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The exploitation rights for this text are the property of the Vienna Tourist Board. This text may be reprinted free of charge until further notice, even partially and in edited form. Forward sample copy to: Vienna Tourist Board, Media Management, Invalidenstraße 6, 1030 Vienna; media.rel@wien.info. All information in this text without guarantee.

Author: Andreas Nierhaus, Curator of Architecture/Wien Museum

Last updated January 2014

Architecture in Vienna

Vienna's 2,000-year history is present in a unique density in the cityscape. The layout of the center dates back to the Roman city and medieval road network. Romanesque and Gothic churches characterize the streets and squares as well as palaces and mansions of the baroque city of residence. The ring road is an expression of the modern city of the 19th century, in the 20th century extensive housing developments set accents in the outer districts. Currently, large-scale urban development measures are implemented; distinctive buildings of international star architects complement the silhouette of the city.

Due to its function as residence of the emperor and European power center, Vienna for centuries stood in the focus of international attention, but it was well aware of that too. As a result, developed an outstanding building culture, and still today on a worldwide scale only a few cities can come up with a comparable density of high-quality architecture. For several years now, Vienna has increased its efforts to connect with its historical highlights and is drawing attention to itself with some spectacular new buildings. The fastest growing city in the German-speaking world today most of all in residential construction is setting standards. Constants of the Viennese architecture are respect for existing structures, the palpability of historical layers and the dialogue between old and new.

Culmination of medieval architecture: the Stephansdom

The oldest architectural landmark of the city is St. Stephen's Cathedral. Under the rule of the Habsburgs, defining the face of the city from the late 13th century until 1918 in a decisive way, the cathedral was upgraded into the sacral monument of the political ambitions of the ruling house. The 1433 completed, 137 meters high southern tower, by the Viennese people affectionately named "Steffl", is a masterpiece of late Gothic architecture in Europe. For decades he was the tallest stone structure in Europe, until today he is the undisputed center of the city.

The baroque residence

Vienna's ascension into the ranks of the great European capitals began in Baroque. Among the most important architects are Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt. Outside the city walls arose a chain of summer palaces, including the garden Palais Schwarzenberg (1697-1704) as well as the Upper and Lower Belvedere of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1714-22). Among the most important city palaces are the Winter Palace of Prince Eugene (1695-1724, now a branch of the Belvedere) and the Palais Daun-Kinsky (auction house in Kinsky 1713-19). The emperor himself the Hofburg had complemented by buildings such as the Imperial Library (1722-26) and the Winter Riding School (1729-34). More important, however, for the Habsburgs was the foundation of churches and monasteries. Thus arose before the city walls Fischer von Erlach's Karlskirche (1714-39), which with its formal and thematic complex show façade belongs to the major works of European Baroque. In colored interior rooms like that of St. Peter's Church (1701-22), the contemporary efforts for the synthesis of architecture, painting and sculpture becomes visible.

Upgrading into metropolis: the ring road time (Ringstraßenzeit)

Since the Baroque, reflections on extension of the hopelessly overcrowed city were made, but only Emperor Franz Joseph ordered in 1857 the demolition of the fortifications and the connection of the inner city with the suburbs. 1865, the Ring Road was opened. It is as the most important boulevard of Europe an architectural and in terms of urban development achievement of the highest rank. The original building structure is almost completely preserved and thus conveys the authentic image of a metropolis of the 19th century. The public representational buildings speak, reflecting accurately the historicism, by their style: The Greek Antique forms of Theophil Hansen's Parliament (1871-83) stood for democracy, the Renaissance of the by Heinrich Ferstel built University (1873-84) for the flourishing of humanism, the Gothic of the Town Hall (1872-83) by Friedrich Schmidt for the medieval civic pride.

Dominating remained the buildings of the imperial family: Eduard van der Nüll's and August Sicardsburg's Opera House (1863-69), Gottfried Semper's and Carl Hasenauer's Burgtheater (1874-88), their Museum of Art History and Museum of Natural History (1871-91) and the Neue (New) Hofburg (1881-1918 ). At the same time the ring road was the preferred residential area of mostly Jewish haute bourgeoisie. With luxurious palaces the families Ephrussi, Epstein or Todesco made it clear that they had taken over the cultural leadership role in Viennese society. In the framework of the World Exhibition of 1873, the new Vienna presented itself an international audience. At the ring road many hotels were opened, among them the Hotel Imperial and today's Palais Hansen Kempinski.

Laboratory of modernity: Vienna around 1900

Otto Wagner's Postal Savings Bank (1903-06) was one of the last buildings in the Ring road area Otto Wagner's Postal Savings Bank (1903-06), which with it façade, liberated of ornament, and only decorated with "functional" aluminum buttons and the glass banking hall now is one of the icons of modern architecture. Like no other stood Otto Wagner for the dawn into the 20th century: His Metropolitan Railway buildings made the public transport of the city a topic of architecture, the church of the Psychiatric hospital at Steinhofgründe (1904-07) is considered the first modern church.

With his consistent focus on the function of a building ("Something impractical can not be beautiful"), Wagner marked a whole generation of architects and made Vienna the laboratory of modernity: in addition to Joseph Maria Olbrich, the builder of the Secession (1897-98) and Josef Hoffmann, the architect of the at the western outskirts located Purkersdorf Sanatorium (1904) and founder of the Vienna Workshop (Wiener Werkstätte, 1903) is mainly to mention Adolf Loos, with the Loos House at the square Michaelerplatz (1909-11) making architectural history. The extravagant marble cladding of the business zone stands in maximal contrast, derived from the building function, to the unadorned facade above, whereby its "nudity" became even more obvious - a provocation, as well as his culture-critical texts ("Ornament and Crime"), with which he had greatest impact on the architecture of the 20th century. Public contracts Loos remained denied. His major works therefore include villas, apartment facilities and premises as the still in original state preserved Tailor salon Knize at Graben (1910-13) and the restored Loos Bar (1908-09) near the Kärntner Straße (passageway Kärntner Durchgang).

Between the Wars: International Modern Age and social housing

After the collapse of the monarchy in 1918, Vienna became capital of the newly formed small country of Austria. In the heart of the city, the architects Theiss & Jaksch built 1931-32 the first skyscraper in Vienna as an exclusive residential address (Herrengasse - alley 6-8). To combat the housing shortage for the general population, the social democratic city government in a globally unique building program within a few years 60,000 apartments in hundreds of apartment buildings throughout the city area had built, including the famous Karl Marx-Hof by Karl Ehn (1925-30). An alternative to the multi-storey buildings with the 1932 opened International Werkbundsiedlung was presented, which was attended by 31 architects from Austria, Germany, France, Holland and the USA and showed models for affordable housing in greenfield areas. With buildings of Adolf Loos, André Lurçat, Richard Neutra, Gerrit Rietveld, the Werkbundsiedlung, which currently is being restored at great expense, is one of the most important documents of modern architecture in Austria.

Modernism was also expressed in significant Villa buildings: The House Beer (1929-31) by Josef Frank exemplifies the refined Wiener living culture of the interwar period, while the house Stonborough-Wittgenstein (1926-28, today Bulgarian Cultural Institute), built by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein together with the architect Paul Engelmann for his sister Margarete, by its aesthetic radicalism and mathematical rigor represents a special case within contemporary architecture.

Expulsion, war and reconstruction

After the "Anschluss (Annexation)" to the German Reich in 1938, numerous Jewish builders, architects (female and male ones), who had been largely responsible for the high level of Viennese architecture, have been expelled from Austria. During the Nazi era, Vienna remained largely unaffected by structural transformations, apart from the six flak towers built for air defense of Friedrich Tamms (1942-45), made of solid reinforced concrete which today are present as memorials in the cityscape.

The years after the end of World War II were characterized by the reconstruction of the by bombs heavily damaged city. The architecture of those times was marked by aesthetic pragmatism, but also by the attempt to connect with the period before 1938 and pick up on current international trends. Among the most important buildings of the 1950s are Roland Rainer's City Hall (1952-58), the by Oswald Haerdtl erected Wien Museum at Karlsplatz (1954-59) and the 21er Haus of Karl Schwanzer (1958-62).

The youngsters come

Since the 1960s, a young generation was looking for alternatives to the moderate modernism of the reconstruction years. With visionary designs, conceptual, experimental and above all temporary architectures, interventions and installations, Raimund Abraham, Günther Domenig, Eilfried Huth, Hans Hollein, Walter Pichler and the groups Coop Himmelb(l)au, Haus-Rucker-Co and Missing Link rapidly got international attention. Although for the time being it was more designed than built, was the influence on the postmodern and deconstructivist trends of the 1970s and 1980s also outside Austria great. Hollein's futuristic "Retti" candle shop at Charcoal Market/Kohlmarkt (1964-65) and Domenig's biomorphic building of the Central Savings Bank in Favoriten (10th district of Vienna - 1975-79) are among the earliest examples, later Hollein's Haas-Haus (1985-90), the loft conversion Falkestraße (1987/88) by Coop Himmelb(l)au or Domenig's T Center (2002-04) were added. Especially Domenig, Hollein, Coop Himmelb(l)au and the architects Ortner & Ortner (ancient members of Haus-Rucker-Co) by orders from abroad the new Austrian and Viennese architecture made a fixed international concept.

MuseumQuarter and Gasometer

Since the 1980s, the focus of building in Vienna lies on the compaction of the historic urban fabric that now as urban habitat of high quality no longer is put in question. Among the internationally best known projects is the by Ortner & Ortner planned MuseumsQuartier in the former imperial stables (competition 1987, 1998-2001), which with institutions such as the MUMOK - Museum of Modern Art Foundation Ludwig, the Leopold Museum, the Kunsthalle Wien, the Architecture Center Vienna and the Zoom Children's Museum on a wordwide scale is under the largest cultural complexes. After controversies in the planning phase, here an architectural compromise between old and new has been achieved at the end, whose success as an urban stage with four million visitors (2012) is overwhelming.

The dialogue between old and new, which has to stand on the agenda of building culture of a city that is so strongly influenced by history, also features the reconstruction of the Gasometer in Simmering by Coop Himmelb(l)au, Wilhelm Holzbauer, Jean Nouvel and Manfred Wehdorn (1999-2001). Here was not only created new housing, but also a historical industrial monument reinterpreted into a signal in the urban development area.

New Neighborhood

In recent years, the major railway stations and their surroundings moved into the focus of planning. Here not only necessary infrastructural measures were taken, but at the same time opened up spacious inner-city residential areas and business districts. Among the prestigious projects are included the construction of the new Vienna Central Station, started in 2010 with the surrounding office towers of the Quartier Belvedere and the residential and school buildings of the Midsummer quarter (Sonnwendviertel). Europe's largest wooden tower invites here for a spectacular view to the construction site and the entire city. On the site of the former North Station are currently being built 10,000 homes and 20,000 jobs, on that of the Aspangbahn station is being built at Europe's greatest Passive House settlement "Euro Gate", the area of the North Western Railway Station is expected to be developed from 2020 for living and working. The largest currently under construction residential project but can be found in the north-eastern outskirts, where in Seaside Town Aspern till 2028 living and working space for 40,000 people will be created.

In one of the "green lungs" of Vienna, the Prater, 2013, the WU campus was opened for the largest University of Economics of Europe. Around the central square spectacular buildings of an international architect team from Great Britain, Japan, Spain and Austria are gathered that seem to lead a sometimes very loud conversation about the status quo of contemporary architecture (Hitoshi Abe, BUSarchitektur, Peter Cook, Zaha Hadid, NO MAD Arquitectos, Carme Pinós).

Flying high

International is also the number of architects who have inscribed themselves in the last few years with high-rise buildings in the skyline of Vienna and make St. Stephen's a not always unproblematic competition. Visible from afar is Massimiliano Fuksas' 138 and 127 meters high elegant Twin Tower at Wienerberg (1999-2001). The monolithic, 75-meter-high tower of the Hotel Sofitel at the Danube Canal by Jean Nouvel (2007-10), on the other hand, reacts to the particular urban situation and stages in its top floor new perspectives to the historical center on the other side.

Also at the water stands Dominique Perrault's DC Tower (2010-13) in the Danube City - those high-rise city, in which since the start of construction in 1996, the expansion of the city north of the Danube is condensed symbolically. Even in this environment, the slim and at the same time striking vertically folded tower of Perrault is beyond all known dimensions; from its Sky Bar, from spring 2014 on you are able to enjoy the highest view of Vienna. With 250 meters, the tower is the tallest building of Austria and almost twice as high as the St. Stephen's Cathedral. Vienna, thus, has acquired a new architectural landmark which cannot be overlooked - whether it also has the potential to become a landmark of the new Vienna, only time will tell. The architectural history of Vienna, where European history is presence and new buildings enter into an exciting and not always conflict-free dialogue with a great and outstanding architectural heritage, in any case has yet to offer exciting chapters.

Freud's Underbelly (Edward Bernays) by Marcel Mac Duchamp and Rroseeen Ní Shélavy in Infrat(h)in

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This is why I think scale is important. It is to do with a rather shoddy 'bill of goods', a new(-ish) religion even. It involves a taking back of the city, of our shared spaces, and learning to carve messages on our conurbations themselves, our termite hills.

Yes, I am writing. I sit with the stuff and grapple with it most days. It’s principally about what I call ‘drivers’, that is, more or less, everything else that isn’t the ‘self’, but including that self. It is primarily about there being no such thing as ‘free will’, nothing that might remotely resemble the idea of ‘choice’, that we are in that state of being constantly ‘driven’, with no real idea of who or what the ‘driver’ is.

Hormones were, of course, one of those out-of-control drivers, but so was the cup of coffee we probably both had this morning, as are the drugs, those drivers I am currently ‘enjoying’ that are designed to control the driver that is ‘HIV’ itself. Part of the story includes musings around Joyce and others (Duchamp, Goya, David etcetera), many others even, and how the syphilis spirochete, perhaps, wrote ‘Finnegan’s Wake’ (the blinding genius is in allowing it to do so), getting past that blood/brain barrier, in the same way that Opium wrote De Quincey’s ‘Confessions of an Opium Eater’. Dawkins posited the idea somewhat in ‘The Selfish Gene’, when he wrote about the parasite that infected the fluke, entering its brain and causing it to climb to the highest outward leaf, totally against its nature, to be eaten by a passing bird, thus assuring its own continuance, through laying it eggs in the gut of the bird to be shat out and, thereby, to start all over again. Dawkins also introduced us to the idea of the ‘meme’ in the same volume, how memes infect, even. The idea is that we are in a soup, a 'mere' ingredient, and all ingredients are equal, and we have no idea what we are imbibing from our surrounding, what ‘parasite’ or ‘influencers’ /memes are driving us. Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays knew this well, and developed ‘public relations’ and ‘propaganda’. He was called ‘The Father of Spin’, and we are currently seeing the fruit of his life’s work coming to a perverse type of fulfilment.

Bernays knew about ‘drivers’, and how to exploit them.

Personally, I would also like to look at ‘shame’ and religion relative to all this. The shame meme was central to my Irish childhood, twinned with the religion meme. This is, and has been for a while, some brouhaha around Mr. Joyce and a theory, currently enjoying some literary attention, that he had syphilis. I am thinking here particularly of three books: 1. ‘Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis’, by Deborah Hayden, 2. ‘James Joyce & the Burden of Disease’, by Kathleen Ferris, and 3. ‘The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses’ by Kevin Birmingham. There is some strong opposition to the idea at the same time, that ‘why besmirch the writer’s reputation with such a scandalous theory?’ school-of-thought, though there seems to be a lot of evidence suggesting this to be true. But I would like to posit another idea, and that is that syphilis, or HIV for that matter, is the same as any other disease or virus, and that the need to attach shame to a virus because it is sexually transmitted is erroneous, and that disease is disease, and sex itself, alone, or with one, or hundreds of partners (dare I say thousands), is not a shameful act. I feel, now at last, enough beyond the control of that ‘driver’ to be able to look at it straight on, unashamedly.

Then there is another idea I am working on, which is also a part of that mix, the idea of the universal equality of all matter and anti-matter, everything, and everything else, and the notion of us being to this planet as HIV, or any virus or ‘life-manifestation’, is to the body it inhabits (or infects, as it is called medically). The ideal would be to achieve a stasis, a symbiotic arrangement between the host and the visitor, the body and the virus, the planet and the inhabitant.

But life eats, it is what it does, and mostly it eats blindly, indifferent to what it is eating, so the visitor, or that inhabitant, will overcome the body, or planet, eventually. We can devise methods to slow it down, drugs whatever, we can all become vegan, stop breeding, and forgo flying, we can attempt to contain ourselves.

I would say that greed is a human foible, but it’s not, it’s a universal driver, acknowledged by Mr. Darwin. Life eats everything, every other manifestation of life, weaker than itself, is probably how I might best describe it. Then there is also that ‘driver’ idea Mr. Dawkins introduced in that book of his in the seventies, that the parasite itself can become the ‘driver’. That life determines ‘choices’ and ‘decisions’, and that this might not include the survival of the host, and invariably doesn’t.

The ‘struggle’ would appear to be how to celebrate this, to show this apparent striving in all its glory. There is a lineage, of course, from the Taittiriya Upanishad: “(O wonderful! O wonderful! O wonderful!) I am food, I am food, I am food! I am the eater of food, I am the eater of food, I am the eater of food!” It continues through the writings of Shaw and his ‘Life Force’, through Bertrand Russell, to modern day philosophical musings around ‘Universal Consciousness’, a discussion currently calling itself ‘Panpsychism’. Ideally, I would like to, and do attempt to, approach these ideas godlessly, but in absolute awe.

This cannot be done, or at least I cannot do it, scientifically. There can be no ‘Double-Blind’ test, no controller, no statistics to fall back on. I see it as a groping forward in that inspiring, but doomed to failure, blind-leading-the-blind sort of way. It must be a flight of imagination, with no roadmap, and acceptance of, or rather embracing of, failure. The worst that can happen is that you fall flat on your face and die.

Ho-hum, as they say, wasn’t that on the cards from the beginning anyway?

Wattie Buchan by Punk in black and white

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The Exploited

28.04.2023 Trier - Mergener Hof

by Anastasia Autumn

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Richmond, UK

Exploits River by Joanne King

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Spring Break up

Tungkillo. This old copper mining town was established 1851 a government school opened in 1861. The original government school is gone but this building from around 1924 remains. The red brick school has been cemented over. Closed 1970. by denisbin

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Tungkillo and the Reedy Creek Mine.

A Peramangk word “tainkila,” the name of a moth-grub which was used for the name the town of Tungkillo. In 1845 the Australian Mining Company was formed to exploit potential mining sites in SA. It was a London based company with SA directors, including George Palmer, Samuel Davenport, Fredrick Dutton on Kapunda, Charles Bagot of Kapunda mine, John Baker of Terlinga station and Jacob Hagen of Echunga. Some of them were also investors in the Paringa mine at Callington. The Reedy Creek Mining Survey of 20,000 acres was granted in 1846 centred on the Tungkillo district as John Baker had surmised that the stones around Tungkillo were similar to those found in other copper mines at Montacute where he had his main residence. 580 miners, mainly Cornish, were employed at the Reedy Creek mine and by late 1846 the first ship load of copper from the Tungkillo/Reedy Creek mine was sent back to smelters in Wales. George Dunn of Mt Torrens dug up the first piece of copper. The Company set aside 50 acres for an Anglican church at Tungkillo but the town hardly progressed as copper finds were sparse. Major Campbell arrived in 1849 to be mine superintendent so the recently licensed hotel was called the Campbell Arms. It operated from 1850-1858. The current township of Tungkillo was laid out in 1850 but there were settlements at the mine itself called Old Tungkillo (near Vincent), North Tungkillo (towards Mt Pleasant), and South Tungkillo (near Palmer).

The main settlement, Tungkillo soon had a Company store and a general store run by the Johnston family of Oakbank. A pump house was installed at the mine in 1850 and John Baker of Terlinga got someone to open a blacksmiths. A school operated at the mine from 1849-1857. But declining returns led to the closure of the mine in 1851. But many people stayed on to eke out a subsistence living in the settlements and at the mine. The Hundred of Tungkillo was declared in 1851 and some stayed on to purchase freehold land just outside of the Reedy Creek Mining lands. The Australian Mining Company did the obvious thing- it rented out its lands to small farmers and the larger pastoralists- mainly John Baker. So Tungkillo like other failed mining settlements did not disappear, it just changed. The company leased 17,000 of the 20,000 acres to John Baker and to John Howard Angas. The Company made a regular income from rents rather than mining but it did try to revive the mine in the mid 1850s but without success.

One land owner Samuel Patten laid out a town which he called South Petherton in 1861. This locale is what we now call Tungkillo. In fact the names Tungkillo and South Petherton were used interchangeably until 1906. Tungkillo grew slowly after the closure of the mine in 1851 but some old cottages date from this period. Around 1850 the Tungkillo Hotel was built and traded until just a few years ago. Land sales for the new survey of 50 allotments at Tungkillo in 1861 were conducted at the Tungkillo Hotel. At a later stage J and A Johnston of Oakbank owned the hotel and they put it up for sale in 1904. The hotel got a makeover in the 1920s when Mrs and Mrs Comley were the licensees and the hotel was owned by Mr Jack Buckley. For many decades Laubman and Pank did eye tests at the hotel periodically. The town got a boost when the New Reedy Creek mine operations began in 1868 and it was then that the Primitive Methodist Chapel (1867) was erected in Tungkillo. The church became a Methodist Church in 1900 and finally closed as a Uniting Church in 2000 when it was sold. The old stone general store of Tungkillo from the mid 19th century still stands but does not trade. A more recent building in Tungkillo is the Soldiers Memorial Hall. Meetings started in 1947 after World War Two to form a committee to have a hall erected. Johnston brewery of Oakbank donated £70 for the committee to purchase a block of land. Fund raising began and then petered out between 1954 and 1974! More talk of a hall began in the 1990s and the Tungkillo Soldiers Memorial Hall officially opened in 2003. It was nearly 70 years in the making! An earlier Tungkillo Hall was built in 1913 but was abandoned some years later. The town war monument was erected in 1929. A school opened in Tungkillo in 1861 and became a government school after 1875. A new school room was built in the 1920s. The school closed in 1970 and that old school room is now a residence.

In 1868 with much fanfare the Australian Mining Company, with support of John Morphett, restarted the engine pump and re-employed 179 miners to try again to find worthwhile amounts of copper at Reedy Creek. It was at this time that the Company laid out the township of Palmer. The Governor of SA Sir James Fergusson visited the New Reedy Creek mine in 1869 but his visit did not improve copper returns. In 1872 a major flood along the Reedy Creek flooded the shafts and the mine shut down again. In 1898 a new mining company took over the mine which they called the Kitticoola Gold and Copper Mine Pty Ltd. They leased 531 acres from the Australian Mining Company. Their ore was taken to the cyanide works at nearby Mt Torrens for processing. A handful of men, usually six or less, worked for this company for many years with very low returns until 1938 and then sporadically until 1971. Over its life some 162 kilos (5,700 ounces) of gold and 7,000 tons of copper were recovered from the Kitticoola /Reedy Creek mine.

Mercedes-Benz Citaro G €3 n°6102 by Floriandu95

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Exploitant : Transdev TVO

Réseau : R'Bus (Argenteuil)

Ligne : 8

Lieu : Gare d'Argenteuil (Argenteuil, F-95)

Lien TC Infos : tc-infos.fr/id/34903

Exploits River by Joanne King

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Grand Falls Windsor, NL

In joy or sadness flowers are our constant friends. by ~~Heavenxxx89 Art & Photography

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distribute or exploit In any way Thank you

view My Photstream Here portfotolio.net/heavenxxx23

Volvo FL6 (Suisse) by Antequerra

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Exploité par la société DUPERREX Frères SA établie depuis 1964 dans la Région de La Côte sur l'Arc lémanique. Il s'agissait du seul camion de ce type.

Weekend Exploit by valnparrish

Processed with VSCOcam with a6 preset

Tanya and Blue by hollywoodgorillamen.com

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1934 exploitation banner by Al Q

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Seoul Korea vintage VHS cover art for Jonathan Demme cult fave "Caged Heat" (1974) - "Bar Hopping" by moreska

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This small-box release of the women in prison cult exploiter "Caged Heat" recycles some cover art from other release. Very rare first-edition.

exploited skull by Spacey's Bizarre Ink

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the exploited skull by russell at bizarre ink 36 westport edinburgh

New Exploitations by FLEE

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installed the new Maxwell screen last night. All i can say is WOW! The difference is like night and day, comparing to the default screen it came with. Love the sharpness and brightness this new part brings.

Oh, and the message in the screen. i guess you have to Press L and read the words backwards! :)

Olympus E-P2

Nokton Voigtlander 25mm F0.95

Riley Hatch and Pearl White in The Exploits of Elaine (1914) by Truus, Bob & Jan too!

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Spanish postcard for Paris misteriosa, the Spanish title for Les Mystères de New York (1915), a European re-edition of the three Pearl White serials The Exploits of Elaine (Louis J. Gasnier, George B. Seitz, Leopold Wharton, Theodore Wharton, 1914), The New Exploits of Elaine (Louis J. Gasnier, Leopold Wharton, Theodore Wharton, 1915) and The Romance of Elaine (George B. Seitz, Leopold Wharton, Theodore Wharton, 1915), all starring Pearl White and with Riley Hatch as her father. The serials were produced by Wharton for Pathé Exchange.

Pearl White (1889 - 1938) was dubbed 'Queen of the Serials", and noted for doing her own stunts, in silent film serials such as The Perils of Pauline (1914) and The Exploits of Elaine (1914-15). Many episodes ended with a literal cliffhanger. In Europe, The Exploits of Elaine were re-edited with two subsequent serials into Les Mystères de New York. Until the end of the First World War White remained globally a popular action heroine.

Iveco Urbanway 12 GNV N°070 - Réseau TAN - Nantes by BNCie44

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Ligne 12 - Arrêt : Perray

Exploitant : SEMITAN

Réseau TAN - Nantes

Mercedes-Benz Citaro C2 N°H313 - Réseau Versailles Grand Parc by BNCie44

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Régulation - Arrêt : Gare de Versailles Chantiers

Exploitant : Cars Hourtoule

Réseau Versailles Grand Parc

floating fun by John

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My city, Columbia SC, has an incredible and exploited attraction: the Congaree River, just on the west side of town. It's a beautiful, cold river, formed by the confluence of the Saluda and the Broad. (The water of the Saluda River comes out of the the base of the Lake Murray dam, which accounts for its temperature.) Although rocky, the river is easily accessed, and would be great for cooling off in the summer. But the city has tacitly allowed a chicken-processing plant and at least one wastewater treatment facility (ie sewage) to empty its stuff into the river, sometimes causing measurable bacteria counts above the safe level. Although the city has done little or nothing to cultivate this resources, lots of people manage to canoe, wade, and tube down the river. If you do it, best to wear shoes and keep your head above the water.

Pour le ressat des moissons by Fraisine

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Dans les exploitations agricoles vaudoises, le ressat désigne le repas qui clôture un dur labeur collectif, comme les moissons ou les vendanges. Il est offert par le chef d’exploitation pour remercier les gens ayant travaillé pour lui.

Winter Exploits by Al BeFranke

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NJ Pinebarrens Winter Scene.

Outtake from the Otter Slide image. The otter's path across the ice is seen here beginning in the bottom right corner of the frame.

This composition worked out as planned for me, which is likely why I like the shot.

Looks best in Lightbox.

Wien, 3. Bezirk (l'art des Façades de Vienne), Vordere Zollamtsstraße/Radetzkystraße (Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie), Federal Ministry of Traffic, Innovation and Technology by alfred lex

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The exploitation rights for this text are the property of the Vienna Tourist Board. This text may be reprinted free of charge until further notice, even partially and in edited form. Forward sample copy to: Vienna Tourist Board, Media Management, Invalidenstraße 6, 1030 Vienna; media.rel@wien.info. All information in this text without guarantee.

Author: Andreas Nierhaus, Curator of Architecture/Wien Museum

Last updated January 2014

Architecture in Vienna

Vienna's 2,000-year history is present in a unique density in the cityscape. The layout of the center dates back to the Roman city and medieval road network. Romanesque and Gothic churches characterize the streets and squares as well as palaces and mansions of the baroque city of residence. The ring road is an expression of the modern city of the 19th century, in the 20th century extensive housing developments set accents in the outer districts. Currently, large-scale urban development measures are implemented; distinctive buildings of international star architects complement the silhouette of the city.

Due to its function as residence of the emperor and European power center, Vienna for centuries stood in the focus of international attention, but it was well aware of that too. As a result, developed an outstanding building culture, and still today on a worldwide scale only a few cities can come up with a comparable density of high-quality architecture. For several years now, Vienna has increased its efforts to connect with its historical highlights and is drawing attention to itself with some spectacular new buildings. The fastest growing city in the German-speaking world today most of all in residential construction is setting standards. Constants of the Viennese architecture are respect for existing structures, the palpability of historical layers and the dialogue between old and new.

Culmination of medieval architecture: the Stephansdom

The oldest architectural landmark of the city is St. Stephen's Cathedral. Under the rule of the Habsburgs, defining the face of the city from the late 13th century until 1918 in a decisive way, the cathedral was upgraded into the sacral monument of the political ambitions of the ruling house. The 1433 completed, 137 meters high southern tower, by the Viennese people affectionately named "Steffl", is a masterpiece of late Gothic architecture in Europe. For decades he was the tallest stone structure in Europe, until today he is the undisputed center of the city.

The baroque residence

Vienna's ascension into the ranks of the great European capitals began in Baroque. Among the most important architects are Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt. Outside the city walls arose a chain of summer palaces, including the garden Palais Schwarzenberg (1697-1704) as well as the Upper and Lower Belvedere of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1714-22). Among the most important city palaces are the Winter Palace of Prince Eugene (1695-1724, now a branch of the Belvedere) and the Palais Daun-Kinsky (auction house in Kinsky 1713-19). The emperor himself the Hofburg had complemented by buildings such as the Imperial Library (1722-26) and the Winter Riding School (1729-34). More important, however, for the Habsburgs was the foundation of churches and monasteries. Thus arose before the city walls Fischer von Erlach's Karlskirche (1714-39), which with its formal and thematic complex show façade belongs to the major works of European Baroque. In colored interior rooms like that of St. Peter's Church (1701-22), the contemporary efforts for the synthesis of architecture, painting and sculpture becomes visible.

Upgrading into metropolis: the ring road time (Ringstraßenzeit)

Since the Baroque, reflections on extension of the hopelessly overcrowed city were made, but only Emperor Franz Joseph ordered in 1857 the demolition of the fortifications and the connection of the inner city with the suburbs. 1865, the Ring Road was opened. It is as the most important boulevard of Europe an architectural and in terms of urban development achievement of the highest rank. The original building structure is almost completely preserved and thus conveys the authentic image of a metropolis of the 19th century. The public representational buildings speak, reflecting accurately the historicism, by their style: The Greek Antique forms of Theophil Hansen's Parliament (1871-83) stood for democracy, the Renaissance of the by Heinrich Ferstel built University (1873-84) for the flourishing of humanism, the Gothic of the Town Hall (1872-83) by Friedrich Schmidt for the medieval civic pride.

Dominating remained the buildings of the imperial family: Eduard van der Nüll's and August Sicardsburg's Opera House (1863-69), Gottfried Semper's and Carl Hasenauer's Burgtheater (1874-88), their Museum of Art History and Museum of Natural History (1871-91) and the Neue (New) Hofburg (1881-1918 ). At the same time the ring road was the preferred residential area of mostly Jewish haute bourgeoisie. With luxurious palaces the families Ephrussi, Epstein or Todesco made it clear that they had taken over the cultural leadership role in Viennese society. In the framework of the World Exhibition of 1873, the new Vienna presented itself an international audience. At the ring road many hotels were opened, among them the Hotel Imperial and today's Palais Hansen Kempinski.

Laboratory of modernity: Vienna around 1900

Otto Wagner's Postal Savings Bank (1903-06) was one of the last buildings in the Ring road area Otto Wagner's Postal Savings Bank (1903-06), which with it façade, liberated of ornament, and only decorated with "functional" aluminum buttons and the glass banking hall now is one of the icons of modern architecture. Like no other stood Otto Wagner for the dawn into the 20th century: His Metropolitan Railway buildings made the public transport of the city a topic of architecture, the church of the Psychiatric hospital at Steinhofgründe (1904-07) is considered the first modern church.

With his consistent focus on the function of a building ("Something impractical can not be beautiful"), Wagner marked a whole generation of architects and made Vienna the laboratory of modernity: in addition to Joseph Maria Olbrich, the builder of the Secession (1897-98) and Josef Hoffmann, the architect of the at the western outskirts located Purkersdorf Sanatorium (1904) and founder of the Vienna Workshop (Wiener Werkstätte, 1903) is mainly to mention Adolf Loos, with the Loos House at the square Michaelerplatz (1909-11) making architectural history. The extravagant marble cladding of the business zone stands in maximal contrast, derived from the building function, to the unadorned facade above, whereby its "nudity" became even more obvious - a provocation, as well as his culture-critical texts ("Ornament and Crime"), with which he had greatest impact on the architecture of the 20th century. Public contracts Loos remained denied. His major works therefore include villas, apartment facilities and premises as the still in original state preserved Tailor salon Knize at Graben (1910-13) and the restored Loos Bar (1908-09) near the Kärntner Straße (passageway Kärntner Durchgang).

Between the Wars: International Modern Age and social housing

After the collapse of the monarchy in 1918, Vienna became capital of the newly formed small country of Austria. In the heart of the city, the architects Theiss & Jaksch built 1931-32 the first skyscraper in Vienna as an exclusive residential address (Herrengasse - alley 6-8). To combat the housing shortage for the general population, the social democratic city government in a globally unique building program within a few years 60,000 apartments in hundreds of apartment buildings throughout the city area had built, including the famous Karl Marx-Hof by Karl Ehn (1925-30). An alternative to the multi-storey buildings with the 1932 opened International Werkbundsiedlung was presented, which was attended by 31 architects from Austria, Germany, France, Holland and the USA and showed models for affordable housing in greenfield areas. With buildings of Adolf Loos, André Lurçat, Richard Neutra, Gerrit Rietveld, the Werkbundsiedlung, which currently is being restored at great expense, is one of the most important documents of modern architecture in Austria.

Modernism was also expressed in significant Villa buildings: The House Beer (1929-31) by Josef Frank exemplifies the refined Wiener living culture of the interwar period, while the house Stonborough-Wittgenstein (1926-28, today Bulgarian Cultural Institute), built by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein together with the architect Paul Engelmann for his sister Margarete, by its aesthetic radicalism and mathematical rigor represents a special case within contemporary architecture.

Expulsion, war and reconstruction

After the "Anschluss (Annexation)" to the German Reich in 1938, numerous Jewish builders, architects (female and male ones), who had been largely responsible for the high level of Viennese architecture, have been expelled from Austria. During the Nazi era, Vienna remained largely unaffected by structural transformations, apart from the six flak towers built for air defense of Friedrich Tamms (1942-45), made of solid reinforced concrete which today are present as memorials in the cityscape.

The years after the end of World War II were characterized by the reconstruction of the by bombs heavily damaged city. The architecture of those times was marked by aesthetic pragmatism, but also by the attempt to connect with the period before 1938 and pick up on current international trends. Among the most important buildings of the 1950s are Roland Rainer's City Hall (1952-58), the by Oswald Haerdtl erected Wien Museum at Karlsplatz (1954-59) and the 21er Haus of Karl Schwanzer (1958-62).

The youngsters come

Since the 1960s, a young generation was looking for alternatives to the moderate modernism of the reconstruction years. With visionary designs, conceptual, experimental and above all temporary architectures, interventions and installations, Raimund Abraham, Günther Domenig, Eilfried Huth, Hans Hollein, Walter Pichler and the groups Coop Himmelb(l)au, Haus-Rucker-Co and Missing Link rapidly got international attention. Although for the time being it was more designed than built, was the influence on the postmodern and deconstructivist trends of the 1970s and 1980s also outside Austria great. Hollein's futuristic "Retti" candle shop at Charcoal Market/Kohlmarkt (1964-65) and Domenig's biomorphic building of the Central Savings Bank in Favoriten (10th district of Vienna - 1975-79) are among the earliest examples, later Hollein's Haas-Haus (1985-90), the loft conversion Falkestraße (1987/88) by Coop Himmelb(l)au or Domenig's T Center (2002-04) were added. Especially Domenig, Hollein, Coop Himmelb(l)au and the architects Ortner & Ortner (ancient members of Haus-Rucker-Co) by orders from abroad the new Austrian and Viennese architecture made a fixed international concept.

MuseumQuarter and Gasometer

Since the 1980s, the focus of building in Vienna lies on the compaction of the historic urban fabric that now as urban habitat of high quality no longer is put in question. Among the internationally best known projects is the by Ortner & Ortner planned MuseumsQuartier in the former imperial stables (competition 1987, 1998-2001), which with institutions such as the MUMOK - Museum of Modern Art Foundation Ludwig, the Leopold Museum, the Kunsthalle Wien, the Architecture Center Vienna and the Zoom Children's Museum on a wordwide scale is under the largest cultural complexes. After controversies in the planning phase, here an architectural compromise between old and new has been achieved at the end, whose success as an urban stage with four million visitors (2012) is overwhelming.

The dialogue between old and new, which has to stand on the agenda of building culture of a city that is so strongly influenced by history, also features the reconstruction of the Gasometer in Simmering by Coop Himmelb(l)au, Wilhelm Holzbauer, Jean Nouvel and Manfred Wehdorn (1999-2001). Here was not only created new housing, but also a historical industrial monument reinterpreted into a signal in the urban development area.

New Neighborhood

In recent years, the major railway stations and their surroundings moved into the focus of planning. Here not only necessary infrastructural measures were taken, but at the same time opened up spacious inner-city residential areas and business districts. Among the prestigious projects are included the construction of the new Vienna Central Station, started in 2010 with the surrounding office towers of the Quartier Belvedere and the residential and school buildings of the Midsummer quarter (Sonnwendviertel). Europe's largest wooden tower invites here for a spectacular view to the construction site and the entire city. On the site of the former North Station are currently being built 10,000 homes and 20,000 jobs, on that of the Aspangbahn station is being built at Europe's greatest Passive House settlement "Euro Gate", the area of the North Western Railway Station is expected to be developed from 2020 for living and working. The largest currently under construction residential project but can be found in the north-eastern outskirts, where in Seaside Town Aspern till 2028 living and working space for 40,000 people will be created.

In one of the "green lungs" of Vienna, the Prater, 2013, the WU campus was opened for the largest University of Economics of Europe. Around the central square spectacular buildings of an international architect team from Great Britain, Japan, Spain and Austria are gathered that seem to lead a sometimes very loud conversation about the status quo of contemporary architecture (Hitoshi Abe, BUSarchitektur, Peter Cook, Zaha Hadid, NO MAD Arquitectos, Carme Pinós).

Flying high

International is also the number of architects who have inscribed themselves in the last few years with high-rise buildings in the skyline of Vienna and make St. Stephen's a not always unproblematic competition. Visible from afar is Massimiliano Fuksas' 138 and 127 meters high elegant Twin Tower at Wienerberg (1999-2001). The monolithic, 75-meter-high tower of the Hotel Sofitel at the Danube Canal by Jean Nouvel (2007-10), on the other hand, reacts to the particular urban situation and stages in its top floor new perspectives to the historical center on the other side.

Also at the water stands Dominique Perrault's DC Tower (2010-13) in the Danube City - those high-rise city, in which since the start of construction in 1996, the expansion of the city north of the Danube is condensed symbolically. Even in this environment, the slim and at the same time striking vertically folded tower of Perrault is beyond all known dimensions; from its Sky Bar, from spring 2014 on you are able to enjoy the highest view of Vienna. With 250 meters, the tower is the tallest building of Austria and almost twice as high as the St. Stephen's Cathedral. Vienna, thus, has acquired a new architectural landmark which cannot be overlooked - whether it also has the potential to become a landmark of the new Vienna, only time will tell. The architectural history of Vienna, where European history is presence and new buildings enter into an exciting and not always conflict-free dialogue with a great and outstanding architectural heritage, in any case has yet to offer exciting chapters.

Info: The folder "Architecture: From Art Nouveau to the Presence" is available at the Vienna Tourist Board and can be downloaded on www.wien.info/media/files/guide-architecture-in-wien.pdf.

Irisbus Agora L €3 n°3006 by Floriandu95

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Exploitant : Transdev TVO

Réseau : R'Bus (Argenteuil)

Ligne : 8

Lieu : Gare du Val d'Argenteuil (Argenteuil, F-95)

Lien TC Infos : tc-infos.fr/id/37466

Cattle Egret by Jason Prince

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Taken in Southern Spain 2024.

The cattle egret (Bubulcus) is a cosmopolitan genus of heron (family Ardeidae) found in the tropics, subtropics, and warm-temperate zones. According to the IOC bird list, it contains two species, the western cattle egret and the eastern cattle egret, although some authorities regard them as a single species. Despite the similarities in plumage to the egrets of the genus Egretta, it is more closely related to the herons of Ardea. Originally native to parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe, it has undergone a rapid expansion in its distribution and successfully colonised much of the rest of the world in the last century.

They are white birds adorned with buff plumes in the breeding season. They nest in colonies, usually near bodies of water and often with other wading birds. The nest is a platform of sticks in trees or shrubs. Cattle egrets exploit drier and open habitats more than other heron species. Their feeding habitats include seasonally inundated grasslands, pastures, farmlands, wetlands, and rice paddies. They often accompany cattle or other large mammals, catching insect and small vertebrate prey disturbed by these animals. Some populations are migratory and others show postbreeding dispersal.

The adult cattle egret has few predators, but birds or mammals may raid its nests, and chicks may be lost to starvation, calcium deficiency, or disturbance from other large birds. This genus maintains a special relationship with cattle, which extends to other large grazing mammals; wider human farming is believed to be a major cause of their suddenly expanded range. The cattle egret removes ticks and flies from cattle and consumes them. This benefits both organisms, but it has been implicated in the spread of tick-borne animal diseases.

Tree Hunting by Conor F. Shine

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Ayats Eclipse DN-583-PS - Podiocom by BNCie44

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Exploitant : Podiocom

Pelliculé pour la victoire de la Coupe de France 2022 du FC Nantes.

Morane-Saulnier 760 Paris by Patrick BOUCHENARD

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Morane-Saulnier 760 Paris (Base aérienne 105 Evreux,juin 1991 (Eure)

Website : www.fluidr.com/photos/pat21

www.flickriver.com/photos/pat21/sets/

The reproduction, publication, modification, transmission or exploitation of any work contained here in for any use, personal or commercial, without my prior written permission is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved."

Mossman Gorge. by denisbin

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Mossman and Port Douglas.

In 1873 George Dalrymple discovered and named the Mossman River. Dalrymple had tried to set up sheep runs near what was to become Townsville in 1860. When this did not work the Government made him Commissioner of Lands in the Townsville region and he pioneered the town of Bowen. Dalrymple soon resigned and then established the town of Cardwell as a private venture. In 1873 he went on a government expedition to find a port for the Palmer River gold diggings (there were 30,000 men on the diggings almost overnight) and he sailed to the Endeavour River and the newly emerging town of Cooktown. Cooktown was established for the Palmer River diggings. This was the time when Dalrymple discovered the Daintree River and named the Mossman River. Daintree was named after Dalrymple’s friend Richard Daintree, a QLD government geologist who found gold and other deposits in northern QLD. The Mossman River was named after another of Dalrymple’s friends, Hugh Mosman (the spelling of the town was changed to avoid confusion with the suburb of the same name in Sydney) another geologists and mine explorer. Mosman was the man who named Charters Towers when he found gold there in 1872. We visit Charters Tower on Saturday.

Nearby Port Douglas was established in 1877 to cart supplies to the Hodgkinson River goldfields and within a few years farmers had cleared flat land in the nearby Mossman River valley for sugar cane growing. The venture only succeeded because a cane mill was established there in 1883. The long wet season, made sugar a tricky business in the Daintree region. But with government assistance and more growers, a new cane mill was built in Mossman in 1897 with a train system to bring the sugar cane to the mill. This time the enterprise worked and the township grew especially once the train line was extended to Port Douglas in 1900. By 1902 Mossman had 4 hotels, a school, a Catholic Church, a general store and a post office. In the 1930s the town was linked to Cairns with a main road and the old port at Port Douglas declined into a tiny fishing village. Today Mossman is still a sugar growing area and the town has around 2,000 people and the road continues north through the Daintree to Cooktown. Port Douglas has had a revival since Christopher Skase built his luxury resort, the Sheraton Mirage Resort there in the mid 1980s. At that time Port Douglas only had a 100 or so residents. Today it has around 1,000 permanent residents and up to 1,000 holiday makers at peak times!

Australian Red Cedar- Toona ciliata.

Many of us at home have an antique Australian Red Cedar chest of drawers or dining chair or book case. Cedar was the most popular 19th century timber for Australian furniture and mouldings. But the environment paid dearly for our love of this furniture. The NSW forests were stripped of giant cedars first, then southern QLD. The last area remaining to be plundered was the Daintree. Timber getters flocked to the Daintree in 1873 after Dalrymple announced his explorations. Within 3 years nearly 60 ships had been fully loaded with Daintree cedar. No wonder cedar was referred to as “red gold.” It is estimated that some trees were more than 500 years old. Many reached to 60 metres tall. They were giants. But the exploitation was not efficient. Many trees were felled and then left to rot as they were too difficult to float downstream to Mossman or Port Douglas. In 1875 the QLD parliament had an enquiry into cedar felling but with no change of felling policies. By 1885 the cedars were gone. They have not revegetated in the Daintree since. However in NSW Toona ciliate has regrown in some coastal forests quite quickly. In the Australian register of giant trees only one Cedar is listed at a mere 55 metres in height. (Mountain Ashes are listed at over 90 metres tall). Cedar is commercially extinct in Australia but it is still logged in New Guinea and a very small forestry plantation on the Atherton Tablelands. Sugar cane and a bit of dairying replaced cedar felling but timber felling continued well into the 20th century. The last timber mill erected in the area was in 1924 in Daintree village.

Getting the cedars and other produce to market was always a problem for the Daintree area. There was no port although there was talk of a port for the mouth of the Daintree to be called Whitby after the town in Yorkshire where Captain Cook once lived. But nothing eventuated. During the west season Daintree village was completely isolated except for boat access. In the dry season the 30 kms from Mossman still took a full day to complete on horseback. All this changed in 1932 when a road was built from Mossman to Daintree. Once the Great Depression hit some people moved into the Daintree area near Cape Tribulation on a government group settlement scheme with 300 acre blocks. But the farmers were disappointed. After the hard work of clearing the rainforest their crops were destroyed by feral pigs. Some stayed on subsisting on tropical fruits and vegetables. So the start of white settlement in the Cape Tribulation area was in the 1930s. A coastal sailing vessel called into Cape Tribulation once a week with mail and some supplies from the mid 1930s onwards. After World War Two timber felling started in the Cape Tribulation area. Milling ran from 1948 until 1962. But the isolation protected the area from too much development. The road only reached the area in 1955.

Daintree.

This refers to several different places. There is the town of Daintree, the River Daintree, and the Daintree Forest National Park. This National Park includes several national parks in the Daintree region which in turn form the Queensland Wet Tropics Rainforest World Heritage area. The Daintree Park is 100 kms north of Cairns and one part is known as the Cape Tribulation National Park and the other Mossman Gorge National Park. To enter the Cape Tribulation part of the Daintree National Park you have to cross the ferry at the Daintree River. We will only be cruising along the Daintree River and doing a short forest walk near the Daintree village. The Park got UNESCO Word Heritage status in 1983. It received this status because of the diversity of animals and plants in the park and because it is the last extensive lowlands wet tropical forest left in Australia. Most of our other rain forests are in the mountain ranges.

The Daintree forest is thought to be over 100 million years old. It is in a high rainfall zone of Australia and this presented great problems to early settlers. Malaria and other tropical diseases were great killers here before the 1960s and better medical treatments. Since its declaration the QLD and federal governments have been buying back private land to add to the park. Parts of the park receive about 4,000 mm of rain a year- eight times the annual rainfall of Adelaide! The park is also subject to cyclones but it has been lucky and escaped major damage. The worst cyclones to hit the park occurred in 1920 and 1934.

Animals and Plants.

The Daintree contains about 30% of Australia’s frog, reptile and marsupial species, 65% of our bat and butterfly species and over 430 species of bird. Although we are unlikely to see any, the Park is home to Tree Kangaroos, many possums, dingoes, various small marsupials, and flying foxes and other bats. The jungle associated with a lowland rain forest is a perfect habitat for many birds including the elusive Cassowary, kookaburras, kingfishers, cockatoos, pigeons of various kinds, and scrubfowl. The rarities which are seldom seen include some Bowerbirds and even one species of bird of paradise (the Riflebird). The riverside and coastal areas are home to many seabirds. The common reptile to be seen is the salt water crocodile known for their aggression and size. If you see a flash of blue against a green leaf in the rain forest it could be the famed Ulysses Butterfly. This is just one many species of butterfly in the Daintree. The one animal you might not want to see but might see is the introduced Cane Toad. It was introduced to kill off the sugar cane beetles in 1935. It came from South America. It failed to do that job but it spread rapidly as it had no natural predators. It feasts on native snakes, frogs and small animals. It has now extended across to the Northern Territory and south into NSW and cane toads number some 200 million. If ingested by other animals it poisons them. All attempts to control their breeding and spread have so far failed. They are a major environmental disaster for Australia.

The rain forest jungle provides a growing area for mighty trees which block out the sun at ground level, twisting vines and creepers and small plants and ferns near the ground. On our walk in the rain forest you will be most aware of the ground hugging species rather than the tall canopy species. But on their trunks you will see buttress roots, lichens, fungi and moss. The rotting vegetation on the forest floor encourages more moss, native orchids and some small flowering plants. But be careful as some are stinging plants and others hide rainforest leaches! At eye level you will see various palms such as the Fan Palm, the Black Palm, Coconut Palm (although this is not native) and Rattan Palms. Below them you will see the beautiful ferns- Tree Ferns, King Ferns, Ribbon Ferns, Creek Ferns and others. As this is Australia you will also see cycads with their stiff fern like fronds. Cycads bear cones like conifers and are amongst the oldest plants on earth. The Daintree has the greatest diversity of cycads anywhere in the world. These cycads and some of the big trees like the Hoop and Bunya Pine and Kauri are all living counterparts of the Jurassic-age fossils of elsewhere like Riversleigh in western QLD. You will also find banksias, macadamias, eucalypts and some of our more usual vegetation.

Teenage Mother (1967) by Tina & Joe

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A health teacher fights for her job at a high school plagued by delinquents and teenage pregnancy in this notorious exploitation film.

First Men in the Moon (Columbia, 1964) by Morbius19

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youtu.be/wO9XjCM6tB8?t=3s Trailer

1964 was a better year for sci-fi and Columbia's First Men in the Moon (FMM) was the year's big-budget treat. HG Wells' 1899 novel was adapted to a more modern retelling by Nigel Kneal (of Quatermass fame), but is still fairly faithful to the original. Two men (and a woman) travel to the moon in 1899 and encounter a civilization of insect-like beings. FMM also features the animation of Ray Harryhausen. He gives the usual monster (moon cows), but brings the selenites to life.

Synopsis

A modern (1960s) UN moon mission lands, only to discover a little British flag and a paper claiming the moon for Queen Victoria. On earth, they trace the names to an old Arnold Bedford in a nursing home. He tells his story as flashback. He rented a cottage next door to an eccentric inventor. Cavor created Cavorite, a substance which blocks gravity. Bedford sees the money-making potential, so attaches himself to the work. Cavor, however, wants to explore the moon. To that end, he built a sphere. Bedford agrees to go with him, thinking of gold on the moon. Bedford's fiancee, Kate, is pulled aboard at the last minute. Amid some mild antics en route, they arrive on the moon. Cavor and Bedford explore, finding a labyrinth of tunnels and little insect people. They return to the surface, but the sphere (with Kate inside) has been taken by the selenites. They re-enter the tunnels in search, but become separated when a giant "moon cow" caterpillar beast attacks them. The selenite scientists study Cavor and Kate, eventually learning english. The selenites are disassembling the sphere for study. Cavor is given an audience with the Grand Lunar. He tells the Grand Lunar about earth and men. Cavor's description of war alarms the Grand Lunar, who decrees that Cavor must remain on the moon to prevent more defective earthmen make the trip. Meanwhile, Bedford and Kate have reassembled the sphere, but need Cavor to get the shutters to work. Bedford interrupts the Grand Lunar audience, causing a fight. Cavor and Bedford flee to the sphere. Cavor fixes it, but refuses to return to earth. Bedford and Kate return. End flashback. Old Bedford sums up his tale. TV reports that the astronauts on the moon find abandoned underground cities. Quick conjecture is that some virus wiped out the inhabitants. Bedford quips that Cavor did have a bad cold. The End.

There is much to like in FMM. Lionel Jeffries almost steals the show with his highly colorful portrayal of Cavor. The matt art, scenery, sets and models are well done. Harryhausen's work doesn't dominate, but enhances the alien-world feel.

There is more of Wells' original anti-imperialism message than anything of the Cold War. The portrayed fact that the first moon landing was an international effort shows a bit of optimism.

Nigel Kneal's screenplay tries to maintain much of Wells' original story, but a few concessions had to be made to make a good movie for mid-60s audiences. Rather than modernize the tale, Kneal framed the Victorian story as a flashback within modern bookends. Kneal omitted the frozen atmosphere and fungal plant life, (as modern audiences would not buy that). He kept a simplified version of the selenite civilization, and the moon cows. He also kept Bedford returning and Cavor remaining.

Kneal's script pulls in elements from a couple of Wells' other stories. He repeats the trope of the aliens taking the protagonist's machine underground, which Wells had in The Time Machine. Kneal borrows from Wells' War of the Worlds to have the aliens all killed off by a simple earth germ. In Wells' novel, the selenites are not wiped out. Modern folk knew the moon was lifeless, so a handy plague was needed.

Embedded in Wells' novel, and echoed somewhat in Kneal's screenplay, was stratified, dehumanizing industrial society. A cute counterfoil to that and commentary on unionized culture, was the scene at Cavor's house where the three workers argue about whose job it was to stoke the furnace. The metal worker complained that since he wasn't a stoker (by profession), it therefore wasn't his job. The gardener agreed that he wasn't a stoker either. The butler also agreed that he was a butler, not a stoker, so none of them stoked, but all went out for a pint.

In Wells' War of the Words, imperialist humans get a taste of their own medicine from the über-imperialist Martians. In FFM, imperialist humans go to someone else's planet. In both the novel and the screenplay, the two protagonists embody classic British imperialism. Cavor is the benevolent explorer, missionary and claimer of places. Bedford is the exploiter capitalist, who puts little value on the lives of the "brownies". This condensed duo of earth-ish imperialism plops down amid a greater power. Cavor and Bedford play out the traditional arguments (benevolence vs. conquest) but Bedford's view prevails and he goes about smashing their cities. In Kneal's script, imperialist man manages to completely ruins things -- even if only by accident (Cavor's cold germs). This has several earth history parallels too.

It was fairly common in 19th century sci-fi (e.g. Wells and Verne) to have only men as the protagonists. Post-WWII Hollywood was unable to resist inserting a woman into the character mix. They usually served as simple cheesecake, or love-triangle fodder, or the damel to be rescued. In FFM, Kate is a bit less flagrantly the intruded woman. She is useful to keep up dialogue while Cavor and Bedford are separated. She is a occasionally the damsel, but not obnoxiously so. (Heck, she blasts some selenites with a shotgun). We can be thankful the producers resisted including a cute animal in Disney fashion.

Bottom line? FMM is a classic that no one should miss -- even viewers who don't normally go in for sci-fi. The story is thoughtful, the acting good, and the production very good.

While many contemporary science fiction and fantasy films find their inspiration in graphic novels and comic books, H.G. Wells is still the gold standard when it comes to an indisputable master of the genre. More than 62 years after his death, the film industry continues to steal from and rework ideas and storylines from his popular fantasy novels. Most of them have been enormously successful (The War of the Worlds [1953 & 2005], The Time Machine [1960 & 2002], The Invisible Man [1932], Island of Lost Souls [1933]). In fact, one of the first silent films to become an international success was French filmmaker Georges Melies's 1902 adaptation of Wells' First Men in the Moon, released as Le Voyage dans la lune.

TCM review by Jeff Stafford

In Wells' original 1901 novel, the story, set in the rural village of Kent, focused on an eccentric scientist, Cavor, conducting anti-gravity experiments on a man-made substance called 'Cavorite,' and his neighbor, Mr. Bedford, a struggling, debt-ridden playwright. Enlisting Bedford's help, Cavor eventually succeeds in proving the "gravitational opacity" of cavorite and together the two men depart for the Moon in a glass-lined steel sphere powered by Cavor's invention. After successfully landing on the lunar surface and exploring the terrain, Cavor and Bedford are captured by moon men Selenites and imprisoned. Bedford manages to escape, and believing that Cavor has been killed, he locates their stolen sphere and returns to Earth. Once he is back, Bedford publishes an account of his adventures and learns from a Dutch scientist experimenting with wireless waves that messages are being sent from the moon by Cavor. It appears that Bedford's former neighbor has learned to live and communicate with the Selenites but eventually Cavor's messages become incoherent and then abruptly stop. The story ends with Bedford assuming that the Selenites silenced Cavor because they were afraid of further Earth expeditions to the moon.

Georges Melies's loose 1902 adaptation of Wells' First Men in the Moon condenses the story into a brief running time of barely eleven minutes but in 1919, Gaumont studio attempted a longer feature version, directed by J.L.V. Leigh, which added a female character as the love interest. It is now considered a lost film. No one else attempted to film Wells' story until the early sixties when screenwriter Nigel Kneale, stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen, and director Nathan Juran were brought together by producer Charles Schneer.

After securing the rights from Frank Wells, son of the famous author, Schneer approached Columbia Pictures with the project. Despite their initial reluctance, Schneer's previous successes for them - 20 Million Miles to Earth [1957], The 7th Voyage of Sinbad [1958], Jason and the Argonauts [1963] convinced them to finance First Men in the Moon [1964]. Kneale, who had penned The Quatermass Experiment, a highly influential science fiction series on BBC-TV, updated Wells's original story to include a clever framing device set in present times in which a United Nations space mission to the moon discovers evidence of a British expedition in 1899, during the reign of Queen Victoria. Kneale also expanded the role of the female love interest who was first introduced in the 1919 version. Martha Hyer was cast in the latter role with Lionel Jeffries and Edward Judd being tapped to play Cavot and Bedford, respectively.

In the book Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life, the special effects master describes some of the difficulties of filming First Men in the Moon. "Along with numerous other tasks, I was also faced with the design basics for a whole alien civilization. Because the Selenites were to be insect-like, I decided that all doors and apertures were to be hexagonal, a common structure in the insect world. Whether it was scientifically accurate was secondary to the consideration that it should look realistic, be practical and above all spectacular. These basics were relatively straightforward, but when it came to broader aspects of the story that included tunnels, lunar landscapes, lens complexes, oxygen machines and the palace of the Grand Lunar, the budget prevented any of them from being built as full sets, so I designed them as miniatures and incorporated the actors with the aid of traveling mattes. For example, the huge bubbling vats that produced the oxygen were three- or four-foot high miniatures. However, these design headaches were nothing compared to Charles [Schneer] and Columbia Pictures announcing that the film, if possible, should be photographed in widescreen to give it an added attraction."

Filmed in the anamorphic process known as "Dynamation," in which live action and stop-motion animation can be combined via rear-projection and split-screen techniques, First Men in the Moon proved to be more restrictive and cost-prohibitive for Harryhausen on a creative level. As a result, his famous stop-motion work was only highlighted in three key sequences the Selenites in their high tech laboratories, the giant mooncalf and the Grand Lunar.

Most of the live-action cinematography took place at Shepperton Studios where a full-sized section of the moon's surface was constructed on a sound stage for the framing sequence and for the arrival and departure of Cavor's sphere from the lunar surface. NASA served as technical advisors on the film and the blueprints for their own Lunar module aided Harryhausen tremendously in designing the entire U.N. expedition sequence; it would also serve as a dry run for NASA which would stage a real moon walk for the entire world on television on July 20, 1969.

Less successful was the design of the Selenites. Harryhausen said, "I have never been keen on using 'men in suits' as animated creatures, but several scenes called for masses of smaller 'worker' Selenites, which would have taken an eternity to animate. So we had to resort to using children in suits. I designed a suit made into twenty-five moulded latex costumes with reinforced sections. Although they were never really convincing, mainly because the children's arms were not spindly enough to match the animated Selenites, the low-key lighting allowed Jerry [a nickname for director Nathan Juran] to use the suits with reasonable success."

Despite the many technical frustrations he experienced while working on First Men in the Moon, Harryhausen also enjoyed some aspects of it. "Some of my fondest memories during production," he said, "were the surprise visits of several personalities. The first was Frank Wells, son of H.G. Sadly, I only met him briefly, but he showed great enthusiasm for the design and animation, and we talked about his father. Another visit was by one of Hollywood's greatest directors, William Wyler. He was shooting a film on another stage, and although he wasn't there very long, I did manage to talk with him, and he seemed intrigued at what we were doing. Furthermore, when British performer William Rushton was unable to turn up for the part of the writ server, we unexpectedly secured the services of one of the world's top actors. Lionel [Jeffries] persuaded Peter Finch, who happened to be shooting The Pumpkin Eater (1964) on the next stage, to guest in the role. To save time, Lionel wrote out Finch's lines on the back of the summons paper, which he delivered with enormous enjoyment."

When First Men in the Moon opened theatrically, it was treated by most critics as a children's film and not as a bona-fide sci-fi thriller in the style of Wells' The War of the Worlds or The Time Machine. Howard Thompson of The New York Times dismissed it, writing, "Only the most indulgent youngsters should derive much stimulation let alone fun from the tedious, heavy-handed science-fiction vehicle that arrived yesterday from England..." The Variety review was more positive and reflected the film's general reception, calling it "an exploiteer's dream. Family audiences should flock to the wickets. It is an astute blend of comedy, occasional thrills and special effects work. Film is a good example of the kind of fare that television cannot hope to match in the foreseeable future."

Moviegoers did not, however, flock to see First Men in the Moon as they had previous Harryhausen ventures such as Jason and the Argonauts and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Part of the problem may have been the film's emphasis on comedy instead of suspense or action-adventure and many reviewers noted that the whimsical tone neutralized any potential excitement. The Hollywood Reporter, in fact, proclaimed it "the first space fantasy comedy." Harryhausen was also working with a different composer this time instead of Bernard Herrmann, who was unavailable. While Laurie Johnson's score is atmospheric and evocative of its setting, it lacked the dynamic range and intensity that Herrmann's music brought to such Harryhausen films as The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960) and Mysterious Island (1961), among others.

Harryhausen also admits that "...the poster Columbia came up with really didn't help to sell it. It was too childish in its attempts to point out that it was 'in' in the Moon, not 'on.'" Yet people who avoided the movie missed a visual treat, brimming with rich Victorian-era art direction, futuristic set designs reflecting the Selenites's world and unusual special effects. "Personally," Harryhausen stated, "I believe it is one of the most faithful adaptations of Wells' novels, but perhaps the time was not right for such a film, or perhaps the real moon landings were too close. Hopefully, posterity will look upon it with kinder eyes."

Producer: Charles H. Schneer

Director: Nathan Juran

Screenplay: Nigel Kneale, Jan Read; H.G. Wells (story)

Cinematography: Wilkie Cooper

Art Direction: John Blezard

Music: Laurie Johnson

Film Editing: Maurice Rootes

Cast: Edward Judd (Arnold Bedford), Martha Hyer (Katherine 'Kate' Callender), Lionel Jeffries (Joseph Cavor), Miles Malleson (Dymchurch Registrar), Norman Bird (Stuart), Gladys Henson (nursing home matron), Hugh McDermott (Richard Challis).

C-103m.

192 - Mané Vechen by Julien DANIELO

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Mané Vechen est une riche villa maritime construite pour un membre de l’élite gallo-romaine à la fin du IIe siècle de notre ère, sous le Haut-Empire. Située au bord de la ria d’Etel sur le territoire de la civitas des Vénètes, ce bâtiment témoigne de la prospérité obtenue grâce à l’exploitation du sel, des coquillages et du garum. Les fouilles menées dans les années 2000 ont révélé le luxe du décor intérieur sans équivalent en Armorique : Incrustations de coquillages, fresques en frise, en imitation de marbres polychromes, figuratives présentant Vénus avec des putti, stucs à décor classique (pilastres, rinceaux, putti, dieux). La villa était organisée en trois ailes ordonnées autour d’une cour centrale avec bassin. Vers le sud-est, les archéologues ont suggéré la présence d’une galerie ouverte sur la mer comme dans d’autres exemples de villas maritimes. Les traces de cette possible galerie ayant disparu avec l’érosion du bord de côte. La villa fut brûlée vers 284-285, probablement par des pirates qui infestaient la côte atlantique et la Manche, et fut réoccupée par une population indifférente au luxe qui ornait la villa.

L'architecture qui a servi pour ce montage est celle d'un portique d’un complexe cultuel des IIe et IIIe siècles après notre ère découvert à Blicquy.

Montage photo de deux sites : Archéosite et Musée d’Aubechies-Beloeil Asbl, Belgique et paysage de la ria d'Etel (56) sur le site de Mané Vechen.

Inscribed Adventures & Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and the Exploits of Brigadier Gerard. London: George Newnes, 1901. by Leo Boudreau

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Leather Bound Sixpence editions.

Cheeky Exploits by matt collins

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Nepal - Patan - Durbar Square - Ganesha - 106 by Manfred Sommer

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Ganesha, also spelled Ganesh, and also known as Ganapati and Vinayaka, is a widely worshipped deity in the Hindu pantheon. His image is found throughout India and Nepal. Hindu sects worship him regardless of affiliations. Devotion to Ganesha is widely diffused and extends to Jains, Buddhists, and beyond India.

Although he is known by many attributes, Ganesha's elephant head makes him easy to identify. Ganesha is widely revered as the remover of obstacles, the patron of arts and sciences and the deva of intellect and wisdom. As the god of beginnings, he is honoured at the start of rituals and ceremonies. Ganesha is also invoked as patron of letters and learning during writing sessions. Several texts relate mythological anecdotes associated with his birth and exploits and explain his distinct iconography.

Ganesha emerged as a distinct deity in the 4th and 5th centuries CE, during the Gupta Period, although he inherited traits from Vedic and pre-Vedic precursors. He was formally included among the five primary deities of Smartism (a Hindu denomination) in the 9th century. A sect of devotees called the Ganapatya arose, who identified Ganesha as the supreme deity. The principal scriptures dedicated to Ganesha are the Ganesha Purana, the Mudgala Purana, and the Ganapati Atharvashirsa.

ETYMOLOGY AND OTHER NAMES

Ganesha has been ascribed many other titles and epithets, including Ganapati and Vighneshvara. The Hindu title of respect Shri is often added before his name. One popular way Ganesha is worshipped is by chanting a Ganesha Sahasranama, a litany of "a thousand names of Ganesha". Each name in the sahasranama conveys a different meaning and symbolises a different aspect of Ganesha. At least two different versions of the Ganesha Sahasranama exist; one version is drawn from the Ganesha Purana, a Hindu scripture venerating Ganesha.

The name Ganesha is a Sanskrit compound, joining the words gana, meaning a group, multitude, or categorical system and isha, meaning lord or master. The word gaņa when associated with Ganesha is often taken to refer to the gaņas, a troop of semi-divine beings that form part of the retinue of Shiva. The term more generally means a category, class, community, association, or corporation. Some commentators interpret the name "Lord of the Gaņas" to mean "Lord of Hosts" or "Lord of created categories", such as the elements. Ganapati, a synonym for Ganesha, is a compound composed of gaṇa, meaning "group", and pati, meaning "ruler" or "lord". The Amarakosha, an early Sanskrit lexicon, lists eight synonyms of Ganesha : Vinayaka, Vighnarāja (equivalent to Vighnesha), Dvaimātura (one who has two mothers), Gaṇādhipa (equivalent to Ganapati and Ganesha), Ekadanta (one who has one tusk), Heramba, Lambodara (one who has a pot belly, or, literally, one who has a hanging belly), and Gajanana; having the face of an elephant).

Vinayaka is a common name for Ganesha that appears in the Purāṇas and in Buddhist Tantras. This name is reflected in the naming of the eight famous Ganesha temples in Maharashtra known as the Ashtavinayak (aṣṭavināyaka). The names Vighnesha and Vighneshvara (Lord of Obstacles) refers to his primary function in Hindu theology as the master and remover of obstacles (vighna).

A prominent name for Ganesha in the Tamil language is Pillai. A. K. Narain differentiates these terms by saying that pillai means a "child" while pillaiyar means a "noble child". He adds that the words pallu, pella, and pell in the Dravidian family of languages signify "tooth or tusk", also "elephant tooth or tusk". Anita Raina Thapan notes that the root word pille in the name Pillaiyar might have originally meant "the young of the elephant", because the Pali word pillaka means "a young elephant".

In the Burmese language, Ganesha is known as Maha Peinne, derived from Pali Mahā Wināyaka. The widespread name of Ganesha in Thailand is Phra Phikhanet or Phra Phikhanesuan, both of which are derived from Vara Vighnesha and Vara Vighneshvara respectively, whereas the name Khanet (from Ganesha) is rather rare.

In Sri Lanka, in the North-Central and North Western areas with predominantly Buddhist population, Ganesha is known as Aiyanayaka Deviyo, while in other Singhala Buddhist areas he is known as Gana deviyo.

ICONOGRAPHY

Ganesha is a popular figure in Indian art. Unlike those of some deities, representations of Ganesha show wide variations and distinct patterns changing over time. He may be portrayed standing, dancing, heroically taking action against demons, playing with his family as a boy, sitting down or on an elevated seat, or engaging in a range of contemporary situations.

Ganesha images were prevalent in many parts of India by the 6th century. The 13th century statue pictured is typical of Ganesha statuary from 900–1200, after Ganesha had been well-established as an independent deity with his own sect. This example features some of Ganesha's common iconographic elements. A virtually identical statue has been dated between 973–1200 by Paul Martin-Dubost, and another similar statue is dated c. 12th century by Pratapaditya Pal. Ganesha has the head of an elephant and a big belly. This statue has four arms, which is common in depictions of Ganesha. He holds his own broken tusk in his lower-right hand and holds a delicacy, which he samples with his trunk, in his lower-left hand. The motif of Ganesha turning his trunk sharply to his left to taste a sweet in his lower-left hand is a particularly archaic feature. A more primitive statue in one of the Ellora Caves with this general form has been dated to the 7th century. Details of the other hands are difficult to make out on the statue shown. In the standard configuration, Ganesha typically holds an axe or a goad in one upper arm and a pasha (noose) in the other upper arm.

The influence of this old constellation of iconographic elements can still be seen in contemporary representations of Ganesha. In one modern form, the only variation from these old elements is that the lower-right hand does not hold the broken tusk but is turned towards the viewer in a gesture of protection or fearlessness (abhaya mudra). The same combination of four arms and attributes occurs in statues of Ganesha dancing, which is a very popular theme.

COMMON ATTRIBUTES

Ganesha has been represented with the head of an elephant since the early stages of his appearance in Indian art. Puranic myths provide many explanations for how he got his elephant head. One of his popular forms, Heramba-Ganapati, has five elephant heads, and other less-common variations in the number of heads are known. While some texts say that Ganesha was born with an elephant head, he acquires the head later in most stories. The most recurrent motif in these stories is that Ganesha was created by Parvati using clay to protect her and Shiva beheaded him when Ganesha came between Shiva and Parvati. Shiva then replaced Ganesha's original head with that of an elephant. Details of the battle and where the replacement head came from vary from source to source. Another story says that Ganesha was created directly by Shiva's laughter. Because Shiva considered Ganesha too alluring, he gave him the head of an elephant and a protruding belly.

Ganesha's earliest name was Ekadanta (One Tusked), referring to his single whole tusk, the other being broken. Some of the earliest images of Ganesha show him holding his broken tusk. The importance of this distinctive feature is reflected in the Mudgala Purana, which states that the name of Ganesha's second incarnation is Ekadanta. Ganesha's protruding belly appears as a distinctive attribute in his earliest statuary, which dates to the Gupta period (4th to 6th centuries). This feature is so important that, according to the Mudgala Purana, two different incarnations of Ganesha use names based on it: Lambodara (Pot Belly, or, literally, Hanging Belly) and Mahodara (Great Belly). Both names are Sanskrit compounds describing his belly. The Brahmanda Purana says that Ganesha has the name Lambodara because all the universes (i.e., cosmic eggs) of the past, present, and future are present in him. The number of Ganesha's arms varies; his best-known forms have between two and sixteen arms. Many depictions of Ganesha feature four arms, which is mentioned in Puranic sources and codified as a standard form in some iconographic texts. His earliest images had two arms. Forms with 14 and 20 arms appeared in Central India during the 9th and the 10th centuries. The serpent is a common feature in Ganesha iconography and appears in many forms. According to the Ganesha Purana, Ganesha wrapped the serpent Vasuki around his neck. Other depictions of snakes include use as a sacred thread wrapped around the stomach as a belt, held in a hand, coiled at the ankles, or as a throne. Upon Ganesha's forehead may be a third eye or the Shaivite sectarian mark , which consists of three horizontal lines. The Ganesha Purana prescribes a tilaka mark as well as a crescent moon on the forehead. A distinct form of Ganesha called Bhalachandra includes that iconographic element. Ganesha is often described as red in color. Specific colors are associated with certain forms. Many examples of color associations with specific meditation forms are prescribed in the Sritattvanidhi, a treatise on Hindu iconography. For example, white is associated with his representations as Heramba-Ganapati and Rina-Mochana-Ganapati (Ganapati Who Releases from Bondage). Ekadanta-Ganapati is visualized as blue during meditation in that form.

VAHANAS

The earliest Ganesha images are without a vahana (mount/vehicle). Of the eight incarnations of Ganesha described in the Mudgala Purana, Ganesha uses a mouse (shrew) in five of them, a lion in his incarnation as Vakratunda, a peacock in his incarnation as Vikata, and Shesha, the divine serpent, in his incarnation as Vighnaraja. Mohotkata uses a lion, Mayūreśvara uses a peacock, Dhumraketu uses a horse, and Gajanana uses a mouse, in the four incarnations of Ganesha listed in the Ganesha Purana. Jain depictions of Ganesha show his vahana variously as a mouse, elephant, tortoise, ram, or peacock.

Ganesha is often shown riding on or attended by a mouse, shrew or rat. Martin-Dubost says that the rat began to appear as the principal vehicle in sculptures of Ganesha in central and western India during the 7th century; the rat was always placed close to his feet. The mouse as a mount first appears in written sources in the Matsya Purana and later in the Brahmananda Purana and Ganesha Purana, where Ganesha uses it as his vehicle in his last incarnation. The Ganapati Atharvashirsa includes a meditation verse on Ganesha that describes the mouse appearing on his flag. The names Mūṣakavāhana (mouse-mount) and Ākhuketana (rat-banner) appear in the Ganesha Sahasranama.

The mouse is interpreted in several ways. According to Grimes, "Many, if not most of those who interpret Gaṇapati's mouse, do so negatively; it symbolizes tamoguṇa as well as desire". Along these lines, Michael Wilcockson says it symbolizes those who wish to overcome desires and be less selfish. Krishan notes that the rat is destructive and a menace to crops. The Sanskrit word mūṣaka (mouse) is derived from the root mūṣ (stealing, robbing). It was essential to subdue the rat as a destructive pest, a type of vighna (impediment) that needed to be overcome. According to this theory, showing Ganesha as master of the rat demonstrates his function as Vigneshvara (Lord of Obstacles) and gives evidence of his possible role as a folk grāma-devatā (village deity) who later rose to greater prominence. Martin-Dubost notes a view that the rat is a symbol suggesting that Ganesha, like the rat, penetrates even the most secret places.

ASSOCIATIONS

OBSTACLES

Ganesha is Vighneshvara or Vighnaraja or Vighnaharta (Marathi), the Lord of Obstacles, both of a material and spiritual order. He is popularly worshipped as a remover of obstacles, though traditionally he also places obstacles in the path of those who need to be checked. Paul Courtright says that "his task in the divine scheme of things, his dharma, is to place and remove obstacles. It is his particular territory, the reason for his creation."

Krishan notes that some of Ganesha's names reflect shadings of multiple roles that have evolved over time. Dhavalikar ascribes the quick ascension of Ganesha in the Hindu pantheon, and the emergence of the Ganapatyas, to this shift in emphasis from vighnakartā (obstacle-creator) to vighnahartā (obstacle-averter). However, both functions continue to be vital to his character.

BUDDHI (KNOWLEDGE)

Ganesha is considered to be the Lord of letters and learning. In Sanskrit, the word buddhi is a feminine noun that is variously translated as intelligence, wisdom, or intellect. The concept of buddhi is closely associated with the personality of Ganesha, especially in the Puranic period, when many stories stress his cleverness and love of intelligence. One of Ganesha's names in the Ganesha Purana and the Ganesha Sahasranama is Buddhipriya. This name also appears in a list of 21 names at the end of the Ganesha Sahasranama that Ganesha says are especially important. The word priya can mean "fond of", and in a marital context it can mean "lover" or "husband", so the name may mean either "Fond of Intelligence" or "Buddhi's Husband".

AUM

Ganesha is identified with the Hindu mantra Aum, also spelled Om. The term oṃkārasvarūpa (Aum is his form), when identified with Ganesha, refers to the notion that he personifies the primal sound. The Ganapati Atharvashirsa attests to this association. Chinmayananda translates the relevant passage as follows:

(O Lord Ganapati!) You are (the Trinity) Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesa. You are Indra. You are fire [Agni] and air [Vāyu]. You are the sun [Sūrya] and the moon [Chandrama]. You are Brahman. You are (the three worlds) Bhuloka [earth], Antariksha-loka [space], and Swargaloka [heaven]. You are Om. (That is to say, You are all this).

Some devotees see similarities between the shape of Ganesha's body in iconography and the shape of Aum in the Devanāgarī and Tamil scripts.

FIRST CHAKRA

According to Kundalini yoga, Ganesha resides in the first chakra, called Muladhara (mūlādhāra). Mula means "original, main"; adhara means "base, foundation". The muladhara chakra is the principle on which the manifestation or outward expansion of primordial Divine Force rests. This association is also attested to in the Ganapati Atharvashirsa. Courtright translates this passage as follows: "[O Ganesha,] You continually dwell in the sacral plexus at the base of the spine [mūlādhāra cakra]." Thus, Ganesha has a permanent abode in every being at the Muladhara. Ganesha holds, supports and guides all other chakras, thereby "governing the forces that propel the wheel of life".

FAMILY AND CONSORTS

Though Ganesha is popularly held to be the son of Shiva and Parvati, the Puranic myths give different versions about his birth. In some he was created by Parvati, in another he was created by Shiva and Parvati, in another he appeared mysteriously and was discovered by Shiva and Parvati or he was born from the elephant headed goddess Malini after she drank Parvati's bath water that had been thrown in the river.

The family includes his brother the war god Kartikeya, who is also called Subramanya, Skanda, Murugan and other names. Regional differences dictate the order of their births. In northern India, Skanda is generally said to be the elder, while in the south, Ganesha is considered the first born. In northern India, Skanda was an important martial deity from about 500 BCE to about 600 CE, when worship of him declined significantly in northern India. As Skanda fell, Ganesha rose. Several stories tell of sibling rivalry between the brothers and may reflect sectarian tensions.

Ganesha's marital status, the subject of considerable scholarly review, varies widely in mythological stories. One pattern of myths identifies Ganesha as an unmarried brahmacari. This view is common in southern India and parts of northern India. Another pattern associates him with the concepts of Buddhi (intellect), Siddhi (spiritual power), and Riddhi (prosperity); these qualities are sometimes personified as goddesses, said to be Ganesha's wives. He also may be shown with a single consort or a nameless servant (Sanskrit: daşi). Another pattern connects Ganesha with the goddess of culture and the arts, Sarasvati or Śarda (particularly in Maharashtra). He is also associated with the goddess of luck and prosperity, Lakshmi. Another pattern, mainly prevalent in the Bengal region, links Ganesha with the banana tree, Kala Bo.

The Shiva Purana says that Ganesha had begotten two sons: Kşema (prosperity) and Lābha (profit). In northern Indian variants of this story, the sons are often said to be Śubha (auspiciouness) and Lābha. The 1975 Hindi film Jai Santoshi Maa shows Ganesha married to Riddhi and Siddhi and having a daughter named Santoshi Ma, the goddess of satisfaction. This story has no Puranic basis, but Anita Raina Thapan and Lawrence Cohen cite Santoshi Ma's cult as evidence of Ganesha's continuing evolution as a popular deity.

WOSHIP AND FESTIVALS

Ganesha is worshipped on many religious and secular occasions; especially at the beginning of ventures such as buying a vehicle or starting a business. K.N. Somayaji says, "there can hardly be a [Hindu] home [in India] which does not house an idol of Ganapati. [..] Ganapati, being the most popular deity in India, is worshipped by almost all castes and in all parts of the country". Devotees believe that if Ganesha is propitiated, he grants success, prosperity and protection against adversity.

Ganesha is a non-sectarian deity, and Hindus of all denominations invoke him at the beginning of prayers, important undertakings, and religious ceremonies. Dancers and musicians, particularly in southern India, begin performances of arts such as the Bharatnatyam dance with a prayer to Ganesha. Mantras such as Om Shri Gaṇeshāya Namah (Om, salutation to the Illustrious Ganesha) are often used. One of the most famous mantras associated with Ganesha is Om Gaṃ Ganapataye Namah (Om, Gaṃ, Salutation to the Lord of Hosts).

Devotees offer Ganesha sweets such as modaka and small sweet balls (laddus). He is often shown carrying a bowl of sweets, called a modakapātra. Because of his identification with the color red, he is often worshipped with red sandalwood paste (raktacandana) or red flowers. Dūrvā grass (Cynodon dactylon) and other materials are also used in his worship.

Festivals associated with Ganesh are Ganesh Chaturthi or Vināyaka chaturthī in the śuklapakṣa (the fourth day of the waxing moon) in the month of bhādrapada (August/September) and the Gaṇeśa jayanti (Gaṇeśa's birthday) celebrated on the cathurthī of the śuklapakṣa (fourth day of the waxing moon) in the month of māgha (January/February)."

GANESH CHATURTI

An annual festival honours Ganesha for ten days, starting on Ganesha Chaturthi, which typically falls in late August or early September. The festival begins with people bringing in clay idols of Ganesha, symbolising Ganesha's visit. The festival culminates on the day of Ananta Chaturdashi, when idols (murtis) of Ganesha are immersed in the most convenient body of water. Some families have a tradition of immersion on the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, or 7th day. In 1893, Lokmanya Tilak transformed this annual Ganesha festival from private family celebrations into a grand public event. He did so "to bridge the gap between the Brahmins and the non-Brahmins and find an appropriate context in which to build a new grassroots unity between them" in his nationalistic strivings against the British in Maharashtra. Because of Ganesha's wide appeal as "the god for Everyman", Tilak chose him as a rallying point for Indian protest against British rule. Tilak was the first to install large public images of Ganesha in pavilions, and he established the practice of submerging all the public images on the tenth day. Today, Hindus across India celebrate the Ganapati festival with great fervour, though it is most popular in the state of Maharashtra. The festival also assumes huge proportions in Mumbai, Pune, and in the surrounding belt of Ashtavinayaka temples.

TEMPLES

In Hindu temples, Ganesha is depicted in various ways: as an acolyte or subordinate deity (pãrśva-devatã); as a deity related to the principal deity (parivāra-devatã); or as the principal deity of the temple (pradhāna), treated similarly as the highest gods of the Hindu pantheon. As the god of transitions, he is placed at the doorway of many Hindu temples to keep out the unworthy, which is analogous to his role as Parvati’s doorkeeper. In addition, several shrines are dedicated to Ganesha himself, of which the Ashtavinayak (lit. "eight Ganesha (shrines)") in Maharashtra are particularly well known. Located within a 100-kilometer radius of the city of Pune, each of these eight shrines celebrates a particular form of Ganapati, complete with its own lore and legend. The eight shrines are: Morgaon, Siddhatek, Pali, Mahad, Theur, Lenyadri, Ozar and Ranjangaon.

There are many other important Ganesha temples at the following locations: Wai in Maharashtra; Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh; Jodhpur, Nagaur and Raipur (Pali) in Rajasthan; Baidyanath in Bihar; Baroda, Dholaka, and Valsad in Gujarat and Dhundiraj Temple in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. Prominent Ganesha temples in southern India include the following: Kanipakam in Chittoor; the Jambukeśvara Temple at Tiruchirapalli; at Rameshvaram and Suchindram in Tamil Nadu; at Malliyur, Kottarakara, Pazhavangadi, Kasargod in Kerala, Hampi, and Idagunji in Karnataka; and Bhadrachalam in Andhra Pradesh.

T. A. Gopinatha notes, "Every village however small has its own image of Vighneśvara (Vigneshvara) with or without a temple to house it in. At entrances of villages and forts, below pīpaḹa (Sacred fig) trees [...], in a niche [...] in temples of Viṣṇu (Vishnu) as well as Śiva (Shiva) and also in separate shrines specially constructed in Śiva temples [...]; the figure of Vighneśvara is invariably seen." Ganesha temples have also been built outside of India, including southeast Asia, Nepal (including the four Vinayaka shrines in the Kathmandu valley), and in several western countries.

RISE TO PROMINENCE

FIRST APEARANCE

Ganesha appeared in his classic form as a clearly recognizable deity with well-defined iconographic attributes in the early 4th to 5th centuries. Shanti Lal Nagar says that the earliest known iconic image of Ganesha is in the niche of the Shiva temple at Bhumra, which has been dated to the Gupta period. His independent cult appeared by about the 10th century. Narain summarizes the controversy between devotees and academics regarding the development of Ganesha as follows:

What is inscrutable is the somewhat dramatic appearance of Gaņeśa on the historical scene. His antecedents are not clear. His wide acceptance and popularity, which transcend sectarian and territorial limits, are indeed amazing. On the one hand there is the pious belief of the orthodox devotees in Gaņeśa's Vedic origins and in the Purāṇic explanations contained in the confusing, but nonetheless interesting, mythology. On the other hand there are doubts about the existence of the idea and the icon of this deity" before the fourth to fifth century A.D. ... [I]n my opinion, indeed there is no convincing evidence of the existence of this divinity prior to the fifth century.

POSSIBLE INFLUENCES

Courtright reviews various speculative theories about the early history of Ganesha, including supposed tribal traditions and animal cults, and dismisses all of them in this way:

In the post 600 BC period there is evidence of people and places named after the animal. The motif appears on coins and sculptures.

Thapan's book on the development of Ganesha devotes a chapter to speculations about the role elephants had in early India but concludes that, "although by the second century CE the elephant-headed yakṣa form exists it cannot be presumed to represent Gaṇapati-Vināyaka. There is no evidence of a deity by this name having an elephant or elephant-headed form at this early stage. Gaṇapati-Vināyaka had yet to make his debut."

One theory of the origin of Ganesha is that he gradually came to prominence in connection with the four Vinayakas (Vināyakas). In Hindu mythology, the Vināyakas were a group of four troublesome demons who created obstacles and difficulties but who were easily propitiated. The name Vināyaka is a common name for Ganesha both in the Purāṇas and in Buddhist Tantras. Krishan is one of the academics who accepts this view, stating flatly of Ganesha, "He is a non-vedic god. His origin is to be traced to the four Vināyakas, evil spirits, of the Mānavagŗhyasūtra (7th–4th century BCE) who cause various types of evil and suffering". Depictions of elephant-headed human figures, which some identify with Ganesha, appear in Indian art and coinage as early as the 2nd century. According to Ellawala, the elephant-headed Ganesha as lord of the Ganas was known to the people of Sri Lanka in the early pre-Christian era.

A metal plate depiction of Ganesha had been discovered in 1993, in Iran, it dated back to 1,200 BCE. Another one was discovered much before, in Lorestan Province of Iran.

First Ganesha's terracotta images are from 1st century CE found in Ter, Pal, Verrapuram and Chandraketugarh. These figures are small, with elephant head, two arms, and chubby physique. The earliest Ganesha icons in stone were carved in Mathura during Kushan times (2nd-3rd centuries CE).

VEDIC AND EPIC LITERATURE

The title "Leader of the group" (Sanskrit: gaṇapati) occurs twice in the Rig Veda, but in neither case does it refer to the modern Ganesha. The term appears in RV 2.23.1 as a title for Brahmanaspati, according to commentators. While this verse doubtless refers to Brahmanaspati, it was later adopted for worship of Ganesha and is still used today. In rejecting any claim that this passage is evidence of Ganesha in the Rig Veda, Ludo Rocher says that it "clearly refers to Bṛhaspati—who is the deity of the hymn—and Bṛhaspati only". Equally clearly, the second passage (RV 10.112.9) refers to Indra, who is given the epithet 'gaṇapati', translated "Lord of the companies (of the Maruts)." However, Rocher notes that the more recent Ganapatya literature often quotes the Rigvedic verses to give Vedic respectability to Ganesha .

Two verses in texts belonging to Black Yajurveda, Maitrāyaṇīya Saṃhitā (2.9.1) and Taittirīya Āraṇyaka (10.1), appeal to a deity as "the tusked one" (Dantiḥ), "elephant-faced" (Hastimukha), and "with a curved trunk" (Vakratuņḍa). These names are suggestive of Ganesha, and the 14th century commentator Sayana explicitly establishes this identification. The description of Dantin, possessing a twisted trunk (vakratuṇḍa) and holding a corn-sheaf, a sugar cane, and a club, is so characteristic of the Puranic Ganapati that Heras says "we cannot resist to accept his full identification with this Vedic Dantin". However, Krishan considers these hymns to be post-Vedic additions. Thapan reports that these passages are "generally considered to have been interpolated". Dhavalikar says, "the references to the elephant-headed deity in the Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā have been proven to be very late interpolations, and thus are not very helpful for determining the early formation of the deity".

Ganesha does not appear in Indian epic literature that is dated to the Vedic period. A late interpolation to the epic poem Mahabharata says that the sage Vyasa (Vyāsa) asked Ganesha to serve as his scribe to transcribe the poem as he dictated it to him. Ganesha agreed but only on condition that Vyasa recite the poem uninterrupted, that is, without pausing. The sage agreed, but found that to get any rest he needed to recite very complex passages so Ganesha would have to ask for clarifications. The story is not accepted as part of the original text by the editors of the critical edition of the Mahabharata, in which the twenty-line story is relegated to a footnote in an appendix. The story of Ganesha acting as the scribe occurs in 37 of the 59 manuscripts consulted during preparation of the critical edition. Ganesha's association with mental agility and learning is one reason he is shown as scribe for Vyāsa's dictation of the Mahabharata in this interpolation. Richard L. Brown dates the story to the 8th century, and Moriz Winternitz concludes that it was known as early as c. 900, but it was not added to the Mahabharata some 150 years later. Winternitz also notes that a distinctive feature in South Indian manuscripts of the Mahabharata is their omission of this Ganesha legend. The term vināyaka is found in some recensions of the Śāntiparva and Anuśāsanaparva that are regarded as interpolations. A reference to Vighnakartṛīṇām ("Creator of Obstacles") in Vanaparva is also believed to be an interpolation and does not appear in the critical edition.

PURANIC PERIOD

Stories about Ganesha often occur in the Puranic corpus. Brown notes while the Puranas "defy precise chronological ordering", the more detailed narratives of Ganesha's life are in the late texts, c. 600–1300. Yuvraj Krishan says that the Puranic myths about the birth of Ganesha and how he acquired an elephant's head are in the later Puranas, which were composed from c. 600 onwards. He elaborates on the matter to say that references to Ganesha in the earlier Puranas, such as the Vayu and Brahmanda Puranas, are later interpolations made during the 7th to 10th centuries.

In his survey of Ganesha's rise to prominence in Sanskrit literature, Ludo Rocher notes that:

Above all, one cannot help being struck by the fact that the numerous stories surrounding Gaṇeśa concentrate on an unexpectedly limited number of incidents. These incidents are mainly three: his birth and parenthood, his elephant head, and his single tusk. Other incidents are touched on in the texts, but to a far lesser extent.

Ganesha's rise to prominence was codified in the 9th century, when he was formally included as one of the five primary deities of Smartism. The 9th-century philosopher Adi Shankara popularized the "worship of the five forms" (Panchayatana puja) system among orthodox Brahmins of the Smarta tradition. This worship practice invokes the five deities Ganesha, Vishnu, Shiva, Devi, and Surya. Adi Shankara instituted the tradition primarily to unite the principal deities of these five major sects on an equal status. This formalized the role of Ganesha as a complementary deity.

SCRIPTURES

Once Ganesha was accepted as one of the five principal deities of Brahmanism, some Brahmins (brāhmaṇas) chose to worship Ganesha as their principal deity. They developed the Ganapatya tradition, as seen in the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana.

The date of composition for the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana - and their dating relative to one another - has sparked academic debate. Both works were developed over time and contain age-layered strata. Anita Thapan reviews comments about dating and provides her own judgement. "It seems likely that the core of the Ganesha Purana appeared around the twelfth and thirteenth centuries", she says, "but was later interpolated." Lawrence W. Preston considers the most reasonable date for the Ganesha Purana to be between 1100 and 1400, which coincides with the apparent age of the sacred sites mentioned by the text.

R.C. Hazra suggests that the Mudgala Purana is older than the Ganesha Purana, which he dates between 1100 and 1400. However, Phyllis Granoff finds problems with this relative dating and concludes that the Mudgala Purana was the last of the philosophical texts concerned with Ganesha. She bases her reasoning on the fact that, among other internal evidence, the Mudgala Purana specifically mentions the Ganesha Purana as one of the four Puranas (the Brahma, the Brahmanda, the Ganesha, and the Mudgala Puranas) which deal at length with Ganesha. While the kernel of the text must be old, it was interpolated until the 17th and 18th centuries as the worship of Ganapati became more important in certain regions. Another highly regarded scripture, the Ganapati Atharvashirsa, was probably composed during the 16th or 17th centuries.

BEYOND INDIA AND HINDUISM

Commercial and cultural contacts extended India's influence in western and southeast Asia. Ganesha is one of a number of Hindu deities who reached foreign lands as a result.

Ganesha was particularly worshipped by traders and merchants, who went out of India for commercial ventures. From approximately the 10th century onwards, new networks of exchange developed including the formation of trade guilds and a resurgence of money circulation. During this time, Ganesha became the principal deity associated with traders. The earliest inscription invoking Ganesha before any other deity is associated with the merchant community.

Hindus migrated to Maritime Southeast Asia and took their culture, including Ganesha, with them. Statues of Ganesha are found throughout the region, often beside Shiva sanctuaries. The forms of Ganesha found in Hindu art of Java, Bali, and Borneo show specific regional influences. The spread of Hindu culture to southeast Asia established Ganesha in modified forms in Burma, Cambodia, and Thailand. In Indochina, Hinduism and Buddhism were practiced side by side, and mutual influences can be seen in the iconography of Ganesha in the region. In Thailand, Cambodia, and among the Hindu classes of the Chams in Vietnam, Ganesha was mainly thought of as a remover of obstacles. Today in Buddhist Thailand, Ganesha is regarded as a remover of obstacles, the god of success.

Before the arrival of Islam, Afghanistan had close cultural ties with India, and the adoration of both Hindu and Buddhist deities was practiced. Examples of sculptures from the 5th to the 7th centuries have survived, suggesting that the worship of Ganesha was then in vogue in the region.

Ganesha appears in Mahayana Buddhism, not only in the form of the Buddhist god Vināyaka, but also as a Hindu demon form with the same name. His image appears in Buddhist sculptures during the late Gupta period. As the Buddhist god Vināyaka, he is often shown dancing. This form, called Nṛtta Ganapati, was popular in northern India, later adopted in Nepal, and then in Tibet. In Nepal, the Hindu form of Ganesha, known as Heramba, is popular; he has five heads and rides a lion. Tibetan representations of Ganesha show ambivalent views of him. A Tibetan rendering of Ganapati is tshogs bdag. In one Tibetan form, he is shown being trodden under foot by Mahākāla, (Shiva) a popular Tibetan deity. Other depictions show him as the Destroyer of Obstacles, and sometimes dancing. Ganesha appears in China and Japan in forms that show distinct regional character. In northern China, the earliest known stone statue of Ganesha carries an inscription dated to 531. In Japan, where Ganesha is known as Kangiten, the Ganesha cult was first mentioned in 806.

The canonical literature of Jainism does not mention the worship of Ganesha. However, Ganesha is worshipped by most Jains, for whom he appears to have taken over certain functions of Kubera. Jain connections with the trading community support the idea that Jainism took up Ganesha worship as a result of commercial connections. The earliest known Jain Ganesha statue dates to about the 9th century. A 15th-century Jain text lists procedures for the installation of Ganapati images. Images of Ganesha appear in the Jain temples of Rajasthan and Gujarat.

WIKIPEDIA

wyzysk capitalism nędza by staffan

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exploitation capitalism misery

British Exploitation Cinema by mrargoman

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Exploitation. by Nolan

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Kristina Hansen - ID's NTM - Nude w/ accesory

New Muse!!

To instrumentalize by jeany

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To misuse the beauty of nature

To exploit the love of nature and the animals of the ocean

To instrumentalize women's feelings

Profiteering

Abusive men: www.lfcc.on.ca/HCT_SWASM_4.html

Elizabeth Berkley and Glenn Plummer in Showgirls (1995) by Truus, Bob & Jan too!

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Vintage press photo. Elizabeth Berkley and Glenn Plummer in Showgirls (Paul Verhoeven, 1995).

Paul Verhoeven's American erotic drama Showgirls (1995) is a curious phenomenon. The critics dubbed the production one of the worst films of its era. Showgirls "won" at the 1996 Razzie Awards for Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst Leading Actor (Elizabeth Berkley), Worst Female Newcomer (Berkley), and Worst Picture Couple as well as Worst Original Movie Song. Verhoeven was the first celebrity ever who came to receive his Razzies. In the years after its original release, Showgirls gained cult status, grossed over $100,000,000 on rentals, and made it into MGM's top 20 best-selling titles. And in recent years, the film has been subject to critical re-evaluation, with more and more notable directors and critics considering it a serious satire worthy of praise.

Elizabeth Berkley plays Nomi, a "street-smart" drifter who ventures to Las Vegas. She is determined to make a name as a dancer while putting her unspoken past behind her. Her tough, streetwise veneer is not as infallible as she would like. In Vegas, she becomes more cautious in the way she approaches strangers who seem willing to help her purely out of the goodness of their hearts. Her talent and connections in combination are only able to get her a job at the Cheetah Club, a strip joint. Her first true friend in Vegas, Molly Abrams (Gina Ravera), works as the costumer for Goddess, the topless production at the Stardust. It is through Molly that Nomi catches the eye of Goddess' headliner, Cristal Connors (Gina Gershon). Nomi has a love/hate feeling toward Cristal: she doesn't much like her but wants to become her.

At IMDb, the film's got a 4.9 rating but most of the more recent reviews of Showgirls are remarkably positive about the film. "Read between the lines!", "A Misunderstood Classic", "A really fun movie...despite what the critics say!", "This wonderful film only gets better with each viewing" and "Greatest critique of American culture since CITIZEN KANE" are some of the headlines of the IMDb reviews. Critics such as Jonathan Rosenbaum and Jim Hoberman, as well as filmmakers Jim Jarmusch, Adam McKay, and Jacques Rivette, have also gone on the record defending Showgirls as a serious satire. In a 1998 interview, Rivette called it "one of the great American films of the last few years", though "very unpleasant: it's about surviving in a world populated by assholes, and that's Verhoeven's philosophy". Quentin Tarantino has stated that he enjoyed Showgirls, referring to it in 1996 as the "only ... other time in the last twenty years [that] a major studio made a full-on, gigantic, big-budget exploitation movie", comparing it to Mandingo. Showgirls has been compared to All About Eve (1950) as a remake, update, or rip-off of that film. For Jonathan Rosenbaum, "Showgirls has to be one of the most vitriolic allegories about Hollywood and selling out ever made". "Verhoeven may be the bravest and most assured satirist in Hollywood, insofar as he succeeds in making big genre movies no one knows whether to take seriously or not", Michael Atkinson has written.

In Slant Magazine's four-out-of-four-star review, Eric Henderson rejects the "so-bad-it's-good" interpretation and lauds the film as "one of the most honest satires of recent years", stating that the film targets Hollywood's "morally bankrupt star-is-born tales." Henderson draws from a round-table discussion in Film Quarterly in which others argue its merits. Noël Burch attests that the film "takes mass culture seriously, as a site of both fascination and struggle" and uses melodrama as "an excellent vehicle for social criticism." In the same round-table, Chon Noriega suggests that the film has been misinterpreted and the satire overlooked because "the film lacks the usual coordinates and signposts for a critique of human vice and folly provided by sarcasm, irony, and caustic wit." The Guardian commented in 2020: "With Showgirls, the target was the American dream itself – and the dishonest "star is born” narratives churned out to sustain it. If Showgirls has a message, it’s that the game is rigged for women like Nomi. She thinks she’s climbing the pole but really she’s just spinning round it. The real power lies with the men running the racket. Nobody wanted to hear that at the time; maybe they’re ready to now. In its own messy way, Showgirls is a #MeToo story with a male gaze.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Animal Rights Speeches by Mel Mel (VeganButterfly)

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At the National Animal Rights Day event in Edmonton, various people gave speeches promoting the rights of animals to be free from violence and exploitation at the hands of humans.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why vegan:

www.vegankit.com/why

Buddy Holly - The day the music died by Rock & Roll Graphics

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Buddy Holly - The day the music died

"Buddy Holly played rock and roll for only two short years, but the wealth of material he recorded in that time made a major and lasting impact on popular music. Holly was an innovator who wrote his own material and was among the first to exploit such advanced studio techniques as double-tracking. He pioneered and popularized the now-standard rock-band lineup of two guitars, bass and drums. In his final months, he even began experimenting with orchestration. Holly’s catalog of songs includes such standards of the rock and roll canon as “Rave On,” “Peggy Sue,” “That’ll Be the Day,” Oh Boy!” and “Maybe Baby.” Though Holly lacked the arresting sexuality of Elvis Presley, he nonetheless cut an engaging, charismatic figure with his trademark horn-rimmed glasses and vocal hiccup. His creative self-reliance and energetic, inspired craftsmanship prefigured the coming wave of rock and rollers in the Sixties. Holly was a professed influence on the Beatles and Hollies (both of whom derived their names from his). Even the Rolling Stones had their first major British hit with Holly’s “Not Fade Away.”

He was born Charles Hardin Holley (later amended to “Holly") on September 7th, 1936, in Lubbock, Texas. He learned to play guitar, piano and fiddle at an early age. After high school, he formed the Western and Bop Band, a country-oriented act that performed regularly on a Lubbock radio station and opened for acts that came through town. After being noticed by a talent scout, Holly was signed to Decca in early 1956, recording demos and singles for the label in Nashville under the name Buddy Holly and the Three Tunes. Back home, Holly opened a show at the Lubbock Youth Center for Elvis Presley, an event that hastened his conversion from country and western to rock and roll. ("We owe it all to Elvis,” he later said).

On February 25th, 1957, Holly and a revised band lineup, now dubbed the Crickets, recorded “That’ll Be the Day” at the Clovis, New Mexico, studio of producer Norman Petty. The effortless, upbeat rocker won them a contract with the Coral and Brunswick labels. Later that year it became a Number One pop hit and even rose to Number Two on the R&B charts. The terms of Holly’s arrangement with his record labels, negotiated by producer/manager Petty, were somewhat unusual. Releases alternated on Coral and Brunswick, with those on the former label credited to Buddy Holly and the latter to the Crickets. Between August 1957 and August 1958, Holly and the Crickets charted seven Top Forty singles.

In October 1958, Holly split both with the Crickets and with Petty, moving to Greenwich Village and marrying Maria Elena Santiago, to whom he proposed on their first date. Because of legal and financial problems engendered by his breakup with Petty, Holly reluctantly agreed to perform on the Winter Dance Party, an ill-advised bus tour of the Midwest in the winter of 1959. Following a show in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly chartered a private plane to the next stop on the tour, Moorhead, Minnesota. Two other performers, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, joined him. Their plane left the Mason City, Iowa, airport at one in the morning and crashed in a cornfield a few minutes later, killing all aboard. Buddy Holly was only 22 years old at the time of the crash - an event immortalized in Don McLean’s “American Pie” as “the day the music died."”

TIMELINE

September 7, 1936: Charles Hardin Holley, a.k.a., Buddy Holly, is born in Lubbock, Texas.

September 1, 1953: Best friends Buddy (Holly) and Bob (Montgomery) audition for radio station KDAV in Lubbock. The teenage duo is given a half-hour show on Sunday afternoons, during which they perform country and bluegrass standards.

October 14, 1955: The trio of Buddy Holly, Bob Montgomery and Larry Welborn opens for Bill Haley and the Comets in Lubbock. Holly impresses a Nashville talent scout, leading to his eventual signing with Decca Records.

October 15, 1955: In the process of moving from their country-music origins toward the rockabilly sound, Buddy Holly’s trio open for Elvis Presley in Lubbock.

January 9, 1956: Buddy Holly & the Two-Tones (Sonny Curtis and Don Guess) kick off a 14-date country & western tour in Little Rock, Arkansas. They’re bottom-billed on a lineup that includes Hank Thompson, George Jones, Wanda Jackson and Cowboy Copas.

January 26, 1956: Signed to Decca Records, Buddy Holly heads to Nashville for his first official recording session. Overseen by veteran country producer Owen Bradley, the session yields four tracks, including Holly’s debut single ("Blue Days, Black Nights") and a classic cover ("Midnight Shift").

February 25, 1957: Buddy Holly records “That’ll Be the Day” at Norman Petty’s studio in Clovis, New Mexico. The single is released on the Brunswick label (a Decca subsidiary) and credited to the Crickets.

September 23, 1957: “That’ll Be the Day” hits #1. “Peggy Sue” is released hot on its heels, reaching #3. Buddy Holly performs both songs on The Ed Sullivan Show in December.

January 25, 1958: “Oh Boy!” becomes Buddy Holly’s third Top Ten hit.

March 28, 1958: Buddy Holly performs at Brooklyn’s Paramount Theater as part of a bill that includes Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers. It is the kickoff date for a two-month tour billed as “Alan Freed’s Big Beat Show.”

August 15, 1958: Buddy Holly marries Maria Elena Santiago back home in Lubbock.

October 3, 1958: Another caravan tour, “The Biggest Show of Stars for 1958—The Autumn Edition,” kicks off in Worcester, Massachusetts. Buddy Holly and the Crickets share the bill with Bobby Darin, Dion and the Belmonts, Clyde McPhatter, and the Coasters.

January 5, 1959: “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” becomes the last release from Buddy Holly before his death.

January 23, 1959: The “Winter Dance Party,” an ill-advised tour through the frigid Midwest, is launched at George Devine’s Million Dollar Ballroom in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Buddy Holly, who has parted ways with the Crickets, is the headliner. The other acts are Dion and the Belmonts, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper and Frankie Sardo.

February 3, 1959: After performing at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, Buddy Holly charters a plane to fly him to Fargo, North Dakota. Shortly after takeoff, the plane crashes eight miles northwest of the airfield, killing Holly, Ritchie Valens, J.P. Richardson (a.k.a. The Big Bopper) and pilot Roger Peterson.

March 9, 1959: “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore,” written by Paul Anka and recorded by Buddy Holly at his last studio session, becomes a posthumous hit.

December 24, 1969: The Buddy Holly Story, a best-of album that has been in print since 1959, is certified gold (500,000 copies sold).

July 1, 1976: Lifelong Buddy Holly fan Paul McCartney purchases rights to the entire Holly song catalog.

September 7, 1976: On what would have been Buddy Holly’s 40th birthday, the singer’s life and music are the subject of a week-long tribute organized by Paul McCartney. “Buddy Holly Week” becomes an annual affair.

May 18, 1978: The Buddy Holly Story, a popular film biography starring Gary Busey in the title role, is released. Twelve years later, the actor pays a quarter of a million dollars at auction for an acoustic guitar that belonged to Holly.

February 3, 1979: A commemorative concert is held at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, exactly 20 years after the final show played by Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. Del Shannon and the Drifters are among the performers.

January 23, 1986: Buddy Holly is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the first induction dinner, held in New York City. Holly’s widow, Maria Elena, accepts on his behalf.

by ETC ETC etc

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__Exploited

ink.

Rosebery, Tasmania (set of 7) by Lesley A Butler

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Rosebery is an underground polymetallic base metal mine located in the township of Rosebery on Tasmania’s picturesque West Coast. It is in close proximity to Strahan

Like most of the other settlements on the west coast of Tasmania, Rosebery is a mining town. In 1893, prospector Tom McDonald discovered gold in alluvial wash, along with boulders of zinc-lead sulphide in dense rainforest on the slopes of Mount Black. McDonald pegged several claims in the name of the Rosebery Prospecting Association (named after Lord Rosebery), which later became the Rosebery Gold Mining Company. The South Rosebery Mining Company was formed soon after to mine the southern continuation of the orebody.

In 1896, the Rosebery Gold Mining Company was reconstructed as the Tasmanian Copper Company, and the South Rosebery Mining Company became the Primrose Mining Company. Rosebery Post Office opened on 1 November 1897.[5]

The main mineral found in the orebody was zinc, but due to the lack of a technique to successfully extract the zinc from the ore, little could be done to exploit the orebody. One company formed to experiment in the processing of zinc ores was the Tasmanian Metals Extraction Company (TME) who built a large plant next to the track to Williamsford, completed in 1912. The experiment was unsuccessful and the plant closed in 1914.

The Rosebery mines passed into the hands of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway company in 1916, and the mines were eventually merged with the Electrolytic Zinc Company of Australasia (EZ), who had discovered an effective method for the extraction of zinc. In 1926, construction of a processing mill at Rosebery began, and in 1931, an aerial ropeway to transport ore from the Hercules Mine near Williamsford was completed. Due to the Great Depression, the Rosebery Mill was not completed until 1936. The Rosebery Mine has operated continuously since then, with 75 year celebrations held during February, 2011. The mine is currently operated by Minerals and Metals Group Ltd (MMG), producing zinc, lead, copper, silver and gold.

The Exploited by Stefan Müller

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The Exploited: Matt McGuire (guitar), Wattie Buch (vocals) an and Irish Rob (bass) during their live performance at the Astra, Berlin, 18.04.15 Gitarrist, Saenger, Bassist

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Bay of Exploits by Joanne King

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Aerial

Local Exploits 2024-01-09 (R5_99A2409) by ajhaysom

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Local Exploits, Sassafras.

Close Attendance by B

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Attendant God

Assyrian, about 810-800 BC

From Nimrud, Temple of Nabu

This divine attendant stood outside a doorway in the Temple of Nabu, god of writing. The inscription mentions Adad-nirari III (810-783 BC) and his powerful mother Sammuramat, the original Semiramis, whose legendary exploits were recorded by the Greeks. It ends by advising the reader to revere Nabu: 'do not trust in another god'.

[British Museum]

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