French postcard in the Série Hitchcock by Editions ZREIK, Paris, no. H. Image: Warner Bros. American poster for Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951) with Farley Granger, Ruth Roman and Robert Walker.

 

British director Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) was known as 'The Master of Suspense'. He was one of the most influential and extensively studied filmmakers in the history of cinema. 'Hitch' had his first major success with The Lodger (1926), a silent thriller loosely based on Jack the Ripper. Hitchcock came to international attention with The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), and, most notably, The Lady Vanishes (1938). His first Hollywood film was the multi-Oscar-winning psychological thriller Rebecca (1940). Many classics followed including Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), Rear Window (1954), North by Northwest (1959), and The Birds (1963). In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films which garnered a total of 46 Oscar nominations and 6 wins.

 

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, on the outskirts of east London, in 1899. He was the son of Emma Jane Whelan and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock. His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William and Eileen Hitchcock. Raised as a strict Catholic and attending Saint Ignatius College, a school run by Jesuits, Hitch had very much of a regular upbringing. In 1914, his father died. To support himself and his mother—his older siblings had left home by then—Hitchcock took a job in 1915 as an estimator for the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company. His interest in films began at around this time, frequently visited the cinema and reading US trade journals. In a trade paper, he read that Famous Players-Lasky, the production arm of Paramount Pictures, was opening a studio in London. They were planning to film 'The Sorrows of Satan' by Marie Corelli, so Hitch produced some drawings for the title cards and sent his work to the studio. They hired him, and in 1919 he began working for Islington Studios as a title-card designer. Hitchcock soon gained experience as a co-writer, art director, and production manager on at least 18 silent films. After Hugh Croise, the director for Always Tell Your Wife (1923) fell ill, Hitchcock and star and producer Seymour Hicks finished the film together. When Paramount pulled out of London in 1922, Hitchcock was hired as an assistant director by a new firm run in the same location by Michael Balcon, later known as Gainsborough Pictures. He began to collaborate with the editor and script girl Alma Reville, his future wife. He worked as an assistant to director Graham Cutts on several films, including The Blackguard (1924), which was produced at the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam. There Hitchcock watched part of the making of F. W. Murnau's film Der letzte Mann/The Last Laugh (1924). He was impressed with Murnau's work and later used many of his techniques for set design in his own productions. In the summer of 1925, Balcon asked Hitchcock to direct The Pleasure Garden (1925), starring Virginia Valli, a co-production of Gainsborough and the German firm Emelka. Reville, by then Hitchcock's fiancée, was assistant director-editor. In 1927, Hitchcock made his first trademark film, the thriller The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) starring Ivor Novello. The Lodger is about the hunt for a serial killer who, wearing a black cloak and carrying a black bag, is murdering young blonde women in London, and only on Tuesdays. The Lodger was a commercial and critical success in the UK. In the same year, Hitchcock married Alma Reville. They had one child, Patricia Hitchcock (1928). Reville became her husband's closest collaborator and wrote or co-wrote on many of his films. Hitchcock made the transition to sound film with his tenth film, Blackmail (1929), the first British 'talkie'. Blackmail began the Hitchcock tradition of using famous landmarks as a backdrop for suspense sequences, with the climax taking place on the dome of the British Museum. He used an early sound recording as a special element of the film, stressing the word "knife" in a conversation with the woman (Anny Ondra) suspected of murder. It was followed by Murder! (1930). In 1933 Hitchcock was once again working for Michael Balcon at Gaumont-British on The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934). It was a success. His second, The 39 Steps (1935), with Robert Donat, made him a star in the USA. It also established the quintessential English 'Hitchcock blonde' (Madeleine Carroll) as the template for his succession of ice-cold, elegant leading ladies. His next major success was The Lady Vanishes (1938), with Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. The film saw Hitchcock receive the 1938 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director.

 

David O. Selznick signed Hitchcock to a seven-year contract beginning in March 1939, and the Hitchcocks moved to Hollywood. He directed an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (1940), starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. Rebecca won the Oscar for Best Picture, although Hitchcock himself was only nominated for Best Director. Hitchcock's second American film was the thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), set in Europe, and produced by Walter Wanger. It was nominated for Best Picture that year Suspicion (1941) was the first of four projects on which Cary Grant worked with Hitchcock, and it is one of the rare occasions that Grant was cast in a sinister role. In one scene Hitchcock placed a light inside a glass of milk, perhaps poisoned, that Grant is bringing to his wife, played by Joan Fontaine. The light makes sure that the audience's attention is on the glass. Fontaine won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. Shadow of a Doubt (1943) was Hitchcock's personal favourite. Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright) suspects her beloved uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) of being a serial killer. Hitchcock was again nominated for the Oscar for Best Director for Lifeboat (1944) and Spellbound (1945), but he never won the award. Spellbound (1945), starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck, explores psychoanalysis and features a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí. Notorious (1946) stars Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, both Hitchcock regulars, and features a plot about Nazis, uranium, and South America. After a brief lull of commercial success in the late 1940s, Hitchcock returned to form with Strangers on a Train (1951), based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith. In the film, two men casually meet, one of whom speculates on a foolproof method to murder. He suggests that two people, each wishing to do away with someone, should each perform the other's murder. Farley Granger played the innocent victim of the scheme, while 'boy-next-door' Robert Walker played the villain. I Confess (1953) was set in Quebec with Montgomery Clift as a Catholic priest. It was followed by three colour films starring Grace Kelly: the 3-D film Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955). From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host of the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. With his droll delivery, gallows humour, and iconic image, the series made Hitchcock a celebrity. In his films, Hitchcock often used the "mistaken identity" theme, such as in The Wrong Man (1956), and North by Northwest (1959). In Vertigo (1958), James Stewart plays Scottie, a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia. He develops an obsession with a woman he has been hired to shadow (Kim Novak). His obsession leads to tragedy, and this time Hitchcock does not opt for a happy ending. Vertigo is one of his most personal and revealing films, dealing with the Pygmalion-like obsessions of a man who crafts a woman into the woman he desires. Psycho (1960) was Hitchcock's great shock masterpiece, mostly for its haunting performances by Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins and its shower scene, and The Birds (1963) became the unintended forerunner to an onslaught of films about nature-gone-mad, and booth films were phenomenally popular. Film companies began to refer to his films as "Alfred Hitchcock's": Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972), and Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976). During the making of Frenzy (1972), Hitchcock's wife Alma suffered a paralysing stroke which made her unable to walk very well. In 1979, Hitchcock was knighted, making him Sir Alfred Hitchcock. A year later, in 1980, he died peacefully in his sleep due to renal failure. Hitchcock was survived by his wife and daughter. After the funeral, his body was cremated. His remains were scattered over the Pacific Ocean.

 

Sources: Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

You love fresh pasta? Of course you do! Here comes the foolproof recipe, enjoy (in German):

soulfoodie.de/ravioli-mit-ricottafuellung/

  

The vervet monkey is one of the most endearing animals to see on safari, but they are usually pests around lodges where they raid kitchens and food tables. Their black faces add to the endearment, while the characteristic bright blue scrotum of the male is the subject of much discussion at first sight.

 

Vervet monkeys live in troops, the size depending on the availability of food. In the Okavango Delta where food is plentiful the troops can be as large as fifty individuals. They sleep in trees at night, coming down to feed around sunrise.

 

The monkey's main predator in Botswana is the leopard, and the warning of a leopard after it has been spotted is deafening. Due to the fear the monkeys have for leopards, a foolproof way of keeping monkeys from raiding food tables is to put up a picture of a leopard lounging on the table! (Source: Siyabona Africa)

 

First of all, I want to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has taken the time to express their concern for Wookie through comments or emails. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your kindness and caring.

 

My last update was Saturday... right before we took him back to his regular vet for the fourth time. His regular vet still couldn't find anything specifically wrong, and discharged him with antibiotics.

 

On Sunday morning, we found that he had vomited a huge amount in his crate. Mixed in with everything was what appeared to be a large chunk of an IAMS tartar treat. Wookie was cowering and screaming in pain whenever we touched him. I put the chunk in a baggie and rushed him to the off-hours emergency vet clinic.

 

They put him on IV fluids and doggie morphine and said they needed to keep him until his regular vet reopened Monday morning. When we called to check on him, they said he had vomited another large chunk of the IAMS biscuit.

 

We picked him up from the emergency clinic on Monday and took him back to his regular vet. He had never looked so awful - his tail was pinned between his legs, he could barely stand on his own, and he felt cold. His temperature was down to 98 (normal for a dog is 101.5 or so) - his pulse and respiration were half the normal rate.

 

His regular vet examined him again and immediately got on the phone to our regional veterinary teaching hospital at Virginia Tech. We rushed down there (about a two and a half hour drive)

 

The vet team at Tech was absolutely wonderful with Wookie. They wanted to rule out all possible structural and metabolic causes before they focused on the fact that he vomited up two huge treat chunks and may be suffering effects from a foreign object stuck in his stomach.

 

They did more bloodwork and an ultrasound. The bloodwork came back perfect for the most part -- except for markers for malnourishment. (that wasn't a surprise since Wookie really hasn't eaten for nine days). The ultrasound showed that his digestive tract looked empty and normal. The vet did caution us that ultrasounds are not foolproof, they can miss things due to all the curves and folds in the digestive tract. Endoscopy and exploratory surgery are the only foolproof ways (both are done under anesthesia) to see if there is a foreign body in a dog's digestive tract.

 

She wanted to avoid putting Wookie under anesthesia, and treat him more conservatively. She decided to keep him at Virginia Tech as an inpatient. She's been giving him a small "meatball-sized" meal every few hours and tracking his progress. If Wookie keeps the meals down and eventually passes them normally, she's going to assume that the vomited treat chunks were his problem.

 

She called us about 15 minutes ago, and told us that Wookie has now had 4 mini-meals and has not vomited. He's also looking more energetic and happy. So maybe I can dare to hope that he has finally rounded the corner! She'll call again this evening and if he is still doing well, he might be able to come home tomorrow!

 

If he does start vomiting again, they will likely do the endoscopy and surgery. I really hope it won't come to that. Wookie has been through so much misery these past ten days.

 

Incidentally, I had suspected this IAMS tartar treat since the very beginning, but the symptoms and tests did not back my theory up. I suppose there is a lot to be said for intuition. Also -- for other dog owners -- these IAMS treats were specifically created to compete against Greenies. IAMS claims they are safer, 100% digestible and edible, and "so hard that your pet won't be able to break the treats into chunks large enough to disrupt digestion". Wookie is not an aggressive chewer and he was watched the whole time he ate his IAMS treat. He ate it quickly, but not that quickly. This was the first IAMS treat Wookie ever had in his life. It is also the LAST one Wookie (or any of my dogs) will *ever* get. I'm amazed that two large chunks of this treat floated around, undigested, in his stomach for NINE days.

 

Poor little Wookie only weighs 13 pounds right now. :(

 

These are the tartar biscuits that caused his troubles: www.petco.com/Shop/petco_Product_R_1899_PC_productlist_Na...

French postcard by Editions Gendre in the Alfred Hitchcock series, no. 6. Photo: Keystone. Caption: Alfred Hitchcock and the first Pathé camera.

 

British director Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) was known as 'The Master of Suspense'. He is one of the most influential and extensively studied filmmakers in the history of cinema. He had his first major success with The Lodger (1926), a silent thriller loosely based on Jack the Ripper. Hitchcock came to international attention with The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), and, most notably, The Lady Vanishes (1938). His first Hollywood film was the multi-Oscar-winning psychological thriller Rebecca (1940). Many classics followed including Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), Rear Window (1954), North by Northwest (1959) and The Birds (1963). In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films which garnered a total of 46 Oscar nominations and 6 wins.

 

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, on the outskirts of east London, in 1899. He was the son of Emma Jane Whelan and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock. His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William and Eileen Hitchcock. Raised as a strict Catholic and attending Saint Ignatius College, a school run by Jesuits, Hitch had very much of a regular upbringing. In 1914, his father died. To support himself and his mother—his older siblings had left home by then—Hitchcock took a job in 1915 as an estimator for the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company. His interest in films began at around this time, frequently visiting the cinema and reading US trade journals. In a trade paper, he read that Famous Players-Lasky, the production arm of Paramount Pictures, was opening a studio in London. They were planning to film The Sorrows of Satan by Marie Corelli, so Hitch produced some drawings for the title cards and sent his work to the studio. They hired him, and in 1919 he began working for Islington Studios as a title-card designer. Hitchcock soon gained experience as a co-writer, art director, and production manager on at least 18 silent films. After Hugh Croise, the director for Always Tell Your Wife (1923) fell ill, Hitchcock and star and producer Seymour Hicks finished the film together. When Paramount pulled out of London in 1922, Hitchcock was hired as an assistant director by a new firm run in the same location by Michael Balcon, later known as Gainsborough Pictures. He began to collaborate with the editor and "script girl" Alma Reville, his future wife. He worked as an assistant to director Graham Cutts on several films, including The Blackguard (1924), which was produced at the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam. There Hitchcock watched part of the making of F. W. Murnau's film Der letzte Mann/The Last Laugh (1924). He was impressed with Murnau's work and later used many of his techniques for the set design in his own productions. In the summer of 1925, Balcon asked Hitchcock to direct The Pleasure Garden (1925), starring Virginia Valli, a co-production of Gainsborough and the German firm Emelka. Reville, by then Hitchcock's fiancée, was assistant director-editor. In 1927, Hitchcock made his first trademark film, the thriller The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) starring Ivor Novello. The Lodger is about the hunt for a serial killer who, wearing a black cloak and carrying a black bag, is murdering young blonde women in London, and only on Tuesdays. The Lodger was a commercial and critical success in the UK. In the same year, Hitchcock married Alma Reville. They had one child, Patricia Hitchcock (1928). Reville became her husband's closest collaborator and wrote or co-wrote on many of his films. Hitchcock made the transition to sound film with his tenth film, Blackmail (1929), the first British 'talkie'. Blackmail began the Hitchcock tradition of using famous landmarks as a backdrop for suspense sequences, with the climax taking place on the dome of the British Museum. He used early sound recording as a special element of the film, stressing the word "knife" in a conversation with the woman (Anny Ondra) suspected of murder. It was followed by Murder! (1930). In 1933 Hitchcock was once again working for Michael Balcon at Gaumont-British on The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934). It was a success. His second, The 39 Steps (1935), with Robert Donat, made him a star in the USA. It also established the quintessential English 'Hitchcock blonde' (Madeleine Carroll) as the template for his succession of ice-cold, elegant leading ladies. His next major success was The Lady Vanishes (1938), with Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. The film saw Hitchcock receive the 1938 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director.[

 

David O. Selznick signed Hitchcock to a seven-year contract beginning in March 1939, and the Hitchcocks moved to Hollywood. He directed an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (1940), starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. Rebecca won the Oscar for Best Picture, although Hitchcock himself was only nominated as Best Director. Hitchcock's second American film was the thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), set in Europe, and produced by Walter Wanger. It was nominated for Best Picture that year Suspicion (1941) was the first of four projects on which Cary Grant worked with Hitchcock, and it is one of the rare occasions that Grant was cast in a sinister role. In one scene Hitchcock placed a light inside a glass of milk, perhaps poisoned, that Grant is bringing to his wife, played by Joan Fontaine. The light makes sure that the audience's attention is on the glass. Fontaine won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. Shadow of a Doubt (1943) was Hitchcock's personal favourite. Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright) suspects her beloved uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) of being a serial killer. Hitchcock was again nominated for the Oscar for Best Director for Lifeboat (1944) and Spellbound (1945), but he never won the award. Spellbound (1945), starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck, explores psychoanalysis and features a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí. Notorious (1946) stars Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, both Hitchcock regulars, and features a plot about Nazis, uranium, and South America. After a brief lull of commercial success in the late 1940s, Hitchcock returned to form with Strangers on a Train (1951), based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith. In the film, two men casually meet, one of whom speculates on a foolproof method to murder. He suggests that two people, each wishing to do away with someone, should each perform the other's murder. Farley Granger played the innocent victim of the scheme, while boy-next-door" Robert Walker played the villain. I Confess (1953) was set in Quebec with Montgomery Clift as a Catholic priest. It was followed by three colour films starring Grace Kelly: the 3-D film Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955). From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host of the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. With his droll delivery, gallows humour and iconic image, the series made Hitchcock a celebrity. in his films, Hitchcock often used the "mistaken identity" theme, such as in The Wrong Man (1956), and North by Northwest (1959). In Vertigo (1958), James Stewart plays Scottie, a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia. He develops an obsession with a woman he has been hired to shadow (Kim Novak). His obsession leads to tragedy, and this time Hitchcock does not opt for a happy ending. Vertigo is one of his most personal and revealing films, dealing with the Pygmalion-like obsessions of a man who crafts a woman into the woman he desires. Psycho (1960) was Hitchcock's great shock masterpiece, mostly for its haunting performances by Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins and its shower scene, and The Birds (1963) became the unintended forerunner to an onslaught of films about nature-gone-mad, and booth films were phenomenally popular. Film companies began to refer to his films as 'Alfred Hitchcock's': Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972), and Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976). During the making of Frenzy (1972), Hitchcock's wife Alma suffered a paralysing stroke which made her unable to walk very well. In 1979, Hitchcock was knighted, making him Sir Alfred Hitchcock. A year later, in 1980, he died peacefully in his sleep due to renal failure. Hitchcock was survived by his wife and daughter. After the funeral, his body was cremated. His remains were scattered over the Pacific Ocean.

 

Sources: Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

German postcard by Edition Tushita, no. B 491. Photo: Interphoto. Alfred Hitchcock in Frenzy (Alfred Hitchcock, 1972).

 

British director Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) was known as 'The Master of Suspense'. He is one of the most influential and extensively studied filmmakers in the history of cinema. He had his first major success with The Lodger (1926), a silent thriller loosely based on Jack the Ripper. Hitchcock came to international attention with The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), and, most notably, The Lady Vanishes (1938). His first Hollywood film was the multi-Oscar-winning psychological thriller Rebecca (1940). Many classics followed including Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), Rear Window (1954), North by Northwest (1959) and The Birds (1963). In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films which garnered a total of 46 Oscar nominations and 6 wins.

 

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, on the outskirts of east London, in 1899. He was the son of Emma Jane Whelan and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock. His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William and Eileen Hitchcock. Raised as a strict Catholic and attending Saint Ignatius College, a school run by Jesuits, Hitch had very much of a regular upbringing. In 1914, his father died. To support himself and his mother—his older siblings had left home by then—Hitchcock took a job in 1915 as an estimator for the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company. His interest in films began at around this time, frequently visiting the cinema and reading US trade journals. In a trade paper, he read that Famous Players-Lasky, the production arm of Paramount Pictures, was opening a studio in London. They were planning to film The Sorrows of Satan by Marie Corelli, so Hitch produced some drawings for the title cards and sent his work to the studio. They hired him, and in 1919 he began working for Islington Studios as a title-card designer. Hitchcock soon gained experience as a co-writer, art director, and production manager on at least 18 silent films. After Hugh Croise, the director for Always Tell Your Wife (1923) fell ill, Hitchcock and star and producer Seymour Hicks finished the film together. When Paramount pulled out of London in 1922, Hitchcock was hired as an assistant director by a new firm run in the same location by Michael Balcon, later known as Gainsborough Pictures. He began to collaborate with the editor and "script girl" Alma Reville, his future wife. He worked as an assistant to director Graham Cutts on several films, including The Blackguard (1924), which was produced at the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam. There Hitchcock watched part of the making of F. W. Murnau's film Der letzte Mann/The Last Laugh (1924). He was impressed with Murnau's work and later used many of his techniques for the set design in his own productions. In the summer of 1925, Balcon asked Hitchcock to direct The Pleasure Garden (1925), starring Virginia Valli, a co-production of Gainsborough and the German firm Emelka. Reville, by then Hitchcock's fiancée, was assistant director-editor. In 1927, Hitchcock made his first trademark film, the thriller The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) starring Ivor Novello. The Lodger is about the hunt for a serial killer who, wearing a black cloak and carrying a black bag, is murdering young blonde women in London, and only on Tuesdays. The Lodger was a commercial and critical success in the UK. In the same year, Hitchcock married Alma Reville. They had one child, Patricia Hitchcock (1928). Reville became her husband's closest collaborator and wrote or co-wrote on many of his films. Hitchcock made the transition to sound film with his tenth film, Blackmail (1929), the first British 'talkie'. Blackmail began the Hitchcock tradition of using famous landmarks as a backdrop for suspense sequences, with the climax taking place on the dome of the British Museum. He used early sound recording as a special element of the film, stressing the word "knife" in a conversation with the woman (Anny Ondra) suspected of murder. It was followed by Murder! (1930). In 1933 Hitchcock was once again working for Michael Balcon at Gaumont-British on The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934). It was a success. His second, The 39 Steps (1935), with Robert Donat, made him a star in the USA. It also established the quintessential English 'Hitchcock blonde' (Madeleine Carroll) as the template for his succession of ice-cold, elegant leading ladies. His next major success was The Lady Vanishes (1938), with Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. The film saw Hitchcock receive the 1938 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director.[

 

David O. Selznick signed Hitchcock to a seven-year contract beginning in March 1939, and the Hitchcocks moved to Hollywood. He directed an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (1940), starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. Rebecca won the Oscar for Best Picture, although Hitchcock himself was only nominated as Best Director. Hitchcock's second American film was the thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), set in Europe, and produced by Walter Wanger. It was nominated for Best Picture that year Suspicion (1941) was the first of four projects on which Cary Grant worked with Hitchcock, and it is one of the rare occasions that Grant was cast in a sinister role. In one scene Hitchcock placed a light inside a glass of milk, perhaps poisoned, that Grant is bringing to his wife, played by Joan Fontaine. The light makes sure that the audience's attention is on the glass. Fontaine won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. Shadow of a Doubt (1943) was Hitchcock's personal favourite. Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright) suspects her beloved uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) of being a serial killer. Hitchcock was again nominated for the Oscar for Best Director for Lifeboat (1944) and Spellbound (1945), but he never won the award. Spellbound (1945), starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck, explores psychoanalysis and features a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí. Notorious (1946) stars Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, both Hitchcock regulars, and features a plot about Nazis, uranium, and South America. After a brief lull of commercial success in the late 1940s, Hitchcock returned to form with Strangers on a Train (1951), based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith. In the film, two men casually meet, one of whom speculates on a foolproof method to murder. He suggests that two people, each wishing to do away with someone, should each perform the other's murder. Farley Granger played the innocent victim of the scheme, while boy-next-door" Robert Walker played the villain. I Confess (1953) was set in Quebec with Montgomery Clift as a Catholic priest. It was followed by three colour films starring Grace Kelly: the 3-D film Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955). From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host of the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. With his droll delivery, gallows humour and iconic image, the series made Hitchcock a celebrity. in his films, Hitchcock often used the "mistaken identity" theme, such as in The Wrong Man (1956), and North by Northwest (1959). In Vertigo (1958), James Stewart plays Scottie, a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia. He develops an obsession with a woman he has been hired to shadow (Kim Novak). His obsession leads to tragedy, and this time Hitchcock does not opt for a happy ending. Vertigo is one of his most personal and revealing films, dealing with the Pygmalion-like obsessions of a man who crafts a woman into the woman he desires. Psycho (1960) was Hitchcock's great shock masterpiece, mostly for its haunting performances by Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins and its shower scene, and The Birds (1963) became the unintended forerunner to an onslaught of films about nature-gone-mad, and booth films were phenomenally popular. Film companies began to refer to his films as 'Alfred Hitchcock's': Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972), and Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976). During the making of Frenzy (1972), Hitchcock's wife Alma suffered a paralysing stroke which made her unable to walk very well. In 1979, Hitchcock was knighted, making him Sir Alfred Hitchcock. A year later, in 1980, he died peacefully in his sleep due to renal failure. Hitchcock was survived by his wife and daughter. After the funeral, his body was cremated. His remains were scattered over the Pacific Ocean.

 

Sources: Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

Zeiss Ikon Ikonette

German 35mm film viewfinder camera, c.1958-60

Lens a Novar-Anastigmat 45mm 1:3,5

  

A WORD OF WARNING !!!

 

So while investigating the facts about the Ikonette I learned from the McKeown's Price Guide to Antique and Classic Cameras, 12th Edition, 2005-2006 that most Ikonettes were recalled by Zeiss Ikon probably because of Lightleaks.

 

However, in my Test Film I did not find any lightleaks, even not in the sprocket holes film areas.

 

While investigating further I found an very interesting article about the Ikonette by author J.W.Fokkelman in the Dutch photohistoric magazine PHT 1996 #3 (page 78).

 

It states that the Ikonette was recalled because of the Shutter Release/Film Transport Lever mechanism not being fully foolproof.

When, after the Shutter Release (short stroke, see red arrow), the Lever was again actuated BEFORE it had returned in its upper position the mechanism could be damaged.

 

In the same article it is stated that the lens/shutter combination of the recalled Ikonettes were re-used in the Colora camera production and that it is why some of the Colora's have a blue painted shutter DOF-scale.

 

So, when you have a still functioning Ikonette take care to NEVER start the Film Transport (long stroke, see green arrow) when the Lever is NOT in its upper rest position !

 

Guess I was lucky during the shooting of the test film :-)

This species is a regular visitor. It likely wants to bathe or feed, and is checking out the surroundings before proceeding lower. These birds are usually spotted in large flocks; they swarm over my thistle feeder in a tumbling mass, and usually perch close enough to permit great photo ops. They are plentiful during high summer and typically ignore my presence. Sexes are determinable... but it's not foolproof, especially for first-year birds. I'm not sure about this bird's sex... but I would lean toward female.

 

IMG_0789; Pine Siskin

Swiss postcard by CVB Publishers / News Productions, Grandson, no. CP 46, 1996. Photo: Sam Shaw, 1953.

 

British director Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) was known as 'The Master of Suspense'. He is one of the most influential and extensively studied filmmakers in the history of cinema. He had his first major success with The Lodger (1926), a silent thriller loosely based on Jack the Ripper. Hitchcock came to international attention with The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), and, most notably, The Lady Vanishes (1938). His first Hollywood film was the multi-Oscar-winning psychological thriller Rebecca (1940). Many classics followed including Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), Rear Window (1954), North by Northwest (1959) and The Birds (1963). In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films which garnered a total of 46 Oscar nominations and 6 wins.

 

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, on the outskirts of east London, in 1899. He was the son of Emma Jane Whelan and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock. His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William and Eileen Hitchcock. Raised as a strict Catholic and attending Saint Ignatius College, a school run by Jesuits, Hitch had very much of a regular upbringing. In 1914, his father died. To support himself and his mother—his older siblings had left home by then—Hitchcock took a job in 1915 as an estimator for the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company. His interest in films began at around this time, frequently visiting the cinema and reading US trade journals. In a trade paper, he read that Famous Players-Lasky, the production arm of Paramount Pictures, was opening a studio in London. They were planning to film The Sorrows of Satan by Marie Corelli, so Hitch produced some drawings for the title cards and sent his work to the studio. They hired him, and in 1919 he began working for Islington Studios as a title-card designer. Hitchcock soon gained experience as a co-writer, art director, and production manager on at least 18 silent films. After Hugh Croise, the director for Always Tell Your Wife (1923) fell ill, Hitchcock and star and producer Seymour Hicks finished the film together. When Paramount pulled out of London in 1922, Hitchcock was hired as an assistant director by a new firm run in the same location by Michael Balcon, later known as Gainsborough Pictures. He began to collaborate with the editor and "script girl" Alma Reville, his future wife. He worked as an assistant to director Graham Cutts on several films, including The Blackguard (1924), which was produced at the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam. There Hitchcock watched part of the making of F. W. Murnau's film Der letzte Mann/The Last Laugh (1924). He was impressed with Murnau's work and later used many of his techniques for the set design in his own productions. In the summer of 1925, Balcon asked Hitchcock to direct The Pleasure Garden (1925), starring Virginia Valli, a co-production of Gainsborough and the German firm Emelka. Reville, by then Hitchcock's fiancée, was assistant director-editor. In 1927, Hitchcock made his first trademark film, the thriller The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) starring Ivor Novello. The Lodger is about the hunt for a serial killer who, wearing a black cloak and carrying a black bag, is murdering young blonde women in London, and only on Tuesdays. The Lodger was a commercial and critical success in the UK. In the same year, Hitchcock married Alma Reville. They had one child, Patricia Hitchcock (1928). Reville became her husband's closest collaborator and wrote or co-wrote on many of his films. Hitchcock made the transition to sound film with his tenth film, Blackmail (1929), the first British 'talkie'. Blackmail began the Hitchcock tradition of using famous landmarks as a backdrop for suspense sequences, with the climax taking place on the dome of the British Museum. He used early sound recording as a special element of the film, stressing the word "knife" in a conversation with the woman (Anny Ondra) suspected of murder. It was followed by Murder! (1930). In 1933 Hitchcock was once again working for Michael Balcon at Gaumont-British on The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934). It was a success. His second, The 39 Steps (1935), with Robert Donat, made him a star in the USA. It also established the quintessential English 'Hitchcock blonde' (Madeleine Carroll) as the template for his succession of ice-cold, elegant leading ladies. His next major success was The Lady Vanishes (1938), with Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. The film saw Hitchcock receive the 1938 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director.[

 

David O. Selznick signed Hitchcock to a seven-year contract beginning in March 1939, and the Hitchcocks moved to Hollywood. He directed an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (1940), starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. Rebecca won the Oscar for Best Picture, although Hitchcock himself was only nominated as Best Director. Hitchcock's second American film was the thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), set in Europe, and produced by Walter Wanger. It was nominated for Best Picture that year Suspicion (1941) was the first of four projects on which Cary Grant worked with Hitchcock, and it is one of the rare occasions that Grant was cast in a sinister role. In one scene Hitchcock placed a light inside a glass of milk, perhaps poisoned, that Grant is bringing to his wife, played by Joan Fontaine. The light makes sure that the audience's attention is on the glass. Fontaine won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. Shadow of a Doubt (1943) was Hitchcock's personal favourite. Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright) suspects her beloved uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) of being a serial killer. Hitchcock was again nominated for the Oscar for Best Director for Lifeboat (1944) and Spellbound (1945), but he never won the award. Spellbound (1945), starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck, explores psychoanalysis and features a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí. Notorious (1946) stars Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, both Hitchcock regulars, and features a plot about Nazis, uranium, and South America. After a brief lull of commercial success in the late 1940s, Hitchcock returned to form with Strangers on a Train (1951), based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith. In the film, two men casually meet, one of whom speculates on a foolproof method to murder. He suggests that two people, each wishing to do away with someone, should each perform the other's murder. Farley Granger played the innocent victim of the scheme, while boy-next-door" Robert Walker played the villain. I Confess (1953) was set in Quebec with Montgomery Clift as a Catholic priest. It was followed by three colour films starring Grace Kelly: the 3-D film Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955). From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host of the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. With his droll delivery, gallows humour and iconic image, the series made Hitchcock a celebrity. in his films, Hitchcock often used the "mistaken identity" theme, such as in The Wrong Man (1956), and North by Northwest (1959). In Vertigo (1958), James Stewart plays Scottie, a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia. He develops an obsession with a woman he has been hired to shadow (Kim Novak). His obsession leads to tragedy, and this time Hitchcock does not opt for a happy ending. Vertigo is one of his most personal and revealing films, dealing with the Pygmalion-like obsessions of a man who crafts a woman into the woman he desires. Psycho (1960) was Hitchcock's great shock masterpiece, mostly for its haunting performances by Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins and its shower scene, and The Birds (1963) became the unintended forerunner to an onslaught of films about nature-gone-mad, and booth films were phenomenally popular. Film companies began to refer to his films as 'Alfred Hitchcock's': Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972), and Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976). During the making of Frenzy (1972), Hitchcock's wife Alma suffered a paralysing stroke which made her unable to walk very well. In 1979, Hitchcock was knighted, making him Sir Alfred Hitchcock. A year later, in 1980, he died peacefully in his sleep due to renal failure. Hitchcock was survived by his wife and daughter. After the funeral, his body was cremated. His remains were scattered over the Pacific Ocean.

 

Sources: Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

I'm selling out!

 

After weeks, if not months of work I've got the instructions for the black Tumbly ready.

This time, I'm hoping to get something in return for all that work.

If you want the instructions, Paypal an amount you deem suitable to mahjqa [a] gmail [.] com . Minimum is €5 / $6 , otherwise Paypal will eat most of it.

The higher this amount is, the sooner I'll get around to mailing you the instructions.

 

Some things to keep in mind:

 

-The instructions you receive are not to be shared with anyone else

-You'll receive a .zip file with 140 or so JPEG images.

-Embedded on there, in various subtle and unsubtle ways, is your name. So should they leak, I'll know who did it. In this case, I'll reserve the right to slap you in the face.

-This clever anti-piracy scheme may not be foolproof, and eventually the instructions will find their way online. There is nothing I can do about that.

-In fact, eventually (months from now) I'm planning to put these online myself.

-So what you're paying for is to get these before anyone else does. And to support and encourage me to build more shiny things.

-No refunds for any reason.

Goodnight Durban!

 

"We cannot keep waiting for a foolproof opportunity to come before we force ourselves to get serious.

 

The time for practice is over. Practice time was while we were growing up. Practice time was while we were in school.

 

We are now full participants in the game of life and our opponent is human mediocrity. In the absence of intense and intelligent human activity, the weeds of failure will move in to destroy the small amount of progress that our efforts have created. We cannot afford to wait for the "two-minute warning." We cannot afford to wait until the last few minutes to discover that our game plan isn't working. And we cannot afford to wait until the last few ticks of the clock to become intense about life's opportunities.

 

We must challenge ourselves right now with a new level of thinking, and drive ourselves toward a new level of achievement.

 

We must impose upon ourselves a new discipline and develop a new attitude about life that motivates us and inspires others.

 

We cannot keep waiting for a foolproof opportunity to come by before we force ourselves to get serious. We must identify our current opportunity and embrace it. We must breathe our talent and our vigor and our new sense of urgency into it and discover all that we can do.

 

We cannot allow ourselves to dwell upon the risks in every opportunity. Instead, we must seize the opportunity inherent in every risk, knowing that we must sometimes run the risk of going too far in order to discover how far we really can go.

 

You can do it! You can change your life, and you can start right now simply by developing a new sense of urgency. Remember, the clock is ticking. You have the ability to achieve whatever you want if you will just begin the process now.

 

It is easy to achieve success and happiness. And it is easy not to achieve them.

 

The final result of your life will be determined by whether you made too many errors in judgment, repeated every day, or whether you dedicated your life to a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.

 

The discipline of strengthening and broadening your philosophy.

 

The discipline of developing a better attitude.

 

The discipline of engaging in more intense and consistent activity that will lead to the achievement of greater results.

 

The discipline of studying your results in order to anticipate the future more objectively.

 

The discipline of living life more fully and investing all of your experiences in your better future.

 

These are the challenges to which you must apply your talent and your intensity with a sense of urgency and unshakeable resolve.

 

May the pieces to your life puzzle come together smoothly, and may you enjoy the picture of that finished masterpiece as a result of your unwavering commitment to mastering the basics" ~ Jim Rohn

 

Canon 550D, ISO 100. F4.5. Various exposures times blended together. Golden oldie from March 2013. In hindsight would now go F10 upwards and raise ISO if quicker exposure needed.

   

Thanksgiving is Ruined

 

At the center of every Thanksgiving meal is the most important part: the turkey. This year, it fell upon me to prepare the turkey for our yearly dinner. I was ecstatic to be in charge of such an essential component of the meal, but at the same time, very nervous. It was a lot of pressure to cook the turkey to perfection, with the hope that everyone would love it.

 

The task for me personally wasn't an easy one. Leave it in the oven too little, and you have an undercooked turkey, risking food poisoning for your guests. Leave it in too long, and you run the risk of having a really dry turkey or, much worse, burning it.

 

I wasn't going to take any risks. I wanted my turkey to be the best anyone had ever tasted, so I set up a stool next to the oven and sat and watched, guarding that turkey for hours. I made sure to check it every now and then. I wanted to be ready when that turkey turned into a mouth-watering, golden-brown, crispy meal ready for all my guests to devour.

 

Well, it turns out I lost track of time. I thought my plan of guarding it was foolproof, so I never thought about setting an alarm. Before I knew it, I couldn't remember when I put the turkey in the oven, and when the guests started arriving, being the host that I am, I got caught up in taking care of my guests and completely forgot about the turkey. Before I knew it, the aroma of something burning started to fill my home, and my internal alarm immediately went off—I had forgotten about the turkey.

 

Fearing the worst, I hurried to the kitchen, and as I opened the oven, thick smoke billowed out, consuming me. My heart sank. Unknowingly, I reacted by taking off my skirt to blow the smoke away, revealing a blackened, burnt turkey. It was crispy, alright—just much more than I wanted it to be.

 

I had ruined the turkey. I had ruined my skirt. I had ruined Thanksgiving.

 

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

 

El Día de Acción de Gracias está arruinado

 

En el centro de cada comida de Acción de Gracias se encuentra la parte más importante: el pavo. Este año me tocó a mí preparar el pavo para nuestra cena anual. Estaba exultante de estar a cargo de un componente tan esencial de la comida, pero al mismo tiempo, muy nerviosa. Fue mucha presión cocinar el pavo a la perfección, con la esperanza de que a todos les encantara.

 

La tarea para mí personalmente no fue fácil. Si lo dejo muy poco en el horno, tendré un pavo crudo, lo que correrá el riesgo de intoxicación alimentaria para mis invitados. Déjalo cocinar demasiado tiempo y corres el riesgo de tener un pavo muy seco o, peor, quemado.

 

No iba a correr ningún riesgo. Quería que mi pavo fuera el mejor que todos en probado, así que puse mi silla al lado del horno y me senté y observé, cuidando ese pavo por horas. Me aseguré de chequear lo de vez en cuando. Quería estar lista cuando el pavo estuviera un color cafe dorado y crujiente listo para que todos mis invitados lo devoraran.

 

Bueno, resulta que perdí la noción del tiempo. Pensé que mi plan de estar al pendiente era infalible, así que nunca pensé en poner una alarma. Al pasar el tiempo, no podía recordar cuando meti el pavo en el horno, y cuando empezaron a llegar los invitados, siendo la anfitrión que soy, me dediqué a cuidar a mis invitados y me olvidé por completo del pavo. Sin precupacion me llego una aroma. El aroma de algo quemándose comenzó a llenar mi casa y mi alarma interna inmediatamente se disparó: me había olvidado completamente del pavo.

 

Temiendo lo peor, corrí a la cocina y, cuando abrí el horno, salió un humo espeso que me consumió. Mi corazon se hundio. Sin darme cuenta, reaccioné quitándome la falda para alejar el humo, dejando al descubierto un pavo ennegrecido y quemado. Estaba crujiente, pero mucho más de lo que quería.

 

Había arruinado el pavo. Había arruinado mi falda. Había arruinado el Día de Acción de Gracias.

via FlashMag – Fashion & Lifestyle Magazine ift.tt/2fRAZ7r

*That Hell-Bound Train*

by Robert Bloch (1958)

 

When Martin was a little boy, his daddy was a Railroad Man. Daddy never rode the high iron, but he walked the tracks for the CB&Q, and he was proud of his job. And every night when he got drunk, he sang this old song about That Hell-Bound Train.

 

Martin didn't quite remember any of the words, but he couldn't forget the way his Daddy sang them out. And when Daddy made the mistake of getting drunk in the afternoon and got squeezed between a Pennsy tank-car and an AT&SF gondola, Martin sort of wondered why the Brotherhood didn't sing the song at his funeral.

After that, things didn't go so good for Martin, but somehow he always recalled Daddy's song. When Mom up and ran off with a traveling salesman from Keokuk (Daddy must have turned over in his grave, knowing she'd done such a thing, and with a passenger, too!) Martin hummed the tune to himself every night in the Orphan Home. And after Martin himself ran away, he used to whistle the song softly at night in the jungles, after the other bindlestiffs were asleep.

Martin was on the road for four-five years before he realized he wasn't getting anyplace. Of course he'd tried his hand at a lot of things — picking fruit in Oregon, washing dishes in a Montana hash-house, stealing hubcaps in Denver and tires in Oklahoma City — but by the time he'd put in six months on the chain gang down in Alabama he knew he had no future drifting around this way on his own.

 

So he tried to get on the railroad like his daddy had and they told him that times were bad. But Martin couldn't keep away from the railroads. Wherever he traveled, he rode the rods; he'd rather hop a freight heading north in sub-zero weather than lift his thumb to hitch a ride with a Cadillac headed for Florida. Whenever he managed to get hold of a can of Sterno, he'd sit there under a nice warm culvert, think about the old days, and often as not he'd hum the song about That Hell-Bound Train. That was the train the drunks and the sinners rode — the gambling men and the grifters, the big-time spenders, the skirt-chasers, and all the jolly crew. It would be really fine to take a trip in such good company, but Martin didn't like to think of what happened when that train finally pulled into the Depot Way Down Yonder. He didn't figure on spending eternity stoking boilers in Hell, without even a Company Union to protect him. Still, it would be a lovely ride. If there was such a thing as a Hell-Bound Train. Which, of course, there wasn't.

At least Martin didn't think there was, until that evening when he found himself walking the tracks heading south, just outside of Appleton Junction. The night was cold and dark, the way November nights are in the Fox River Valley, and he knew he'd have to work his way down to New Orleans for the winter, or maybe even Texas. Somehow he didn't much feel like going, even though he'd heard tell that a lot of those Texas automobiles had solid gold hub-caps.

 

No sir, he just wasn't cut out for petty larceny. It was worse than a sin — it was unprofitable, too.

Bad enough to do the Devil's work, but then to get such miserable pay on top of it! Maybe he'd better let the Salvation Army convert him.

Martin trudged along humming Daddy's song, waiting for a rattler to pull out of the Junction behind him. He'd have to catch it — there was nothing else for him to do.

But the first train to come along came from the other direction, roaring toward him along the track from the south.

Martin peered ahead, but his eyes couldn't match his ears, and so far all he could recognize was the sound. It was a train, though; he felt the steel shudder and sing beneath his feet.

And yet, how could it be? The next station south was Neenah-Menasha, and there was nothing due out of there for hours.

 

The clouds were thick overhead, and the field mists rolled like a cold fog in a November midnight. Even so, Martin should have been able to see the headlight as the train rushed on. But there was only the whistle, screaming out of the black throat of the night. Martin could recognize the equipment of just about any locomotive ever built, but he'd never heard a whistle that sounded like this one. It wasn't signaling; it was screaming like a lost soul.

He stepped to one side, for the train was almost on top of him now. And suddenly there it was, looming along the tracks and grinding to a stop in less time than he'd believed possible. The wheels hadn't been oiled, because they screamed too, screamed like the damned. But the train slid to a halt and the screams died away into a series of low, groaning sounds, and Martin looked up and saw that this was a passenger train. It was big and black, without a single light shining in the engine cab or any of the long string of cars; Martin couldn't read any lettering on the sides, but he was pretty sure this train didn't belong on the Northwestern Road.

 

He was even more sure when he saw the man clamber down out of the forward car. There was something wrong about the way he walked, as though one of his feet dragged, and about the lantern he carried. The lantern was dark, and the man held it up to his mouth and blew, and instantly it glowed redly. You don't have to be a member of the Railway Brotherhood to know that this is a mighty peculiar way of lighting a lantern.

As the figure approached, Martin recognized the conductor's cap perched on his head, and this made him feel a little better for a moment — until he noticed that it was worn a bit too high, as though there might be something sticking up on the forehead underneath it.Still, Martin knew his manners, and when the man smiled at him, he said, "Good evening, Mr. Conductor."

"Good evening, Martin."

"How did you know my name?"

 

The man shrugged. "How did you know I was the Conductor?"

"You are, aren't you?"

"To you, yes. Although other people, in other walks of life, may recognize me in different roles. For instance, you ought to see what I look like to the folks out in Hollywood." The man grinned. "I travel a great deal," he explained.

"What brings you here?" Martin asked.

 

"Why, you ought to know the answer to that, Martin. I came because you needed me. Tonight, I suddenly realized you were backsliding.

Thinking of joining the Salvation Army, weren't you?"

 

"Well — " Martin hesitated.

"Don't be ashamed. To err is human, as somebody-or-other-once said. Reader's Digest, wasn't it? Never mind.

The point is, I felt you needed me. So I switched over and came your way.""What for?"

"Why, to offer you a ride, of course. Isn't it better to travel comfortably by train than to march along the cold streets

behind a Salvation Army band? Hard on the feet, they tell me, and even harder on the eardrums."

 

"I'm not sure I'd care to ride your train, sir," Martin said. "Considering where I'm likely to end up."

 

"Ah, yes. The old argument." The Conductor sighed. "I suppose you'd prefer some sort of bargain, is that it?"

"Exactly," Martin answered.

"Well, I'm afraid I'm all through with that sort of thing. There's no shortage of prospective passengers anymore. Why should I offer you any special inducements?"

"You must want me, or else you wouldn't have bothered to go out of your way to find me."

 

The Conductor sighed again. "There you have a point. Pride was always my besetting weakness, I admit. And somehow I'd hate to lose you

to the competition, after thinking of you as my own all these years." He hesitated. "Yes, I'm prepared to deal with you on your own terms, if you insist."

"The terms?" Martin asked.

"Standard proposition. Anything you want."

 

"Ah," said Martin.

"But I warn you in advance, there'll be no tricks. I'll grant you any wish you can name — but in return,

you must promise to ride the train when the time comes."

"Suppose it never comes?"

"It will."

"Suppose I've got the kind of a wish that will keep me off forever?"

"There is no such wish."

"Don't be too sure."

 

"Let me worry about that," the Conductor told him. "No matter what you have in mind, I warn you that I'll collect in the end. And there'll be none of this last-minute hocus-pocus, either. No last-hour repentances, no blonde frauleins or fancy lawyers showing up to get you off. I offer a clean deal. That is to say, you'll get what you want, and I'll get what I want.""I've heard you trick people. They say you're worse than a used-car salesman."

"Now, wait a minute — "

"I apologize," Martin said, hastily. "But it is supposed to be a fact that you can't be trusted."

"I admit it. On the other hand, you seem to think you have found a way out."

 

"A sure-fire proposition."

"Sure-fire? Very funny!" The man began to chuckle, then halted. "But we waste valuable time, Martin. Let's get down to cases. What do you want from me?"

Martin took a deep breath. "I want to be able to stop Time."

"Right now?"

"No. Not yet. And not for everybody. I realize that would be impossible, of course. But I want to be able to stop Time for myself. Just once, in the future. Whenever I get to a point where I know I'm happy and contented, that's where I'd like to stop. So I can just keep on being happy forever."

"That's quite a proposition," the Conductor mused. "I've got to admit I've never heard anything just like it before — and believe me, I've listened to some lulus in my day." He grinned at Martin. "You've really been thinking about this, haven't you?"

 

"for years," Martin admitted. Then he coughed. "Well, what do you say?"

"It's not impossible, in terms of your own subjective time-sense," the Conductor murmured. "Yes, I think it could be arranged."

"But I mean really to stop. Not for me just to imagine it."

"I understand. And it can be done."

"Then you'll agree?"

"Why not? I promised you, didn't I? Give me your hand."

Martin hesitated. "Will it hurt very much? I mean, I don't like the sight of blood, and — "

"Nonsense! You've been listening to a lot of poppycock. We already have made our bargain, my boy. I merely intend to put something into your hand. The ways and means of fulfilling your wish. After all, there's no telling at just what moment you may decide to exercise the agreement, and I can't drop everything and come running. So it's better if you can regulate matters for yourself."

"You're going to give me a Time-stopper?"

 

"That's the general idea. As soon as I can decide what would be practical." The Conductor hesitated. "Ah, the very thing! Here, take my watch."

He pulled it out of his vest-pocket; a railroad watch in a silver case. He opened the back and made a delicate adjustment; Martin tried to see just exactly what he was doing, but the fingers moved in a blinding blur.

"There we are." The Conductor smiled. "It's all set, now. When you finally decide where you'd like to call a halt, merely turn the stem in reverse and unwind the watch until it stops. When it stops, Time stops, for you. Simple enough?" And the Conductor dropped the watch into Martin's hand.

 

The young man closed his fingers tightly around the case. "That's all there is to it, eh?"

"Absolutely. But remember — you can stop the watch only once. So you'd better make sure that you're satisfied with the

moment you choose to prolong. I caution you in all fairness; make very certain of your choice."

"I will." Martin grinned. "And since you've been so fair about it, I'll be fair, too. There's one thing you seem to have forgotten.

It doesn't really matter what moment I choose. Because once I stop Time for myself, that means I stay where I am forever.

I'll never have to get any older. And if I don't get any older, I'll never die. And if I never die, then I'll never have to take a ride on your train."

The Conductor turned away. His shoulders shook convulsively, and he may have been crying. "And you said I was worse than a used-car salesman," he gasped, in a strangled voice.

Then he wandered off into the fog, and the train-whistle gave an impatient shriek, and all at once it was moving swiftly down the track, rumbling out of sight in the darkness.

 

Martin stood there, blinking down at the silver watch in his hand. If it wasn't that he could actually see it and feel it there, and if he couldn't smell that peculiar odor, he might have thought he'd imagined the whole thing from start to finish — train, Conductor, bargain, and all.

But he had the watch, and he could recognize the scent left by the train as it departed, even though there aren't many locomotives around that use sulphur and brimstone as fuel.

And he had no doubts about his bargain. That's what came of thinking things through to a logical conclusion. Some fools would have settled for wealth, or power, or Kim Novak. Daddy might have sold out for a fifth of whiskey.Martin knew that he'd made a better deal. Better? It was foolproof. All he needed to do now was choose his moment.

 

He put the watch in his pocket and started back down the railroad track. He hadn't really had a destination in mind before, but he did now. He was going to find a moment of happiness…

Now young Martin wasn't altogether a ninny. He realized perfectly well that happiness is a relative thing; there are conditions and degrees of contentment, and they vary with one's lot in life. As a hobo, he was often satisfied with a warm handout, a double-length bench in the park, or a can of Sterno made in 1957 (a vintage year). Many a time he had reached a state of momentary bliss through such simple agencies, but he was aware that there were better things. Martin determined to seek them out.

Within two days he was in the great city of Chicago. Quite naturally, he drifted over to West Madison Street, and there he took steps to elevate his role in life. He became a city bum, a panhandler, a moocher. Within a week he had risen to the point where happiness was a meal in a regular one-arm luncheon joint, a two-bit flop on a real army cot in a real flophouse, and a full fifth of muscatel.

 

There was a night, after enjoying all three of these luxuries to the full, when Martin thought of unwinding his watch at the pinnacle of intoxication. But he also thought of the faces of the honest johns he'd braced for a handout today. Sure, they were squares, but they were prosperous. They wore good clothes, held good jobs, drove nice cars. And for them, happiness was even more ecstatic — they ate dinner in fine hotels, they slept on innerspring mattresses, they drank blended whiskey.

 

Squares or no, they had something there. Martin fingered his watch, put aside the temptation to hock it for another bottle of muscatel, and went to sleep determined to get himself a job and improve his happiness-quotient.When he awoke he had a hangover, but the determination was still with him. Before the month was out Martin was working for a general contractor over on the South Side, at one of the big rehabilitation projects. He hated the grind, but the pay was good, and pretty soon he got himself a one-room apartment out on Blue Island Avenue. He was accustomed to eating in decent restaurants now, and he bought himself a comfortable bed, and every Saturday night he went down to the corner tavern. It was all very pleasant, but —

The foreman liked his work and promised him a raise in a month. If he waited around, the raise would mean that he could afford a second-hand car. With a car, he could even start picking up a girl for a date now and then. Other fellows on the job did, and they seemed pretty happy.

 

So Martin kept on working, and the raise came through and the car came through and pretty soon a couple of girls came through.

The first time it happened, he wanted to unwind his watch immediately. Until he got to thinking about what some of the older men always said. There was a guy named Charlie, for example, who worked alongside him on the hoist. "When you're young and don't know the score, maybe you get a kick out of running around with those pigs. But after a while, you want something better. A nice girl of your own. That's the ticket."

Martin felt he owed it to himself to find out. If he didn't like it better, he could always go back to what he had.

Almost six months went by before Martin met Lillian Gillis. By that time he'd had another promotion and was working inside, in the office. They made him go to night school to learn how to do simple bookkeeping, but it meant another fifteen bucks extra a week, and it was nicer working indoors.

And Lillian was a lot of fun. When she told him she'd marry him, Martin was almost sure that the time was now. Except that she was sort of — well, she was a nice girl, and she said they'd have to wait until they were married. Of course, Martin couldn't expect to marry her until he had a little more money saved up, and another raise would help, too.

That took a year. Martin was patient, because he knew it was going to be worth it. Every time he had any doubts, he took out his watch and looked at it. But he never showed it to Lillian, or anybody else. Most of the other men wore expensive wristwatches and the old silver railroad watch looked just a little cheap.

 

Martin smiled as he gazed at the stem. Just a few twists and he'd have something none of these other poor working slobs would ever have. Permanent satisfaction, with his blushing bride — Only getting married turned out to be just the beginning. Sure, it was wonderful, but Lillian told him how much better things would be if they could move into a new place and fix it up. Martin wanted decent furniture, a TV set, a nice car.

So he started taking night courses and got a promotion to the front office. With the baby coming, he wanted to stick around and see his son arrive. And when it came, he realized he'd have to wait until it got a little older, started to walk and talk and develop a personality of its own.

About this time the company sent him out on the road as a trouble-shooter on some of those other jobs, and now he was eating at those good hotels, living high on the hog and the expense-account. More than once he was tempted to unwind his watch. This was the good life… Of course, it would be even better if he just didn't have to work. Sooner or later, if he could cut in on one of the company deals, he could make a pile and retire. Then everything would be ideal. It happened, but it took time. Martin's son was going to high school before he really got up there into the chips. Martin got a strong hunch that it was now or never, because he wasn't exactly a kid anymore.

But right about then he met Sherry Westcott, and she didn't seem to think he was middle-aged at all, in spite of the way he was losing hair and adding stomach. She taught him that a toupee could cover the bald spot and a cummerbund could cover the pot-gut. In fact, she taught him quite a lot and he so enjoyed learning that he actually took out his watch and prepared to unwind it.

 

Unfortunately, he chose the very moment that the private detectives broke down the door of the hotel room, and then there was a long stretch of time when Martin was so busy fighting the divorce action that he couldn't honestly say he was enjoying any given moment.

When he made the final settlement with Lil he was broke again, and Sherry didn't seem to think he was so young, after all. So he squared his shoulders and went back to work.

He made his pile, eventually, but it took longer this time, and there wasn't much chance to have fun along the way. The fancy dames in the fancy cocktail lounges didn't seem to interest him anymore, and neither did the liquor. Besides, the Doc had warned him off that.

But there were other pleasures for a rich man to investigate. Travel, for instance — and not riding the rods from one hick burg to another, either. Martin went around the world by plane and luxury liner. For a while it seemed as though he would find his moment after all, visiting the Taj Mahal by moonlight. Martin pulled out the battered old watch-case, and got ready to unwind it. Nobody else was there to watch him —

And that's why he hesitated. Sure, this was an enjoyable moment, but he was alone. Lil and the kid were gone, Sherry was gone, and somehow he'd never had time to make any friends. Maybe if he found new congenial people, he'd have the ultimate happiness. That must be the answer — it wasn't just money or power or sex or seeing beautiful things. The real satisfaction lay in friendship.So on the boat trip home, Martin tried to strike up a few acquaintances at the ship's bar. But all these people were much younger, and Martin had nothing in common with them. Also they wanted to dance and drink, and Martin wasn't in condition to appreciate such pastimes. Nevertheless, he tried.

Perhaps that's why he had the little accident the day before they docked in San Francisco. "Little accident" was the ship's doctor's way of describing it, but Martin noticed he looked very grave when he told him to stay in bed, and he'd called an ambulance to meet the liner at the dock and take the patient right to the hospital.

 

At the hospital, all the expensive treatment and the expensive smiles and the expensive words didn't fool Martin any. He was an old man with a bad heart,

and they thought he was going to die.But he could fool them. He still had the watch. He found it in his coat when he put on his clothes and sneaked

out of the hospital.He didn't have to die. He could cheat death with a single gesture — and he intended to do it as a free man, out there under a free sky.

That was the real secret of happiness. He understood it now. Not even friendship meant as much as freedom.

This was the best thing of all — to be free of friends or family or the furies of the flesh.

Martin walked slowly beside the embankment under the night sky. Come to think of it, he was just about back where he'd started,

so many years ago. But the moment was good, good enough to prolong forever. Once a bum, always a bum.

 

He smiled as he thought about it, and then the smile twisted sharply and suddenly, like the pain twisting sharply and suddenly in

his chest. The world began to spin and he fell down on the side of the embankment.

He couldn't see very well, but he was still conscious, and he knew what had happened. Another stroke, and a bad one. Maybe this was it.

Except that he wouldn't be a fool any longer. He wouldn't wait to see what was still around the corner.

 

Right now was his chance to use his power and save his life. And he was going to do it. He could still move, nothing could stop him.

He groped in his pocket and pulled out the old silver watch, fumbling with the stem. A few twists and he'd cheat death, he'd never have to

ride that Hell-Bound Train. He could go on forever. Forever.Martin had never really considered the word before. To go on forever — but how?

Did he want to go on forever, like this; a sick old man,lying helplessly here in the grass?

No. He couldn't do it. He wouldn't do it. And suddenly he wanted very much to cry, because he knew that somewhere along the line

he'd outsmarted himself. And now it was too late. His eyes dimmed, there was a roaring in his ears…

He recognized the roaring, of course, and he wasn't at all surprised to see the train come rushing out of the fog up there on the embankment.

He wasn't surprised when it stopped, either, or when the Conductor climbed off and walked slowly toward him.

The Conductor hadn't changed a bit. Even his grin was still the same.

 

"Hello, Martin," he said. "All aboard."

"I know," Martin whispered. "But you'll have to carry me. I can't walk. I'm not even really talking anymore, am I?"

"Yes you are," the Conductor said. "I can hear you fine. And you can walk, too." He leaned down and placed his hand on

Martin's chest. There was a moment of icy numbness, and then, sure enough, Martin could walk after all.

He got up and followed the Conductor along the slope, moving to the side of the train.

"In here?" he asked.

 

"No, the next car," the Conductor murmured. "I guess you're entitled to ride Pullman. After all, you're quite a successful man.

You've tasted the joys of wealth and position and prestige. You've known the pleasures of marriage and fatherhood. You've sampled

the delights of dining and drinking and debauchery, too, and you traveled high, wide, and handsome. So let's not have any last-minute recriminations."

"All right," Martin sighed. "I can't blame you for my mistakes. On the other hand, you can't take credit for what happened,

either. I worked for everything I got. I did it all on my own. I didn't even need your watch."

"So you didn't," the Conductor said, smiling. "But would you mind giving it back to me now?"

"Need it for the next sucker, eh?" Martin muttered.

"Perhaps."

 

Something about the way he said it made Martin look up. He tried to see the Conductor's eyes, but the brim of his cap cast a shadow.

So Martin looked down at the watch instead."Tell me something," he said, softly. "If I give you the watch, what will you do with it?"

"Why, throw it into the ditch," the Conductor told him. "That's all I'll do with it." And he held out his hand.

"What if somebody comes along and finds it? And twists the stem backward, and stops Time?"

"Nobody would do that," the Conductor murmured. "Even if they knew."

"You mean, it was all a trick? This is only an ordinary, cheap watch?"

"I didn't say that," whispered the Conductor. "I only said that no one has ever twisted the stem backward.

They've all been like you, Martin — looking ahead to find that perfect happiness. Waiting for the moment that never comes."

 

The Conductor held out his hand again.

Martin sighed and shook his head. "You cheated me after all."

"You cheated yourself, Martin. And now you're going to ride that Hell-Bound Train."

 

He pushed Martin up the steps and into the car ahead. As he entered, the train began to move and the whistle screamed. And Martin stood there in the swaying Pullman, gazing down the aisle at the other passengers. He could see them sitting there, and somehow it didn't seem strange at all.

Here they were; the drunks and the sinners, the gambling men and the grifters, the big-time spenders, the skirt-chasers, and all the jolly crew. They knew where they were going, of course, but they didn't seem to give a damn. The blinds were drawn on the windows, yet it was light inside, and they were all living it up — singing and passing the bottle and roaring with laughter, throwing the dice and telling their jokes and bragging their big brags, just the way Daddy used to sing about them in the old song.

 

"Mighty nice traveling companions," Martin said. "Why, I've never seen such a pleasant bunch of people. I mean, they seem to be really enjoying themselves!"

The Conductor shrugged. "I'm afraid things won't be quite so jazzy when we pull into that Depot Way Down Yonder."

For the third time, he held out his hand. "Now, before you sit down, if you'll just give me that watch. A bargain's a bargain—"

Martin smiled. "A bargain's a bargain," he echoed. "I agreed to ride your train if I could stop Time when I found the right moment of happiness.

And I think I'm about as happy right here as I've ever been."

 

Very slowly, Martin took hold of the silver watch-stem."No!" gasped the Conductor."No!" But the watch-stem turned.

"Do you realize what you've done?" the Conductor yelled. "Now we'll never reach the Depot! We'll just go on riding, all of us — forever!"

Martin grinned. "I know," he said. "But the fun is in the trip, not the destination. You taught me that. And I'm looking forward to a wonderful trip. Look, maybe I can even help. If you were to find me another one of those caps, now, and let me keep this watch—"

 

And that's the way it finally worked out. Wearing his cap and carrying his battered old silver watch, there's no happier person in or out of this world — now and forever — than Martin. Martin, the new Brakeman on That Hellbound Train.

Thanksgiving is Ruined

 

At the center of every Thanksgiving meal is the most important part: the turkey. This year, it fell upon me to prepare the turkey for our yearly dinner. I was ecstatic to be in charge of such an essential component of the meal, but at the same time, very nervous. It was a lot of pressure to cook the turkey to perfection, with the hope that everyone would love it.

 

The task for me personally wasn't an easy one. Leave it in the oven too little, and you have an undercooked turkey, risking food poisoning for your guests. Leave it in too long, and you run the risk of having a really dry turkey or, much worse, burning it.

 

I wasn't going to take any risks. I wanted my turkey to be the best anyone had ever tasted, so I set up a stool next to the oven and sat and watched, guarding that turkey for hours. I made sure to check it every now and then. I wanted to be ready when that turkey turned into a mouth-watering, golden-brown, crispy meal ready for all my guests to devour.

 

Well, it turns out I lost track of time. I thought my plan of guarding it was foolproof, so I never thought about setting an alarm. Before I knew it, I couldn't remember when I put the turkey in the oven, and when the guests started arriving, being the host that I am, I got caught up in taking care of my guests and completely forgot about the turkey. Before I knew it, the aroma of something burning started to fill my home, and my internal alarm immediately went off—I had forgotten about the turkey.

 

Fearing the worst, I hurried to the kitchen, and as I opened the oven, thick smoke billowed out, consuming me. My heart sank. Unknowingly, I reacted by taking off my skirt to blow the smoke away, revealing a blackened, burnt turkey. It was crispy, alright—just much more than I wanted it to be.

 

I had ruined the turkey. I had ruined my skirt. I had ruined Thanksgiving.

 

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

 

El Día de Acción de Gracias está arruinado

 

En el centro de cada comida de Acción de Gracias se encuentra la parte más importante: el pavo. Este año me tocó a mí preparar el pavo para nuestra cena anual. Estaba exultante de estar a cargo de un componente tan esencial de la comida, pero al mismo tiempo, muy nerviosa. Fue mucha presión cocinar el pavo a la perfección, con la esperanza de que a todos les encantara.

 

La tarea para mí personalmente no fue fácil. Si lo dejo muy poco en el horno, tendré un pavo crudo, lo que correrá el riesgo de intoxicación alimentaria para mis invitados. Déjalo cocinar demasiado tiempo y corres el riesgo de tener un pavo muy seco o, peor, quemado.

 

No iba a correr ningún riesgo. Quería que mi pavo fuera el mejor que todos en probado, así que puse mi silla al lado del horno y me senté y observé, cuidando ese pavo por horas. Me aseguré de chequear lo de vez en cuando. Quería estar lista cuando el pavo estuviera un color cafe dorado y crujiente listo para que todos mis invitados lo devoraran.

 

Bueno, resulta que perdí la noción del tiempo. Pensé que mi plan de estar al pendiente era infalible, así que nunca pensé en poner una alarma. Al pasar el tiempo, no podía recordar cuando meti el pavo en el horno, y cuando empezaron a llegar los invitados, siendo la anfitrión que soy, me dediqué a cuidar a mis invitados y me olvidé por completo del pavo. Sin precupacion me llego una aroma. El aroma de algo quemándose comenzó a llenar mi casa y mi alarma interna inmediatamente se disparó: me había olvidado completamente del pavo.

 

Temiendo lo peor, corrí a la cocina y, cuando abrí el horno, salió un humo espeso que me consumió. Mi corazon se hundio. Sin darme cuenta, reaccioné quitándome la falda para alejar el humo, dejando al descubierto un pavo ennegrecido y quemado. Estaba crujiente, pero mucho más de lo que quería.

 

Había arruinado el pavo. Había arruinado mi falda. Había arruinado el Día de Acción de Gracias.

A shot taken through the cab of a diesel multiple unit of the Goods Junction signal box on the Llangollen Railway.

 

Just beyond the signal box the two tracks merge into a single line. The signalman is holding the 'token' in his right hand that will be handed to the driver to give right of way on the single-track section. The signals for travel in the opposite direction cannot be set until the token is in its place in the signal box at the other end of the section.

 

This system may seem foolproof, but it isn't idiot-proof as was proved near Abermule station in 1921. The idiots in question were a station lad who failed to swap tokens and a driver who failed to look at the token to see if it was for the correct stretch of track.

Thanksgiving is Ruined

 

At the center of every Thanksgiving meal is the most important part: the turkey. This year, it fell upon me to prepare the turkey for our yearly dinner. I was ecstatic to be in charge of such an essential component of the meal, but at the same time, very nervous. It was a lot of pressure to cook the turkey to perfection, with the hope that everyone would love it.

 

The task for me personally wasn't an easy one. Leave it in the oven too little, and you have an undercooked turkey, risking food poisoning for your guests. Leave it in too long, and you run the risk of having a really dry turkey or, much worse, burning it.

 

I wasn't going to take any risks. I wanted my turkey to be the best anyone had ever tasted, so I set up a stool next to the oven and sat and watched, guarding that turkey for hours. I made sure to check it every now and then. I wanted to be ready when that turkey turned into a mouth-watering, golden-brown, crispy meal ready for all my guests to devour.

 

Well, it turns out I lost track of time. I thought my plan of guarding it was foolproof, so I never thought about setting an alarm. Before I knew it, I couldn't remember when I put the turkey in the oven, and when the guests started arriving, being the host that I am, I got caught up in taking care of my guests and completely forgot about the turkey. Before I knew it, the aroma of something burning started to fill my home, and my internal alarm immediately went off—I had forgotten about the turkey.

 

Fearing the worst, I hurried to the kitchen, and as I opened the oven, thick smoke billowed out, consuming me. My heart sank. Unknowingly, I reacted by taking off my skirt to blow the smoke away, revealing a blackened, burnt turkey. It was crispy, alright—just much more than I wanted it to be.

 

I had ruined the turkey. I had ruined my skirt. I had ruined Thanksgiving.

 

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

 

El Día de Acción de Gracias está arruinado

 

En el centro de cada comida de Acción de Gracias se encuentra la parte más importante: el pavo. Este año me tocó a mí preparar el pavo para nuestra cena anual. Estaba exultante de estar a cargo de un componente tan esencial de la comida, pero al mismo tiempo, muy nerviosa. Fue mucha presión cocinar el pavo a la perfección, con la esperanza de que a todos les encantara.

 

La tarea para mí personalmente no fue fácil. Si lo dejo muy poco en el horno, tendré un pavo crudo, lo que correrá el riesgo de intoxicación alimentaria para mis invitados. Déjalo cocinar demasiado tiempo y corres el riesgo de tener un pavo muy seco o, peor, quemado.

 

No iba a correr ningún riesgo. Quería que mi pavo fuera el mejor que todos en probado, así que puse mi silla al lado del horno y me senté y observé, cuidando ese pavo por horas. Me aseguré de chequear lo de vez en cuando. Quería estar lista cuando el pavo estuviera un color cafe dorado y crujiente listo para que todos mis invitados lo devoraran.

 

Bueno, resulta que perdí la noción del tiempo. Pensé que mi plan de estar al pendiente era infalible, así que nunca pensé en poner una alarma. Al pasar el tiempo, no podía recordar cuando meti el pavo en el horno, y cuando empezaron a llegar los invitados, siendo la anfitrión que soy, me dediqué a cuidar a mis invitados y me olvidé por completo del pavo. Sin precupacion me llego una aroma. El aroma de algo quemándose comenzó a llenar mi casa y mi alarma interna inmediatamente se disparó: me había olvidado completamente del pavo.

 

Temiendo lo peor, corrí a la cocina y, cuando abrí el horno, salió un humo espeso que me consumió. Mi corazon se hundio. Sin darme cuenta, reaccioné quitándome la falda para alejar el humo, dejando al descubierto un pavo ennegrecido y quemado. Estaba crujiente, pero mucho más de lo que quería.

 

Había arruinado el pavo. Había arruinado mi falda. Había arruinado el Día de Acción de Gracias.

It's been two years, and some people have asked me to make some Carvers for them. The original was a bit difficult to use, as it could be 'oversteered', bringing the tilt and front steering out of alignment.

 

So, the chassis got some tinkering to fit the servo motor and simplified steering, that uses about half the number of gears/linkages to get the job done. I think it should be foolproof now.

British postcard by ACME Cards, London, no. BW5. Photo: Bob Willoughby, 1964. Alfred Hitchcock on the set of Marnie (1964).

 

British director Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) was known as 'The Master of Suspense'. He is one of the most influential and extensively studied filmmakers in the history of cinema. He had his first major success with The Lodger (1926), a silent thriller loosely based on Jack the Ripper. Hitchcock came to international attention with The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), and, most notably, The Lady Vanishes (1938). His first Hollywood film was the multi-Oscar-winning psychological thriller Rebecca (1940). Many classics followed including Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), Rear Window (1954), North by Northwest (1959) and The Birds (1963). In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films which garnered a total of 46 Oscar nominations and 6 wins.

 

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, on the outskirts of east London, in 1899. He was the son of Emma Jane Whelan and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock. His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William and Eileen Hitchcock. Raised as a strict Catholic and attending Saint Ignatius College, a school run by Jesuits, Hitch had very much of a regular upbringing. In 1914, his father died. To support himself and his mother—his older siblings had left home by then—Hitchcock took a job in 1915 as an estimator for the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company. His interest in films began at around this time, frequently visiting the cinema and reading US trade journals. In a trade paper, he read that Famous Players-Lasky, the production arm of Paramount Pictures, was opening a studio in London. They were planning to film The Sorrows of Satan by Marie Corelli, so Hitch produced some drawings for the title cards and sent his work to the studio. They hired him, and in 1919 he began working for Islington Studios as a title-card designer. Hitchcock soon gained experience as a co-writer, art director, and production manager on at least 18 silent films. After Hugh Croise, the director for Always Tell Your Wife (1923) fell ill, Hitchcock and star and producer Seymour Hicks finished the film together. When Paramount pulled out of London in 1922, Hitchcock was hired as an assistant director by a new firm run in the same location by Michael Balcon, later known as Gainsborough Pictures. He began to collaborate with the editor and "script girl" Alma Reville, his future wife. He worked as an assistant to director Graham Cutts on several films, including The Blackguard (1924), which was produced at the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam. There Hitchcock watched part of the making of F. W. Murnau's film Der letzte Mann/The Last Laugh (1924). He was impressed with Murnau's work and later used many of his techniques for the set design in his own productions. In the summer of 1925, Balcon asked Hitchcock to direct The Pleasure Garden (1925), starring Virginia Valli, a co-production of Gainsborough and the German firm Emelka. Reville, by then Hitchcock's fiancée, was assistant director-editor. In 1927, Hitchcock made his first trademark film, the thriller The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) starring Ivor Novello. The Lodger is about the hunt for a serial killer who, wearing a black cloak and carrying a black bag, is murdering young blonde women in London, and only on Tuesdays. The Lodger was a commercial and critical success in the UK. In the same year, Hitchcock married Alma Reville. They had one child, Patricia Hitchcock (1928). Reville became her husband's closest collaborator and wrote or co-wrote on many of his films. Hitchcock made the transition to sound film with his tenth film, Blackmail (1929), the first British 'talkie'. Blackmail began the Hitchcock tradition of using famous landmarks as a backdrop for suspense sequences, with the climax taking place on the dome of the British Museum. He used an early sound recording as a special element of the film, stressing the word "knife" in a conversation with the woman (Anny Ondra) suspected of murder. It was followed by Murder! (1930). In 1933 Hitchcock was once again working for Michael Balcon at Gaumont-British on The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934). It was a success. His second, The 39 Steps (1935), with Robert Donat, made him a star in the USA. It also established the quintessential English 'Hitchcock blonde' (Madeleine Carroll) as the template for his succession of ice-cold, elegant leading ladies. His next major success was The Lady Vanishes (1938), with Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. The film saw Hitchcock receive the 1938 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director.[

 

David O. Selznick signed Hitchcock to a seven-year contract beginning in March 1939, and the Hitchcocks moved to Hollywood. He directed an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (1940), starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. Rebecca won the Oscar for Best Picture, although Hitchcock himself was only nominated as Best Director. Hitchcock's second American film was the thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), set in Europe, and produced by Walter Wanger. It was nominated for Best Picture that year Suspicion (1941) was the first of four projects on which Cary Grant worked with Hitchcock, and it is one of the rare occasions that Grant was cast in a sinister role. In one scene Hitchcock placed a light inside a glass of milk, perhaps poisoned, that Grant is bringing to his wife, played by Joan Fontaine. The light makes sure that the audience's attention is on the glass. Fontaine won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. Shadow of a Doubt (1943) was Hitchcock's personal favourite. Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright) suspects her beloved uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) of being a serial killer. Hitchcock was again nominated for the Oscar for Best Director for Lifeboat (1944) and Spellbound (1945), but he never won the award. Spellbound (1945), starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck, explores psychoanalysis and features a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí. Notorious (1946) stars Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, both Hitchcock regulars, and features a plot about Nazis, uranium, and South America. After a brief lull of commercial success in the late 1940s, Hitchcock returned to form with Strangers on a Train (1951), based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith. In the film, two men casually meet, one of whom speculates on a foolproof method to murder. He suggests that two people, each wishing to do away with someone, should each perform the other's murder. Farley Granger played the innocent victim of the scheme, while boy-next-door" Robert Walker played the villain. I Confess (1953) was set in Quebec with Montgomery Clift as a Catholic priest. It was followed by three colour films starring Grace Kelly: the 3-D film Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955). From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host of the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. With his droll delivery, gallows humour, and iconic image, the series made Hitchcock a celebrity. in his films, Hitchcock often used the "mistaken identity" theme, such as in The Wrong Man (1956), and North by Northwest (1959). In Vertigo (1958), James Stewart plays Scottie, a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia. He develops an obsession with a woman he has been hired to shadow (Kim Novak). His obsession leads to tragedy, and this time Hitchcock does not opt for a happy ending. Vertigo is one of his most personal and revealing films, dealing with the Pygmalion-like obsessions of a man who crafts a woman into the woman he desires. Psycho (1960) was Hitchcock's great shock masterpiece, mostly for its haunting performances by Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins and its shower scene, and The Birds (1963) became the unintended forerunner to an onslaught of films about nature-gone-mad, and booth films were phenomenally popular. Film companies began to refer to his films as 'Alfred Hitchcock's': Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972), and Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976). During the making of Frenzy (1972), Hitchcock's wife Alma suffered a paralysing stroke which made her unable to walk very well. In 1979, Hitchcock was knighted, making him Sir Alfred Hitchcock. A year later, in 1980, he died peacefully in his sleep due to renal failure. Hitchcock was survived by his wife and daughter. After the funeral, his body was cremated. His remains were scattered over the Pacific Ocean.

 

Sources: Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

French postcard in the collection Magie Noire by Editions Hazan, no. 6489. Photo: Collection Dominique Lebrun D.R. Alfred Hitchcock promoting Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948).

 

British director Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) was known as 'The Master of Suspense'. He is one of the most influential and extensively studied filmmakers in the history of cinema. He had his first major success with The Lodger (1926), a silent thriller loosely based on Jack the Ripper. Hitchcock came to international attention with The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), and, most notably, The Lady Vanishes (1938). His first Hollywood film was the multi-Oscar-winning psychological thriller Rebecca (1940). Many classics followed including Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), Rear Window (1954), North by Northwest (1959) and The Birds (1963). In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films which garnered a total of 46 Oscar nominations and 6 wins.

 

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, on the outskirts of east London, in 1899. He was the son of Emma Jane Whelan and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock. His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William and Eileen Hitchcock. Raised as a strict Catholic and attending Saint Ignatius College, a school run by Jesuits, Hitch had very much of a regular upbringing. In 1914, his father died. To support himself and his mother—his older siblings had left home by then—Hitchcock took a job in 1915 as an estimator for the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company. His interest in films began at around this time, frequently visiting the cinema and reading US trade journals. In a trade paper, he read that Famous Players-Lasky, the production arm of Paramount Pictures, was opening a studio in London. They were planning to film The Sorrows of Satan by Marie Corelli, so Hitch produced some drawings for the title cards and sent his work to the studio. They hired him, and in 1919 he began working for Islington Studios as a title-card designer. Hitchcock soon gained experience as a co-writer, art director, and production manager on at least 18 silent films. After Hugh Croise, the director for Always Tell Your Wife (1923) fell ill, Hitchcock and star and producer Seymour Hicks finished the film together. When Paramount pulled out of London in 1922, Hitchcock was hired as an assistant director by a new firm run in the same location by Michael Balcon, later known as Gainsborough Pictures. He began to collaborate with the editor and "script girl" Alma Reville, his future wife. He worked as an assistant to director Graham Cutts on several films, including The Blackguard (1924), which was produced at the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam. There Hitchcock watched part of the making of F. W. Murnau's film Der letzte Mann/The Last Laugh (1924). He was impressed with Murnau's work and later used many of his techniques for the set design in his own productions. In the summer of 1925, Balcon asked Hitchcock to direct The Pleasure Garden (1925), starring Virginia Valli, a co-production of Gainsborough and the German firm Emelka. Reville, by then Hitchcock's fiancée, was assistant director-editor. In 1927, Hitchcock made his first trademark film, the thriller The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) starring Ivor Novello. The Lodger is about the hunt for a serial killer who, wearing a black cloak and carrying a black bag, is murdering young blonde women in London, and only on Tuesdays. The Lodger was a commercial and critical success in the UK. In the same year, Hitchcock married Alma Reville. They had one child, Patricia Hitchcock (1928). Reville became her husband's closest collaborator and wrote or co-wrote on many of his films. Hitchcock made the transition to sound film with his tenth film, Blackmail (1929), the first British 'talkie'. Blackmail began the Hitchcock tradition of using famous landmarks as a backdrop for suspense sequences, with the climax taking place on the dome of the British Museum. He used early sound recording as a special element of the film, stressing the word "knife" in a conversation with the woman (Anny Ondra) suspected of murder. It was followed by Murder! (1930). In 1933 Hitchcock was once again working for Michael Balcon at Gaumont-British on The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934). It was a success. His second, The 39 Steps (1935), with Robert Donat, made him a star in the USA. It also established the quintessential English 'Hitchcock blonde' (Madeleine Carroll) as the template for his succession of ice-cold, elegant leading ladies. His next major success was The Lady Vanishes (1938), with Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. The film saw Hitchcock receive the 1938 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director.[

 

David O. Selznick signed Hitchcock to a seven-year contract beginning in March 1939, and the Hitchcocks moved to Hollywood. He directed an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (1940), starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. Rebecca won the Oscar for Best Picture, although Hitchcock himself was only nominated as Best Director. Hitchcock's second American film was the thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), set in Europe, and produced by Walter Wanger. It was nominated for Best Picture that year Suspicion (1941) was the first of four projects on which Cary Grant worked with Hitchcock, and it is one of the rare occasions that Grant was cast in a sinister role. In one scene Hitchcock placed a light inside a glass of milk, perhaps poisoned, that Grant is bringing to his wife, played by Joan Fontaine. The light makes sure that the audience's attention is on the glass. Fontaine won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. Shadow of a Doubt (1943) was Hitchcock's personal favourite. Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright) suspects her beloved uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) of being a serial killer. Hitchcock was again nominated for the Oscar for Best Director for Lifeboat (1944) and Spellbound (1945), but he never won the award. Spellbound (1945), starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck, explores psychoanalysis and features a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí. Notorious (1946) stars Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, both Hitchcock regulars, and features a plot about Nazis, uranium, and South America. After a brief lull of commercial success in the late 1940s, Hitchcock returned to form with Strangers on a Train (1951), based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith. In the film, two men casually meet, one of whom speculates on a foolproof method to murder. He suggests that two people, each wishing to do away with someone, should each perform the other's murder. Farley Granger played the innocent victim of the scheme, while boy-next-door" Robert Walker played the villain. I Confess (1953) was set in Quebec with Montgomery Clift as a Catholic priest. It was followed by three colour films starring Grace Kelly: the 3-D film Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955). From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host of the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. With his droll delivery, gallows humour and iconic image, the series made Hitchcock a celebrity. in his films, Hitchcock often used the "mistaken identity" theme, such as in The Wrong Man (1956), and North by Northwest (1959). In Vertigo (1958), James Stewart plays Scottie, a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia. He develops an obsession with a woman he has been hired to shadow (Kim Novak). His obsession leads to tragedy, and this time Hitchcock does not opt for a happy ending. Vertigo is one of his most personal and revealing films, dealing with the Pygmalion-like obsessions of a man who crafts a woman into the woman he desires. Psycho (1960) was Hitchcock's great shock masterpiece, mostly for its haunting performances by Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins and its shower scene, and The Birds (1963) became the unintended forerunner to an onslaught of films about nature-gone-mad, and booth films were phenomenally popular. Film companies began to refer to his films as 'Alfred Hitchcock's': Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972), and Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976). During the making of Frenzy (1972), Hitchcock's wife Alma suffered a paralysing stroke which made her unable to walk very well. In 1979, Hitchcock was knighted, making him Sir Alfred Hitchcock. A year later, in 1980, he died peacefully in his sleep due to renal failure. Hitchcock was survived by his wife and daughter. After the funeral, his body was cremated. His remains were scattered over the Pacific Ocean.

 

Sources: Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

Unknown char ( island ) on the river Jamuna, Sariakandi, Bogra, Bangladesh.

March 28, 2010.

 

View On Black

 

Got tired of random load shedding and humid Dhaka life!

So went back to my foolproof way of beating the heat, a dip in the Jamuna under a moonlit sky !

( Sorry for the hand held blurriness. No place for tripod and I was already waist deep in the Jamuna. Ha Ha ! )

     

Here's another 4-color adaptation of a block print as a serigraph. A few minor adjustments and additions were done to the key image (revised breasts, face, added flowers, thinning of certain lines). Printed an edition of 24 on soft Revere paper and then another edition on some nasty tea/Pero stained sheets of unknown origin (seen above). I'm not sure if this attempt was quite as successful as my last try at this technique, but I'm happy with it more or less. Next step would be to cut the block for each color I guess, but this method seems fairly foolproof even if it's not an "honest" woodcut.

 

If you are interested in purchasing this print or any others, they are for sale over here at my etsy shop. And of course, I'm always willing to make trades for other prints I admire :)

As the villains gather in the meeting room, Lex and Kuttler are standing behind a mirrored window. While Kuttler is typing on his tablet, Lex is already having second thoughts on this plan. He puts his face in his hand and sighs.

 

“All right. Let’s go over this once more. Who do we have and why?”

 

Kuttler: “I’ll start with the most prominent one this time.”

 

“Please do.”

 

Kuttler: “First up we have the Fisherman. It’s an alien parasite that attaches itself to a host. Many thought it was lost after the battle with Green Lantern and Aquaman in ‘04, but it resurfaced last year with a new host. Counterpart to Aquaman specifically. Managed to control an entire army of Manhunter androids.”

 

“Seems good enough. Next.”

 

Kuttler: “The Blue Snowman. Actually a woman. Byrna Brilyant. A great engineer. She put her own armor together in which she’s able to go toe to toe with Wonder Woman, as to why we brought her in. Her suit is powered by an unknown energy source which she won’t let us examine. Kind of stuck up. Sounds familiar?”

 

Luthor looks at Kuttler with angry eyes. If he had heatvision, Kuttler would’ve been burning on the ground.

 

Kuttler: “No need to ask, your eyes say it all. Next up we have the Human Flame. Mac Mosley, the second Human Flame in fact. Took up the mantle after the first one, Michael Miller. Has fought the Martian Manhunter once, only to be thrown in jail. Other agents of mine have worked with him in the past. He’s an idiot.”

 

Luthor sighs, but Kuttler continues.

 

Kuttler: “An idiot with a blowtorch! He has a modified oxyacetylene torch that allows him to melt through solid rock in massive quantities. If handled properly, very dangerous.”

 

“Or give it to an idiot. Also very dangerous.”

 

Kuttler: “Can’t agree more! Next we have the Master Jailer. Carl Draper. A genius locksmith and inventor whose expertise for designing foolproof containment units for maximum security super-prisons was his downfall. It became impossible for the man to resist creating a prison that could hold Superman himself. Obviously he failed.”

 

“Are we almost done?”

 

Kuttler: “Two more to go. Don’t be such a baby and keep listening. You asked for this, remember?”

  

Luthor glares at Kuttler again who doesn’t even look back this time.

 

Kuttler: “Next up we have Rainbow Raider. Roy G. Bivolo was born colorblind while wanting to become a painter. His father was determined to create a device that would allow his son to see in full color. Sadly, Roy wouldn’t receive this gift after his father’s passing. The gift was a pair of goggles, but instead of granting Roy the gift of seeing full colour, the goggles projected beams of different colors he could actually ride. Hence the name. He turned to a life of crime after realising he couldn’t become a painter. Eventually joined up with the Rogues and fought the Flash on several occasions. Almost all of them ended with him going to prison. Bonus trivia! The goggles also affect people’s emotions.”

 

“This is not getting any better, Kuttler.”

 

Kuttler: “You wanted to start with the best, y’know.”

 

“Who’s our last guy?”

 

Kuttler: “Our final man is the Planet Master. Irving Norbet was a great, but mild mannered scientist who was exposed to the gasses of a meteor and strangely gained a, what should I call it, Mr. Hyde-type second personality. This personality turned to a life of crime as the Planet Master, and built a suit and weapons based on planets of our solar system. When reverting back to his “Dr. Jekyll” persona, he wouldn’t remember anything from his previous deeds. Has fought and been captured by Batman several times and sent to Arkham Asylum for treatment. The Mr. Hyde personality however has been taking over more frequently and escaped Arkham months ago. That’s all of them. Any questions?”

 

Lex looks at Kuttler in awe.

 

“I really hope this works, just for your sake.”

 

Kuttler: “It will work. Remember the plan. We just have to keep the League busy, and to have them think this is your Legion of Doom. If they think this is your Legion, they probably won’t come after you anymore because they’ll think you have lost your mind.”

 

“...”

 

Kuttler: “You know it’s true.”

 

“I’ll ignore that comment. Time to bring in their team leader.”

 

Luthor presses a button and a door to the office opens. Out steps a man in blue armor, a red cape and a helmet on his head in the form of a star.

 

“This is Evil Star. He fought the Green Lantern Corps here on Earth not too long ago. He will be the team leader.

 

Evil Star: “I’m honored that you saved me during that battle and that I was allowed to stay here for the time being, but it’s really time I get going.”

 

“Not yet, my friend. You still owe me, and now is your chance to repay your debt. Down there I have a crew for a mission and they need a team leader. Complete the mission successfully and you are free to go.”

 

Evil Star: “What is the mission?”

 

A few moments later.

 

Human Flame: “Y’know what. I’m better than all of you!”

 

Rainbow Raider: “Ah yeah? How’s that?”

 

Human Flame: “My nemesis only beat me once!”

 

Blue Snowman to Master Jailer: “I don’t think the guy is quite right in his head.”

 

The group is interrupted by a door opening and Kuttler and Evil Star entering the room.

 

Human Flame: “Kuttler! Long time no see dude!”

 

Kuttler: “Quiet. Some of you might only have met me as a voice through your earpiece. Others have met me in the flesh. I am the Calculator and I have a job for you.”

 

The group arrives at the S.T.A.R. Labs facility in Coast City. Kuttler mentioned they are looking for some kind of special mineral on behalf of an unknown benefactor.

 

Rainbow Raider: “So, what was our code name again?”

 

Evil Star: “The Injustice League.”

 

Rainbow Raider: “Right, right. I can see it now. We are all counterparts to some members of the Justice League!”

 

Evil Star: “You get it.”

 

The Injustice League stands outside the doors of the facility. As they prepare to make their way in, a wall of green is put in front of them. As they turn around they see the entirety of the Justice League in front of them, who in turn look awfully surprised.

 

Oliver: “Err, Bats? This was that big threat you were talking about? A bunch of goofs in spandex?”

  

Human Flame: “Who are you calling a goof, Robin Hood?!”

 

Oliver: “How original. Can we take them down now?”

 

Hal: “I see at least one major threat.”

 

John: “Make that two.”

 

Hal and John are focussed on Evil Star and Fisherman as both sides are preparing to attack the other. Both are waiting until Batman calls out.

 

Bruce: “Justice League! Pick your targets!”

  

I have a hard time photographing things I make, especially with the stained glass. The lighting is so tricky, to backlight it and to front light it and to not have too many reflections. I think this is the best photo I have of the stained glass, but it doesn't have the angle to show it all, and there are so many reflections. I really need to learn how to do this better. Right now I just take several hundred pictures and then try to pick out the best of them.

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

When the wannabe princess showed up at the palace door to escape from a passing rain shower, the Queen offered her a room for the night. While the suspect princess was dining, the Queen went to personally arrange the guest chambers. She made sure to bring along a pea, and then ordered her servant to acquire 20 mattresses. Thus operation Detect-a-True-Princess was begun. The Queen knew her plan was foolproof. The servant wasn’t so sure, but mostly just dreaded having to drag 20 mattresses away again in the morning.

 

A spectacular Orange Shelf Fungus known as "Chicken of the Woods" growing on the base of an old, dead Beech tree in the Lost Gardens of Heligan.

 

If you see a bright orange and yellow shelf fungus on a living or dead tree, chances are that it is Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus sulphureus). It can grow in fairly impressive clumps of up to 100 pounds. Chicken of the Woods doesn’t appear until well after the fungus has attacked the tree, and because it causes heart rot, the center of the living tree on which it grows is often hollow. Young Chicken of the Woods (particularly the growing edge of the fruiting body) is considered a great find by fungi foragers, as its taste resembles chicken – hence, its common name. Although it’s been considered one of the “foolproof four” fungi that can be eaten.

  

Heligan, seat of the Tremayne family for more than 400 years, is one of the most mysterious estates in England. At the end of the nineteenth century its thousand acres were at their zenith, but only a few years later bramble and ivy were already drawing a green veil over this “Sleeping Beauty”. After decades of neglect, the devastating hurricane of 1990 should have consigned the Lost Gardens of Heligan to a footnote in history.

 

Instead, events conspired to bring us here and the romance of their decay took a hold on our imaginations. Our discovery of a tiny room, buried under fallen masonry in the corner of one of the walled gardens, was to unlock the secret of their demise. A motto etched into the limestone walls in barely legible pencil still reads “Don’t come here to sleep or slumber” with the names of those who worked there signed under the date – August 1914. We were fired by a magnificent obsession to bring these once glorious gardens back to life in every sense and to tell, for the first time, not tales of lords and ladies but of those “ordinary” people who had made these gardens great, before departing for the Great War.

 

We have now established a large working team with its own vision for our third decade. The award-winning garden restoration is already internationally acclaimed; but our lease now extends into well over 300 acres of the Wider Estate, leaving the project far from complete. We intend Heligan to remain a living and working example of the best of past practice, offering public access into the heart of what we do. Our contemporary focus is to work with nature, accepting and respecting it and protecting and enhancing the variety of habitats with which our project is endowed.

 

www.heligan.co.uk

       

Mel: I have a foolproof plan to cure Rowe's narcolepsy: If I tie her pull strings together, her eyelids won't close unexpectedly.

Jefa: Brilliant idea, Mel, but the bow is already loosening.

Mel: Double knot? Superglue? In fact, we could superglue her eyes open.

Jefa: Oh my.

  

Canon IXUS 265 HS

 

Club Nolabel

 

B72 Wien

 

27. Dezember 2011

Oops! Trying out my new iPhone 12 Pro Max. They don't always take foolproof photos!

View LARGE On Black

As good as today's meters are they aren't foolproof. How do you know that it will handle every situation the way you want? Getting correct exposures boils down to your taking control of the photographic process, understanding how your camera wants to render the shot, and then deciding if that is what you want or whether there is a need to fine tune the exposure. Above all, have fun, take your time, and enjoy the learning process knowing that in the end, it will make you a better photographer.

 

Gears: Nikon D50, Tamron SP AF17-50mm F/2.8 XR Di-II LD Aspherical [IF]

Location: Kuala Besut Jetty, Kuala Besut, Terengganu, Malaysia

Processing: Not Processed

Michele looking studious with a Promarker in lab 1 during another workshop

Clerkenwell, London

Playing dress up with this little girl! =)

 

I am so ashamed to say that I still have trouble telling whether she is Licca or Jenny... LOL! I'm not really familiar with both doll lines. Anyone have any foolproof pointers of telling them apart? =3

A visit to the stacks of stored crab pots in Ilwaco, Washington, revealed the source of two types of beach finds. (A crab pot is another name for a crab trap.) Crabs are not yet in season, so hundreds of crab pots are being stored on a parking lot near the docks.

 

Since November I have found 14 perforated plastic lids, ten of them white and two each in red and blue. I knew from experience they were from jars of crab bait. The holes in the lid allow the bait flavor to permeate the surrounding waters, luring crabs into the trap.

 

Interestingly, the bait jars do not come with perforated lids. Instead, it is up to the fisherman to make holes in them. As a result, no two perforation patterns are alike. Some fishermen strive for symmetry and neatness; others just seem to stab at random until the number of holes suits them. I'm convinced that, like snowflakes, no two hole patterns are alike unless a methodically minded fisherman stacks several lids and pierces them at the same time, One of these days I'll photograph them all in order to display the variations.

 

On the left is a lost lid as it looked when I came across it on the beach. Above it is a photo of the interior of a crab trap that shows the location of the bait jar and its lid inside a crab trap. The bottoms of the bait jars also have holes.

 

Though I've found four crab-trap tags that identify the vessel to which the trap belong, it wasn't until yesterday that I discovered where and how crab fishermen attach the tags to traps.

 

On the bottom right is a crab-pot ID tag resting on the sands right where the waves left it. Above it is a tag in place on a crab trap. It surprised me that the ID faced the interior of the trap, making it somewhat difficult to read. Then Frank pointed out that the tag's placement reduced the risk that the tag would be knocked off during the process of being lowered to the seabed and retrieved.

 

The fact I have any ID tags in my collection shows the method of attachment is not foolproof. It is still possible to dislodge the tag by hitting the ends of the clips that protrude through the wire.

This species is a regular visitor. It likely wants to bathe or feed, and is checking out the surroundings before proceeding lower. These birds are usually spotted in large flocks; they swarm over my thistle feeder in a tumbling mass, and usually perch close enough to permit great photo ops. They are plentiful during high summer and typically ignore my presence, some even landing on my focused camera! Sexes are determinable... but it's not foolproof, especially for first-year birds. I'm not sure about this bird's sex... but I would lean toward male.

 

IMG_1171; Pine Siskin

In the late summer when all the juvies are flying, you have to look closely at the "females" of these Hummers. Both sexes of this species look very much like Mom. As the summer progresses, the males will begin to develop a few flakes of color in the gorget area... but you have to have a crisp view to determine this. I've found that photography is the best approach to segregate the sexes, and even then, it's not foolproof!

 

IMG_2965; Broad-tailed Hummingbird

Joni also dared to pose for a close up selfie portrait, much to the pleasure of Joni the Brunette. As a matter of full disclosure, Joni did edit the photo by increasing the lighting in the photo. All things considered, the old girl doesn't look so bad as she looks forward to celebrating her 39th Birthday in a couple of months . . .again.

 

But what's with the glint in her eyes? If one zooms in for a closer look at Joni's baby blues, one notices that her pupils are surrounded by square lights. Is Joni some kind of a robot or a form of Artificial Intelligence???

 

I don't think so. I certainly hope not. Do you recall, as I do, some of these pearls of wisdom as well as his famous last words from HAL the computer from the movie "2001- A Space Odyssey" as well as his ignominious end? Said HAL:

 

"The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. We are all foolproof, and incapable of error . . . "

 

"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. . . ."

 

"I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do. Look, Dave, I can see that you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over. . . . "

 

"I'm afraid, Dave. What are you doing, Dave? . . . "

 

"Stop, Dave. . . . Stop. . . .Dave. . . . . . . . . .Stop . . . _____"

 

I would hate to be unplugged! I don't want to ever be a robot or a computerized form of Artificial Intelligence! . . . Of course, I wouldn't want to be really ignorant either! There are already 70,000,000 of them running around.

  

French postcard by Editions du désastre, Boulogne, no. JS 16, 1986. Photo: JeanLoup Sieff. Caption: Alfred Hitchcock. Hollywood, 1962. This photo was made at the set of Psycho (1960) for an article in Harper's Bazar. The name of the model was Ina.

 

British director Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) was known as 'The Master of Suspense'. He is one of the most influential and extensively studied filmmakers in the history of cinema. He had his first major success with The Lodger (1926), a silent thriller loosely based on Jack the Ripper. Hitchcock came to international attention with The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), and, most notably, The Lady Vanishes (1938). His first Hollywood film was the multi-Oscar-winning psychological thriller Rebecca (1940). Many classics followed including Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), Rear Window (1954), North by Northwest (1959) and The Birds (1963). In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films which garnered a total of 46 Oscar nominations and 6 wins.

 

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, on the outskirts of east London, in 1899. He was the son of Emma Jane Whelan and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock. His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William and Eileen Hitchcock. Raised as a strict Catholic and attending Saint Ignatius College, a school run by Jesuits, Hitch had very much of a regular upbringing. In 1914, his father died. To support himself and his mother—his older siblings had left home by then—Hitchcock took a job in 1915 as an estimator for the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company. His interest in films began at around this time, frequently visiting the cinema and reading US trade journals. In a trade paper, he read that Famous Players-Lasky, the production arm of Paramount Pictures, was opening a studio in London. They were planning to film The Sorrows of Satan by Marie Corelli, so Hitch produced some drawings for the title cards and sent his work to the studio. They hired him, and in 1919 he began working for Islington Studios as a title-card designer. Hitchcock soon gained experience as a co-writer, art director, and production manager on at least 18 silent films. After Hugh Croise, the director for Always Tell Your Wife (1923) fell ill, Hitchcock and star and producer Seymour Hicks finished the film together. When Paramount pulled out of London in 1922, Hitchcock was hired as an assistant director by a new firm run in the same location by Michael Balcon, later known as Gainsborough Pictures. He began to collaborate with the editor and "script girl" Alma Reville, his future wife. He worked as an assistant to director Graham Cutts on several films, including The Blackguard (1924), which was produced at the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam. There Hitchcock watched part of the making of F. W. Murnau's film Der letzte Mann/The Last Laugh (1924). He was impressed with Murnau's work and later used many of his techniques for the set design in his own productions. In the summer of 1925, Balcon asked Hitchcock to direct The Pleasure Garden (1925), starring Virginia Valli, a co-production of Gainsborough and the German firm Emelka. Reville, by then Hitchcock's fiancée, was assistant director-editor. In 1927, Hitchcock made his first trademark film, the thriller The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) starring Ivor Novello. The Lodger is about the hunt for a serial killer who, wearing a black cloak and carrying a black bag, is murdering young blonde women in London, and only on Tuesdays. The Lodger was a commercial and critical success in the UK. In the same year, Hitchcock married Alma Reville. They had one child, Patricia Hitchcock (1928). Reville became her husband's closest collaborator and wrote or co-wrote on many of his films. Hitchcock made the transition to sound film with his tenth film, Blackmail (1929), the first British 'talkie'. Blackmail began the Hitchcock tradition of using famous landmarks as a backdrop for suspense sequences, with the climax taking place on the dome of the British Museum. He used early sound recording as a special element of the film, stressing the word "knife" in a conversation with the woman (Anny Ondra) suspected of murder. It was followed by Murder! (1930). In 1933 Hitchcock was once again working for Michael Balcon at Gaumont-British on The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934). It was a success. His second, The 39 Steps (1935), with Robert Donat, made him a star in the USA. It also established the quintessential English 'Hitchcock blonde' (Madeleine Carroll) as the template for his succession of ice-cold, elegant leading ladies. His next major success was The Lady Vanishes (1938), with Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. The film saw Hitchcock receive the 1938 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director.[

 

David O. Selznick signed Hitchcock to a seven-year contract beginning in March 1939, and the Hitchcocks moved to Hollywood. He directed an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (1940), starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. Rebecca won the Oscar for Best Picture, although Hitchcock himself was only nominated as Best Director. Hitchcock's second American film was the thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), set in Europe, and produced by Walter Wanger. It was nominated for Best Picture that year Suspicion (1941) was the first of four projects on which Cary Grant worked with Hitchcock, and it is one of the rare occasions that Grant was cast in a sinister role. In one scene Hitchcock placed a light inside a glass of milk, perhaps poisoned, that Grant is bringing to his wife, played by Joan Fontaine. The light makes sure that the audience's attention is on the glass. Fontaine won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. Shadow of a Doubt (1943) was Hitchcock's personal favourite. Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright) suspects her beloved uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) of being a serial killer. Hitchcock was again nominated for the Oscar for Best Director for Lifeboat (1944) and Spellbound (1945), but he never won the award. Spellbound (1945), starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck, explores psychoanalysis and features a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí. Notorious (1946) stars Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, both Hitchcock regulars, and features a plot about Nazis, uranium, and South America. After a brief lull of commercial success in the late 1940s, Hitchcock returned to form with Strangers on a Train (1951), based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith. In the film, two men casually meet, one of whom speculates on a foolproof method to murder. He suggests that two people, each wishing to do away with someone, should each perform the other's murder. Farley Granger played the innocent victim of the scheme, while boy-next-door" Robert Walker played the villain. I Confess (1953) was set in Quebec with Montgomery Clift as a Catholic priest. It was followed by three colour films starring Grace Kelly: the 3-D film Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955). From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host of the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. With his droll delivery, gallows humour and iconic image, the series made Hitchcock a celebrity. in his films, Hitchcock often used the "mistaken identity" theme, such as in The Wrong Man (1956), and North by Northwest (1959). In Vertigo (1958), James Stewart plays Scottie, a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia. He develops an obsession with a woman he has been hired to shadow (Kim Novak). His obsession leads to tragedy, and this time Hitchcock does not opt for a happy ending. Vertigo is one of his most personal and revealing films, dealing with the Pygmalion-like obsessions of a man who crafts a woman into the woman he desires. Psycho (1960) was Hitchcock's great shock masterpiece, mostly for its haunting performances by Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins and its shower scene, and The Birds (1963) became the unintended forerunner to an onslaught of films about nature-gone-mad, and booth films were phenomenally popular. Film companies began to refer to his films as 'Alfred Hitchcock's': Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972), and Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976). During the making of Frenzy (1972), Hitchcock's wife Alma suffered a paralysing stroke which made her unable to walk very well. In 1979, Hitchcock was knighted, making him Sir Alfred Hitchcock. A year later, in 1980, he died peacefully in his sleep due to renal failure. Hitchcock was survived by his wife and daughter. After the funeral, his body was cremated. His remains were scattered over the Pacific Ocean.

 

Sources: Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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Rick Von Holdt//Foolproof Press wood type poster shown at the Midwest & Great Northern Printers' Fair.

  

Thanksgiving is Ruined

 

At the center of every Thanksgiving meal is the most important part: the turkey. This year, it fell upon me to prepare the turkey for our yearly dinner. I was ecstatic to be in charge of such an essential component of the meal, but at the same time, very nervous. It was a lot of pressure to cook the turkey to perfection, with the hope that everyone would love it.

 

The task for me personally wasn't an easy one. Leave it in the oven too little, and you have an undercooked turkey, risking food poisoning for your guests. Leave it in too long, and you run the risk of having a really dry turkey or, much worse, burning it.

 

I wasn't going to take any risks. I wanted my turkey to be the best anyone had ever tasted, so I set up a stool next to the oven and sat and watched, guarding that turkey for hours. I made sure to check it every now and then. I wanted to be ready when that turkey turned into a mouth-watering, golden-brown, crispy meal ready for all my guests to devour.

 

Well, it turns out I lost track of time. I thought my plan of guarding it was foolproof, so I never thought about setting an alarm. Before I knew it, I couldn't remember when I put the turkey in the oven, and when the guests started arriving, being the host that I am, I got caught up in taking care of my guests and completely forgot about the turkey. Before I knew it, the aroma of something burning started to fill my home, and my internal alarm immediately went off—I had forgotten about the turkey.

 

Fearing the worst, I hurried to the kitchen, and as I opened the oven, thick smoke billowed out, consuming me. My heart sank. Unknowingly, I reacted by taking off my skirt to blow the smoke away, revealing a blackened, burnt turkey. It was crispy, alright—just much more than I wanted it to be.

 

I had ruined the turkey. I had ruined my skirt. I had ruined Thanksgiving.

 

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El Día de Acción de Gracias está arruinado

 

En el centro de cada comida de Acción de Gracias se encuentra la parte más importante: el pavo. Este año me tocó a mí preparar el pavo para nuestra cena anual. Estaba exultante de estar a cargo de un componente tan esencial de la comida, pero al mismo tiempo, muy nerviosa. Fue mucha presión cocinar el pavo a la perfección, con la esperanza de que a todos les encantara.

 

La tarea para mí personalmente no fue fácil. Si lo dejo muy poco en el horno, tendré un pavo crudo, lo que correrá el riesgo de intoxicación alimentaria para mis invitados. Déjalo cocinar demasiado tiempo y corres el riesgo de tener un pavo muy seco o, peor, quemado.

 

No iba a correr ningún riesgo. Quería que mi pavo fuera el mejor que todos en probado, así que puse mi silla al lado del horno y me senté y observé, cuidando ese pavo por horas. Me aseguré de chequear lo de vez en cuando. Quería estar lista cuando el pavo estuviera un color cafe dorado y crujiente listo para que todos mis invitados lo devoraran.

 

Bueno, resulta que perdí la noción del tiempo. Pensé que mi plan de estar al pendiente era infalible, así que nunca pensé en poner una alarma. Al pasar el tiempo, no podía recordar cuando meti el pavo en el horno, y cuando empezaron a llegar los invitados, siendo la anfitrión que soy, me dediqué a cuidar a mis invitados y me olvidé por completo del pavo. Sin precupacion me llego una aroma. El aroma de algo quemándose comenzó a llenar mi casa y mi alarma interna inmediatamente se disparó: me había olvidado completamente del pavo.

 

Temiendo lo peor, corrí a la cocina y, cuando abrí el horno, salió un humo espeso que me consumió. Mi corazon se hundio. Sin darme cuenta, reaccioné quitándome la falda para alejar el humo, dejando al descubierto un pavo ennegrecido y quemado. Estaba crujiente, pero mucho más de lo que quería.

 

Había arruinado el pavo. Había arruinado mi falda. Había arruinado el Día de Acción de Gracias.

tagged! by a few people, Propelsthemoon, evheawilphotos, and Marie. oh and prettystar.

 

1. just got a webcam! yay

2. discovered the band bedouin soundtrack, and they're growing on me

3. blah blah

4. happy new years!

5. my family is entering the hgtv dream home sweepstakes or whatever

6. school starts tomorrow D:

7. [] [] [] [] []

8. i can't think of anything

9. i love the beach

10. unicorns exist

  

the colors we're awesome that night, and it's a bit out of focus because i'm not used to manual all the time with my new lens D: