View allAll Photos Tagged decency
Gotham Meat Lockers. Kinda sad that out of all the businesses in Gotham, it's name is one of the most honest. Well, was one of the most honest. About 20 years ago it was the site of a violent triple homicide. This not only took the lives the three people, but the life of the business as well. No one's willing to go near the place anymore, so it just sits there on the street rotting away like an open wound. You can smell the old meat in the street. The place really is a pit. And Jackie's here...whoever took him and brought him here of all places, I swear I'll do them what I did them Black Mask times 10. Steph and I enter through the garage doors with the help of some C4. Sure, we could've snuck in all incognito, but we want them to know we're here. I mean, if they're giving us hints with maps and stuff, they obviously want us, right? Well, they got us. We walked into the slaughterhouse, and the smell was even worse. Flies and bones everywhere, giant steaks still on hooks. Nothing but a giant health hazard at this rate. I need to tell Bruce to pull some string to get this place demolished when this is all over. We continue deeper into the slaughterhouse and it just gets messier. Nothing but rotting death around us. The only signs of life are our footsteps and--
"Well, you figured out my little puzzle, huh Tim? You're as smart as they say you are."
That voice...oh god, no...of all the people to do this, of all the people we've gotta deal with...
"Slade?!"
"The one and only. I gotta congratulate you on figuring out that puzzle. Was a bit worried it was a bit too convoluted."
"First off, I solved your stupid puzzle. Second, Why did you take Jackie? What do want with us?"
"You solved it? Nice job Tim. Got yourself a sidekick that's actually useful."
"Sidekick!?"
"Slade, if you hurt Jackie I swear I'll--"
"Hurt a child? Please, Tim. I actually have some decency. He's just bait to reel in the big fish. You two."
"And just what good are we to you?"
"What good? Millions, that good."
"We're your contract? But who hired you?"
"C'mon, you solved the map puzzle so you should know! I gave you their homes and everything!"
"Widow and The Broker..."
"Two of the biggest idiots I've ever met. But their money's green, so why not? If they give you two trouble though, This won't be too fun."
"...Slade, you took Jackie from us. Made us think we lost him. I don't care what happens, I will make you eat those words one way or another. Every hour we were without him will be worth how many bones I'm gonna break!"
"Really? Get real Tim. I'm a metahuman! My skeleton's as strong as steel. But hey, if you wanna try then go ahead! Let's make this fun. Impress me the best y--"
He stops to catch a Batarang thrown by Steph, the only one here getting more sick of his voice than me. Before he could counter, the Batarang explodes with a loud bang and so bright light. A flash bang. Annoying from where I was standing, but Slade pretty much had that thing next to his head. Smart move, Steph. What wasn't was when she rushed him. Her swing was easily blocked by his sword. While he had Steph held off, he got his pistol up and started shooting at me. The Kevlar in my suit would do a good job deflecting small arms, but knowing Slade, those bullets aren't normal pistol rounds. Before he was able to get a those shots off my staff goes into shield mode and blocks the shots. The kick from the impact was pretty big. My arms are already kinda sore. Worse part of this has to be how close he is to Steph. She makes one wrong move in the 3 seconds I'm not fighting with are and Slade will murder her. I've got two loved ones to worry about now...
© John C. Mejia, All rights reserved This is a copyrighted image with all rights reserved. Do NOT use this image on any website, blog, Facebook, Tumblr or ANY other type of media without my explicit written permission. Contact me...and let's talk. I'm a reasonable person.
We spottted this fellow perched in a tree on the opposite side of the Wenatchee River. Luckily, he stayed around long enough for us to turn around and get our gear out. It wasn't long before he took flight just as I got my focus locked in on him! He at least had the decency to finish his dump before taking off! :-)
If it were a perfect world, I would gladly leave my normally unobtrusive watermark off in a corner. But sadly, it is not. And so I am forced to now place it front & center to discourage dishonest people from image theft and cropping watermarks. My apologies to image loving fans everywhere...I trust you will understand. Help fight this by reporting such abuses immediately!
The mad midnight run & tumble, smash & grab that ended the secretive process which produced the House version of the “tax reform” bill, resembled a Mack Sennet slapstick routine.
Their haste precluded the Republicans from actually reading the whole 500+ page bill, forcing them to skip ahead to the naughty bits if they read any of it at all. Democrats were not shown the bill, developed by Republicans alone behind locked doors, until the floor vote was due. Some of the legislation that passed was just penciled in at the last minute, barely legibly, at the margins. What a spectacle!
If they had read it, would members of the House have been able to see past their greed to notice that they had overstepped the bounds, not only of ethics, but also of Senate rules? Perhaps, though the glare of avarice can be blinding. The Senators' formalized sense of decency, recorded when cooler heads prevailed, made them strike a few of the most egregious House add-ons while appending a few of their own, forcing the bill back to the House for a re-vote after they had lavishly celebrated its 'final passage'. Nobody seemed particularly embarrassed.
Decorum was better in the Senate, but not the politics. The country’s biggest redistribution of wealth from the working class to the wealthy plutocratic elite, plus a depth charge to sink Obamacare and an invitation for private industry to despoil the Alaskan wilderness and the Atlantic continental shelf, were all rolled into a single bill, and passed on a party line vote. It has a built-in timer so we won’t feel the crunch until after the 2018 mid-term elections; the middle class benefits have a self-destruct mechanism which automatically blows them up after eight years, while the corporate provisions go on forever.
The funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which pays for the essential care for children from families of low or modest income, ran out in the fall. It didn't get any from this bill. either. Sorry, Kids. Daddy Warbucks needs your dough.
So here they are, a bit winded but proud, still in their battle regalia, ready for a team photo followed by a victory lap. Huzzah.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
Our Daily Challenge 9-15 July :Opposites
How times have changed! And now we are told to cover up, not for decency but safety concerns about cancers.
Dutch postcard. Photo: M.G.M. This card is a gift from Loek Coenraad from his mother's legacy. Many thanks, Loek!
American actor Gregory Peck (1916-2003) was one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s. Peck received five nominations for Academy Award for Best Actor and won once – for his performance as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). He almost always played courageous, nobly heroic good guys who saw injustice and fought it. Among his best known films are Spellbound (1945), The Yearling (1946), Gentleman's Agreement(1947), Roman Holiday (1953), The Guns of Navarone (1961), and Cape Fear (1962).
Eldred Gregory Peck was born in 1916 in La Jolla, California (now in San Diego). His parents were Bernice Mary (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist and druggist in San Diego. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child, he was sent to live with his grandmother. He never felt he had a stable childhood. His fondest memories are of his grandmother taking him to the cinema every week and of his dog, which followed him everywhere. Peck's father encouraged him to take up medicine. He studied pre-med at UC-Berkeley and, while there, got bitten by the acting bug and decided to change the focus of his studies. He enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and debuted on Broadway after graduation. His debut was in Emlyn Williams' play 'The Morning Star' (1942). By 1943, he was in Hollywood, where he debuted in the RKO film Days of Glory (Jacques Tourneur, 1944). Stardom came with his next film, The Keys of the Kingdom (John M. Stahl, 1944), for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Tony Fontana at IMDb: "Peck's screen presence displayed the qualities for which he became well known. He was tall, rugged and heroic, with a basic decency that transcended his roles." He appeared opposite Ingrid Bergman in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) as an amnesia victim accused of murder. In The Yearling (Clarence Brown, 1946), he was again nominated for an Oscar and won the Golden Globe. He was especially effective in Westerns and appeared in such varied fare as David O. Selznick's critically blasted Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, 1946), the somewhat better received Yellow Sky (William A. Wellman, 1948) and the acclaimed The Gunfighter (Henry King, 1950). He was nominated again for the Academy Award for his roles in Gentleman's Agreement (Elia Kazan, 1947), which dealt with anti-Semitism, and Twelve O'Clock High (Henry King, 1949), a story of high-level stress in an Air Force bomber unit in World War II. In 1947, Peck, along with Dorothy McGuire, David O'Selznick and Mel Ferrer, founded the La Jolla Playhouse, located in his hometown, and produced many of the classics there. Due to film commitments, he could not return to Broadway but whet his appetite for live theatre on occasion at the Playhouse, keeping it firmly established with a strong, reputable name over the years.
With a string of hits to his credit, Gregory Peck made the decision to only work in films that interested him. He continued to appear as the heroic, larger-than-life figures in such films as Captain Horatio Hornblower (Raoul Walsh, 1951) with Virginia Mayo, and Moby Dick (John Huston, 1956) with Richard Basehart. He worked with Audrey Hepburn in her debut film, Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953). While filming The Bravados (Henry King, 1958), he decided to become a cowboy in real life, so he purchased a vast working ranch near Santa Barbara, California - already stocked with 600 head of prize cattle. In the early 1960s, he gave a powerful performance as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thompson, 1961) opposite David Niven and Anthony Quinn. The film was one of the biggest box-office hits of that year. Peck finally won the Oscar, after four nominations, for his performance as lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962). He also appeared in two darker films than he usually made, Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson, 1962) opposite Robert Mitchum, and Captain Newman, M.D. (David Miller, 1963) with Tony Curtis, which dealt with the way people live. The financial failure of Cape Fear (1962) ended his company, Melville Productions. After making Arabesque (Stanley Donen, 1966) with Sophia Loren, Peck withdrew from acting for three years in order to concentrate on various humanitarian causes, including the American Cancer Society. In the early 1970s, he produced two films, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (Gordon Davidson, 1972) and The Dove (Charles Jarrott, 1974), when his film career stalled. He made a comeback playing, somewhat woodenly, Ambassador Robert Thorn in the horror film The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976) with Lee Remick. After that, he returned to the bigger-than-life roles he was best known for, such as MacArthur (Joseph Sargent, 1977) and the infamous Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele in the huge hit The Boys from Brazil (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1978) with Laurence Olivier and James Mason. In the 1980s, he moved into television with the miniseries The Blue and the Gray (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1982) in which he played Abraham Lincoln, and The Scarlet and the Black (Jerry London, 1983) with Christopher Plummer and John Gielgud. In 1991, he appeared in the remake of his 1962 film, playing a different role, in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991). He was also cast as the progressive-thinking owner of a wire and cable business in Other People's Money (Norman Jewison, 1991), starring Danny DeVito. In 1967, Peck received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He was also been awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. Always politically progressive, he was active in such causes as anti-war protests, workers' rights, and civil rights. In 2003, Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch was named the greatest film hero of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute, only two weeks before his death. Atticus beat out Indiana Jones, who was placed second, and James Bond who came third. Gregory Peck died in 2003 in Los Angeles, California. He was 87. Peck was married twice. From 1942 till 1955, he was married to Greta Kukkonen. They had three children: Jonathan Peck (1944-1975), Stephen Peck (1946) and Carey Paul Peck (1949). His second wife was Veronique Passani, whom he met at the set of Roman Holliday. They married in 1955 and had two children: Tony Peck (1956) and Cecilia Peck (1958). The couple remained together till his death.
Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
I don't even really like this photo, but my hard drive is full (again) and until I get some more DVD's I can't really shoot anything new. (This should be remedied in a day or 2.) I wanted to upload something anyway because I have something to rant about a little bit.
Some of you (my contacts) will know what sparked this little rant, and some of you will know and understand why my ranting about this has multiple reasons behind it.
It's recently been brought to my attention that someone out there in the Flickr world has been copying other people's photos without giving any credit to the originals. I'm not going to name names here.. because I'm not trying to start a big debate about this particular person on my photostream. (Also, any comments mentioning specific people will be deleted.) I am only bringing it up because it is one of my biggest "pet peeves" - if one could call it that.
It's true that there are few truly 'original' ideas out there... pretty much everything has already been done. So, in a way we are all influenced by what we have seen, whether we know it, or it be subconscious. I think it's important to be aware of our influences though, and when drawing from a specific source, it's only common decency to let people know about that source. In other words, if you're going to copy/interpret/be inspired by someone else's photo/song/poem, etc... give that person some credit instead of letting people assume you thought of it all on your own.
I don't want anyone to go getting paranoid and think that I'm accusing anyone of copying me... that isn't what this is about. All I'm saying is that if you see a photo of mine (or anyones!) and decide that you want to do something similar because of it... give me (or that person) some credit for the idea. It takes all of 10 seconds to say "oh, by the way.. I got this idea from _____" or "this photo was inspired by ____". It's only fair, and believe me when I say that it is flattering to be the source of someone's inspiration... but that feeling of "flattery" turns into 'annoyance' if someone doesn't give proper credit. ((Many people have been inspired by photos of mine, and have provided a link to my page, and I think that is wonderful!! xo))
Once again, I want to reiterate that this isn't solely about me - this goes for everyone out there. When I am inspired by someone else's work or a specific photo, I always provide a link to that person. When I use textures, I link to the creators of those textures (unless they specifically say there is no need to credit them.) Hell, I link to people even if I didn't think of one of their photos until after I took it.
As photographers, as artists, we're all in this together. We have to look out for each other, ya know?
Just a little rant to remind everyone out there to please please please remember to credit your inspiration when it applies. xo
Thanks for reading this!
"D'you know the Radstocks?" asked the foreman.
He was referring to the highly permutated group of bus services which then linked Bristol to the former Somerset mining towns of Radstock and Midsomer Norton.
"No", I said.
"Well here's your chance to learn", he replied, grimly and, I thought, with a touch of relish.
The foreman, a former wartime sergeant and a member of the Burma Star Asssociation, was an old sweat then nearing retirement. I was a new boy, then in my mid-20s but looking considerably younger, who had lately transferred to "country" services from a city depôt. To such a man I must have represented a new generation of young whipper-snappers who didn't know what the job was "all about". I had never been to Radstock and had only a very slight idea of where it was. That morning I was the bus station's 0430 Spare, whose function was to "cover" for any driver who overslept or reported sick. It was now 6am on a filthy February morning and the scratchy sound against the window-panes told me that the rain was lashing down in the empty streets outside.
Beyond Whitchurch (Black Lion) the sickly orange glare of the city's street lighting receded in the wing mirrors and I was in pitch blackness. The bus I was driving was a Bristol MW-type. As will be seen from the photo, these had a horizontally divided windscreen. The demisters, as they were fancifully known, consisted of two lengths of coiled reistance wire, like miniature electric fire elements, which ran across the bottom of the windscreen's upper section. Their effect was to clear about one inch of the base of the windscreen. In practice you used your sleeve. The wipers reciprocated sluggishly from side to side with a monotonous whirring sound. They had been cunningly positioned not to sweep that part of the windscreen which the driver looked through. The tiny wing mirrors, partially eclipsed on the nearside by the upper part of the folding entrance door, were fogged up and flecked with particles of mud drawn up from the road in the bus's slipstream. It was all seat-of-the-pants stuff. I hadn't a clue where I was supposed to be going and had not yet picked up any passenger whom I could ask. In any case I always felt embarrassed when I had to do this ...after all, I was supposed to be the driver. It looked so unprofessional. When uncertain of a route I preferred to run the slight risk of looking a complete fool if I took a wrong turning to the certainty of looking a partial fool if I turned around to ask for directions.
I cannot now remember the details, but I recall several panic-stricken reversals after I had shot past turnings, and the ommission of a peak-hour deviation from the normal route in Paulton. I also abandoned the attempt to do a school run, being unable even to find the terminus from which the route commenced. Subsequently there was a telephoned complaint from the headmaster. It was not my finest hour.
Yet, in time the "Radstocks" became favourites of mine. There were basically three services, with peak-hour, school and weekend variants. Usually buses worked out on one service and returned on one of the others. One took a certain pride in one's knowledge of the various permutations. I even came to love the MW-type, execrated by almost every bus driver for its heaviness, sluggishness and general recalcitrance.
Here one of these execrated vehicles makes its way into Bristol on the 365 service from Radstock via Midsomer Norton, High Littleton, Farmborough and Keynsham. Bath Road curves away into the distance under the heights of Totterdown. As extensively detailed in the Bentos photostream, the lower parts of Totterdown, in the middle distance of the photograph, had been destroyed in 1973 in readiness for a new road interchange. Only three years later the scheme has already been abandoned. Perhaps the City Council had enough vistigial decency to feel embarrassed, for the ruins which might have reminded passers-by that a lively and vigorous community once thrived here have been landscaped and seeded with grass. The steep valley-side site meant that the houses on the right-hand side of Bath Road had elevated front gardens, reached from the pavement by flights of steps. In the foreground one such flight of steps remains, together with railings and a flagged yard. Not a bad place to live and watch the world go by. The road is now about three times this width. The photo was taken Monday 5th April 1976.
or will it? — Did the rejection of the McCain/Palin ticket open the door for a more gradual continuing slide on the slippery slope toward fascism in America?
This is How Fascism Comes: Reflections on the Cost of Silence
from the article: "If fascism comes it will be interviewed, lovingly, on talk radio, by hosts whose cerebral inadequacies are more than made up for by their bellicosity, their bombast, their willingness to shout down those with whom they cannot argue, for argument requires knowledge, and this is a commodity with which they have not even a passing familiarity."
Here's the whole article [linked above]:
by Tim Wise
October 11, 2008, 7:26 pm
For those who have seen the ugliness and heard the vitriol emanating from the mouths of persons attending McCain/Palin rallies this past week--what with their demands to kill Barack Obama, slurs that he is a terrorist and a traitor, and paranoid delusions about his crypto-Muslim designs on America--please know this: This is how fascism comes to an ostensible democracy.
If it comes--and if those whose poisonous, unhinged verbiage has been so ubiquitous this week have any say over it, it surely will--this is how it will happen: not with tanks and jackbooted storm troopers, but carried in the hearts of men and women dressed in comfortable shoes, with baseball caps, and What Would Jesus Do? wristbands. It will be heralded by up-dos, designer glasses, you-betcha folksiness and a disdain for big words or hard consonants.
If fascism comes, it will spring from the soil of middle America, from people known as values voters but whose values are toxic, from simple folk whose simplicity, far from being admirable, is better labeled ignorance, from "all-American" types whose patriotism is a dagger pointed at the very heart of the national interest, for it so forsakes all the best principles upon which the republic was founded, choosing instead to elevate and ratify the narrow-mindedness, the bigotry, and the intolerance that also marked our country's origins.
If fascism comes, it will be ushered in by tailgaters at the big football game, by Joe Six Pack, who, upon finishing his sixth beer and belching forth the stench of a mediocre life lived, will gladly announce its arrival, so long as it comes with a steady supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon and hot dogs on the grill, and giant foam hands with a "We're Number 1" finger, some Mardi Gras beads and a good titty bar.
If fascism comes it will dress like a hockey mom, or a NASCAR dad. It will believe Toby Keith to be an artist, Larry the Cable Guy to be a comic, and that the world was made in six literal days less than 6000 years ago.
If fascism comes it will come from the small towns; the ones Sarah Palin, quoting a famous racist and Jew-hater, said "grow good people," and which occasionally do, but which, just as often grow provincial, isolated, fearful and superstitious ones.
If fascism comes it will come from faux populism, from anti-immigrant hysteria, from persons who have more guns in their homes than books, or whose books, when they have them, are principally volumes of the Left Behind series, several different copies of the Bible, and a plethora of romance novels.
If fascism comes it will be welcomed, lock stock and barrel by persons who pray at every meal to a God they visualize as white, whose son they also think was white, and who they believe is going to rapture them all into the sky upon the blowing of some heavenly trumpet, after which point all those who don't think as they think will be burned in an eternal lake of fire. Their vision and version of God is itself fascistic--to love a God who would do such a thing is to love an abusive, sadistic and evil deity after all--so it should come as little surprise that their conception of the state would be equally authoritarian or worse.
If fascism comes it will be at the behest of those who hold a contempt for what they call "book learnin," who prefer Presidents who mispronounce basic words because they make them feel smarter, and who are looking for nothing so much as a commander-in-chief with whom they would enjoy having a beer, or two, or twelve at some backyard barbecue.
If fascism comes it will be interviewed, lovingly, on talk radio, by hosts whose cerebral inadequacies are more than made up for by their bellicosity, their bombast, their willingness to shout down those with whom they cannot argue, for argument requires knowledge, and this is a commodity with which they have not even a passing familiarity.
If fascism comes it will come wrapped in red,white and blue, carrying a crucifix and a shotgun, projecting its own sexual confusion and insecurity onto others, substituting volume for veracity and rage for reason, and landing on the New York Times best-seller list as a result.
If fascism comes it will have a pajama party at Ann Coulter's house, pop pills with Rush Limbaugh, and go gay-bashing with Michael Savage, all in the same weekend. And it will refuse to learn another language or get a passport, because doing either of those would make one cosmopolitan--which is just another word for "faggot."
If fascism comes it will come because a lot of people who aren't like the folks I'm talking about here, won't stand up to the ones who are. Because we're too busy, don't want to make waves, don't want to lose friends, or alienate family. It will come, in other words, because those who know better are cowards, more concerned with getting along, making nice, and being liked than with telling the truth, calling out evil and saving their country.
If fascism comes it will come because of the silence, and thus, collaboration of those who think themselves good, and certainly superior to the knuckle-draggers they can see on YouTube at the McCain rallies, but who in the end are no better and in some ways worse than they: after all, at least fascists stand up for what they believe in. They are telling us, in no uncertain terms what kind of United States they want and are willing to fight for, and maybe even to kill for. But many "progressives," many liberals, many of the so-called enlightened are doing nothing at all.
If fascism comes it will come because those liberals thought voting for Barack Obama was all they needed to do; it will come because they allowed themselves to believe that politics is what a person does every four years, but not at work, and not in the neighborhood, and not at the dinner table. Meanwhile, know-nothings filled with hate, nurtured on racial and religious bigotry and who have overdosed on the kind of hypernationalism that has always proved fatal to those places foolish or craven enough to allow it a foothold, talk of their visions for America at every opportunity. They raise their kids on that sickness, they build churches whose very foundation is rooted in that cancerous rot, and they will think nothing of steamrolling those who get in their way.
So when, exactly, do we fight back? When do we say enough? When do we stand up to our relative or friend who sends us the e-mail about Obama being a Manchurian Candidate or al-Qaeda sympathizer, or the one about the decency of Midwestern flood victims as opposed to those stranded after Katrina, or about how God was punishing New Orleans because of its tolerance of homosexuality, and tell them what we think: namely, that they are a bunch of racist, heterosexist loons, whose friendship or familial connection we neither want nor intend to pursue unless they get help. When do we decide that we love our country and humanity too much to allow these people one more day of decent sleep, one more day of self-assured confidence in their craziness and the willingness of the rest of us to just take it? When do we decide that every irrational, Jeezoid, racist thing that comes from their mouths will be attacked, will be rebutted, until they can no longer take for granted the ability to say any of it in mixed company without being called out?
Why, in the face of the fascism they would surely introduce if given the chance, are we intent on being so nice? Why are we not more offended? Offended not merely at what such persons say about others--like Obama, or Latino immigrants, or whatever--but even about we who look like them? After all, their open exhortations of racism presuppose that they are speaking for us, and that this kind of brain-dead ventilation is something to which all white folks should aspire as though it were virtually the essence of enlightenment.
If fascism comes it will come because we did not see in their actions a sufficient threat, or because we allowed ourselves to believe that it couldn't come, that our institutions were too strong, our people too good, for that to happen. If it comes it will come because we allowed ourselves to believe the rosy and optimistic version of America spun by Obama, without tempering that optimism with a clear-headed appraisal of the way that (sadly) a still huge number of Americans actually think: because we allowed the vehicle of our hopes to outrun the headlights of truth; because we convinced ourselves that we actually lived in the country of our aspirations, rather than the nation we have at present.
And if fascism doesn't come--if, rather, democracy does--it will come because good people said no. It will come because we saw in this moment the opportunity to demand the full measure of our humanity and to pour it forth upon the national soil. It will be because we understood that democracy isn't what you have, it's what you do. But if we are to issue that demand, if we are to stand straight and fulfill the potential we possess to do justice, we had best exercise the option quickly, for the opponents of justice are on the move. They are preparing to enter on the winds of our silence and indifference, and complacency. Let them find no quarter here.
Literally, a drink shared between men and women symbolizing friendship.
But, in my heart, it means a wish for simple human decency and kindness between people.
This image is copyright, all rights reserved, and not part of the public domain. Any use, linking to, or posting of this image is prohibited without my consent. If you want to use this image in any fashion, please have the common courtesy and decency to ask.
Coquille River Valley, Myrtle Point, Oregon
I just got back from a 10 day vacation in Bandon, Oregon. My brother took me out on three of those nights to photograph the Milky Way. We even saw a pair of UFO’s flying way overhead on the first night, but that’s another story. We were at our cousin, Keith’s field in Myrtle Point on two of those nights. Here my brother is messing around in the van with the internal light on. I ran to this spot while he was looking for something in the van and captured this. I guess you could say since he didn’t move much during the exposure, it could represent a close encounter of the 3rd kind.
Canon 6D, Rokinon 14mm lens, f/2.8, iso 6400. Processed in Lightroom 6.
Another view of that castle with a dark history ,at Mullaghmore ,Co. Sligo
Viscount Palmerston, arrived by horse and carriage in 1808. He is best known as Lord Palmerston, who served two terms as Prime Minister of England. It was he who commissioned the building of Classiebawn Castle on a hill overlooking Mullaghmore with magnificent views of the surrounding villages, sea, lake and mountain. Palmerston died in 1865 leaving the completion of Classiebawn to his successor the First Lord Mount Temple. On completion of the building in 1874, succession then passed to the Ashleys.
Palmerston presided over Mullaghmore and North Sligo during the worst years of the Irish Holocaust, the great famine of the mid 19th century. His record during that period is shameful. During the summer and autumn of 1847, nine vessels, carrying over 2,000 persons left Sligo port with tenants evicted and “shovelled out” from his Sligo estates. They arrived in Canada half naked and totally destitute. The city of St. John in Quebec province had to take many of Palmerston’s evicted tenants into care and, outraged, sent a scathing letter to Palmerston expressing regret and fury that he or his agents, ‘should have exposed such a numerous and distressed portion of his tenantry to the severity and privation of a New Brunswick winter ......unprovided with the common means of support, with broken down constitutions and almost in a state of nudity ..... without regard to humanity or even common decency.’ The graves of many of these unfortunate victims can be seen today on the old quarantine station, now a museum, at Grosse Ille near Quebec .
Edwina Ashley, daughter of the above-mentioned Col. Wilfrid Ashley, married Lord Louis Mountbatten, great grandson of Queen Victoria, in 1922. In August 1979 this first Earl Mountbatten of Burma, last Viceroy of India and supreme Allied Commander in SE Asia during WW2 was assassinated when his boat was blown up off the coast of Mullaghmore by the IRA in August 1979. The castle and surrounding lands are now owned by Mr. Hugh Tunney, a retired businessman. He is the first Irish owner of the Classiebawn Castle and estate since the lands were confiscated from the O’Conor Sligo in the 17th century.
(For more information on the Mountbatten family history ,I found this on the net,
"In Europe: a History, by Norman Davies, 1996, ISBN 0-06-097468-0, page 809 :
"Married to Queen Victoria's favorite granddaughte, Victoria of Hesse, Count Louis Battenberg (1854-1921) was a cousin on the paternal side both to Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and to Tsar Alexander III, and brother-in-law to empress Alix. Having joined the Royal Navy as a cadet, he worked his way up to be Admiral, Director of Naval Intelligence, and at the outbreak of war in 1914, Britain's first Sea Lord. Unfortunately as a German, he was immediately forced to retire. By then, his elder daughter had become Queen of Sweden and his younger daughter, Alice, a Princess of Greece. His niece was Queen of Spain. His younger son, Louis (1900-1979), known as "Dikie", later Earl of Burma, was to follow him into the British Admiralty. In July 1917 the family name was changed once again, this time from Battenberg to Mountbatten. Their Romanov relatives were under arrest, and their relatives in the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Hanover-Teck were hurriedly renaming themselves "Windsor". )
Listen to the following song to get the feeling of family break -up and heartache at the time of the great famine in Ireland,when a quarter of our population died or were forced to emigrate on "coffin-ships".
Striking Martin Company/Martin Marietta artist's (C. Bennett) concept of a “Titan III” at the moment of solid rocket motor/booster separation. Circa 1962-64?
I'm not really knowledgeable on the Titan family of launch vehicles; however, this looks like a Titan III-C to me. I guess the Titan III is the core vehicle seen here pulling away from the spent solid fuel boosters.
The caption from an official Martin Company/Martin Marietta Corporation 'photo' version:
"SOLID MOTORS JETTISONED--When the USAF TITAN III reaches the proper altitude, the solid rocket motors burn out and are jettisoned. This drawing illustrates how the spent solid cases will be pushed away from the core vehicle. The core will be manufactured by Martin Company, a division of the Martin Marietta Corp., at its space and missile system plant southwest of Denver, Colorado."
Excellent reading:
www.drewexmachina.com/2014/09/01/50-years-ago-today-the-f...
Credit: Drew Ex Machina website/Andrew LePage
8.5" x 11", lithograph(?), with a faux fine-weave canvas-like texture.
Speaking of Mr. Bennett::
www.celestis.com/participants-testimonials/charles-oren-b...
The above link used to be active. At least the company still has the decency to still have this available:
www.celestis.com/participants-testimonials/charles-oren-b...
Credit: Celestis Memorial Spaceflights website
Thank you Sir, Godspeed.
Dutch postcard by Foto Archief Film en Toneel, no. 3454. Photo: M.G.M. Van Heflin, Gene Kelly, Gig Young, and Robert Coote in The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948), based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas.
The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is a classic Swashbuckler, starring Gene Kelly as D’Artagnan and Lana Turner as Milady De Winter. Other stars in the cast include Van Heflin, June Allyson, Gig Young, Angela Lansbury, and Vincent Price. It is one of the many, adaptations of the famous French book ‘Les trois mousquetaires’ by Alexandre Dumas père, and possibly the liveliest one, full of acrobatics, galloping horses, flapping cloaks, and sword fights with almost operatic intensity. Dumas’s story is followed quite faithfully, but the creative fantasy is in the theatrical way of depicting it.
As in the book: the story of The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is set in 1625 in France. The young and inexperienced D'Artagnan (Gene Kelly) leaves his home village in Gascony to become a musketeer in Paris in the service of His Majesty King Louis XIII (Frank Morgan). In his pocket, he has the letter of recommendation from his father (silent film star Robert Warwick), a former musketeer and friend of the current captain of the musketeers, Treville (Reginald Owen). His father has taught him the art of fencing masterfully and gives him the good advice never to let himself be compromised with impunity. He is only too happy to follow this advice. Very soon, before he has even reached Paris, D'Artagnan gets into a confrontation with Rochefort (Ian Keith), Cardinal Richelieu's (Vincent Price) confidant, and his companion, the mysterious Lady de Winter (Lana Turner). At this first opportunity to preserve his honour in battle, he is unceremoniously struck down and robbed by Rochefort's henchmen, and his credentials are also taken from him. Once in Paris, he not only meets his new friends and comrades-in-arms Athos (Van Heflin), Porthos (Gig Young), and Aramis (Robert Coote), but also his landlord's niece, Constance Bonacieux (June Allyson), and falls in love. Many adventures and entanglements lie ahead and in the path of the brave hero D'Artagnan. Driven by his desire to become the king's musketeer and to prove himself in battle, he falls into the clutches of both the queen (Angela and the cardinal, experiences numerous dangerous situations and sometimes needs his new friends to get away at all. Nevertheless, he sets out to travel to England for the Queen's honour, to retrieve a jewellery box given away by the Queen's secret lover, Lord Buckingham (John Sutton), and to prevent Richelieu from plotting. To assist him, he is accompanied by Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, as well as his dull but loyal servant Planchet (Keenan Wynn). Shortly after D'Artagnan's return from England, Constance is kidnapped at the behest of Cardinal Richelieu. D'Artagnan makes a pass at Milady de Winter, discovers a delicate secret, and only just manages to save himself. Constance is freed and taken to safety in England, shortly after which war breaks out, and our four friends are drawn into it. They overhear a conspiratorial meeting between the Cardinal and Lady de Winter in an inn. The latter is to travel to England and kill Buckingham. Planchet also travels to England at D'Artagnan's behest to warn Buckingham. Lady de Winter is convicted and is to be executed. Constance is appointed her guardian. Milady de Winter, after a lengthy psychological duel, manages to take out Constance as well as a guard and Buckingham and then escapes. Athos and D'Artagnan, who wanted to help Constance, arrive too late; after Constance dies in D'Artagnan's arms, they themselves also have only escaped. Back in Paris, the four friends track down Lady de Winter, pronounce the death sentence on her, and have the prisoner executed. During their subsequent escape towards Spain, they are overpowered and arrested. Their fate seems to be sealed, but young D'Artagnan still has one trump card: the Countess's passport, personally sealed and signed by Cardinal Richelieu, with the note that everything the bearer of this letter undertakes will serve the good of the state. The king is not allowed to know the background of this letter - so Richelieu has to give in. Aramis receives permission to take up a clerical office. Porthos is allowed to marry richly, Athos gets his property back and D'Artagnan is to negotiate a peace offer with the enemy England on behalf of France.
Among the many American film versions of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers are the 1914 Film Attractions Co. production, directed by Charles V. Henkel, the 1921 Douglas Fairbanks production, directed by Fred Niblo, the 1935 RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. production, directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Walter Abel, Paul Lucas and Margot Grahame, Richard Lester's 1974 Twentieth Century-Fox production starring Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, and Raquel Welch; and the 1993 Buena Vista release, directed by Stephen Herek and starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O'Donnell, and Rebecca de Mornay. This splashy 1948 MGM adaptation of The Three Musketeers was the third sound version and was also the first version in Technicolor. In 1947, a representative of the National Catholic Legion of Decency, an organisation that monitored the interests of the Church in motion pictures, objected to the characterisation of Cardinal Richelieu in the planned MGM adaptation of Dumas' story. In a letter to MGM producer Pandro S. Berman, the organisation stated its objection to the cardinal being portrayed as a "worldly and unscrupulous man" and urged the studio to remove the character from the film. Berman refused to remove the character from the film but promised he would use great caution in all sensitive matters pertaining to the story and in the film, Richelieu is never referred to as Cardinal Richelieu. Berman also indicated that Constance, the married mistress of D'Artagnan in the novel, would be unmarried in the film version. While early sound versions of Three Musketeers eliminated the deaths of Constance and Milady, this adaptation telescopes the novel's events to allow for these tragedies. According to AFI, screenwriter Robert Ardry was displeased with Sidney's irreverent approach to the Dumas story and objected to the spoof elements that were added to the film. A biography of Kelly noted that Belgian fencing champion Jean Heremans, who appears in the film as the cardinal's guard, taught Kelly how to fence. Kelly's biography also noted that during the filming of a bedroom scene, Kelly flung Turner onto a bed with such force that she fell to the ground and suffered a broken elbow. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “True to form, MGM saw to it that Lana Turner, as Milady, was dressed to the nines and heavily bejeweled for her beheading sequence. Portions of the 1948 Three Musketeers, in black and white, showed up in the silent film-within-a-film in 1952's Singin' in the Rain, which of course also starred Gene Kelly.” The Three Musketeers opened to mostly favourable reviews, with several reviewers commenting on the film's unusual tongue-in-cheek approach. New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther noted that "more glittering swordplay, more dazzling costumes, more colors or more of Miss Turner's chest have never been seen in a picture than are shown in this one." And added: “Completely fantastic, however, is Miss Turner as the villainess, the ambitious Lady de Winter who does the boudoir business for the boss. Loaded with blond hair and jewels, with twelve-gallon hats and ostrich plumes, and poured into her satin dresses with a good bit of Turner to spare, she walks through the palaces and salons with the air of a company-mannered Mae West.” In 1948, there was an Oscar nomination for Robert Planck in the category Best Cinematography/Colour. Hans J. Wollstein at AllMovie: “The Three Musketeers remains an outrageously entertaining yarn, the Southern California locales perfectly standing in for 17th Century France and England.” And finally, Yvette Banek at her blog In so many words: “Lana Turner is really quite superb in her evilness. So evil that she is even photographed without make-up. Well, as 'without make-up' as MGM got, at any rate. Even then, she is exquisitely beautiful - especially when praying.”
Sources: Bosley Crowther (New York Times), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Yvette Banek (In so many words), AFI, Wikipedia (Dutch, German), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Brody Dalle Homme, Spinnerette @ Santa Barbara, CA
p.s. if you are gonna post my copyrighted images elsewhere on the internet at least have the decency to credit me with them and link them back to here, or i'll probably stop posting them without big watermarks on them.
After a lot (never too much, actually) of Industrial Exploration I felt the need to feed my soul and regenerate myself a bit.
This is the H.C.Andersen museum in Rome (see map).
it's a small museum but is full (really packed) of beautiful bronze and plaster statues telling the skills of Mr. Andersen, a Norwegian architect, painter and sculptor.
The Building was Mr Andersen's home and workshop at the same time. Here a number of scale models for bigger statues and building are also displayed
The preferred subjects were dancers, athletes, singers and angels that he represented in the full beauty of the naked body
Some of the bronze statues could not be displayed publicly (at that time) because of "too much nudity" which was against the commons rules of decency at his time (around 1920)
This image is copyright, all rights reserved, and not part of the public domain. Any use, linking to, or posting of this image is prohibited without my consent. If you want to use this image in any fashion, please have the common courtesy and decency to ask.
Tamanawas Falls, Mount Hood National Forest, Oregon
If you look closely, you can see a person in the frame which gives a nice scale to how big Tamanawas Falls is. This is Aaron whom I met at the falls. His family and he were on their last day of vacation and reside in Boise, Idaho. Aaron is a pretty tall guy, I'd guess about 6'3" and looks rather small against the waterfall behind him. If you look really close, you can see he's taking a picture of me with his phone while I'm taking his picture. Pretty nice guy.
Happy Watefall Wednesday Everybody!
😄The male and female Egyptian Geese were peacefully mating on the lake, enjoying a quiet moment together.
Suddenly, an unexpected intruder—a male Domestic Goose—appears on the scene.
Despite strong protests from the Egyptian Goose male, the Domestic Goose boldly takes over, attempting to mate with the Egyptian Goose female.
The Egyptian Goose female, clearly unwilling, frantically tries to escape from the persistent advances of the Domestic Goose.
After a dramatic struggle, the Egyptian Goose female finally breaks free and escapes.
Peace is restored. The Egyptian Geese couple reunites and returns to decency, living happily ever after.
😄😄
Belgian postcard by Victoria Biscuits Chocolats, no. 5. Photo: M.G.M. June Allyson and Gene Kelly in The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948), based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas.
The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is a classic Swashbuckler, starring Gene Kelly as D’Artagnan and Lana Turner as Milady De Winter. Other stars in the cast include Van Heflin, June Allyson, Gig Young, Angela Lansbury, and Vincent Price. It is one of the many, adaptations of the famous French book ‘Les trois mousquetaires’ by Alexandre Dumas père, and possibly the liveliest one, full of acrobatics, galloping horses, flapping cloaks, and sword fights with almost operatic intensity. Dumas’s story is followed quite faithfully, but the creative fantasy is in the theatrical way of depicting it.
As in the book: the story of The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is set in 1625 in France. The young and inexperienced D'Artagnan (Gene Kelly) leaves his home village in Gascony to become a musketeer in Paris in the service of His Majesty King Louis XIII (Frank Morgan). In his pocket, he has the letter of recommendation from his father (silent film star Robert Warwick), a former musketeer and friend of the current captain of the musketeers, Treville (Reginald Owen). His father has taught him the art of fencing masterfully and gives him the good advice never to let himself be compromised with impunity. He is only too happy to follow this advice. Very soon, before he has even reached Paris, D'Artagnan gets into a confrontation with Rochefort (Ian Keith), Cardinal Richelieu's (Vincent Price) confidant, and his companion, the mysterious Lady de Winter (Lana Turner). At this first opportunity to preserve his honour in battle, he is unceremoniously struck down and robbed by Rochefort's henchmen, and his credentials are also taken from him. Once in Paris, he not only meets his new friends and comrades-in-arms Athos (Van Heflin), Porthos (Gig Young), and Aramis (Robert Coote), but also his landlord's niece, Constance Bonacieux (June Allyson), and falls in love. Many adventures and entanglements lie ahead and in the path of the brave hero D'Artagnan. Driven by his desire to become the king's musketeer and to prove himself in battle, he falls into the clutches of both the queen (Angela and the cardinal, experiences numerous dangerous situations and sometimes needs his new friends to get away at all. Nevertheless, he sets out to travel to England for the Queen's honour, to retrieve a jewellery box given away by the Queen's secret lover, Lord Buckingham (John Sutton), and to prevent Richelieu from plotting. To assist him, he is accompanied by Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, as well as his dull but loyal servant Planchet (Keenan Wynn). Shortly after D'Artagnan's return from England, Constance is kidnapped at the behest of Cardinal Richelieu. D'Artagnan makes a pass at Milady de Winter, discovers a delicate secret, and only just manages to save himself. Constance is freed and taken to safety in England, shortly after which war breaks out, and our four friends are drawn into it. They overhear a conspiratorial meeting between the Cardinal and Lady de Winter in an inn. The latter is to travel to England and kill Buckingham. Planchet also travels to England at D'Artagnan's behest to warn Buckingham. Lady de Winter is convicted and is to be executed. Constance is appointed her guardian. Milady de Winter, after a lengthy psychological duel, manages to take out Constance as well as a guard and Buckingham and then escapes. Athos and D'Artagnan, who wanted to help Constance, arrive too late; after Constance dies in D'Artagnan's arms, they themselves also have only escaped. Back in Paris, the four friends track down Lady de Winter, pronounce the death sentence on her, and have the prisoner executed. During their subsequent escape towards Spain, they are overpowered and arrested. Their fate seems to be sealed, but young D'Artagnan still has one trump card: the Countess's passport, personally sealed and signed by Cardinal Richelieu, with the note that everything the bearer of this letter undertakes will serve the good of the state. The king is not allowed to know the background of this letter - so Richelieu has to give in. Aramis receives permission to take up a clerical office. Porthos is allowed to marry richly, Athos gets his property back and D'Artagnan is to negotiate a peace offer with the enemy England on behalf of France.
Among the many American film versions of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers are the 1914 Film Attractions Co. production, directed by Charles V. Henkel, the 1921 Douglas Fairbanks production, directed by Fred Niblo, the 1935 RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. production, directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Walter Abel, Paul Lucas and Margot Grahame, Richard Lester's 1974 Twentieth Century-Fox production starring Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, and Raquel Welch; and the 1993 Buena Vista release, directed by Stephen Herek and starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O'Donnell, and Rebecca de Mornay. This splashy 1948 MGM adaptation of The Three Musketeers was the third sound version and was also the first version in Technicolor. In 1947, a representative of the National Catholic Legion of Decency, an organisation that monitored the interests of the Church in motion pictures, objected to the characterisation of Cardinal Richelieu in the planned MGM adaptation of Dumas' story. In a letter to MGM producer Pandro S. Berman, the organisation stated its objection to the cardinal being portrayed as a "worldly and unscrupulous man" and urged the studio to remove the character from the film. Berman refused to remove the character from the film but promised he would use great caution in all sensitive matters pertaining to the story and in the film, Richelieu is never referred to as Cardinal Richelieu. Berman also indicated that Constance, the married mistress of D'Artagnan in the novel, would be unmarried in the film version. While early sound versions of Three Musketeers eliminated the deaths of Constance and Milady, this adaptation telescopes the novel's events to allow for these tragedies. According to AFI, screenwriter Robert Ardry was displeased with Sidney's irreverent approach to the Dumas story and objected to the spoof elements that were added to the film. A biography of Kelly noted that Belgian fencing champion Jean Heremans, who appears in the film as the cardinal's guard, taught Kelly how to fence. Kelly's biography also noted that during the filming of a bedroom scene, Kelly flung Turner onto a bed with such force that she fell to the ground and suffered a broken elbow. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “True to form, MGM saw to it that Lana Turner, as Milady, was dressed to the nines and heavily bejeweled for her beheading sequence. Portions of the 1948 Three Musketeers, in black and white, showed up in the silent film-within-a-film in 1952's Singin' in the Rain, which of course also starred Gene Kelly.” The Three Musketeers opened to mostly favourable reviews, with several reviewers commenting on the film's unusual tongue-in-cheek approach. New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther noted that "more glittering swordplay, more dazzling costumes, more colors or more of Miss Turner's chest have never been seen in a picture than are shown in this one." And added: “Completely fantastic, however, is Miss Turner as the villainess, the ambitious Lady de Winter who does the boudoir business for the boss. Loaded with blond hair and jewels, with twelve-gallon hats and ostrich plumes, and poured into her satin dresses with a good bit of Turner to spare, she walks through the palaces and salons with the air of a company-mannered Mae West.” In 1948, there was an Oscar nomination for Robert Planck in the category Best Cinematography/Colour. Hans J. Wollstein at AllMovie: “The Three Musketeers remains an outrageously entertaining yarn, the Southern California locales perfectly standing in for 17th Century France and England.” And finally, Yvette Banek at her blog In so many words: “Lana Turner is really quite superb in her evilness. So evil that she is even photographed without make-up. Well, as 'without make-up' as MGM got, at any rate. Even then, she is exquisitely beautiful - especially when praying.”
Sources: Bosley Crowther (New York Times), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Yvette Banek (In so many words), AFI, Wikipedia (Dutch, German), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Following on to a rash of disappearing nudes, reported previously on this very stream, there has been a new report of ‘The Venus of Urbino’ being replaced by a supine, decently 'embalmed' (even), MÈRE UBU. Police are currently looking into this incident, and keeping an eye on other ‘stripped’ (denuded) masterpieces.
PÈRE UBU denied categorically that this incident had anything to do with the upcoming Coronation of himself and his beloved Consort, in 4 days time. He also protested the non-involvement of the newly formed 'League of Decency' led by his beloved wife, whilst simultaneously scattering the "fake news" sobriquet willy nilly, as if it were cheap confetti.
"Speaking as someone born in the last years of a dictatorship, you Americans are already several steps in one.
Ferdinand Marcos' greatest trick was convincing people all protesters were communist animals, so when they went missing, few cared. Even after bodies were discovered.
These white people & journalists talking about being civil? These were the rich people, the Fil-Chinese, the mestizos in the Philippines who knew they won't be affected by many of Marcos' policies, and therefore could ignore them even as the killings started.
Marcos was also adept at convincing regular Filipinos that "as long as you don't commit crimes I won't come for you. I'm only getting rid of the 'filth'." He lied, of course. He jailed his most vocal opponents, people whose businesses he wanted to confiscate for his use.
But Filipinos have always been susceptible to strongman personality cults, just like your Republicans.
(Yeah don't @ me on this one, Repubs still singing Reagan's praises despite the fact he was FRIENDS with Marcos and helped him retain power, making it 1000x worse for us.)
White people, journalists who insist on civility- you seem to think civility is a common ground you share with opponents like Trump et al. Here's a clue - whenever you offer these assholes middle ground, they will invade that space & then claim you never gave them ground at all.
Marcos kept pushing. First it was all protesters were communists. All student protesters. Then it was the free press. Then it was the people with businesses he coveted. And then it was anyone who looked at Imelda Marcos or his daughter, Imee, wrong. Arrested, raped, murdered.
And every step of the way there were the same kind of fuckwits here twittering on about how people should be civil, SURELY Marcos wouldn't go that far, the economy is flourishing surely it can't be THAT bad.
"It didn't happen to ME, so it must not be bad." up till Martial Law.
White people asking for performative civility do the same thing they did, for the same reason - they're afraid. You've never been raised to fear discrimination or prejudice against a system that has always been built in your favor for centuries.
Your argument for civility is a terrified lashing out against an uncertain future that your ancestors / fellow white people have subjected people of color to for centuries. It's built in POC culture to learn how to cope with this. You've had none, because you've never needed to.
Because regardless of whether you want it or not, status quo benefits white people best. In any upheaval, white people have the least casualties. That makes them the last demographic wanting to rock the boat, even if the boat is full of Nazis steering it straight into Auschwitz.
Because you know Auschwitz isn't going to be for you. It's gonna be Auschwitz for a lot of people in that same boat you're on, but you know that's not for you. And that's why you can afford to be compliant.
And here's the kicker: YOU KNOW THEY'RE NOT CIVIL. That's why it's the liberals you keep appealing to for decorum and politeness. You know you're not going to get most Trumpsters on board anything amounting to basic decency.
So you shift the goalposts, and you enable the gaslighting, even if inadvertently. "Maybe if YOU hadn't been so rude they wouldn't have done that."
Bullshit. You KNOW they'll do it anyway because again, your goddamn status quo.
People invested in putting kids in cages don't want your civility. They don't want you to extend them the same courtesy they never had - and never wanted - from you. What they want is for you to retreat.
And every ground you grudgingly give, hoping that they'll construe that as some good faith on your part, is only an incentive for them to push harder until you have no ground left.
Then they're going to tell you they've owned the land all along.
"So much for the tolerant left." This is why they say this all the fucking time. This is the bait they expect you to fall for. Your required "tolerance" for the things they do, even as they do the exact opposite to you.
The first requirement when approaching any discussion with civility is that both sides must come to the table with it. The side that advocates putting kids in cages and are now thinking of stripping citizenship from legal green card holders, never had that to begin with.
Now: if you are REALLY invested in still keeping civil after this, there are countless unaffiliated Red Hen places in the US (+one in Canada) being egged, getting death threats, etc.
Try discussing "civility" with those people this time, & see how well that works out for you."
En ce dimanche matin, la jeune fille décide de rester un peu dans son lit... Mais réveillée, le sommeil semble l'avoir définitivement quittée. Et la dernière lettre de ses parents, pas encore décachetée, semble annonciatrice de nouvelles peu réjouissantes ; le paquet étant plus épais qu'à l'accoutumée.
"Chère Pearl, mes lettres restent sans retour et c'est avec regret que j'observe cela. J'ose espérée que tu me lis malgré tout et continue de faire vivre la maison Honneycutt sur Paris. Tu trouveras ci-joint une invitation pour te rendre au domaine français des Handersen. Fais-nous honneur, rappelle toi chaque posture, discours mondains de bienséance, pas de danse et prône une image de femme distinguée. N'oublie pas que ta tenue devra correspondre au rang de notre petit noblesse, pas d'extravagance. Ne t'emporte pas sous quelque inspiration, élan du coeur, ma fille... Miss Honneycutt."
On this Sunday morning, the girl decides to stay a little in bed ... But awake, sleep seems to have left permanently. And the last letter from her parents, not yet opened, seems to announce unpleasant news; the package being thicker than usual.
"Dear Pearl, my letters remain without return and I regret that, I hope that you will read me anyway and continue to live the house Honneycutt in Paris.There will be enclosed an invitation for go to the French Handersen Manor. Make honor on our name, remember every posture, worldly speeches of decency, dance and preach a picture of distinguished woman. Do not forget that your outfit should match the rank of our little nobility, no extravagance, do not get carried away under some inspiration, so much for the heart, my daughter ... Miss Honneycutt. "
Manifesto
In quiet corners of the Highlands and among true kilt‑wearers, an unspoken code prevails: the honourable way to don a tartan is regimentally – with nothing beneath. This isn’t a stunt but a solemn tradition carried by generations of Scots. Our motto, Regimental – Revered – Respected, reminds us that confidence and discretion go hand in hand. We hold this custom with calm pride and guarded secrecy, speaking of it only in knowing smiles rather than loud proclamations.
Membership in our discreet society demands steady resolve and a wry grin, not headlines. We embrace the Bare Thistle with dignity: wearing undergarments is the exception, not the rule. Only a handful of allowances are made – and even those are treated with all due ceremony:
•Highland Games Competitors: On crowded fields and public courses, simple decency sometimes wins out. Our council quietly permits athletes to wear suitable undergarments at these mass gatherings, a pragmatic nod to decorum that no brother ever broadcasts.
•Members of the “Jockstrap Lens League”: Our valiant kilted photographers, engaged in active duty with camera and lens, may don supportive gear beneath the tartan for practical reasons. Consider this an official, tactical compromise sanctioned by the Brotherhood for fieldwork.
•Other Special Dispensations: Any other plea for exception is exceedingly rare and subject to the careful review of our Committee of Elders. No deviation from the regimental standard is granted lightly or without cause.
The Role of the Kilt Police and Brotherhood Oversight
While the Brotherhood operates in discretion and dignity, the matter of national standards falls under the jurisdiction of the Kilt Police — an independent and frequently overzealous body empowered to conduct random inspections of kilt-wearers across Scotland. Their mission: to determine whether the individual is, in the traditional sense, a true Scotsman. Those found to be wearing undergarments are subject to immediate fines, and under the well-known Three Strikes Rule, risk full revocation of their Scottish Passport.
To ensure harmony between tradition and enforcement, the Brotherhood of the Bare Thistle acts as a regulatory counterweight. Members in good standing, bearing a Brotherhood insignia or membership card, are granted exemption from random inspections, recognised by the Kilt Police as being under internal oversight. The Brotherhood maintains its own rigorous standards — quiet, honourable, and wind-verified.
The question of entry by inspection remains a matter of ongoing debate within the Order. While some argue that a successful Kilt Police inspection ought to constitute de facto membership, others insist that formal initiation, complete with silent acknowledgment and breezy trial, remains essential. Until such a ruling is codified, non-members who pass inspection may be granted observer status, but are not yet eligible to wear the thistle badge.
Belgian postcard by Victoria Biscuits Chocolats, no. 8. Photo: M.G.M. June Allyson and Gene Kelly in The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948), based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas.
The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is a classic Swashbuckler, starring Gene Kelly as D’Artagnan and Lana Turner as Milady De Winter. Other stars in the cast include Van Heflin, June Allyson, Gig Young, Angela Lansbury, and Vincent Price. It is one of the many, adaptations of the famous French book ‘Les trois mousquetaires’ by Alexandre Dumas père, and possibly the liveliest one, full of acrobatics, galloping horses, flapping cloaks, and sword fights with almost operatic intensity. Dumas’s story is followed quite faithfully, but the creative fantasy is in the theatrical way of depicting it.
As in the book: the story of The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is set in 1625 in France. The young and inexperienced D'Artagnan (Gene Kelly) leaves his home village in Gascony to become a musketeer in Paris in the service of His Majesty King Louis XIII (Frank Morgan). In his pocket, he has the letter of recommendation from his father (silent film star Robert Warwick), a former musketeer and friend of the current captain of the musketeers, Treville (Reginald Owen). His father has taught him the art of fencing masterfully and gives him the good advice never to let himself be compromised with impunity. He is only too happy to follow this advice. Very soon, before he has even reached Paris, D'Artagnan gets into a confrontation with Rochefort (Ian Keith), Cardinal Richelieu's (Vincent Price) confidant, and his companion, the mysterious Lady de Winter (Lana Turner). At this first opportunity to preserve his honour in battle, he is unceremoniously struck down and robbed by Rochefort's henchmen, and his credentials are also taken from him. Once in Paris, he not only meets his new friends and comrades-in-arms Athos (Van Heflin), Porthos (Gig Young), and Aramis (Robert Coote), but also his landlord's niece, Constance Bonacieux (June Allyson), and falls in love. Many adventures and entanglements lie ahead and in the path of the brave hero D'Artagnan. Driven by his desire to become the king's musketeer and to prove himself in battle, he falls into the clutches of both the queen (Angela and the cardinal, experiences numerous dangerous situations and sometimes needs his new friends to get away at all. Nevertheless, he sets out to travel to England for the Queen's honour, to retrieve a jewellery box given away by the Queen's secret lover, Lord Buckingham (John Sutton), and to prevent Richelieu from plotting. To assist him, he is accompanied by Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, as well as his dull but loyal servant Planchet (Keenan Wynn). Shortly after D'Artagnan's return from England, Constance is kidnapped at the behest of Cardinal Richelieu. D'Artagnan makes a pass at Milady de Winter, discovers a delicate secret, and only just manages to save himself. Constance is freed and taken to safety in England, shortly after which war breaks out, and our four friends are drawn into it. They overhear a conspiratorial meeting between the Cardinal and Lady de Winter in an inn. The latter is to travel to England and kill Buckingham. Planchet also travels to England at D'Artagnan's behest to warn Buckingham. Lady de Winter is convicted and is to be executed. Constance is appointed her guardian. Milady de Winter, after a lengthy psychological duel, manages to take out Constance as well as a guard and Buckingham and then escapes. Athos and D'Artagnan, who wanted to help Constance, arrive too late; after Constance dies in D'Artagnan's arms, they themselves also have only escaped. Back in Paris, the four friends track down Lady de Winter, pronounce the death sentence on her, and have the prisoner executed. During their subsequent escape towards Spain, they are overpowered and arrested. Their fate seems to be sealed, but young D'Artagnan still has one trump card: the Countess's passport, personally sealed and signed by Cardinal Richelieu, with the note that everything the bearer of this letter undertakes will serve the good of the state. The king is not allowed to know the background of this letter - so Richelieu has to give in. Aramis receives permission to take up a clerical office. Porthos is allowed to marry richly, Athos gets his property back and D'Artagnan is to negotiate a peace offer with the enemy England on behalf of France.
Among the many American film versions of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers are the 1914 Film Attractions Co. production, directed by Charles V. Henkel, the 1921 Douglas Fairbanks production, directed by Fred Niblo, the 1935 RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. production, directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Walter Abel, Paul Lucas and Margot Grahame, Richard Lester's 1974 Twentieth Century-Fox production starring Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, and Raquel Welch; and the 1993 Buena Vista release, directed by Stephen Herek and starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O'Donnell, and Rebecca de Mornay. This splashy 1948 MGM adaptation of The Three Musketeers was the third sound version and was also the first version in Technicolor. In 1947, a representative of the National Catholic Legion of Decency, an organisation that monitored the interests of the Church in motion pictures, objected to the characterisation of Cardinal Richelieu in the planned MGM adaptation of Dumas' story. In a letter to MGM producer Pandro S. Berman, the organisation stated its objection to the cardinal being portrayed as a "worldly and unscrupulous man" and urged the studio to remove the character from the film. Berman refused to remove the character from the film but promised he would use great caution in all sensitive matters pertaining to the story and in the film, Richelieu is never referred to as Cardinal Richelieu. Berman also indicated that Constance, the married mistress of D'Artagnan in the novel, would be unmarried in the film version. While early sound versions of Three Musketeers eliminated the deaths of Constance and Milady, this adaptation telescopes the novel's events to allow for these tragedies. According to AFI, screenwriter Robert Ardry was displeased with Sidney's irreverent approach to the Dumas story and objected to the spoof elements that were added to the film. A biography of Kelly noted that Belgian fencing champion Jean Heremans, who appears in the film as the cardinal's guard, taught Kelly how to fence. Kelly's biography also noted that during the filming of a bedroom scene, Kelly flung Turner onto a bed with such force that she fell to the ground and suffered a broken elbow. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “True to form, MGM saw to it that Lana Turner, as Milady, was dressed to the nines and heavily bejeweled for her beheading sequence. Portions of the 1948 Three Musketeers, in black and white, showed up in the silent film-within-a-film in 1952's Singin' in the Rain, which of course also starred Gene Kelly.” The Three Musketeers opened to mostly favourable reviews, with several reviewers commenting on the film's unusual tongue-in-cheek approach. New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther noted that "more glittering swordplay, more dazzling costumes, more colors or more of Miss Turner's chest have never been seen in a picture than are shown in this one." And added: “Completely fantastic, however, is Miss Turner as the villainess, the ambitious Lady de Winter who does the boudoir business for the boss. Loaded with blond hair and jewels, with twelve-gallon hats and ostrich plumes, and poured into her satin dresses with a good bit of Turner to spare, she walks through the palaces and salons with the air of a company-mannered Mae West.” In 1948, there was an Oscar nomination for Robert Planck in the category Best Cinematography/Colour. Hans J. Wollstein at AllMovie: “The Three Musketeers remains an outrageously entertaining yarn, the Southern California locales perfectly standing in for 17th Century France and England.” And finally, Yvette Banek at her blog In so many words: “Lana Turner is really quite superb in her evilness. So evil that she is even photographed without make-up. Well, as 'without make-up' as MGM got, at any rate. Even then, she is exquisitely beautiful - especially when praying.”
Sources: Bosley Crowther (New York Times), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Yvette Banek (In so many words), AFI, Wikipedia (Dutch, German), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Belgian postcard by Victoria Biscuits Chocolats, no. 3. Photo: M.G.M. Van Heflin, Robert Coote, Gig Young, and Gene Kelly in The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948), based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas.
The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is a classic Swashbuckler, starring Gene Kelly as D’Artagnan and Lana Turner as Milady De Winter. Other stars in the cast include Van Heflin, June Allyson, Gig Young, Angela Lansbury, and Vincent Price. It is one of the many, adaptations of the famous French book ‘Les trois mousquetaires’ by Alexandre Dumas père, and possibly the liveliest one, full of acrobatics, galloping horses, flapping cloaks, and sword fights with almost operatic intensity. Dumas’s story is followed quite faithfully, but the creative fantasy is in the theatrical way of depicting it.
As in the book: the story of The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is set in 1625 in France. The young and inexperienced D'Artagnan (Gene Kelly) leaves his home village in Gascony to become a musketeer in Paris in the service of His Majesty King Louis XIII (Frank Morgan). In his pocket, he has the letter of recommendation from his father (silent film star Robert Warwick), a former musketeer and friend of the current captain of the musketeers, Treville (Reginald Owen). His father has taught him the art of fencing masterfully and gives him the good advice never to let himself be compromised with impunity. He is only too happy to follow this advice. Very soon, before he has even reached Paris, D'Artagnan gets into a confrontation with Rochefort (Ian Keith), Cardinal Richelieu's (Vincent Price) confidant, and his companion, the mysterious Lady de Winter (Lana Turner). At this first opportunity to preserve his honour in battle, he is unceremoniously struck down and robbed by Rochefort's henchmen, and his credentials are also taken from him. Once in Paris, he not only meets his new friends and comrades-in-arms Athos (Van Heflin), Porthos (Gig Young), and Aramis (Robert Coote), but also his landlord's niece, Constance Bonacieux (June Allyson), and falls in love. Many adventures and entanglements lie ahead and in the path of the brave hero D'Artagnan. Driven by his desire to become the king's musketeer and to prove himself in battle, he falls into the clutches of both the queen (Angela and the cardinal, experiences numerous dangerous situations and sometimes needs his new friends to get away at all. Nevertheless, he sets out to travel to England for the Queen's honour, to retrieve a jewellery box given away by the Queen's secret lover, Lord Buckingham (John Sutton), and to prevent Richelieu from plotting. To assist him, he is accompanied by Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, as well as his dull but loyal servant Planchet (Keenan Wynn). Shortly after D'Artagnan's return from England, Constance is kidnapped at the behest of Cardinal Richelieu. D'Artagnan makes a pass at Milady de Winter, discovers a delicate secret, and only just manages to save himself. Constance is freed and taken to safety in England, shortly after which war breaks out, and our four friends are drawn into it. They overhear a conspiratorial meeting between the Cardinal and Lady de Winter in an inn. The latter is to travel to England and kill Buckingham. Planchet also travels to England at D'Artagnan's behest to warn Buckingham. Lady de Winter is convicted and is to be executed. Constance is appointed her guardian. Milady de Winter, after a lengthy psychological duel, manages to take out Constance as well as a guard and Buckingham and then escapes. Athos and D'Artagnan, who wanted to help Constance, arrive too late; after Constance dies in D'Artagnan's arms, they themselves also have only escaped. Back in Paris, the four friends track down Lady de Winter, pronounce the death sentence on her, and have the prisoner executed. During their subsequent escape towards Spain, they are overpowered and arrested. Their fate seems to be sealed, but young D'Artagnan still has one trump card: the Countess's passport, personally sealed and signed by Cardinal Richelieu, with the note that everything the bearer of this letter undertakes will serve the good of the state. The king is not allowed to know the background of this letter - so Richelieu has to give in. Aramis receives permission to take up a clerical office. Porthos is allowed to marry richly, Athos gets his property back and D'Artagnan is to negotiate a peace offer with the enemy England on behalf of France.
Among the many American film versions of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers are the 1914 Film Attractions Co. production, directed by Charles V. Henkel, the 1921 Douglas Fairbanks production, directed by Fred Niblo, the 1935 RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. production, directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Walter Abel, Paul Lucas and Margot Grahame, Richard Lester's 1974 Twentieth Century-Fox production starring Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, and Raquel Welch; and the 1993 Buena Vista release, directed by Stephen Herek and starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O'Donnell, and Rebecca de Mornay. This splashy 1948 MGM adaptation of The Three Musketeers was the third sound version and was also the first version in Technicolor. In 1947, a representative of the National Catholic Legion of Decency, an organisation that monitored the interests of the Church in motion pictures, objected to the characterisation of Cardinal Richelieu in the planned MGM adaptation of Dumas' story. In a letter to MGM producer Pandro S. Berman, the organisation stated its objection to the cardinal being portrayed as a "worldly and unscrupulous man" and urged the studio to remove the character from the film. Berman refused to remove the character from the film but promised he would use great caution in all sensitive matters pertaining to the story and in the film, Richelieu is never referred to as Cardinal Richelieu. Berman also indicated that Constance, the married mistress of D'Artagnan in the novel, would be unmarried in the film version. While early sound versions of Three Musketeers eliminated the deaths of Constance and Milady, this adaptation telescopes the novel's events to allow for these tragedies. According to AFI, screenwriter Robert Ardry was displeased with Sidney's irreverent approach to the Dumas story and objected to the spoof elements that were added to the film. A biography of Kelly noted that Belgian fencing champion Jean Heremans, who appears in the film as the cardinal's guard, taught Kelly how to fence. Kelly's biography also noted that during the filming of a bedroom scene, Kelly flung Turner onto a bed with such force that she fell to the ground and suffered a broken elbow. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “True to form, MGM saw to it that Lana Turner, as Milady, was dressed to the nines and heavily bejeweled for her beheading sequence. Portions of the 1948 Three Musketeers, in black and white, showed up in the silent film-within-a-film in 1952's Singin' in the Rain, which of course also starred Gene Kelly.” The Three Musketeers opened to mostly favourable reviews, with several reviewers commenting on the film's unusual tongue-in-cheek approach. New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther noted that "more glittering swordplay, more dazzling costumes, more colors or more of Miss Turner's chest have never been seen in a picture than are shown in this one." And added: “Completely fantastic, however, is Miss Turner as the villainess, the ambitious Lady de Winter who does the boudoir business for the boss. Loaded with blond hair and jewels, with twelve-gallon hats and ostrich plumes, and poured into her satin dresses with a good bit of Turner to spare, she walks through the palaces and salons with the air of a company-mannered Mae West.” In 1948, there was an Oscar nomination for Robert Planck in the category Best Cinematography/Colour. Hans J. Wollstein at AllMovie: “The Three Musketeers remains an outrageously entertaining yarn, the Southern California locales perfectly standing in for 17th Century France and England.” And finally, Yvette Banek at her blog In so many words: “Lana Turner is really quite superb in her evilness. So evil that she is even photographed without make-up. Well, as 'without make-up' as MGM got, at any rate. Even then, she is exquisitely beautiful - especially when praying.”
Sources: Bosley Crowther (New York Times), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Yvette Banek (In so many words), AFI, Wikipedia (Dutch, German), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
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meglio visto su sfondo nero (Clicca sull'immagine)
best seen on black background (click on image)
foto a mano libera.
Freehand picture.
Teatro Municipale (Reggio Emilia)
Capienza
1.150 posti
Realizzazione
Costruzione
1852-1857
Architetto
Cesare Costa
Il Teatro Municipale di Reggio Emilia, intitolato oggi a Romolo Valli, sorge su una delle più importanti piazze cittadine, sulla quale si affacciano l'altro teatro cittadino, il Teatro Ariosto, la Galleria San Rocco e i Giardini Pubblici. Il Teatro Municipale è un teatro d'opera e concerti.
L'edificio teatrale è stato costruito negli anni 1852-1857. Fu ideato e condotto a termine dall'architetto Cesare Costa di Modena e i lavori furono diretti dall'ingegnere Antonio Tegani di Reggio. Presenta una facciata neoclassica su due ordini, in laterizio e marmo, con colonne tuscaniche al piano terra e paraste ioniche al primo piano. Sulla trabeazione sono poste statue allegoriche. La sala interna si presenta come un tradizionale teatro d'opera italiano, con pianta a ferro di cavallo e cinque ordini di palchi.
Il teatro fu inaugurato il 21 aprile 1857 con l'opera "Vittor Pisani" del musicista Achille Peri (1813-80). L'ampia costruzione, sorta su parte dell'area dell'antica cittadella, demolita all'inizio del XIX secolo, costò lire 1.683.000.
L'11 febbraio 1882 avvenne la première di "Il conte di Chatillon" di Nicolò Massa.
L'11 febbraio 1888 avvenne la première con successo di Asrael (opera) di Alberto Franchetti.
L'11 settembre 1983 avvennero le prime esecuzioni assolute di "Epitaph" di Edison Vasiljevich Denisov e di "Estremità" di Giacomo Manzoni.
Dimensioni
L'edificio ha pianta rettangolare di m 80x43.60 con aggiunte anteriormente due logge pure rettangolari di m 26,40 x 5,20. Copre un'area di m2 3763. La facciata misura m. 54. La sala aveva una capacità media di 1.609 spettatori (oggi ridotti a 1.150), e dopo le modifiche del 1907 (la cassa armonica fu collocata in trincea accorciando il palcoscenico) misura m. 22,60 per 18.40. II palcoscenico profondo m. 26,60, largo m. 31,20, ha 56 camerini per artisti e 16 sale per le masse. Il teatro conta anche una vasta sala superiore che è stata utilizzata come scuola di scenografia.
Esterno
Al piano inferiore il teatro presenta 19 colonne tuscaniche in granito.
Nei sette medaglioni fra le porte Paolo Aleotti scolpì i grandi autori del teatro greco, Menandro, Sofocle, Euripide, Aristofane. La parte superiore, terminata dal coronamento a mensole con attico, è scompartita da lesene ioniche anch'esse di granito con finestre e, al di sopra, bassorilievi allegorici. La decorazione e il coronamento proseguono sulle logge laterali formate da arcate a tutto sesto su pilastri.
Le statue dell'attico e delle logge furono scolpite da Prudenzio Lipeni, Ilario Bedotti, Giovanni Chierici, Antonio Giammai, Attilio Rabaglia. Quelle dell'attico, procedendo da sinistra a destra di chi osserva l'edificio, rappresentano: Moderazione, Pudore, Pittura, Suono, Commedia, Estro, Danza, Scherzo, Favola, Diletto, Istruzione, Lavoro, Virtù, Dramma, Gloria, Vizio, Tragedia, Rimorso, Curiosità, Silenzio. Sulla loggia a ponente partendo dalla fronte, si nota: Medea, Edipo, Achille, Marco Atilio Regolo. Sulla loggia a est: La Concionatrice, il Punitore di sé stesso, Prometeo, Dedalo.
Interno
L'interno fu decorato dal prof. Girolamo Magnani di Parma coadiuvato nel vestibolo e nell'atrio da Pasquale Zambini di Reggio. Nel vestibolo sono posti i busti di Cesare Costa e Achille Peri e due medaglie dello scultore Ilarioli raffiguranti Plauto e Terenzio. L'atrio ha forma di ottagono allungato, con colonne e decori, fra cui le dodici Baccanti della volta (opera di Giuseppe Ugolini) e medaglie con putti a chiaroscuro (Magnani). I busti ai lati dell'ingresso rappresentano Cesare Pariati, scrittore melodrammatico (m 1733) e Francesco Fontanesi, rinnovatore della scenografia. Al sommo dello scalone che conduce al ridotto (dove aveva sede la Società del Casino, ora in Palazzo Tirelli) è il busto di Ludovico Ariosto di Ilario Bedotti.
Nella sala che ha forma ellittica prevalgono il bianco e l'oro, vi sono quattro ordini con 106 palchetti, il palco reale e una loggia. I dipinti allegorici del soffitto, da cui pende il lampadario di cristallo, sono opera di Domenico Pellizzi, artista reggiano, con allegorie del melodramma (lato della porta), a sinistra la commedia, a destra la tragedia, e infine la coreografia.
Il sipario fu dipinto da Alfonso Chierici che vi espresse "II Genio delle Arti che loro addita i più chiari uomini d'Italia perché in essi si inspirino e risorgano". Nel cartone il pittore aveva alluso all'Italia, ma il duca, non apprezzando il riferimento risorgimentale, fece dipingere un genio con la fiaccola rivolta verso il basso. Il secondo sipario (comodino) rappresenta una gran veduta di paese ed è opera dell'artista Giovanni Fontanesi.
Il lato sinistro del palcoscenico ospita il pregevole organo Montesanti del 1815.
Eventi storici
Il 29 aprile 1961 debuttò nella lirica in questo teatro il grande tenore Luciano Pavarotti interpretando il ruolo di Rodolfo ne La bohème di Puccini, diretta da Francesco Molinari Pradelli.
Teatro Municipale (Reggio Emilia)
Capacity
1,150 seats
Realization
Construction
1852-1857
Architect
Cesare Costa
The municipal theatre of Reggio Emilia, titled today at Romolo Valli, stands on one of the most important squares of the city, on which overlook the other theatre, the Teatro Ariosto, Galleria San Rocco and the Giardini Pubblici. The municipal theatre is an opera house and concert.
The theatre building was built in the years 1852-1857. It was conceived and carried out by the architect Cesare Costa di Modena and the works were directed by the engineer Antonio Tegani of Reggio. Has a neoclassical façade on two orders, in brick and marble, with Tuscan columns on the ground floor and Ionic pilasters on the first floor. On the entablature are allegorical statues. The dining room looks like a traditional Italian opera, with horseshoe-shaped plant and five tiers of boxes.
The theatre was inaugurated on April 21, 1857 with the opera "Vittor Pisani" artist Achille Peri (1813-80). The large building, built on part of the area of the ancient Citadel, demolished in the early 19th century, cost $ 1,683,000.
The February 11, 1882 came the première of "Il conte di Chatillon" by Nicolò Massa.
The February 11, 1888 came the premiere of Asrael successfully (opera) by Alberto Franchetti.
The September 11, 1983 occurred the world premieres of "Epitaph" by Edison Denisov and Vasiljevich "Ends" by Giacomo Manzoni.
Dimensions
The building has a rectangular plan of m 80 43.60 with additions before two pure rectangular lodges 26.40 x 5.20 m. It covers an area of 3763 square meters. The measure m 54. The room had a capacity of 1,609 average viewers (now reduced to 1,150), and after changes in 1907 (the soundboard was placed in the trenches by shortening the stage) measure m. 22.60 to 18.40. II deep stage m. 26.60, 31.20 m wide, has 56 dressing rooms for artists and 16 rooms for the masses. The theatre has a wide upper room that was used as a school of design.
Exterior
Downstairs Theatre presents 19 Tuscan columns made of granite.
In seven of the ports medallions Paolo Aleotti sculpted the great authors of Greek theater, Menander, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes. The upper part, terminated by the Crown to shelves with attic, is scompartita by ionic pilasters made of granite with Windows and, above, allegorical bas-reliefs. The decoration and the Crown are continuing on side lodges formed by round arches on pillars.
The statues of the attic and lodges were sculpted by Prudentius Lipeni, Ilario Bedotti, Giovanni Chierici, Antonio Never, Attilio Rabaglia. Those of the attic, progressing from left to right by those who observe the building represent: moderation, Decency, painting, sound, comedy, Creativity, dance, joke, Fable, Delight, education, work, virtue, drama, glory, Vice, tragedy, Remorse, Curiosity, Silence. On the loggia in the West starting from the forehead, you notice: Medea, Oedipus, Achilles, Marcus Atilius Regulus. The loggia on the East: The Concionatrice, the Punisher himself, Prometheus, Daedalus.
Inside
The Interior was decorated by prof. Girolamo Magnani of Parma assisted in the vestibule and lobby by Pasquale Zambini of Reggio. In the vestibule are the busts of Cesar Costa and Achille Peri and two medals of the sculptor Ilarioli of Plautus and Terence. The Atrium has the shape of an elongated Octagon, with columns and decorations, including the twelve Bacchantes della volta (opera by Giuseppe Ugolini) and medals with putti in chiaroscuro (Magnani). The busts on the sides of the entrance represent Caesar Pariati, melodramatic writer (died 1733) and Francesco Fontanesi, renewer of the scene. At the staircase leading to the reduced (where he established the company's Casino, now in Palazzo Tirelli) is a bust of Ludovico Ariosto of Ilario Bedotti.
In the Hall who has Elliptically prevail the white and gold, there are four orders with 106 boxes, the Royal box and a loggia. Allegorical paintings on the ceiling, from which hangs the crystal chandelier, are the work of Domenico Pellizzi, artist reggiano, with allegories of Opera (port side), left the play, the tragedy, and finally the choreography.
The curtain was painted by Alfonso Chierici that expressed "II Genio of arts that they would clear the men of Italy because they inspirino and arise". In the cartoon the painter had alluded to Italy, but the Duke, not appreciating the Risorgimento, made reference to paint a genius with the torch down. The second curtain (bedside table) represents a great view of the country and is the work of artist John Felix.
The left side of the stage is home to the fine organ Mamon of 1815.
Historical events
The April 29, 1961 debuted in Opera in this theatre the great tenor Luciano Pavarotti singing the role of Rodolfo in La bohème
This week the Democrats have offered a positive view of an American future offering hope to all Americans — a vision of healing and rebuilding.
The American President continues to violate basic notions of decency while failing to handle the Corona virus with any kind of skill, compassion or understanding. His stumbling, incompetent response amounts to negligent homicide. Lawbreakers, grifters and incompetents abound.
Some regimes need changing
Some regimes
Just like diapers
Trash
Or dirty laundry
Need changing
From time to time
Smelling bad
And reeking of corruption
They should be impeached
Voted out of office
Sent packing
And banned from Twitter
Fox News
And Fake News of all kinds
They should be sent into exile
Like Napoleon
Or stranded on some desert island
Like Robinson Crusoe
Unplugged
And deprived of all pleasures
Like golf and cheeseburgers
Strippers and porn stars
Silenced
Once and for all
Muzzled
Gagged
And muted
Put out of commission
And hushed
Finally
Or jailed
© Jamie McKenzie, all rights reserved
You will find more of my poems and songs here
and in The Storm in Its Passing and Flights of Fancy.
My songs are at
Peace is restored. The Egyptian Geese couple reunites and returns to decency, living happily ever after.
Tomorrow is election day in the US. It is a Constitutional right, nay, privilege to be able to shape the future of the nation. While your contribution may be a drop in the ocean, it is an important one.
In the past two years, the elected officials on one side have put party over policy, religion over science, bigotry over decency, war-mongering over diplomacy, fear over hope, and chaos over peace. That is not, and should not be the norm. The country deserves better.
I am not a citizen. I am an immigrant. But I have been fortunate enough to avail many opportunities this country had to offer. I have spent enough time to call this nation home. And yet I worry about the future of the democratic principles that was the basis of this nation-state and seem to be eroding away.
I cannot vote yet, but I wish I could. For after all I have seen in my travels through the continent, I still believe in the power of the people.
Go Vote.
Image is from a country road in Acadia National Park in the midst of fall.
"Nope, I can't quite get it up that far either ... I just don't know how he does it."
Perhaps they are Duck Executives ? Or Top Management Ducks? Or Government Ducks?
Oh I'm just so sorry, my new medication isn't doing much to help my body but it's sure messed with my sense of decency. Usually, I wouldn't care what I wrote ;-0
Oh well, if you can't have fun once in a while ......... c'mon now, it's life, enjoy it while you can because no one gets out alive.
As the new decade is about to dawn on the Western hemisphere, here's my little summary of 2019.
It's not little, by the way, because it's me and I like to write a lot :D
Andrew’s Summary of 2019 - Flickr version
It was a year.
*This essay contains a Star Wars spoiler around two-thirds down.
Gather round, ye Flickr friends, and hear this year’s edition of “This is what Andrew did during the past year!” Because this year was full of ups and downs, I’ma just get right to it:
The most prominent event of 2019 for Ally and I was her father (Paul)’s fight against lung cancer, which he eventually lost on July 29th — 7 years to the day from when I first met him. Like last year, it’s no longer possible to consider my year separately from Ally’s experience of it, even though my year was certainly easier than hers. However, life goes on for those who continue living.
We must have stayed home on New Year’s Eve, since I don’t have any pictures hinting at an event, which is just as well because I have no interest in partying late anymore. Aging, what what!
The year started with me being worried about abdominal pain. After some tests, it turned out to be nothing concerning.
Throughout the winter, I (like many other Canadians) had to put up with the bullshite Polar Vortex again on quite a few days. There are pictures of my face completely covered, like some sort of militarized local cop, due to the cold. But yeah, climate change is a hoax from Tchaina! ChinaCHINAchinaCHAI-NAH!
I continued with my guitar lessons on Tuesdays, walking up the ***** Avenue hill to my lesson after my early-start day at work, and walking back again. Although I did learn some things in my lessons and became more proficient with my right-hand fingerstyle technique, I felt like my guitar teacher just wasn’t listening to my feedback. I found that I was coming home angry more often than not. That was definitely not the outcome I was going for when I signed up for lessons. I had my last lesson in June, and I decided not to go back.
On February 2nd, Ally and I went to the big fundraising gala with my main workplace, escorting a former client as the featured speaker. It was quite the fancy event. I won an Italian stovetop covfefe maker for Ally at the silent auction, which she uses on the regular.
On March 2nd, I bought my first (and thus far only) L-series lens; an old-design Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM model. The guy at the store suggested that it wouldn’t be much better than my 55-250, and that it’d be better to get the $1,500 IS version, but fudge that — I wasn’t about to spend $1,500 on a lens. Not yet anyway. The one I got was about $800. The guy was right; the image quality isn’t much better than the 55-250, but my motivation for buying the L was mainly for the prestige…feeling like after all these years as a photographer, I deserved it. And you know what? I do deserve it.
On March 7th, my 23andMe results came in! What would it say? Would it reveal what part of Greece my ancestors came from? Would it have any other really interesting results?
Well, first off, it showed that I’m very white. The results have updated a bit since they first came in, but as of this writing, I’m 99.8% European. Surprise surprise; I’m fully Shitlord! I’ve commented recently that for most of the last few hundred years, people in the Bestern world (the Western world) would have said “Oh thank god; I’m completely white!”, whereas now, white people are like “Oh…there’s nothing interesting here. I’m completely British.”
The breakdown as of December 27th, 2019 is:
• 51.6% British and Irish (only 51.6% eh? The fact that it’s barely more than half certainly makes me wonder where the rest of my ancestors came from!)
• 25.6% French and German (it’s all French; no German. But more importantly, who are these French ancestors?? 25.6% is way too high to be an error!)
• 4.3% Scandinavian
• 13.3% “Broadly Northwestern European”
• 0.7% Italian
• 0.2% Spanish and Portuguese
• 2.6% “Broadly Southern European” (Is this the only percentage of Greek in my ancestry???)
• 1.5% “Broadly European”
• 0.1% “Broadly Western Asian and North African”
• 0.1% “Unassigned”
The three most interesting aspects to me are:
• If only 52% of my ancestry is British/Irish, where does the rest come from?
• Who are the people who came from France?
• Do I actually have Greek ancestry?
• If so, why is it so distant?
• If not, why is my last name **********?
I haven’t really done much searching since getting the results, but it certainly provides just as many questions as answers.
Another question focused on a relative, whose relationship to me was hinted at being very different from what we thought. But another family member then took the test, and their results corrected that error. I’m obviously censoring this!
I also found out through my results that I’m more likely to get the adult-onset diabeets, so I need to be careful about weight gain, and making sure I exercise on the regular.
On March 13th, I went to my sister’s apartment and did two fluid art paintings; this time with silicone to get the bubbly effect. She has gotten quite good at that style.
At the end of March, we saw Ejaculate From Away (Come From Away), which was surprisingly good. As everyone knows, I hate musicals, but I was willing to give this one a chance because it was about two things I’m interested in — Newfoundland and September 11th. Although the accents weren’t all bang-on, it was very well-done.
On April 12th, we got on a flight and took our second trip to New York City. I had been jonesing to at least plan a trip for this year (since I love trip planning), but Ally was very reluctant due to Paul’s illness…which had only been diagnosed in November of 2018. But somehow, Ally was able to suggest going on a short trip to New York (yes, it was her suggestion). I was happy that she was willing to get away for a bit, so in February we started planning and buying advance tickets. New York has so much stuff to see, and so many ways to get around, so I was happy to figure that part out. We bought contingency-class plane tickets in case we had to fly back if Paul went downhill.
This time, we flew out of Pearson (taking the You-Urinate Express train to get there) and landed at LaGuardia. We stayed at an AirBnb in Brooklyn this time — a tiny little space tacked on to the back of an old house in between Green-Wood Cemetery and Prospect Park. It was about an 8-minute walk to Fort Hamilton Parkway station on the G train. Unlike mid-April in Toronto, it was Spring in New York, which was nice. Lots of trees were flowering.
On Ally’s birthday (an unseasonably warm day that peaked at 24 degrees), we walked through Prospect Park and saw the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, then walked under the Brooklyn Bridge, which was much bigger in person than I expected. We saw the World Trade Center memorial again the next day and went up in the new tower (which was still under construction when we went in 2013), and Ally demolished a huge plate of nachismo for mid-afternoon lunch. She said she should enter a nacho-eating contest. We also had various subway adventures, which I made sure to document in my trip journal. We didn’t plan as many things this time, and so we were able to have a somewhat slower pace compared to the 2013 trip. But of course, with me, things can only go so slowly. Unless I’m getting a shower — then it can be as slow as time crawls on a quiet night shift. Which I thankfully haven’t had to do in a few years.
When we came back from New York, we found out that Paul had been admitted to the hospital on the day we left for New York. We visited him in the hospital in Newmarket. He had responded badly to a new type of treatment, and was in the hospital for a few days.
The day after we came back from New York, I went and saw a counsellor to try and figure out how to mediate an ongoing conflict. I wasn’t really satisfied with the conversation, although I suppose it helped a little bit to talk about it.
Toward the end of April, my coworker Melinda resigned, moved to Napanee, and got married shortly afterward. I moved upstairs and took over her little office with two big windows, and I have to say, I’ve generally been a lot less annoyed at work. The floor I’m on now is much quieter, so I don’t hear my coworkers and the resident clients yelling at each other all day long, although I don’t think moving offices has improved my productivity. But it has definitely improved my mood, which is worth something.
On May 24th, we had a staff potluck at work, and I made delicious chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.
In early June, I started work on a blue painting of some black-and-white triangular figure. I haven’t finished it yet.
On June 11th, thanks to the influence of a friend who I collaborated with on some work-related projects, I started playing Pokémon GO again. My first catch was a Snover, which I thought looked like a Klansman. I was at level 27, and in the time since then, I’ve gotten up to level 36. I’ve met a lot of people playing Pokémon GO this year, who take it way more seriously than I do. I think the game is better than it was in 2016, in that people who aren’t level 40 can now stand a chance in gym battles, although the game is no longer hyped up the way it was. But it’s provided some entertainment and competition for me throughout the second half of 2019.
On July 12th, Ally started painting her Bell Box mural. On July 14th and 21st, I joined her in the painting, and took some videos throughout. One of those days was very hot, with little shade, but it was a nice way to spend time together and contribute to something relatively permanent in the city. Several people walked by and complimented Ally on her work. On July 22nd, I met Ally and Tina at the mural after work, and they had just finished it.
On July 13th, we went for a very flooded bike ride on Toronto Island with Andrew, Emily, Will, Agnes, and Agnes’s cousins. On July 15th, for our 7th dating anniversary, we went to Karma’s Kitchen for Indian food.
On July 18th, I painted a retirement card for Phil at Halton, as he was set to retire on July 20th and move to Cape Breton Island. He loved the card, and when I saw him at Halton around November, he said he loves living in Cape Breton, so I’m happy for him.
On a super-hot July 19th, Ally and I went on a summer boat cruise with my main job. We had lunch in an enclosed buffet with little air movement, but once we went up on deck, it was cooler. Overall a good time.
This summer had quite a few days that were too hot to be considered “normal” summer heat. However, it was less consistently super-hot than last summer.
Later in July, Paul moved into a hospice in Newmarket. On the evening of July 26th, Ally came home, and soon afterward got a message that she should go back to the hospice…so I drove up with her, and we stayed there overnight, with her mom and brother. I went to Cora’s for breakfast with Ally and her mom around 6:00am, and then we came back and drove home. It was the last time I saw Paul alive.
At some point, Ally went back up to the hospice, and stayed there with him and her mom on the night of July 28th. On the morning of July 29th, as I was getting ready to go to work, Ally texted me and told me that Paul had just passed away. That evening, when we were sitting on the bed at home, she said “I don’t have a dad anymore.” It was the saddest thing I’d ever heard.
On August 3rd, we went to the cemetery, and Paul’s ashes were buried, in a plot near Ally’s grandfather’s. It was sad, but Ally didn’t shed a tear. I think she had spent so much time thinking about it over the previous 8 months that she must have been ready for that moment; as ready as someone could be.
On August 4th, we hopped on the VIA train and went to Montréal for another short vacation. I had booked a trip to Newfoundland with Mom, David, Heather, Matt, and Matt, in which we were going to go to the Regatta, see Nanny, and meet more of Mom’s birth family, but I cancelled it so that I could be physically present for Ally as Paul had moved closer to the end. Ally graciously granted us another trip, partly to replace the one I cancelled, and probably partly to just escape the stress of the home front for a few days.
I had never been on the VIA train before. It was more comfortable than a plane, and slightly faster than a car. I had loaded up on snacks at Bulk Barn, so that helped. On our three-day trip, we got some decent pictures; hiked up Mount Royal, saw the Oratoire Saint-Joseph du Mont-Royal; went on the Grand roue de Montréal, and did some walking around in the heat. This trip to Montréal was much better than my previous two trips, and so it improved my opinion of Montréal.
On August 9th, Ally and I went to my friend Rick’s Zoo Reunion in Pickering, which was a great time. We saw V-Ron, Little Andrew, Rick, Amanda, Sarah, J-Fox, Allen, Drew, and a few other people.
While we were driving home, Mom called and said that Heather’s boyfriend Matt’s mother had died — earlier that day. Heather started a GoFundMe page to help, and within a few days the cost of the funeral was covered.
On August 10th, Ally’s family hosted Paul’s celebration of life at the funeral home. Lots of people showed up, and some of Paul’s favorite baseball and shooting memorabilia were on display.
On August 17th, we went to Matt’s mom’s funeral in Burlington, and then went back to Toronto that night for our second KISS concert; this time at the former ACC. Gene Simmons screwed up by shouting “Montréal!” during one song, but otherwise it was a good show.
Between Ally’s dad, Matt’s mom, and my friend Sarah’s dad, the summer of 2019 was the Summer of Death.
On August 24th, Dad and Robin got married at the cottage. I was the official photographer, and I got some pretty good shots — not bad for my first-ever wedding photography gig. We went to their favorite restaurant for supper, and back to Dad’s house for the after-party.
On August 29th, we went to the Ex, and saw Séan Cullen do standup, which was funny. It was good to have a laugh after a heavy summer.
On September 8th, I took a “ten years later” picture of the Toronto skyline from Riverdale Park, since I had first done that in August of 2009. The skyline is a lot fuller now, with all the new condos. I’m glad I had the presence of mind to do a before-and-after shot.
Throughout the summer, Terrance ate almost an entire box.
On September 14th, we went to the McMichael art gallery with Susan and saw the Maud.Lewis exhibit, which inspired me to do a totally-unrelated painting, of a tree framed by little blue circles of sky.
We went to the Keg Mansion for my birthday, and Heather made me a Froot Loops cake.
In late August, I had noticed that my weight was down to the lowest it had been for a few years. I had it checked out and it seems to be nothing. Not a fascinating story, but it’s part of my year, so it go-eth here.
On September 24th, I got new glasses, after 5 years of the old Hack Them Optical pair. They were Ray-Bans, but the arms cut into the tops of my ears, so I took ‘em back and exchanged them for a pair of Ralph Laurens instead, which are much more comfortable.
On September 27th, Ally and I won tickets to a Thom Yorke concert through work. It was certainly different than his Radiohead stuff.
Also in late September, we all got wind of Justin Trudeau’s blackface controversy. I turned it into a bunch of dark jokes (pardon the pun) with coworkers, friends, and Ally. And thankfully, it didn’t seem to affect the election that much. The Liberals won the federal election again. I would have preferred the NDP to win, but better the Liberals than the Conservatives. Justin Trudeau hasn’t done a great job in the last 4 years, in my opinion, but a Liberal who says they’re gonna do fair, responsible things and then doesn’t do them is better than a Conservative who outright says they’re gonna do evil things and then goes and does them. Paying lip service to giving a shit about the environment is much better than saying “Durr, we like oil jerbs, so fuck the environment!”
Also in political fuckwaddery, the impeachment of Donald Trump. I don’t think he’ll be removed from office, but at least he’ll have another stain on his record. Unlike the cum stain on Bill Clinton’s record, Trump’s stain will be a total disregard for human decency, across the board. I hope Bernie crushes him in 2020…or whoever the Democrats nominate. I was wrong before…the planet can’t afford us (the righteous liberal majority) to be complacent a second time.
Also in ***censored until I figure out what’s happening with my job contract***
Also in political headshakery, Brexit. It seems dumb, but I haven’t taken the time to figure out what either side’s argument for leaving or staying actually is.
Going off topic a bit, I’ve seen a few “summary of the decade” articles recently, and while that’s beyond the scope of my 2019 summary, I will say that the last few years are characterized more and more by masses of people trying to avoid other people. My generation, it seems, is being defined by its utter discomfort with the concept of “waiting”. Of being seen unoccupied. Take a look around on any public transit vehicle, or at the bus stop, or in a waiting room — almost everyone whose hair isn’t totally grey will be looking at a cell phone. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: Due to the invention and proliferation of the smartphone, we can now conclude that there’s nothing people wanted more than the ability to insulate ourselves from face-to-face human contact while in the presence of strangers.
On October 10th, I brought home a hilarious kitchen floor mat of the Labrador ferry, as a joke on Ally. Her reaction was just as funny as I expected.
On November 3rd, Ally did the CN Tower stair climb. Not my story, but still exciting for her!
On November 10th, I finally took a trip to see the new subway stations on the Spadina extension. It was a chilly and dreary day, but I got good pics of the stations. Hopefully I’ll post them on the Internets (to paraphrase my previously-least-favorite American president). I’ve been so far behind on my posting now, it’s ridiculous. I’m still posting pics from my honeymoon, which was two years ago, and chronologically (in terms of my unposted iPhoto pics), I’m only caught up to the fall of 2012.
Also on November 10th, I baked Nanny’s chocolate chip cookies for the first time! They were a little off (probably because they were gluten-free), but overall they tasted pretty similar to the real thing.
On Remembrance Day, winter began. We had a week of brütal February weather that week, and then it went back to normal. Then it got cold again. The last week or two of December have been pretty mild, which is nice. We’ll see what the rest of the winter holds.
On November 22nd, Ally took me to the City and Color show. I wasn’t really interested in going, but I went, and it was alright. One guy in front of us was drunk when he got there, and in between arguments with his girlfriend, he’d shout “Save your fucking scissors!” They left early, and the band never did play “Save Your Scissors”.
On December 6th, Ally and I went to Medieval Times for my work’s Christmas party. It was reasonably entertaining, and the food was good.
On December 7th, Ally and I went to see A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood with her mom in Nieuwmarquet. It was a pretty sad story, but uplifting at the same time.
I took several days off work in the second half of December, and on December 20th we saw Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. As with the previous movie, there were a few moments of “Okay, yeah right”, like the Death Star and Palpatine partially surviving the massive explosion… (these are in the trailer, and so they are not spoilers) — but overall I was satisfied with
SPOILER BELOW! SPOILER BELOW!
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Rey killing Palpatine and choosing to become a Skywalker.
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END OF SPOILER
But I doubt the Skywalker saga is truly over. It’s too lucrative, amirite?
I’ve noticed in the last year or two that Star Wars is no longer relegated to being a “once every few years” thing — it’s an everyday thing now. Whenever I use “Explore” on Instagram, Star Wars memes pop up…although this year I’ve noticed fewer funny prequel memes about Anakin and Palpatine and more stupid “Star Wars Fact” memes, which are based on derivative works that didn’t have theatrical releases, and are therefore of questionable importance.
On December 21st, I unknowingly took my last ride on the old CLRV streetcar. I had been playing Pokémon with my friend Matt downtown, and took it along Queen Street from around University Avenue (that’s “Avenyou”, not “avenoo”, by the way) to Leslie Street. On December 29th, the TTC ran the CLRVs on their final jaunt before retiring them. I’m glad I’ve taken several good pictures of those old streetcars over the years, and that a few of them will be preserved at the Halton County Radial Railway.
On Christmas Eve, I made maple glazed carrots for the first time.
For Christmas, I got a Tupac (two-pack) of Zildjian low-volume cymbals (hi-hats and a crash-ride) from Ally, Mom and eHeather, which I had first seen in Cosmo(s) Music with Ally in Novembuary. I’m a long-time Sabian guy, but these admittedly sound a bit better than the Sabian equivalent, and they look better too. Plus I’m the only one who gives a shit what brand of cymbals I play. A few days later, I ordered a 16” crash to go with them, because I played them and realized that if I was recording (or just jamming) with actual drumsticks and hit my regular crash, it would be way too loud. So, I ordered the low-volume crash to kind of “complete” my low-volume set-up. Ally also got me a pair of socks with eTerrance’s face on them, which is pretty funny. Mom also brought me some old film pictures, including several of my Hawaii and Japan 2002 pictures that I thought were lost, so I’ll be uploading those in the future!
We went up to Dad’s house for supper, where I found my lost (and now cancelled) credit card, wedged in between the seat cushions where I expected it would be. After gorging ourselves on food, Elliot taught us how to play dreidel. Dad got me a Blue Yeti microphone, since I had discovered earlier in December that my iMac’s built-in microphone is beyond terrible — my old MacBook Pro’s mic was way better. Anyway, now I’ve got a big honking microphone to record music with, and the sound quality is great.
We drove to Susan’s house that evening and stayed there overnight. We had Boxing Day supper there, whence I ate a lot of cookies.
A few days later I recorded parts of “Saltwater Joys” and “If I Fell” — stuff that never woulda fit in with my old bands. Let’s see if I actually end up recording them completely, now that I have all the gear that’s needed, and the only barrier would be my own excuses.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been about 7 years since I was in an active band…Adam & Evil faded away in late 2012 (see my 2012 summary). Alex is still playing live music with newer friends in Oshawa, and I recently saw a pic of him playing my old drumset on stage, so I’m happy he’s been able to carry on playing shows, even if I only see him once or twice a year now.
On December 29th, I baked onion rings for the first time. They didn’t turn out great, but the concept worked, so I may try it again.
In terms of ongoing stuff, I continued working at my older job pretty much every other weekend, and passed the 7-year mark on December 14th. It’s now the job I’ve held the longest. At my main job, I continued becoming better at not getting stuck when helping my clients. We still aren’t seeing a huge number of new clients, but I was still able to do meaningful work with the many who keep coming back — similar to last year’s summary, I know! My work life in 2019 was pretty similar to 2018.
My average walking distance was nearly identical to last year’s. I didn’t ride my bike as much this year, which is disappointing, but it’s because I spent a lot of my outdoor free time playing Pokémon. In 2020, I’d like to ride my bike more and spend less outdoor time playing Pokémon.
We didn’t watch much TV during the first half of this year, but in the fall we finished The Pacific; watched the third season of The Crown, (which I liked for its development of Prince Charles’s character) and watched the first season of The Medichlorian, er, I mean The Baby Yoda Show, er, I mean The Mandalorian. I also streamed a fair bit of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, whose Donald Trump impression I’ve gained a reputation for nailing. Two of my other favorite videos of the year were both Trevor Noah’s: The one about Africans giving advice for when white people invade the Arctic, and of course the one about Mexicans stealing Trump’s wall, which truly is fucking hilarious.
As previously mentioned, I got a kick out of the Palpatine memes this year (especially “Mountain DEW IT”), and birb memes as well. I even bought Ally a @chickenthoughtsofficial t-shirt for Christmas!
Once again, I didn’t get into a whole lot of new music this year, but a few of my favorites included:
• “Crazy” by Patsy Cline
• “Please Please Me” by The Beatles
• “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues” by Elton John
• “String Quintet in E Major, Op 13: Minuet” by Luigi Boccherini/London Philharmonic Orchestra
• “Christmas Time in Hell” by “Satan the Dark Prince (South Park)
• “The Ballad of John and Yoko” by The Beatles
• “And I Love Her” by The Beatles/Fred Benedetti & Peter Pupping
• “Another Day in Paradise” by Phil Collins
• “Story” by Chon
• “Blackest Eyes” by Porcupine Tree
I also burned my 33rd Random Mix CD, after a year and a half of not making any due to not having a CD drive on my iMac. I used the old ManBearPig, which still works after almost ten years. There’s a purchase from which I definitely got my money’s worth!
In 2019, I read more books than any other recorded year. This is only a half-truth (or as Emperor Trump would call it, “Fake News”), because as a pre-teen, I’m certain there were years when I read more Goosebumps books than the total number of books in my 2019 list. But to be fair, back then, I didn’t have a cell phone or my own computer to compete for my time. So, here’s the list of books I read in 2019:
• Finished Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation by Bill Nye
• Becoming by Michelle Obama
• The Day the World Came to Town by Jim Defede
• Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
• A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
• Canada by Mike Myers
• America Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t by Stephen Colbert
• Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl
• Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward
• Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life: A Sortabiography by Eric Idle
• Bernie by Ted Rall
• Star Talk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson (a library book! I never read those!)
• Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis
• Started Inside Rehab by Anne Fletcher
What do I want to do in 2020?
• Go on a big trip (two weeks or more).
• Join a gym (yeah; me and 100 million other people!)
• Spend less outdoor time playing Pokémon and more outdoor time riding my bike.
• Post more pictures on Flickr.
• Eat less chocolate and more vegetables (I’m deliberately leaving this undefined so that I can’t hold myself accountable).
• Record more music with my new microphone and drum gear.
And so, my friends, thanks for taking the time. I don’t know what 2020 holds for me, or the planet. My job contract is set to expire in the spring, so we’ll see what happens with that. As for civilization as a whole, I’m encouraged by the level of dedication that lots of people are showing in fighting climate change and making more sustainable choices on an individual level, even if it sometimes feels like the pendulum has swung a bit too far. I’m still looking for an alternative to plastic cling wrap and Ziploc bags that are just as sanitary as factory-made plastic, but better for the environment. However, I am hopeful that even in the face of climate change denial by a small faction of losers, the correct people of the world will prevail. Even if the current American (and Ontario) governments won’t show leadership, the rest of the planet gives a shit. Nothing can stop the green revolution. The tide has turned — #sciencebepraised.
Happy New Year!
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“A seaside town in France is clamping down on tourists who venture beyond the sand in their swimsuits.
“A little restraint, please!” Yannick Moreau, the mayor of Les Sables d’Olonne, pleaded on social media last week to the flocks of mostly French tourists who visit each summer.
Mr. Moreau said in an interview that the behavior had become more prevalent in recent years: Visitors leave the beach and walk into the town’s markets, grocery stores and restaurants in their bathing suits. He has seen enough.
“If you go to a market to buy local food — fruits, vegetables, meat — you cannot be half-naked with hair falling onto vegetables,” he said, adding, “It’s a matter of decency.” NY Times
These are sad times for the United States as the new administration is dismantling much of what makes the nation decent. They've even outlawed the use of the term "social justice." And they have proclaimed programs arguing for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) to be somehow evil.
While it is difficult to see a path back towards decency, the words of Martin Luther King — “The Arc of the Moral Universe is Long, But it Bends Toward Justice.” — can give us some hope and the song, "We shall overcome!" will serve us well.
Joan Baez with lyrics for singalong . . .
youtu.be/p4qp8TjHG88?si=GpeM_MagFgxUUzDO
We shall overcome,
We shall overcome,
We shall overcome, some day.
Oh, deep in my heart,
I do believe
We shall overcome, some day.
We'll walk hand in hand,
We'll walk hand in hand,
We'll walk hand in hand, some day.
Oh, deep in my heart,
We shall live in peace,
We shall live in peace,
We shall live in peace, some day.
Oh, deep in my heart,
We shall all be free,
We shall all be free,
We shall all be free, some day.
Oh, deep in my heart,
We are not afraid,
We are not afraid,
We are not afraid,
TODAY
Oh, deep in my heart,
We shall overcome,
We shall overcome,
We shall overcome, some day.
Oh, deep in my heart,
I do believe
We shall overcome, some day.
Im used to seeing sea gypsies asking for coins to a lot of people visiting the Paseo del Mar.
They will swim and dive for your thrown pennies, but it is already prohibited these days. These
couple catched my attention, they were peddling fresh fruits and souvenirs using their little vinta.
This picture depicts how creative and resourceful a Filipino is. We do not allow negativities run through
our veins and eat us. We look for ways to put food in the table for our family with decency and big smile.
Fifty years ago today – it really doesn’t seem possible – the speed ace Donald Campbell lost his life on Coniston Water in England’s Lake District while attempting to break his own World Water Speed Record. He was travelling at more than 300mph (483 kph) when his turbo jet-powered Bluebird K7 boat catapulted 50ft (15m) into the air after its nose lifted inexplicably. Aged 45, he was killed instantly as Bluebird hit the water and disintegrated on that fateful day in 1967. His remains, and the wreckage of Bluebird, weren’t recovered until 34 years later, in 2001.
As a boy, I idolised Donald Campbell, who was the personification of derring-do, decency, sportsmanship and fair play, and who believed passionately in contributing to the ‘greatness’ of Great Britain. He was a patriot through and through, and over the years he set eight world speed records, seven of them on land. No wonder he was my hero.
In the midst of all this breathless activity, I wrote to him asking for his autograph (I was perhaps 12 years old) and this hand-signed postcard is what he sent me in return. ‘To Peter’… I was thrilled beyond measure, and all these decades later this wonderful postcard from this great man is still among my most treasured possessions.
In July 2017, I visited Donald Campbell's grave in Coniston cemetery, to pay my long overdue respects.
Vintage card. Photo: Monogram. Peggy Ann Garner and Johnny Sheffield in Bomba: The Jungle Boy (Ford Beebe, 1949).
Johnny Sheffield (1931-2010) was one of Hollywood's most famous child stars. He was unforgettable as Tarzan's adopted son Boy in eight Tarzan films starring Johnny Weissmuller. Between 1949 and 1955, he starred in twelve Bomba films for Monogram Pictures.
Johnny Sheffield was born John Matthew Sheffield Cassan in 1931 in Pasadena, California, USA. His father was the actor Reginald Sheffield who began as a child star and later turned to character acting. In 1938, Sheffield became a child star after he was cast in the juvenile lead of a West Coast production of the highly successful Broadway play 'On Borrowed Time', which starred Dudley Digges and featured Victor Moore as Gramps. The seven-year-old Sheffield played the role of Pud, a long role for a child. He later went to New York as a replacement and performed the role on Broadway. That year he also played Napoleon's son in the short MGM film The Man on the Rock (Edward L. Cahn, 1938). When Maureen O'Sullivan wanted out of her Jane role in the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan series, it was decided that she and Tarzan would adopt a son (they had to adopt, according to the Legion of Decency, because they weren't married) before she died. Weissmuller personally selected Sheffield from 300 boys for the part of Boy. The role was inspired by Bobby Nelson's portrayal in Tarzan the Mighty (Jack Nelson, Ray Taylor, 1928). Athletic by nature, little Johnny was taught to swim by swimming Olympian Weissmuller. Johnny Sheffield's feature debut in Tarzan Finds a Son! (Richard Thorpe, 1939) was such a success that MGM signed him to six more films as Tarzan's Boy. Sheffield played Boy in three Tarzan films at MGM, and in another five after Johnny Weissmuller, and production of the film series moved to RKO. Brenda Joyce played Jane in the last three Tarzan films in which Sheffield appeared.
In between the Tarzan films, Johnny Sheffield played supporting parts in other films. Sheffield appeared in the musical Babes in Arms (Busby Berkeley, 1939) with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, classmates of his at the studio school. Johnny and his brother Billy Sheffield were both in Knute Rockne All American (Lloyd Bacon, 1940), playing football player and coach Knute Rockne at different ages. By the time of Tarzan and the Mermaids (Robert Florey, 1948), Johnny Sheffield was too big for the part of Boy. The film merely said he was away at school. When Monogram Studios learned Sheffield had been dropped, they picked him up for s series of B-films based on Roy Rockwood's adventure novel 'Bomba'. The first was Bomba: The Jungle Boy (Ford Beebe, 1949). Between 1949 and 1955, Sheffield made twelve Bomba films for "Poverty Row" studio Monogram Pictures. Sheffield retired from films at age 24 after starring in his twelfth Bomba film Lord of the Jungle (Ford Beebe, 1955). He then made a pilot for a television series, Bantu the Zebra Boy, which was created, produced, and directed by his father, Reginald Sheffield. Although the production values were high compared to other TV jungle shows of the day, a sponsor was not found and the show was not taken up as a weekly series. In his later years, Sheffield sold bootlegged copies of the pilot to collectors on videotape. After leaving show business, Sheffield completed a business degree at UCLA. Turning his attention to other fields, he involved himself variously in farming, real estate and construction. For a time, he was a representative for the Santa Monica Seafood Company importing lobsters from Baja California in Mexico. In 1959 he married his wife Patricia and they would have three children, Stewart, Regina and Patrick Sheffield. In 2010, Johnny suffered a fatal heart attack at his home in Chula Vista, California, four hours after he fell off a ladder while pruning a palm tree. Sheffield was 79. His brother Billy Sheffield died two months later.
Sources: Ed Stephan (IMDb), Find A Grave, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.
- Yann Martel, Life of Pi
elena Harris www.flickr.com/photos/flower_chick/
As you can see there is yet another PHOTO THIEF @ work!
How sad, do people really not know what COPYRIGHT means, in SIMPLE words... IF IT IS NOT YOUR IMAGE, THEN, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO IT!!!
It is an INFRINGEMENT of the LAW!
If you love an image SOOOOO MUCH that you'd like to 'use' it, you have the duty and obligation to ask the creative brain behind the image AND HAVE THE COURTESY and DECENCY then to credit the artist, like you would with a painting or sculpture!
From now on I am going to publicly NAME AND SHAME THEM.
THIS TIME NONE OF MY IMAGES WERE INVOLVED, however that doesn't matter, I WANT IT TO STOP, if you see a thief breaking into your neighbours you are not going to stand by and do nothing, are you?
Prevent it from happening to YOU!
TO THE ADMINS: PLEASE, no faves on this image, just send it out to as many groups as possible, I will not give the requiered AWARDS/COMMENTS, if you don't mind, it is for JUSTICE!
I THINK IF WE MAKE A BIG FUSS ABOUT IT EACH TIME, IT MIGHT EVENTUALLY Get THROUGH TO SOME... When this is resolved, just delete this image. ,
.
THANX, M, (*_*)
Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved
Salerno (pop. ~ 130.000) is located on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. The site has been one of the most important and strategic ports on the Mediterranean sea, yielding a rich Greco-Roman heritage. It was an independent Lombard principality in the early Middle Ages. The Normans in 1077 made Salerno the capital of their rule in all of southern Italy. In the 16th century, under the Sanseverino family, among the most powerful feudal lords in southern Italy, the city became a center of learning, culture, and the arts.
Salerno has been the seat of an archbishop since 983 and the city's medical school is famous for being the first college or "university" of medieval Europe.
The construction of the Cathedral was begun by Robert Guiscard in 1076. This was just three years after the Normans took over the city, which had previously been under Lombard rule for more than 400 years. The church, built on an early Christian church, that was built on the ruins of a Roman temple, was consecrated in 1084 and completed in 1085.
Due to the short construction time, cracks formed repeatedly in the building over the centuries. After severe damage from an earthquake in 1688, the cathedral was restored with baroque alterations. In the 20th century, attempts were made to reconstruct the original facade.
A "Maria lactans" (Nursing Madonna, Italian "Madonna del Latte") was a common icon (especially among the Cistercians) until after the Council of Trent (1545/1546), rather rejected for reasons of decency.
Here you can find more photos of this icon
Um texto, em português, do site da Wikipédia, a Enciclopédia livre:
Michelangelo ("Miguel Ângelo") di Ludovico Buonarroti Simoni (Caprese, 6 de Março de 1475 — Roma, 18 de Fevereiro de 1564) foi um pintor, escultor, poeta e arquiteto renascentista italiano.
Apesar de ter feito poucas atividades além das artes, sua versatilidade em vários campos fez com que rivalizasse com Leonardo da Vinci no título de ícone da Renascença. Michelangelo foi genial em vários campos e, além disso, também recebeu tarefas diplomáticas. Duas biografias foram escritas sobre ele ainda em vida (uma de Giorgio Vasari).
Duas de suas mais famosas obras (a Pietà e o David) foram realizadas antes de seus trinta anos. Apesar de sua pouca afeição à pintura, criou duas obras históricas: as cenas do Gênesis, no teto da Capela Sistina, e o O Juízo Final, também no mesmo local. Projetou também a cúpula da Basílica de São Pedro, em Roma. Entre suas outras esculturas, contam-se a também a Virgem, o Baco, o Moisés, a Raquel, a Léa e membros da família Médici.
Michelangelo nasceu em Caprese, perto de Arezzo, na Toscana, o segundo de cinco filhos. Seu pai, Ludovico, quando residente em Caprese, era um magistrado. Michelangelo cresceu em Florença e mais tarde viveu com um escultor e sua esposa na localidade florentina de Settignano, onde seu pai tinha uma mina de mármore e uma pequena fazenda.
Contra a vontade de seu pai, o canhoto Michelangelo escolheu ser aprendiz de Domenico Ghirlandaio por três anos começando em 1488. Também foi aprendiz, na escultura, de Bertoldo di Giovanni. Impressionado com a técnica de Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio recomendou-o para Florença para estudar com Lourenço de Médici. De 1490 a 1492, Michelangelo freqüentou a escola de Lourenço e durante sua estada, seria influenciado por muitas pessoas proeminentes, e pela filosofia platônica da época, que modificariam e expandiriam suas idéias na arte e ainda seus sentimentos sobre sexualidade.
Foi durante este período que Michelangelo criou dois relevos: a Batalha de Centauros e a Madonna da Escada. A primeira obra foi baseada em um tema sugerido por Poliziano e encomendada por Lourenço de Médici. Após sua morte, Michelangelo deixou a corte dos Medici. Nos meses seguintes, produziu um crucifixo de madeira para o pároco da Igreja de Santa Maria del Santo Spirito, que tinha o deixado estudar anatomia a partir de alguns cadáveres do hospital da Igreja.
Pedro de Médici, filho mais velho de Lourenço de Médici, recusou-se a financiar o trabalho artístico de Michelangelo. Também nessa época, as idéias de Savonarola tornaram-se populares em Florença. Sob tais pressões, Michelangelo decide sair definitivamente de Florença e vai para Bolonha por três anos. Logo depois, o Cardeal San Giorgio compra a obra de Michelangelo em mármore Cupido e decide chamá-lo a Roma em 1496. Influenciado pela antiguidade de Roma, ele produz Baco e a Pietà. A Pietà foi uma encomenda do embaixador francês na Santa Sé. Apesar de praticamente se dedicar à escultura, Michelangelo nunca deixou de desenhar, ele desenhava por prazer de desenhar.
Quatro anos mais tarde, Michelangelo retornou a Florença, onde produziu seu mais famoso trabalho: David.
A cidade, na época, estava mudando, após a queda de Savonarola e a ascensão de Pier Soderini. O David foi uma encomenda da Guilda de Lã da cidade. Era, originalmente, um trabalho incompleto, iniciado quarenta anos antes por Agostino di Duccio. O David deveria ser o símbolo da liberdade de Florença e seria colocado na Piazza della Signoria, na frente do Palazzo Vecchio. A obra foi concluída em 1504. Essa obra-prima, feita em mármore de Carrara, colocou-o definitivamente como um escultor de extraordinária técnica e habilidade. Na época, também pintou a Sagrada Família da Tribuna, agora na Galeria Uffizi. Michelangelo era considerado um artista renascentista porque em todas suas obras, ele representava somente figuras do homem.
Michelangelo foi convocado novamente a Roma em 1503 pelo recém-designado Papa Júlio II e foi comissionado para construir a tumba papal. Entretanto, durante a patronagem de Júlio II, Michelangelo tinha constantemente que interromper seu trabalho para fazer outras numerosas tarefas. Por essa e outras interrupções, Michelangelo trabalharia na tumba por quarenta anos sem nunca a terminar.
A mais famosa das tarefas foi a pintura monumental do teto da Capela Sistina no Vaticano, que levou quatro anos para ser feita (1508 – 1512). Michelangelo originalmente deveria pintar os 12 Apóstolos, mas protestou e pediu uma tarefa mais audaciosa: um esquema que representasse a Criação, a Queda do Homem e a Promessa da Salvação. O trabalho faz parte de uma decoração muito mais complexa que, em conjunto, representa toda a doutrina da Igreja Católica.
A composição contém 300 figuras e se centra nos episódios do livro do Genesis, divididos em três grupos: a Criação da Terra por Deus, a Criação da Humanidade e sua queda e, por fim, a Humanidade representada por Noé. Entre os afrescos mais famosos estão: A Criação de Adão e Adão e Eva no Paraíso.
Em 1513, o Papa Júlio II morreu, e seu sucessor, o Papa Leão X, um Médici, pediu que Michelangelo reconstruísse o interior da Igreja de São Lourenço, em Florença, e a adornasse com esculturas. Michelangelo relutantemente aceitou, mas foi incapaz de terminar a tarefa (o exterior da igreja ainda não está adornado até hoje).
Em 1526, os cidadãos de Florença, encorajados pelo saque de Roma, expulsaram os Médici e restauraram a república. Michelangelo voltou para sua amada Florença para ajudar a construir as fortificações da cidade de 1528 a 1529. A cidade caiu em 1530 e os Médici voltaram ao poder.
A pintura de O Juízo Final, na janela do Altar da capela Sistina foi comissionada pelo Papa Paulo III, e Michelangelo trabalhou nela de 1534 a 1541. O trabalho é grandioso e toma uma parede inteira atrás do altar da Capela Sistina. O Juízo Final é uma representação da segunda vinda de Cristo e do apocalipse, quando as almas da humanidade seriam levadas a seu destino final e julgadas por Cristo, rodeado de santos.
Uma vez concluída, as representações de nudez na própria Capela foram consideradas obscenas e um sacrilégio. Após a morte de Michelangelo, decidiu-se obscurecer os órgãos, o que foi feito por um aprendiz de Michelangelo, Daniele da Volterra. Quando o trabalho foi restaurado em 1993, decidiu-se deixar algumas das figuras ainda cobertas, como documentos históricos. A censura sempre perseguiu Michelangelo, que às vezes era chamado de "inventor delle porcherie" ("inventor das obscenidades").
Em 1547, Michelangelo foi apontado como arquiteto da Basílica de São Pedro no Vaticano. Anos mais tarde, em 18 de Fevereiro de 1564, Michelangelo morre, em casa, em Roma aos 88 anos de idade, solicitando em testamento que seu corpo fosse enterrado em Florença.
Michelangelo, muitas vezes arrogante com os outros e constantemente insatisfeito com ele mesmo, via a arte como originada da inspiração interna e da cultura. Via a natureza como uma inimiga que tinha de ser superada. Suas figuras são dinâmicas. Para ele, a missão do escultor era libertar as formas que estavam dentro da pedra. Conta-se que após Michelangelo ter executado sua estátua Moisés, bateu violentamente com o martelo no joelho da obra e gritou: Porque não falas? (Perché non parli).
Na vida pessoal, Michelangelo era abstêmio. Era indiferente à bebida e à comida. Era uma pessoa solitária e melancólica.
Para além da pintura e da escultura, Michelangelo deixou também cerca de trezentos poemas em italiano vernáculo, que escreveu entre 1501 e 1560. Os seus poemas são marcados por uma forte carga homoerótica. Porém, esta foi alterada na primeira edição da sua poesia, em 1623, publicada pelo seu sobrinho Michelangelo, o Jovem. Em 1893, John Addington Symonds traduziu os poemas originais para inglês.
Fundamental para a arte de Michelangelo era sua paixão pela beleza masculina, que o atraía de modo emocional e estético. Era, em parte, uma expressão da idealização renascentista do corpo humano. Mas, para Michelangelo, há uma resposta única a essa estética. Tais sentimentos o faziam sentir uma profunda angústia, uma contradição entre a filosofia platônica e o sentimento carnal.
This sculpture was fotographed at the street in front of the Ufizzi Museum in florence, Italy.
A text, in english, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
Birth name Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
Born March 6, 1475(1475-03-06)
near Arezzo, in Caprese, Tuscany
Died February 18, 1564 (aged 88)
Rome
Nationality Italian
Field sculpture, painting, architecture and poetry
Training Apprentice to Domenico Ghirlandaio[1]
Movement High Renaissance
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni[1] (March 6, 1475 – February 18, 1564), commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci.
Michelangelo's output in every field during his long life was prodigious; when the sheer volume of correspondence, sketches and reminiscences that survive is also taken into account, he is the best-documented artist of the 16th century. Two of his best-known works, the Pietà and the David, were sculpted before he turned thirty. Despite his low opinion of painting, Michelangelo also created two of the most influential works in fresco in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Later in life he designed the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in the same city and revolutionised classical architecture with his use of the giant order of pilasters.
In a demonstration of Michelangelo's unique standing, he was the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive.[2] Two biographies were published of him during his lifetime; One of them, by Giorgio Vasari, proposed that he was the pinnacle of all artistic achievement since the beginning of the Renaissance, a viewpoint that continued to have currency in art history for centuries. In his lifetime he was also often called Il Divino ("the divine one").[3] One of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità, a sense of awe-inspiring grandeur, and it was the attempts of subsequent artists to imitate Michelangelo's impassioned and highly personal style that resulted in the next major movement in Western art after the High Renaissance, Mannerism.
Michelangelo was born on March 6, 1475[a] in Caprese near Arezzo, Tuscany.[4] His family had for several generations been small-scale bankers in Florence but his father, Lodovico di Leonardo di Buonarroti di Simoni, failed to maintain the bank's financial status, and held occasional government positions.[2] At the time of Michelangelo's birth, his father was the Judicial administrator of the small town of Caprese and local administrator of Chiusi. Michelangelo's mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena.[5] The Buonarrotis claimed to descend from the Countess Mathilde of Canossa; this claim remains unproven, but Michelangelo himself believed it.[6] Several months after Michelangelo's birth the family returned to Florence where Michelangelo was raised. At later times, during the prolonged illness and after the death of his mother when he was seven years old, Michelangelo lived with a stonecutter and his wife and family in the town of Settignano where his father owned a marble quarry and a small farm.[5] Giorgio Vasari quotes Michelangelo as saying, "If there is some good in me, it is because I was born in the subtle atmosphere of your country of Arezzo. Along with the milk of my nurse I received the knack of handling chisel and hammer, with which I make my figures."[4]
Michelangelo's father sent him to study grammar with the Humanist Francesco da Urbino in Florence as a young boy.[7][4][b] The young artist, however, showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches and seek the company of painters.[7] At thirteen, Michelangelo was apprenticed to the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio.[1][8] When Michelangelo was only fourteen, his father persuaded Ghirlandaio to pay his apprentice as an artist, which was highly unusual at the time.[9] When in 1489 Lorenzo de' Medici, de facto ruler of Florence, asked Ghirlandaio for his two best pupils, Ghirlandaio sent Michelangelo and Francesco Granacci.[10] From 1490 to 1492, Michelangelo attended the Humanist academy which the Medici had founded along Neo Platonic lines. Michelangelo studied sculpture under Bertoldo di Giovanni. At the academy, both Michelangelo's outlook and his art were subject to the influence of many of the most prominent philosophers and writers of the day including Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola and Angelo Poliziano.[11] At this time Michelangelo sculpted the reliefs Madonna of the Steps (1490–1492) and Battle of the Centaurs (1491–1492). The latter was based on a theme suggested by Poliziano and was commissioned by Lorenzo de Medici.[12]
Lorenzo de' Medici's death on April 8, 1492, brought a reversal of Michelangelo's circumstances.[13] Michelangelo left the security of the Medici court and returned to his father's house. In the following months he carved a wooden crucifix (1493), as a gift to the prior of the Florentine church of Santo Spirito, who had permitted him some studies of anatomy on the corpses of the church's hospital.[14] Between 1493 and 1494 he bought a block of marble for a larger than life statue of Hercules, which was sent to France and subsequently disappeared sometime circa 1700s.[12][c] On January 20, 1494, after heavy snowfalls, Lorenzo's heir, Piero de Medici commissioned a snow statue, and Michelangelo again entered the court of the Medici.
In the same year, the Medici were expelled from Florence as the result of the rise of Savonarola. Michelangelo left the city before the end of the political upheaval, moving to Venice and then to Bologna.[13] In Bologna he was commissioned to finish the carving of the last small figures of the Shrine of St. Dominic, in the church dedicated to that saint. Towards the end 1494, the political situation in Florence was calmer. The city, previously under threat from the French, was no longer in danger as Charles VIII had suffered defeats. Michelangelo returned to Florence but received no commissions from the new city government under Savonarola. He returned to the employment of the Medici.[15] During the half year he spent in Florence he worked on two small statues, a child St. John the Baptist and a sleeping Cupid. According to Condivi, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, for whom Michelangelo had sculpted St. John the Baptist, asked that Michelangelo "fix it so that it looked as if it had been buried" so he could "send it to Rome…pass [it off as] an ancient work and…sell it much better." Both Lorenzo and Michelangelo were unwittingly cheated out of the real value of the piece by a middleman. Cardinal Raffaele Riario, to whom Lorenzo had sold it, discovered that it was a fraud, but was so impressed by the quality of the sculpture that he invited the artist to Rome. [16][d] This apparent success in selling his sculpture abroad as well as the conservative Florentine situation may have encouraged Michelangelo to accept the prelate's invitation.[15]
Michelangelo arrived in Rome June 25, 1496[17] at the age of 21. On July 4 of the same year, he began work on a commission for Cardinal Raffaele Riario, an over-life-size statue of the Roman wine god, Bacchus. However, upon completion, the work was rejected by the cardinal, and subsequently entered the collection of the banker Jacopo Galli, for his garden.
In November of 1497, the French ambassador in the Holy See commissioned one of his most famous works, the Pietà and the contract was agreed upon in August of the following year. The contemporary opinion about this work — "a revelation of all the potentialities and force of the art of sculpture" — was summarized by Vasari: "It is certainly a miracle that a formless block of stone could ever have been reduced to a perfection that nature is scarcely able to create in the flesh."
In Rome, Michelangelo lived near the church of Santa Maria di Loreto. Here, according to the legend, he fell in love with Vittoria Colonna, marquise of Pescara and a poet.[citation needed] His house was demolished in 1874, and the remaining architectural elements saved by the new proprietors were destroyed in 1930. Today a modern reconstruction of Michelangelo's house can be seen on the Gianicolo hill.
Michelangelo returned to Florence in 1499–1501. Things were changing in the republic after the fall of anti-Renaissance Priest and leader of Florence, Girolamo Savonarola (executed in 1498) and the rise of the gonfaloniere Pier Soderini. He was asked by the consuls of the Guild of Wool to complete an unfinished project begun 40 years earlier by Agostino di Duccio: a colossal statue portraying David as a symbol of Florentine freedom, to be placed in the Piazza della Signoria, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. Michelangelo responded by completing his most famous work, the Statue of David in 1504. This masterwork, created out of a marble block from the quarries at Carrara that had already been worked on by an earlier hand, definitively established his prominence as a sculptor of extraordinary technical skill and strength of symbolic imagination.
Also during this period, Michelangelo painted the Holy Family and St John, also known as the Doni Tondo or the Holy Family of the Tribune: it was commissioned for the marriage of Angelo Doni and Maddalena Strozzi and in the 17th century hung in the room known as the Tribune in the Uffizi. He also may have painted the Madonna and Child with John the Baptist, known as the Manchester Madonna and now in the National Gallery, London.
In 1505 Michelangelo was invited back to Rome by the newly elected Pope Julius II. He was commissioned to build the Pope's tomb. Under the patronage of the Pope, Michelangelo had to constantly stop work on the tomb in order to accomplish numerous other tasks. Because of these interruptions, Michelangelo worked on the tomb for 40 years. The tomb, of which the central feature is Michelangelo's statue of Moses, was never finished to Michelangelo's satisfaction. It is located in the Church of S. Pietro in Vincoli in Rome.
During the same period, Michelangelo took the commission to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which took approximately four years to complete (1508–1512). According to Michelangelo's account, Bramante and Raphael convinced the Pope to commission Michelangelo in a medium not familiar to the artist. This was done in order that he, Michelangelo, would suffer unfavorable comparisons with his rival Raphael, who at the time was at the peak of his own artistry as the primo fresco painter. However, this story is discounted by modern historians on the grounds of contemporary evidence, and may merely have been a reflection of the artist's own perspective.
Michelangelo was originally commissioned to paint the 12 Apostles against a starry sky, but lobbied for a different and more complex scheme, representing creation, the Downfall of Man and the Promise of Salvation through the prophets and Genealogy of Christ. The work is part of a larger scheme of decoration within the chapel which represents much of the doctrine of the Catholic Church
The composition eventually contained over 300 figures and had at its center nine episodes from the Book of Genesis, divided into three groups: God's Creation of the Earth; God's Creation of Humankind and their fall from God's grace; and lastly, the state of Humanity as represented by Noah and his family. On the pendentives supporting the ceiling are painted twelve men and women who prophesied the coming of the Jesus. They are seven prophets of Israel and five Sibyls, prophetic women of the Classical world.
Among the most famous paintings on the ceiling are the Creation of Adam, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the Great Flood, the Prophet Isaiah and the Cumaean Sibyl. Around the windows are painted the ancestors of Christ.
In 1513 Pope Julius II died and his successor Pope Leo X, a Medici, commissioned Michelangelo to reconstruct the façade of the basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence and to adorn it with sculptures. Michelangelo agreed reluctantly. The three years he spent in creating drawings and models for the facade, as well as attempting to open a new marble quarry at Pietrasanta specifically for the project, were among the most frustrating in his career, as work was abruptly cancelled by his financially-strapped patrons before any real progress had been made. The basilica lacks a facade to this day.
Apparently not the least embarrassed by this turnabout, the Medici later came back to Michelangelo with another grand proposal, this time for a family funerary chapel in the basilica of San Lorenzo. Fortunately for posterity, this project, occupying the artist for much of the 1520s and 1530s, was more fully realized. Though still incomplete, it is the best example we have of the integration of the artist's sculptural and architectural vision, since Michelangelo created both the major sculptures as well as the interior plan. Ironically the most prominent tombs are those of two rather obscure Medici who died young, a son and grandson of Lorenzo. Il Magnifico himself is buried in an unfinished and comparatively unimpressive tomb on one of the side walls of the chapel, not given a free-standing monument, as originally intended.
Michelangelo's The Last Judgment. Saint Bartholomew is shown holding the knife of his martyrdom and his flayed skin. The face of the skin is recognizable as Michelangelo.
In 1527, the Florentine citizens, encouraged by the sack of Rome, threw out the Medici and restored the republic. A siege of the city ensued, and Michelangelo went to the aid of his beloved Florence by working on the city's fortifications from 1528 to 1529. The city fell in 1530 and the Medici were restored to power. Completely out of sympathy with the repressive reign of the ducal Medici, Michelangelo left Florence for good in the mid-1530s, leaving assistants to complete the Medici chapel. Years later his body was brought back from Rome for interment at the Basilica di Santa Croce, fulfilling the maestro's last request to be buried in his beloved Tuscany.
The fresco of The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel was commissioned by Pope Clement VII, who died shortly after assigning the commission. Paul III was instrumental in seeing that Michelangelo began and completed the project. Michelangelo labored on the project from 1534 to October 1541. The work is massive and spans the entire wall behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel. The Last Judgment is a depiction of the second coming of Christ and the apocalypse; where the souls of humanity rise and are assigned to their various fates, as judged by Christ, surrounded by the Saints.
Once completed, the depictions of nakedness in the papal chapel was considered obscene and sacrilegious, and Cardinal Carafa and Monsignor Sernini (Mantua's ambassador) campaigned to have the fresco removed or censored, but the Pope resisted. After Michelangelo's death, it was decided to obscure the genitals ("Pictura in Cappella Ap.ca coopriantur"). So Daniele da Volterra, an apprentice of Michelangelo, was commissioned to cover with perizomas (briefs) the genitals, leaving unaltered the complex of bodies. When the work was restored in 1993, the conservators chose not to remove all the perizomas of Daniele, leaving some of them as a historical document, and because some of Michelangelo’s work was previously scraped away by the touch-up artist's application of “decency” to the masterpiece. A faithful uncensored copy of the original, by Marcello Venusti, can be seen at the Capodimonte Museum of Naples.
Censorship always followed Michelangelo, once described as "inventor delle porcherie" ("inventor of obscenities", in the original Italian language referring to "pork things"). The infamous "fig-leaf campaign" of the Counter-Reformation, aiming to cover all representations of human genitals in paintings and sculptures, started with Michelangelo's works. To give two examples, the marble statue of Cristo della Minerva (church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome) was covered by added drapery, as it remains today, and the statue of the naked child Jesus in Madonna of Bruges (The Church of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium) remained covered for several decades. Also, the plaster copy of the David in the Cast Courts (Victoria and Albert Museum) in London, has a fig leaf in a box at the back of the statue. It was there to be placed over the statue's genitals so that they would not upset visiting female royalty.
In 1546, Michelangelo was appointed architect of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, and designed its dome. As St. Peter's was progressing there was concern that Michelangelo would pass away before the dome was finished. However, once building commenced on the lower part of the dome, the supporting ring, the completion of the design was inevitable.
On December 7, 2007, Michelangelo's red chalk sketch for the dome of St Peter's Basilica, his last before his 1564 death, was discovered in the Vatican archives. It is extremely rare, since he destroyed his designs later in life. The sketch is a partial plan for one of the radial columns of the cupola drum of Saint Peter's.
Michelangelo worked on many projects that had been started by other men, most notably in his work at St Peter's Basilica, Rome. The Campidoglio, designed by Michelangelo during the same period, rationalized the structures and spaces of Rome's Capitoline Hill. Its shape, more a rhomboid than a square, was intended to counteract the effects of perspective. The major Florentine architectural projects by Michelangelo are the unexecuted façade for the Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence and the Medici Chapel (Capella Medicea) and Laurentian Library there, and the fortifications of Florence. The major Roman projects are St. Peter's, Palazzo Farnese, San Giovanni de' Fiorentini and the Sforza Chapel (Capella Sforzesca), Porta Pia and Santa Maria degli Angeli.
Michelangelo, who was often arrogant with others and constantly dissatisfied with himself, saw art as originating from inner inspiration and from culture. In contradiction to the ideas of his rival, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo saw nature as an enemy that had to be overcome. The figures that he created are forceful and dynamic, each in its own space apart from the outside world. For Michelangelo, the job of the sculptor was to free the forms that were already inside the stone. He believed that every stone had a sculpture within it, and that the work of sculpting was simply a matter of chipping away all that was not a part of the statue.
Several anecdotes reveal that Michelangelo's skill, especially in sculpture, was greatly admired in his own time. Another Lorenzo de Medici wanted to use Michelangelo to make some money. He had Michelangelo sculpt a cupid that looked worn and old. Lorenzo paid Michelangelo 30 ducats, but sold the cupid for 200 ducats. Cardinal Raffaele Riario became suspicious and sent someone to investigate. The man had Michelangelo do a sketch for him of a cupid, and then told Michelangelo that while he received 30 ducats for his cupid, Lorenzo had passed the cupid off for an antique and sold it for 200 ducats. Michelangelo then confessed that he had done the cupid, but had no idea that he had been cheated. After the truth was revealed, the Cardinal later took this as proof of his skill and commissioned his Bacchus. Another better-known anecdote claims that when finishing the Moses (San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome), Michelangelo violently hit the knee of the statue with a hammer, shouting, "Why don't you speak to me?"
In his personal life, Michelangelo was abstemious. He told his apprentice, Ascanio Condivi: "However rich I may have been, I have always lived like a poor man." [19] Condivi said he was indifferent to food and drink, eating "more out of necessity than of pleasure"[19] and that he "often slept in his clothes and ... boots."[19] These habits may have made him unpopular; his biographer Paolo Giovio says "His nature was so rough and uncouth that his domestic habits were incredibly squalid, and deprived posterity of any pupils who might have followed him."[20] He may not have minded, since he was by nature a solitary and melancholy person; he had a reputation for being bizzarro e fantastico because he "withdrew himself from the company of men."
Fundamental to Michelangelo's art is his love of male beauty, which attracted him both aesthetically and emotionally. In part, this was an expression of the Renaissance idealization of masculinity. But in Michelangelo's art there is clearly a sensual response to this aesthetic.[22]
The sculptor's expressions of love have been characterized as both Neoplatonic and openly homoerotic; recent scholarship seeks an interpretation which respects both readings, yet is wary of drawing absolute conclusions. One example of the conundrum is Cecchino dei Bracci, whose death, only a year after their meeting in 1543, inspired the writing of forty eight funeral epigrams, which by some accounts allude to a relationship that was not only romantic but physical as well:
La carne terra, e qui l'ossa mia, prive
de' lor begli occhi, e del leggiadro aspetto
fan fede a quel ch'i' fu grazia nel letto,
che abbracciava, e' n che l'anima vive.[23]
or
The flesh now earth, and here my bones,
Bereft of handsome eyes, and jaunty air,
Still loyal are to him I joyed in bed,
Whom I embraced, in whom my soul now lives.
According to others, they represent an emotionless and elegant re-imagining of Platonic dialogue, whereby erotic poetry was seen as an expression of refined sensibilities (Indeed, it must be remembered that professions of love in 16th century Italy were given a far wider application than now).[24] Some young men were street wise and took advantage of the sculptor. Febbo di Poggio, in 1532, peddled his charms—in answer to Michelangelo's love poem he asks for money. Earlier, Gherardo Perini, in 1522, had stolen from him shamelessly. Michelangelo defended his privacy above all. When an employee of his friend Niccolò Quaratesi offered his son as apprentice suggesting that he would be good even in bed, Michelangelo refused indignantly, suggesting Quaratesi fire the man.
The greatest written expression of his love was given to Tommaso dei Cavalieri (c. 1509–1587), who was 23 years old when Michelangelo met him in 1532, at the age of 57. Cavalieri was open to the older man's affection: I swear to return your love. Never have I loved a man more than I love you, never have I wished for a friendship more than I wish for yours. Cavalieri remained devoted to Michelangelo till his death.
Michelangelo dedicated to him over three hundred sonnets and madrigals, constituting the largest sequence of poems composed by him. Some modern commentators assert that the relationship was merely a Platonic affection, even suggesting that Michelangelo was seeking a surrogate son.[25] However, their homoerotic nature was recognized in his own time, so that a decorous veil was drawn across them by his grand nephew, Michelangelo the Younger, who published an edition of the poetry in 1623 with the gender of pronouns changed. John Addington Symonds, the early British homosexual activist, undid this change by translating the original sonnets into English and writing a two-volume biography, published in 1893.
Ignudo, Sistine Chapel.
The sonnets are the first large sequence of poems in any modern tongue addressed by one man to another, predating Shakespeare's sonnets to his young friend by a good fifty years.
I feel as lit by fire a cold countenance
That burns me from afar and keeps itself ice-chill;
A strength I feel two shapely arms to fill
Which without motion moves every balance.
— (Michael Sullivan, translation)
Late in life he nurtured a great love for the poet and noble widow Vittoria Colonna, whom he met in Rome in 1536 or 1538 and who was in her late forties at the time. They wrote sonnets for each other and were in regular contact until she died, though many scholars note the intellectualized or spiritual quality of this passion.
It is impossible to know for certain whether Michelangelo had physical relationships (Condivi ascribed to him a "monk-like chastity"),[26] but through his poetry and visual art we may at least glimpse the arc of his imagination.
Queens Of The Stone Age 700m deep in Sondershausen Salt Mine, Germany
p.s. if you are gonna post my copyrighted images elsewhere on the internet at least have the decency to credit me with them or link them back to here, or i'll probably stop posting them or at least start putting big watermarks on them.
At a catshow in Seattle with the Qua on saturday.....an image that could clearly not be posted on Fotolog with its policy of "no nudity" which apparently offends 'heif's" sense of decency...he has cousins or something that are easily aroused.....
West-German postcard by ISV, no. B 13. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Publicity still for Designing Woman (Vincente Minnelli, 1957).
American actor Gregory Peck (1916-2003) was one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s. Peck received five nominations for Academy Award for Best Actor and won once – for his performance as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). He almost always played courageous, nobly heroic good guys who saw injustice and fought it. Among his best known films are Spellbound (1945), The Yearling (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), Roman Holiday (1953), The Guns of Navarone (1961), and Cape Fear (1962).
Eldred Gregory Peck was born in 1916 in La Jolla, California (now in San Diego). His parents were Bernice Mary (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist, and druggist in San Diego. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child, he was sent to live with his grandmother. He never felt he had a stable childhood. His fondest memories are of his grandmother taking him to the cinema every week and of his dog, which followed him everywhere. Peck's father encouraged him to take up medicine. He studied pre-med at UC-Berkeley and, while there, got bitten by the acting bug and decided to change the focus of his studies. He enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and debuted on Broadway after graduation. His debut was in Emlyn Williams' play 'The Morning Star' (1942). By 1943, he was in Hollywood, where he debuted in the RKO film Days of Glory (Jacques Tourneur, 1944). Stardom came with his next film, The Keys of the Kingdom (John M. Stahl, 1944), for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Tony Fontana at IMDb: "Peck's screen presence displayed the qualities for which he became well known. He was tall, rugged, and heroic, with a basic decency that transcended his roles." He appeared opposite Ingrid Bergman in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) as an amnesia victim accused of murder. In The Yearling (Clarence Brown, 1946), he was again nominated for an Oscar and won the Golden Globe. He was especially effective in Westerns and appeared in such varied fare as David O. Selznick's critically blasted Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, 1946), the somewhat better received Yellow Sky (William A. Wellman, 1948), and the acclaimed The Gunfighter (Henry King, 1950). He was nominated again for the Academy Award for his roles in Gentleman's Agreement (Elia Kazan, 1947), which dealt with anti-Semitism, and Twelve O'Clock High (Henry King, 1949), a story of high-level stress in an Air Force bomber unit in World War II. In 1947, Peck, along with Dorothy McGuire, David O'Selznick, and Mel Ferrer, founded the La Jolla Playhouse, located in his hometown, and produced many of the classics there. Due to film commitments, he could not return to Broadway but whet his appetite for live theatre on occasion at the Playhouse, keeping it firmly established with a strong, reputable name over the years.
With a string of hits to his credit, Gregory Peck made the decision to only work in films that interested him. He continued to appear as the heroic, larger-than-life figures in such films as Captain Horatio Hornblower (Raoul Walsh, 1951) with Virginia Mayo, and Moby Dick (John Huston, 1956) with Richard Basehart. He worked with Audrey Hepburn in her debut film, Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953). While filming The Bravados (Henry King, 1958), he decided to become a cowboy in real life, so he purchased a vast working ranch near Santa Barbara, California - already stocked with 600 head of prize cattle. In the early 1960s, he gave a powerful performance as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thompson, 1961) opposite David Niven and Anthony Quinn. The film was one of the biggest box-office hits of that year. Peck finally won the Oscar, after four nominations, for his performance as lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962). He also appeared in two darker films than he usually made, Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson, 1962) opposite Robert Mitchum, and Captain Newman, M.D. (David Miller, 1963) with Tony Curtis, which dealt with the way people live. The financial failure of Cape Fear (1962) ended his company, Melville Productions. After making Arabesque (Stanley Donen, 1966) with Sophia Loren, Peck withdrew from acting for three years in order to concentrate on various humanitarian causes, including the American Cancer Society. In the early 1970s, he produced two films, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (Gordon Davidson, 1972) and The Dove (Charles Jarrott, 1974), when his film career stalled. He made a comeback playing, somewhat woodenly, Ambassador Robert Thorn in the horror film The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976) with Lee Remick. After that, he returned to the bigger-than-life roles he was best known for, such as MacArthur (Joseph Sargent, 1977) and the infamous Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele in the huge hit The Boys from Brazil (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1978) with Laurence Olivier and James Mason. In the 1980s, he moved into television with the miniseries The Blue and the Gray (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1982) in which he played Abraham Lincoln, and The Scarlet and the Black (Jerry London, 1983) with Christopher Plummer and John Gielgud. In 1991, he appeared in the remake of his 1962 film, playing a different role, in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991). He was also cast as the progressive-thinking owner of a wire and cable business in Other People's Money (Norman Jewison, 1991), starring Danny DeVito. In 1967, Peck received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He was also been awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. Always politically progressive, he was active in such causes as anti-war protests, workers' rights, and civil rights. In 2003, Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch was named the greatest film hero of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute, only two weeks before his death. Atticus beat out Indiana Jones, who was placed second, and James Bond who came third. Gregory Peck died in 2003 in Los Angeles, California. He was 87. Peck was married twice. From 1942 till 1955, he was married to Greta Kukkonen. They had three children: Jonathan Peck (1944-1975), Stephen Peck (1946), and Carey Paul Peck (1949). His second wife was Veronique Passani, whom he met at the set of Roman Holliday. They married in 1955 and had two children: Tony Peck (1956) and Cecilia Peck (1958). The couple remained together till his death.
Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Sorry to all that I have been so un-enthused by both flickr and my photography this past month or two. I am just back from an awesome trip to a small island called Tobishima off the west coast of Japan. Good fun!
Basically, during migration time all sorts of rare birds just drop onto the island and, because it is so small, it is relatively easy to find rare birds when they come (well, sometimes). So, I was there from the 9th to the 14th and saw a total of 71 species, of which about 20 percent were new birds! A Common Redpoll on the last day brought my total of species in Japan this year to 250, not a bad achievement for 10 months of part-time birding, I thought.
I have included a complete list of the birds on the island for those who are interested. The birds probably mean very little to most of you, but some people will understand it :) The names in brackets are the Japanese names.
TOBISHIMA ISLAND LIST
Streaked Shearwater (O-mizunagidori)
Japanese Cormorant (Umi-u)
Grey Heron (Ao-sagi)
Great Egret (Dai-sagi)
Mandarin Duck (Oshidori) I was a bit surprised when we saw a pair flying in past the headland we were watching from.
Mallard (Ma-gamo)
Common Teal (Ko-gamo)
Osprey (Misago) Occasionally seen around the coasts.
Black Kite (Tobi)
Japanese Sparrowhawk (Tsumi) About 8 birds in total, presumably migrating. One group of birders said they saw Eurasian Sparrowhawk, but possibly this species (?)
NORTHERN HOBBY (Chigo-hayabusa) One seen flying low over the ocean close not far out from Sakata on the ferry to Tobishima on the 9th.
Peregrine Falcon (Hayabusa) At least 4 birds present on the island, two adults and two immatures, possibly more. It was great fun watching the antics of the Peregrines, particularly where it concerned the young birds. At least one of the young Peregrines was regularly seen mock dive-bombing the surrounding crows, but I think this was mostly play-acting or practising. On the last day, I observed one of the adults repeatedly dive-bombing one of the youngsters, maybe telling it to move on out of their territory!
Black-tailed Gull (Umi-neko)
Slaty-backed Gull (O-seguro-kamome)
Vega Gull (Seguro-kamome)
Japanese Wood Pigeon (Karasu-bato) Occasionally seen flying at canopy height.
Rufous Turtle-Dove (Kiji-bato)
Pacific Swift (Ama-tsubame)
Eurasian Wryneck (Arisui) One bird present on the 10th.
Eurasian Skylark (Hibari)
White Wagtail (Haku-sekirei)
Grey Wagtail (Ki-sekirei)
Olive-backed Pipit (Binzui) One on the 9th and 3 on the 14th.
RED-THROATED PIPT (Muneaka-tahibari) 2 on the 11th and 1 on the 12th.
Buff-bellied Pipit (Ta-hibari)
Brown-eared Bulbul (Hiyodori)
Goldcrest (Kiku-itadaki) Present in small numbers.
Blue Rock Thrush (Iso-hiyodori)
Japanese Thrush (Kuro-tsugumi) Present around the persimmon trees in small numbers during the second half of the stay.
Eyebrowed Thrush (Mamichajinai) As Peter said, present (probably in fairly decent numbers) but very rarely with any decency.
Pale Thrush (Shirohara)
Dusky Thrush (Tsugumi)
Japanese Bush Warbler (Uguisu) Present in huge numbers! Never easy to see well though.
PALLAS'S GRASSHOPPER WARBLER (Shiberia-sennyu) One bird seen very briefly on the 14th. I had about a 1 second view of the upperparts of the bird as it banked away into the scrub and although I waited for it, it did not come out again. Despite the short views, I am confident of ID: very definitely a grasshopper warbler species based on the size and jizz of the bird with shortish blunt wings and long broad fanned tail. The bird was overall a rusty kind of colour (keeping in mind that I could only see the upperparts) with a rusty-chestnut back and rump/tail. There was prominent streaking on the back extending onto the rump with a diffuse black sub-terminal on the tail and whitish tips to some of the tail feathers.
Black-browed Reed Warbler (Ko-yoshikiri) One seen on the 13th.
Arctic Warbler (Meboso-mushikui) Present in large numbers!
YELLOW-BROWED WARBLER (Kimayu-mushikui) One bird seen on the 10th whilst waiting for the Chestnut-flanked White-eye.
Sakhalin Leaf Warbler (Ezo-mushikui) One bird amongst the many Arctic Warblers that seemed fairly different, a rather contrasting greyish head and green back.
Asian Brown Flycatcher (Ko-samebitaki)
DARK-SIDED FLYCATCHER (Same-bitaki) Two birds present at different places on the 10th and one on the 12th.
Narcissus Flycatcher (Ki-bitaki)
MUGIMAKI FLYCATCHER (Mugimaki) One female seen on the 12th. One of the birders on the island said she saw a male-female pair on the same day.
Blue-and-White Flycatcher (O-ruri)
Japanese Robin (Komadori) One female seen in dense forest on the 14th.
Siberian Rubythroat (Nogoma) One female came close to inspect me whilst I was waiting for White-eye photos on the 12th.
Daurian Redstart (Jo-bitaki) Plentiful from the 12th.
Siberian Stonechat (No-bitaki) Plentiful before the 12th. It was interesting to see how the different migrants came in and went, with Stonechats being by far more common than Redstarts in the first half whilst the opposite was true for the second half of the trip.
Coal Tit (Hi-gara)
Great Tit (Shiju-kara)
Japanese White-eye (Mejiro) Plentiful, probably thousands of birds on the island.
CHESTNUT-FLANKED WHITE-EYE (Chousen-mejiro) As Peter said, one or two regularly came in to feed in one particular persimmon tree on the 9th, 10th and 11th. It was not seen at that place after the 11th, but apparently some other birds were seen at another place on the 13th. At least 3 different birds were present, quite possibly more. One of the star attractions of the week.
Bull-headed Shrike (Mozu) I saw Bull-headed Shrike only once, but one shrike species on the last day was quite possibly different, maybe a Brown Shrike or something (apparently a Brown Shrike in a different plumage was seen that day).
Carrion Crow (Hashiboso-garasu)
Large-billed Crow (Hashibuto-garasu)
ROOK (Miyama-garasu) Well over 1000 birds in one single flock on the 13th was an amazing spectacle! About 1/4 of the sky was completely black with these birds. Interestingly enough, they were being harassed by a Peregrine that really did look serious on taking one of them for dinner. They were common on the 14th but were not seen prior to the 13th.
DAURIAN JACKDAW (Kokumaru-garasu) 1 on the 14th. I was very pleased when I spotted this bird amongst a flock of Rooks. As one of the Japanese birders I was with at the time said, a very kawaii bird!!!
Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Suzume)
Brambling (Atori) Very common on the island, probably second only to Siskin.
Eurasian Siskin (Ma-hiwa) Abundant. They were everywhere on the island, and often very tame. I would say definitely in the 1000s and probably way more.
COMMON ROSEFINCH (Aka-mashiko) 1 on the 10th. As it turned out, probably one of the rarest birds I saw. I was birding with a Japanese birding friend when this female Rosefinch flushed up out of a bush and perched on a nice clear branch (albeit a bit backlit) for about 5 seconds before flying away. Obviously a Rosefinch given overall patterning and jizz. The beak appeared quite large for a bird that size! Pity it wasn't a male :)
COMMON REDPOLL (Beni-hiwa) One female/1st winter present on the 14th.
Oriental Greenfinch (Kawara-hiwa)
PINE BUNTING (Shiraga-hojiro) 1 non-breeding male seen on the 13th and 3 flying birds on the 14th. A very attractive bunting.
Meadow Bunting (Hojiro)
LITTLE BUNTING (Ko-houaka) Never commong, but seemingly always present in 1s or 2s in all good bunting places.
Rustic Bunting (Kashiradaka) Very common.
YELLOW-THROATED BUNTING (Miyama-hojiro) Not present before the 12th, but seen regularly after that. An extremely pretty bird, one of the most beautiful buntings in my opinion.
CHESTNUT BUNTING (Shima-nojiko) A male moulting already in or moulting into non-breeding plumage was seen on the evening of the 13th. Apparently seen the following morning as well.
Black-faced Bunting (Aoji) Numbers seemingly increased as the week went by.
Grey Bunting (Kuroji)
Common Reed Bunting (O-jurin) Small numbers. One bird that Kaz, Peter and I observed we concluded was probably a female/immature Reed Bunting. I again saw a bunting sp. on the last day that defied ID. To me the bird I saw on the last day appeared to be similar if not the same as the bird that we saw earlier on, and it was definitely not a Reed Bunting. It appeared to me to be closer in appearance to the juvenile Rustic Buntings, but it was subtly different. No photos. I guess it will just have to go down as an un-IDed bird.
Dutch postcard by van Leer's Fotodrukindustrie N.V., Amsterdam, no. 351, no. 6. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer (M.G.M.) June Allyson and Gene Kelly in The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948), based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas.
The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is a classic Swashbuckler, starring Gene Kelly as D’Artagnan and Lana Turner as Milady De Winter. Other stars in the cast include Van Heflin, June Allyson, Gig Young, Angela Lansbury, and Vincent Price. It is one of the many, adaptations of the famous French book ‘Les trois mousquetaires’ by Alexandre Dumas père, and possibly the liveliest one, full of acrobatics, galloping horses, flapping cloaks, and sword fights with almost operatic intensity. Dumas’s story is followed quite faithfully, but the creative fantasy is in the theatrical way of depicting it.
As in the book: the story of The Three Musketeers (George Sidney, 1948) is set in 1625 in France. The young and inexperienced D'Artagnan (Gene Kelly) leaves his home village in Gascony to become a musketeer in Paris in the service of His Majesty King Louis XIII (Frank Morgan). In his pocket, he has the letter of recommendation from his father (silent film star Robert Warwick), a former musketeer and friend of the current captain of the musketeers, Treville (Reginald Owen). His father has taught him the art of fencing masterfully and gives him the good advice never to let himself be compromised with impunity. He is only too happy to follow this advice. Very soon, before he has even reached Paris, D'Artagnan gets into a confrontation with Rochefort (Ian Keith), Cardinal Richelieu's (Vincent Price) confidant, and his companion, the mysterious Lady de Winter (Lana Turner). At this first opportunity to preserve his honour in battle, he is unceremoniously struck down and robbed by Rochefort's henchmen, and his credentials are also taken from him. Once in Paris, he not only meets his new friends and comrades-in-arms Athos (Van Heflin), Porthos (Gig Young), and Aramis (Robert Coote), but also his landlord's niece, Constance Bonacieux (June Allyson), and falls in love. Many adventures and entanglements lie ahead and in the path of the brave hero D'Artagnan. Driven by his desire to become the king's musketeer and to prove himself in battle, he falls into the clutches of both the queen (Angela and the cardinal, experiences numerous dangerous situations and sometimes needs his new friends to get away at all. Nevertheless, he sets out to travel to England for the Queen's honour, to retrieve a jewellery box given away by the Queen's secret lover, Lord Buckingham (John Sutton), and to prevent Richelieu from plotting. To assist him, he is accompanied by Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, as well as his dull but loyal servant Planchet (Keenan Wynn). Shortly after D'Artagnan's return from England, Constance is kidnapped at the behest of Cardinal Richelieu. D'Artagnan makes a pass at Milady de Winter, discovers a delicate secret, and only just manages to save himself. Constance is freed and taken to safety in England, shortly after which war breaks out, and our four friends are drawn into it. They overhear a conspiratorial meeting between the Cardinal and Lady de Winter in an inn. The latter is to travel to England and kill Buckingham. Planchet also travels to England at D'Artagnan's behest to warn Buckingham. Lady de Winter is convicted and is to be executed. Constance is appointed her guardian. Milady de Winter, after a lengthy psychological duel, manages to take out Constance as well as a guard and Buckingham and then escapes. Athos and D'Artagnan, who wanted to help Constance, arrive too late; after Constance dies in D'Artagnan's arms, they themselves also have only escaped. Back in Paris, the four friends track down Lady de Winter, pronounce the death sentence on her, and have the prisoner executed. During their subsequent escape towards Spain, they are overpowered and arrested. Their fate seems to be sealed, but young D'Artagnan still has one trump card: the Countess's passport, personally sealed and signed by Cardinal Richelieu, with the note that everything the bearer of this letter undertakes will serve the good of the state. The king is not allowed to know the background of this letter - so Richelieu has to give in. Aramis receives permission to take up a clerical office. Porthos is allowed to marry richly, Athos gets his property back and D'Artagnan is to negotiate a peace offer with the enemy England on behalf of France.
Among the many American film versions of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers are the 1914 Film Attractions Co. production, directed by Charles V. Henkel, the 1921 Douglas Fairbanks production, directed by Fred Niblo, the 1935 RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. production, directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Walter Abel, Paul Lucas and Margot Grahame, Richard Lester's 1974 Twentieth Century-Fox production starring Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, and Raquel Welch; and the 1993 Buena Vista release, directed by Stephen Herek and starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O'Donnell, and Rebecca de Mornay. This splashy 1948 MGM adaptation of The Three Musketeers was the third sound version and was also the first version in Technicolor. In 1947, a representative of the National Catholic Legion of Decency, an organisation that monitored the interests of the Church in motion pictures, objected to the characterisation of Cardinal Richelieu in the planned MGM adaptation of Dumas' story. In a letter to MGM producer Pandro S. Berman, the organisation stated its objection to the cardinal being portrayed as a "worldly and unscrupulous man" and urged the studio to remove the character from the film. Berman refused to remove the character from the film but promised he would use great caution in all sensitive matters pertaining to the story and in the film, Richelieu is never referred to as Cardinal Richelieu. Berman also indicated that Constance, the married mistress of D'Artagnan in the novel, would be unmarried in the film version. While early sound versions of Three Musketeers eliminated the deaths of Constance and Milady, this adaptation telescopes the novel's events to allow for these tragedies. According to AFI, screenwriter Robert Ardry was displeased with Sidney's irreverent approach to the Dumas story and objected to the spoof elements that were added to the film. A biography of Kelly noted that Belgian fencing champion Jean Heremans, who appears in the film as the cardinal's guard, taught Kelly how to fence. Kelly's biography also noted that during the filming of a bedroom scene, Kelly flung Turner onto a bed with such force that she fell to the ground and suffered a broken elbow. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “True to form, MGM saw to it that Lana Turner, as Milady, was dressed to the nines and heavily bejeweled for her beheading sequence. Portions of the 1948 Three Musketeers, in black and white, showed up in the silent film-within-a-film in 1952's Singin' in the Rain, which of course also starred Gene Kelly.” The Three Musketeers opened to mostly favourable reviews, with several reviewers commenting on the film's unusual tongue-in-cheek approach. New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther noted that "more glittering swordplay, more dazzling costumes, more colors or more of Miss Turner's chest have never been seen in a picture than are shown in this one." And added: “Completely fantastic, however, is Miss Turner as the villainess, the ambitious Lady de Winter who does the boudoir business for the boss. Loaded with blond hair and jewels, with twelve-gallon hats and ostrich plumes, and poured into her satin dresses with a good bit of Turner to spare, she walks through the palaces and salons with the air of a company-mannered Mae West.” In 1948, there was an Oscar nomination for Robert Planck in the category Best Cinematography/Colour. Hans J. Wollstein at AllMovie: “The Three Musketeers remains an outrageously entertaining yarn, the Southern California locales perfectly standing in for 17th Century France and England.” And finally, Yvette Banek at her blog In so many words: “Lana Turner is really quite superb in her evilness. So evil that she is even photographed without make-up. Well, as 'without make-up' as MGM got, at any rate. Even then, she is exquisitely beautiful - especially when praying.”
Sources: Bosley Crowther (New York Times), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Yvette Banek (In so many words), AFI, Wikipedia (Dutch, German), and IMDb.
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Victoria and Albert Museum, Kensington
"Moral Decency" - Laurence Olivier directed Leigh as Blanche in the London production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. In this telegram to Olivier the playwright calls Leigh "the Blanche I had always dreamed of."
Film director Elia Kazan wrote to Leigh with this news about the film's development phase. "So far everything is fine".
Well, it's New Year's Eve once again, time once again to mark the official beginning of the annual pina colada harvest and margarita roundup, the perfect time for the ritual pro forma disclaimer and Miranda warning, just to be certain that everyone is safe and emolumized, elocution-wise.
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