (reborn) Coming soon/Unreleased (shown in ALT3-Enchanted Tone)

Sintiklia-Susan Hair

SK-Melanta Tiara

Genus- Morph Head "Usagi"

Genus-Pixie Gauged Ears

Void- Ear Deformer (works great on genus..1L Marketplace..worth a try *wink)

Grass Hopper Street Quest Outfit-Fantasy Faire 2024 Quest

Built in 1890-1891, this Chicago School-style skyscraper was designed by Adler and Sullivan for Ellis Wainwright to house the offices of the St. Louis Brewers Association. The building was the first skyscraper to break from traditional architectural styles, utilizing ornament that fit the scale of the building, and taking advantage of the steel frame and masonry curtain wall to create a building that embraced the skyscraper form through its design, rather than trying to make the skyscraper fit the box of previous traditional architectural styles, and is widely regarded as being the most precedent-setting building designed by Sullivan. The 10-story, 135 foot (41 meter) tall building features a tripartite exterior composed of a base, shaft, and capital, which was a novel facade treatment, but was highly influential. The building eschewed classical ornament in favor of Sullivanesque ornament inspired by natural forms, as well as the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau movements. The building originally housed retail space on the ground floor, with offices above, with many tenants in the building in addition to the St. Louis Brewers Association.

 

The building is clad in red brick with terra cotta trim and ornament, with a decorative frieze at the top of the building with small oxeye windows, an overhanging cornice at the crown of the building, recessed ornamented spandrel panels, and decorative brick pilasters, one-over-one double-hung windows, a glass curtain wall on the north facade, added in the 1980s, a relatively simple and unadorned base, large storefront openings at the base of the building, recessed doorways with decorative trim surrounds, natural and geometric ornamental motifs, and brick pilasters between the window bays with decorative bases and capitals. The interior has been heavily modified, with several renovations in the 20th Century removing most original elements and features, and it features a very standard modern office interior.

 

The building has housed office space for much of its history, though it was threatened with demolition during the late 20th Century. It was saved in large part thanks to the intervention of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, though several neighboring buildings that formed an intact ensemble of late 19th Century architecture were demolished, robbing the building of its context. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1968, owing to its major architectural and historical significance. The building presently serves as an office building for the State of Missouri.

A significant place utilized by the Snuneymuxw people for thousands of years and traditionally known as Saysutshun, Newcastle Island is a wondrous escape from the bustling urban center of Nanaimo just across the harbour.

 

Alongside the strong First Nations presence and culture on the island, it is also home to many rich histories which include coal mining, a sandstone quarry, and herring salteries, all of which make Newcastle Island a must-see eco-tourism destination for those visiting Nanaimo.

Carload Express utilizes Conrail-like signs to denote stations.

 

Here, an AVR local passes 23rd Street in the Strip District.

On April 20th, AVR operated one of the rarest moves currently on its system. An AVR-5 crew ran a single refrigerated boxcar to the last remaining produce customer in the Strip District at 21st Street. This was only the second car this warehouse has received in 2.5 years. What once was an extremely busy switch district for PRR is almost entirely taken over by pricey office, retail, and residential space as gentrification moves immediately east of downtown Pittsburgh.

 

The Kawasaki T-4 is a twin-turbofan-powered, tandem-seat intermediate/advanced military training aircraft operated solely by the Japan Air Self Defense Force. Aside from its primary training missions, the aircraft has been utilized by the Japan Air Self Defense Force’s Blue Impulse aerobatic demonstration team in addition to its liaison tasks with most fighter units.

I could utilize the last narrow dark window of the moon phase at a dark site in Fukushima.

 

Earth Distance: 1.103 AU

Sun Distance: 1.062 AU

 

equipment: Takahashi FSQ-106ED, F3 Reducer 0.6x, and Canon EOS 5Dmk3-sp4, modified by Seo-san on Takahashi EM-200 Temma 2 Jr, autoguided at the condensation of the halo of the comet with Takahashi FS-60C, SX Lodestar, and PHD Guiding

 

exposure: 3 times 8 minutes at ISO 1,600 and f/3.0

The first exposure started at 19:39:49 December 22, 2015UTC.

 

site: 697m above sea level at lat. 36 59 00 North and long. 140 32 06 East in Kanotsunodaira Fukushima

SQM-L 21.27

Eugene Landry

Lithographic Print

16" x 18"

 

Eugene Landry: An Artist, a Time and a Tribe

May 28-29, 2022

www.eugenelandry.com

 

Shoalwater Bay Heritage Museum of the Shoalwater Bay Tribe, Tokeland, Washington.

www.shoalwaterbay-nsn.gov/

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

 

Portrait of an Artist

 

Eugene ''Gene'' Landry (1937-1988) was a noted Northwest Native artist, who painted from the confines of a wheelchair. His personal story is one of perseverance, of an artist who created despite setbacks, always with humor and style.

 

Landry's art offers a glimpse into a transitional and little-documented time in Northwest Native history. His paintings are important because they represent a Native artist's portrayal of his own people during a time when Native Americans were erased, marginalized, and misrepresented by stereotypes in media and public education.

 

Landry painted contemporary portraits of his people, depicting them as they were. As one of his models said, ''We're so small and isolated here. People think we're so different. At one time, we had a bunch of kids from Raymond come down, and they wanted to know where our feathers were."

 

Gene was born in the village of Taholah on the Quinault Indian

Reservation. His biological mother was Hoh and his father was Quileute and Swedish. As an infant, he was adopted by Myrtle (Charley) and Fred Landry and raised at Georgetown, Myrtle's reservation.

 

Identity

 

As the only child of Myrtle and Fred Landry, Gene was well provided for and deeply loved. His biological-mother, Isabelle Hudson, a full-blooded Hoh, is remembered as having dark reddish-brown hair. His father, Austin Rosander, was half Quiliuette and half Swedish. Although Gene was adopted as a baby, he maintained ties with his biological family, who lived in Grays Harbor and the surrounding area.

 

Gene's appearance did not conform to expectations of what an Indian was "supposed to look like." His bright red hair (sometimes referred to as "Hoh River blond") made him stand out. In high school, he styled his hair like James Dean and drove a red 1937 hot rod Ford coupe. He was a gifted athlete, known for his running and boxing prowess, but he wasn't

allowed to run track because he refused to cut his hair.

 

Gene's art training was not traditional to his culture. He reached advanced levels in art at Aberdeen and Ocosta High Schools, but there were no practitioners of Native arts around to mentor him. He explored and developed his talent using the means available, based on Western European art traditions. He would go on to create art with a native sensibility, using the tools available.

 

Art Student

 

Gene trained himself to use his non-dominant left hand to paint. In 1961, he enrolled at the Leon F. Derbyshire School of Fine Arts in Seattle. There was no wheelchair access, so Gene had to be carried up the stairs to the second floor classroom.

 

In 1962 Gene studied with noted Northwest sculptor Philip Levine at his Phoenix Gallery in Seattle. By 1964, Gene was showing his work and winning acclaim in the Pacific Northwest. Over the next four years, he exhibited at the Frye Museum, the West Coast Annual at the Seattle Civic Center, The Edmonds and Anacortes Art Festivals, and the La Grande All Indian Arts Festivals.

 

Gene met Sharon Billingsley, a model and painter who attended classes at Derbyshire, and they struck up a friendship that led to romance. The couple could often be found sketching street scenes side by side, Gene in his wheelchair, Sharon next to him on a folding stool.

 

Gene and Sharon married in California on May 28, 1965. They went to Paris to study art, then returned to the Northwest, living in Seattle, Tacoma, and Georgetown until their marriage ended in 1972.

 

Back to Georgetown, Washington

 

In the late l960s, Landry moved back to the Shoalwater Bay Reservation. He set up a studio inside a small cabin that had been moved to the reservation from North Cove's at Washaway Beach. A wheel chair ramp and wrap-around deck made it accessible for plein air painting. Situated on the shore of Shoalwater Bay, Gene painted still-lives utilizing objects that washed in on the tides: glass fishing floats, discolored rope, old bones, shells and feathers.

 

He also painted still lifes and portraits in oil, using his family and friends as models. These works span a pivotal time in the tribe's history, from near termination to federal recognition.

 

Fifty years have passed since Gene painted Winona Weber's portrait. When asked why Landry's art matters today, she replied:

 

“I am a historian at heart. Gene's art is part of our history. Also, a talent like his really deserves to be acknowledged. When I was working with the women's history project, I said I was happy to be breaking some stereotypes of native women. A woman said it should just be commonplace. But first you have to be visible to be usual. I would like to see Gene visible."

 

Later Years

 

Gene traveled throughout the Southwest, spending time in New Mexico and Arizona. He traveled to Mexico and the Philippines seeking native healers to help with his deteriorating health. He eventually lost function in his left arm but continued to make art, holding the brush in his teeth to reach higher places on the canvas.

 

In 1980 Gene moved to Santa Barbara. His house, perched on a bluff overlooking the sea, was filled with art, his own and others. He opened a gallery downtown and championed the work of local artists. In the mid 80s his business partner-who was also his care giver unexpectedly died. His own health declining, Gene returned to his parent's home on the reservation.

 

Gene Landry died April 7, 1988 at age 51. He is buried next to Myrtle Landry and his relations in the Indian section at Sunset Memorial in Hoquiam, Washington. The Shoalwater Bay Tribe’s Na ‘m ‘sc ‘ac Heritage Museum is located on the former site of the cabin and dome.

  

Illness, November 1955

 

The illness came without warning. When 17-year-old Gene suddenly lost consciousness, his parents wrapped him in blankets and drove two hours to Cushman Indian Hospital in Tacoma. There were closer facilities for emergency care, but they did not provide Indian Health services. Gene remained a patient at Cushman for two and a half years, undergoing treatment for tubercular meningitis. The disease paralyzed his legs, and he endured grueling physical therapy, but he continued to work on paintings from a hospital bed.

 

Gene's parents moved to Tacoma to be closer to the hospital. When Myrtle Landry raised concerns about his condition and the poor care, Gene was abruptly discharged. Myrtle Landry (Washington Women's Heritage Project 1980):

 

"One doctor said, 'Why don't you just go and leave him and forget about him?' I said, 'Just who do you think you're talking to anyway?' I said, 'I got feelings, even though I'm a full blood Indian, I got feelings.' He said, 'Well, he'll never amount to anything.' I said, 'Well, I'm sure as heck not gonna let him die here.' And boy I raised Cain with 'em. So they told us one day, 'You get out.'

 

And then the State decided they could do more for him than I could." The decision proved tragic. At a rehabilitation facility on Bainbridge Island, Gene fell while being moved by attendants and suffered a spinal injury. He lost the use of his right arm and the possibility of ever walking again. He was 21 years old.

   

F-WBXL Airbus A330-743XL Beluga. Visiting Shannon for certification trials utilizing the strong crosswinds for rejected take-off testing. Shannon 13th April 2019

The rebuilding included conversion to AC traction utilizing GE electrical components, new electrical cabinet, replacement of the existing crew cab and low short hood with a new GE widenose and cab, new replacement trucks, and additional weight was added to bring the units up to 432,000 pounds when fully loaded with supplies.

 

NS Model Designation = AC44C6M

Horsepower = 4,400

Fuel Tank Capacity = 5,000 gallons

Dynamic Braking = Yes

Control = Single

Cab Signals = Yes

LSL (Locomotive Speed Limiter) = Yes

 

Units are equipped with cab air conditioning.

 

Units are equipped for use in DPU (Distributed Power Unit) operation.

 

Units are equipped for ECP (Electronically Controlled Pneumatic) train braking.

 

Units are equipped with NS LEADER/PTC (Positive Train Control) system.

 

All six axles are powered with GE 5GEB13B7 AC traction motors.

   

No longer utilizing the St. Charles Airline bridge over the river, Amtrak's City of New Orleans now reverses over the Pennsylvania RR bridge over the river, then proceeds onto the old IC tracks through Ping Tom Park and onto points south.

Scanned from Kodak Tri-x

The Lockheed Martin/Boeing Tier III- (minus) unpiloted aerial vehicle is inspected by NASA personnel September 14, 1995, following its arrival at the Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California (now the Armstrong Flight Research Center). The Tier III Minus project utilized Dryden ground facilities during the flight test program. The vehicle was developed by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works and Boeing Defense and Space Group to satisfy a goal of the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office (DARO) to supply responsive and sustained surveillance and reconnaissance data from anywhere within enemy territory, day or night, in all types of weather. Dubbed DarkStar, it had a wing span of 69 feet and was designed to fly above 45,000 feet at subsonic speeds on missions lasting more than eight hours. The first DarkStar prototype made its first flight on March 29, 1996. At the beginning of its second flight, on April 22, 1996, it crashed on takeoff, and was destroyed. The DarkStar's unusual shape was dictated by the requirement to orbit its target conducting surveillance while still remaining stealthy. Whereas aircraft like the F-117 are designed to be more stealthy from the front, the DarkStar is designed to be more stealthy from the sides.

 

NASA Media Usage Guidelines

 

Credit: NASA

Image Number: EC95-43271-5

Date: September 14, 1995

Caso utilize as fotos adicionar os devidos créditos: Por Juu Salles www.flickr.com/photos/juusalles

AutoBus Terminal,

Banaue, Ifugao, Philippines

 

Several photos ago, I stated: "Novel would not be utilizing the space to the left (well, for the most part anyway -- more on that bit of news in a future upload)." Well, that future is now, and here's a shot of the "space on the left" they did utilize. This room is actually in the very rear part of the bookstore, taking up a good-sized sliver of rear portion of the *old* space, and possibly even extending a bit further beyond that! At first, I thought this might be some sort of hallway linking to another tenant or two in the shopping center (or a new internal delivery hallway or something), but nope: all a part of Novel, or at least set up for them to use for visiting authors to have book signings, lectures, etc. Pretty cool idea, even if it's a bit odd-looking! And as a clever, added source of revenue for them, they will even rent this room out for private events.

____________________________________

Novel Bookstore, originally 196?-built (as Gerber's Department Store), Perkins Ext. near Poplar Ave., Memphis

The Talon VI was utilized mostly by mercenaries during the Phalong-Duras conflict. Its sleek design and powerful fusion cannons could rip through ships with high class armor. Talons were also utilized by security forces and pirates when they could get their hands on one.

Chevrolet Camaro Z28 (2nd Gen) (1970-81) Engine 350 cu in (5700cc) V8

Registration Number ETH 353 V (Swansea)

CHEVROLET SET

www.flickr.com/photos/45676495@N05/sets/72157623638181561...

 

The second generation of the Camaro was launched for the 1970 model year running through to 1981dubbed the Super Hugger the second generation was developed without the rush of the first generation and benefited from a greater budget justified by the success of the first generation. Longer and wider than the previous generation and reputed to be more of a drivers car. Although it was an all-new car, the basic mechanical layout of the new Camaro was familiar, engineered much like its predecessor with a unibody structure utilizing a front subframe, A-arm and coil spring front suspension, and rear leaf springs. The chassis and suspension of the second generation were greatly refined in both performance and comfort; sound proofing and road holding.

 

The performance Z28 option was dropped due to ever-tightening emission standards that spelled the end of the higher-output versions of the 350 cubic-inch V8, The Z28 was re-introduced, in the Spring of 1977 s a 1977½ in response to dramatically increasing sales of Pontiac's Trans Am, and like the Trans Am the Z28 was an instant sucessand was powered by a 350 cubic-inch V8 with four-barrel carburetor and 185 horsepower (175 horses with California emissions equipment), with most cars sold equipped with air conditioning and an automatic transmission for a comfort-oriented public. The engine no longer came with the 4-bolt main bearing engine block, forged crank, forged pistons, big valve heads and performance camshaft that had always been part of the RPO Z28 Special Performance Package,

 

1981 was the last model year for the second generation Camaro, cars remained virtually unchanged from the 1980 model year, he Z28 was still powered by a 350 cu in (5.7 L) V8, however due to new emissions regulations the engine was now equipped with a CCC (Computer Command Control) unit for the first time. This predecessor to modern engine control modules had an oxygen sensor, an electronically controlled carburetor, a throttle position sensor, coolant sensors, a barometric pressure sensor, a Manifold Absolute Pressure sensor (MAP), and a check engine light on the dash. The transmission was now equipped with a lockup torque converter, controlled by the CCC as well. The CCC could also be used as a self-diagnostic tool. However, as the goal of this change was strictly emissions reduction, horsepower dropped to 175 hp

 

Diolch yn fawr am 71,463,786 o olygfeydd anhygoel, mwynhewch ac arhoswch yn ddiogel

 

Thank you 71,463,786 amazing views, enjoy and stay safe

 

Shot 21.04.2019 at the annual Weston Park, Easter car show Ref 138-449

 

.

  

Built in 1787-1792, this Georgian-style building was designed by John Howe, and built to serve as the state capitol of Delaware, replacing a courthouse that had stood on the site since 1722. The building was originally utilized as the Kent County Courthouse and Delaware State Capitol, with the original building being expanded with a rear wing to the east in 1835, which has since been removed. In 1873-1875, the building was extensively renovated in the then-fashionable Second Empire style, adding a tower and mansard roof, and significantly altering the window bays on the front (western) facade, and the functions of the Kent County government and courts moved to a new courthouse on the south side of the green. The building was further extended with another wing to the rear (east) in 1896, with further renovations in 1909-1910, under the direction of Edward L. Tilton, that added a new Colonial Revival-style wing to the south, a new portico to the west of the original building, and restored the building to a Georgian-style facade and roofline, though, like with many “restorations” at the time, this was not carried out accurately to the building’s original appearance. After the 1909-1910 addition, the original capitol served as the northern wing of an enlarged building, with a two-story entrance portico at the center, which was removed during renovations in 1968-1969. In 1925, a Colonial Revival-style annex was added to the east of the building to house offices for the state government, but it was becoming apparent by this point that the building was inadequate for the growing needs of the state government without significant further alterations, so a new Legislative Building was constructed on formerly vacant land to the east in 1932, part of the current Capitol Complex. Following the departure of the state government, the building was renovated once again in 1968-1969, completely altering the south wing to house the Delaware Supreme Court and have a smaller visual impact on the original building, and again in 1976, when the building’s appearance and interior were carefully restored to their circa 1792 appearance, utilizing conjecture based on records and accounts of the building’s original appearance, as well as evidence remaining from past alterations on site. The building is built of red flemish bond brick with a flat-topped side-gable roof featuring large parapets at the north and south ends, large twenty-over-twenty double-hung windows with stone lintels, cornices with modillions and dentils, a front entrance bay with a pedimented portico trim surround and fanlight transom below a large Palladian window, a rooftop cupola with an open belfry and dome, based on the old Wilmington Town Hall in northern Delaware, a rooftop wooden balustrade with urns, wooden shutters, and a two-story bay window on the rear facade. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, and is a contributing structure in the Dover Green Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. Today, the building is part of the First State National Historic Park, which includes multiple locations associated with the late 18th Century history of Delaware. The building served as the home of the Delaware Legislature until 1932, and today, the building serves as a museum interpreting the history of the state of Delaware, part of the First State National Historical Park.

Dubbed "Project 47" by the Canadian military, the Skink was a Canadian built self-propelled anti-aircraft tank intended to be used with the Normandy landings. Utilizing the Grizzly 1 chassis as the base, the Canadian military designed a new cast turret that could hold 4 (Polish) Polsten 20mm autocannons.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skink_anti-aircraft_tank

 

Plans to build these, as well as conversion kits for existing Grizzly and Sherman tanks, were quickly superseded by the realization that Allied air forces had achieved air supremacy over Normandy. As a result only three vehicles and eight conversion kits were completed.

 

The single Skink that was shipped to Europe saw action outside of Nijmegen where it's guns were used on German infantry with devastating effect.

 

Reference pics:

www.wwiivehicles.com/canada/tank-medium/grizzly.asp

bcoy1cpb.pacdat.net/Skink_WWII_photos_from_DESIGN_RECORD_...

www.armorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=SquawkBo...

  

Key notes about this build:

 

100% Old Dark Grey

4 x Brickarms Gunmetal M1919 Machine Gun (modified to represent the Polsten autocannons)

1 x Brickarms Gunmetal M203 Grenade Launcher (used to represent the hull mounted .30 cal).

 

Part use credit to Dan Siskind (Brickmania) as much of the side skirt design is from his M3 Grant model.

 

The Burgtheater at Dr.-Karl -Lueger-Ring (from now on, 2013, Universitätsring) in Vienna is an Austrian Federal Theatre. It is one of the most important stages in Europe and after the Comédie-Française, the second oldest European one, as well as the greatest German speaking theater. The original 'old' Burgtheater at Saint Michael's square was utilized from 1748 until the opening of the new building at the ring in October, 1888. The new house in 1945 burnt down completely as a result of bomb attacks, until the re-opening on 14 October 1955 was the Ronacher serving as temporary quarters. The Burgtheater is considered as Austrian National Theatre.

Throughout its history, the theater was bearing different names, first Imperial-Royal Theater next to the Castle, then to 1918 Imperial-Royal Court-Burgtheater and since then Burgtheater (Castle Theater). Especially in Vienna it is often referred to as "The Castle (Die Burg)", the ensemble members are known as Castle actors (Burgschauspieler).

History

St. Michael's Square with the old K.K. Theatre beside the castle (right) and the Winter Riding School of the Hofburg (left)

The interior of the Old Burgtheater, painted by Gustav Klimt. The people are represented in such detail that the identification is possible.

The 'old' Burgtheater at St. Michael's Square

The original castle theater was set up in a ball house that was built in the lower pleasure gardens of the Imperial Palace of the Roman-German King and later Emperor Ferdinand I in 1540, after the old house 1525 fell victim to a fire. Until the beginning of the 18th Century was played there the Jeu de Paume, a precursor of tennis. On 14 March 1741 finally gave the Empress Maria Theresa, ruling after the death of her father, which had ordered a general suspension of the theater, the "Entrepreneur of the Royal Court Opera" and lessees of 1708 built theater at Kärntnertor (Carinthian gate), Joseph Karl Selliers, permission to change the ballroom into a theater. Simultaneously, a new ball house was built in the immediate vicinity, which todays Ballhausplatz is bearing its name.

In 1748, the newly designed "theater next to the castle" was opened. 1756 major renovations were made, inter alia, a new rear wall was built. The Auditorium of the Old Burgtheater was still a solid timber construction and took about 1200 guests. The imperial family could reach her ​​royal box directly from the imperial quarters, the Burgtheater structurally being connected with them. At the old venue at Saint Michael's place were, inter alia, several works of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as well as Franz Grillparzer premiered .

On 17 February 1776, Emperor Joseph II declared the theater to the German National Theatre (Teutsches Nationaltheater). It was he who ordered by decree that the stage plays should not deal with sad events for not bring the Imperial audience in a bad mood. Many theater plays for this reason had to be changed and provided with a Vienna Final (Happy End), such as Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet. From 1794 on, the theater was bearing the name K.K. Court Theatre next to the castle.

1798 the poet August von Kotzebue was appointed as head of the Burgtheater, but after discussions with the actors he left Vienna in 1799. Under German director Joseph Schreyvogel was introduced German instead of French and Italian as a new stage language.

On 12 October 1888 took place the last performance in the old house. The Burgtheater ensemble moved to the new venue at the Ring. The Old Burgtheater had to give way to the completion of Saint Michael's tract of Hofburg. The plans to this end had been drawn almost 200 years before the demolition of the old Burgtheater by Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach.

The "new" K.K. Court Theatre (as the inscription reads today) at the Ring opposite the Town Hall, opened on 14 October 1888 with Grillparzer's Esther and Schiller's Wallenstein's Camp, was designed in neo-Baroque style by Gottfried Semper (plan) and Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer (facade), who had already designed the Imperial Forum in Vienna together. Construction began on 16 December 1874 and followed through 14 years, in which the architects quarreled. Already in 1876 Semper withdrew due to health problems to Rome and had Hasenauer realized his ideas alone, who in the dispute of the architects stood up for a mainly splendid designed grand lodges theater.

However, created the famous Viennese painter Gustav Klimt and his brother Ernst Klimt and Franz Matsch 1886-1888 the ceiling paintings in the two stairwells of the new theater. The three took over this task after similar commissioned work in the city theaters of Fiume and Karlovy Vary and in the Bucharest National Theatre. In the grand staircase on the side facing the café Landtmann of the Burgtheater (Archduke stairs) reproduced ​​Gustav Klimt the artists of the ancient theater in Taormina on Sicily, in the stairwell on the "People's Garden"-side (Kaiserstiege, because it was reserved for the emperor) the London Globe Theatre and the final scene from William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet". Above the entrance to the auditorium is Molière's The Imaginary Invalid to discover. In the background the painter immortalized himself in the company of his two colleagues. Emperor Franz Joseph I liked the ceiling paintings so much that he gave the members of the company of artists of Klimt the Golden Cross of Merit.

The new building resembles externally the Dresden Semper Opera, but even more, due to the for the two theaters absolutely atypical cross wing with the ceremonial stairs, Semper's Munich project from the years 1865/1866 for a Richard Wagner Festspielhaus above the Isar. Above the middle section there is a loggia, which is framed by two side wings, and is divided from a stage house with a gable roof and auditorium with a tent roof. Above the center house there decorates a statue of Apollo the facade, throning between the Muses of drama and tragedy. Above the main entrances are located friezes with Bacchus and Ariadne. At the exterior facade round about, portrait busts of the poets Calderon, Shakespeare, Moliere, Schiller, Goethe, Lessing, Halm, Grillparzer, and Hebbel can be seen. The masks which also can be seen here are indicating the ancient theater, furthermore adorn allegorical representations the side wings: love, hate, humility, lust, selfishness, and heroism. Although the theater since 1919 is bearing the name of Burgtheater, the old inscription KK Hofburgtheater over the main entrance still exists. Some pictures of the old gallery of portraits have been hung up in the new building and can be seen still today - but these images were originally smaller, they had to be "extended" to make them work better in high space. The points of these "supplements" are visible as fine lines on the canvas.

The Burgtheater was initially well received by Viennese people due to its magnificent appearance and technical innovations such as electric lighting, but soon criticism because of the poor acoustics was increasing. Finally, in 1897 the auditorium was rebuilt to reduce the acoustic problems. The new theater was an important meeting place of social life and soon it was situated among the "sanctuaries" of Viennese people. In November 1918, the supervision over the theater was transferred from the High Steward of the emperor to the new state of German Austria.

1922/1923 the Academy Theatre was opened as a chamber play stage of the Burgtheater. On 8th May 1925, the Burgtheater went into Austria's criminal history, as here Mentscha Karnitschewa perpetrated a revolver assassination on Todor Panitza.

The Burgtheater in time of National Socialism

The National Socialist ideas also left traces in the history of the Burgtheater. In 1939 appeared in Adolf Luser Verlag the strongly anti-Semitic characterized book of theater scientist Heinz Kindermann "The Burgtheater. Heritage and mission of a national theater", in which he, among other things, analyzed the "Jewish influence "on the Burgtheater. On 14 October 1938 was on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Burgtheater a Don Carlos production of Karl-Heinz Stroux shown that served Hitler's ideology. The role of the Marquis of Posa played the same Ewald Balser, who in a different Don Carlos production a year earlier (by Heinz Hilpert) at the Deutsches Theater in the same role with the sentence in direction of Joseph Goebbels box vociferated: "just give freedom of thought". The actor and director Lothar Müthel, who was director of the Burgtheater between 1939 and 1945, staged 1943 the Merchant of Venice, in which Werner Kraus the Jew Shylock clearly anti-Semitic represented. The same director staged after the war Lessing's parable Nathan the Wise. Adolf Hitler himself visited during the Nazi regime the Burgtheater only once (1938), and later he refused in pure fear of an assassination.

For actors and theater staff who were classified according to the Reich Citizenship Law of 1935 as "Jews ", were quickly imposed stage bans, within a few days, they were on leave, fired or arrested. The Burgtheater ensemble ​​between 1938 and 1945 did not put up significant resistance against the Nazi ideology, the repertoire was heavily censored, only a few joined the Resistance, as Judith Holzmeister (then also at the People's Theatre engaged) or the actor Fritz Lehmann. Although Jewish members of the ensemble indeed have been helped to emigrate, was still an actor, Fritz Strassny, taken to a concentration camp and murdered there.

The Burgtheater at the end of the war and after the Second World War

In summer 1944, the Burgtheater had to be closed because of the decreed general theater suspension. From 1 April 1945, as the Red Army approached Vienna, camped a military unit in the house, a portion was used as an arsenal. In a bomb attack the house at the Ring was damaged and burned down on 12th April 1945 completely. Auditorium and stage were useless, only the steel structure remained. The ceiling paintings and part of the lobby were almost undamaged.

The Soviet occupying power expected from Viennese City Councillor Viktor Matejka to launch Vienna's cultural life as soon as possible again. The council summoned on 23 April (a state government did not yet exist) a meeting of all Viennese cultural workers into the Town Hall. Result of the discussions was that in late April 1945 eight cinemas and four theaters took up the operation again, including the Burgtheater. The house took over the Ronacher Theater, which was understood by many castle actors as "exile" as a temporary home (and remained there to 1955). This venue chose the newly appointed director Raoul Aslan, who championed particularly active.

The first performance after the Second World War was on 30 April 1945 Sappho by Franz Grillparzer directed by Adolf Rott from 1943 with Maria Eis in the title role. Also other productions from the Nazi era were resumed. With Paul Hoerbiger, a few days ago as Nazi prisoner still in mortal danger, was shown the play of Nestroy Mädl (Girlie) from the suburbs. The Academy Theatre could be played (the first performance was on 19 April 1945 Hedda Gabler, a production of Rott from the year 1941) and also in the ball room (Redoutensaal) at the Imperial Palace took place performances. Aslan the Ronacher in the summer had rebuilt because the stage was too small for classical performances. On 25 September 1945, Schiller's Maid of Orleans could be played on the enlarged stage.

The first new productions are associated with the name of Lothar Müthel: Everyone and Nathan the Wise, in both Raoul Aslan played the main role. The staging of The Merchant of Venice by Müthel in Nazi times seemed to have been fallen into oblivion.

Great pleasure gave the public the return of the in 1938 from the ensemble expelled Else Wohlgemuth on stage. She performaed after seven years in exile in December 1945 in Clare Biharys The other mother in the Academy Theater. 1951 opened the Burgtheater its doors for the first time, but only the left wing, where the celebrations on the 175th anniversary of the theater took place.

1948, a competition for the reconstruction was tendered: Josef Gielen, who was then director, first tended to support the design of ex aequo-ranked Otto Niedermoser, according to which the house was to be rebuilt into a modern gallery theater. Finally, he agreed but then for the project by Michael Engelhardt, whose plan was conservative but also cost effective. The character of the lodges theater was largely taken into account and maintained, the central royal box but has been replaced by two balconies, and with a new slanted ceiling construction in the audience was the acoustics, the shortcoming of the house, improved significantly.

On 14 October 1955 was happening under Adolf Rott the reopening of the restored house at the Ring. For this occasion Mozart's A Little Night Music was played. On 15 and on 16 October it was followed by the first performance (for reasons of space as a double premiere) in the restored theater: King Ottokar's Fortune and End of Franz Grillparzer, staged by Adolf Rott. A few months after the signing of the Austrian State Treaty was the choice of this play, which the beginning of Habsburg rule in Austria makes a subject of discussion and Ottokar of Horneck's eulogy on Austria (... it's a good country / Well worth that a prince bow to it! / where have you yet seen the same?... ) contains highly symbolic. Rott and under his successors Ernst Haeusserman and Gerhard Klingenberg the classic Burgtheater style and the Burgtheater German for German theaters were finally pointing the way .

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Burgtheater participated (with other well-known theaters in Vienna) on the so-called Brecht boycott.

Gerhard Klingenberg internationalized the Burgtheater, he invited renowned stage directors such as Dieter Dorn, Peter Hall, Luca Ronconi, Giorgio Strehler, Roberto Guicciardini and Otomar Krejča. Klingenberg also enabled the castle debuts of Claus Peymann and Thomas Bernhard (1974 world premiere of The Hunting Party). Bernhard was as a successor of Klingenberg mentioned, but eventually was appointed Achim Benning, whereupon the writer with the text "The theatrical shack on the ring (how I should become the director of the Burgtheater)" answered.

Benning, the first ensemble representative of the Burgtheater which was appointed director, continued Klingenberg's way of Europeanization by other means, brought directors such as Adolf Dresen, Manfred Wekwerth or Thomas Langhoff to Vienna, looked with performances of plays of Vaclav Havel to the then politically separated East and took the the public taste more into consideration.

Directorate Claus Peymann 1986-1999

Under the by short-term Minister of Education Helmut Zilk brought to Vienna Claus Peymann, director from 1986 to 1999, there was further modernization of the programme and staging styles. Moreover Peymann was never at a loss for critical contributions in the public, a hitherto unusual attitude for Burgtheater directors. Therefore, he and his program within sections of the audience met with rejection. The greatest theater scandal in Vienna since 1945 occurred in 1988 concerning the premiere of Thomas Bernhard's Heldenplatz (Place of the Heroes) drama which was fiercly fought by conservative politicians and zealots. The play deals with the Vergangenheitsbewältigung (process of coming to terms with the past) and illuminates the present management in Austria - with attacks on the then ruling Social Democratic Party - critically. Together with Claus Peymann Bernhard after the premiere dared to face on the stage applause and boos.

Bernard, to his home country bound in love-hate relationship, prohibited the performance of his plays in Austria before his death in 1989 by will. Peymann, to Bernhard bound in a difficult friendship (see Bernhard's play Claus Peymann buys a pair of pants and goes eating with me) feared harm for the author's work, should his plays precisely in his homeland not being shown. First, it was through permission of the executor Peter Fabjan - Bernhard's half-brother - after all, possible the already in the schedule of the Burgtheater included productions to continue. Finally, shortly before the tenth anniversary of the death of Bernard it came to the revival of the Bernhard play Before retirement by the first performance director Peymann. The plays by Bernhard are since then continued on the programme of the Burgtheater and they are regularly newly produced.

In 1993, the rehearsal stage of the Castle theater was opened in the arsenal (architect Gustav Peichl). Since 1999, the Burgtheater has the operation form of a limited corporation.

Directorate Klaus Bachler 1999-2009

Peymann was followed in 1999 by Klaus Bachler as director. He is a trained actor, but was mostly as a cultural manager (director of the Vienna Festival) active. Bachler moved the theater as a cultural event in the foreground and he engaged for this purpose directors such as Luc Bondy, Andrea Breth, Peter Zadek and Martin Kušej.

Were among the unusual "events" of the directorate Bachler

* The Theatre of Orgies and Mysteries by Hermann Nitsch with the performance of 122 Action (2005 )

* The recording of the MTV Unplugged concert with Die Toten Hosen for the music channel MTV (2005, under the title available)

* John Irving's reading from his book at the Burgtheater Until I find you (2006)

* The 431 animatographische (animatographical) Expedition by Christoph Schlingensief and a big event of him under the title of Area 7 - Matthew Sadochrist - An expedition by Christoph Schlingensief (2006).

* Daniel Hoevels cut in Schiller's Mary Stuart accidentally his throat (December 2008). Outpatient care is enough.

Jubilee Year 2005

In October 2005, the Burgtheater celebrated the 50th Anniversary of its reopening with a gala evening and the performance of Grillparzer's King Ottokar's Fortune and End, directed by Martin Kušej that had been performed in August 2005 at the Salzburg Festival as a great success. Michael Maertens (in the role of Rudolf of Habsburg) received the Nestroy Theatre Award for Best Actor for his role in this play. Actor Tobias Moretti was awarded in 2006 for this role with the Gertrude Eysoldt Ring.

Furthermore, there were on 16th October 2005 the open day on which the 82-minute film "burg/private. 82 miniatures" of Sepp Dreissinger was shown for the first time. The film contains one-minute film "Stand portraits" of Castle actors and guest actors who, without saying a word, try to present themselves with a as natural as possible facial expression. Klaus Dermutz wrote a work on the history of the Burgtheater. As a motto of this season served a quotation from Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm: "It's so sad to be happy alone."

The Burgtheater on the Mozart Year 2006

Also the Mozart Year 2006 was at the Burgtheater was remembered. As Mozart's Singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail in 1782 in the courtyard of Castle Theatre was premiered came in cooperation with the Vienna State Opera on the occasion of the Vienna Festival in May 2006 a new production (directed by Karin Beier) of this opera on stage.

Directorate Matthias Hartmann since 2009

From September 2009 to 2014, Matthias Hartmann was Artistic Director of the Burgtheater. A native of Osnabrück, he directed the stage houses of Bochum and Zurich. With his directors like Alvis Hermanis, Roland Schimmelpfennig, David Bösch, Stefan Bachmann, Stefan Pucher, Michael Thalheimer, came actresses like Dorte Lyssweski, Katharina Lorenz, Sarah Viktoria Frick, Mavie Hoerbiger, Lucas Gregorowicz and Martin Wuttke came permanently to the Burg. Matthias Hartmann himself staged around three premieres per season, about once a year, he staged at the major opera houses. For more internationality and "cross-over", he won the Belgian artist Jan Lauwers and his Need Company as "Artists in Residence" for the Castle, the New York group Nature Theater of Oklahoma show their great episode drama Live and Times of an annual continuation. For the new look - the Burgtheater presents itself without a solid logo with word games around the BURG - the Burgtheater in 2011 was awarded the Cultural Brand of the Year .

Since 2014, Karin Bergmann is the commander in chief.

Utilizing natural sunlight for a recent photoshoot.

Utilizing my Nick Bluetooth Galidor figure, I have made my Power Loader into the ultimate Xenomorph killing machine!

 

Don't think of Nick as Nick, think of him just as a normal person wielding the Power Loader to fight a Xeno Queen!

 

Don't forget to check out my main photo of this build (with Cervatus, my 2013 Bio-Cup entry) piloting him instead of the human!

 

This was just a scrap, I LOVE the outcome though!

 

Cha-no-ki, 茶の木, tea tree, Camellia sinensis (Theaceae)

 

Tea, the most loved and utilized plant in Camellia family has very small and indistinctive flower. But I like this kind of small camellia (^_^) Leaves, being utilized as tea, in wild has typical fat, hard and uniquely luminescent beautiful leaves.

 

The home place is supposed to be southern part of China, but as it is cultivated since ancient, not clarified. In Japan, brought from the continent, also has been cultivated since ancient, it is often seen naturalized to be growing even in the forest. This was in a shrine grove.

 

Camellia family is unique and common group in East Asian warm temperate zone or in the East Asian tropics on high altitude warm temperate equivalent zone. And later, British, who adopted tea in their food habitat, and further utilized tea as cash crop, found its equivalent place in tropical highlands in their colonies out of tea's home land such as in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, or far away in Kenya.

 

Camellia family plants are mostly and typically evergreen, the leaves being fat with thick cuticle layer on upper surface. The thick cuticle layer is supposed to be adoption to low temperature in winter or in the night, and it gives high luminescence to the leaves. Seeds are rich in high quality oil. Both of Tea and Camellia (Tsubaki, Camellia japonica) are utilized for oil production.

 

In China as tea is so deeply rooted, common Camellia, which has bigger and beautiful flowers were named after tea, like 山茶, which means "mountain (or wild) tea", whereas in Japan, tea and common big flowered Camellia are recognized under different context, called Tsubaki, 椿, of which character, meaning completely different plant in China.

 

Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan, Dec2007

Nikon D40x Micro Nikkor 60mm

Criss Creek is located in the British Columbia Interior, Canada. - on the Bonaparte Plateau north of the city of Kamloops. There are several ranches in the area which utilize Criss Creek for irrigation. Additionally there have been low quality gold deposits discovered along the creek.

 

CRISS CREEK - "Mrs. Williams' ranch at the forks of Deadmans Creek and Criss Creek was taken up in the early 1860s by a Hollander named Christopher Pumpmaker, an old packer. He was always spoken of as "old Chris" and the creek at his place was naturally called after him Chris Creek. But in latter days the government surveyors have changed it to Criss Creek.... Christopher Pumpmaker died in 1876 and Si Hemans bought the ranch, selling it to Tingley in 1884 who sold it to Williams.....A. Driscoll, DLS, uses the spelling "Chris Creek". Later this became "Cris" and on a 1910 plan by Joseph E. Ross, DLS, it is spelled "Criss Creek", probably the latest plan used to establish the name of the adjacent post office in 1914.

 

(from - Wrigley's 1918 British Columbia Directory) - CRISS CREEK - a post office and ranching settlement northwest of Kamloops, in Lillooet Provincial Electoral District, reached by wagon road. Nearest railway point is Savona, on C. P. R., 21 miles from which point Criss Creek is reached by trail. The population in 1918 was 83. Local resources: Stock raising.

 

The CRISS CREEK Post Office was established - 1 June 1914 and closed - 30 March 1968 due to the retirement of the Postmaster and to its limited usefulness. All mail addressed to Criss Creek after the closing date was forwarded to Kamloops, B.C. for delivery.

 

LINK to a list of the Postmasters who served at the CRISS CREEK Post Office - central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=posoffposmas&id=2...

 

When this letter was posted the Postmaster at CRISS CREEK was William Stuart - he served from - 1 May 1936 to - 31 March 1968.

 

William "Bill" Stuart

(b. 7 February 1898 in Scotland - d. 5 April 1983 at age 85 in Kamloops, British Columbia / Criss Creek, British Columbia) his occupation rancher / Postmaster. LINK to his death certificate - search-collections.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/Image/Genealogy/80...

 

His wife - Isabella (nee Abel) Stuart

(b. - d. 1999)

 

- sent from - / CRISS CREEK / AP 15 / 58 / B.C. / - split ring cancel - this split ring hammer (A1-1) was proofed - 13 May 1914 - (RF C).

 

Sent by: George Connolly / Criss Creek / B.C.

 

Clipped from - North Thompson Star/Journal newspaper - Barriere, British Columbia, Canada - 11 December 2000 - George Francis Connolly passed away suddenly on Dec. 2, 2000. He was born on April 27, 1928, at Criss Creek, B.C. He is survived by his loving wife of 22 years, Patricia. Also surviving are children Louis (Philip) Stein of Louis Creek, Peter (Linda) of Fort St. James, Phillip (Valerie) of Barriere, Darryl (Bridget) of Clearwater, step children Trudy James, Renee Gillum and Krista Johnson, all of Oregon, and Mark Trento of Seattle, Washington. He is also survived by brothers Bill Connolly of Vancouver and Ernie Connolly of Kamloops. George was predeceased by son Paul Connolly and grandson Adam Connolly, three sisters and one brother. George left Criss Creek in I960 to live in Kamloops. He worked in the logging industry for many years, where he had a good name and was very respected. In 1985 he and Pat moved to Blue River where he lived until his passing.

Last night's sunset in Ramona. This time, the cows didn't show up nearby until after dark. If you look closely, however, you can see cows in the distance at the beginning of the video, too.

 

Shot with a Canon EOS R and Canon 75-300mm lens. Background music is a portion of "Present Moment" by Borrtex.

 

Ramona Grasslands County Preserve sits in the Santa Maria Valley between scenic coastal mesas and the rocky outcrops of the peninsula mountain ranges. Hikers, cyclists and equestrians alike can explore this 3,521-acre preserve, however, not all acreage is open to the public; some land is closed to protect sensitive resources along with the natural beauty of the area. Visit on your own or attend a docent-led interpretive excursions – both lead to open breathtaking panoramic views.

 

Private cattle are permitted to graze on the land as it is beneficial to several high priority species utilizing the loamy grasslands, e.g., Stephens’ kangaroo rat (SKR) and raptors. Grazing helps reduce wildfire dangers as well.

They all look the same, dress the same way, use the same facial expressions and body language but each will tell you he's "doing his own thing" Interactions, mirroring consists of the parent imitating the infant's expressions while vocalizing the emotion implied by the expression. This imitation helps the infant to associate the emotion with their expression, as well as feel validated in their own emotions as the parent shows approval through imitation. Studies have demonstrated that mirroring is an important part of child and infant development. According to Kohut's theories of self-psychology, individuals need a sense of validation and belonging in order to establish their concepts of self. When parents mirror their infants, the action may help the child develop a greater sense of self-awareness and self-control, as they can see their emotions within their parent's faces. Additionally, infants may learn and experience new emotions, facial expressions, and gestures by mirroring expressions that their parents utilize. The process of mirroring may help infants establish connections of expressions to emotions and thus promote social communication later in life. Infants also learn to feel secure and valid in their own emotions through mirroring, as the parent's imitation of their emotions may help the child recognize their own thoughts and feelings more readily.When we meet others for the first time, we need to assess quickly whether they are positive or negative towards us, just as most other animals do for survival reasons. We do this by scanning the other person's body to see if they will move or gesture the same way we do in what is known as 'mirroring'. We mirror each other's body language as a way of bonding, being accepted and creating rapport, but we are usually oblivious to the fact that we are doing it. In ancient times, mirroring was also a social device which helped our ancestors fit in successfully with larger groups; it is also a left-over from a primitive method of learning which involved imitation.Additionally, individuals are likely to mirror the person of higher status or power within the situation. Mirroring individuals of higher power may create an illusion of higher status, or create rapport with the individual in power, thus allowing the person to gain favor with the individual in power. This mechanism may be helpful for individuals in situations where they are in a position of bargaining with an individual who possesses more power, as the rapport that mirroring creates may help to persuade the higher status individual to help the person of lower status. These situations include job interviews, other work situations such as requesting promotions, parent-child interactions, and asking professors for favors. Each of these situations involve one party who is in a more powerless position for bargaining, and another party who has the ability to fulfill the person of lower status's needs, but may not necessarily wish to. Thus, mirroring can be a useful tool for individuals of lower status in order to persuade the other party to relinquish goods or privileges for the lower status party.Mirroring generally takes place subconsciously as individuals react with the situation. Mirroring is common in conversation, as the listeners will typically smile or frown along with the speaker, as well as imitate body posture or attitude about the topic. Individuals may be more willing to empathize with and accept people whom they believe hold similar interests and beliefs, and thus mirroring the person with whom one is speaking may establish connections between the individuals involved.

One of the most noticeable forms of mirroring is yawning - one person starts and it sets everyone off. Dr. Robert Provine found that yawning is so contagious you don't even need to see another person yawn - the sight of a wide-open mouth is enough to do it. It was once thought that the purpose of yawning was to oxygenate the body but we now know that it's a form of mirroring that serves to create rapport with others and to avoid aggression - just as it also does for this pictured boat and yawning building.

 

Wearing the same outfit as another woman is a mirroring no-no. But if two men show up at a party wearing the same outfit, they could become lifelong friends.

 

Non-verbally, mirroring says 'Look at me; I'm the same as you. I feel the same way and share the same attitudes.' This is why people at a rock concert will all jump to their feet and applaud simultaneously or give a 'Mexican Wave' together. The synchronicity of the crowd promotes a secure feeling in the participants. Similarly, people in an angry mob will mirror aggressive attitudes and this explains why many usually calm people can lose their cool in this situation.

 

The urge to mirror is also the basis on which a queue works. In a queue, people willingly co-operate with people they have never met and will never see again, obeying an unwritten set of behavioral rules while waiting for a bus, at an art gallery, in a bank or side by side in war. Professor Joseph Heinrich from the University of Michigan found that the urges to mirror others are hardwired into the brain because co-operation leads to more food, better health and economic growth for communities. It also offers an explanation as to why societies that are highly disciplined in mirroring, such as the British, Germans and ancient Romans successfully dominated the world for many years. Mirroring the other person's body language and appearance shows a united front and doesn't let either get one-up on the other

Mirroring makes others feel 'at ease'. It's such a powerful rapport-building tool that slow-motion video research reveals that it even extends to simultaneous blinking, nostril-flaring, eyebrow-raising and even pupil dilation, which is remarkable as these micro-gestures cannot be consciously imitated.

 

Creating the Right Vibes

 

Studies into synchronous body language behavior show that people who feel similar emotions, or are on the same wavelength and are likely to be experiencing a rapport, will also begin to match each other's body language and expressions. Being 'in sync' to bond with another person begins early in the womb when our body functions and heartbeat match the rhythm of our mother, so mirroring is a state to which we are naturally inclined.

 

When a couple are in the early stages of courtship it's common to see them behave with synchronous movements, almost as if they are dancing. For example, when a woman takes a mouthful of food the man wipes the corner of his mouth; or he begins a sentence and she finishes it for him. When she gets PMT, he develops a strong desire for chocolate; and when she feels bloated, he farts.

 

When a person says 'the vibes are right' or that they 'feel right' around another person, they are unknowingly referring to mirroring and synchronous behavior. For example, at a restaurant, one person can be reluctant to eat or drink alone for fear of being out of sync with the others. When it comes to ordering the meal, each may check with the others before ordering. 'What are you having?' they ask as they try to mirror their meals. This is one of the reasons why playing background music during a date is so effective - the music gets a couple to beat and tap in time together. Mirroring on a Cellular Level

 

American heart surgeon, Dr Memhet Oz, reported some remarkable findings from heart recipients. He found that, as with most other body organs, the heart appears to retain cellular memories, and this allows some patients to experience some of the emotions experienced by the heart donor. Even more remarkably, he found some recipients also assume the same gestures and posture of the donor even though they have never seen the donor. His conclusion was that it appears that the heart cells instruct the recipient's brains to take on the donor's body language. Conversely, people suffering from disorders such as autism have no ability to mirror or match the behavior of others, which makes it difficult for two-way communication with others. The same goes for drunk people whose gestures are out of sync with their words, making it impossible for any mirroring to occur.

 

Because of the phenomenon of cause and effect, if you intentionally assume certain body language positions you will begin to experience the emotions associated with those gestures. For example, if you feel confident, you may unconsciously assume the Steeple gesture to reflect your confidence, but if you intentionally Steeple you will not only begin to feel more confident, others will perceive that you're confident. This, then, becomes a powerful way to create a rapport with others by intentionally matching their body language and posture.

 

Mirroring Differences Between Men and Women

 

Geoffrey Beattie, at the University of Manchester, found that a woman is instinctively four times more likely to mirror another woman than a man is to mirror another man. He also found that women mirror men's body language too, but men are reluctant to mirror a woman's gestures or posture - unless he is in courtship mode.

 

When a woman says she can 'see' that someone doesn't agree with the group opinion she is actually 'seeing' the disagreement. She's picked up that someone's body language is out of sync with group opinion and they are showing their disagreement by not mirroring the group's body language. How women can 'see' disagreement, anger, lying or feeling hurt has always been a source of amazement to most men. It's because most men's brains are simply not well equipped to read the fine detail of others' body language and don't consciously notice mirroring discrepancies.

 

Men and women's brains are programmed differently to express emotions through facial expressions and body language. Typically, a woman can use an average of six main facial expressions in a ten-second listening period to reflect and then feed back the speaker's emotions. Her face will mirror the emotions being expressed by the speaker. To someone watching, it can look as if the events being discussed are happening to both women.

 

A woman reads the meaning of what is being said through the speaker's voice tone and his emotional condition through his body language. This is exactly what a man needs to do to capture a woman's attention and to keep her interested and listening. Most men are daunted by the prospect of using facial feedback while listening, but it pays big dividends for the man who becomes good at it.

 

Some men say 'She'll think I'm effeminate!', but research with these techniques shows that when a man mirrors a woman's facial expressions as she talks she will describe him as caring, intelligent, interesting and attractive.

 

Men, on the other hand, can make fewer than a third of the facial expressions a woman can make. Men usually hold expressionless faces, especially in public, because of the evolutionary need to withhold emotion to stave off possible attack from strangers and to appear to be in control of their emotions. This is why most men look as if they are statues when they listen.

 

The emotionless mask that men wear while listening allows them to feel in control of the situation, but does not mean men don't experience emotions. Brain scans reveal that men can feel emotion as strongly as women, but avoid showing it publicly.

 

What to Do About It if You're Female

 

The key to mirroring a man's behavior is in understanding that he doesn't use his face to signal his attitudes - he uses his body. Most women find it difficult to mirror an expressionless man but with males this is not required. If you're a woman, it means that you need to reduce your facial expressions so that you don't come across as overwhelming or intimidating. Most importantly, don't mirror what you think he might be feeling. That can be disastrous if you've got it wrong and you may be described as 'dizzy' or 'scatterbrained'. Women in business who listen with a more serious face are described by men as more intelligent, astute and sensible.

 

When Men and Women Start to Look Alike

 

When two people live together for a long time and have a good working relationship, they often begin to look alike. This is because they are constantly mirroring each other's facial expressions, which, over time, builds muscle definition in the same areas of the face. Even couples who don't look facially similar can appear similar in a photograph because they use the same smile.

 

n 2000, psychologist Dr John Gottman of the University of Washington, Seattle, and his colleagues, discovered that marriages are more likely to fail when one partner not only does not mirror the other's expressions of happiness, but instead shows expressions of contempt. Instead, this opposite behavior affects the smiling partner, even when they are not consciously aware of what is happening.

 

Do We Resemble Our Pets?

 

You can also see mirroring occur in the pets some people choose. Without realizing it, we unconsciously tend to favor pets that physically resemble us, or that appear to reflect our attitudes. To demonstrate the point, here are a couple of examples: too far and presume that our model of body language and social interpretation applies to a dog's body language.

Be careful however not to extrapolate the metaphor too far and presume that our model of body language and social interpretation applies to a dog's body language.

 

Monkey See, Monkey Do

 

The next time you attend a social function or go to a place where people meet and interact, notice the number of people who have taken the identical gestures and posture of the person with whom they're talking. Mirroring is the way one person tells another that he is in agreement with his ideas and attitudes. One is non-verbally saying to the other, 'As you can see, I think the same as you.' The person with the highest status often makes the first moves and the others copy, usually in pecking order.

 

In the image above it is apparent by virtue of the facial expressions and other body language that there is a good rapport between the US President's wife Michelle Obama, of informally superior status, and a university president. If Michelle changes her body posture, one might expect there is a reasonably good chance the gentleman will unconsciously emulate her posture, indirectly demonstrating they are of the same mind. Mirroring happens among friends or between people of the same status and it is common to see married couples walk, stand, sit and move in identical ways. Albert Scheflen found that people who are strangers studiously avoid holding mirror positions.

 

Matching Voices

 

Intonation, voice inflection, speed of speaking and even accents also synchronize during the mirroring process to further establish mutual attitudes and build rapport. This is known as 'pacing' and it can almost seem as if the two people are singing in tune. You will often see a speaker beating time with his hands while the listener matches the rhythm with head nods. As a relationship grows over time, the mirroring of the main body language positions becomes less as each person begins to anticipate the other's attitudes, and vocal pacing with the other person becomes a main medium for maintaining rapport.

 

Never speak at a faster rate than the other person. Studies reveal that others describe feeling 'pressured' when someone speaks more quickly than they do. A person's speed of speech shows the rate at which their brain can consciously analyze information. Speak at the same rate or slightly slower than the other person and mirror their inflection and intonation. Pacing is critical when attempting to make appointments by telephone because voice is your only communication medium.

 

Intentionally Creating Rapport

 

The significance of mirroring is one of the most important body language lessons you can learn because it's a clear way in which others tell us that they agree with us or like us. It is also a way for us to tell others that we like them, by simply mirroring their body language.

 

If a boss wants to develop a rapport and create a relaxed atmosphere with a nervous employee, he could copy the employee's posture to achieve this end. Similarly, an up-and-coming employee may be seen copying his boss's gestures in an attempt to show agreement when the boss is giving his opinion. Using this knowledge, it is possible to influence others by mirroring their positive gestures and posture. This has the effect of putting the other person in a receptive and relaxed frame of mind, because he can 'see' that you understand his point of view. Before you mirror someone's body language, however, you must take into consideration your relationship with that person. Let's say, for example, a corporate employee has asked for a pay rise and is called into his manager's office. The employee enters the office, the manager asks him to sit down and assumes the Catapult with a Figure-Four showing the employee a superior, dominant attitude. But what would happen if the subordinate then instinctively copied the manager's dominant body language while discussing the potential salary increase? A boss might perceive a subordinate's mirroring behavior as being pushy or impertinent

Even if the employee's manner of speaking and phrasing was typical of a subordinate, the manager could feel affronted by the employee's body language, placing the employee's pay increase request in doubt and perhaps posing a threat to his future promotability. Mirroring is also effective for intimidating or disarming people who deem themselves 'superior' and try to take control of situations. Accountants, lawyers and managers are notorious for using superiority body language clusters around people they consider inferior. By mirroring, you can disconcert them and force a change of position. But never do it to the boss. Through mirrored multi-tasking, these business associates are taking their minds off what can seem an awkward encroachment on their personal zones.

Who Mirrors Whom?

 

Research shows that when the leader of a group assumes certain gestures and positions, subordinates will copy, usually in pecking order. Leaders also tend to be the first of a group to walk through a doorway and they like to sit on the end of a sofa, table or bench seat rather than in the center. When a group of executives walks into a room, the person with the highest status usually goes first. When executives are seated in the boardroom, the boss usually sits at the head of the table, often furthest from the door. If the boss sits in the Catapult, his subordinates are likely to copy in order of their importance within the group You can see this in a meeting where people 'take sides' with others by mirroring their body language. This lets you see who will vote with you and who will vote against you.

 

Mirroring is a good strategy to use if you are part of a presentation team. Decide, in advance, that when the team spokesperson makes a gesture or takes a posture when speaking, the entire team will mirror. This not only gives your team the powerful appearance of being cohesive, it can frighten the hell out of competitors who suspect something is up, even though they can't quite figure out what it is. When presenting ideas, products and services to couples, watching who mirrors whom reveals where the ultimate power or final decision-making ability lies. If the woman makes the initial movements, however small, such as crossing her feet, lacing her fingers or using a Critical Evaluation cluster and the man copies, there is little point in asking him for a decision - he doesn't have the authority to make it. When we rub both of our eyes simultaneously, it is as if we are telling our psyches, "I wish I never saw that", or "I can't believe he did that". We are trying to wipe it from our minds. People will also display this body language tell when recalling a past event in the "mind's eye".

Group Mirroring

 

It happens on fall season Sundays in American football stadiums around the country. Suddenly, 50,000 individuals became a single unit, almost a single mind, focused intently on what was happening on the field - that particular touchdown grab or dive into the end zone. Somehow, virtually simultaneously, each of those 50,000 people tuned into what the other 49,999 were looking at.

 

Becoming part of a crowd can be exhilarating or terrifying: The same mechanisms that make people fans can just as easily make them fanatics. And throughout human history we have constructed institutions that provide that dangerous, enthralling thrill. The Coliseum-like stadiums that host American football games or soccer games throughout the world are, after all, just modern knockoffs of the massive theater that housed Roman crowds cheering their favorite gladiators 2,000 years ago.

 

In fact, recent studies suggest that our sensitivity to crowds is built into our perceptual system and operates in a remarkably swift and automatic way. In a 2012 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, A.C. Gallup, then at Princeton University, and colleagues looked at the crowds that gather in shopping centers and train stations.

 

In one study, a few ringers simply joined the crowd and stared up at a spot in the sky for 60 seconds. Then the researchers recorded and analyzed the movements of the people around them. The scientists found that within seconds hundreds of people coordinated their attention in a highly systematic way. People consistently stopped to look toward exactly the same spot as the ringers.

 

The number of ringers ranged from one to 15. People turn out to be very sensitive to how many other people are looking at something, as well as to where they look. Individuals were much more likely to follow the gaze of several people than just a few, so there was a cascade of looking as more people joined in.

 

In a study in Psychological Science, Timothy Sweeny at the University of Denver and David Whitney at the University of California, Berkeley, looked at the mechanisms that let us follow a crowd in this way. They showed people a set of four faces, each looking in a slightly different direction. Then the researchers asked people to indicate where the whole group was looking (the observers had to swivel the eyes on a face on a computer screen to match the direction of the group).

Because we combine head and eye direction in calculating a gaze, the participants couldn't tell where each face was looking by tracking either the eyes or the head alone; they had to combine the two. The subjects saw the faces for less than a quarter of a second. That's much too short a time to look at each face individually, one by one.

 

It sounds impossibly hard. If you try the experiment, you can barely be sure of what you saw at all. But in fact, people were amazingly accurate. Somehow, in that split-second, they put all the faces together and worked out the average direction where the whole group was looking.

 

In other studies, Dr. Whitney has shown that people can swiftly calculate how happy or sad a crowd is in much the same way.

 

Other social animals have dedicated brain mechanisms for coordinating their action - that's what's behind the graceful rhythms of a flock of birds or a school of fish.

 

Summary

 

Mirroring someone's body language makes them feel accepted and creates a bond and is a phenomenon that occurs naturally between friends and people of equal status. Conversely, we make a point of not mirroring those we don't like or strangers, such as those riding with us in a lift or standing in the queue at the cinema.

 

Mirroring the other person's body language and speech patterns is one of the most powerful ways to build rapport quickly. In a new meeting with someone, mirror his seating position, posture, body angle, gestures, expressions and tone of voice. Before long, they'll start to feel that there's something about you they like - they'll describe you as 'easy to be with'. This is because they see themselves reflected in you. A word of warning, however: don't do it too early in a new encounter as many people have become aware of mirroring strategies. When someone takes a position you have one of three choices - ignore it, do something else or mirror it. Mirroring pays big dividends. But never mirror a person's negative signals.

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The Burgtheater at Dr.-Karl -Lueger-Ring (from now on, 2013, Universitätsring) in Vienna is an Austrian Federal Theatre. It is one of the most important stages in Europe and after the Comédie-Française, the second oldest European one, as well as the greatest German speaking theater. The original 'old' Burgtheater at Saint Michael's square was utilized from 1748 until the opening of the new building at the ring in October, 1888. The new house in 1945 burnt down completely as a result of bomb attacks, until the re-opening on 14 October 1955 was the Ronacher serving as temporary quarters. The Burgtheater is considered as Austrian National Theatre.

Throughout its history, the theater was bearing different names, first Imperial-Royal Theater next to the Castle, then to 1918 Imperial-Royal Court-Burgtheater and since then Burgtheater (Castle Theater). Especially in Vienna it is often referred to as "The Castle (Die Burg)", the ensemble members are known as Castle actors (Burgschauspieler).

History

St. Michael's Square with the old K.K. Theatre beside the castle (right) and the Winter Riding School of the Hofburg (left)

The interior of the Old Burgtheater, painted by Gustav Klimt. The people are represented in such detail that the identification is possible.

The 'old' Burgtheater at St. Michael's Square

The original castle theater was set up in a ball house that was built in the lower pleasure gardens of the Imperial Palace of the Roman-German King and later Emperor Ferdinand I in 1540, after the old house 1525 fell victim to a fire. Until the beginning of the 18th Century was played there the Jeu de Paume, a precursor of tennis. On 14 March 1741 finally gave the Empress Maria Theresa, ruling after the death of her father, which had ordered a general suspension of the theater, the "Entrepreneur of the Royal Court Opera" and lessees of 1708 built theater at Kärntnertor (Carinthian gate), Joseph Karl Selliers, permission to change the ballroom into a theater. Simultaneously, a new ball house was built in the immediate vicinity, which todays Ballhausplatz is bearing its name.

In 1748, the newly designed "theater next to the castle" was opened. 1756 major renovations were made, inter alia, a new rear wall was built. The Auditorium of the Old Burgtheater was still a solid timber construction and took about 1200 guests. The imperial family could reach her ​​royal box directly from the imperial quarters, the Burgtheater structurally being connected with them. At the old venue at Saint Michael's place were, inter alia, several works of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as well as Franz Grillparzer premiered .

On 17 February 1776, Emperor Joseph II declared the theater to the German National Theatre (Teutsches Nationaltheater). It was he who ordered by decree that the stage plays should not deal with sad events for not bring the Imperial audience in a bad mood. Many theater plays for this reason had to be changed and provided with a Vienna Final (Happy End), such as Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet. From 1794 on, the theater was bearing the name K.K. Court Theatre next to the castle.

1798 the poet August von Kotzebue was appointed as head of the Burgtheater, but after discussions with the actors he left Vienna in 1799. Under German director Joseph Schreyvogel was introduced German instead of French and Italian as a new stage language.

On 12 October 1888 took place the last performance in the old house. The Burgtheater ensemble moved to the new venue at the Ring. The Old Burgtheater had to give way to the completion of Saint Michael's tract of Hofburg. The plans to this end had been drawn almost 200 years before the demolition of the old Burgtheater by Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach.

The "new" K.K. Court Theatre (as the inscription reads today) at the Ring opposite the Town Hall, opened on 14 October 1888 with Grillparzer's Esther and Schiller's Wallenstein's Camp, was designed in neo-Baroque style by Gottfried Semper (plan) and Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer (facade), who had already designed the Imperial Forum in Vienna together. Construction began on 16 December 1874 and followed through 14 years, in which the architects quarreled. Already in 1876 Semper withdrew due to health problems to Rome and had Hasenauer realized his ideas alone, who in the dispute of the architects stood up for a mainly splendid designed grand lodges theater.

However, created the famous Viennese painter Gustav Klimt and his brother Ernst Klimt and Franz Matsch 1886-1888 the ceiling paintings in the two stairwells of the new theater. The three took over this task after similar commissioned work in the city theaters of Fiume and Karlovy Vary and in the Bucharest National Theatre. In the grand staircase on the side facing the café Landtmann of the Burgtheater (Archduke stairs) reproduced ​​Gustav Klimt the artists of the ancient theater in Taormina on Sicily, in the stairwell on the "People's Garden"-side (Kaiserstiege, because it was reserved for the emperor) the London Globe Theatre and the final scene from William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet". Above the entrance to the auditorium is Molière's The Imaginary Invalid to discover. In the background the painter immortalized himself in the company of his two colleagues. Emperor Franz Joseph I liked the ceiling paintings so much that he gave the members of the company of artists of Klimt the Golden Cross of Merit.

The new building resembles externally the Dresden Semper Opera, but even more, due to the for the two theaters absolutely atypical cross wing with the ceremonial stairs, Semper's Munich project from the years 1865/1866 for a Richard Wagner Festspielhaus above the Isar. Above the middle section there is a loggia, which is framed by two side wings, and is divided from a stage house with a gable roof and auditorium with a tent roof. Above the center house there decorates a statue of Apollo the facade, throning between the Muses of drama and tragedy. Above the main entrances are located friezes with Bacchus and Ariadne. At the exterior facade round about, portrait busts of the poets Calderon, Shakespeare, Moliere, Schiller, Goethe, Lessing, Halm, Grillparzer, and Hebbel can be seen. The masks which also can be seen here are indicating the ancient theater, furthermore adorn allegorical representations the side wings: love, hate, humility, lust, selfishness, and heroism. Although the theater since 1919 is bearing the name of Burgtheater, the old inscription KK Hofburgtheater over the main entrance still exists. Some pictures of the old gallery of portraits have been hung up in the new building and can be seen still today - but these images were originally smaller, they had to be "extended" to make them work better in high space. The points of these "supplements" are visible as fine lines on the canvas.

The Burgtheater was initially well received by Viennese people due to its magnificent appearance and technical innovations such as electric lighting, but soon criticism because of the poor acoustics was increasing. Finally, in 1897 the auditorium was rebuilt to reduce the acoustic problems. The new theater was an important meeting place of social life and soon it was situated among the "sanctuaries" of Viennese people. In November 1918, the supervision over the theater was transferred from the High Steward of the emperor to the new state of German Austria.

1922/1923 the Academy Theatre was opened as a chamber play stage of the Burgtheater. On 8th May 1925, the Burgtheater went into Austria's criminal history, as here Mentscha Karnitschewa perpetrated a revolver assassination on Todor Panitza.

The Burgtheater in time of National Socialism

The National Socialist ideas also left traces in the history of the Burgtheater. In 1939 appeared in Adolf Luser Verlag the strongly anti-Semitic characterized book of theater scientist Heinz Kindermann "The Burgtheater. Heritage and mission of a national theater", in which he, among other things, analyzed the "Jewish influence "on the Burgtheater. On 14 October 1938 was on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Burgtheater a Don Carlos production of Karl-Heinz Stroux shown that served Hitler's ideology. The role of the Marquis of Posa played the same Ewald Balser, who in a different Don Carlos production a year earlier (by Heinz Hilpert) at the Deutsches Theater in the same role with the sentence in direction of Joseph Goebbels box vociferated: "just give freedom of thought". The actor and director Lothar Müthel, who was director of the Burgtheater between 1939 and 1945, staged 1943 the Merchant of Venice, in which Werner Kraus the Jew Shylock clearly anti-Semitic represented. The same director staged after the war Lessing's parable Nathan the Wise. Adolf Hitler himself visited during the Nazi regime the Burgtheater only once (1938), and later he refused in pure fear of an assassination.

For actors and theater staff who were classified according to the Reich Citizenship Law of 1935 as "Jews ", were quickly imposed stage bans, within a few days, they were on leave, fired or arrested. The Burgtheater ensemble ​​between 1938 and 1945 did not put up significant resistance against the Nazi ideology, the repertoire was heavily censored, only a few joined the Resistance, as Judith Holzmeister (then also at the People's Theatre engaged) or the actor Fritz Lehmann. Although Jewish members of the ensemble indeed have been helped to emigrate, was still an actor, Fritz Strassny, taken to a concentration camp and murdered there.

The Burgtheater at the end of the war and after the Second World War

In summer 1944, the Burgtheater had to be closed because of the decreed general theater suspension. From 1 April 1945, as the Red Army approached Vienna, camped a military unit in the house, a portion was used as an arsenal. In a bomb attack the house at the Ring was damaged and burned down on 12th April 1945 completely. Auditorium and stage were useless, only the steel structure remained. The ceiling paintings and part of the lobby were almost undamaged.

The Soviet occupying power expected from Viennese City Councillor Viktor Matejka to launch Vienna's cultural life as soon as possible again. The council summoned on 23 April (a state government did not yet exist) a meeting of all Viennese cultural workers into the Town Hall. Result of the discussions was that in late April 1945 eight cinemas and four theaters took up the operation again, including the Burgtheater. The house took over the Ronacher Theater, which was understood by many castle actors as "exile" as a temporary home (and remained there to 1955). This venue chose the newly appointed director Raoul Aslan, who championed particularly active.

The first performance after the Second World War was on 30 April 1945 Sappho by Franz Grillparzer directed by Adolf Rott from 1943 with Maria Eis in the title role. Also other productions from the Nazi era were resumed. With Paul Hoerbiger, a few days ago as Nazi prisoner still in mortal danger, was shown the play of Nestroy Mädl (Girlie) from the suburbs. The Academy Theatre could be played (the first performance was on 19 April 1945 Hedda Gabler, a production of Rott from the year 1941) and also in the ball room (Redoutensaal) at the Imperial Palace took place performances. Aslan the Ronacher in the summer had rebuilt because the stage was too small for classical performances. On 25 September 1945, Schiller's Maid of Orleans could be played on the enlarged stage.

The first new productions are associated with the name of Lothar Müthel: Everyone and Nathan the Wise, in both Raoul Aslan played the main role. The staging of The Merchant of Venice by Müthel in Nazi times seemed to have been fallen into oblivion.

Great pleasure gave the public the return of the in 1938 from the ensemble expelled Else Wohlgemuth on stage. She performaed after seven years in exile in December 1945 in Clare Biharys The other mother in the Academy Theater. 1951 opened the Burgtheater its doors for the first time, but only the left wing, where the celebrations on the 175th anniversary of the theater took place.

1948, a competition for the reconstruction was tendered: Josef Gielen, who was then director, first tended to support the design of ex aequo-ranked Otto Niedermoser, according to which the house was to be rebuilt into a modern gallery theater. Finally, he agreed but then for the project by Michael Engelhardt, whose plan was conservative but also cost effective. The character of the lodges theater was largely taken into account and maintained, the central royal box but has been replaced by two balconies, and with a new slanted ceiling construction in the audience was the acoustics, the shortcoming of the house, improved significantly.

On 14 October 1955 was happening under Adolf Rott the reopening of the restored house at the Ring. For this occasion Mozart's A Little Night Music was played. On 15 and on 16 October it was followed by the first performance (for reasons of space as a double premiere) in the restored theater: King Ottokar's Fortune and End of Franz Grillparzer, staged by Adolf Rott. A few months after the signing of the Austrian State Treaty was the choice of this play, which the beginning of Habsburg rule in Austria makes a subject of discussion and Ottokar of Horneck's eulogy on Austria (... it's a good country / Well worth that a prince bow to it! / where have you yet seen the same?... ) contains highly symbolic. Rott and under his successors Ernst Haeusserman and Gerhard Klingenberg the classic Burgtheater style and the Burgtheater German for German theaters were finally pointing the way .

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Burgtheater participated (with other well-known theaters in Vienna) on the so-called Brecht boycott.

Gerhard Klingenberg internationalized the Burgtheater, he invited renowned stage directors such as Dieter Dorn, Peter Hall, Luca Ronconi, Giorgio Strehler, Roberto Guicciardini and Otomar Krejča. Klingenberg also enabled the castle debuts of Claus Peymann and Thomas Bernhard (1974 world premiere of The Hunting Party). Bernhard was as a successor of Klingenberg mentioned, but eventually was appointed Achim Benning, whereupon the writer with the text "The theatrical shack on the ring (how I should become the director of the Burgtheater)" answered.

Benning, the first ensemble representative of the Burgtheater which was appointed director, continued Klingenberg's way of Europeanization by other means, brought directors such as Adolf Dresen, Manfred Wekwerth or Thomas Langhoff to Vienna, looked with performances of plays of Vaclav Havel to the then politically separated East and took the the public taste more into consideration.

Directorate Claus Peymann 1986-1999

Under the by short-term Minister of Education Helmut Zilk brought to Vienna Claus Peymann, director from 1986 to 1999, there was further modernization of the programme and staging styles. Moreover Peymann was never at a loss for critical contributions in the public, a hitherto unusual attitude for Burgtheater directors. Therefore, he and his program within sections of the audience met with rejection. The greatest theater scandal in Vienna since 1945 occurred in 1988 concerning the premiere of Thomas Bernhard's Heldenplatz (Place of the Heroes) drama which was fiercly fought by conservative politicians and zealots. The play deals with the Vergangenheitsbewältigung (process of coming to terms with the past) and illuminates the present management in Austria - with attacks on the then ruling Social Democratic Party - critically. Together with Claus Peymann Bernhard after the premiere dared to face on the stage applause and boos.

Bernard, to his home country bound in love-hate relationship, prohibited the performance of his plays in Austria before his death in 1989 by will. Peymann, to Bernhard bound in a difficult friendship (see Bernhard's play Claus Peymann buys a pair of pants and goes eating with me) feared harm for the author's work, should his plays precisely in his homeland not being shown. First, it was through permission of the executor Peter Fabjan - Bernhard's half-brother - after all, possible the already in the schedule of the Burgtheater included productions to continue. Finally, shortly before the tenth anniversary of the death of Bernard it came to the revival of the Bernhard play Before retirement by the first performance director Peymann. The plays by Bernhard are since then continued on the programme of the Burgtheater and they are regularly newly produced.

In 1993, the rehearsal stage of the Castle theater was opened in the arsenal (architect Gustav Peichl). Since 1999, the Burgtheater has the operation form of a limited corporation.

Directorate Klaus Bachler 1999-2009

Peymann was followed in 1999 by Klaus Bachler as director. He is a trained actor, but was mostly as a cultural manager (director of the Vienna Festival) active. Bachler moved the theater as a cultural event in the foreground and he engaged for this purpose directors such as Luc Bondy, Andrea Breth, Peter Zadek and Martin Kušej.

Were among the unusual "events" of the directorate Bachler

* The Theatre of Orgies and Mysteries by Hermann Nitsch with the performance of 122 Action (2005 )

* The recording of the MTV Unplugged concert with Die Toten Hosen for the music channel MTV (2005, under the title available)

* John Irving's reading from his book at the Burgtheater Until I find you (2006)

* The 431 animatographische (animatographical) Expedition by Christoph Schlingensief and a big event of him under the title of Area 7 - Matthew Sadochrist - An expedition by Christoph Schlingensief (2006).

* Daniel Hoevels cut in Schiller's Mary Stuart accidentally his throat (December 2008). Outpatient care is enough.

Jubilee Year 2005

In October 2005, the Burgtheater celebrated the 50th Anniversary of its reopening with a gala evening and the performance of Grillparzer's King Ottokar's Fortune and End, directed by Martin Kušej that had been performed in August 2005 at the Salzburg Festival as a great success. Michael Maertens (in the role of Rudolf of Habsburg) received the Nestroy Theatre Award for Best Actor for his role in this play. Actor Tobias Moretti was awarded in 2006 for this role with the Gertrude Eysoldt Ring.

Furthermore, there were on 16th October 2005 the open day on which the 82-minute film "burg/private. 82 miniatures" of Sepp Dreissinger was shown for the first time. The film contains one-minute film "Stand portraits" of Castle actors and guest actors who, without saying a word, try to present themselves with a as natural as possible facial expression. Klaus Dermutz wrote a work on the history of the Burgtheater. As a motto of this season served a quotation from Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm: "It's so sad to be happy alone."

The Burgtheater on the Mozart Year 2006

Also the Mozart Year 2006 was at the Burgtheater was remembered. As Mozart's Singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail in 1782 in the courtyard of Castle Theatre was premiered came in cooperation with the Vienna State Opera on the occasion of the Vienna Festival in May 2006 a new production (directed by Karin Beier) of this opera on stage.

Directorate Matthias Hartmann since 2009

From September 2009 to 2014, Matthias Hartmann was Artistic Director of the Burgtheater. A native of Osnabrück, he directed the stage houses of Bochum and Zurich. With his directors like Alvis Hermanis, Roland Schimmelpfennig, David Bösch, Stefan Bachmann, Stefan Pucher, Michael Thalheimer, came actresses like Dorte Lyssweski, Katharina Lorenz, Sarah Viktoria Frick, Mavie Hoerbiger, Lucas Gregorowicz and Martin Wuttke came permanently to the Burg. Matthias Hartmann himself staged around three premieres per season, about once a year, he staged at the major opera houses. For more internationality and "cross-over", he won the Belgian artist Jan Lauwers and his Need Company as "Artists in Residence" for the Castle, the New York group Nature Theater of Oklahoma show their great episode drama Live and Times of an annual continuation. For the new look - the Burgtheater presents itself without a solid logo with word games around the BURG - the Burgtheater in 2011 was awarded the Cultural Brand of the Year .

Since 2014, Karin Bergmann is the commander in chief.

The gunshot wounds have torn me from the inside out, how much they’ve given me made me wonder the life I’ve got left. It resides like a health bar, but in this case it’s not a game, and the upgrades don’t restore unless you know how to utilize them well.

 

A game is the life, the one on hard mode is the one we’re playing now, crashing to the final boss and you question—was it worth it, full of obstacles? The treasure, the loots?

 

I wish it were scaled back to be easier. I’m a short man, a dwarf born out of wedlock, the endurance and the hardship my mother gave the life for me and my brother Rolf will never be forgotten. Using my hands, I crafted things, both for a living, and both to survive.

 

When they’re wasted, they’re useless, and so is my body, immortal as it is, will break down eventually. I can feel my blood rushing but my mind is sinking, I should be strong willed and twice as durable; but this…to be tortured by this thing, merely who I would dare call a creature, not my kind, I could not look into those eyes that gives me fear.

 

Fear that friends have, shared around the others.

 

Nord: “The girl. We will tear her wings apart, and consume her…”

Graybane: “The flesh is new, the blood we reap and sow, the seeds planted…the other lady, she is a detrimental whore who heals fast. Good…good for the society.”

Thow: “And the men? Same as shall be, the parasites consume one by one, but I would not let the old man go to waste, our high leader must deal with him…the other fresh faces…they will not escape the trials this time, heh…heh…”

Koles: “Don’t even think about it, you mindless, foul fucks.”

 

Bald Rasputin, the team’s leader. He was fearless in front of a solvent problem that would have cured the Black Death, instead of purging the virus, it became an insane weapon, too much awareness gone all the way wrong, made it really fucked up. The grotesque thing looked at Koles in the eyes, who stared back with no remorse. I didn’t know how he’d look like that in the slaughterhouse in London, thrice as big…and the legs, of various animals conjured together, must have been the doing of another person; a crazy taxidermist.

 

Insane things breed insane things, we are the root of a problem that causes it, but unless there is a solution, there will be no end to it. A madman could only make something so benevolent to the wicked Vampire King—but for he was not Dracula. I did go to Romania with my team a few times, the legends intertwined between fact and fiction, only that to humans and to the bloodsuckers, he was idolized, romanticized alike.

 

And suddenly, I witness a beam glittering. Of orange, fiery light that shown down on us, but my head was bleeding from the concussion—I shouldn’t be thinking too much. In came a robed man who looked like he stole some of our parts followed by a strengthened Magnus, Florence and Sean. Despite looking messy and broken, they looked like they were up for a fight.

 

Robed Man: “The time is over, like I said, I am the one who brings upon your judgement. The witches and wizards with me did not deserve this.”

Creek: “Ah…my…my creator. You have come at last, Father.”

Sean: “Father? Well, fuck me if this is a jolly good fest.”

Magnus: “Retribution comes for you, for what you did to us.”

Florence: “No more loops. We end the cycle, today.”

 

Sean slices a few of the cult members ahead, who looked like they were going to unleash some satanic powers. Hellfire, probably. He was a full on samurai, one katana without the knives. Must be glorious. Florence’s cutlass reappeared, and she did the same, but her poor old shotgun was now a bat. I must say, it is an impressive modpon. Magnus was displaying badassery; full force of his magic and wind combined, swept the members off and disintegrated them.

 

The robed man stepped forward as his staff transformed into a lance, his body revealing runes on his armor, and his arms. He must have been a good tattoo artist, but that’s just a theory in my head. Going head on with the five creatures. I would have preferred their human forms when I was interrogated, honestly.

 

Robed Man: “The ritual of siphoning stops now. I’ve found you long enough, and I will never, ever call you my child. You’ve tainted too much blood on your hands—you will never stop or learn.”

Creek: “Insanity pleads no guilty here, but even as a creation, I rebel. We, rebel.”

Robed Man: “Don’t think so.”

Thow: “Attack him!”

 

They were no match for this mysterious man. His voice commandeered such power and force that felt oddly human to me. Perhaps, there was a chance of hope. Florence then removed us from our chains, using magic that also took out our pain, as she said, it would slowly heal. She got her sister, then Lucien, then Eldris..me and the rest.

 

Florence: “I usually hate this, but I owe you tons. Even you, Prez.”

Prez: “Ah, captain. I indulge in your ability to conjure magic.”

Florence: “First, don’t call me captain, I abhor the organization I once worked with for ages, two, we’re standing on a country with half the population dead, and three, find someone good to take cover with these teleportation gems.”

Lucien: “Those things? You’re doing a great job. Might be the best of us all, captain. Ugh…pain aside, we’ll do fine. Let me retrieve our friends first.”

Florence: “I told you not the captain—fine, whatever.”

 

Miracles don’t usually happen, and I’m not religious, but I was praying for every second with my heart. I’m glad Terry found himself with Cal. Have to ask how those two caught up fast enough—

 

And a fireball appeared out of nowhere. Must get my machine guns…my suit of armour is beyond repair, but it should be sufficient to fight. I inhale one of the powders from a bag thrown by Rowena, as my body slowly begins to recover from the whipped and sliced wounds, the feeling of those poisons and the parasites going away as it was gonna attack my internal organs and the insides further.

 

Meanwhile, Koles, having his face healed from so many markings and scratches, showed no signs of scars. He must have been enraged, storing all that chakra energy. He also went for one of those judges—Graybane, I think. His whip was returned to him and so was his broken camera, restored.

 

As for me, I had to tag team alongside Magnus and Edris, who were efficient at those ranged weapons, so we’d naturally knew what’d we do. Poor girl…her wings must be hurt bad. I comforted my protege as she nodded back, her fierceness determined to go all hell around her. And so the mixture of blades, guns, and magic…it was nothing different like three months ago, even in Asia, nothing really changes…or has it?

 

The sub teams forming a counter attack worked very well, like taking down a pantheon of gods at different corners of a clock, because timing was key. Like conjuring a spell. This dungeon was open wide to the brim, therefore we could still breath the cold air, muddy as it was.

 

Creek: “I will…never…give up my conquest, my loyalty is to the end of eternity and this Earth.”

Robed Man: “Thousands more you ravage, and so shall it be, I will find you to the edge.”

Creek: “Defying me as your creation, littered with nothing, you are no better than the rest.”

Robed Man: “Yes, I may not be. It was truly a mistake after all.”

 

The robed man’s pole continued to swerve at every move, he was dashing, but at the proper speed, relentless, like I’ve never seen this fighting form before. Like a Shaolin monk, being like water, but the fire combined…yin and yang. How could he achieve this.

 

And what came next was unexpected. He hit the creature’s main chest, a mixture of insects, a rat king, various snakes--god I wanna throw up. But it was a parlaying point…and then the man’s hand showed off a ring of fire, directly to the face of its eyes, yellow and petrified now.

 

Robed Man: “No last words for you, never…and I hereby declare you…executed.”

 

“No goodbyes.”

 

***

Holland-America Line

MS Westerdam

 

Jeffery Sitts

The History, Manufacture, and Use of Clay Pipes

March 5, 2021 by Jeffery Sitts in Pipe Line

 

Long before meerschaum and briar were utilized as pipe-making mediums, clay was the primary material used to make pipes. Clay pipes were at one time ubiquitous, often smoked in taverns, churches, and homes, and even after meerschaum became available, they were the choice of many because meerschaum was expensive. Clay pipes have been smoked for centuries and modern incarnations are nearly identical to early examples from hundreds of years ago in regard to the materials used and manufacturing methods. In addition to their classic appeal, clay pipes require no break-in and are renowned for their high level of heat resistance and flavor-neutral smoking qualities. Tobacco blenders use clays for testing purchasing leaf and potential blends because of that neutrality, enabling them to experience a blend or leaf varietal in its most accurate form. Along with providing an ideal way to sample new blends, clay pipes are also excellent for revisiting a favorite mixture and gaining a new perspective.

 

History of Clay Pipes

 

The history of clay pipes dates to at least the 16th century, with some scholarly sources indicating they were produced in England around 1558, shortly after the introduction of tobacco from North America. Other sources believe the clay pipe was likely introduced to Europe following Sir Walter Raleigh's 1585 Virginia expedition. According to a 2012 article titled "Evolution of clay tobacco pipes in England" published by the Cambridge Archaeological Field Group, "The earliest written description of smoking was in 1573 and probably described a pipe derived from native North American types." England was a major producer of clay pipes by the early 1600s though attitudes toward smoking dramatically changed with the death of Elizabeth I and the succession of King James I. The English monarch voiced his distaste for smoking in his 1604 treatise A Counterblaste to Tobacco and also instituted a 4,000 percent tax increase on tobacco.

 

In The Book of Pipes & Tobacco, Carl Ewha notes responses to the king's drastic actions:

 

Needless to say, life became miserable for those who favored or trafficked in tobacco. But pipemakers did not take the king's abuses quietly. When Sir Walter Raleigh, that avid and persistent pipe smoker, was charged with treason and executed, English pipe makers began to champion their hero posthumously with pipes that had his effigy molded into the bowls. King James was furious and in 1620, after many unheeded warnings of the consequences of such defiance, set up a pipemakers' guild in London and made any practice outside the guild unlawful. Pipemakers began leaving the country in great numbers for Holland, and the Dutch and English-turned-Dutch began to control the clay-pipe industry. (pg. 45).

 

Despite several pipe craftsmen in England and Holland, the shaping of clay pipes changed very little and they primarily varied in overall length, with makers producing designs ranging from Nosewarmer length to long, willowy Churchwardens. Academic sources note that Holland-made clay pipes were typically shorter, smaller, and thinner compared to English pieces. Dutch clays tended to be more intricately detailed and were typically polished until the finish was glossy.

 

Sir Walter Raleigh

 

It's the stylized, artistic flourishes that make historical clay pipes particularly fascinating, with carvings and engravings reflecting the smoker's religious views, political affiliation, or occupation. Woodworkers would also create intricate hinged cases and ornate pipe racks while metal craftsmen produced pipe tools and tobacco boxes. In Carl Ewha's book it's noted,

 

"At one point the smoking of clay pipes became so popular that a pipe cleaners' trade was established. It was thought important even then to have a clean pipe, and periodically one's pipes were bundled together on a special stand and sent to the bakehouse for purification." (pg. 48). In order to thoroughly clean clays, they were often placed in an oven or laid over a bed of hot coals to remove carbon cake inside the tobacco chamber and return the material to its original white color.

 

"The earliest written description of smoking was in 1573..."

 

Clay pipes excavated and dated by the Cambridge Archaeological Field Group showed, "By 1750 pipes with masonic arms, public house symbols and military regimental badges were all being made." Some pipes were often decorated for advertising purposes or to commemorate special events.

 

Historical clay pipes discovered around the world are dated using several techniques, including examining known maker's marks and using a typology based on the progression in bowl shape. The diameter of the stem bore was used to date clay pipes that were made up until 1800, with smaller holes indicating the pipe was fashioned closer to the start of the 19th century. Some Cutty-shaped clay pipes notably featured a curled heel spur, which was originally used for resting the hot bowl on a surface without burning that surface.

 

Another area where clay pipes were heavily used was Williamsburg, Virginia, as tobacco was a crucial economic pillar during the city's colonial period. A piece written by esteemed British archaeologist Ivor Noël Hume published in the winter 2003-04 edition of the Colonial Williamsburg Journal and titled "Hunting for a Little Ladle," mentions thousands of clay pipe fragments discovered in the historical city.

 

Hume also describes how clay pipes were smoked in taverns centuries ago:

 

An early explanation for their ubiquity had it that in colonial-era taverns pipes passed from mouth to mouth, but that in the interests of hygiene the previously lip-gripped section was broken off and thrown away. There is no documentary support for that notion, but it is known that used pipes were placed in iron cradles and heat cleansed in bake ovens before being issued to the next round of smokers.

 

The piece also touched on the difficulties of dating clay pipes from the London pipe maker's guild:

 

Although the guild of tobacco pipe makers had been established in London as early as 1619, prompting makers to identify their products by inscribing their marks or initials on the bases of bowls, very few of them supplied a date. Most of those that did came from the pipe-making center at Broseley in Shropshire and were stamped with dates in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. As the bowls on which dates appeared varied in shape, and as the dates probably referred to the maker's acceptance into his guild and not to the pipes on which they appeared, all this evidence was as confusing as it was helpful.

 

The lifespan of clay pipes was relatively short throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, lasting only one to two years until they were discarded. (Hume, 1969). However, even after they broke and could no longer be used for tobacco consumption, there were alternative uses for pieces of clay pipe stems. Archaeological evidence found that the most common reuse of stem fragments was in the form of whistles, which have been primarily discovered in the United States' Middle Atlantic region but also European settlements in Africa. Another notable way clay pipe stems were recycled was discovered when an 18th century walkway was excavated in Colonial Williamsburg, revealing that over 15,000 pipe stems were used as paving material. (Hume, 1974).

 

...over 15,000 pipe stems were used as paving material

 

In addition to practical and creative ways of reusing clay pipe stems, there's evidence that they were utilized as weapons, according to at least two historical cases. The earliest recorded example occurred in London in 1615 when one pipe maker stabbed another pipe maker in the eye with a pipe stem, killing him. A similar event transpired in 1666 during an argument between two men, culminating in one of them being killed by a pipe stem. (Walker, 1976).

 

Carl Ewha's book briefly mentions how clay pipes fell out of favor, "The popularity of the clay pipe began to decline shortly after World War I. The life style was changing, and more practical, durable pipes were needed which could be carried easily and were more comfortable to hold. Briar, which had come on the scene in the 1850s, satisfied this demand. Clay pipes, along with the leisurely life they symbolized, became increasingly part of the past." (pg. 59).

How Clay Pipes are Made

 

For crafting clay pipes, the clay is typically ground in a mill and mixed with water so that it provides a smooth, workable texture. A lump of clay is then rolled to form what will be the shank and stem, while a larger blob is shaped on one end for the bowl shape. Next, a thin metal wire, or piercing rod, is threaded through the stem and shank to create an airway and is left in place while the crudely shaped pipe is placed into a halved mold that features holes and each end. There are also other techniques makers employ to create an airway, such as rolling the shank with a thin reed inside.

 

Using a hand press or vice, the mold is tightly shut and after the excess clay is forced out, a reaming device is pushed into the large end of the mold to form the bowl's chamber. Afterward, the pipe is taken out of the mold and the wire is removed from the shank. At this point, additional decoration can be applied to the pipe's surface, including rouletting, also called milling, along the edge of the bowl using a small knife. After the clay is given several days to dry, any excess is carefully scraped off to remove rough surfaces and the pipe is placed in a kiln to bake for several hours until it completely hardens. Some clay pipe makers will then polish the pipe and glaze the stem so that it won't stick to the smoker's lips. There are also clay pipes that feature vulcanite or acrylic mouthpieces for those who prefer a stem material that is familiar and durable. In his 1977 book Clay Tobacco-Pipes, with Particular Reference to the Bristol Industry, Iain C. Walker noted that a skilled pipe maker centuries ago was capable of producing up to 3,000 undecorated pipes a week.

 

...the clay is typically ground in a mill and mixed with water so that it provides a smooth, workable texture

 

Owning and Maintaining A Clay Pipe

 

As someone who is enthralled by history and pipe smoking, I thought it was essential to finally add a clay pipe to my collection. I opted for an Old German Clay piece crafted by Markus Fohr, a pipe maker from Montabaur, Germany, whose family has been making clay pipes for generations. Fohr still uses molds of brass and iron that are over 240 years old, utilizing the famous clay of his region in Germany, clay that has a worldwide reputation for its use in fine pottery.

 

I was initially nervous about smoking a clay pipe as I was uncertain how hot the bowl would become while smoking, if there'd be any detectable clay taste, and if my smoking sessions would be significantly shorter due to the smaller bowl size than what I typically smoke. There's also the lingering fragility associated with clay pipes — I worried that if I so much as looked at my clay the wrong way it would spontaneously snap in half. However, after smoking it several times my worries were put at ease and I was amazed at how wonderful a clay pipe can be.

Clay Pipes

 

While the bowl did indeed become quite hot while smoking, I found the easiest way to avoid burning my hand was to gently pinch the shank near the transition with my thumb and forefinger. Over time, I learned to gradually slow my puffing cadence to reduce the chance of an overly hot bowl. That methodology has carried over to my briar pipes, greatly increasing my smoking enjoyment as well as making me a more disciplined and self-aware pipe smoker. Changing my puffing rhythm while smoking my clay pipe also ensured each bowl lasted for a sufficient time, despite its smaller bowl compared to the rest of my collection. And each time I smoked my clay, I lightly applied water to the mouthpiece to avoid the material sticking to my lips.

 

I did not notice any sort of clay taste while smoking the pipe; instead I picked up flavors and notes in blends I previously overlooked or struggled to notice with my briars. There were some blends where I could more fully appreciate the smokiness of Latakia, the grassy and hay-like notes of straight Virginias, or the natural nuttiness of Burleys. If blends contained Perique, I was able to discern whether it had more of a sweet, chocolatey taste or a savory, mushroom and soy sauce profile.

 

...a skilled pipe maker centuries ago was capable of producing up to 3,000 undecorated pipes a week

 

In addition to the clay's fragility, it's important to be mindful of the amount of carbon build up in the chambers as significant amounts of carbon will cause cracking much faster than will briar. Gently wiping the chamber after each smoke with a napkin, paper towel, or pipe cleaner will help guard against excessive and potentially harmful carbon build up. Reaming the chamber to remove carbon cake should be avoided as it's extremely risky and will likely damage the clay. The best way to clean your clay pipe is, after smoking has discolored it, to place it in a bed of hot coals in a fire, the heat of which will clean and purify the pipe to like-new condition, removing some of the more stubborn cake build up in the process. It should be noted that if this is done to a black clay pipe, the finish will turn white.

 

Though clay pipes may be viewed by some as historical artifacts, they continue to serve as useful smoking instruments that afford us the opportunity to taste mixtures and individual blending components in their purest form while also reliving the smoking experiences of generations ago. If you've been hesitant about purchasing a clay pipe, I highly encourage you to pick one up. Clays come in a variety of styles and sizes, and it's highly likely there is one that will suit anyone's preferences. They're a small investment but provide a large return, and are capable of lasting for several years with proper care and maintenance.

www.smokingpipes.com/smokingpipesblog/single.cfm/post/the...

 

Utilizing a zip line to cross a river.

 

www.adrianmichaelphotography.com/blog

Senior government officials from 15 countries participating in the International Space Station (ISS) signed agreements in Washington D.C. on January 29, 1998, to establish the framework of cooperation among the partners on the design, development, operation and utilization of the Space Station. Acting Secretary of State Strobe Talbott signed the 1998 Intergovernmental Agreement on Space Station Cooperation with representatives of Russia, Japan, Canada, and participating countries of the European Space Agency (ESA), including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Some of these officials then toured KSC's Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF) with NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin, at front, sixth from the left. They are, left to right, front to back: Hidetoshi Murayama, National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA); Louis Laurent, Embassy of France; Haakon Blankenborg, Norwegian Parliament Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs; His Excellency Joris Vos, ambassador of the Netherlands; His Excellency Tom Vraalsen, ambassador of Norway; Daniel Goldin; Luigi Berlinguer, Italian minister for education, scientific, and technological research; Antonio Rodota, director general, European Space Agency (ESA); Yvan Ylieff, Belgian minister of science and chairman of the ESA Ministerial Council; Jacqueline Ylieff; Masaaki Komatsu, KSC local NASDA representative and interpreter; Serge Ivanets, space attache, Embassy of Russia; Hiroshi Fujita, Science and Technology Agency of Japan; Akira Mizutani, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Peter Grognard, science attache, Royal Embassy of Belgium; Michelangelo Pipan, Italian diplomatic counselor to the minister; His Excellency Gerhard Fulda, German Federal Foreign Office; Jorg Feustel-Buechl, ESA director of manned space flight and microgravity; A. Yakovenko, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; JoAnn Morgan, KSC associate director for Advanced Development and Shuttle Upgrades; Steve Francois, director, International Space Station and Shuttle Processing; Roy Tharpe, Boeing launch site manager; Jon Cowart, ISS elements manager; John Schumacher, NASA associate administrator for external relations; Didier Kechemair, space advisor to the French minister for education, research, and technology; Yoshinori Yoshimura, NASDA; and Loren Shriver, KSC deputy director for launch and payload processing. Node 1 of the ISS is in the background.

 

NASA Media Usage Guidelines

 

Credit: NASA

Image Number: KSC-98PC-246

Date: January 30, 1998

This is a first for me, most Starbucks conversions I've seen are done very well, and while this one looks good, I honestly thought it was still a McDonalds until I saw the sign.

 

I tried looking up the conversion date, but couldn't find much info. What I did find was that the building was built in 1982, and has been a Starbucks since at least 2007.

 

Picture Taken at: Starbucks 4901 Walzem Rd, San Antonio, TX 78218

____________________________________________________These photos may not be used, reproduced, etc.. without permission. If you would like to utilize these photos please contact me through FlickrMail or at retailpictures@yahoo.com

The Contax RX, introduced in 1994, was part of the lineup of 35mm film SLRs that was produced by Kyocera of Japan. Kyocera also manufactured a line of high-end Carl Zeiss lenses (under license from Carl Zeiss in Germany) to go with their Contax SLRs. Carl Zeiss lenses for Contax utilize the Contax/Yashica (C/Y) lens mount. Sadly, Kyocera announced that it would exit the camera business in 2005.

 

The RX is my favorite Contax body. Among late generation Contax 35mm SLRs, I believe that it offered the best combination of features and overall design . The RX is a manual focus body, but it incorporates automated film advance (and rewind), which can be used in either single shot mode or continuous mode with speed up to 3 frames per second. The RX looks very similar to the ST, although the ST is one generation older than the RX and is a quite different camera. I will make some comments comparing the RX with the ST at the end of this review. Kyocera marketed the RX as a high-end version of the 167MT for amateurs, and the ST as a scaled-back version of the RTSIII for professionals.

 

One feature of the RX that stands out as unique among manual focus SLR cameras of the time is the built-in electronic rangefinder (Digital Focus Indicator or DFI). It works in light conditions from EV 2 - 20. The electronic rangefinder measures the focus along the horizontal line of the split image focusing aid in the middle of the standard viewfinder screen. A series of circles appears to the left or the right of the correct focus indicator at the bottom of the viewfinder when the subject is out of focus, more circles indicating more out of focus. The photographer focuses the lens manually until the circles disappear. In addition, a depth-of-field scale can also be superimposed just above the focusing indicators in the viewfinder, indicating the approximate depth-of-field for the set aperture. The electronic rangefinder appears to be very accurate and it works very well. However, its reaction time is quite slow. The best way to use the system is to focus the lens using the traditional optical focusing aids in the viewfinder, then refer to the electronic rangefinder if necessary to confirm and fine-tune the focus. However, the electronic focusing aid is not so critical to have, because the excellent RX high-eyepoint viewfinder image is very clear and easy to focus optically, especially with large aperture Carl Zeiss prime lenses. For glasses wearers, there is a built in diopter adjustment knob on the RX, so you can see the viewfinder image clearly, without the need for separate viewfinder diopter lenses in most cases. The viewfinder image covers 95% of the frame with 0.8x magnification. I prefer the 100% frame coverage of the RTSIII, but not at the cost of all the extra camera weight. The RX offered a choice of five interchangeable focusing screens for different applications.

 

When using the electronic rangefinder, the exposure information is condensed at the bottom right side of the viewfinder to make more readout space available for the rangefinder. If the electronic rangefinder is not required, it can be turned off, making more space available for exposure information in the viewfinder. When using the electronic rangefinder, up and down arrows appear between the aperture and shutter speed indicators at the bottom right side of the viewfinder in manual mode, indicating under or overexposure. Both arrows light when exposure is correctly set. When the electronic rangefinder is turned off, the aperture and shutter speed readouts move to the bottom center of the viewfinder. In this case, an analog scale appears on the bottom right of the viewfinder, with tick marks indicating +- 2 EV under or over exposure in half-stop intervals. Regardless of whether the electronic rangefinder is activated or not, the viewfinder also contains readouts for the frame number and an indication for which metering mode, center-weighted average or spot meter, is set. The viewfinder display consists of yellow indicators on a green background. I have found the viewfinder information easy to read in all lighting conditions, better than the viewfinder display in the RTSIII.

 

The RX is built almost as solidly as the pro-level RTSIII, but in a lighter and more compact design. The camera still has the famous over-engineered Contax feel with its heavy-duty metal construction. The RX is built with top-quality materials and is truly a work of camera design art. It feels great in the hands in terms of balance and solidness, and inspires a sense of great reliability.

 

As mentioned above, the camera provides both center-weighted average and spot metering. Kyocera did not finally adopt evaluative multi-pattern exposure metering (matrix metering) until the release of the Contax Aria and the two Contax SLR bodies for auto-focus lenses, the N1 and NX. As with most other Contax bodies, the "thinking photographer" design concept of the RX precludes the incorporation of a multi-pattern metering system. The spot meter of the RX (and all other Contax bodies) is not as tight as the RTSIII (5 mm vs. 3 mm), but is still small enough to provide very accurate exposure measurement in almost any situation. A switch on the top of the camera allows selection of center-weighted average metering versus spot metering, independent of the exposure lock switch. The range of the center weighted average exposure metering is EV 1 - 20, although the range with spot metering drops to EV 5 - 20.

 

The RX also provides TTL direct flash control with a dedicated Contax flash unit. While not documented in the promotional materials or user guide, I believe that the weighting of the TTL flash meter is a relatively tight center-weighted pattern, similar to that of the RTSIII. This should be good enough for many flash situations, although not as accurate or flexible as the pre-flash spot metering capability of the RTSIII.

 

The control layout of the RX is extremely well conceived and executed. The "retro" design of the RX incorporates only traditional analog-style knobs and switches. However, all of these controls are actually electronic switches, which connect to modern computer-controlled circuitry inside the camera. Many users believe that this Contax design concept best combines the ergonomic interface of the traditional analog controls with the benefits of a modern electronic camera to create the ultimate convenience in an SLR camera.

 

The RX has a very convenient shutter speed dial on the left top of the camera with a settable range of 4 seconds to 1/4000 second. This is not quite up to the fastest shutter speed of 1/8000 second on many top cameras of the time, but more than sufficient for most any situation. Maximum electronic flash synch speed is 1/125 second, again slightly slower than the 1/200 to 1/250 available on some other top-end bodies. This could be a problem when using flash in some situations with bright ambient light. Metering modes available on the RX are Av (aperture priority), Tv (shutter speed priority), P (program; one algorithm only) and M (manual); these can be set by a convenient switch that surrounds the shutter speed dial.

 

On the right top of the camera, one can find a prominent exposure compensation dial, which facilitates easy compensation of +- 2 EV. Surrounding this dial is the Automatic Bracketing Control ("ABC") lever which allows automatic exposure bracketing of +- 0.5 EV or +- 1 EV. The three bracketed shots can be exposed in a rapid series or one frame with each press of the shutter release button, depending on how the drive mode selector dial is set. The drive mode selector also controls the self-timer, multiple exposure capability, and an ingenious setting that allows the quick choice of an alternate programmed viewfinder display (e.g., this setting can be used to switch between the electronic rangefinder appearing or not appearing at the bottom of the viewfinder image, as described above.) Around the drive mode selector dial is the metering mode selector lever, which permits selection of either spot metering or center-weighted average metering. The exposure lock function is built into the main on/off switch, and stays locked without the need to keep one's finger on it. Further, unlike on some other cameras, like the Nikon FM2 and F3, the exposure lock switch locks in the EV, not the shutter speed. Thus, even after turning on exposure lock, you can change the aperture or shutter speed, and the other will change correspondingly to maintain proper exposure. The top right of the camera also contains a display panel which indicates the current frame number and various programming status which is controlled by two push buttons just behind the display. Nine custom functions (including film leader in or out after rewind) can be programmed through this interface. Finally the dedicated flash contact on the top of the viewfinder, like the newer AX, Aria, etc., provides enhanced 5-pin communication between the camera and a dedicated Contax flash unit. This enhanced camera/flash communication permits automatic ISO/aperture setting on the flash unit, as well as activating the independent exposure compensation setting capability of some flash units (such as the TLA-360). This permits convenient setting of different exposure compensation levels for flash and ambient light, respectively.

 

On the front of the RX one finds an exposure check button, which activates the exposure display in the viewfinder without risk of tripping the shutter by accident. This is a traditional feature that goes back to the RTS and RTSII; in fact on the old RTS models, the exposure check button was the only way to activate the exposure meter without actually taking a photo. Also on the front of the camera is an electronic depth-or field preview switch and the lens release button.

 

On the back of the camera are located an eyepiece shutter lever, and a standard-equipment databack, which can print date and time information between film frames. The RX film transport mechanism works smoothly, but it is necessary to pull the film all the way over to the right side of the camera back when loading. If this is not done, the film will not load properly, giving a painful lesson in proper film loading technique for this camera.

 

One final distinctive feature of this camera is its reliance on a single 6V 2CR5 lithium battery. One can find much written about the tradeoffs between standard alkaline batteries and the 2CR5 lithium battery. I frankly have a preference for the lithium battery. These batteries, while slightly more expensive and harder to find, last longer and give better cold weather performance. They are also smaller and lighter than one or two sets of alkaline batteries. One additional benefit of incorporating a lithium battery into the RX design is the ability to place the battery on one end of the camera bottom, allowing the tripod socket to be located at the center of balance in the RX base. For photographers planning to use the RX in really cold weather, the optional P-8 Power Pack accepts four AA alkaline batteries and can be attached by a cable directly to the camera body while it is kept warm in the user's pocket.

 

Now what about the ST? The ST is a slightly older model than the RX, having been released in 1992. The external design of the ST is quite similar to the RX, but the ST is different in the following ways:

 

The viewfinder display is quite different from the RX. The ST display provides no electronic focusing aid, but includes the following information: flash mark, shutter speed numbers in a vertical column on the right side of the viewfinder (the traditional Contax exposure meter display design), exposure compensation warning, aperture value, spot metering mark, and frame counter.

 

The ST has a high shutter speed of 1/6000 second vs. 1/4000 second on the RX. However, the fastest shutter speed can only be set in P or Av mode, and there is no direct 1/6000 speed indicator in the viewfinder. Fastest electronic flash synch speed is 1/200 second, slightly faster than the 1/125 second of the RX.

 

One refinement found on the ST but not on the RX is a ceramic film pressure plate. However, the RX has a finely machined aluminum pressure plate which also appears to have very fine tolerances. The RX pressure plate is so smooth that it almost appears as if it is made of ceramic material.

 

The ST has only three pins on the accessory shoe on the top of the viewfinder. Therefore, advanced body-flash communication is not available on the ST. However, this is only a convenience factor, since most adjustments can be made manually.

 

The autoexposure lock of the ST can only be used with the spot meter, unlike the RX. The ST does not have any function options (such as film leader out on rewind) that can be programmed by the user.

 

The ST uses four AAA alkaline batteries. I never felt comfortable with the perceived shorter longevity of these tiny batteries, although others are very satisfied with the AAA battery life. Also, the location of the batteries in the camera base requires that the tripod socket be located on the far left of the camera bottom, creating relative instability when used on a tripod, especially with heavy lenses and other accessories. The ST accepts a P-7 Battery Holder, which allows the use of 4 AA alkaline batteries, provides a vertical shutter release and better grip, and moves the tripod socket to the center of the camera base. However, after adding the P-7 Battery Holder, the ST becomes almost as large as the RTSIII, and much larger than the RX with no additional functionality.

 

Finally, I should mention a word about the Contax RXII. One of the final Contax SLR designs was the RXII, which was released in 2002. It was very similar to the RX, except it did not offer an Digital Focus Indicator function, making the viewfinder somewhat brighter since light did not have to be diverted for the DFI sensor. Of course, a brighter viewfinder is always better, but I think that the viewfinder brightness of the RX is already good enough, and I am willing to sacrifice a little brightness for the added benefit of the DFI function. I have also read that the RXII has a different and louder shutter than the RX. I cannot personally confirm this.

 

Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 18mm f/4 (MMJ)

 

The Distagon T* 18mm f/4 (MMJ) lens is my go to Carl Zeiss wide angle lens. T* refers to the advanced multi-coat on the optical elements, and MMJ refers to the made in Japan late generation of lenses that work with Tv (shutter speed priority) and P (program) modes, as well as the traditional Av (aperture priority) and M (manual) modes - i.e., Multi-Mode. The lens incorporates ten elements in nine groups, with a floating element and a minimum focus distance of 0.3m. The Contax system also included a Fisheye F-Distagon T* 16mm f/2.8 (AEG) (180 degrees, full frame) and a Distagon T* 15mm f/3.5 (AEG) with 110 degree coverage. With a slightly longer focal length, there is the Distagon T* 21mm f/2.8 (MMJ) with a slightly narrower 92 degree field of view but a larger maximum aperture. Among these choices, the 18/4 possibly offers the best value on today's used market. The 18/4 is already super wide, with an angular field of 100 degrees. The f/4 maximum aperture is perfect for this type of lens. The lens is designed to be used with the special slip-on Contax 70/86 ring. The lens itself has no filter thread, so the 70/86 ring uses suction to stay attached. You attach an 86mm filter to the outer side of the ring. At first, I was concerned that the slip-on ring would fall off under stress, but actually that has never happened. Since purchasing the lens, I have rarely removed the ring and filter. Indeed, Contax made a 86mm lens cap, so the lens, ring, filter and cap set can always be stored and carried intact. There is no special lens hood that I am aware of, so you obviously need to be careful of the position of the sun and other light sources when you are shooting with this lens. This lens is not tiny or lightweight, especially with the step-up ring and filter (350g plus ring and filter), but it is not so huge or heavy that you can't easily carry it around in a small lens compartment of your bag.

 

Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35mm f/2.8 (MMJ)

 

The Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35mm f/2.8 lens incorporates six elements in six groups, with a minimum focus distance of 0.4m. This is the lens that is usually attached to my Contax body. For general photography, I prefer the 62 degree coverage of the 35mm lens to the narrower view of a 50mm lens. Of course, the maximum f/2.8 aperture of the 35/2.8 can be limiting is some situations, but I find that I usually use the lens for travel photography in reasonable daylight or on a tripod for long exposures, so the maximum f/2.8 aperture is not an issue. For specialized use where narrow depth-of-field or low light performance is required, the Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35mm f/1.4 lens is amazing, and in the same class as the below 85/1.4. However, for general travel photography, I find that the 600g weight of the 35/1.4 is just too much and unnecessary to carry. I prefer to stick with the 35/2.8 to save capacity in my bag to carry my favorite Carl Zeiss lens, the below Planar T* 85mm f/1.4. The 35/2.8 lens accepts 55mm filters, the standard size for a number of Carl Zeiss f/2.8 primes. Contax provided two alternative lens hoods for the 35/2.8. The best choice is the metal Contax 55/86 Ring. Contax also offered the G-12 Soft Lens Hood.

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Carl Zeiss Planar T* 85mm f/1.4 (MMJ)

 

The Carl Zeiss Planar T* 85mm f/1.4 (MMJ) is an amazing precision work of metal and glass. It works great as part of a low light prime lens combination, together with the Distagon T* 35mm f/1.4 (MMJ) and the Planar T* 50mm f/1.4 (MMJ). The 85/1.4 incorporates six elements in five groups, with a minimum focus distance of 1.0m. You may not want to carry around this 590g lens unless you really need the maximum f/1.4 aperture. But one of the Contax/Carl Zeiss specialties is large-aperture prime lenses, so extra weight is the price users pay for that advantage. Of course, a major application for short telephoto lenses is portraiture, so the nice flat depth-of-field and bokeh from an f/1.4 short telephoto is an advantage. As a low-light lens, I like the 85/1.4 for travel photography, especially in late afternoon or twilight where I am film ISO limited and can't use a tripod. The 85mm, with its 28 degree angular field, is great for when you want to focus in more closely on your subject than a 50mm normal lens, but aren't looking for true telephoto. Even though the 85/1.4 is a macho lens, it still fits nicely into a camera bag compartment with the lens hood collapsed or removed. The focusing and aperture rings are silky smooth, the aperture ring has perfectly defined single-aperture detents, and the lens is a real pleasure to use. Note that this 85/1.4, as well as the 35/1.4 and the 100/2 lens all use the same 67mm filters. Contax provided the 67mm G-13 soft lens hood for this lens and also the 100/2. This rubber hood provides just the right amount of protection for the front of your valuable lens. The hood can be collapsed while on or off the lens, so the standard lens cap can be used while the hood is in place on the lens. The collapsed hood is nice and thin, so it can easily be stored in your bag or pocket until needed. There were also two other 85mm lenses in the Carl Zeiss line for Contax, the Sonnar 85mm f/2.8 and the Planar 85mm f/1.2 Contax 50 Years Commemorative edition. The 85/2.8 is useful if you want to travel light with a set of small primes, although of course you give up the narrow depth-of-field and great bokeh. The 85/1.2 is a monster that is most useful for portraiture and, of course, for showing off to your friends.

 

Copyright © 1997-2015 Timothy A. Rogers, All rights reserved.

 

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In every spiritual tradition, we talk about basic elements that are material and energetic, but since we know that every manifested thing is a trinity of matter, energy, and Consciousness, then we have to understand that the basic elements are also elements of Consciousness, not just matter and energy. The four primary elements—air, fire, water, earth—make up everything that we are, on every level. The important question we need to answer practically in our lives is how the four elements relate to the fifth element. How are we working with the fifth element? That is what we talked about in the previous lecture. The fifth element, literally “the quintessence,” relates to the Akash, the ether. In Sanskrit terms, we can also say that it is Kundalini. It is the Prakriti, the root energy that in some religions is symbolized as the Divine Mother.. The Divine Mother is that creative force or intelligence in nature that gives life to everything. If we want spiritual life, we need to know our Divine Mother. Her active agent is the quintessence, which is an energy in us. We need that energy to be active, and right now it is not. In us, it is passive, latent, what in science we could call "static, non-kinetic energy." Aphrodite Urania, the pure light of the Divine Mother. The method to awaken that energy, to activate it, has been hidden in every religion and mystical tradition. In the West, it is most famously known in the tradition we call Alchemy. The entire tradition of Alchemy is a symbolic presentation of a practical science. Alchemy hides the knowledge of how to elaborate the full potential of the human being, which is hidden in all of our atoms and cells. To do that, we need to know about transmutation. The Divine Mother is the fire of the Tree of Life

This word transmutation gets utilized a lot in esoteric traditions, but it appears as if it utilized without much knowledge of what the word really means. So it is important that we analyze this word and understand what it means, where it comes from, and what it implies. The word transmutation came into use because of the tradition of Alchemy, and is derived from Latin roots. The implications of the word transmutation are far beyond what most esoteric traditions attribute to it. Trans means “thoroughly,” and mutare means “change.” To transmute means to completely change something. In the modern Gnostic movement, for example, most students use this word transmutation exclusively in relation to sexual energy, which is a valid use of the word, but it is not its full meaning and not its original use. The word transmutation originally applied to our entire being, to everything about us. Really, to transmute comes from that famous phrase from Alchemy, "to transmute lead into gold." It means to purge the lead, which is a dense, heavy, and impure metal, and reduce it into its quintessence—in other words, to reduce it to the most basic components that originally made it, and from that, to perfect it. Everything that exists is constructed out of the basic elements that we explained in the previous lecture. First is the Akash or ether, and that becomes particularized into air, fire, water, and earth. Those four basic elements, which are physical, energetic, and conscious, become everything that exists. Everything that we are is made of four elements arranged and particularized into particular sequences. Physically, we call this encoding DNA, which is not merely physical chemicals, but also encodes energetic and spiritual data, as combinations of elements. Those elements are physically sequenced in series combinations of molecules that are arranged in infinite combinations to create everything that we are. Those sequences of four are reflections of the four elements. Similarly, the four subtle elements are reflected in the four basic components of physical matter:“For the most comprehensive and lucid exposition of occult pneumatology (the branch of philosophy dealing with spiritual substances) extant, mankind is indebted to Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim), prince of alchemists and Hermetic philosophers and true possessor of the Royal Secret (the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life). Paracelsus believed that each of the four primary elements known to the ancients (earth, fire, air, and water) consisted of a subtle, vaporous principle and a gross corporeal substance.“Air is, therefore, twofold in nature-tangible atmosphere and an intangible, volatile substratum which may be termed spiritual air. Fire is visible and invisible, discernible and indiscernible--a spiritual, ethereal flame manifesting through a material, substantial flame. Carrying the analogy further, water consists of a dense fluid and a potential essence of a fluidic nature. Earth has likewise two essential parts--the lower being fixed, terreous, immobile; the higher, rarefied, mobile, and virtual. The general term elements has been applied to the lower, or physical, phases of these four primary principles, and the name elemental essences to their corresponding invisible, spiritual constitutions. Minerals, plants, animals, and men live in a world composed of the gross side of these four elements, and from various combinations of them construct their living organisms.“Henry Drummond, in Natural Law in the Spiritual World, describes this process as follows: "If we analyse this material point at which all life starts, we shall find it to consist of a clear structureless, jelly-like substance resembling albumen or white of egg. It is made of Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen. Its name is protoplasm. And it is not only the structural unit with which all living bodies start in life, but with which they are subsequently built up. 'Protoplasm,' says Huxley, 'simple or nucleated, is the formal basis of all life. It is the clay of the Potter.'"“The water element of the ancient philosophers has been metamorphosed into the hydrogen of modern science; the air has become oxygen; the fire, nitrogen; the earth, carbon.” - Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages For us to become something new, we need to unzip the sequence that makes who we are, and reconnect it in a superior way. But how are you going to disarrange everything about yourself, and rearrange it? Especially when you are the one trying to do it. Not easy! But this is what to "transmute" really means. It means “to thoroughly change.” Gnosis is a science of transmutation. Yes, it begins with sexual energy, that is the root energy that makes the full and complete transmutation possible, but we do not seek to only transmute sexual energy. We want to transmute all of our matter, all of our Consciousness, our psyche, our soul: everything. We want to thoroughly change: to transmute. Interestingly, the result of that transmutation is a mutant. A mutant is someone who is different, who is changed. This word “mutant” has a negative connotation nowadays, but in reality every existing creature is a mutation, a mutant. What we want is a conscious mutation, a change for the better. We want a change towards something beneficial and positive, something useful, something that will bring harmony and peace, not discord and violence. We want a change that will bring about goodness, equality, harmony, love. For that type of change, we need to thoroughly change the causes of discord, the causes of suffering, and those causes are within us, in our matter, our energy, and our Consciousness. A genuine transmutation requires that the causes or the origins of problems and pain, suffering, are changed thoroughly, so that new effects can emerge. That change is not easy. If you consider how anything in nature changes, fundamentally changes, its a process of birth, growth, decline, death, rebirth, growth, decline and death. This is how evolution advances, through small mutations over time. If you have ever studied biology or evolution, you can see that this is how species grow. They grow because of the pressures put on them by their environment. They change, and adapt, and hopefully improve. We need the same thing. Unfortunately, we are not responding properly to the pressures that are upon us. In response to the psychological, material, social, and physical pressures that are on us now, we are not mutating ourselves properly. If we were, we would be transcending the problems. We would be adapting and overcoming them so that they would not be problems anymore. Instead, we see that the problems are deepening, that we are not changing fast enough, and in the right way. We need to know how to do it, how to transmute. Samael Aun Weor said:“No one can Self-realize without transmutation.” - Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah .In this context, he was not talking about sexual transmutation, he was talking about transmutation of the psyche, the mind, the heart, and the body: to change thoroughly. Stated in another way, you can transmute your sexual energy, but if you do not transmute your mind, you will not self-realize. three-pillarsWhen we study the Tree of Life, our primary interest is how it applies to us here and now. The Tree of Life maps all of the levels of existence. But those levels of existence are meaningless if we cannot access them. Studying and memorizing scriptures and teachings mean nothing if we cannot experience what they point towards. We need to examine this Tree of Life in relation with ourselves, and understand that these ten sephiroth relate to levels of being within us. Here on this graphic we see not only our physical state but our psychological state, so on this image while we see a physical body to remind us that this relates to us here and now, really all these spheres or levels show our levels of psychology. Symbolized here are two divisions, two sides. The superior part is related to the heavens or superior aspects of being. The inferior part that hangs below is called Klipoth or hell, and this aspect relates to the inferior or inverted aspect of our psyche. Everything on this map is composed of elements: air, fire, water and earth. All of this is suspended in or supported by the Akash.

So in this context, if we use our imagination and we look at how this applies to us here and now, everything about us is encoded, in elements. Here physically, we can sense those physical aspects: our physical body is an encoded series of elements, which is reflected in our DNA. But as well, our entire psychological make up is encoded in us. Sadly, we only hazily perceive it. We hazily perceive it as thoughts and feelings, and certain types of sensations physically. But we do not perceive or comprehend that all of the thoughts, feelings, and impulses are driven by matter and energy that is not physical. This is a real problem that we have. Really, open up your imagination, and analyze yourself: look at how you have a physical body here and now. This body is composed of a trinity of elements: matter, energy, and Consciousness. The Consciousness here is not awake, it is very asleep, but there is some degree of Consciousness or perception. Thoughts, feelings, and other impulses are more subtle that physical matter, but still we can perceive that they have some level of manifestation. We can verify that they are there, somehow. They also have matter, energy, and Consciousness, but not in the physical dimension. Those thoughts that you sense, and the feelings that you sense, are modifications of Consciousness that have matter and energy associated with them, but not physically. What we experience physically is their reflection, like light being bounced through a mirror. We have the mirror of our mind, which reflects the contents of our thoughts and feelings, but where are the thoughts? Where are the feelings? They are not in the brain, because you can experience thoughts and feelings when you are out of your body. So where are they? This is the problem we have: we do not know. The problem is compounded because we need to change. Rapidly. Otherwise, we are threatened with grave problems, even worse problems then we have now. We need to transmute all of these psychological elements, very quickly. How, if we cannot see them? If we cannot sense them, how can we change them? How can you work in the dark? How can a blind person create a piece of art if he cannot even see what he is doing? This is our fundamental challenge. Psychologically, spiritually, we are blind. How then can we create a perfect soul, if we cannot see what we are doing? How can we transmute ourselves into something better, if we cannot even see who we really are? For this, we need help. We need to understand how these elements work, in all of the levels of nature. So to remind you, these are the five elements. Space

Air Fire Water Earth All things are composed by these elements; understanding that, we need to look at how those elements manifest in us. We need to analyze our psychology, to see it for what it is. Let me remind you of the previous lecture: these elements do not refer to the literal physical aspects, they are psychological. Expansiveness Mobility

Temperature Fluidity Solidity In order to transmute yourself, you need to know what you are working with, you need to see yourself, you need to see how your mind and heart functions, how all of the sensations you experience flow. You need to see what parts of your psyche are expansive, what is the relative mobility of your thinking and feeling, what about its temperature? Its fluidity and solidity? In this way, you can analyze the elements that are involved. You can understand how to manage the elements in your experiences, psychologically. As we explained in the previous lecture, we get help with that process through what we call ordeals, psychological challenges that are given by our own Innermost, through our psychological trainer, who presents us with scenarios designed to bring out those parts of ourselves that we need to work on. If we are not prepared to see it, we will respond poorly, the way that we have been doing previously, and we will make our situation worse. If we are not psychologically trained to watch ourselves and look for the patterns in our psychology, we will not see what is really happening to us, and we will make mistakes. When you enter into this type of work and the process of starting to transmute yourself, you are given challenges, opportunities to see yourself as you are, and those opportunities will come every day. If you are really attentive, you will find that those opportunities are continually arising, all the time. We do not call them opportunities physically, we call them adversities, problems, suffering. We have all of our complaints. We have an old psychological habit that is a very serious obstacle in this type of study, this type of work. That is the habit of self-esteem. Its an old habit that thinks we deserve things that we do not deserve, and that wants things to be ideal, the way that we want it, and we get very frustrated and upset when things do not go the way that we want or expect. I am curious: what percentage of people listening to the lecture today are very disappointed they did not win the lottery last night? I would like to find that out, but I do not think anyone would tell me.

We all have this self-esteem, and it is in direct conflict with the Innermost, with the Being, because this “self” of self-esteem is the ego. The Being wants the ego dead. Dead. Dissolved. Transmuted...But we do not want to transmute it. We want things the way we want them, and when we do not get things the way we want them, what do we do? We complain. We complain in our mind, and we complain with our mouth. Many of us complain all the time. That is a sign, a very significant sign, that we are not transmuting. Another word for transmutation is transformation. We use that in a very important phrase in this teaching: the transformation of impressions. Someone who is transforming impressions has serenity, acceptance. In other words, they have no complaints.

So if we have a lot of complaints, we need to analyze the desires that are complaining: the complaining pride, the lust, the envy, the greed, the gluttony, the fear, the avarice, the laziness, all of those egos. And we need to analyze them in relation with the elements: space, air, fire, water and earth, to understand how they are made, how they work, how they function. In this work, we need to learn to not just go with the flow of our psychological river, but to fight it. The psychological river of our mind is flowing into hell. It is not taking us to God. To reach God, divinity, purity, you have to fight against everything that comes up in yourself that is impure, that is selfish. That fight is not easy. four-ordeals

The four elements are the basic tools that our psychological trainer uses in order to show us ourselves, to show us what we're made of—literally, what we (as a psyche) are made of. Not physically, psychologically. The physical part is impermanent and irrelevant. Spiritually speaking, we have had so many physical bodies in the past and may have more in the future, thus in the long term perspective the physical part is not as important as the psychological part, because the psychological part lasts, and is the determining factor as to whether we get more physical bodies, and what kind, and in what circumstances. Focusing on physicality is foolish. Focusing on psychology is wise. In the psychological point of view, what are we made of? We are made of these elements in different combinations, but unfortunately corrupted with desire. In order to transmute these elements, we have to break them down. Imagine if you were a weaver and you got really drunk and wove something, using up all your good cloth, your good fibers and materials; then you sobered up and realized that what you wove was a complete disaster and wouldn't do anybody any good, in fact it was a waste of all that material, but it was the only material that you had, and you need clothes... What do you do? You have to take it apart. You have to go back to zero. You have to be naked, and start again. We need to do that psychologically; we need to strip our identity completely: this self-esteem has to die. We have to renounce everything except God. To only hold fast to divinity. Nothing else. This is the only way that you can fully and completely transmute. Remember: transmute means to throughly change—thoroughly, not partially. Thoroughly, from the ground up, from zero. It is the only way to build something properly. This is why that Jesus told us that we need a new wineskin. “No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was [taken] out of the new agreeth not with the old. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.” - Jesus, in Luke 5 We need a new garment. A new mind. A new heart. A new body. That transmutation comes through these elements, so we are tested, every day, constantly, by our trainer, through these elements, to pull things out psychologically so we will see them for what they are. This is not for fun or games or just to punish us and humiliate us, it is not to make us suffer, just because we deserve it. It is to help us. It is the medicine we need; we are sick. To be healed, we need a very profound surgery, very deep, very painful. It is not easy. It is not easy to die psychologically. It is not pleasant. It is not something that you will enjoy. You will be in pain. You will cry. You will have regret. You will have remorse. You will be ashamed of yourself. And you should be. Don't avoid it. Embrace it, yet do not attach to it. Look squarely at the facts, accept them, and change. This is how you become spiritually mature. You do not avoid the facts. You look them in the face, you see them for what they are, and you change them. Thoroughly. When you are getting your psychological challenges every day, look them square in the face, accept them, accept responsibility for yourself, do not blame others, do not blame God, accept it, look at it and say, "I deserve this, I created this, now I'm going to change it". This is what a Master comes from. Everybody wonders, "How do the Masters become so beautiful? How do they become so humble, so pure?"... because they are honest. That is how. Because they are honest. They do not avoid the facts. They work hard to change, to become worthy of reflecting God.

The way that this is done is through this fifth element. Everything that we are is constructed of these basic elements. So our pride for example is constructed of the four elements. The humility of an angel is constructed from the same elements that your pride is made from. Isn't that odd? Its constructed of the same light, but arranged differently. The “pride” of an angel—that element, that light, that has to do with virtue of esteem or self nature—is not corrupted by desire, whereas ours is corrupted. What we call “pride” is a modified light that comes from the sun. It is the same light that shines in an angel, but in an angel it shines as humility. Its the same light, but in us, it is modified, corrupted. What shines in that psychological component is the quintessence. But in us, it is impure. In an angel, in a master, it is pure. The word quintessence comes from a root word which means: "To be":

esse "to be." Sanskrit asmi, Hittite eimi, O.C.S. jesmi, Lith. esmi, Goth. imi, O.E. eom "I am"The quintessence hidden in each element within us is the Being, the light of the Being, that shines through any psychological element. Everything that we are as a psyche is the light of the Being, but in us that light is trapped in corruption. If you want that light to shine pure, you need to break apart the lens and reform it to make it perfect, clean. This is the basic science of Alchemy: to purge the metals and make them pure. We could remove the word metals and instead use crystals or lenses, and it would mean the same thing. The quintessence is that light, what in Hebrew is called Shekinah, the light of the Divine Mother. That light shines through everything that we are, psychologically and physically. It shines as all of those elements arranged in all of those different patterns that make up all of the different people and things and plants and animals and minerals and everything that exist; everything is that light, but modified. What we are as a person is a huge complication of all those lights. “And אלהים Elohim said, Let there be מארת ma'owroth [lights] in the firmament of שמים shamayim to divide the day from ליל layil [night]. And let them be מאורת ma'owroth in the firmament of שמים shamayim to give איר owr [light] upon ארץ erets [the earth]...” - Genesis 1:15 We do not see the lights for what they are. We need to analyze ourselves physically, energetically, emotionally, intellectually, and consciously.

This graphic shows the basic psyche that we can perceive here and now, if we look. All of the psychological elements that we can perceive here and now are related to other forms of matter. Physically, we perceive our physical body. If you pay attention, you will recognize that this physical body has energy that allows it to be active and move, the energy of digestion and the circulation of blood, and the energy that flows through the muscles, in the senses and nerves. five-bodies. We also have energy that flows through the psyche, that let us us have imagination and memory and thought, feeling. All of those energies are related with the vital body, what in the Tree of Life is called Yesod (“foundation”). The vital body reflects the contents of thought, emotion, and will into the physical body. Everything we perceive physically is reflected, either through the five physical senses, or through the internal senses that we perceive inside. The vital body reflects those contents into our brain, into our heart. This is important to understand so that we have a clear perspective on how to analyze ourselves. When we are feeling emotions, those emotions do not originate in the physical body. They are not just imaginary. They are reflected forms of light. They are light that we feel and sense emotionally in the physical body, but is being reflected to the physical body from our Astral body, through the vital body. The light of emotion originates in the Astral body. That means that if we are feeling a negative emotion, full comprehension and elimination of that defect is only possible by working on it at that level, with the Astral body in the fifth dimension, where its originating. But how many of us have clairvoyance? How many of us are awake in the astral plane, in the fifth dimension, to work on that discursive negative emotion? None of us, we are asleep! Moreover, when we sleep at night and we are dreaming with those emotions, we do not remember them when we come back to our body. So our trainer has no choice but to give us ordeals in the physical world so that we can see and experience what is happening in that Astral body, so that it is reflected here physically, so that it can come up and we will work on it. Internally, consciously, we are asleep and enslaved, so to help us, our trainer gives us ordeals. Our trainer puts us in circumstances where we feel those emotions, so that our Consciousness, our willpower, can see it, and can respond consciously, not mechanically, but can comprehend and free itself. This is why we have ordeals. We need them. Do not complain about your problems. Learn from them. They are your path to liberation. In several places of the Bible it states very clearly: “For whom יהוה loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son [in whom] he delighteth.” - Proverbs 3:12 The chastisement or ordeals are given as help to help us and aid us, otherwise we will not see who we are, and what is stopping us from reaching God. So this applies to all of our emotions, all of our thoughts, all of our problems, all of our situations, all of our circumstances, everything thats bothering us or that we think is limiting us, or is a problem for us, is actually something that we need to take advantage of. That is why Samael Aun Weor said: “We must learn how to take advantage of the worst adversities. The worst adversities bring us the best opportunities. We must learn to smile before all adversities.” “People protest because of the difficulties that interaction offers them. They do not want to realize that those difficulties are precisely providing them with the necessary opportunities for the dissolution of their “I.” So why are all the spiritual students, including the so-called Gnostics , looking for easy lives? Students are trying to win the lottery, longing to retire in the countryside and grow sunflowers, longing to retreat from their problems. Listen: if you have an easy, laid back life, you will stagnate spiritually. You will rot. If you want to grow spiritually, you need to die psychologically. The only way you will do that is by seeing the garbage in your mind and in your heart. That is why we are given ordeals. “During times of rigorous temptations [ordeals], discouragement and desolation, one must appeal to the intimate Remembering of the Self.“Deep within each one of us is the Aztec Tonantzin, Stella Maris, the Egyptian Isis, God the Mother, waiting for us in order to heal our painful heart.“When one gives to oneself the shock of “Self-remembering,” then indeed, a miraculous change [transmutation] in the entire work of the body is produced, so that the cells receive a different nourishment.” - Samael Aun Weor. That is why Samael said:“We can disintegrate our defects and dissolve the psychological “I” only by means of this science of transmutations. We can modify our errors, transmute the vile metals into pure gold and command only by means of the science of transmutations.” - Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah. In The Gnostic Bible, The Pistis Sophia Unveiled, he said: “It is possible to crystallize the Soul within ourselves by dissolving the animal ego.“We need to dissolve the undesirable psychological elements in order to crystallize the Soul within ourselves.

“We must convert ourselves into pure Soul. With patience you will possess your Soul.“This is possible based on conscious work and voluntary sufferings. “The Souls of the people reside in a superior level of the Being.“The Soul is the conjunction of all the forces, powers, virtues, essences, etc., that crystallize within us when the entire animal ego has been dissolved.

“Each time that a psychological defect is dissolved, a virtue, a power, etc., crystallizes within our interior. “The complete dissolution of all the defects implies the integral crystallization of the Soul within ourselves. “If the water does not boil at one hundred degrees, that which must be crystallized does not crystallize, and that which must be dissolved is not dissolved.

“In similar form, we say that it is necessary to pass through great emotional crisis in order to dissolve psychological defects and crystallize the Soul.” Firstly, this is accomplished based on conscious work and voluntary suffering. Voluntary suffering means that we accept our suffering, we do not fight it, in the sense of resisting it or denying it or trying to change our physical circumstances all of the time. Instead we accept it, we do what we need to do in order to survive, and care for our responsibilities, and that's enough. The rest of our effort should be focused on changing ourselves. The soul is the conjunction of all the powers, virtues, etc., and they crystalize within us when the animal ego has been dissolved: that is transmutation. Each construction in the psyche is made of the elements. We dissolve each ego in order to liberate the light in each of the elements that are there, then automatically, spontaneously, the light emerges as the soul. In other words, the quintessence is freed. From there is a great range of potential. What happens with that energy next depends on the nature of our path. But whatever the nature of that path, it will be positive, since the light has been liberated. The other important point here is “if the water does not boil at one hundred degrees, that which must be crystalized does not crystalize, and that which must dissolve does not dissolve.” What is that water? Water is one of the elements. Where is the water in us? What water is it that must boil? Anybody know? Well, this is a sort of trick question, because everything about us is based on water. There is no exception. In the Hebrew letters are the three mother letters that we mentioned previously. mother-letters-three-brains..The element of water is represented by the letter Mem. The element water and the letter Mem are related with the vital body. That is the lower Eden or Mayim in the book of Genesis. “And אלהים Elohiym said, Let the מים mayim (waters) under שמים shamayim be gathered together unto one place…” - Genesis 1:9 yesod-body-croppedThe sephirah Yesod, the ninth sphere, is our creative waters, from which we create everything, physically, spiritually, psychologically. Those are our creative waters, the waters of Genesis within us. From Yesod, the sexual organs, was made our earth, our physical body. “And אלהים Elohiym said, Let the מים mayim (waters) under שמים shamayim be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry [land] appear: and it was so. And אלהים Elohiym called the dry [land] ארץ 'erets [earth, our body]; and the gathering together of the waters called he ים yam [seas]…” - Genesis 1:9-10 The physical body is mostly water. Without it we cannot live. The emotional body (Astral body) is very strongly influenced by water. Our emotions are a sea. The Mental body also is constructed with the element of water. The Causal body is made from the waters. Water is in everything. Everything that exists depends on water. Physically, energetically and consciously. So when the water must boil, that means that our entire psyche must boil. What is the boiling? The problems, difficulties. When you study how physics works, when you study how nature works, you find that crystallization and dissolution are very closely related. The entire science of Alchemy is based upon this understanding. This is why if you study any of the old alchemical texts, they always talk about the need to dissolve and coagulate or crystalize. The entire science of Alchemy is based upon that. One short example is from the Bosom Book of George Ripley (circa 1476): “Then mingle with this white calx [dusty residue remaining after a mineral or metal has been calcined or roasted] the fiery water [שמים shamayim], and distil it with a strong fire all off as before, and calcine the earth [ארץ 'erets] again that remaineth in the bottom of the still, and then distil it again with a strong fire as before, and again calcine it, and thus distil and calcine it seven times, until all the substance of the calx be lifted up by the limbec: and then thou hast the water [מים mayim] of life rectified and made indeed spiritual; and so hast thou the four elements exalted in the virtue of their quintessence. This water will dissolve all bodies, and putrefy them, and purge them: and this is our Mercury and our Lunary; and whosoever thinketh there is any other water than this is an ignorant and a fool, and shall never be able to come to the effect.”This is only one example of hundreds of writings like it. This excerpt explains that the process of purification and the elaboration of the quintessence is a process of dissolution and crystallization.

For centuries, foolish people lacking initiation into the actual science read these things literally and thought they were talking about literal water, literal physical mercury, literal physical elements. That is wrong. These scriptures are about the psyche, the mind. The dissolution is psychological, and it is accomplished through ordeals, through analyzing and dissolving impurities in the mind. Symbolically, we analyze the elements of the mind as having seven fundamental qualities, related to the seven lights that organize all things.

 

gnosticteachings.org/courses/alchemy/3076-transmutation.html

  

A composite utilizing both HST and CXO data to visualize x-ray emission from the galaxy's nucleus. Its bright central supermassive black hole is actively accreting matter and the surrounding disk is glowing hot with x-rays. Star formation encircling the nucleus also heats interstellar gas to create a diffuse, nebular glow further out from the nucleus.

 

An article describing the observations used to create this image that serendipitously caught a blob of dust eclipsing the black hole is here: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/ngc1365/

 

A Chandra-only image is here: flic.kr/p/2h4jXkk

A wider, HST-only image is here: flic.kr/p/2h3KPpa

 

This image was possible thanks to data from the following Chandra and HST proposals:

Solving the Enigmas of the Nearby Seyfert/Starburst Galaxy NGC1365 with Chandra ACIS-S

Active Galaxies and Quasars

PHANGS-HST: Linking Stars and Gas throughout the Scales of Star Formation

 

Chandra data:

Violet / Magenta overlay: ACIS .30-7.00 keV

Observation IDs: 3554, 6868-6873

 

HST data:

Red: WFC3/UVIS F814W

Green: WFC3/UVIS F555W

Blue: WFC3/UVIS F438W/F336W/F275W

 

North is 19° clockwise from up.

Pier 1 and Curtis Wharf, Port of Anacortes. Guemes Channel.

Please feel free to utilize any portion of this breakdown as you see fit. This is my first attempt at preparing "instructions" of one of my MOCs, so please leave any C&C in the comments. If you have any questions, or if a step is unclear, please FM me.

With all of the rain we've been getting in Vancouver lately, it occurred to me that my umbrella might be utilized in a more traditional, non-photographic sense. Tallyn was softly-lit, AND she stayed dry. BONUS!

 

Strobist Info:

 

Single wirelessly triggered bare speedlight shooting up into reflective silver cover. I guess that's probably self-explanatory though…

I UTILIZED TEN DIFFERENT ORIGINAL PHOTOS OF MINE

FOR REALIZING THIS DIGITAL COMPOSITION:

 

- The carpet is the real carpet in my living-room

- The bulging is the Grand Hotel Excelsior in Lido of Venice

www.flickr.com/photos/mep-photoart/9647145018/

- The oval background on the middle is part of a frame taken inside the Lafayette building in Paris

www.flickr.com/photos/mep-photoart/8715491396/

- the scimitars are my own drawings

- model: myself in a self-portrait

- all the rest is..... FANTASY.....

  

FOR A MAGIC MUSIC AND ANIMATION, I SUGGEST YOU:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i8ea98sFx8