View allAll Photos Tagged disarray
i should start by thanking everyone who offered support and encouragement via their comments on my image yesterday. it meant a lot and there were so many wonderful suggestions on projects i can undertake to regain that spark i had during my 365.
i realized that i do have a project - my 52 weeks of film project. it had admittedly fallen into disarray as i have not been very organized about processing my film, scanning it, storing it, etc. so, i spent some time today getting organized and i feel re-energized about the project and determined to see it through.
this image was taken during my trip to visit brooke in LA in october. shot on fuji provia 400 reversal film on my pentacon-six.
she looks a little like a sea goddess here, doesn't she?
i posted a couple others on my blog.
St Andrew and St Patrick, Elveden, Suffolk
As you approach Elveden, there is Suffolk’s biggest war memorial, to those killed from the three parishes that meet at this point. It is over 30 metres high, and you used to be able to climb up the inside. Someone in the village told me that more people have been killed on the road in Elveden since the end of the War than there are names on the war memorial. I could well believe it. Until about five years ago, the busy traffic of the A11 Norwich to London road hurtled through the village past the church, slowed only to a ridiculously high 50 MPH. If something hits you at that speed, then no way on God's Earth are you going to survive. Now there's a bypass, thank goodness.
Many people will know St Andrew and St Patrick as another familiar landmark on the road, but as you are swept along in the stream of traffic you are unlikely to appreciate quite how extraordinary a building it is. For a start, it has two towers. And a cloister. And two naves, effectively. It has undergone three major building programmes in the space of thirty years, any one of which would have sufficed to transform it utterly.
If you had seen this church before the 1860s, you would have thought it nothing remarkable. A simple aisle-less, clerestory-less building, typical of, and indistinguishable from, hundreds of other East Anglian flint churches. A journey to nearby Barnham will show you what I mean.
The story of the transformation of Elveden church begins in the early 19th century, on the other side of the world. The leader of the Sikhs, Ranjit Singh, controlled a united Punjab that stretched from the Khyber Pass to the borders of Tibet. His capital was at Lahore, but more importantly it included the Sikh holy city of Amritsar. The wealth of this vast Kingdom made him a major power-player in early 19th century politics, and he was a particular thorn in the flesh of the British Imperial war machine. At this time, the Punjab had a great artistic and cultural flowering that was hardly matched anywhere in the world.
It was not to last. The British forced Ranjit Singh to the negotiating table over the disputed border with Afghanistan, and a year later, in 1839, he was dead. A power vacuum ensued, and his six year old son Duleep Singh became a pawn between rival factions. It was exactly the opportunity that the British had been waiting for, and in February 1846 they poured across the borders in their thousands. Within a month, almost half the child-Prince's Kingdom was in foreign hands. The British installed a governor, and started to harvest the fruits of their new territory's wealth.
Over the next three years, the British gradually extended their rule, putting down uprisings and turning local warlords. Given that the Sikh political structures were in disarray, this was achieved at considerable loss to the invaders - thousands of British soldiers were killed. They are hardly remembered today. British losses at the Crimea ten years later were much slighter, but perhaps the invention of photography in the meantime had given people at home a clearer picture of what was happening, and so the Crimea still remains in the British folk memory.
For much of the period of the war, Prince Duleep Singh had remained in the seclusion of his fabulous palace in Lahore. However, once the Punjab was secure, he was sent into remote internal exile.
The missionaries poured in. Bearing in mind the value that Sikh culture places upon education, perhaps it is no surprise that their influence came to bear on the young Prince, and he became a Christian. The extent to which this was forced upon him is lost to us today.
A year later, the Prince sailed for England with his mother. He was admitted to the royal court by Queen Victoria, spending time both at Windsor and, particularly, in Scotland, where he grew up. In the 1860s, the Prince and his mother were significant members of London society, but she died suddenly in 1863. He returned with her ashes to the Punjab, and there he married. His wife, Bamba Muller, was part German, part Ethiopian. As part of the British pacification of India programme, the young couple were granted the lease on a vast, derelict stately home in the depths of the Suffolk countryside. This was Elveden Hall. He would never see India again.
With some considerable energy, Duleep Singh set about transforming the fortunes of the moribund estate. Being particularly fond of hunting (as a six year old, he'd had two tutors - one for learning the court language, Persian, and the other for hunting to hawk) he developed the estate for game. The house was rebuilt in 1870.
The year before, the Prince had begun to glorify the church so that it was more in keeping with the splendour of his court. This church, dedicated to St Andrew, was what now forms the north aisle of the present church. There are many little details, but the restoration includes two major features; firstly, the remarkable roof, with its extraordinary sprung sprung wallposts set on arches suspended in the window embrasures, and, secondly, the font, which Mortlock tells us is in the Sicilian-Norman style. Supported by eight elegant columns, it is very beautiful, and the angel in particular is one of Suffolk's loveliest. You can see him in an image on the left.
Duleep Singh seems to have settled comfortably into the role of an English country gentleman. And then, something extraordinary happened. The Prince, steeped in the proud tradition of his homeland, decided to return to the Punjab to fulfill his destiny as the leader of the Sikh people. He got as far as Aden before the British arrested him, and sent him home. He then set about trying to recruit Russian support for a Sikh uprising, travelling secretly across Europe in the guise of an Irishman, Patrick Casey. In between these times of cloak and dagger espionage, he would return to Elveden to shoot grouse with the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. It is a remarkable story.
Ultimately, his attempts to save his people from colonial oppression were doomed to failure. He died in Paris in 1893, the British seemingly unshakeable in their control of India. He was buried at Elveden churchyard in a simple grave.
The chancel of the 1869 church is now screened off as a chapel, accessible from the chancel of the new church, but set in it is the 1894 memorial window to Maharaja Prince Duleep Singh, the Adoration of the Magi by Kempe & Co.
And so, the Lion of the North had come to a humble end. His five children, several named after British royal princes, had left Elveden behind; they all died childless, one of them as recently as 1957. The estate reverted to the Crown, being bought by the brewing family, the Guinnesses.
Edward Cecil Guinness, first Earl Iveagh, commemorated bountifully in James Joyce's 1916 Ulysses, took the estate firmly in hand. The English agricultural depression had begun in the 1880s, and it would not be ended until the Second World War drew the greater part of English agriculture back under cultivation. It had hit the Estate hard. But Elveden was transformed, and so was the church.
Iveagh appointed William Caroe to build an entirely new church beside the old. It would be of such a scale that the old church of St Andrew would form the south aisle of the new church. The size may have reflected Iveagh's visions of grandeur, but it was also a practical arrangement, to accommodate the greatly enlarged staff of the estate. Attendance at church was compulsory; non-conformists were also expected to go, and the Guinnesses did not employ Catholics.
Between 1904 and 1906, the new structure went up. Mortlock recalls that Pevsner thought it 'Art Nouveau Gothic', which sums it up well. Lancet windows in the north side of the old church were moved across to the south side, and a wide open nave built beside it. Curiously, although this is much higher than the old and incorporates a Suffolk-style roof, Caroe resisted the temptation of a clerestory. The new church was rebenched throughout, and the woodwork is of a very high quality. The dates of the restoration can be found on bench ends up in the new chancel, and exploring all the symbolism will detain you for hours. Emblems of the nations of the British Isles also feature in the floor tiles.
The new church was dedicated to St Patrick, patron Saint of the Guinnesses' homeland. At this time, of course, Ireland was still a part of the United Kingdom, and despite the tensions and troubles of the previous century the Union was probably stronger at the opening of the 20th century than it had ever been. This was to change very rapidly. From the first shots fired at the General Post Office in April 1916, to complete independence in 1922, was just six years. Dublin, a firmly protestant city, in which the Iveaghs commemorated their dead at the Anglican cathedral of St Patrick, became the capital city of a staunchly Catholic nation. The Anglicans, the so-called Protestant Ascendancy, left in their thousands during the 1920s, depopulating the great houses, and leaving hundreds of Anglican parish churches completely bereft of congregations. Apart from a concentration in the wealthy suburbs of south Dublin, there are hardly any Anglicans left in the Republic today. But St Patrick's cathedral maintains its lonely witness to long years of British rule; the Iveagh transept includes the vast war memorial to WWI dead, and all the colours of the Irish regiments - it is said that 99% of the Union flags in the Republic are in the Guinness chapel of St Patrick's cathedral. Dublin, of course, is famous as the biggest city in Europe without a Catholic cathedral. It still has two Anglican ones.
Against this background then, we arrived at Elveden. The church is uncomfortably close to the busy road, but the sparkle of flint in the recent rain made it a thing of great beauty. The main entrance is now at the west end of the new church. The surviving 14th century tower now forms the west end of the south aisle, and we will come back to the other tower beyond it in a moment.
You step into a wide open space under a high, heavy roof laden with angels. There is a wide aisle off to the south; this is the former nave, and still has something of that quality. The whole space is suffused with gorgeously coloured light from excellent 19th and 20th century windows. These include one by Frank Brangwyn, at the west end of the new nave. Andrew and Patrick look down from a heavenly host on a mother and father entertaining their children and a host of woodland animals by reading them stories. It is quite the loveliest thing in the building.
Other windows, mostly in the south aisle, are also lovely. Hugh Easton's commemorative window for the former USAAF base at Elveden is magnificent. Either side are windows to Iveaghs - a gorgeous George killing a dragon, also by Hugh Easton, and a curious 1971 assemblage depicting images from the lives of Edward Guinness's heir and his wife, which also works rather well. The effect of all three windows together is particularly fine when seen from the new nave.
Turning ahead of you to the new chancel, there is the mighty alabaster reredos. It cost £1,200 in 1906, about a quarter of a million in today’s money. It reflects the woodwork, in depicting patron Saints and East Anglian monarchs, around a surprisingly simple Supper at Emmaus. This reredos, and the Brangwyn window, reminded me of the work at the Guinness’s other spiritual home, St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, which also includes a window by Frank Brangwyn commisioned by them. Everything is of the highest quality. Rarely has the cliché ‘no expense spared’ been as accurate as it is here.
Up at the front, a little brass plate reminds us that Edward VII slept through a sermon here in 1908. How different it must have seemed to him from the carefree days with his old friend the Maharajah! Still, it must have been a great occasion, full of Edwardian pomp, and the glitz that only the fabulously rich can provide. Today, the church is still splendid, but the Guinesses are no longer fabulously rich, and attendance at church is no longer compulsory for estate workers; there are far fewer of them anyway. The Church of England is in decline everywhere; and, let us be honest, particularly so in this part of Suffolk, where it seems to have retreated to a state of siege. Today, the congregation of this mighty citadel is as low as half a dozen. The revolutionary disappearance of Anglican congregations in the Iveagh's homeland is now being repeated in a slow, inexorable English way.
You wander outside, and there are more curiosities. Set in the wall are two linked hands, presumably a relic from a broken 18th century memorial. They must have been set here when the wall was moved back in the 1950s. In the south chancel wall, the bottom of an egg-cup protrudes from among the flints. This is the trademark of the architect WD Caroe. To the east of the new chancel, Duleep Singh’s gravestone is a very simple one. It is quite different in character to the church behind it. A plaque on the east end of the church remembers the centenary of his death.
Continuing around the church, you come to the surprise of a long cloister, connecting the remodelled chancel door of the old church to the new bell tower. It was built in 1922 as a memorial to the wife of the first Earl Iveagh. Caroe was the architect again, and he installed eight bells, dedicated to Mary, Gabriel, Edmund, Andrew, Patrick, Christ, God the Father, and the King. The excellent guidebook recalls that his intention was for the bells to be cast to maintain the hum and tap tones of the renowned ancient Suffolk bells of Lavenham... thus the true bell music of the old type is maintained.
This church is magnificent, obviously enough. It has everything going for it, and is a national treasure. And yet, it has hardly any congregation. So, what is to be done?
If we continue to think of rural historic churches as nothing more than outstations of the Church of England, it is hard to see how some of them will survive. This church in particular has no future in its present form as a village parish church. New roles must be found, new ways to involve local people and encourage their use. One would have thought that this would be easier here than elsewhere.
The other provoking thought was that this building summed up almost two centuries of British imperial adventure, and that we lived in a world that still suffered from the consequences. It is worth remembering where the wealth that rebuilt St Andrew and St Patrick came from.
As so often in British imperial history, interference in other peoples’ problems and the imposition of short-term solutions has left massive scars and long-cast shadows. For the Punjab, as in Ireland, there are no simple solutions. Sheer proximity has, after several centuries of cruel and exploitative involvement, finally encouraged the British government to pursue a solution in Ireland that is not entirely based on self-interest. I fear that the Punjab is too far away for the British to care very much now about what they did there then.
Bryggen is best known for its waterfront facade, but I find the back also very interesting with its disarray of colours and lines (see another picture of mine).
Bryggen is the hanseatic settlement in Bergen, Norway. Imagine the two thousand male unmarried German traders living here amongst their stock of stockfish and fish oil. No mingling with the Norwegian population was (officially) allowed, this included women. Needless to say it was a rough bunch; 14 or 15-year old recruits arriving from Germany had to endure initiation rites that included getting repeatedly dunked naked into the frigid harbor, flogged with birch switches, and hung in the smoke of a fire stoked with various pungent debris. These rites were a part of the so-called "Bergen Games"...
Bryggen (Norwegian, "The Wharf"), also known as Tyskebryggen ("the German Wharf") is a series of Hanseatic commercial buildings lining the eastern side of Vågen, the fjord coming into Bergen, Norway. These storage houses annex offices and living quarters were rebuild in 1702 after a major fire, but the architecture dates from the High Middle Ages (11 to 13th century). The main trade was dried cod from Northern Norway in return for cereals from mainland Europe.
Bryggen was entered on Unesco's World Heritage listing in 1979.
[modified after Wikipedia]
Enjoy it better large and on black.
St Andrew and St Patrick, Elveden, Suffolk
As you approach Elveden, there is Suffolk’s biggest war memorial, to those killed from the three parishes that meet at this point. It is over 30 metres high, and you used to be able to climb up the inside. Someone in the village told me that more people have been killed on the road in Elveden since the end of the War than there are names on the war memorial. I could well believe it. Until about five years ago, the busy traffic of the A11 Norwich to London road hurtled through the village past the church, slowed only to a ridiculously high 50 MPH. If something hits you at that speed, then no way on God's Earth are you going to survive. Now there's a bypass, thank goodness.
Many people will know St Andrew and St Patrick as another familiar landmark on the road, but as you are swept along in the stream of traffic you are unlikely to appreciate quite how extraordinary a building it is. For a start, it has two towers. And a cloister. And two naves, effectively. It has undergone three major building programmes in the space of thirty years, any one of which would have sufficed to transform it utterly.
If you had seen this church before the 1860s, you would have thought it nothing remarkable. A simple aisle-less, clerestory-less building, typical of, and indistinguishable from, hundreds of other East Anglian flint churches. A journey to nearby Barnham will show you what I mean.
The story of the transformation of Elveden church begins in the early 19th century, on the other side of the world. The leader of the Sikhs, Ranjit Singh, controlled a united Punjab that stretched from the Khyber Pass to the borders of Tibet. His capital was at Lahore, but more importantly it included the Sikh holy city of Amritsar. The wealth of this vast Kingdom made him a major power-player in early 19th century politics, and he was a particular thorn in the flesh of the British Imperial war machine. At this time, the Punjab had a great artistic and cultural flowering that was hardly matched anywhere in the world.
It was not to last. The British forced Ranjit Singh to the negotiating table over the disputed border with Afghanistan, and a year later, in 1839, he was dead. A power vacuum ensued, and his six year old son Duleep Singh became a pawn between rival factions. It was exactly the opportunity that the British had been waiting for, and in February 1846 they poured across the borders in their thousands. Within a month, almost half the child-Prince's Kingdom was in foreign hands. The British installed a governor, and started to harvest the fruits of their new territory's wealth.
Over the next three years, the British gradually extended their rule, putting down uprisings and turning local warlords. Given that the Sikh political structures were in disarray, this was achieved at considerable loss to the invaders - thousands of British soldiers were killed. They are hardly remembered today. British losses at the Crimea ten years later were much slighter, but perhaps the invention of photography in the meantime had given people at home a clearer picture of what was happening, and so the Crimea still remains in the British folk memory.
For much of the period of the war, Prince Duleep Singh had remained in the seclusion of his fabulous palace in Lahore. However, once the Punjab was secure, he was sent into remote internal exile.
The missionaries poured in. Bearing in mind the value that Sikh culture places upon education, perhaps it is no surprise that their influence came to bear on the young Prince, and he became a Christian. The extent to which this was forced upon him is lost to us today.
A year later, the Prince sailed for England with his mother. He was admitted to the royal court by Queen Victoria, spending time both at Windsor and, particularly, in Scotland, where he grew up. In the 1860s, the Prince and his mother were significant members of London society, but she died suddenly in 1863. He returned with her ashes to the Punjab, and there he married. His wife, Bamba Muller, was part German, part Ethiopian. As part of the British pacification of India programme, the young couple were granted the lease on a vast, derelict stately home in the depths of the Suffolk countryside. This was Elveden Hall. He would never see India again.
With some considerable energy, Duleep Singh set about transforming the fortunes of the moribund estate. Being particularly fond of hunting (as a six year old, he'd had two tutors - one for learning the court language, Persian, and the other for hunting to hawk) he developed the estate for game. The house was rebuilt in 1870.
The year before, the Prince had begun to glorify the church so that it was more in keeping with the splendour of his court. This church, dedicated to St Andrew, was what now forms the north aisle of the present church. There are many little details, but the restoration includes two major features; firstly, the remarkable roof, with its extraordinary sprung sprung wallposts set on arches suspended in the window embrasures, and, secondly, the font, which Mortlock tells us is in the Sicilian-Norman style. Supported by eight elegant columns, it is very beautiful, and the angel in particular is one of Suffolk's loveliest. You can see him in an image on the left.
Duleep Singh seems to have settled comfortably into the role of an English country gentleman. And then, something extraordinary happened. The Prince, steeped in the proud tradition of his homeland, decided to return to the Punjab to fulfill his destiny as the leader of the Sikh people. He got as far as Aden before the British arrested him, and sent him home. He then set about trying to recruit Russian support for a Sikh uprising, travelling secretly across Europe in the guise of an Irishman, Patrick Casey. In between these times of cloak and dagger espionage, he would return to Elveden to shoot grouse with the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. It is a remarkable story.
Ultimately, his attempts to save his people from colonial oppression were doomed to failure. He died in Paris in 1893, the British seemingly unshakeable in their control of India. He was buried at Elveden churchyard in a simple grave.
The chancel of the 1869 church is now screened off as a chapel, accessible from the chancel of the new church, but set in it is the 1894 memorial window to Maharaja Prince Duleep Singh, the Adoration of the Magi by Kempe & Co.
And so, the Lion of the North had come to a humble end. His five children, several named after British royal princes, had left Elveden behind; they all died childless, one of them as recently as 1957. The estate reverted to the Crown, being bought by the brewing family, the Guinnesses.
Edward Cecil Guinness, first Earl Iveagh, commemorated bountifully in James Joyce's 1916 Ulysses, took the estate firmly in hand. The English agricultural depression had begun in the 1880s, and it would not be ended until the Second World War drew the greater part of English agriculture back under cultivation. It had hit the Estate hard. But Elveden was transformed, and so was the church.
Iveagh appointed William Caroe to build an entirely new church beside the old. It would be of such a scale that the old church of St Andrew would form the south aisle of the new church. The size may have reflected Iveagh's visions of grandeur, but it was also a practical arrangement, to accommodate the greatly enlarged staff of the estate. Attendance at church was compulsory; non-conformists were also expected to go, and the Guinnesses did not employ Catholics.
Between 1904 and 1906, the new structure went up. Mortlock recalls that Pevsner thought it 'Art Nouveau Gothic', which sums it up well. Lancet windows in the north side of the old church were moved across to the south side, and a wide open nave built beside it. Curiously, although this is much higher than the old and incorporates a Suffolk-style roof, Caroe resisted the temptation of a clerestory. The new church was rebenched throughout, and the woodwork is of a very high quality. The dates of the restoration can be found on bench ends up in the new chancel, and exploring all the symbolism will detain you for hours. Emblems of the nations of the British Isles also feature in the floor tiles.
The new church was dedicated to St Patrick, patron Saint of the Guinnesses' homeland. At this time, of course, Ireland was still a part of the United Kingdom, and despite the tensions and troubles of the previous century the Union was probably stronger at the opening of the 20th century than it had ever been. This was to change very rapidly. From the first shots fired at the General Post Office in April 1916, to complete independence in 1922, was just six years. Dublin, a firmly protestant city, in which the Iveaghs commemorated their dead at the Anglican cathedral of St Patrick, became the capital city of a staunchly Catholic nation. The Anglicans, the so-called Protestant Ascendancy, left in their thousands during the 1920s, depopulating the great houses, and leaving hundreds of Anglican parish churches completely bereft of congregations. Apart from a concentration in the wealthy suburbs of south Dublin, there are hardly any Anglicans left in the Republic today. But St Patrick's cathedral maintains its lonely witness to long years of British rule; the Iveagh transept includes the vast war memorial to WWI dead, and all the colours of the Irish regiments - it is said that 99% of the Union flags in the Republic are in the Guinness chapel of St Patrick's cathedral. Dublin, of course, is famous as the biggest city in Europe without a Catholic cathedral. It still has two Anglican ones.
Against this background then, we arrived at Elveden. The church is uncomfortably close to the busy road, but the sparkle of flint in the recent rain made it a thing of great beauty. The main entrance is now at the west end of the new church. The surviving 14th century tower now forms the west end of the south aisle, and we will come back to the other tower beyond it in a moment.
You step into a wide open space under a high, heavy roof laden with angels. There is a wide aisle off to the south; this is the former nave, and still has something of that quality. The whole space is suffused with gorgeously coloured light from excellent 19th and 20th century windows. These include one by Frank Brangwyn, at the west end of the new nave. Andrew and Patrick look down from a heavenly host on a mother and father entertaining their children and a host of woodland animals by reading them stories. It is quite the loveliest thing in the building.
Other windows, mostly in the south aisle, are also lovely. Hugh Easton's commemorative window for the former USAAF base at Elveden is magnificent. Either side are windows to Iveaghs - a gorgeous George killing a dragon, also by Hugh Easton, and a curious 1971 assemblage depicting images from the lives of Edward Guinness's heir and his wife, which also works rather well. The effect of all three windows together is particularly fine when seen from the new nave.
Turning ahead of you to the new chancel, there is the mighty alabaster reredos. It cost £1,200 in 1906, about a quarter of a million in today’s money. It reflects the woodwork, in depicting patron Saints and East Anglian monarchs, around a surprisingly simple Supper at Emmaus. This reredos, and the Brangwyn window, reminded me of the work at the Guinness’s other spiritual home, St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, which also includes a window by Frank Brangwyn commisioned by them. Everything is of the highest quality. Rarely has the cliché ‘no expense spared’ been as accurate as it is here.
Up at the front, a little brass plate reminds us that Edward VII slept through a sermon here in 1908. How different it must have seemed to him from the carefree days with his old friend the Maharajah! Still, it must have been a great occasion, full of Edwardian pomp, and the glitz that only the fabulously rich can provide. Today, the church is still splendid, but the Guinesses are no longer fabulously rich, and attendance at church is no longer compulsory for estate workers; there are far fewer of them anyway. The Church of England is in decline everywhere; and, let us be honest, particularly so in this part of Suffolk, where it seems to have retreated to a state of siege. Today, the congregation of this mighty citadel is as low as half a dozen. The revolutionary disappearance of Anglican congregations in the Iveagh's homeland is now being repeated in a slow, inexorable English way.
You wander outside, and there are more curiosities. Set in the wall are two linked hands, presumably a relic from a broken 18th century memorial. They must have been set here when the wall was moved back in the 1950s. In the south chancel wall, the bottom of an egg-cup protrudes from among the flints. This is the trademark of the architect WD Caroe. To the east of the new chancel, Duleep Singh’s gravestone is a very simple one. It is quite different in character to the church behind it. A plaque on the east end of the church remembers the centenary of his death.
Continuing around the church, you come to the surprise of a long cloister, connecting the remodelled chancel door of the old church to the new bell tower. It was built in 1922 as a memorial to the wife of the first Earl Iveagh. Caroe was the architect again, and he installed eight bells, dedicated to Mary, Gabriel, Edmund, Andrew, Patrick, Christ, God the Father, and the King. The excellent guidebook recalls that his intention was for the bells to be cast to maintain the hum and tap tones of the renowned ancient Suffolk bells of Lavenham... thus the true bell music of the old type is maintained.
This church is magnificent, obviously enough. It has everything going for it, and is a national treasure. And yet, it has hardly any congregation. So, what is to be done?
If we continue to think of rural historic churches as nothing more than outstations of the Church of England, it is hard to see how some of them will survive. This church in particular has no future in its present form as a village parish church. New roles must be found, new ways to involve local people and encourage their use. One would have thought that this would be easier here than elsewhere.
The other provoking thought was that this building summed up almost two centuries of British imperial adventure, and that we lived in a world that still suffered from the consequences. It is worth remembering where the wealth that rebuilt St Andrew and St Patrick came from.
As so often in British imperial history, interference in other peoples’ problems and the imposition of short-term solutions has left massive scars and long-cast shadows. For the Punjab, as in Ireland, there are no simple solutions. Sheer proximity has, after several centuries of cruel and exploitative involvement, finally encouraged the British government to pursue a solution in Ireland that is not entirely based on self-interest. I fear that the Punjab is too far away for the British to care very much now about what they did there then.
Hit 'L' to view on large.
No real history found scouring the internet but my experience is that its harder to get into a prison than out.
The impromptu 2 day tour with camerashy and host to France and Belgium, with some new places, a lot of travel with minimal sleep and some goals being accomplished by getting to a certain school.
Full set here:
www.flickr.com/photos/timster1973/sets/72157633897345028/
Also on Facebook:
www.Facebook.com/TimKniftonPhotography
My blog here:
timster1973.wordpress.com
While doing a later afternoon walk, I saw a large group of people huddled around a squad car near the Philosophers Stones atop State Street. Honestly, my mind went into a little negative place and thought the worst (as unfortunately the park gets a bad rap from a few bad apples). As luck may have it, I was happy to find that everyone (the police included) were gathered around a leopard looking feline sitting on the sidewalk. Just chilling out and enjoying the day, the owner obviously had brought it out to get a daily dose of sunshine. A few minutes passed until I noticed the harness, I was in such disarray about a cat hanging out on State Street; if it were a dog I would't be surprised.
As I thought of all the questions I had for the owner, the majestic cat began to walk and the crowd dispersed. I lucked out and approached with caution, because while not so timid to animals I wasn't sure how the owner would react to someone asking if they could take a photo of the two of them. She easily agreed and introduced herself as Michelle, and her cat Jax; a one year old Leopard and Bengal mix. Dropping nearly $1000 dollars on him, Jax is worth every cent. Michelle is a student at the university studying Bio Chemistry, and when she is not busy with the books and labs; Jax keeps her plenty busy.
So while I had obtained my strangers name and a little about her for my 608 strangers, I was left wanting to know more about Jax. As we chatted, he looked at a tree quizzically as if he wanted to climb it and then before my very eyes he jumped from the ground to the bark and started to scale the tree. With his leash/harness still attached Michelle brought him back to reality, with a laugh she explained to me that often times he has more energy then she does. Fully grown at one year old, strictly eating raw meat for his diet can be pricey but to keep his fancy figure Michelle takes Jax for walks often. Not only is he a good companion for walks, but when he wants something he is very vocal and creative in getting attention. Michelle told me that one time Jax ripped the roll of toilet paper up and and threw it into the bowl to get her attention. (Smart cat!) He loves to hunt and has only two fears; basketballs and Swiffers, funny things in my mind to be afraid of but I am not a cat.
I had a business card ready in my pocket, and expressed if she wanted more photos of her cat OR just to read my account of our meeting to check out my site. We left no longer as strangers, and I was a tad bit more educated on this fancy feline. While most of the back story is about Jax, I am happy to share this with my fellow members of the 100 strangers community. The group has opened my eyes to so many awesome, talented photographers I don't even know where to begin. Check it out and embark on a magical journey into the realm of strangers, becoming a little less strange!
118/100
This look is blogged on Eclectic Equations here...
eclecticequations.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/creepy-kawaii-la...
The most "interesting" church we visited, the Toulouse Cathedral is not so much a building as a collection of modifications, renovations and projects in various stages of completion, abandonment or disarray.
The exact date of the original building is unknown; the first mention of a church building on that site is found in a charter of 844. In 1073 the bishop of Toulouse commenced work on a more elaborate structure, followed by additional construction in the 13th century. [source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toulouse_Cathedral ]
As you can see from this view, there are multiple building styles. The irregular west front exists because the cathedral consists of two incomplete churches, the first dating from the early 13th century, which includes the rose window from 1230; and the other begun in about 1272, on a new plan and a different axis, which was later abandoned.
Mission Log: 8.1
...
This is Carver. The aftermath of Gand was fierce, overwhelming, and we were all left in disarray of the experience. In the firefight, he had made his final stand, and he had been killed by Grievous’ own hand, in a heroic attempt save us all. But, That was a different story, a different mission, and it isn’t the moment for flashbacks.
After the harsh environment of Gand, this was bliss. I felt almost limitless as I adapted to the new terrain, moving swiftly and easily through the water, under the surface of Manaan’s Ocean. However, I didn’t have long to enjoy it, for we were quickly assigned our first objective. We were ordered to investigate an abandoned Kolto mining station, who we had lost contact with days before. Separatist involvement was expected in the situation, and our mission was to take full control of the station. However, the droids weren’t our only problem. We had detected large amounts of Limpet Parasites surrounding the facility, who usually were known to feed on spilled oil and other substances in the water. Unfortunately, the mass amount of Kolto that they have consumed seems to have encouraged them to attach themselves to organic life forms, which will allow them to take over their intentions, and will possibly cause a threat to our troops. We were assigned to break through the defenses surrounding the compound, and extract any secure Selkath workers that were trapped inside the facility. The problem was, our armor didn’t make us immune to the infestation either, so that when we were entered the building, we were aware that infected miners and aquatic droids wouldn’t be our only enemies we may have to fight.
...
Connection Dropped.
Zhangye Danxia Landform is surrounded by colorful hills, which seem to rise and fall like waves: with rock strata of different colors mixed in graceful disarray, it is an imposing and magnificent sight.
Steamrail's army of loco crews debrief in Traralgon after an eventful run from Melbourne, during which K153 (running as K100) suffered a mechanical fault in the hills between Moe and Morwell. The subsequent two-hour delay threw the day's timetable into disarray, with the return trip having to dodge and weave around scheduled passenger and freight traffic.
After four generations of imperial adoptions, a male heir was finally born-yet this auspicious occasion led to the ruling dynasty's downfall. Commodus, the eldest surviving son of Marcus Aurelius and Faustina the Younger, inherited an empire largely at peace but grew into an unhinged tyrant. He sentenced many who challenged his rule to death and executed his wife, Crispina, after the marriage failed to produce an heir. Commodus was assassinated in 192, throwing the empire into a state of disarray.
Out of the chaos, Septimius Severus seized power. The first emperor to hail from North Africa, Severus had no familial connection to the previous dynasty, but he retroactively adopted himself into it. Calling himself a son of Marcus Aurelius and a brother of Commodus, he justified his newfound authority through this invented lineage.
As Severan power solidified, portraits of Severus and his wife Julia Domna, who came from an elite family in Roman Syria, diverged from those of their predecessors. As seen here, Severus wore corkscrew curls over his forehead with a divided beard, and Julia wore an elaborate wig (although some historians dispute it's a wig and feel it's just an elaborate hairstyle).
Roman, Imperial, Severan era, early 2nd century CE. Possibly found in Veio, Italy.
Torlonia Collection, Rome, on loan for an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago (ARTIC)
Usually we see the male cardinal at his finest, pleased with his appearance.....this one, Mr. C...yes, he's become Mr. C. to me...is a regular to our backyard....whistles to make his presence known; for this shot he was about 10 feet away, and I was clicking away with him not minding at all....tender to see him feed the female, I have yet to get a shot.
I felt beholden to present him in the best manner possible, hence the texture and frame. Thank you, Anna...
Hugs to you flickr friends and wishing you a grand end of the week and weekend!!!
My 6 yr old helped me to sort my modern Barbie accessories into plastic containers this weekend. He saw me doing it and wanted to help. He gets a kick out of the mini food and electronics.
These storage boxes from Walmart are nice because the size of the storage spaces can be altered.
The food items will get moved to my diorama box, but this was what I did for now to get things out if the small baggies. I hope to repaint a few of the accessories like the pink headphones and a few of the drinks.
I made some of the purses and scarves.
Their clothing is still in disarray. I do have all curvy stuff together and then everything else is in clear 12x12 scrap book paper containers. I plan to do more sorting of that. It is nice to be able to see what I've got!
Organization of modern Barbie (some Liv) accessories
Clear storage boxes from Walmart in the craft aisle
A look at .Birdy.'s Deer Backpack available @ TCF Event.
For more information please visit my blog post @ The Spouge!.
<3
Astrexia
Loneliness is the word that makes a human being feel awkward and confused. The theme of solitude as well as the theme of death feels quiet forbidden. In the modern society loneliness is considered to be a personal tragedy. But if one gets abstracted from the propaganda of loneliness escape is the loneliness so terrible as it seems to be?
Solitude phenomenon is significant. The fear of being lonely captivates a person. A human being tries to fill oneself with unnecessary bonds, sequence of plain acquaintances and the baggage of offences. All this is done to crowd oneself with people having the same conflict in the desire to feel oneself not alone and needed for a short period of time.
The thing that calls disarray in loneliness enchants me. Solitude makes a person reflect on the question: ‘Who am I?’. This question sooner or later brings up another kind of question- ‘What for am I?’ That is how a person comes into the search of the deep meaning. Such questions are complex and painful. They are capable of denuding unattractive humanity state, its insignificance in the universe, its weaknesses.
However, only the immersion into solitude is the only way to truly understand who you are. A person in the state of loneliness can hear his inner voice, intuition and is capable of giving self-analyses. An escape from solitude is an escape from oneself. If you are not in comfort with oneself, think if you have ever felt yourself comfortable?
Consciousness of self-solitude helps to realize your unique nature. In the labyrinths of solitude a person can bare his nature, can become absolutely unarmed.
A will for solitude means a way to art, to a creative process and to infinite love of the world. To be honest, I tend to think that we are all lonely. Nevertheless, sometimes we are ready to let another human being in, to divide our loneliness together and see if it works. Who knows, maybe we are not as lonely as we want to look like?
| blog
don't – cry it's only the rhythm
a beautiful recording with all its sound staging, imaging and depth... an acoustic orgasm (on the right system :P)
rho thanks: haus of darcy | lovely disarray | zibska | may soul | spellbound | sian | anc | azoury | peqe | the mesh project | trevor horn & ms. grace jones
The path is not clear.
Your name is Larry Baggett.
These two truths, one of which would change due to the second, are forever intertwined in the never-ending corridors of history.
Along the path of Route 66 in Jerome, MO, off Exit 172 for Highway D, a lone memorial and passageway stands forgotten by most and in increasing disrepair and disarray. It is a place to grieve, a doorway into the next wherever for a broken and decimated people trying to pass on, and a statement of reverence by an irreverent man who decided to believe and then took an opportunity to do his part to redress an uneven balance.
Larry Baggett bought the land and built a house for his wife on the property. Among the architectural touches were a stone retaining wall, which started events in motion. Unknown to Larry at the time, his property rested on the path of the "Trail of Tears," the name given to the route by the Cherokee and other Indian tribes forced off their native lands during President Andrew Jackson's tenure after the signing of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The path was so named because the forced evacuations of the Indian tribes, including women and children, occurred mostly during times of inclement weather, and tens of thousands of Native Americans died from a combination of sickness, exposure and starvation on their way to reservation lands in Oklahoma.
Where Larry enters the story is in his telling, before his passing in 2003, of why the various memorial sculptures and tributes to the Indian culture and population are in abundance through the property. After he built the stone wall, a knocking on his door during the nighttime hours commenced and persisted even after his checking and finding no mortal person on his property; the story goes that even his dogs, who slept by the door, were unaffected by the knocking. After this went on for a time, Larry describes a visit from an elderly Indian man, "who looked about 150 years old," who explained to him that the property was on the passageway of the Trail of Tears and that the spirits of the Cherokee could not pass until stairs were built over the stone wall to allow passage.
Larry did in fact build the stairs, and the knocking apparently ceased as soon as they were finished. He went on to build other tributes to Indian living and culture, including a sweat lodge, a garden house, fountains, and the stone entranceway to his property that you see here. It is unfortunate that the property, which was apparently bought in 2013, has suffered indignities such as missing heads from the sculptures and broken windows throughout the various buildings on the property in the last few years.
If you are interested in more information, several sources, both on this Route 66 memorial and on the Trail of Tears itself are available. David Wickline's Images of 66 book has a post on it, and there is a Facebook page under the title Larry Baggett's Trail of Tears Memorial, hosted by his grandson, that has several interviews with Larry as well as many photos including, as of this writing, some recently discovered photos at the grandson's aunt's house of the construction as it was being completed.
A new faction for The Ravage:
With the world in disarray, Argentina had no choice but to join sides or become overtaken with civil collapse. Although in an alliance with Russia, the Argentinian government has different motives for fighting.
It's been at least four years since I've worn a dress (and even then it was for Halloween). It's been over a decade since I've worn a dress that came above my knees. Today I break the fast.
(This is taken AFTER the night of dancing, so the dress is in a state of moderate disarray -- as am i.)
Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky (Russian: Владимир Семёнович Высоцкий, IPA: [vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr sʲɪˈmʲɵnəvʲɪtɕ vɨˈsotskʲɪj]; 25 January 1938 – 25 July 1980), was a Soviet singer-songwriter, poet, and actor who had an immense and enduring effect on Soviet culture. He became widely known for his unique singing style and for his lyrics, which featured social and political commentary in often humorous street-jargon. He was also a prominent stage- and screen-actor. Though the official Soviet cultural establishment largely ignored his work, he was remarkably popular during his lifetime, and to this day exerts significant influence on many of Russia's musicians and actors.
Vysotsky was born in Moscow at the 3rd Meshchanskaya St. (61/2) maternity hospital. His father, Semyon Volfovich (Vladimirovich) (1915–1997), was a colonel in the Soviet army, originally from Kiev. Vladimir's mother, Nina Maksimovna, (née Seryogina, 1912–2003) was Russian, and worked as a German language translator.[3] Vysotsky's family lived in a Moscow communal flat in harsh conditions, and had serious financial difficulties. When Vladimir was 10 months old, Nina had to return to her office in the Transcript bureau of the Soviet Ministry of Geodesy and Cartography (engaged in making German maps available for the Soviet military) so as to help her husband earn their family's living.
Vladimir's theatrical inclinations became obvious at an early age, and were supported by his paternal grandmother Dora Bronshteyn, a theater fan. The boy used to recite poems, standing on a chair and "flinging hair backwards, like a real poet," often using in his public speeches expressions he could hardly have heard at home. Once, at the age of two, when he had tired of the family's guests' poetry requests, he, according to his mother, sat himself under the New-year tree with a frustrated air about him and sighed: "You silly tossers! Give a child some respite!" His sense of humor was extraordinary, but often baffling for people around him. A three-year-old could jeer his father in a bathroom with unexpected poetic improvisation ("Now look what's here before us / Our goat's to shave himself!") or appall unwanted guests with some street folk song, promptly steering them away. Vysotsky remembered those first three years of his life in the autobiographical Ballad of Childhood (Баллада о детстве, 1975), one of his best-known songs.
As World War II broke out, Semyon Vysotsky, a military reserve officer, joined the Soviet army and went to fight the Nazis. Nina and Vladimir were evacuated to the village of Vorontsovka, in Orenburg Oblast where the boy had to spend six days a week in a kindergarten and his mother worked for twelve hours a day in a chemical factory. In 1943, both returned to their Moscow apartment at 1st Meschanskaya St., 126. In September 1945, Vladimir joined the 1st class of the 273rd Moscow Rostokino region School.
In December 1946, Vysotsky's parents divorced. From 1947 to 1949, Vladimir lived with Semyon Vladimirovich (then an army Major) and his Armenian wife, Yevgenya Stepanovna Liholatova, whom the boy called "aunt Zhenya", at a military base in Eberswalde in the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany (later East Germany). "We decided that our son would stay with me. Vladimir came to stay with me in January 1947, and my second wife, Yevgenia, became Vladimir's second mother for many years to come. They had much in common and liked each other, which made me really happy," Semyon Vysotsky later remembered. Here living conditions, compared to those of Nina's communal Moscow flat, were infinitely better; the family occupied the whole floor of a two-storeyed house, and the boy had a room to himself for the first time in his life. In 1949 along with his stepmother Vladimir returned to Moscow. There he joined the 5th class of the Moscow 128th School and settled at Bolshoy Karetny [ru], 15 (where they had to themselves two rooms of a four-roomed flat), with "auntie Zhenya" (who was just 28 at the time), a woman of great kindness and warmth whom he later remembered as his second mother. In 1953 Vysotsky, now much interested in theater and cinema, joined the Drama courses led by Vladimir Bogomolov.[7] "No one in my family has had anything to do with arts, no actors or directors were there among them. But my mother admired theater and from the earliest age... each and every Saturday I've been taken up with her to watch one play or the other. And all of this, it probably stayed with me," he later reminisced. The same year he received his first ever guitar, a birthday present from Nina Maksimovna; a close friend, bard and a future well-known Soviet pop lyricist Igor Kokhanovsky taught him basic chords. In 1955 Vladimir re-settled into his mother's new home at 1st Meshchanskaya, 76. In June of the same year he graduated from school with five A's.
In 1955, Vladimir enrolled into the Moscow State University of Civil Engineering, but dropped out after just one semester to pursue an acting career. In June 1956 he joined Boris Vershilov's class at the Moscow Art Theatre Studio-Institute. It was there that he met the 3rd course student Iza Zhukova who four years later became his wife; soon the two lovers settled at the 1st Meschanskaya flat, in a common room, shielded off by a folding screen. It was also in the Studio that Vysotsky met Bulat Okudzhava for the first time, an already popular underground bard. He was even more impressed by his Russian literature teacher Andrey Sinyavsky who along with his wife often invited students to his home to stage improvised disputes and concerts. In 1958 Vysotsky's got his first Moscow Art Theatre role: that of Porfiry Petrovich in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. In 1959 he was cast in his first cinema role, that of student Petya in Vasily Ordynsky's The Yearlings (Сверстницы). On 20 June 1960, Vysotsky graduated from the MAT theater institute and joined the Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre (led by Boris Ravenskikh at the time) where he spent (with intervals) almost three troubled years. These were marred by numerous administrative sanctions, due to "lack of discipline" and occasional drunken sprees which were a reaction, mainly, to the lack of serious roles and his inability to realise his artistic potential. A short stint in 1962 at the Moscow Theater of Miniatures (administered at the time by Vladimir Polyakov) ended with him being fired, officially "for a total lack of sense of humour."
Vysotsky's second and third films, Dima Gorin's Career and 713 Requests Permission to Land, were interesting only for the fact that in both he had to be beaten up (in the first case by Aleksandr Demyanenko). "That was the way cinema greeted me," he later jokingly remarked. In 1961, Vysotsky wrote his first ever proper song, called "Tattoo" (Татуировка), which started a long and colourful cycle of artfully stylized criminal underworld romantic stories, full of undercurrents and witty social comments. In June 1963, while shooting Penalty Kick (directed by Veniamin Dorman and starring Mikhail Pugovkin), Vysotsky used the Gorky Film Studio to record an hour-long reel-to-reel cassette of his own songs; copies of it quickly spread and the author's name became known in Moscow and elsewhere (although many of these songs were often being referred to as either "traditional" or "anonymous"). Just several months later Riga-based chess grandmaster Mikhail Tal was heard praising the author of "Bolshoy Karetny" (Большой Каретный) and Anna Akhmatova (in a conversation with Joseph Brodsky) was quoting Vysotsky's number "I was the soul of a bad company..." taking it apparently for some brilliant piece of anonymous street folklore. In October 1964 Vysotsky recorded in chronological order 48 of his own songs, his first self-made Complete works of... compilation, which boosted his popularity as a new Moscow folk underground star.
In 1964, director Yuri Lyubimov invited Vysotsky to join the newly created Taganka Theatre. "'I've written some songs of my own. Won't you listen?' – he asked. I agreed to listen to just one of them, expecting our meeting to last for no more than five minutes. Instead I ended up listening to him for an entire 1.5 hours," Lyubimov remembered years later of this first audition. On 19 September 1964, Vysotsky debuted in Bertolt Brecht's The Good Person of Szechwan as the Second God (not to count two minor roles). A month later he came on stage as a dragoon captain (Bela's father) in Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time. It was in Taganka that Vysotsky started to sing on stage; the War theme becoming prominent in his musical repertoire. In 1965 Vysotsky appeared in the experimental Poet and Theater (Поэт и Театр, February) show, based on Andrey Voznesensky's work and then Ten Days that Shook the World (after John Reed's book, April) and was commissioned by Lyubimov to write songs exclusively for Taganka's new World War II play. The Fallen and the Living (Павшие и Живые), premiered in October 1965, featured Vysotsky's "Stars" (Звёзды), "The Soldiers of Heeresgruppe Mitte" (Солдаты группы "Центр") and "Penal Battalions" (Штрафные батальоны), the striking examples of a completely new kind of a war song, never heard in his country before. As veteran screenwriter Nikolay Erdman put it (in conversation with Lyubimov), "Professionally, I can well understand how Mayakovsky or Seryozha Yesenin were doing it. How Volodya Vysotsky does it is totally beyond me." With his songs – in effect, miniature theatrical dramatizations (usually with a protagonist and full of dialogues), Vysotsky instantly achieved such level of credibility that real life former prisoners, war veterans, boxers, footballers refused to believe that the author himself had never served his time in prisons and labor camps, or fought in the War, or been a boxing/football professional. After the second of the two concerts at the Leningrad Molecular Physics institute (that was his actual debut as a solo musical performer) Vysotsky left a note for his fans in a journal which ended with words: "Now that you've heard all these songs, please, don't you make a mistake of mixing me with my characters, I am not like them at all. With love, Vysotsky, 20 April 1965, XX c." Excuses of this kind he had to make throughout his performing career. At least one of Vysotsky's song themes – that of alcoholic abuse – was worryingly autobiographical, though. By the time his breakthrough came in 1967, he'd suffered several physical breakdowns and once was sent (by Taganka's boss) to a rehabilitation clinic, a visit he on several occasions repeated since.
Brecht's Life of Galileo (premiered on 17 May 1966), transformed by Lyubimov into a powerful allegory of Soviet intelligentsia's set of moral and intellectual dilemmas, brought Vysotsky his first leading theater role (along with some fitness lessons: he had to perform numerous acrobatic tricks on stage). Press reaction was mixed, some reviewers disliked the actor's overt emotionalism, but it was for the first time ever that Vysotsky's name appeared in Soviet papers. Film directors now were treating him with respect. Viktor Turov's war film I Come from the Childhood where Vysotsky got his first ever "serious" (neither comical, nor villainous) role in cinema, featured two of his songs: a spontaneous piece called "When It's Cold" (Холода) and a dark, Unknown soldier theme-inspired classic "Common Graves" (На братских могилах), sung behind the screen by the legendary Mark Bernes.
Stanislav Govorukhin and Boris Durov's The Vertical (1967), a mountain climbing drama, starring Vysotsky (as Volodya the radioman), brought him all-round recognition and fame. Four of the numbers used in the film (including "Song of a Friend [fi]" (Песня о друге), released in 1968 by the Soviet recording industry monopolist Melodiya disc to become an unofficial hit) were written literally on the spot, nearby Elbrus, inspired by professional climbers' tales and one curious hotel bar conversation with a German guest who 25 years ago happened to climb these very mountains in a capacity of an Edelweiss division fighter. Another 1967 film, Kira Muratova's Brief Encounters featured Vysotsky as the geologist Maxim (paste-bearded again) with a now trademark off-the-cuff musical piece, a melancholy improvisation called "Things to Do" (Дела). All the while Vysotsky continued working hard at Taganka, with another important role under his belt (that of Mayakovsky or, rather one of the latter character's five different versions) in the experimental piece called Listen! (Послушайте!), and now regularly gave semi-official concerts where audiences greeted him as a cult hero.
In the end of 1967 Vysotsky got another pivotal theater role, that of Khlopusha [ru] in Pugachov (a play based on a poem by Sergei Yesenin), often described as one of Taganka's finest. "He put into his performance all the things that he excelled at and, on the other hand, it was Pugachyov that made him discover his own potential," – Soviet critic Natalya Krymova wrote years later. Several weeks after the premiere, infuriated by the actor's increasing unreliability triggered by worsening drinking problems, Lyubimov fired him – only to let him back again several months later (and thus begin the humiliating sacked-then-pardoned routine which continued for years). In June 1968 a Vysotsky-slagging campaign was launched in the Soviet press. First Sovetskaya Rossiya commented on the "epidemic spread of immoral, smutty songs," allegedly promoting "criminal world values, alcoholism, vice and immorality" and condemned their author for "sowing seeds of evil." Then Komsomolskaya Pravda linked Vysotsky with black market dealers selling his tapes somewhere in Siberia. Composer Dmitry Kabalevsky speaking from the Union of Soviet Composers' Committee tribune criticised the Soviet radio for giving an ideologically dubious, "low-life product" like "Song of a Friend" (Песня о друге) an unwarranted airplay. Playwright Alexander Stein who in his Last Parade play used several of Vysotsky's songs, was chastised by a Ministry of Culture official for "providing a tribune for this anti-Soviet scum." The phraseology prompted commentators in the West to make parallels between Vysotsky and Mikhail Zoschenko, another Soviet author who'd been officially labeled "scum" some 20 years ago.
Two of Vysotsky's 1968 films, Gennady Poloka's Intervention (premiered in May 1987) where he was cast as Brodsky, a dodgy even if highly artistic character, and Yevgeny Karelov's Two Comrades Were Serving (a gun-toting White Army officer Brusentsov who in the course of the film shoots his friend, his horse, Oleg Yankovsky's good guy character and, finally himself) – were severely censored, first of them shelved for twenty years. At least four of Vysotsky's 1968 songs, "Save Our Souls" (Спасите наши души), "The Wolfhunt" (Охота на волков), "Gypsy Variations" (Моя цыганская) and "The Steam-bath in White" (Банька по-белому), were hailed later as masterpieces. It was at this point that 'proper' love songs started to appear in Vysotsky's repertoire, documenting the beginning of his passionate love affair with French actress Marina Vlady.
In 1969 Vysotsky starred in two films: The Master of Taiga where he played a villainous Siberian timber-floating brigadier, and more entertaining Dangerous Tour. The latter was criticized in the Soviet press for taking a farcical approach to the subject of the Bolshevik underground activities but for a wider Soviet audience this was an important opportunity to enjoy the charismatic actor's presence on big screen. In 1970, after visiting the dislodged Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at his dacha and having a lengthy conversation with him, Vysotsky embarked on a massive and by Soviet standards dangerously commercial concert tour in Soviet Central Asia and then brought Marina Vlady to director Viktor Turov's place so as to investigate her Belarusian roots. The pair finally wed on 1 December 1970 (causing furore among the Moscow cultural and political elite) and spent a honeymoon in Georgia. This was the highly productive period for Vysotsky, resulting in numerous new songs, including the anthemic "I Hate" (Я не люблю), sentimental "Lyricale" (Лирическая) and dramatic war epics "He Didn't Return from the Battle" (Он не вернулся из боя) and "The Earth Song" (Песня о Земле) among many others.
In 1971 a drinking spree-related nervous breakdown brought Vysotsky to the Moscow Kashchenko clinic [ru]. By this time he has been suffering from alcoholism. Many of his songs from this period deal, either directly or metaphorically, with alcoholism and insanity. Partially recovered (due to the encouraging presence of Marina Vladi), Vysotsky embarked on a successful Ukrainian concert tour and wrote a cluster of new songs. On 29 November 1971 Taganka's Hamlet premiered, a groundbreaking Lyubimov's production with Vysotsky in the leading role, that of a lone intellectual rebel, rising to fight the cruel state machine.
Also in 1971 Vysotsky was invited to play the lead in The Sannikov Land, the screen adaptation of Vladimir Obruchev's science fiction,[47] which he wrote several songs for, but was suddenly dropped for the reason of his face "being too scandalously recognisable" as a state official put it. One of the songs written for the film, a doom-laden epic allegory "Capricious Horses" (Кони привередливые), became one of the singer's signature tunes. Two of Vysotsky's 1972 film roles were somewhat meditative: an anonymous American journalist in The Fourth One and the "righteous guy" von Koren in The Bad Good Man (based on Anton Chekov's Duel). The latter brought Vysotsky the Best Male Role prize at the V Taormina Film Fest. This philosophical slant rubbed off onto some of his new works of the time: "A Singer at the Microphone" (Певец у микрофона), "The Tightrope Walker" (Канатоходец), two new war songs ("We Spin the Earth", "Black Pea-Coats") and "The Grief" (Беда), a folkish girl's lament, later recorded by Marina Vladi and subsequently covered by several female performers. Popular proved to be his 1972 humorous songs: "Mishka Shifman" (Мишка Шифман), satirizing the leaving-for-Israel routine, "Victim of the Television" which ridiculed the concept of "political consciousness," and "The Honour of the Chess Crown" (Честь шахматной короны) about an ever-fearless "simple Soviet man" challenging the much feared American champion Bobby Fischer to a match.
In 1972 he stepped up in Soviet Estonian TV where he presented his songs and gave an interview. The name of the show was "Young Man from Taganka" (Noormees Tagankalt).
In April 1973 Vysotsky visited Poland and France. Predictable problems concerning the official permission were sorted after the French Communist Party leader Georges Marchais made a personal phone call to Leonid Brezhnev who, according to Marina Vlady's memoirs, rather sympathized with the stellar couple. Having found on return a potentially dangerous lawsuit brought against him (concerning some unsanctioned concerts in Siberia the year before), Vysotsky wrote a defiant letter to the Minister of Culture Pyotr Demichev. As a result, he was granted the status of a philharmonic artist, 11.5 roubles per concert now guaranteed. Still the 900 rubles fine had to be paid according to the court verdict, which was a substantial sum, considering his monthly salary at the theater was 110 rubles. That year Vysotsky wrote some thirty songs for "Alice in Wonderland," an audioplay where he himself has been given several minor roles. His best known songs of 1973 included "The Others' Track" (Чужая колея), "The Flight Interrupted" (Прерванный полёт) and "The Monument", all pondering on his achievements and legacy.
In 1974 Melodiya released the 7" EP, featuring four of Vysotsky's war songs ("He Never Returned From the Battle", "The New Times Song", "Common Graves", and "The Earth Song") which represented a tiny portion of his creative work, owned by millions on tape. In September of that year Vysotsky received his first state award, the Honorary Diploma of the Uzbek SSR following a tour with fellow actors from the Taganka Theatre in Uzbekistan. A year later he was granted the USSR Union of Cinematographers' membership. This meant he was not an "anti-Soviet scum" now, rather an unlikely link between the official Soviet cinema elite and the "progressive-thinking artists of the West." More films followed, among them The Only Road (a Soviet-Yugoslav joint venture, premiered on 10 January 1975 in Belgrade) and a science fiction movie The Flight of Mr. McKinley (1975). Out of nine ballads that he wrote for the latter only two have made it into the soundtrack. This was the height of his popularity, when, as described in Vlady's book about her husband, walking down the street on a summer night, one could hear Vysotsky's recognizable voice coming literally from every open window. Among the songs written at the time, were humorous "The Instruction before the Trip Abroad", lyrical "Of the Dead Pilot" and philosophical "The Strange House". In 1975 Vysotsky made his third trip to France where he rather riskily visited his former tutor (and now a celebrated dissident emigre) Andrey Sinyavsky. Artist Mikhail Shemyakin, his new Paris friend (or a "bottle-sharer", in Vladi's terms), recorded Vysotsky in his home studio. After a brief stay in England Vysotsky crossed the ocean and made his first Mexican concerts in April. Back in Moscow, there were changes at Taganka: Lyubimov went to Milan's La Scala on a contract and Anatoly Efros has been brought in, a director of radically different approach. His project, Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, caused a sensation. Critics praised Alla Demidova (as Ranevskaya) and Vysotsky (as Lopakhin) powerful interplay, some describing it as one of the most dazzling in the history of the Soviet theater. Lyubimov, who disliked the piece, accused Efros of giving his actors "the stardom malaise." The 1976 Taganka's visit to Bulgaria resulted in Vysotskys's interview there being filmed and 15 songs recorded by Balkanton record label. On return Lyubimov made a move which many thought outrageous: declaring himself "unable to work with this Mr. Vysotsky anymore" he gave the role of Hamlet to Valery Zolotukhin, the latter's best friend. That was the time, reportedly, when stressed out Vysotsky started taking amphetamines.
Another Belorussian voyage completed, Marina and Vladimir went for France and from there (without any official permission given, or asked for) flew to the North America. In New York Vysotsky met, among other people, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Joseph Brodsky. In a televised one-hour interview with Dan Rather he stressed he was "not a dissident, just an artist, who's never had any intentions to leave his country where people loved him and his songs." At home this unauthorized venture into the Western world bore no repercussions: by this time Soviet authorities were divided as regards the "Vysotsky controversy" up to the highest level; while Mikhail Suslov detested the bard, Brezhnev loved him to such an extent that once, while in hospital, asked him to perform live in his daughter Galina's home, listening to this concert on the telephone. In 1976 appeared "The Domes", "The Rope" and the "Medieval" cycle, including "The Ballad of Love".
In September Vysotsky with Taganka made a trip to Yugoslavia where Hamlet won the annual BITEF festival's first prize, and then to Hungary for a two-week concert tour. Back in Moscow Lyubimov's production of The Master & Margarita featured Vysotsky as Ivan Bezdomny; a modest role, somewhat recompensed by an important Svidrigailov slot in Yury Karyakin's take on Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Vysotsky's new songs of this period include "The History of Illness" cycle concerning his health problems, humorous "Why Did the Savages Eat Captain Cook", the metaphorical "Ballad of the Truth and the Lie", as well as "Two Fates", the chilling story of a self-absorbed alcoholic hunted by two malevolent witches, his two-faced destiny. In 1977 Vysotsky's health deteriorated (heart, kidneys, liver failures, jaw infection and nervous breakdown) to such an extent that in April he found himself in Moscow clinic's reanimation center in the state of physical and mental collapse.
In 1977 Vysotsky made an unlikely appearance in New York City on the American television show 60 Minutes, which falsely stated that Vysotsky had spent time in the Soviet prison system, the Gulag. That year saw the release of three Vysotsky's LPs in France (including the one that had been recorded by RCA in Canada the previous year); arranged and accompanied by guitarist Kostya Kazansky, the singer for the first time ever enjoyed the relatively sophisticated musical background. In August he performed in Hollywood before members of New York City film cast and (according to Vladi) was greeted warmly by the likes of Liza Minnelli and Robert De Niro. Some more concerts in Los Angeles were followed by the appearance at the French Communist paper L’Humanité annual event. In December Taganka left for France, its Hamlet (Vysotsky back in the lead) gaining fine reviews.
1978 started with the March–April series of concerts in Moscow and Ukraine. In May Vysotsky embarked upon a new major film project: The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed (Место встречи изменить нельзя) about two detectives fighting crime in late 1940s Russia, directed by Stanislav Govorukhin. The film (premiered on 11 November 1978 on the Soviet Central TV) presented Vysotsky as Zheglov, a ruthless and charismatic cop teaching his milder partner Sharapov (actor Vladimir Konkin) his art of crime-solving. Vysotsky also became engaged in Taganka's Genre-seeking show (performing some of his own songs) and played Aleksander Blok in Anatoly Efros' The Lady Stranger (Незнакомка) radio play (premiered on air on 10 July 1979 and later released as a double LP).
In November 1978 Vysotsky took part in the underground censorship-defying literary project Metropolis, inspired and organized by Vasily Aksenov. In January 1979 Vysotsky again visited America with highly successful series of concerts. That was the point (according to biographer Vladimir Novikov) when a glimpse of new, clean life of a respectable international actor and performer all but made Vysotsky seriously reconsider his priorities. What followed though, was a return to the self-destructive theater and concert tours schedule, personal doctor Anatoly Fedotov now not only his companion, but part of Taganka's crew. "Who was this Anatoly? Just a man who in every possible situation would try to provide drugs. And he did provide. In such moments Volodya trusted him totally," Oksana Afanasyeva, Vysotsky's Moscow girlfriend (who was near him for most of the last year of his life and, on occasion, herself served as a drug courier) remembered. In July 1979, after a series of Central Asia concerts, Vysotsky collapsed, experienced clinical death and was resuscitated by Fedotov (who injected caffeine into the heart directly), colleague and close friend Vsevolod Abdulov helping with heart massage. In January 1980 Vysotsky asked Lyubimov for a year's leave. "Up to you, but on condition that Hamlet is yours," was the answer. The songwriting showed signs of slowing down, as Vysotsky began switching from songs to more conventional poetry. Still, of nearly 800 poems by Vysotsky only one has been published in the Soviet Union while he was alive. Not a single performance or interview was broadcast by the Soviet television in his lifetime.
In May 1979, being in a practice studio of the MSU Faculty of Journalism, Vysotsky recorded a video letter to American actor and film producer Warren Beatty, looking for both a personal meeting with Beatty and an opportunity to get a role in Reds film, to be produced and directed by the latter. While recording, Vysotsky made a few attempts to speak English, trying to overcome the language barrier. This video letter never reached Beatty. It was broadcast for the first time more than three decades later, on the night of 24 January 2013 (local time) by Rossiya 1 channel, along with records of TV channels of Italy, Mexico, Poland, USA and from private collections, in Vladimir Vysotsky. A letter to Warren Beatty film by Alexander Kovanovsky and Igor Rakhmanov. While recording this video, Vysotsky had a rare opportunity to perform for a camera, being still unable to do it with Soviet television.
On 22 January 1980, Vysotsky entered the Moscow Ostankino TV Center to record his one and only studio concert for the Soviet television. What proved to be an exhausting affair (his concentration lacking, he had to plod through several takes for each song) was premiered on the Soviet TV eight years later. The last six months of his life saw Vysotsky appearing on stage sporadically, fueled by heavy dosages of drugs and alcohol. His performances were often erratic. Occasionally Vysotsky paid visits to Sklifosofsky [ru] institute's ER unit, but would not hear of Marina Vlady's suggestions for him to take long-term rehabilitation course in a Western clinic. Yet he kept writing, mostly poetry and even prose, but songs as well. The last song he performed was the agonizing "My Sorrow, My Anguish" and his final poem, written one week prior to his death was "A Letter to Marina": "I'm less than fifty, but the time is short / By you and God protected, life and limb / I have a song or two to sing before the Lord / I have a way to make my peace with him."
Although several theories of the ultimate cause of the singer's death persist to this day, given what is now known about cardiovascular disease, it seems likely that by the time of his death Vysotsky had an advanced coronary condition brought about by years of tobacco, alcohol and drug abuse, as well as his grueling work schedule and the stress of the constant harassment by the government. Towards the end, most of Vysotsky's closest friends had become aware of the ominous signs and were convinced that his demise was only a matter of time. Clear evidence of this can be seen in a video ostensibly shot by the Japanese NHK channel only months before Vysotsky's death, where he appears visibly unwell, breathing heavily and slurring his speech. Accounts by Vysotsky's close friends and colleagues concerning his last hours were compiled in the book by V. Perevozchikov.
Vysotsky suffered from alcoholism for most of his life. Sometime around 1977, he started using amphetamines and other prescription narcotics in an attempt to counteract the debilitating hangovers and eventually to rid himself of alcohol addiction. While these attempts were partially successful, he ended up trading alcoholism for a severe drug dependency that was fast spiralling out of control. He was reduced to begging some of his close friends in the medical profession for supplies of drugs, often using his acting skills to collapse in a medical office and imitate a seizure or some other condition requiring a painkiller injection. On 25 July 1979 (a year to the day before his death) he suffered a cardiac arrest and was clinically dead for several minutes during a concert tour of Soviet Uzbekistan, after injecting himself with a wrong kind of painkiller he had previously obtained from a dentist's office.
Fully aware of the dangers of his condition, Vysotsky made several attempts to cure himself of his addiction. He underwent an experimental (and ultimately discredited) blood purification procedure offered by a leading drug rehabilitation specialist in Moscow. He also went to an isolated retreat in France with his wife Marina in the spring of 1980 as a way of forcefully depriving himself of any access to drugs. After these attempts failed, Vysotsky returned to Moscow to find his life in an increasingly stressful state of disarray. He had been a defendant in two criminal trials, one for a car wreck he had caused some months earlier, and one for an alleged conspiracy to sell unauthorized concert tickets (he eventually received a suspended sentence and a probation in the first case, and the charges in the second were dismissed, although several of his co-defendants were found guilty). He also unsuccessfully fought the film studio authorities for the rights to direct a movie called The Green Phaeton. Relations with his wife Marina were deteriorating, and he was torn between his loyalty to her and his love for his mistress Oksana Afanasyeva. He had also developed severe inflammation in one of his legs, making his concert performances extremely challenging.
In a final desperate attempt to overcome his drug addiction, partially prompted by his inability to obtain drugs through his usual channels (the authorities had imposed a strict monitoring of the medical institutions to prevent illicit drug distribution during the 1980 Olympics), he relapsed into alcohol and went on a prolonged drinking binge (apparently consuming copious amounts of champagne due to a prevalent misconception at the time that it was better than vodka at countering the effects of drug withdrawal).
On 3 July 1980, Vysotsky gave a performance at a suburban Moscow concert hall. One of the stage managers recalls that he looked visibly unhealthy ("gray-faced", as she puts it) and complained of not feeling too good, while another says she was surprised by his request for champagne before the start of the show, as he had always been known for completely abstaining from drink before his concerts. On 16 July Vysotsky gave his last public concert in Kaliningrad. On 18 July, Vysotsky played Hamlet for the last time at the Taganka Theatre. From around 21 July, several of his close friends were on a round-the-clock watch at his apartment, carefully monitoring his alcohol intake and hoping against all odds that his drug dependency would soon be overcome and they would then be able to bring him back from the brink. The effects of drug withdrawal were clearly getting the better of him, as he got increasingly restless, moaned and screamed in pain, and at times fell into memory lapses, failing to recognize at first some of his visitors, including his son Arkadiy. At one point, Vysotsky's personal physician A. Fedotov (the same doctor who had brought him back from clinical death a year earlier in Uzbekistan) attempted to sedate him, inadvertently causing asphyxiation from which he was barely saved. On 24 July, Vysotsky told his mother that he thought he was going to die that day, and then made similar remarks to a few of the friends present at the apartment, who begged him to stop such talk and keep his spirits up. But soon thereafter, Oksana Afanasyeva saw him clench his chest several times, which led her to suspect that he was genuinely suffering from a cardiovascular condition. She informed Fedotov of this but was told not to worry, as he was going to monitor Vysotsky's condition all night. In the evening, after drinking relatively small amounts of alcohol, the moaning and groaning Vysotsky was sedated by Fedotov, who then sat down on the couch next to him but fell asleep. Fedotov awoke in the early hours of 25 July to an unusual silence and found Vysotsky dead in his bed with his eyes wide open, apparently of a myocardial infarction, as he later certified. This was contradicted by Fedotov's colleagues, Sklifosovsky Emergency Medical Institute physicians L. Sul'povar and S. Scherbakov (who had demanded the actor's immediate hospitalization on 23 July but were allegedly rebuffed by Fedotov), who insisted that Fedotov's incompetent sedation combined with alcohol was what killed Vysotsky. An autopsy was prevented by Vysotsky's parents (who were eager to have their son's drug addiction remain secret), so the true cause of death remains unknown.
No official announcement of the actor's death was made, only a brief obituary appeared in the Moscow newspaper Vechernyaya Moskva, and a note informing of Vysotsky's death and cancellation of the Hamlet performance was put out at the entrance to the Taganka Theatre (the story goes that not a single ticket holder took advantage of the refund offer). Despite this, by the end of the day, millions had learned of Vysotsky's death. On 28 July, he lay in state at the Taganka Theatre. After a mourning ceremony involving an unauthorized mass gathering of unprecedented scale, Vysotsky was buried at the Vagankovskoye Cemetery in Moscow. The attendance at the Olympic events dropped noticeably on that day, as scores of spectators left to attend the funeral. Tens of thousands of people lined the streets to catch a glimpse of his coffin.
According to author Valery Perevozchikov part of the blame for his death lay with the group of associates who surrounded him in the last years of his life. This inner circle were all people under the influence of his strong character, combined with a material interest in the large sums of money his concerts earned. This list included Valerii Yankelovich, manager of the Taganka Theatre and prime organiser of his non-sanctioned concerts; Anatoly Fedotov, his personal doctor; Vadim Tumanov, gold prospector (and personal friend) from Siberia; Oksana Afanasyeva (later Yarmolnik), his mistress the last three years of his life; Ivan Bortnik, a fellow actor; and Leonid Sul'povar, a department head at the Sklifosovski hospital who was responsible for much of the supply of drugs.
Vysotsky's associates had all put in efforts to supply his drug habit, which kept him going in the last years of his life. Under their influence, he was able to continue to perform all over the country, up to a week before his death. Due to illegal (i.e. non-state-sanctioned) sales of tickets and other underground methods, these concerts pulled in sums of money unimaginable in Soviet times, when almost everyone received nearly the same small salary. The payouts and gathering of money were a constant source of danger, and Yankelovich and others were needed to organise them.
Some money went to Vysotsky, the rest was distributed amongst this circle. At first this was a reasonable return on their efforts; however, as his addiction progressed and his body developed resistance, the frequency and amount of drugs needed to keep Vysotsky going became unmanageable. This culminated at the time of the Moscow Olympics which coincided with the last days of his life, when supplies of drugs were monitored more strictly than usual, and some of the doctors involved in supplying Vysotsky were already behind bars (normally the doctors had to account for every ampule, thus drugs were transferred to an empty container, while the patients received a substitute or placebo instead). In the last few days Vysotsky became uncontrollable, his shouting could be heard all over the apartment building on Malaya Gruzinskaya St. where he lived amongst VIP's. Several days before his death, in a state of stupor he went on a high speed drive around Moscow in an attempt to obtain drugs and alcohol – when many high-ranking people saw him. This increased the likelihood of him being forcibly admitted to the hospital, and the consequent danger to the circle supplying his habit. As his state of health declined, and it became obvious that he might die, his associates gathered to decide what to do with him. They came up with no firm decision. They did not want him admitted officially, as his drug addiction would become public and they would fall under suspicion, although some of them admitted that any ordinary person in his condition would have been admitted immediately.
On Vysotsky's death his associates and relatives put in much effort to prevent a post-mortem being carried out. This despite the fairly unusual circumstances: he died aged 42 under heavy sedation with an improvised cocktail of sedatives and stimulants, including the toxic chloral hydrate, provided by his personal doctor who had been supplying him with narcotics the previous three years. This doctor, being the only one present at his side when death occurred, had a few days earlier been seen to display elementary negligence in treating the sedated Vysotsky. On the night of his death, Arkadii Vysotsky (his son), who tried to visit his father in his apartment, was rudely refused entry by Yankelovich, even though there was a lack of people able to care for him. Subsequently, the Soviet police commenced a manslaughter investigation which was dropped due to the absence of evidence taken at the time of death.
Vysotsky's first wife was Iza Zhukova. They met in 1956, being both MAT theater institute students, lived for some time at Vysotsky's mother's flat in Moscow, after her graduation (Iza was 2 years older) spent months in different cities (her – in Kiev, then Rostov) and finally married on 25 April 1960.
He met his second wife Lyudmila Abramova in 1961, while shooting the film 713 Requests Permission to Land. They married in 1965 and had two sons, Arkady (born 1962) and Nikita (born 1964).
While still married to Lyudmila Abramova, Vysotsky began a romantic relationship with Tatyana Ivanenko, a Taganka actress, then, in 1967 fell in love with Marina Vlady, a French actress of Russian descent, who was working at Mosfilm on a joint Soviet-French production at that time. Marina had been married before and had three children, while Vladimir had two. They were married in 1969. For 10 years the two maintained a long-distance relationship as Marina compromised her career in France to spend more time in Moscow, and Vladimir's friends pulled strings for him to be allowed to travel abroad to stay with his wife. Marina eventually joined the Communist Party of France, which essentially gave her an unlimited-entry visa into the Soviet Union, and provided Vladimir with some immunity against prosecution by the government, which was becoming weary of his covertly anti-Soviet lyrics and his odds-defying popularity with the masses. The problems of his long-distance relationship with Vlady inspired several of Vysotsky's songs.
In the autumn of 1981 Vysotsky's first collection of poetry was officially published in the USSR, called The Nerve (Нерв). Its first edition (25,000 copies) was sold out instantly. In 1982 the second one followed (100,000), then the 3rd (1988, 200,000), followed in the 1990s by several more. The material for it was compiled by Robert Rozhdestvensky, an officially laurelled Soviet poet. Also in 1981 Yuri Lyubimov staged at Taganka a new music and poetry production called Vladimir Vysotsky which was promptly banned and officially premiered on 25 January 1989.
In 1982 the motion picture The Ballad of the Valiant Knight Ivanhoe was produced in the Soviet Union and in 1983 the movie was released to the public. Four songs by Vysotsky were featured in the film.
In 1986 the official Vysotsky poetic heritage committee was formed (with Robert Rozhdestvensky at the helm, theater critic Natalya Krymova being both the instigator and the organizer). Despite some opposition from the conservatives (Yegor Ligachev was the latter's political leader, Stanislav Kunyaev of Nash Sovremennik represented its literary flank) Vysotsky was rewarded posthumously with the USSR State Prize. The official formula – "for creating the character of Zheglov and artistic achievements as a singer-songwriter" was much derided from both the left and the right. In 1988 the Selected Works of... (edited by N. Krymova) compilation was published, preceded by I Will Surely Return... (Я, конечно, вернусь...) book of fellow actors' memoirs and Vysotsky's verses, some published for the first time. In 1990 two volumes of extensive The Works of... were published, financed by the late poet's father Semyon Vysotsky. Even more ambitious publication series, self-proclaimed "the first ever academical edition" (the latter assertion being dismissed by sceptics) compiled and edited by Sergey Zhiltsov, were published in Tula (1994–1998, 5 volumes), Germany (1994, 7 volumes) and Moscow (1997, 4 volumes).
In 1989 the official Vysotsky Museum opened in Moscow, with the magazine of its own called Vagant (edited by Sergey Zaitsev) devoted entirely to Vysotsky's legacy. In 1996 it became an independent publication and was closed in 2002.
In the years to come, Vysotsky's grave became a site of pilgrimage for several generations of his fans, the youngest of whom were born after his death. His tombstone also became the subject of controversy, as his widow had wished for a simple abstract slab, while his parents insisted on a realistic gilded statue. Although probably too solemn to have inspired Vysotsky himself, the statue is believed by some to be full of metaphors and symbols reminiscent of the singer's life.
In 1995 in Moscow the Vysotsky monument was officially opened at Strastnoy Boulevard, by the Petrovsky Gates. Among those present were the bard's parents, two of his sons, first wife Iza, renown poets Yevtushenko and Voznesensky. "Vysotsky had always been telling the truth. Only once he was wrong when he sang in one of his songs: 'They will never erect me a monument in a square like that by Petrovskye Vorota'", Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov said in his speech.[95] A further monument to Vysotsky was erected in 2014 at Rostov-on-Don.
In October 2004, a monument to Vysotsky was erected in the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica, near the Millennium Bridge. His son, Nikita Vysotsky, attended the unveiling. The statue was designed by Russian sculptor Alexander Taratinov, who also designed a monument to Alexander Pushkin in Podgorica. The bronze statue shows Vysotsky standing on a pedestal, with his one hand raised and the other holding a guitar. Next to the figure lies a bronze skull – a reference to Vysotsky's monumental lead performances in Shakespeare's Hamlet. On the pedestal the last lines from a poem of Vysotsky's, dedicated to Montenegro, are carved.
The Vysotsky business center & semi-skyscraper was officially opened in Yekaterinburg, in 2011. It is the tallest building in Russia outside of Moscow, has 54 floors, total height: 188.3 m (618 ft). On the third floor of the business center is the Vysotsky Museum. Behind the building is a bronze sculpture of Vladimir Vysotsky and his third wife, a French actress Marina Vlady.
In 2011 a controversial movie Vysotsky. Thank You For Being Alive was released, script written by his son, Nikita Vysotsky. The actor Sergey Bezrukov portrayed Vysotsky, using a combination of a mask and CGI effects. The film tells about Vysotsky's illegal underground performances, problems with KGB and drugs, and subsequent clinical death in 1979.
Shortly after Vysotsky's death, many Russian bards started writing songs and poems about his life and death. The best known are Yuri Vizbor's "Letter to Vysotsky" (1982) and Bulat Okudzhava's "About Volodya Vysotsky" (1980). In Poland, Jacek Kaczmarski based some of his songs on those of Vysotsky, such as his first song (1977) was based on "The Wolfhunt", and dedicated to his memory the song "Epitafium dla Włodzimierza Wysockiego" ("Epitaph for Vladimir Vysotsky").
Every year on Vysotsky's birthday festivals are held throughout Russia and in many communities throughout the world, especially in Europe. Vysotsky's impact in Russia is often compared to that of Wolf Biermann in Germany, Bob Dylan in America, or Georges Brassens and Jacques Brel in France.
The asteroid 2374 Vladvysotskij, discovered by Lyudmila Zhuravleva, was named after Vysotsky.
During the Annual Q&A Event Direct Line with Vladimir Putin, Alexey Venediktov asked Putin to name a street in Moscow after the singer Vladimir Vysotsky, who, though considered one of the greatest Russian artists, has no street named after him in Moscow almost 30 years after his death. Venediktov stated a Russian law that allowed the President to do so and promote a law suggestion to name a street by decree. Putin answered that he would talk to Mayor of Moscow and would solve this problem. In July 2015 former Upper and Lower Tagansky Dead-ends (Верхний и Нижний Таганские тупики) in Moscow were reorganized into Vladimir Vysotsky Street.
The Sata Kieli Cultural Association, [Finland], organizes the annual International Vladimir Vysotsky Festival (Vysotski Fest), where Vysotsky's singers from different countries perform in Helsinki and other Finnish cities. They sing Vysotsky in different languages and in different arrangements.
Two brothers and singers from Finland, Mika and Turkka Mali, over the course of their more than 30-year musical career, have translated into Finnish, recorded and on numerous occasions publicly performed songs of Vladimir Vysotsky.
Throughout his lengthy musical career, Jaromír Nohavica, a famed Czech singer, translated and performed numerous songs of Vladimir Vysotsky, most notably Песня о друге (Píseň o příteli – Song about a friend).
The Museum of Vladimir Vysotsky in Koszalin dedicated to Vladimir Vysotsky was founded by Marlena Zimna (1969–2016) in May 1994, in her apartment, in the city of Koszalin, in Poland. Since then the museum has collected over 19,500 exhibits from different countries and currently holds Vladimir Vysotsky' personal items, autographs, drawings, letters, photographs and a large library containing unique film footage, vinyl records, CDs and DVDs. A special place in the collection holds a Vladimir Vysotsky's guitar, on which he played at a concert in Casablanca in April 1976. Vladimir Vysotsky presented this guitar to Moroccan journalist Hassan El-Sayed together with an autograph (an extract from Vladimir Vysotsky's song "What Happened in Africa"), written in Russian right on the guitar.
In January 2023, a monument to the outstanding actor, singer and poet Vladimir Vysotsky was unveiled in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, in the square near the Rodina House of Culture. Author Vladimir Chebotarev.
After her husband's death, urged by her friend Simone Signoret, Marina Vlady wrote a book called The Aborted Flight about her years together with Vysotsky. The book paid tribute to Vladimir's talent and rich persona, yet was uncompromising in its depiction of his addictions and the problems that they caused in their marriage. Written in French (and published in France in 1987), it was translated into Russian in tandem by Vlady and a professional translator and came out in 1989 in the USSR. Totally credible from the specialists' point of view, the book caused controversy, among other things, by shocking revelations about the difficult father-and-son relationship (or rather, the lack of any), implying that Vysotsky-senior (while his son was alive) was deeply ashamed of him and his songs which he deemed "anti-Soviet" and reported his own son to the KGB. Also in 1989 another important book of memoirs was published in the USSR, providing a bulk of priceless material for the host of future biographers, Alla Demidova's Vladimir Vysotsky, the One I Know and Love. Among other publications of note were Valery Zolotukhin's Vysotsky's Secret (2000), a series of Valery Perevozchikov's books (His Dying Hour, The Unknown Vysotsky and others) containing detailed accounts and interviews dealing with the bard's life's major controversies (the mystery surrounding his death, the truth behind Vysotsky Sr.'s alleged KGB reports, the true nature of Vladimir Vysotsky's relations with his mother Nina's second husband Georgy Bartosh etc.), Iza Zhukova's Short Happiness for a Lifetime and the late bard's sister-in-law Irena Vysotskaya's My Brother Vysotsky. The Beginnings (both 2005).
A group of enthusiasts has created a non-profit project – the mobile application "Vysotsky"
The multifaceted talent of Vysotsky is often described by the term "bard" (бард) that Vysotsky has never been enthusiastic about. He thought of himself mainly as an actor and poet rather than a singer, and once remarked, "I do not belong to what people call bards or minstrels or whatever." With the advent of portable tape-recorders in the Soviet Union, Vysotsky's music became available to the masses in the form of home-made reel-to-reel audio tape recordings (later on cassette tapes).
Vysotsky accompanied himself on a Russian seven-string guitar, with a raspy voice singing ballads of love, peace, war, everyday Soviet life and of the human condition. He was largely perceived as the voice of honesty, at times sarcastically jabbing at the Soviet government, which made him a target for surveillance and threats. In France, he has been compared with Georges Brassens; in Russia, however, he was more frequently compared with Joe Dassin, partly because they were the same age and died in the same year, although their ideologies, biographies, and musical styles are very different. Vysotsky's lyrics and style greatly influenced Jacek Kaczmarski, a Polish songwriter and singer who touched on similar themes.
The songs – over 600 of them – were written about almost any imaginable theme. The earliest were blatnaya pesnya ("outlaw songs"). These songs were based either on the life of the common people in Moscow or on life in the crime people, sometimes in Gulag. Vysotsky slowly grew out of this phase and started singing more serious, though often satirical, songs. Many of these songs were about war. These war songs were not written to glorify war, but rather to expose the listener to the emotions of those in extreme, life-threatening situations. Most Soviet veterans would say that Vysotsky's war songs described the truth of war far more accurately than more official "patriotic" songs.
Nearly all of Vysotsky's songs are in the first person, although he is almost never the narrator. When singing his criminal songs, he would adopt the accent and intonation of a Moscow thief, and when singing war songs, he would sing from the point of view of a soldier. In many of his philosophical songs, he adopted the role of inanimate objects. This created some confusion about Vysotsky's background, especially during the early years when information could not be passed around very easily. Using his acting talent, the poet played his role so well that until told otherwise, many of his fans believed that he was, indeed, a criminal or war veteran. Vysotsky's father said that "War veterans thought the author of the songs to be one of them, as if he had participated in the war together with them." The same could be said about mountain climbers; on multiple occasions, Vysotsky was sent pictures of mountain climbers' graves with quotes from his lyrics etched on the tombstones.
Not being officially recognized as a poet and singer, Vysotsky performed wherever and whenever he could – in the theater (where he worked), at universities, in private apartments, village clubs, and in the open air. It was not unusual for him to give several concerts in one day. He used to sleep little, using the night hours to write. With few exceptions, he wasn't allowed to publish his recordings with "Melodiya", which held a monopoly on the Soviet music industry. His songs were passed on through amateur, fairly low quality recordings on vinyl discs and magnetic tape, resulting in his immense popularity. Cosmonauts even took his music on cassette into orbit.
Musically, virtually all of Vysotsky's songs were written in a minor key, and tended to employ from three to seven chords. Vysotsky composed his songs and played them exclusively on the Russian seven string guitar, often tuned a tone or a tone-and-a-half below the traditional Russian "Open G major" tuning. This guitar, with its specific Russian tuning, makes a slight yet notable difference in chord voicings than the standard tuned six string Spanish (classical) guitar, and it became a staple of his sound. Because Vysotsky tuned down a tone and a half, his strings had less tension, which also colored the sound.
His earliest songs were usually written in C minor (with the guitar tuned a tone down from DGBDGBD to CFACFAC)
Songs written in this key include "Stars" (Zvyozdy), "My friend left for Magadan" (Moy drug uyekhal v Magadan), and most of his "outlaw songs".
At around 1970, Vysotsky began writing and playing exclusively in A minor (guitar tuned to CFACFAC), which he continued doing until his death.
Vysotsky used his fingers instead of a pick to pluck and strum, as was the tradition with Russian guitar playing. He used a variety of finger picking and strumming techniques. One of his favorite was to play an alternating bass with his thumb as he plucked or strummed with his other fingers.
Often, Vysotsky would neglect to check the tuning of his guitar, which is particularly noticeable on earlier recordings. According to some accounts, Vysotsky would get upset when friends would attempt to tune his guitar, leading some to believe that he preferred to play slightly out of tune as a stylistic choice. Much of this is also attributable to the fact that a guitar that is tuned down more than 1 whole step (Vysotsky would sometimes tune as much as 2 and a half steps down) is prone to intonation problems.
Vysotsky had a unique singing style. He had an unusual habit of elongating consonants instead of vowels in his songs. So when a syllable is sung for a prolonged period of time, he would elongate the consonant instead of the vowel in that syllable.
this is the tidiest ToysRus i've ever been to...the ones in kuala lumpur and bangkok were in such disarray...here they are displayed better and with more care.
Compagnie ACIDU
NAGEUSES SUR BITUME
Cinq femmes en quête de synchronisation
Cinq nageuses synchronisées. Cinq femmes. « Interdites de piscine », elles se retrouvent à la rue et dans la rue, pour manifester leur désarroi, leur colère et leur désir ; sans piscine et sans eau, elles continuent d’avancer, de vivre… Nage ou crève ! Elles s’adaptent, s’inventent un monde afin de nager sur le bitume, dans une piscine remplie d’air, la rue ; aux côtés d’autres nageurs en eaux troubles, les spectateurs.
Company ACIDU
SWIMMERS ON BITUMEN
Five women in search of synchronization
Five synchronized swimmers. Five women. "Forbidden swimming pool", they find themselves in the street and in the street, to show their disarray, their anger and their desire; Without swimming pool and without water, they continue to advance, to live ... Swim or die! They adapt, invent a world in order to swim on the bitumen, in a pool filled with air, the street; Alongside other swimmers in troubled waters, the spectators.
Acidu Unternehmen
Schwimmer auf ASPHALT
Fünf Frauen auf der Suche für die Synchronisation
Fünf Synchronschwimmer . Fünf Frauen. „Forbidden Pool“, finden sie sich auf der Straße und auf der Straße ihre Bestürzung, Wut und den Wunsch zu zeigen; kein Pool und kein Wasser, sie weiterhin nach vorne zu bewegen, zu leben oder sterben ... Swim! Sie passen, erfinden eine Welt auf dem Asphalt schwimmen in einem Pool mit Luft gefüllt ist, die Straße; neben anderen Schwimmern in trüben Gewässern, Zuschauer.
Graflex Crown Graphic, Kodak Ektar 127mm f4.7
Shanghai GP3 Pan 100 (expired)
Processed with caffenol in the SP-445 dev tank.
My scanner only does up to 120 film, so posting with some cropping.
Becoming a Jackal (Villagers)
In tandem with the photo of DMS581 here is its Metro-Cammell sister DMS 1419. This was also the first such MCW bodied Fleetline with 'new' livery.
The date is a brisk but sunny March 31st 1973, the day route 221 went OPO. As was often the case, the service is in total disarray or 'up the swanny' in LT staff parlance. Having departed North Finchley, the subject of this study is seen whizzing down Station Road in New Southgate as WN7. Having gone round FY's already well-packed DMS570 which had come from Edgware, both buses would soon get a hammering along the Bounds Green Road with eager shoppers heading for Wood Green and beyond.
For the majority of those days, there were only one or two full length trips on the 221: one or two early morning journeys but oddly one mid-afternoon trip from Edgware to Holborn Circus. At almost two hours that must've been some sort of record for the time. For many years the 221 also claimed LT's first daytime start for a day route: 2.44am for a 2.59am departure from FY Garage and 3.01am from Tally Ho Bus Station to Farringdon Street/Holborn Circus.
© Malcolm K Allan, California.
BREAK UP: the melting and loosening of ice in rivers during the spring.
I am back in Alaska, only to be traveling again tomorrow.
I came home to several days of snow and arrived before the ice went out in the river. This group of mailboxes caught my eye each time I drove by them. I loved how each mailbox seemed to have it's own personality, the mud puddle and the snow still lingering in the background. This is what spring (our very late spring) or break up looks like where I live.
HSS!
Hit 'L' to view on large.
This castle has it’s rumours. There are the stories about the man in the jeep and his accomplice on the scooter watching over this castle.
The castle was built in 1860 by an marquis who lived in the town and it still is in Royal’s hands. Apparently, the owners cannot agree about a plan to preserve the heritage and therefore the place is left abandoned without having anybody to care for it.
The impromptu 2 day tour with camerashy and host to France and Belgium, with some new places, a lot of travel with minimal sleep and some goals being accomplished by getting to a certain school.
Full set here:
www.flickr.com/photos/timster1973/sets/72157633897345028/
Also on Facebook:
www.Facebook.com/TimKniftonPhotography
My blog:
timster1973.wordpress.com
Pic taken at The Singapore Botanic Garden - 7th Aug 2009.
Featured in my blog: Magical Botanic Garden - Gifts of Friendship, part 3
*Note: More pics of Plant, Trees, Flowers, Fruits and Mushrooms in my Flora and Fungus Album.
Trauma can take a toll on you. Especially if you’re in battle. Actually, anything could be. But you need to keep yourself together. Get help if you can.
I led a sweep alongside some hand picked members who were willing to join me in finding the culprits who injured Mason Gardner. Needless to say, it wasn’t a good sight, upon his day of campaign.
Connor: “Whilst former Guild members are not my specialty anymore. I should have known these two were under hire after they lost privileges to our resources. This is the point of hunting them down.”
Jesse: “Yeah big bro. Yeah. Not a good day today. Why the manor though?”
Connor: "Last known location. Could be a trap."
Navin: “What makes you think these hired guns aren’t along the lines. It's not my notion to theorize, but obviously someone’s pulling the strings by starting with poison. The easiest way to get them. Explains how your friends see things.”
Lyra: “And they target those who are associated with pain.”
Couldn’t agree more. I took three people and that’s it. The main reason is that agents are on a lockdown situation for the last week...and it’s sending Paladin into disarray. If I had added the number, I would have asked the Paladin head honco—the woman with the bob, Raze, to join in on this mission. But she's quite shady. I tried to dig deep on what she is, but records of her are scarce. Interpol doesn't even have records.
One fact I know she has eyes and ears everywhere overseeing things. Among the other espionage organizations, she hates Interpol. Probably didn't want them sticking their noses into the superhuman stuff. But I couldn't care less if she hated me or not since I'm an outsider.
Then came the security systems. Here is where my mirror powers come in handy. Jesse had already disabled electronics and the cybersecurity parts. Lyra and Connor’s powers could bypass the bioweapons...dismantling gas. I guess that’s good enough.
Bronze Butcher stands in the middle of the foray, amongst the unconscious bodies. Rattlesnake creeps around the walls with his grappling hook.
Butcher: “What brings you all along to Atlanta, dear...former brother?”
Connor: “That’s a term I should be using. Why are you here? Are you not ashamed of failures? Was exile too short on retirment?”
Butcher: “You little—“
Rattlesnake: “Nothing withstands the insults of the great Dusksmoke. You fucking punk. I know you’re all here to get answers. Easy. You'll know when I kill you fast and clean and what remains is your bones.”
Connor: “Quit your bullshit, I will not ask again. Shoot me when you have the time. I only want to know, why did you go after our friend?”
Butcher: “The businessman? He’s a popular, hot target...I’m sure his meat will sell well in the market...maybe it would be better if I took the ribs first. His legs are meaty.”
Lyra: “You goddamn cannibal. That’s what’s the laser blades are for right? Or are you just in for money desperate to expand your meat packing district?”
Butcher: "Anything satisfactory, young lady. Pleasures to feast on."
Jesse: "Disgusting shit."
Khattar: “North. Because the last time the island didn’t teach you a lesson well enough you had to prove yourself worthy, right? You wanna meddle more in Interpol affairs? I'm a street away from sending you both death sentences.”
Rattlesnake: “Yes and so? Interpol? Nobody cares about those weak fucks. You tryna prove my point in being murderers? I kill for a living! I'll do anything for the money.”
Jesse: “Well fuck all when it is greed. Aight, I’ve seen enough shit, let’s go and blast' em.”
The Rattlesnake guy dives headfirst after Connor. It seems eager like a rematch. The butcher guy on the other hand begins activating land mines, forcing me to use glass shards to blow up a couple. The blast should have knocked me off but Lyra has absorbed all that power. Secondary evolution, I don’t have to explain that much—but its power is enough to send me and Jesse backwards to the wall. They both don't like Interpol. Right.
Getting back on his feet, Jesse begins to construct electrical weapons, equivalent to Bronze Butcher’s laser throwing arm blades. It’s straight out of a sci fi horror film. Cut some of his own henchmen’s head already, spilling blood around the room. I’m not sure if Lyra can take any more hits before she succumbs and can heal fast enough, so I summon the shattered sand and pieces to make more glass shards out of them.
Connor: “If you’re so eager to attack a penthouse, why not rob it?”
Rattlesnake: “Robbing it would just be half the battle; and it’ll only further diminish our public image.”
Connor: “You don’t even have one to maintain. You’re no celebrity or anything. Not even high class, bourgeois.”
Rattlesnake: “I could with my acid, but you see brother, this is what our client best needs. Destruction. We can tear apart from the whole again...”
Connor: “For a mass penthouse, he’s got so much more fortune worth.”
Rattlesnake: “You just answered your own question. You proved my point. I already have my brothers and sisters taking out the others already...with a small, sizeable amount like you cowards and fools...look at the world burn while your pretentious, unruly leader sits back and laugh! The high above all fuck!”
Connor: “I’d be falling too much if it were a lie. I’ve seen it, and my life is beyond a lie. But I know I won't take your word for it.”
Rattlesnake: “Then there is more than the lie...more than the Guild...you wanna know what secrets lie beyond that? Come after me. Come and find out, brother.”
Rattlesnake slithers back to a corridor, grappling the enraged Bronze Butcher and escapes using their transformed laser cannon—way out into the sky. Guess it was a lead in, and a trap.
Lyra: “We didn’t really come what we were looking for, right?”
Connor: “Rattlesnake has more to offer. I know how and what he is. My instincts say he’s not double crossing in a manner of speaking. He could telling the truth in some way despite that slithery, deceitful tone of his. Acting.”
Jesse: “Damnit bro, I hate it when they call you hermano. You’re the one I love more.”
Navin: “We’ll do a sweep. But Connor, this whole ordeal, it's starting to get suspicious...if he’s right...”
Connor: “Destruction. They wanna hurt Mason further. By the way Lyra, I should say lip reading is truly a great ability. You must be a master in tongues too.
Lyra: “Of course. Well, I don't do tongues. But in the process of my healing, I see there are no survivors...we might as well start the search before we head back.”
***
An hour in, there’s almost nothing. But it’s probably shocking enough to see the records of a damn billionaire. He’s losing the stocks. My father was a gambler so I could see on the sides of money. Guess they’re robbing him...no?
Two former Guild a-holes just wanting rain destruction and glory over pain is sketchy enough. Lyra deduced that he must have so much penthouses across the states, they’d be spreading everywhere like a toxic virus. Happens when you’re one of the richest billionaires on the list to get potentially sacked. Connor knows deception when he sees it, but words and acting are one of a kind. You don't know the truth you you make sense of it.
But to my conclusion, there’s nothing in this penthouse. Nothing important for the least so we decided to phone in Paladin, until—
A man’s shadow appeared behind the safe while I was looking at some bank notes. I pulled the handgun from my pocket just in time to intercept while forging a glass shard behind the window. But the Arden brothers looked rather shocked at the masked guy.
Jesse: “Holy shit.”
Connor: “Jericho? How are you….?”
Lyra: “Wait, you know this guy?”
Navin: “Huh? Who’s this? What is going on?”
Jericho: “Apologies—perhaps it wasn’t the best to be barging in a time like this.”
Navin: “Keep talking before I’m gonna shoot.”
Jericho: “I was a former pilot who used to work with you people at Paladin. Not much of an agent, more or less, just someone who’s often looked down at. I knew Avalon Squad pretty damn well.”
Lyra: “Then why are you here?”
Jericho: “Reiterating again, I’m not affiliated with Paladin anymore, unfortunately. Long story short, they fired me and kicked me out because I disobeyed multiple orders—“
Jesse: "What's locker 506?"
Jericho: "Stuffed bananas and stinky socks."
Navin: “Just get to the point. I don’t have all night.”
Jesse: “Chill. He’s a friend, amigo. It’s him for sure. If he knows the locker, he's one of us."
Jericho: Ok, diving straight into your questions, Earthnnerve? Correct? I hope what I’m saying now is going to clear up things, Agent Khattar. What I’m about to tell you is potentially big and there's secrets which is gonna be messy. I know it sounds very cliche as well. But I'm serious for god's sake, please turn off your comms. Your connections. Off.”
Navin: “How do you know my name? And you showing up, does it have anything to do with the agency?”
Jericho: “There are many reasons why I’m here: because Mason Gardner is dying, and I share a connection with Ghostforge, who you all refer to as Harry; we were orphans who grew up together on the streets. We saw too much shit together. And I sensed something wrong in his powers—his mental state is not doing well. Because someone’s manipulating the heroes with trauma, and he’s among them.”
Navin: “No shit, Sherlock. Of course.”
Jericho: “I sense it in you as well, Agent Khattar. You harbor anger inside. Sorry I read your name when you dropped your credentials on the table. But back to where I was, I have evidence that holds Paladin accountable for things. The truth behind it, don’t you want to know? ”
Connor: “ Jericho, I’m sorry you had to went through all of that with Harry. Good to know you're on our side. I never looked too deep into compromising matters, but what’s so suspicious about the agency anyways?”
Jericho: “It’s quite shady, to be honest, like many agencies and companies out there, having dirty works and whatnot, but your bosses—the ones up there, they have a lot kept away from you. PR does the work. And we’re running out of time, because this will be risky—and it will expose them.”
Jesse: “Damnit man, I really wish this was funny like my brother said. But...”
Jericho: “Look, I know you kinda trust and don’t trust me at the same time, I can’t explain it here with a half assed, washed up pilot, but drop everything you have, and come with me. I’ll tell you everything you need to know...we do not have much time.”
Next thing I see is Jericho activating a button on his waist, engulfing us into a portal at the tech door exit.
Then I could hear the footsteps of incoming agents, shouting and screaming. Seems like Paladin is here, knowing we didn't return on time. Could it be...Raze?
In this moment, I am confused and dazed, and I don’t know how to deal with it...
Ahh… finally, after so many weeks with ongoing photosets, we once again get to start fresh with a brand new teaser photo! Feels good, doesn’t it? :) As always, I’m curious to see if any of y’all can figure out where we’ll be headed. Please feel free to leave your guesses in the comments below, if you’d like to play along. And also along those lines, it’s probably about time we threw some music recommendations back into the mix as well…
1. Down on the Corner – Creedence Clearwater Revival
2. Someone to Die For – Jimmy Gnecco feat. Brian May
3. The Break – Cold 🔥
4. I Don’t Believe You – P!nk
5. Forsaken – Seether
6. Replaced – American Authors
7. High Maintenance – Miranda Cosgrove feat. Rivers Cuomo (I’m not proud of this one)
8. Sick – Evanescence
9. Beautiful Girls – Van Halen
10. Queen of Hearts – Juice Newton 🔥
11. Meet the Flintstones – Hoyt Curtin
12. Emily – Cold
13. Into the Black – Tyler Bryant and the Shakedown
14. In Disarray – Pop Evil
15. If – Joe Satriani
16. Safe to Say I’ve Had Enough – Seether 🔥
17. Perfect One – Lit
18. The Finish Line – Snow Patrol
19. Breaking Down – Florence and the Machine
20. Know It All – Adelitas Way
21. God Put a Smile Upon Your Face – Coldplay
22. Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money) – Pet Shop Boys
Harbison Court // Harbison Blvd, Columbia, SC 29212
(c) 2020 Retail Retell
These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)
Cracks are Showing
(Excerpt on why it's no fun to be in charge of the infrastructure)
America’s tradition of bold national projects has dwindled. With the country’s infrastructure crumbling, it is time to revive it
THE Mississippi River pushed relentlessly past dozens of levees this month. Towns were submerged, their buildings tiny islands in murky water. Ducks paddled on ponds that had once been farmland. Some flooding was inevitable, given the force of the swollen Mississippi. But a poorly managed flood-defence system did not help.
For the past few years it has been hard to ignore America’s crumbling infrastructure, from the devastating breach of New Orleans’s levees after Hurricane Katrina to the collapse of a big bridge in Minneapolis last summer. In 2005 the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that $1.6 trillion was needed over five years to bring just the existing infrastructure into good repair. This does not account for future needs. By 2020 freight volumes are projected to be 70% greater than in 1998. By 2050 America’s population is expected to reach 420m, 50% more than in 2000. Much of this growth will take place in metropolitan areas, where the infrastructure is already run down.
If America does not act, says Robert Yaro of the Regional Plan Association (RPA), a body that plans for the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut region, it will have the infrastructure of a third-world country within a few decades. Economic growth will be constricted, and the quality of life will be diminished.
It is not surprising that the floods have put infrastructure in the spotlight, but this time it might remain there. Droughts have shown the need for better long-term planning. Thanks to the soaring oil price, a surge in demand for buses and trains has exposed ageing transport systems in big cities and meagre investment in small ones. And the Highway Trust Fund, which provides most of the federal money for transport projects, will be at least $4 billion in debt next year.
The private sector is hungry to invest. In May Morgan Stanley raised $4 billion for its new infrastructure fund, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), a private-equity firm, launched a global infrastructure practice, and Pennsylvania announced that Citigroup and Abertis, a Spanish toll-road operator, had won an auction to lease the state’s turnpike. Momentum for change exists. Will politicians respond?
America has a grand tradition of national planning, from Thomas Jefferson’s vision for roads and canals in 1808, which influenced policy for the next century (and led to America’s first transcontinental railway) to Dwight Eisenhower’s Federal Highway-Aid Act of 1956, which created the interstate system. Such plans stand in stark contrast to the federal government’s strategy today. America invests a mere 2.4% of GDP in infrastructure, compared with 5% in Europe and 9% in China, and the distribution of that money is misguided. The more roads and drivers a state has, the more federal money it receives, explains Judith Rodin of the Rockefeller Foundation, which funds infrastructure research. This discourages states from trying to cut traffic. And because the petrol tax pays for transport projects, if America drives less, there is less money for infrastructure.
Even worse is the influence of the pork-barrel. Only around 20 states use cost-benefit analyses to evaluate transport projects; of these, just six do so regularly. Alaska’s “bridge to nowhere” is an infamous result of this sort of planning. But it is not exceptional. Two months after the bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, the Senate approved a transport and housing bill that included money for a stadium in Montana and a museum in Las Vegas.
The result is disarray. America’s ageing water infrastructure is sorely underfunded: the Environmental Protection Agency forecasts an $11 billion annual gap in meeting costs over the next 20 years. One heavy storm can cause ageing urban sewerage systems to overflow. Last summer an 83-year-old pipe in Manhattan burst, sending a geyser of steam and debris into the air. Competition for water itself has become vicious. Georgia and Tennessee are in an all-out brawl over it.
America’s transport network is similarly dysfunctional, says a recent Urban Land Institute report. Important gateways, such as the ports in Los Angeles and New York, are choked. Flight delays cost at least $15 billion each year in lost productivity. Commutes are more dismal than ever. Congestion on roads costs $78 billion annually in the form of 4.2 billion lost hours and 2.9 billion gallons of wasted petrol, according to the Texas Transportation Institute. Although a growing number of Americans are travelling by train, the railways are old. America’s only “high-speed” train runs between Boston and Washington, DC, on an inadequate track.
How can all this be fixed? In January a national commission on transport policy recommended that the government should invest at least $225 billion each year for the next 50 years. The country is spending less than 40% of that amount today. Yet more important than spending lots of money is spending it in better ways.
The Brookings Institution, a think-tank, recommends that America focus on metropolitan areas, or “metros”, the top 100 of which account for 65% of population and 75% of economic output. “America 2050”, led by the RPA and a committee of scholars and civic leaders, has a similar scheme for “megaregions”, or networks of metros. The federal government should do what it can to ensure that these areas, first of all, have the infrastructure they need to thrive.
Excerpt from Economist:
www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displayStory.cfm?sto...
In the far reaches of northern Scotland, within a village where time meanders at its own tranquil pace, a series of images unfolds, painting a tableau of life's relentless march amidst the shadows of climate's dismay and the distant rumbles of war that threaten to engulf Europe. It is a Wednesday evening, draped in the quietude of rainfall, a scene reminiscent of an Edward Hopper collection—imbued with solitude, emptiness, yet a profound continuance.
A Poem:
In this hamlet 'neath Scottish skies so wide,
Where the rains whisper and the winds confide,
Looms the spectre of a world in disarray,
Yet within these bounds, life finds its way.
Upon the cusp of night, shadows merge and dance,
In the pub's warm glow, eyes steal a glance.
The hearth's soft crackle, a comforting song,
In this northern retreat, where hearts belong.
The world outside may churn and roar,
With climates wracked and the drums of war.
Yet here we stand, in this time-suspended place,
Where tomorrow's worries are but a trace.
The local pub, our living room, our sphere,
A sanctuary from doubt, from dread, from fear.
We'll return come dusk, as sure as the tide,
In the rhythm of the ordinary, we take pride.
For what are we, but passengers in time,
Through days mundane, through nights sublime?
The question lingers, in the air, it floats,
Is this all there is? In whispers, it denotes.
Yet, as we stand 'neath the gentle pour,
We find beauty in the repeat, in the encore.
For in these moments, life's essence we distill,
In the quiet of the village, in the peace, so still.
A Haiku:
Rain veils the night's face,
Quiet pub bids farewell—
Life's quiet march on.
Tune: Onyx - Ain't No Time To Rest ft Dope D.O.D
[Video Intro: Fredro Starr & Sticky Fingaz]
What's up, man?
I'm tired of this graveyard shift, nigga
I'm telling you, man
Got me on him working, motherfucker, in middle of the night in shit
I'm sick of this shit too, nigga
The other day, motherfucker, I'm heard some shit in here
I'm like a: "What a fuck is going on?"
You know, what's up
You get, right?
Hell yeah!
Two nights ago?
Two nights ago!
I heard the same shit
Yo, what some shit going on here, nigga?
I'm telling you, my nigga
It is
We gotta find a new line of work
Well, here we go
[Intro: Fredro Starr]
Y'all niggas must be dead
It's time to wake da fuck up, niggas
What the fuck is it a library in this motherfucka?
[Verse 1: Fredro Starr]
Before we set it off
Let me put a check of the list
All you bitchass niggas you can rest in peace
My niggas streesed and depressed
Ain't no time to rest
It's time to wake up from the dead
Ain't no time to rest
I'm a mess, i'm dirty, i'm filty, probably guilty
The beast from the East where the beats is obese
Big drums, big drums nigga where Big from
Nigga got big guns, don't talk, gun talk to us
This the way we walk in New York, come and walk with us
This a way, hip-hop is in a disarray
This is for my niggas who got a get it the pistol way
Then piss it away on strippers up in Scarlett's
Queens niggas is wild, but Brooklyn is the wildest
Where niggas be robbing shit and rip you for your wallets
Yeah, i got a ghostwriter - Christopher Wallace
So get your rest B.I.G
[Hook x 2: Fredro Starr]
My niggas streesed and depressed
Ain't no time to rest
It's time to wake up from the dead
Ain't no time to rest
It's time to wake up from the dead
Ain't no time to rest
It's time to wake up from the dead
Ain't no time to rest
[Verse 2: Sticky Fingaz]
You thought I was dead, but I'm alive and kicking
In the hood niggas love me like I'm fried chicken
Sticky Fingaz good my, my nines be licking
And I must be get a money, my palms is itching
Cause when you when you gotta a P99
Every everything is Free.99
Get dumped off get beat out his mind
Fucking with Sticky Fingaz must be out his mind
Are you insane? It's all your fault!
Get bodied over and over again and expecting different results
I don't play games, eat candy, smile or joke
They'll be checking and checking and checking but they ain't getting no pulse
[Hook x 2: Fredro Starr]
My niggas streesed and depressed
Ain't no time to rest
It's time to wake up from the dead
Ain't no time to rest
It's time to wake up from the dead
Ain't no time to rest
It's time to wake up from the dead
Ain't no time to rest
[Verse 3: Skits Vicious & Jay Reaper]
Skits: Shake 'em up! Shake 'em up! Wake 'em from the dead!
Shine 'em up! Shine 'em up! Half a bald head!
You'll break a fuckin' leg trying to kick it with us
I'll rip your skinny jean limbs off and piss on ya' arms
Jay: Now wake da fuck up! Ya'll niggas suffering from sleep paralysis
I had it with 'em amateurs, fucking with some savages
Feel the cold clutch of the Reaper 'round your neck
If you talk shit - i don't forget. Now who's next?
Skits: Who's next? I'm here to take ya'll with
Get 'em ready for the belly of the beast, we in a graveyard shift
Dro, Stick (Whaddup!) I just licked (Whaddup!)
I don't give (No Fucks!) Put your middle fingers up!
Jay: Put your middle fingers up and say fuck that shit!
Onyx and Dope D.O.D - we fuck 'em up like this
Niggas looking for clout, their souls half the price
Well you gon' see enough clouds in the afterlife
By the time this picture was taken on 16th March 1994, independent operator, Choice Travel's fortunes had changed dramatically for the better. This had been almost entirely due to a catastrophic error made by West Midlands Travel in December 1993.
Towards the end of 1993, Choice Travel was on its preverbal knees, West Midlands Travel having pushed them to the brink of collapse. Then out of the blue, the local WMT management team bizarrely decided that they would introduce wide sweeping changes to the entire Walsall bus network. Routes and service numbers were to be changed overnight, and right before Christmas on the 13th December 1993!
Completely miscalculating the situation, they couldn't have chosen a worse time. WMT launched a confusing and almost non existent marketing campaign that no one seemed to understand, not even the staff.
As that fateful Monday morning dawned, services throughout Walsall were thrown into total disarray. Passengers bewildered eyes gazed upon buses showing new route numbers, boarding services that no longer went where they expected. Drivers and frontline staff became overwhelmed with questions and complaints. Delays ensued, anger and frustration mounted, while near empty buses ploughed the streets. The telephones at WMT offices never stopped ringing and letters from disgruntled customers began to pour in.
Meanwhile, Choice's buses continued along the old routes using the service numbers that everyone knew and understood. People's loyalties changed almost immediately, and West Midlands services bombed over night. Not surprisingly, in the weeks that followed, manager's heads rolled, sackings followed, having given Choice Travel & other competitor's the best Christmas present they could have ever wished for.