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Suomen ulkomaanedustustojen päälliköt kokoontuvat vuosittaiseen tapaamiseensa Helsinkiin 19.–22. elokuuta. Kokous järjestetään Kulttuuritehdas Korjaamolla Töölössä. #slsk19
Kuvat: Petri Krook/ Ulkoministeriö
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs produces photo material for media representatives. Please feel free to use the photos for journalistic purposes, considering the following restrictions: One-time picture publishing right, no archiving or reselling. Editorial use only. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organisation shall be mentioned as a source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. The publisher is not entitled to transfer rights to a third party. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall also obtain the permissions needed for any names, persons, works of art, trademarks, and proprietary rights shown in the pictures. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity. Photo: Atte Kajova
Arctic Council Ministerial Dinner at Artikum Glass Hall. Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland Timo Soini and Minister for Foreign Affairs and External Trade of Iceland Guðlaugur Þór Þórðarson.
Finland hosts the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting on 7 May in Rovaniemi. Minister-level representatives from the eight Arctic States will convene to review and approve work completed under the two-year Finnish Chairmanship to improve sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Jouni Porsanger / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
The venue for the meeting in Rovaniemi is Lappi Areena.
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs, with the expertise of WWF Finland, has created guidelines for environmentally sustainable meetings. These guidelines will be followed for all Arctic Council meetings in Finland.
Finland hosts the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting on 7 May in Rovaniemi. Minister-level representatives from the eight Arctic States will convene to review and approve work completed under the two-year Finnish Chairmanship to improve sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Jouni Porsanger / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
WE ARE SLEEPING OR ARE… ASLEEP?
I want to wake up from this dream. Because to me this is not a dream, this is the worst nightmare you can live. I constantly see people on the street lethargic, people get carried away with the system without resistance. These people give me a lot of grief.
But things are much worse than I imagined at first sight. A part of the alienated, we can find with those living in a fantasy. Those who believe that life is real and living in truth is an illusion. Then there are those who evade reality, even knowing everything and prefer not to try to escape by showing that they care nothing.
I also see people who think that his life is a dream, but do not realize that for that to happen others have to live in hell. Where is the line between good and evil? Where is the decency and ethics in this world? It's just so hard to be right and kind to the people around us?
Actually, I don't know if I 'm asleep or sleeping. Not if everything around me is reality or an illusion. The only thing I try to do at all times, we try to get out of this nightmare, in which you are forcing me to live day after day.
20220614 HELSINKI. CROWNE PLAZA. NAFM2022.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs produces photo material for media representatives. Please feel free to use the photos for journalistic purposes, considering the following restrictions: One-time picture publishing right, no archiving or reselling. Editorial use only. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organisation shall be mentioned as a source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. The publisher is not entitled to transfer rights to a third party. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall also obtain the permissions needed for any names, persons, works of art, trademarks, and proprietary rights shown in the pictures. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity. Photo: Atte Kajova
Arctic Council Ministerial Dinner at Artikum Glass Hall.
Finland hosts the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting on 7 May in Rovaniemi. Minister-level representatives from the eight Arctic States will convene to review and approve work completed under the two-year Finnish Chairmanship to improve sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Jouni Porsanger / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
United States Secretary of State Michael Pompeo held a press conference at the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting.
Finland hosts the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting on 7 May in Rovaniemi. Minister-level representatives from the eight Arctic States will convene to review and approve work completed under the two-year Finnish Chairmanship to improve sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Jouni Porsanger / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
Welcome Reception hosted by the Minister for Foreign Affairs Mr Timo Soini and the Mayor of Rovaniemi Mr Esko Lotvonen on the occasion of the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting at Lappia Hall.
Finland hosts the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting on 7 May in Rovaniemi. Minister-level representatives from the eight Arctic States will convene to review and approve work completed under the two-year Finnish Chairmanship to improve sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Jouni Porsanger / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
The venue for the meeting in Rovaniemi is Lappi Areena.
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs, with the expertise of WWF Finland, has created guidelines for environmentally sustainable meetings. These guidelines will be followed for all Arctic Council meetings in Finland.
Finland hosts the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting on 7 May in Rovaniemi. Minister-level representatives from the eight Arctic States will convene to review and approve work completed under the two-year Finnish Chairmanship to improve sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Jouni Porsanger / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
‘Pasting (from AUGUST STRINDBERG'S 'THE DREAM PLAY')’
CHRISTINE. I paste, I paste.
THE DAUGHTER. [Pale and emaciated, sits by the stove] You shut out all the air. I choke!
CHRISTINE. Now there is only one little crack left.
THE DAUGHTER. Air, air—I cannot breathe!
CHRISTINE. I paste, I paste.
THE LAWYER. That's right, Christine! Heat is expensive.
Talia: “The characters split, double, multiply, evaporate, condense, dissolve and merge. But one consciousness rules them all: the dreamer's; for him there are no secrets, no inconsistencies, no scruples and no laws. He does not judge or acquit, he merely relates”
Ruin: The wonderful Mister Strindberg. Waving here. Whilst un-pasting, even.
It’s all a bit like that, I guess. Unravelling, perhaps, more so. But there is a definite picking apart. I almost feel like I have ‘breakthroughs’ every morning, though there might be some self-delusion there. I am aware of my neediness, that yearning for some sort of acknowledgement, central to posting here on Flickr, the text with the images. That is now stopping, I am unlearning that ‘habit’ currently, un-pasting it, unravelling it, whatever. But I can’t spend too much time on that, it’s time to make the move. I think I have done it.
I have started to write alone, for and to myself. I can do it. I even found ‘Rock’ to help me out, a fictitious character, an ‘anti-me’. I know. He might, or might not, become fully-fledged, an amalgamation of ‘daddy voices’, a character in himself. He might fade away with time, I have no idea. I am continuing to write.
This frees me up, I don’t have to worry about censorship, offending anybody, or being cancelled. There’s an idea, like I care about being cancelled anyway. How more cancelled’ can one be? Death does that eventually and is the only cancellation that is of mild interest, even.
Yes, to the world out there, its stupid wars, and its unravelling climate-wise. I am not going to be going out there throwing tomato soup over, oil-painted, water lilies. Each to his own. I have never driven, and never will, and will more than likely never fly again, having not done so for 12 years now. I will wear extra jumpers and turn off the heat. I will continue to write, pasting up those cracks. I won’t be sending money to charitable causes where the head of the board drives a car or takes planes to emergency climate meetings. With a total pension of 500 Euros a month, why would I send money to any charity?
Hopefully I will overcome this schizophrenia, this pasting/unpasting, by removing myself further, this quarantine.
It’s a bit scary, but ho-hum, that’s life. Ernaux has been wonderful to read, a tonic in these times, the self, that core, extended outwards shamelessly, Sadean and true, wonderfully desperate.
I will always have room for you, and will always answer you, and love your incursions.
I might not play so much with images anymore, but will continue to put things up on Flickr, more everyday notes, like a visual journal, a day by day diary. I have been using it as a research place for a while now, putting up other reminders for myself, like the one attached, just visual notes.
just memory enhancers...
And yes, there is an awful lot of writing, and I will try to make it into what is called a book. If any of it is any good, it might survive, if it's not any good, then it won't. I can't judge it, being in the middle of it, and am too busy to bother to even try. Time will tell, and I won't be around for that telling, either way, anyway.
I disagree with that “You can’t call yourself a writer ... when you’ve never actually written a book!”. You can call yourself anything you want, the world doesn't have to concur, but that, ultimately doesn't matter.
Self-delusion might be at the core of every individual, so embracing that might be a beginning.
It's interesting that this brings up a pithiness in me, it's very uncomfortable, but at least interesting to acknowledge. It's a huge failing in me, I have no doubt about that, forty shades of green and all that palaver.
Screaming 'love me' relentlessly sure wears one down. I suspect though that this might eventually be a good thing, that wearing down. Hope springs eternal!
Paste, unpaste, pick apart and tangle up. Gordian knots, go figure. I like realising how awful I am; it's a great first step.
Rack, I guess you are, for now, the only sounding board I am not relinquishing. I know I can do it without you, but I love doing it with you. It is, of course, totally up to you if you want to play the muse role or not. Rock is proving to be a great help, a godsend, even.
Enjoy those 40 variations of verdure.
Rock: Okay, so you have begun to be more methodical with the keeping of a diary, I think that might be a good idea, to have some continuity. It can feed in and out of what you are writing too.
Ruin: Yes, that’s the idea. Of course, it’s inspired by Ernaux, but also by Rack. Rack, apparently, has written every day for as long as I have known her, and obviously well before that too (Yes, there was life before me). This means she knows dates, the exact date we met, the days of our screaming/laughing walks, shared hysterics, and the dates of other huge events in her own life, ones I can only guess approximately. Like the day she discovered she also had Hep-c, on top of her principal fatal disease. In 1988 that’s exactly what it was, there was no talk then of it being manageable. She has always been at great pains to point out to me that these diary entries are just that, the bones of each day, just a record of what happened on that day. Rack has always been spare, the opposite of me. I guess it’s one of the many reasons I am drawn to her. I have always loved to coax out ‘trusting’ from the overly cautious, it’s one of my many failings.
I find hesitancy beautiful.
I have even asked her for some dates, like what was that date we met, the day of that break in filming in the ‘Moondance Diner’. There is always this sort of vague ‘promise’ of her telling me, of giving me that information, but it isn’t really a promise, more an indication that I was heard, and that, perhaps, I don’t need to know, like it’s one step too far. I love this privacy dance. There are so many ways in which Rack is beyond generous. She is more than right in this preserving of her own bones.
As it happens, I don’t really need dates. I can even get the year slightly wrong, and the story would still be exactly the same. I don’t even know on which dates my mother and father died, I know I could search for it in those million words of emails, or Flickr posts, but I don’t have that knowledge in my head. It’s on a hard drive external to me. It’s not something I am proud of, it’s just true. Jeffrey died of Aids sometime in 1991, I think. I helped him die, stopped him universally hemorrhaging with morphine, and I don’t even remember the date.
Who believes in dates or calendars anyway?
Answer: Obviously Rack and Annie Ernaux do. I love that they do, so I might give it a go here.
It might even alleviate the squandering of days, in becoming a daily chore, like brushing your teeth or having a good dump. I suspect it might even become pleasurable, rather like the latter of those two chores.
I did follow Rack down the HIV route, some 15 years after she tripped-up potholing. I didn’t follow her down that Hep-c boreen. Perhaps something had kicked-in, in between times. Perhaps our emails had sobered me up, or maybe the childhood abuse was already healing. Either way, Rack sloughed off that liver lurgy, hip-hip-hooray for science, and now we only have this one ‘manageable’ death sentence to negotiate together, side by side whilst forever apart. We now get to catfish each other gloriously.
I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, ask for more. Knowing she is out there, and apparently immortal, is more than enough. We share a certain sardonic humour about it all, recalling her “The year of my so-called death” in 1988, a year I initially got wrong at first, erroneously placing us in 1997 in ‘The Moondance Diner’.
What’s 34, or is it 35, years between friends?
Rack as Nora, Nora as Rack
Rack never blurted; she always controlled her output. The effect was precise and Protestant, “I found out I am HIV positive a few days ago.”
“Oh Christ”, Ruin blurted, Catholic to the hilt.
Ruin was always an outlet for Rack, almost like a delinquent spokesperson, the stuttering utterer of the unspeakable. He had the ability to take the private into the realm of the universally available with consummate ease. She didn’t. It was something she greatly feared and something she instinctively grasped that early summer morning in 1987, in the 'Moondance Diner', on 6th Avenue and Grand. She knew she was making the personal public. She was undoing herself.
He possessed that strange gift, the one imposed and imprinted, like the mark of Cain, on the sexually molested child, of having no facility to recognise boundaries, no ability to be able to tell the personal and private apart from what could be made generally available. She knew that he was her surrogate broadcaster and momentarily shuddered at the stranger, whom she had spontaneously trusted, sitting opposite her. This understanding hung between them as they ordered breakfast.
Their opening was torturous and drove them scurrying apart. It was more than either of them could handle, Rack racked with regret for exposing this opening wound and Ruin incapable of carrying the story alone. Their rehabilitation was slow and arduous. It was a time when to speak these words was a declaration of the almost immediate dissolution of self. It was a time before the hope generated by the misnomered cocktails and the political agitation, which was to burgeon out of despair and become Act- Up. It was a time before anything could be done except grasp at straws. So, both started grasping and would occasionally find themselves in the same room drawn to the same possible panacea. Rack’s volition was desperation. Ruin’s was guilt. They acknowledged each other with some embarrassment and growing affection and more often than not turned away from each other and left separately. Ruin knew he loved Rack. Rack was not at all sure.
Dear Rack,
Just sending you back some words you once sent to me:
“I have often thought that writers do not write; they read what is already written and transcribe. So perhaps they are not complaining about ill health, lack of money, and rejection, but about the bondage of a calling that keeps them laboriously transcribing cryptic messages in rapidly disappearing ink, like the traces of a dream, year after year...."
Thinking of how romantic you are.... even if it is all so appalling to live through.
We seem to endure, and hopefully will continue to do so for a little while longer.
Love,
Ruin
Rack: There they are. And there they aren’t. I love them like I could never love them.
Ruin: Yes indeed, there we are and there we aren't. I like finding an image of us, whilst telling a mis-remembered story. I like that we have inadvertently grown older than we expected, and are growing towards not hating ourselves through the writing of it out, and I love that we have written to each other over 35 years and I have squirrelled it all away to draw ‘Artificial Intelligence’ images out of. This image is made from us, but is not exactly us. This A.I. is a late life gift.
I dreamt about Rock. He didn’t look at all like me, which sort of surprised me. I am not sure why. We were in bed together, and we were spooning. I was trying it on, of course, which used to be my wont in the intervening years between the rupture and the present, pushing back on him, and he was telling me no, that it was inappropriate, and not what we both needed. Of course, it put me in mind of James, my uncle, and I agreed with Rock. Yes, he was right.
Rock was big spooning me, tenderly, lovingly, it felt good, it felt completely nonsexual, there was no pressure against my back. I was a very small spoon. Once I accepted these new, strange, parameters, I was relieved, perhaps more so because I am now, at 68, enjoying being inviolate, and my dream sort of knew this, even though I was young in the dream. There was a weird sort of retrospective knowing. I felt as vulnerable as I was then, but I somehow knew that Rock was right. He said, “you want to talk about James, don’t you?”. Again, he was right, I did. The Pope was also in the dream, not in the bed, but he might as well have been. I can’t remember why he was there, what he was up to. I just remember thinking he must be the biggest tourist-draw in the world, now that Liz is dead, at least as an individual. This seemed, and even now seems, incontrovertible.
This diary thing suits me. I start typing as soon as the computer kicks on, before I take my first of three morning pills, before I have time to forget. I still have no idea if Putin has decimated Kherson overnight, or if there is a new universal plague working its terror outside our front door. The world will do what it does. It will work its way into my consciousness all in good time, no man being an island and all that palaver. I really have to stop saying that. The initial diary entry can just sit there uncompleted, a memory jogger, to be filled in, fleshed out, or concluded later, constituting what Rack might call “The bones of the night”.
Ok, the bones are established, I can take a peep. Al Jazerra is screaming:“ ‘Too loud is true’: Is Russia setting a Trap in Kherson? “. The madness of the everyday asserts itself, stretching out before breakfast, echoing Blanchot. But back to Uncle James, and other personal insanities.
I never pushed back on James, or did I? I don't know. I was a needy child. I was stupidly innocent, young, ignorant, or perhaps just unschooled. He was the predator, put in my bed by my mother. I was the ‘victim’. Unfortunately, this victimhood status seems to be a very hardy perennial, one that flowers even for the whole life of that plant, or the person, but not only does it flower once yearly, it flowers often, and whenever it wants to. It’s more like a very persistent budding weed, a knot weed of sorts. The Gordian aspect of it all is perhaps gilding that description. But it is there. Either way, unravelling it can take a lifetime. There are shortcuts through it, suicide or running riot with a chainsaw, slicing through it like Alexander the Great, that sort of thing, but Ruin was always glad he hadn’t resorted to those. No, he decided he would gnaw at the knot, hopelessly hoping that nobody would notice his teeth wearing down.
Of Boreen Raging (A Silverfish Book)_Photo below.
People noticed of course.
Anyway Ruin, his pronouns are ‘he’ and ‘him’, is that third person descriptor of the protagonist here, and I am going to write this in the first person. Afterall it is just an early-morning diary entry written to, and for, me, so all subterfuge can be dropped.
Rock: I get what you are saying there, but you do know that’s virtually impossible, don’t you? Do you really think you can tell the ‘truth’, even to yourself, I mean, can anyone?
Ruin: Yes, Rock, I think he gets that, but you are right to point it out. Perhaps we both need to shut up and just see what he comes up with.
Rock: Get you Ruin! Move over King Solomon, there’s a contender in court.
Ruin: More of a pretender, but whatevs! Let’s try shutting-the-fuck-up.
Either way, I won’t be rushed in this. It will come out in its own time. It will come out. I might write more later today, or I might not. It’s not a question of ‘waiting for the muse’, it’s more letting things percolate. You two, Rock and Ruin, can chime in whenever you want, don’t hold back, I appreciate your input even if I don’t always agree with you. Rack has flown from New York to Ireland, she’s there now. I am thinking about her proximity to Amsterdam (my current home), and ever-present absence. She can still tolerate being there, I can’t. My imagination won’t allow me even to contemplate ever being there again. I can’t see that changing, but I can consider the remote possibility of being wrong about that.
As an aside, Annie Ernaux came a little closer to what I wrote about her earlier, that de Sade connection via de Beauvoir, in a quote from her diary in ‘Getting Lost’, page 178:
“A descent into sadomasochism, but gentle, without violence (because of the combination of sodomy and ‘normal’ sex - bruised all over, at one point, I thought I was torn). He said, ‘Annie, I love you’, and I didn’t attach any importance to it because it was during sex”
My convoluted mind connects this with the abuse in my early teens, I am not sure why it does, it just does. Hence, my need to let things percolate.
There was a point, towards the very end of that rupture, when Uncle James, said he loved me. There was no victory there at all, other than getting him permanently out of my bed, which was in itself huge. Strangely it more or less happened at the same time as I seemed to, miraculously, overcome my stammer. I have never understood that. Actually, I do sort of sense what that means though I will need some time to be able to describe that ‘vanquishing’.
I think I was 15 years old.
Saint Annie hits the nail on the head again, driving it further into that sprawling green Grünewald-ean hand.
Look, the stutter is gone, and I am no longer just a set of holes.
01/11/2022
I dreamt about some right-honourable-members last night, or early this morning. They weren’t ‘in full flight’ members, not ‘virilis’ or anything, just cuddly soft ones, nestled, slumbering in, pre-depilation, retro pubes, with their hoods drawn over their dry little heads. The word ‘cute’ comes to mind. They were attached to unrecognisable individuals, those cuddly coils, one of whom seemed to be collecting money in one of those plastic collecting thingies that those people outside the supermarket carry, trying to relieve you of your spare change for some good cause or other. Their days might be somewhat numbered, those collectors, what with everyone in the queue seemingly flashing their iPhones at the scanners nowadays, so that cash seems to be becoming redundant, going the way of that downy cushion of pubes, following advancement and the new century, like the rest of everything else, towards extinction.
Blessed, and much beloved redundancy, all part and parcel of this rush towards endless growth and a brave new post-tumescent world. Bring it on. Being chaffed off is more than acceptable. It’s even interesting to be in the process of feeling the parts fall off. It all puts me in mind of watching Mark America die, yes that was his adopted name, as he watched, and described, his body working to “let me go”, as he put it. I couldn’t be beside his bedside for the whole duration, we were not that close, and he wanted time alone. I asked him would he like to have a camera to record dying, and he said that he really would. He was one of those artist types, incorrigible. I gave him a few disposable cameras, they were all the rage then in the late eighties or early nineties, whenever it was. You know me and dates. I can check though. The dates of his taking them were inscribed automatically on the photos themselves. I have the images; I will take a look.
It was later than I thought, 20/12/94 to be precise, coming on Christmas, not that far off the date when the pills became lifesavers. Mark missed that boat, but he didn’t seem to mind at all. He didn’t appear to have a ‘poor me’ bone in his body. Yes Ruin, shut up, I know I could take a page from his book, whilst inserting him into mine. Can you and Rock just withdraw for a moment, whilst I work this out?
I have no idea how he did it. He was ensconced in a private room in a salubrious midtown hospital, with a view out on that island in the Hudson, ‘Roosevelt Island’ by name. He could watch the famed aerial tram, a strangely placed type of ski-lift, go back and forth. I knew the area, from having worked up there on some interiors for ‘Parrish Hadley’, well for Arthur Hadley really, Sister Parrish having recently done her own sloughing off. I used to do these interiors, so called ‘special finishes’, Venetian Stucco and the like, to support my making of the ‘Ikons’, those memorialising, honouring, pieces which were part and parcel of my meeting with Mark in that hospital. Some of those pieces are now ensconced in the ‘Irish Museum of Modern Art’. Mark didn’t live long enough to be included in that set of 40 gold-leaf pieces, though we initially met to discuss the possibility.
Mark was English originally, I never knew his family name, something else he had sloughed off, becoming an ‘illegal alien’ artist, with no health insurance, taking on the name of his host country. He was a fellow raving homo in the middle of a raging plague. Of course, we loved each other instantly. What was not to love? That love lasted all of three weeks, just allowing him enough time to bring in the New Year and die. How he ended up in a private room in the ‘Memorial Sloane Kettering Hospital’, I will never know. I did ask, but he waved the question off as inconsequential. He was right, what mattered was that he was there, with a catheter tube snaking out of his, fully on display, nestled and swollen trouser-snake.
He loved its redundancy. I must admit that I loved its redundancy too, it was infectious, but I even more loved his total acceptance, his embracing, of his devolving.
Or was it evolving?
I remember him say “Look at me, look what my body has to do to let me go. Isn’t it remarkable?”, whilst gesturing towards his family jewels. We both laughed. Yes, it was remarkable, it was a rhetorical question. He appeared to have no anger at all. It wasn’t every day that you would walk into a room and be encountered by a man, a veritable stranger, in a hospital bed with his ‘Scolaro’ out, swollen and pierced by a red dangly tube, leading to a bag attached to the side of the bed. Don’t worry, the full etymology of the word ‘Scolaro’ will follow shortly, but you will know from a few paragraphs above that I am talking about his ‘John Thomas’, those offending members do seem to be the subject for discussion this good morning. Those of a delicate nature might choose to look away, though it is possibly a mite too late now for one of those ubiquitous ‘trigger warnings’. I shall endeavour not to allow my description, my feeling my way into this delicate subject, become too purple.
I am looking at a photograph of him now, and no, I am not crying, neither am I sad. He was, and is, formidable, holding his swollen uncut member in his hands, swollen by the substantial tube disappearing into it. The tube itself is forked, the part outside his body, I mean. One fork is sealed off with some sort of stopper, the other fork continues into a long plastic tube, snaking off the side of the bed to a slowly filling bag. I presume the second forked, and stoppered, tube is for ingress, for whatever drugs might be needed to facilitate the body’s acceptance of this intrusion, perhaps some anaesthetising agent.
Mark is wonderfully alert, obviously talking to me, but, for the most part, I can’t remember what he was saying. I suspect he was just getting on with being very much alive, and he was letting me record it. I guess that it might have been at that point that I asked him if he would like me to get him some disposable cameras. I knew the answer before I asked.
He was still handsome, thin but handsome, with a fashionable goatee beard thing, just on his chin, in the middle of his otherwise cleanly-shaven face. I would guess that he was around 34 at the time. We didn’t really discuss age and birthdays.
Come to think of it, it was about one year after I had my first New York exhibition ‘Saints and Survivors in a Time of Plague’. I showed 6 or 8 of the ikons in that show, and ‘The Sodomy Piece’. If my memory serves me rightly, Kelly, one of the ‘ikon’ sitters, introduced me to Mark, and this was how I ended up sitting by his very entertaining bedside. I know, a strange descriptor for that type of vigil, but Mark was full on. I know, ‘ikons’ as opposed to icons, and survivor is missing its ‘u’, but hey, I was American too. Both Rack and Ruin, our titular duo are both represented in these ikons, with perhaps 40 other ‘saints’ and some survivors, even.
Mark died 3 weeks later, and left me the disposable cameras, with his last images.
I still have them.
An Open Beaver
Ray: I know you don’t need me, or anyone else, to say this but, Ruin, you’ve done great! And of course far more than great.
Ruin: I am not very confident about it, but I am doing it anyway. We get as far as we get.
You too.
Thank you for saying that. I got your message just as I was going to bed. Yes, to your list above...No interest in (sex, alcohol, travel, parties, people)...I am there too, completely. The rest is extra, though I have said that before. I am still planning to write until I drop, for no other reason other than I enjoy it, and it explains things to oneself.
I needed the musk of aging male. That wasn't a choice either, just a happenstance, debatably imprinted during the abuse, but more likely there from the beginning, that missing father stuff. Yes, we are doomed (doomed I tell you, doomed, intoned as a comic aside), that has never been not so, from the beginning of time, and will never be any different. Everything dies, get over it. It’s that universal story to do with what it means to be mortal, and no bloody big deal, whilst being at the same time, for us, the biggest deal of all.
Vermeer, Klimt, Grünewald, all great describers in their own time. I am only interested in the now of Putin, Covid and the rest of the sorry travesty (all of which I love, go figure). The world can sink or blow itself up, I will describe it until I cannot. End of story.
I don't mind being a demented fool, and getting HIV was not a mistake, or a misfortune.
It was a coping mechanism, like everything else. I must say that I am tired of decent good people. Decent good family people, decent good priests and nuns, decent good businessmen and bank managers, decent good 'professionals' and politicians, decent good artists, decent good billionaires. I am most thankful that I never had to take a machine gun to them all, like some poor unfortunates with access to a machine gun license in America, and elsewhere. I am so pleased I only really ever hurt, damaged, 'killed' myself even. That's decency personified in my book.
We did, and are doing, okay, and feck all the begrudgers.
Well then, that's all the hard edges knocked off at last!
Ray: I feel the same way about my whoremongerings. In the post-ménopausique I can see, rationally, that it is sexual exploitation. I was taking advantage of the disadvantaged: poor women in a developing country.
Ruin: The whole world is at it; it's what nature does, red in tooth and claw, and all that cliched stuff. The weak are eaten, that includes everyone, the self even, there is always someone stronger. It's the veneer of dignity and pseudo decency I find offensive, especially that dressed in religion and etiquette, propriety, decency and chivalry.
The Conjoined Origins of Chivalry and the Humble Domestic Can Opener (Photo attached below).
a 'de Selby' classic essay (currently unavailable).
'There's many a slip twixt cup and lip', as the old saying goes.
Ruin: I suspect he might need a can opener to use the urinal.
Seven: Such beautiful lighting for an isolation of desperation. Nobly knelt before the unthought of his decisions. Very much the religious approach and a hilarious reduction of the original taking the knee.
Ruin: and this was years, verily centuries, before the advent of the electric can-opener too.
Of course, the knights and Samurai of yore, or whatever local military brute force available, would build chivalrous systems based on manners and church-sanctioned decency. They could afford it through the patronage of the top, vicious, dogs, who themselves had evolved through combining brute force with intelligence. It’s evolution at work, that survival of the fittest, nothing noble about it, except in the same idea that defines the ‘Noble gasses’ in the periodic table. They are a chemical fluke that created a class system, wholly natural and infinitely exploitable, and exploiting. Of course, I have no problem with this, how could I?
It’s the dressing it all up as ‘decent’ and ‘dignified’, those with ‘manners’ and ‘breeding’ against the ‘Not quite our class, dear’, and then using those ideas as weapons to control. This is partially what I have a problem with. I also know that this story has been told forever, but that’s possibly why it needs to be told, continuously updating it. I don’t think either that humankind is the only facet of everything that tells ‘stories’. The entirety of everything does, it’s about consciousness. I am afraid I am one of those who believe that everything (and non-thing) is conscious, or as the bible says somewhere “The very stones themselves will cry out”. Stories are that ‘crying out’ made manifest.
‘Choice’ would be a fine thing, but in my ‘system’ it doesn’t exist. But you know this already.
Either way, it is the system I am going to use to describe. It’s the same one I used for forty years whilst visually describing, now I want to take that into words. Writing, or making art, is not a choice. They are both compulsions and survival mechanisms. I see this true of everything we do, including murder, suicide, rape and whoremongering. Sometimes we have to quarantine ourselves to control these compulsions. Those of us who don’t have the compulsion to rape and murder are very lucky indeed.
I suspect that empathy grows out of that seedbed, the recognition that we are all capable of the worst atrocities, but by sheer happenstance, and luck, we haven't had to utilise those methods as, what appears to be, our only route for survival. We accidentally, and thankfully, found other ways, in keeping with our natures and conditioning. You gotta luv Darwin.
❤️
That heart was for Charles, not for my statement.
By the way, your name is Ray in the 'book'. I was going to just use 'J', but that, of course, suggests its own name.
Ray: As life wears on, and, on reflection, I have come around to your understanding of the meaning of the word ‘choice’. For example, I have no choice about testosterone withdrawal taking away my libido or interest in sex, just as I had no choice about its onset, aged 12, and everything that arose from that. But I do suspect there are categories of choice/no-choice, and that example of the no-choice effect of hormones on behaviour is but one. As far as choice governs conduct, I know I’d be lying if I said I had no choice about whether or not to have sex with a prostitute: it was always a conscious choice, as was the choice to use condoms, even if the libidinous impulse itself wasn’t. Those choices we *are* responsible for, I think, like it or not. And when it comes to crime and law-breaking, criminal law holds us responsible.
I am very glad that I was fortunate enough to be able to escape marrying someone I don’t love, having children I don’t want, and doing a dead-end job I hate, to keep all that going. I think that is the lot of many heterosexual men. I can see how that might generate resentment and violence. All thanks to the hormones which make all this happen.
Ruin: Yes, to that, but there are other, equally powerful, drivers at work, an infinite number of them, even. I don't see self-quarantining as a 'choice' either, it's a survival mechanism, as is my cuckoo instinct, my moving into already built nests. Anyway, all that is my 'starting point', even if I am wrong.
I am somewhat of a mind with Miro on that one, start with a point (a full stop, even), then take that point for a walk. Start with an idea, erroneous or not (who's right and who is wrong anyway?) and begin to walk it forward.
The results - The Anthony Bourdain Holiday Special - air on travel channel tonight (10th Dec 2007)
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.
Suomen ulkomaanedustustojen päälliköt kokoontuvat vuosittaiseen tapaamiseensa Helsinkiin 19.–22. elokuuta. Kokous järjestetään Kulttuuritehdas Korjaamolla Töölössä. #slsk19
Kuvat: Petri Krook/ Ulkoministeriö
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Queens Of The Stone Age @ Nokia Theater, Los Angeles
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.
United States Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov shook hands at the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting.
Finland hosts the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting on 7 May in Rovaniemi. Minister-level representatives from the eight Arctic States will convene to review and approve work completed under the two-year Finnish Chairmanship to improve sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Jouni Porsanger / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
Interfaith Vigil at San Quentin in a time of COVID19
July 19, 2020
San Quentin State Prison, Marin County, California
- Huge support from a steady stream of honking cars traveling to and from the Richmond Bay Bridge.
-----
From the organizers (Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity):
"Background: On May 30th, California Department of Corrections (CDCR) transferred 121 incarcerated individuals from California Institution for Men (CIM) prison in San Bernardino County to San Quentin State Prison. Upon arriving at San Quentin, 25 of the individuals who transferred from CIM tested positive for COVID19. This has led to a growing outbreak at San Quentin (which had no confirmed cases prior to this transfer) with over 1,900 cases confirmed among those incarcerated, 205 confirmed cases among staff, and 12 deaths to date and climbing. Due to a lack of ongoing testing, these numbers are likely an underestimation.
We know there is no “safe” way to social distance in prisons, North Block and West Block housing units at San Quentin are operating at roughly 190% capacity. We know there is no safe way to transfer incarcerated individuals from one prison to another, without the risk of creating a new hot spot at yet another prison. The only way to control the spread of this global pandemic (inside prison walls and beyond) is to grant releases, stop ICE transfers for those released, and reduce California’s prison population.
After increasing community advocacy and some vocal elected officials, on July 10, Governor Newsom announced plans to release 8000 from prisons statewide. While this is a step in the right direction, releasing a mere 6% of the people inside California’s overcrowded prisons falls woefully short of the large-scale decarceration needed to protect the health and safety of the community.
We believe all people are sacred and deserving of life, regardless of past convictions. Community-based re-entry programs and the faith community are able to care for loved ones, like Chanthon Bun, who was released from San Quentin on July 1st, and is now being housed in a sanctuary congregation while he recovers from COVID19.
------
Demands: Our Interfaith Vigil will be lifting up the following demands, in line with the demands from loved ones who are incarcerated, including the campaigns for #ActNowNewsom (bit.ly/actnownewsom) and #StopSQOutbreak (bit.ly/StopSQOutbreakDemands):
Governor Newsom must begin the process of drastically reducing the overall prison population to below 50% of current capacity. In order to achieve this level of decarceration, Governor Newsom must grant releases without categorical exclusions based on crimes of commitment or sentencing but be based on the current level of risk not past offenses. We know that people can change and transform their lives. Releases must include those who are serving Life Without Parole sentences, who are actually at the lowest risk of reoffending, and those on Death Row who comprise a majority of deaths by COVID-19. Release should be to families, the faith community, or community-based re-entry programs - not other prisons.
Governor Newsom and CDCR must immediately stop all transfers between California prisons, and from prisons to ICE detention centers. Transfers continue to spread the disease inside the prison system, to staff and outside communities. Immigration transfers of people who earn release and parole. We believe all people are sacred and deserving of life, regardless of past convictions.
Governor Newsom must release people beginning with those most vulnerable people, including transgender people, elderly, disabled, and those medically vulnerable. Transgender people are at disproportionate risk of harm and violence in prison. Prisons should not be a death sentence. All life is precious.
Immediately improve the care and treatment for people inside San Quentin. This includes restoring access to phones to communicate to loved ones, adequate testing, access to PPE, improved sanitation, hot meals, etc. This also includes, CDCR must ensure that the incarcerated trans community has access to hormones and healthcare immediately – before and after their release. We demand that all people imprisoned be treated with mercy, compassion, and human decency."
At the time of this vigil, held at the west entrance to San Quentin, over 2,100 individuals at San Quentin have tested positive for COVID19 (1900 incarcerated, 205 staff), with 12 deaths.
Suomen ulkomaanedustustojen päälliköt kokoontuvat vuosittaiseen tapaamiseensa Helsinkiin 19.–22. elokuuta. Kokous järjestetään Kulttuuritehdas Korjaamolla Töölössä. #slsk19
Kuvat: Petri Krook/ Ulkoministeriö
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Suomen ulkomaanedustustojen päälliköt kokoontuvat vuosittaiseen tapaamiseensa Helsinkiin 19.–22. elokuuta. Kokous järjestetään Kulttuuritehdas Korjaamolla Töölössä. #slsk19
Kuvat: Petri Krook/ Ulkoministeriö
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Session Americana playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.
www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969
www.myspace.com/sessionamericana
www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana
www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...
Session Americana - from www.sessionamericana.com
This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.
"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston
and vocals that do the same"
— Performer Magazine
Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.
Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.
*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards
*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue
*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian
*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll
*Nominated "Best Live Act" 2007 - The Boston Music Awards
*Nominated "Best Americana Act" 2008 - The Boston Music Awards
“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”
— NE Performer Magazine
“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)
— The Noise
“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe
“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”
— The Boston Phoenix
“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression
Session Americana playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.
www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969
www.myspace.com/sessionamericana
www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana
www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...
Session Americana - from www.sessionamericana.com
This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.
"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston
and vocals that do the same"
— Performer Magazine
Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.
Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.
*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards
*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue
*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian
*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll
*Nominated "Best Live Act" 2007 - The Boston Music Awards
*Nominated "Best Americana Act" 2008 - The Boston Music Awards
“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”
— NE Performer Magazine
“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)
— The Noise
“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe
“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”
— The Boston Phoenix
“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression (read less)
Suomen ulkomaanedustustojen päälliköt kokoontuvat vuosittaiseen tapaamiseensa Helsinkiin 19.–22. elokuuta. Kokous järjestetään Kulttuuritehdas Korjaamolla Töölössä. #slsk19
Kuvat: Petri Krook / Ulkoministeriö
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Suomen ulkomaanedustustojen päälliköt kokoontuvat vuosittaiseen tapaamiseensa Helsinkiin 19.–22. elokuuta. Kokous järjestetään Kulttuuritehdas Korjaamolla Töölössä. #slsk19
Kuvat: Petri Krook / Ulkoministeriö
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
The miniature nature of the 'tit Rəx parade makes it popular with kids, but this is still New Orleans, so even a kid-friendly parade is a little bit off-color and irreverent. The floats are supposed to be rated PG, but some of them were really pushing that line. This one with its butt theme was fairly mild compared to some others.
The theme for this year's parade was "A Modicum of Decency." There are a number of ways you can take that. Some floats celebrated positive images of decent people, like Mister Rogers or a popular New Orleans Saints football player who's suffering from ALS now. Other floats aired grievances against indecencies. This float, for instance, is taking shots at the famous New Orleans Jazz Festival and Jazz Heritage Foundation, which some local folks believe has grown too top heavy, bureaucratic, and rules-oriented.
Editors note: The editorial choices I make concerning which floats I'm posting have less to do with content than with how the picture turned out. I got kind of caught up in things and was just shooting pictures of small things in dimming light in what turned out to be an increasingly enclosed environment without paying a lot of attention to the camera work, so a lot of floats I'd have liked to have shown turned out blurry.
This is one of the photos from a Power Point presentation explaining a study in Augusta, Georgia about a street named for Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The “Claiming A Street Named King” Project is the brainchild of Rev. Terence A. Dicks of Augusta, Georgia.
These photos depict homes, building and abandoned structures along Martin Lutheran King, Jr. Boulevard in Augusta, Georgia.
It began with research in Athens and Augusta (Georgia) through the University Of Georgia School Of Environmental Design.
Research was led by Dr. Mary Anne Akers in collaboration with Georgia Legal Services Program, Georgia State Trade Association of Non-profit Developers (G-STAND) and Neighborhood Works America, INC.
“Claiming A Street Named King” Project study in Augusta, Georgia – conducted along Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard - shows areas that need economic assistance – and that’s the same issue in many American cities that have streets named for civil rights leaders
For more information:
claimingastreetnamedking.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/Claimin...
Suomen ulkomaanedustustojen päälliköt kokoontuvat vuosittaiseen tapaamiseensa Helsinkiin 19.–22. elokuuta. Kokous järjestetään Kulttuuritehdas Korjaamolla Töölössä. #slsk19
Kuvat: Petri Krook / Ulkoministeriö
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Suomen ulkomaanedustustojen päälliköt kokoontuvat vuosittaiseen tapaamiseensa Helsinkiin 19.–22. elokuuta. Kokous järjestetään Kulttuuritehdas Korjaamolla Töölössä. #slsk19
Kuvat: Petri Krook/ Ulkoministeriö
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
The venue for the meeting in Rovaniemi is Lappi Areena.
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs, with the expertise of WWF Finland, has created guidelines for environmentally sustainable meetings. These guidelines will be followed for all Arctic Council meetings in Finland.
Finland hosts the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting on 7 May in Rovaniemi. Minister-level representatives from the eight Arctic States will convene to review and approve work completed under the two-year Finnish Chairmanship to improve sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Jouni Porsanger / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
We abuse ourselves on Friday and Saturday evenings, by having two glasses of Champagne each. We pay for that on the days that follow. My camera is now sitting at 950 Euros in the auction, and will soon go over the grand. It comes up for auction at 8pm, this evening. It's even the first item in the sale.
Reasons to celebrate present themselves, more or less, every Friday.
Back to that turquoise rectangle censorship thingy. You are right, they don’t hide anybody’s identity, especially from people who might be related to 'the three graces', in this recent example. But no, this doesn’t worry me, that idea of being sued. I find it hard to see how anybody would ever see them, here on these distant shores of Flickr. As I said, I am not looking to ‘publish’ and don’t see these musings getting beyond these pixelated walls. If they end up generating a skim of posterity, that will be theirs to deal with. At that point I will be hopefully looking down, rather than up, from some infinite pleasure, or pain, garden, East of Eden, or much further south in a far hotter sulphurous clime. Yes, I appear to be doing this to understand my own, seemingly constant, worldly awkwardness. That ‘substance’ we have discussed, recognizing it in each other, often. I, very clearly, recognize my capacity to offend almost everybody. Does that sound familiar?
Yes, I too get tired of men exposing their balls for testicular cancer awareness campaigns. That gets extended to fat acceptance and stupidity acceptance. Yes, everyone is acceptable, but not necessarily beautiful. But beauty, like summer and children, mostly bores the pants off me. I recognize my universal contrariness regarding these preferences. I also recognize the habit I have of overstepping the mark, that decency border. So, I don’t want to drag these three old, and dead, ladies over that chasm, or through that hedge hole, even.
Yes, I know you would never expose you. I understand that and now try very hard to comply with this need you have. I make some efforts to keep you invisible. At the same time, you know that I am a dreadful exhibitionist, a public scab-picker, a pick and flickr. You sometimes seem to be able to encourage me to pick my scabs more delicately. I appreciate that very much indeed.
You say to me “your efforts to de-sensitise me were inneffective”, and I say to you, your efforts to sensitise me were sometimes very effective, and continue to be. Shyness is surely nature meeting nurture, as bombast and toe-stomping (and goose stepping) must be too. I guess I see this new ‘creative’ phase as an opportunity to apologise universally. It would be good to be able to find some ‘balming’ words. So, it starts with turquoise rectangles, and blurred, smeared, faces, name changing, all those usual suspects. It is about making everyone become everyone else, but even more than that, it’s about everything becoming everything else, stars becoming people, even. It encompasses that recognition that there is no such thing as ‘Free Will’ or ‘Choice’, and everything and everyone is ‘Innocent’. I know, it’s a hugely contemporary idea (in the air presently), and one wonders how to approach it with doggerel and verse, anecdotes and titillating morsels.
No, I am not like you. I have never managed to keep ‘bitchiness’ in my head. I think my head would explode. It has more or less all vomited out onto canvas and into doctoral dissertations and essays, and conversations in corners at parties; but thankfully, I am not there anymore. Some of it even got spewed out at my own openings, in museums and galleries. It's such a great pleasure not to have to ever go to one of those events again. Age and (sometimes pretended) infirmity are now supported by this blessed, second, pandemic, so that now practically no excuses need even be proffered. To be rescued by a plague is a queer idea indeed.
It’s beyond time to clean up the mess, generated before the intervening solace of my two beloved plagues. Here goes, anyway. I am, apparently, in for a bumpy ride.
Dare I say, we are?
I love it when it rains hard too.
20: 04: Results €1,100. Very acceptable after 10 years of service.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transvestite, Freedom, Self Expression, All, Inclusive, Acceptance, Acknowledge, Parade, Charlotte, Downtown, Girl, Backside, Young, Different, Rainbow, Colors, Walk, Cover, Decency, Legal, Normal, Diversity
Suomen ulkomaanedustustojen päälliköt kokoontuvat vuosittaiseen tapaamiseensa Helsinkiin 19.–22. elokuuta. Kokous järjestetään Kulttuuritehdas Korjaamolla Töölössä. #slsk19
Kuvat: Petri Krook / Ulkoministeriö
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Suomen ulkomaanedustustojen päälliköt kokoontuvat vuosittaiseen tapaamiseensa Helsinkiin 19.–22. elokuuta. Kokous järjestetään Kulttuuritehdas Korjaamolla Töölössä. #slsk19
Kuvat: Petri Krook / Ulkoministeriö
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
VISIT TO NOKIA AND SITRA. PHOTO: ATTE KAJOVA
Ministry for Foreign Affairs produces photo material for media representatives. Please feel free to use the photos for journalistic purposes, considering the following restrictions: One-time picture publishing right, no archiving or reselling. Editorial use only. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organisation shall be mentioned as a source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. The publisher is not entitled to transfer rights to a third party. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall also obtain the permissions needed for any names, persons, works of art, trademarks, and proprietary rights shown in the pictures. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Arctic Council Ministerial Dinner at Artikum Glass Hall. United States Secretary of State Michael Pompeo.
Finland hosts the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting on 7 May in Rovaniemi. Minister-level representatives from the eight Arctic States will convene to review and approve work completed under the two-year Finnish Chairmanship to improve sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Jouni Porsanger / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
United States Secretary of State Michael Pompeo held a press conference at the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting.
Finland hosts the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting on 7 May in Rovaniemi. Minister-level representatives from the eight Arctic States will convene to review and approve work completed under the two-year Finnish Chairmanship to improve sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Jouni Porsanger / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
Session Americana playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.
www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969
www.myspace.com/sessionamericana
www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana
www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...
Session Americana - from www.sessionamericana.com
This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.
"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston
and vocals that do the same"
— Performer Magazine
Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.
Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.
*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards
*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue
*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian
*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll
*Nominated "Best Live Act" 2007 - The Boston Music Awards
*Nominated "Best Americana Act" 2008 - The Boston Music Awards
“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”
— NE Performer Magazine
“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)
— The Noise
“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe
“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”
— The Boston Phoenix
“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression (read less)
Queens Of The Stone Age with John Garcia at the Wiltern Theater, Los Angeles, 20th Dec 2005
* if you are going to ignore the copyright on these images and post them elsewhere on the web then at least have the decency to credit me with them *
Suomen ulkomaanedustustojen päälliköt kokoontuvat vuosittaiseen tapaamiseensa Helsinkiin 19.–22. elokuuta. Kokous järjestetään Kulttuuritehdas Korjaamolla Töölössä. #slsk19
Kuvat: Petri Krook/ Ulkoministeriö
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
The Finnish Chairmanship Team at the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Rovaniemi. Senior Arctic Official René Söderman.
Finland hosts the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting on 7 May in Rovaniemi. Minister-level representatives from the eight Arctic States will convene to review and approve work completed under the two-year Finnish Chairmanship to improve sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Vesa Häkkinen / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
Arctic Council Ministerial Dinner at Artikum Glass Hall. Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland Timo Soini and United States Secretary of State Michael Pompeo.
Finland hosts the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting on 7 May in Rovaniemi. Minister-level representatives from the eight Arctic States will convene to review and approve work completed under the two-year Finnish Chairmanship to improve sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Jouni Porsanger / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
Session Americana playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.
www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969
www.myspace.com/sessionamericana
www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana
www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...
Session Americana - from www.sessionamericana.com
This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.
"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston
and vocals that do the same"
— Performer Magazine
Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.
Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.
*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards
*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue
*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian
*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll
*Nominated "Best Live Act" 2007 - The Boston Music Awards
*Nominated "Best Americana Act" 2008 - The Boston Music Awards
“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”
— NE Performer Magazine
“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)
— The Noise
“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe
“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”
— The Boston Phoenix
“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression
“Now is the time to counter lies with facts, repeatedly and unflaggingly, while also proclaiming the greater truths: of our equal humanity, of decency, of compassion. Every precious ideal must be reiterated, every obvious argument made... 👉
...because an ugly idea left unchallenged begins to turn the color of normal.” ―Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 💯
“Now Is The Time To Talk About What We Are Actually Talking About” ― @newyorkermag 🙌
" Over the recent years, the world of news and media has been rife with scandal. Deception and corruption have shocked the nation. The need for a serious and reliable news source is crucial to our society, we are at breaking point. Feeling helpless? Wondering ‘what do we do?’ The answer lies in Preston . "
This Lancashire town has been through some dark times, and there to broadcast these crimes and atrocities has been the ‘ Lancashire Evening Post ’. "
Thank God there's no Wetherspoons there yet ! * Only joking M'lud * Satire
UM 20191031 Helsinki. Ministeri Skinnarin tilaisuus. Onko maailmassa kysyntää vapaalle, avoimelle ja sääntöpohjaiselle kaupalle? Kristiina Kauppinen, UM. Kuva: Kimmo Räisänen/ulkoministeriö
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Arctic Council Ministerial Dinner at Artikum Glass Hall. Minister for Foreign Affairs and External Trade of Iceland Guðlaugur Þór Þórðarson.
Finland hosts the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting on 7 May in Rovaniemi. Minister-level representatives from the eight Arctic States will convene to review and approve work completed under the two-year Finnish Chairmanship to improve sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Jouni Porsanger / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
United States Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov shook hands at the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting.
Finland hosts the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting on 7 May in Rovaniemi. Minister-level representatives from the eight Arctic States will convene to review and approve work completed under the two-year Finnish Chairmanship to improve sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Jouni Porsanger / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
Press conference by Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland Timo Soini, Secretary General Thorbjørn and Secretary of State for European Affairs Amélie de Montchalin.
The Session of the Committee of Ministers, to be held at Finlandia Hall on 17 May 2019, will mark the end of Finland’s Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. At the meeting, Finland will hand over the Presidency to France. More than 30 ministers from the member States of the Council of Europe will attend the meeting. The meeting will be chaired by Foreign Minister Timo Soini.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Kimmo Räisänen / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
Somedays I can fall out with my own shadow . . .
. . . and today was one of those days.
OK it's a bit obvious, but you should've seen the shite I was going to upload. Luckily I had enough decency to set up again and re-shoot.
I'm really starting to struggle for ideas now, and 90% of my 365 shots these days just happen - I set up with no idea what I'm going to do, take a load of shots and hope something good happens.
Sometimes an idea presents itself, like it did today, while I'm shooting, but the last time I set up with a specific idea in mind was nearly a week ago. This bugs me. I don't want to piss away the last 100 days or so of my 365 shooting the same shots over and over.
But enough about that.
The only thing that's photoshopped in this shot is the overlaid textures, and a lot of careful dodging to remove the texture that covered me on the left. I'm standing in the corner of my bedroom here, which is why there's a line down the middle of the shot - it's where the two walls join. I did Photoshop the line out but it looked fake without it. And I thought it accentuted the idea of the divide between me and my shadow.
Strobist info: SB600 at 1/32 power to camera left fired directly at subject to create the very defined shadow. The warm tone was created in Lightroom, I didn't use a gel for this shot (it didn't occur to me at the time and I stumbled on the Lightroom preset I used).