View allAll Photos Tagged going_doing
Here I am in Psychology class, writing notes down in my notebook. Today's lesson is about dreams. From Sigmund Freud, to the theories proposed by Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley. Ironically enough, I almost fall asleep during this section. But then she moves on to how the sleep cycle works. There are four stages of sleep ranging from 1-4. Each stage is different in length, and what's actually happening during that certain stage. This cycle of four stages will repeat 4-5 times every night. Though, after going through the first cycle, the stages go in reverse. So 4,3,2, and then REM as stage one gets replaced by the REM sleep stage. Sorry I'm rambling in my thoughts again. Mrs. Gerard stops writing on the board, and turns to the class to ask us this question.
"Why might we have more negative emotions during REM sleep?" I raise my hand to answer as she's asking the question.
"Yes Peter?"
"Is it because our amygdala is more active during REM sleep?" I look over at Lana as I respond, and she gives me a thumbs up.
"Yes that's correct Peter. The amygdala is known to be associated more with negative emotions, so it makes sense that we would experience more negative emotions during REM sleep."
She goes back to writing down the rest of our notes for the class. My mind starts to tune out as I keep looking over at Lana, making sure she's ok. She catches me looking at her. I give her an awkward smile, and I turn my head back as quick as I can, pretending none of that happened. Soon enough, the bell rings, and I'm off to my last class of the day. Nothing of importance really happened there, so I just stayed quiet most of the time. Once schools over, I say goodbye to Lana and Harry, before I leave to get on the bus. The bus ride is noisy, as usual. Why do all the rowdy kids have to be on the same bus as me? I breathe a sigh of relief once I hop off the bus and arrive at home.
"How was school Peter?" Aunt May asks once I open the door.
"It was fine. New transfer student came today. She's in a couple of my classes too."
"Was she cute?"
"That's all you got from that? Seriously?"
"Well you're not denying it! Please tell me you were nice her. Poor girl probably doesn't know anyone." She says, with such enthusiasm.
"Yes.. I was the perfect gentleman about it. Now will you please stop with the 20 questions? I got to go do some homework."
More like research supervillains, but that's basically the same thing right?
"Ok ok." With that I make my way into my room. Placing my backpack on my bed, I sit on the chair that's in front of the computer. If I'm going to be honest, it's a hunk of junk most of the time. Slow as molasses, and it even freezes from time to time. Eventually I get on the internet. I spend the next few hours scouring the net for any clues to who this Princess is, or who Mr. Negative is. Princess Peach, nope.. Princess Zelda, nope. This is going to be a long night. Narrowing the search to New York, and I still can't get any hits. Same thing with Mr. Negative. Unless you count people being negative on Reddit. Guess I'll have to hit the streets. I grab my costume from the bottom of the backpack, and slip it on. Putting some pillows under the covers, I open the window, and crawl out, shutting the window as I leave. Crawling up the side of the house, I found myself on the roof moments later. Once there, I attach my swing line, and start swinging.
Minutes go by, and I'm already in lower Manhattan. I make my way north, when out of the corner of my eye, I notice a silhouette off in the distance. That's strange. Landing on a nearby rooftop I look over. I can barely make it out, but surely enough, on the side of the building, is what looks to be a silhouette of a person. It's a Roxxon building.. I'm going to take a guess, and say they aren't window washers. Let's go check it out. Leaping off the building, I start diving towards the ground. I reach out my arm and attach my swing line once more.
"WOOHOO!!" I yell out as I go towards the Roxxon building. Once I reach the building, I land on the same side as the silhouette. Making good progress by climbing. Well, the figure disappears as I look above me. Finally I get there. There's a cord, just dangling, along with an entrance hole. I enter through the hole, to see a figure dressed in black. They don't seem to notice I'm there, so I keep walking behind. All of the sudden, I trip to fall flat on my face. Nothing is even there.. How is this happening?
"Oww" I groan, picking myself up off the ground.
The figure turns around to face me. They have a hood on, with what looks to be a cat-like mask on underneath the hood. Seems like a costume that was just thrown together just for the sake of having one. Though who am I to talk? I wear red and black spandex.
"Well, well, well.. Looks like your luck just ran out Spider-Man." The voice though muffled, sounds quite feminine.
"And who are you exactly?"
"The names Black Cat."
"Well Black Cat, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news today. But you're stealing days are over."
"Awh that's cute. You think you'll stop me. Sorry to disappoint you Spider, but I don't plan on stopping. Not until I get what I need."
"You'll be singing a different tune once you're in jail."
"Go ahead and give it your best shot. After all, you'll have to catch me first." She waves, and starts to run away from me.
Guess I better start running. I really thought she would give up once she saw the Spider. Ah who am I kidding? I've never been that brooding, intimidating type.
[While I upload older photos from 2020 and before, I am also trying to keep up with some of my more current works by uploading a couple of photographs every day, in the afternoon or evening.]
In September and October 2021, we spent three weeks touring the Italian regions of Abruzzo, Umbria, Marches and Emilia-Romagna, which we hadn’t visited yet.
Personally, I had my sights firmly set on a series of early Romanesque churches of high architectural and artistic interest, so you will see quite a few of those, in spite of the typical Italian administration-related problems I encountered, and which were both stupid and quite unpleasant.
There will also be other sorts of old stones, landscapes, etc., and I hope you will enjoy looking at them and have a good time doing so. If it makes you want to go, do, by all means, Italy is a wonderful country.
Today, we look at five last pictures of the Romanesque church of San Claudio al Chienti, an abbey isolated in the Chienti valley (province of Marches).
The church, which looks enormous with its atypical architecture and massive twin towers, is in fact smaller on the inside than one might expect.
Built entirely in brick, its existence is attested in writing by the late 1000s, and its Byzantine influences make me lean towards a construction period during the first half of the 11th century.
The northern wall of the nave. Notice the unusual, apse-shaped lateral chapel.
Yuki: so -.- anyway lets go do our little house trip ! ^^
Shippy: nuuuuuh i dont really want to :\
there is big cat fat hate me ! i dont want to go!!!!!!
Có một thứ không thể sẻ chia, đó là Tình Yêu...
Anh thường cười bảo rằng, anh thiệt thòi so với hàng trăm người đàn ông khác vì chỉ yêu mình em. Em bảo, anh cứ yêu thử ai đó đi. Cho đỡ thiệt....
Anh lắc đầu bảo rằng, chỉ yêu mình em. Em tin....
Một ngày thật nắng, cái nắng của mùa hè thiêu đốt da, cháy tóc và cháy cả trái tim... nghẹn đắng khi anh đưa ảnh một cô gái lạ hoắc đến trước mặt em bảo rằng, anh yêu thử người ta em nhé!
Em bảo, nếu anh muốn.
Rồi em quay bước về phía mặt trời chiếu rọi gay gắt. Bao giờ em cũng thế, không khóc trước mặt anh, không bao giờ để anh thấy rằng, em yếu đuối. Nước mắt cứ rơi, mặt trời cứ đốt, em bật cười vì nếu anh ở đây, anh sẽ bảo, đừng khóc nữa em, không mặt trời tốn công làm nước mắt bốc hơi... Chợt bàn tay quờ ngang, chỉ toàn không khí, nóng mà không ấm...
...Mỗi sáng thức dậy, nhắn một tin chào ngày mới, chờ tin nhắn của anh với cái mặt cười. Không có hồi âm. Anh đang yêu người ta.
Trưa, ‘Anh ăn cơm ...’. Không thể nhắn thêm vì chợt nghĩ, anh đang ở bên người con gái khác.
Chuông điện thoại làm giật mình. Vội chạy đến. Không phải là anh. Tin nhắn của mẹ:
- Con vẫn ổn chứ?
- Vâng. Vẫn ổn mẹ à !
Đêm Hà Nội, không dài, không quá buồn để người ta chợt nhớ, chợt mong ai đó nhưng cũng đủ để gợn lên nỗi trống trải, bơ vơ, bất định trong mênh mông cô đơn. Nhìn nghiêng, thấy anh đang nằm, mỉm cười nhìn... Tỉnh giấc, nhìn nghiêng, chỉ có... bóng đêm...
... Mùa loa kèn trắng đầy đường Hà Nội. Cô bán hoa cười, bảo người yêu đâu không mua cho, lại tự mua hoa một mình. Sao lại chỉ nhìn mình hỏi, nhiều người cũng mua hoa cơ mà.
... Lòng chợt quặn thắt khi nhìn thấy anh. Đúng là bóng anh, sau xe là người yêu thử. Cũng loa kèn trắng, một tình yêu đang chết theo loa kèn trắng, một cái gì mới cũng bắt đầu theo loa kèn trắng?... Màu kèn trắng nhòa đi, mọng nước.
Cố đạp xe thật nhanh, trong mưa đầu hạ. Nếu lúc này, anh bắt gặp, lại bảo lãng mạn quá, có ngày ốm đấy. Rồi cười, lấy khăn lau hết người cho...
.... Hôm nay, ngày cuối cùng, anh yêu thử. Thu dọn hết đồ đạc, một chiếc đồng hồ, một chiếc máy sấy tóc, hàng đống sữa, vài ba chiếc áo quần, một lá thư duy nhất. Cất vào quá khứ. Những thứ liên quan đến kỷ niệm.
.... Anh xuất hiện, anh bảo anh đã yêu xong, người thứ hai ngoài em. Không có gì thú vị cả, anh trở về với em. Anh nắm tay, chợt thấy bàn tay ấy lạnh ngắt. Có thứ gì đã vụt tan vào không trung, vụt sáng trong đôi mắt của người anh yêu, rồi chìm vào vô định thẳm sâu dưới đáy mắt không có nước ấy. Anh chợt nhận ra rằng, anh đã mất thứ quý giá nhất của cuộc đời mình.
Ngày nắng, phía cuối đường, em vẫn đi...
-
-
# Chồng Thảo : Thíc nch v' anh lắm nè . :* Có cgiác bình yên lắm . Hihiii :x Thíc bắt chước ciễu nch của a gê v ó :p Mà hẽm có đcc T.T Chồng là chồng lì lặmm :w Cêu là kg có đc buồn mà vẫn cứ buồn cìaaa . :( Hem có đc buồn nữa nge hôngggg :w A buồn qài là e phi đến tận nhà em lấy bô em gõ dô đầu ó >p=) Chồng cứ buồn v nên mới bị e bắt nạt rồi ăn hiếp khang óooooo :'>=) Bỡi v nên hem có đc buồn nữaa nhaa :( Buồn qaì em giận c ó . :( Cím th # qen điii chồng . Chồng dễthương mà ^^ S lại lụy vì 1th kg đáng nv :w :( Ch buồn em buồn theo nèee T.T huhuu T.T Nói chứ em mong ch qên đc th ó ó :p Qên nhanh để hết buồn . Hết buồn là vuôi . Mà là chồng vuôi thì em bu hôi em vuôi theo :* x=)) B' chưa hảaaaaa :* Mà ch còn nợ lì xì v ó nhaaa :'>=)) B' buồn là cộng 1nỗi buồn thành 1k vào tài khỏan . Năm sau tỗng cết cái sí m. chồng nhaaaaaaa >:)=)) Mà ch qên ngày cĩ niệm đúng hemmmmmm .?! Đóan đúng rồi har . :p Có mình em biết :) ^^ Vì em mở ncí trò ch. ra em xem màaaaaaa :|=))
Em vô tư mang tình yêu tới, sao không vô tâm ngày em buông lơi . Để giờ đây nghĩ lại lòng anh vẫn còn tha thiết.
Bao thương đau riêng mình anh giữ, nơi em bên ai bình yên em giữ. Trả lại em những ngày hồn nhiên mới quen.
Mang yêu thương xếp vào quá khứ, khi mưa rơi đừng gọi tên nhau nữa . Đừng gợn lòng khi những ngày mưa kéo về lê thê..
Đưa môi hôn trôi về thương nhớ, đưa tay em đặt lên con tim .Em cứ để cho tim nín lặng đôi lúc thôi… :-)
{ Đã bn :* }
@ Y.hu : Puz.lala
Mercenary, wanderer, man-with-no-name, speaks a little. They say his dog Tsume does the talking for him (everybody speaks dog in the future right?).
-----------------------------
Close up shot of the figs from the vignette. Props to Crazy Arms for the awesome custom arms!
Also an entry for MAYnifigure 2016. If you haven't checked that out yet, go do it now!
Oswin and Florentina take a day of and Chili was happy to get a hair care day with me at my hair dresser.
Chili: I do cut my fringe a little bit. So That my eyebrow can be seen.
Giant's Hairdresser: But that would a very short fringe. No that would suits you.
Giant and Chili: m..
Giant's Hairdresser: Let me try something ... Here we go ... Do like it?
Chili: Cool one of my eyebrow is seen wee bit the other one not. Thank you Mr. Hairdresser xox
Do not pass Go, do not collect dollar$
Sorry, wrong game. This was a bike ride.
Short lived but instructional. Live and learn.
Here's a video from last year when I cycled in to Oliphant Lake.
[While I upload photos from 2020, I am also trying to keep up with some of my more current works by uploading a couple of photographs every day, in the afternoon or evening.]
In September and October 2021, we spent three weeks touring the Italian regions of Abruzzo, Umbria, Marches and Emilia-Romagna, which we hadn’t visited yet.
Personally, I had my sights firmly set on a series of early Romanesque churches of high architectural and artistic interest, so you will see quite a few of those, in spite of the typical Italian administration-related problems I encountered, and which were both stupid and quite unpleasant.
There will also be other sorts of old stones, landscapes, etc., and I hope you will enjoy looking at them and have a good time doing so. If it makes you want to go, do, by all means, Italy is a wonderful country.
These days we spend some time discovering the beautiful early Romanesque church of Santa Maria in Valle Porclaneta, located in a quiet and faraway valley in Abruzzo.
Built most likely between 1000 and 1050 as part of a Benedictine monastery, it shows some Oriental influences. The fore arch was built later in lieu of a cloister which has now all but disappeared. The pronaos that was the entrance to the church still exists and stands nearby, I will show it in a photograph to be uploaded in the following days.
The church is designed on a basilica-type plan with three naves and one semi-circular apse. Inside, as in the Santa Maria del Lago church we have already seen, there is a magnificently sculpted ambone (elevated pulpit), also attributed to Nicodemo di Guardiagrele, as in Santa Maria del Lago. The sculptures on it, as well as the motifs that decorate the ciborium
above the altar and the capitals, are typical of Benedictine imagery with Byzantine and Oriental influences.
This church also retains an almost intact cancel, partly made of a long piece of carved wood from the 12th century, which is a masterpiece and a truly unique piece of artistry.
The innovative and remarkable five-sided apse.
“I always give 100% at work:
13% Monday
22% Tuesday
26% Wednesday
35% Thursday
4% Friday”
Camera: Nikon D40X ( Before the damage, from the archives )
Exposure: 0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 55 mm
Exposure: -0.33
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Program: Manual
~All comments, criticism and tips for improvements are (as always) welcome~
Today I was so hung over. I didn't think I got that drunk last night but wow. I wanted to go do things and get things done but I just laid around.
INSTAGRAM. @hollographic
Betty Harris
The Lost Queen Of New Orleans Soul
Back in the sixties, soul ‘anoraks’ (myself included), who already treasured and sought out the works of the more obscure and emotive singers, absolutely revered Betty Harris (and, then again, soul-wise, I guess I still do!).
The couple of publicity shots that existed back then showed that she looked great, her gospelly interpretive voice was second-to-none and her best-known material was stunning, chiefly because it was chosen by top-flight producers like Bert Berns and Allen Tousssaint. But just as intriguingly, she was then something of a ‘mystery woman’. No-one really knew anything about her. Rumours circulated that she had begun as Big Maybelle’s ‘maid’ (did travelling black women entertainers of the late-50’s really take ‘maids’ with them?). Then someone said that, after her Sansu/SSS recordings, she had retired to become a truck-driver (did lissom black female ex-singers still only about 30 years of age really drive giant, freeway-eating Mack and Kenwood trucks – maybe these days, but surely not in early-70’s America!).
Today, thanks to researchers and the re-surfaced Betty herself, we certainly know much more about her - and that includes the fact that both of the above rumours were false, although each had truthful associations, as we shall see.
However, some mysteries and contradictory information remain. Whilst it’s clear that Betty was born in Orlando, Florida, many potted biographies quote a 1941 or a 1943 date. Even in David Cole’s excellent interview/article (‘In The Basement’ magazine No.32, October 2003), Betty’s birthdate is given as 9 September 1943 (which is repeated on a current Harris-related web-site). However, only a few months later, on 19th July 2004, Betty herself stated in a telephone interview with Amy Gold: “I wasn't born in the '40s at all. I was born in '39.” My opinion is that a woman may lie about her age to make herself appear younger but she would never lie (especially to another woman!) in such a way as to make herself look older! Therefore I reckon Betty Harris was born in 1939 – I rest my case!
This date is also in line with Wikipedia’s biography, yet that not-always-reliable source gives Betty’s surname as Harridick. It’s just possible this might be the married surname Betty acquired after her retirement from the music scene at the end of the 60’s as it was the guy who then became her husband who apparently ran a trucking business, hence giving rise to the false rumours about Betty herself driving such vehicles for a living. However, her true birth-surname was certainly Crews, as stated not just in the Cole interview but in a 2004 article about her younger sister, the operatic-quality spinto-soprano and now Fort Pierce, Florida-based evangelist, Sybil Maria Crews Young.
However, there is another possibility. When Betty was still only about 18 years of age, it seems she had a son, Selwyn T. Crews. (This chronology is based on the intro to the Amy Gold interview in 2004 in which Selwyn – sometimes called Tony and now apparently living in Atlanta - was said to then be 47 years of age). If Betty briefly married the father and if the father’s surname had been Harridick this could have led to her later adopting the ‘truncated’ name of Harris. When Betty joined the Hearts vocal group in around early 1958 (see later), she was still using the name Betty Crews but certainly something around that time must have prompted her to change her surname to Harris as this had already occurred by the time of her early-60’s first solo recording (see later). However all this begs one final question: how did Betty’s son inherit her own surname of Crews as opposed to that of his father (whoever he was)? Whether or not Betty married the father, perhaps either she ‘on her own’ (or perhaps close relations) raised the baby boy and ‘awarded’ him the family surname in place of that of his father?
When Betty left the music scene in the late 60’s her son would have been approaching his teenage years. She would then soon marry but her daughter, Christina would not arrive until about 1982, when Betty was in her early forties (this chronology is also based on the 2004 Amy Gold piece when Christina was said to be then merely 22 years of age and, according to the Cole interview published only a few months earlier, then attending university, married with a surname of Clemons and the mother of a young baby).
Anyway, what’s most important perhaps is Betty’s wonderful musical heritage and we should instead concentrate on that and how she came to take up secular singing.
Betty’s own father, a minister in the Pentecostal church, was the Rev. Rufus C. Crews, while her missionary (and later also Overseer/Miinister) mother was Winifred Crews. When Betty was about 3 years of age, her family - which included her non-musical brother Donnell but did not yet include her younger sister, Sybil Maria - moved from Orlando Fla. to Dothan in Alabama where her father took on new church responsibilities. Soon, he and his wife would become founders of Pentecostal Deliverance Ministries in both Dothan and Cottonwood.
Betty says her father had a loud tenor voice which could dominate his church and he was apparently also capable of hitting very high notes (an ability clearly his youngest daughter Sybil inherited). Indeed, it’s claimed he could play five instruments and had a three-octave vocal range. Unusually, he regularly indulged in the generally ‘white church’ vocal technique termed ‘Sacred Heart’, a form of accapella shape-note singing. However, it seems the Rev. Crews’ influence soon also became a magnet for touring black gospel stars, whose appearances he occasionally ‘promoted’ locally.
So it was no surprise that all of Betty’s early singing was done in church and, by the age of about 12, she had already fronted a choir supporting the big-voiced gospel star Brother Joe May, known as the ‘Thunderbolt of the Middle-West’. Betty would also meet the likes of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sam Cooke & the Soul Stirrers, The Dixie Hummingbirds, both groups of Blind Boys and the The Caravans, whom she idolised, although she soon realised harmony singing was not for her. Nor was the ‘gospel life’. She says: “I knew all of the gospel singers and I knew how they lived, and I just really didn't want to ... I didn't see myself making money. And (so) I went ‘secular’."
Betty left home at a very early age seeking that secular singing career. This was a huge and audacious step for a young girl from such a strict church background and clearly must have caused quite a ‘family split’ at the time. Betty says: “My parents were gospel preachers. I mean, my house was strict, very strict. They were holiness preachers, so you didn't play rhythm and blues in the house, they didn’t believe in that.”
Her parents remained in their church-dominated world in Alabama and in 2004 Betty reported that, although her father was by then deceased, her mother was then a fit 92 year-old ‘overseer’, still in charge of four Dothan churches. Sadly her mother too has since ‘passed’ and Betty, who had been looking after her, moved south temporarily to Atlanta for a few years from her Connecticut home so that her mother could spend her last days closer to the churches which she helped found.
Anyway, back in the 50’s, the brazen teenaged Betty headed off alone to far-flung New York to try to begin a singing career but first she took employment as a maid with a Long Island family thinking this would at least put a roof over her head (this was the ‘maid’ reference which later led to the false claims that Betty had held down just such a job with Big Maybelle, a singer whom she would not actually encounter for a year or two yet - see later). However, Betty says she wasn’t a maid for more than a week as she was offered a job singing at the nearby Celebrity Club in Freeport.
She was soon ‘discovered’ by J&S label-owner Zell Sanders, one of the few early black women entrepreneurs in the music biz. Zell got Betty to fill-in at a club she owned in Hempstead, Long Island, where she had just fired another girl singer. The show there at the time featured Johnnie & Joe, already with hits for Chess ‘under their belt’, Johnnie being Zell Sanders’ daughter, Johnnielouise Richardson, later of the Jaynetts.
Zell had then also recently fired virtually the entire Hearts vocal group who recorded for her J&S record label and, after failing to replace them en masse with another existing group, the Bouquets, she asked Betty to join with Mandy Hopper, Lezli and Mary Green, Ann King and earlier member Theresa Chatman to form a new incarnation of the Hearts.
Betty takes up the story: “I was too young to be away from home. So I left Long Island and went to live with (Zell). She became like a mother to me – very protective. I worked with the (Hearts) for a while and played some shows in New Jersey. I don’t remember the songs I recorded with them at all (she may have sung harmony on other recordings but Betty takes lead on just one side, namely the repetitive teen-slanted item “Like Later Baby”, released on J&S 1626 in October 1958, the flip of “I Want Your Love Tonight” – J&S 1627. The track is included on the 2006 UK Ace CDCHD 1089 release “Baby Washington And The Hearts”); but I was not cut out to be a group member. I wasn’t into harmony singing. When my spell with the Hearts finished, (Zell) took me all the way back home to Alabama; but she didn’t realise how determined to sing I was. Within a few weeks I was off again.”
It was some time after her return to the Big Apple that Betty would seek out the aptly-named powerhouse singer Big Maybelle, who was performing at Harlem’s famed Apollo Theater.
Betty says: “If you listen to Big Maybelle's voice, you get the idea that this is a big woman. When you listen to mine, you would think I was a big woman and I'm not. Never have been. And when I realized that that voice was about the closest thing to ‘me’ that I had heard, I went to see her at the Apollo (that was when I was around, oh I guess, maybe 19) and I sat through 3 or 4 shows. And the way she handled the audience, the way she sang, how she told jokes, the whole persona on stage fascinated me. So after the show I went back and I met her. I had a voice and some control, but I realized I needed more. I told her what I needed, and she allowed me to go on tour with her. I watched her night after night, and (during the) days she kept me in a mirror singing. She worked very hard with me until the time she felt I was ready to go on stage. Please let me say this. People pay a lot of money and spend years trying to get what I got from this woman. I want to thank Big Maybelle for her contributions to my career. I was not, repeat not, her maid. She was my teacher, my instructor and my coach. She was an entertainer that I really, really appreciated because she helped me when no one else would. I knew all about gospel. I knew what gospel singing was about, but when it came to R&B, I really didn't know the ropes.”
Anyway, it’s clear that Betty toured with Big Maybelle, taking lessons from her all the while, for some considerable time. This took her all over the States and at some point (some say after taking a break following the final show, in Chicago, of a nationwide Maybelle tour) she headed west to California where she cut her first solo 45 for Walter Douglas’ little-known Douglas label. Both of the featured songs were penned by Wilhelmina Clayton who, amongst other credits, wrote “So Little Time”, which Brook Benton would include on his 1964 Mercury MG 20886/SR 60886 album “Born To Sing The Blues”.
Sources vary about the date of Betty’s Douglas single and Betty herself doesn’t recall the details. 1960 is often given but if this particular visit to California was the same as the one during which she encountered the guy who would become her manager and would take her back to New York to introduce her to Bert Berns (see shortly), then the other, later date of 1962, often cited for this recording, would seem to be the more likely.
Betty’s release on Douglas 104 gave her own name greater prominence on the label than the company name itself. ListenYesterday’s Kisses is given ‘AA’ status while “Taking Care Of Business” gets just one ‘A’.
Betty’s voice had certainly matured since her Hearts ‘outing’ but the vocals seem in rather too high a register for complete comfort to my ear, although there is an assertive ‘attack’ to them somewhat akin to that on some of Etta James’ earlier work. The male back-up group seems competent enough (probably an established West Coast outfit) but, while the performances are not outstanding, they can certainly be regarded as ‘work in progress’.
Very little is known about the Douglas label or its owner but, with the Harris release being numbered 104, one assumes there must have been a few other releases. I did find a publishing-related web-site which linked Walter’s name and that of his publishing company (“Prolific”, which appears on the labels) to a Fort Worth, Texas residential address, so maybe he retired down there.
Anyway, if the record was cut in 1962 it would have been around this time - and in California - that Betty encountered Solomon Burke and his then manager Marvin Leonard ‘Babe’ Chivian.
Chivian (born 24 August 1925) was a Philadephia-based car repairer-dealer and property speculator who, in 1959 offered Burke a red Lincoln Continental convertible if he would let him be his manager. The originally-gospel-only-singing and also Philadelphia-raised Burke had earlier failed to get his secular career off to a start via Herb Abramson’s Triumph logo as, at that time (late 1958), he had found he was still contracted to his old gospel label, Apollo. However, it seems that by 1959 this obstacle was out of the way and Burke duly signed up with Chivian who arranged for the singer to record for the local Philly-based Singular label, owned by WPEN disc jockey Edwin L. "Larry" Brown and the aptly-named Canadian-born vocal coach, Artie Singer. However in November 1960, after two commercially unsuccessful Singular 45s (one of which, “This Little Ring”, Chivian had apparently co-penned), ‘Babe’, as he was most often called, was recommended by Billboard’s Paul Ackerman to take Burke to meet with Jerry Wexler and Ahmet Ertegun. This he did and Solomon duly moved to the Atlantic label where, by December 1961, he had been put (initially reluctantly) under the production of Bert Berns. Of course, Berns won Burke over by cutting him successfully on the producer’s own fine song “Cry To Me” (Atlantic 2131), a No.5 R&B/No.44 Pop hit for Solomon which charted through the Spring of 1962, a song which would soon of course play a big part in Betty’s career.
It seems Chivian (and presumably Burke too) were suitably impressed with Betty Harris’ potential and one can therefore see why, at this juncture, they would suggest she should go back with them to New York to audition specifically for Berns, although a pre-requisite was, of course, that Betty should first make ‘Babe’ Chivian her manager.
This was agreed and Betty duly returned to the Big Apple to meet with Berns, although at this time she would base herself in Philadelphia, probably because that was where ‘Babe’, her new manager, lived. Betty told David Cole: “Bert (Berns) was wonderful as far as I was concerned. He was the type of person you could easily work with, easily get to know.” Betty of course had heard Burke’s version of “Cry To Me” but told Berns she would have sung it ‘slower’ and with even more “expression and soul”. Berns asked her to sing it how she felt it and was so impressed that he called his arranger Garry Sherman down to work out a basic piano arrangement there and then.
The resultant July 1963 session was held at Bell Sound, New York before Betty had any kind of recording contract. The finished recording was achieved via the third ‘take’. The Sweet Inspirations (Cissy Houston, Dee Dee Warwick, Sylvia Shemwell and Estelle Brown) did back-ups, the sound also being beefed-up by some male singers, whom Betty recalls were from the Mitch Miller TV show. Although the label shows the recording to be a Leiber & Stoller Production, they were nowhere around and it was all down to Betty, Bert, Garry Sherman, a tight NY rhythm section, a white-shirt-and-bow-tie string section and the incomparable ‘Sweets’.
For the first time on record, Betty calls upon her gospel pedigree to obtain the depth of feeling and expression inherent in such an emotionally-worded song, turning Burke’s certainly very good, faster-paced soul performance into an altogether much slower, deeper and more telling experience. Betty says: “By being young I only had so much experience of pain, or what I considered ‘blues’ to be about, but I ‘felt’ the lyrics. I knew how to reach deep in my soul and bring out all the pain and disappointment I felt. All my childhood feelings and wants came out in ListenCry To Me. I wanted to give the world something I could feel.” And she certainly did that!
Berns had obviously spared no expense in bringing a top team together to obtain what he wanted from Betty and, in view particularly of his recent success for Atlantic with Burke, he hoped he would be able to lease his master to Jerry Wexler even if Chivian didn’t manage to actually get Betty signed to the label. However, in the event, Jerry ‘passed’, probably because his company had only just had a major hit with the song. So Bert offered it to Jerry Blaine at Jubilee, who snapped it up. Chivian also got Blaine to sign Betty to his label, the event being marked by a dinner in a swanky New York restaurant where Jerry Blaine’s son Steve gave Betty a French Poodle.
Betty’s superb reading of the song made No.10 R&B and No.23 Pop on Jubilee 5456, perhaps surprisingly a lower position than Burke’s more ‘commercial’ version in the Billboard R&B chart, yet a higher position in the usually more commercially-influenced Pop chart.
The overtly more ‘pop’, but still appealing Berns composition “I’ll Be A Liar” appeared on the flip.
Betty soon embarked on several promotional live performances and one such on 28 September 1963 (the very day of her record’s entry into the R&B chart) put her on a multi-act bill at San Francisco’s huge ‘Cow Palace’ auditorium, introduced by local Radio KWA dee-jays, Bob Mitchell and Tom Donahue.
Betty’s live version that day of ListenCry To Me in front of an orchestra conducted by Phil Spector was recorded by Autumn Records for their “Memories Of The Cow Palace” Autumn 101 LP (reissued in 1983 by Rhino on RNLP 105).
Vocally, Betty gives her hit-song 110 percent, although the band unsurprisingly does not compare favourably with the New York musicians on her studio recording and, in particular, includes a rather poor trumpet-player. However, I agree with a review of Betty’s performance, written at the time of the Rhino reissue, which commented: “It’s rawer than the single and shows what she must have sounded like on the chitlin’ circuit."
When it was time for Betty to record her follow-up to “Cry To Me” she embarked on what must have been two quite intensive sessions, both held on 13th November 1963, with most of the overdubs and editing carried out on 26th November. The side chosen for release on Jubilee 5465 was the Berns and Mike Stoller song “His Kiss” and this time Bert was actually credited on the label as producer despite reference once more to it being (nominally) a Leiber & Stoller production. The song is another slow-paced gospelly piece with almost a feel of Theola Kilgore’s “The Love Of My Man”. It’s another telling performance from Betty, as is the fine flip ListenIt’s Dark Outside, which I think is even better and also features some lovely churchy piano-playing. Despite “His Kiss” being the side that would ‘chart’, Billboard’s review concentrated on “It’s Dark Outside”.
“Mo Jo Hannah”, a Clarence Paul co-penned song first cut the previous year by the unfortunately-named Henry Lumpkin for Motown (1029), is a very pacy if slightly messy, swamp-soul opus which would appear as one side of Betty’s third Jubilee 45 (# 5480). This song would later be rather better recorded by Esther Phillips in February 1964 for her first Atlantic single (Atlantic 2229), a session which would also be arranged by Garry Sherman and feature the Sweets on back-ups. Others to cut the song would include Aaron Neville, The Intrigues and, in 1972, Tami Lynn for Cotillion and UK Mojo, although New Orleans native Tami had also cut a rather better version back in 1963 for the AFO organisation which saw release on an Opus 43 LP (OP 4303) and appears on the 1993 Ace CD “Gumbo Stew” (CDCHD 450).
Betty’s version was coupled on her third Jubilee single with an ultra-slow re-vamp of the 1947-first-published (and probably much older) New Zealand Maori ‘farewell song’ “Hearere Ra”, better known to English-speaking folk as “Now Is The Hour”. Those who remember the song as something of a ‘family favourite’ sung by friends and relatives at the end of a party or simply to someone heading off to pastures new, may find Betty and the Sweets’ deeply gospelised interpretation little more than a weird ‘novelty’ – personally I love it! After Betty’s rather uncertain opening melisma on the word ‘now’, she and the girls drench the song’s inherent schmaltz with some wonderful gospel-soul and make the departure of a loved one really sound like the sad occasion it usually was.
Jerry Blaine
Two unissued-at-the-time tracks were also recorded, one pretty good and one just throwaway pop to my ears. “Why Don’t You Tell Him” is a very pretty soul-ballad which sees Betty for the first (and probably only) time in ‘uptown sweet-soul’ mode – but she handles the style very well indeed and the result, which required some vocal overdubs from her as late as 25th May the following year, probably deserved release on a fourth Jubilee single, although it wasn’t to be. The awful unissued “Everybody’s Love” (aka “Just Like Mine”) with Betty’s vocal all but lost in front of a fast Bo Diddley beat and some uncharacteristically quasi-teen-girly singing from the Sweets, is best forgotten. This song had already been cut in 1961 as “Just Like Mine” by The Renaults on Wand 114.
Apart from her vocal overdubs to the one unissued track in May 1964, these November 1963 sessions would be Betty’s last for Berns and for Jubilee. “His Kiss” had at least made the Pop Hot 100, peaking at No.89 but sales to black R&B fans were not helped by Billboard ceasing to publish an R&B chart from the end of that very November (it wouldn’t be reintroduced until 23 January 1965). The record made No.74 on the Cashbox Pop chart and No.15 on their R&B listing.
Bert Berns
Jubillee would reissue “Cry To Me” and “I’ll Be A Liar” on #5658 in 1969 (when it would again make the R&B chart, peaking at No.44) and the next reissue of Betty’s Jubilee material would be on two 45s in the Virgo Golden Memories Series, “Cry To Me” being paired with a reissue of Joe Henderson’s “Snap Your Fingers” on Virgo 6014 in 1973, while two years later Virgo 6036 effectively reissued Jubilee 5465 by pairing Betty’s “His Kiss” with “It’s Dark Outside”.
Then in 1980 UK Charly’s “In The Saddle” CRB 1002 Harris set featured just two Jubilee sides, “Cry To Me” and “I’ll Be A Liar”. All the Jubilee material (including the unissued tracks) finally came together in 1998 on UK Westside’s fine “Soul Perfection Plus” CD (WESA 807), which also included some pre-take studio chat. 2005’s Australian Aim 1502 CD “The Lost Soul Queen – Soul Perfection Plus Rare Tracks” included just “Cry To Me” and “I’ll Be A Liar” of the Jubilee tracks.
Thinking back to these sessions, Betty admits that “Jubilee did not turn out as good as it should” and the main reason she cites is the loss of both her manager, ‘Babe’ Chivian and her producer Bert Berns. The ‘loss’ of Berns does not refer to his later untimely death on 30 December 1967 as this happened too late to have had any effect on Betty’s career but rather to his attention in the mid-60’s being on things other than Miss Betty Harris. We’ll come to that in a moment but first, what of her manager, ‘Babe’ Chivian?
Well, in October 1963 (a month before Betty had even undertaken her second set of sessions with Berns), ‘Babe’ Chivian was being “sought by the FBI as a material witness to illegal Cosa Nostra activities in Philadelphia” (to quote a news report of the time). Quite what degree of involvement this implies is unclear but even the phrase “being sought” suggests he wasn’t readily ‘coming forward’ and may even perhaps have ‘disappeared’ for a time. What does seem certain is that, at this juncture, his primary attention would not have been on Miss Harris (or even on Mr Solomon Burke).
Quite what happened to Chivian after this is also unclear. He may well have nominally retained his managerial role with Betty but he also certainly returned to Philly and to the auto trade as, some 8 years later, a 2nd October 1971 press report quoted the FBI as saying “the largest amount of forgery contraband ever seized in Philadelphia” had been discovered in Chivian’s office and that Chivian had been “charged with larceny, receiving stolen goods, counterfeiting, and ‘uttering’ and issuing forged ‘instruments’.” Much of this was connected with auto-licensing activities. Whether or not Chivian was tried and found guilty I have not discovered –but there probably wasn’t time as, within 3 months (according to Wikipedia), he would be dead, aged only 46.
The ’loss’ to Betty of Bert Berns’ attention clearly points to just how busy Bert was with other activities by late 1963 and how little time he was able to give to her. Throughout that year he had produced hits on UA for The Exciters and Garnet Mimms, had produced another hit for Baby Jane & The Rockabyes and had written hit material for the Four Pennies and The Rocky Fellers. He had also maintained the more-established Solomon Burke’s momentum for Atlantic with “Words”, “If You Need Me”, “Can’t Nobody Love You” and “You’re Good For Me”.
As the press was reporting Chivian’s problems in October of that year, Berns flew off to the UK for his first visit to Decca in London and must have returned only just in time for Betty’s second set of sessions in mid-November. Meanwhile Bert’s private life was keeping him busy too - he had met and fallen in love with fashion model and dancer Ilene Stuart, whom he would marry in 1964.
A probably now temporarily managerless Betty would wait in vain for Bert to produce a third set of sessions for Jubilee. His professional attention had now turned almost exclusively towards Atlantic. In March 1964 he would form his Keetch label to be distributed by Atlantic and then went on that year to write and produce lots of hits for Atlantic acts such as The Drifters, Solomon Burke, The Vibrations and LaVern Baker. In October of that year Bert was back in London to record Lulu and Them; then, with further big Atlantic successes on into 1965, Bert would form his Web IV publishing company in March of that year (‘Web’ for Wexler, the two Erteguns and Berns) before, in May, launching his own Bang label, named after the first names of the same four men.
It’s probably a shame that Betty did not get taken to Atlantic at this stage as Berns would probably have continued to record her, perhaps first for them and then maybe even for his own R&B subsidiary label, Shout; but I guess if that had happened, however good the results, we would then have been denied the fine body of work she was soon to ‘put down’ in New Orleans with Allen Toussaint.
Some sources say Betty apparently met Toussaint in New Orleans while on tour but a Harris-related web-site claims Toussaint caught her act at the Apollo and Betty herself told David Cole that she thought it was her manager (was it still Chivian or someone else?) who brought them together, the pair meeting in New York in mid-1965 to strike a deal before Betty flew down to New Orleans to record.
Toussaint and Marshall Sehorn were launching their then brand-new Sansu label and Betty would have the first release on it. The partnership between these two men (legalised via the Tou-Sea production company and the Marsaint publishing company) had actually begun with Lee Dorsey’s “Ride Your Pony”, which Marshall had taken to New York and leased to Larry Uttal for issue on Amy 927, the 45 becoming a hit just about the time Toussaint met up with Harris. However, wanting their own imprint, Allen and Marshall had then set up Sansu, whose offices in these early days were located on St. Phillip Street, while, for recording, use was probably made initially of Cosimo Matassa’s recently opened third studio, Jazz City, situated at 748 Camp Street (although Harris’ post-1967 recordings would have been cut either elsewhere in the Crescent City or possibly in Atlanta as it was in that year that the IRS seized Jazz City and all its contents from Matassa, with Toussaint and Sehorn not opening their own Sea-Saint Studio on Clematis Street until 1973, long after Harris had ceased recording).
So Jazz City is most likely where Betty Harris appeared in about August 1965 for her first Sansu session, which resulted in “I’m Evil Tonight” and “What A Sad Feeling” (Sansu 450), with the former track also seeing later reissue as one side of Sansu 466. Both songs were penned by Toussaint (using his mother’s maiden name of Naomi Neville) and Allen would not only arrange, produce and usually play on all of Betty’s Sansu (and one SSS-Int.) recordings but would also write all 20 of them too.
“I’m Evil Tonight” nicely combined an appealing semi-pop main riff with some meaningful and, at times, quite intense vocalising from Betty.
The original ‘plug-side’, though, was ListenWhat A Sad Feeling, a slower and altogether more dramatic opus. You can imagine Irma Thomas singing this one but, with no disrespect to the true Soul Queen of New Orleans, the ‘usurper’ from Dothan via the Big Apple makes such a fine job of this telling piece that there’s no need to imagine the song in anyone else’s hands; indeed, despite her several fine Jubilee sides, this track really marks the beginning of the recordings which turned Betty into the revered deep-soul 60’s legend she deservedly became. Commercially though, the 45 failed to return Betty to the charts.
Betty’s second trip to New Orleans was early in 1966. “Sometime” was a pleasant-enough fairly lay-back pop-soul ballad which Betty mainly sings in sweet-mode although she still manages to include some dramatic gospelly passages here and there. “I Don’t Wanna Hear It” was a rather brooding-sounding mid-to-up tempo piece with strong vocals from Betty, especially each time she sings in front of the back-up girls as they chant the title-line. Sadly, this pairing, issued on Sansu 452, also failed to make much impression saleswise.
Undeterred, Toussaint persevered and in about April 1966 Betty flew south again, this time to cut the potent, driving and funky Listen12 Red Roses, using exactly the same production techniques and male-back-up sound which was then bringing Toussaint and Sehorn big commercial success with Lee Dorsey. It’s a great ‘never-let-up’ opus with an irresistible Crescent City beat and some very tasty piano fills from Toussaint.
If that was good, ListenWhat’d I Do Wrong on the other side of Sansu 455 was something else! This was one of Betty’s ‘killer’ solo deep-soul outings for the label. Everything is right about this wonderful recording. The mournful brass backdrop, the terrific guitar fills and Toussaint’s beautiful bluesy piano passages which still allow the existence of an almost eerie sparseness, with no back-up singers (rightly) deemed necessary behind Betty’s emotion-soaked gospelly vocal. This is also great writing by Toussaint and no-one could ever have bettered Harris’ interpretation of his telling lyrics. The cut would also reappear as one side of Betty’s Sansu 478 release nearly two years later (see shortly).
Back in 1966, “12 Red Roses” should have easily made the US charts – but no, it didn’t. One wonders what kind of national promotion Betty’s 45 received as I can find no review or advertisement for it in Billboard, despite Sansu being distributed by New York’s Bell label. However, I have a feeling that most of Larry Uttal’s Toussaint/Sehorn-related promotion budget was being expended instead on Lee Dorsey’s product, as Lee was in the process of enjoying four straight Top 10 R&B hits on Utall’s own Amy imprint.
This theory is perhaps given support by the very obvious ‘Dorsey sound’ on Betty’s next Sansu 461 single, “Lonely Hearts”, cut in early 1967 but brought to a close by a weak and overly-long instrumental segment when what was clearly needed was at least another verse from Betty.
Slightly better was “Bad Luck”, a nice mid-pacer with not such an obvious Dorsey connection and offering a good superstitious tale of Betty being so prone to bad luck that even a four-leaf clover withered when it touched her hand!
Again the single flopped and Betty must have wondered if she was ever going to return to the charts; but, fortunately, her next Sansu outing finally achieved that very goal.
In mid-1967 Betty’s jet-hopping visits to New Orleans were renewed, yet the session produced only one known side, “Nearer To You”. Toussaint pared down the backing and Betty actually delivered a genuinely ‘deep’ vocal performance, the ‘commercial’ aspects of the arrangement being chiefly the overly sweet back-up chants and a rather cheesy organ. However, this combination of styles certainly did the trick as, despite a continuing lack of much press promotion, the song, coupled on Sansu 466 with a reissue of “I’m Evil Tonight”, made No.16 on Billboard’s R&B chart and No.85 on their Pop listing.
Betty’s new R&B hit may not have been a high-charter but it was a very steady seller, remaining in the listings from 15th July to 30th September and it would have been around August, when she was probably touring on the strength of it, that she joined up with James Carr and found herself moonlighting on one of his Goldwax recordings, “I’m A Fool For You” (#328). This was essentially a gently-rolling-rhythmed duet between the these two fine singers with James taking most of the lead lines and Betty answering his baritone with some quite high register responses. The record had appeal for sure and provided Betty with another hit, albeit she was unnamed on the label for contractual reasons. The recording would enter the charts on 23rd September, making No.42 R&B/No.97 Pop.
Betty explained her sortie with Carr thus: “We were travelling together and we sang all kinds of songs. I went with him (to his session and) on our way his guitar-player wrote this song for him. At the session we were goofing around with it, not doing anything for real, but it was taped and it sounded good. I called Marshall Sehorn about me being on it and he said ‘No’.”
So this was why Betty couldn’t be credited, even though, just like her own Sansu label, Goldwax was, at this time, also distributed by Larry Utall’s Bell organisation. According to Quinton Claunch’s recollections with Colin Dilnot, the recording itself was cut at Sam Phillips Studio in Memphis but the label writers’ credits feature not just James’ guitarist but no less than five top Memphis-related personalities, namely Dan Greer, Quinton Claunch, Earl Cage, George Jackson, and Rudolph Russell. Betty’s brief association with Carr would lead to yet another untrue rumour that she later became his road manager.
Anyway, both sides of Betty’s own ‘follow-up’ Sansu 45 were actually cut around August 1967 while “Nearer To You” was still charting and pretty close to the time of her encounter with Carr. “I’m Gonna Git Ya” returned Betty to the ‘Lee Dorsey’ format but, having said that, I find this slow but very ‘New Orleans-second line’ piece with its potent backbeat and girl group support to be really appealing.
However, the other side of Sansu 471, ListenCan’t Last Much Longer, was another Harris deep gem which rivalled even “What’d I Do Wrong” for top honours in those particular stakes. A pathos-inducing piano and then a brass fanfare introduce us to a fast-fading Betty (though not vocally!) who is such ‘a fool’ for her guy that she can’t put up much longer with the total disinterest he is now showing in her. The lyrics are so mournfully expressed one fears there could even be a potentially suicidal outcome for the girl rather than merely a reluctant acceptance of the inevitable ending of the relationship. It’s just a terrific piece of deep-soul.
For Betty’s next outing, Toussaint decided to pair her up with Lee Dorsey. This was probably merely an attempt to have some of Dorsey’s recent much bigger chart success rub off on Betty, although Betty referred to her duet with James Carr and surmised that “maybe that’s where the Lee Dorsey idea was born.”
The pair got together around October/November 1967 and the results were intriguing. “Love Lots Of Lovin’” was very much in the style Dorsey had been recently using and was a rather lightweight poppish piece, although both singers perform well enough, especially on the bridges between the main sections of the song. The crossover appeal was not enough though for major success, the record on Sansu 474 merely ‘bubbling under’ the Billboard Pop chart at No.110 for just the one week commencing 23rd December. One wonders what might have been if Amy had picked up the master and issued it effectively as a Lee Dorsey release.
However, the flip-side, ListenTake Care Of Our Love, was a superb piece of funereally-paced deep-soul – indeed I would go as far as to say that it’s probably the finest example from a male/female duo that I can recall. Lee Dorsey would not be a singer one would normally associate with deeply expressive singing but here he absolutely gives as good as he gets and what he gets from Betty is a staggeringly emotive response.
The empathy between the two singers seems stunningly good and yet Betty had reservations. She regarded the top-side (not unreasonably perhaps) as “definitely throwaway” but went on to say she didn’t like the other side either. She added: “I didn’t consider myself a double-singer but I had no say in the matter”. Betty, it seems, has always preferred to sing solo, although she was clearly more than happy to join vocally with James Carr.
Towards the end of 1967 Betty was preparing to go on a tour of Europe the following year with Otis Redding (an artist she had toured with before) but of course this would come to nought as a result of the Big O’s untimely death on 10 December.
Although Betty’s sporadic visits to record with Toussaint usually only resulted in two songs being recorded, it seems she managed three at her next session in early 1968, although, on this occasion only, there was a sizable gap between the master numbers of each of these recordings and it’s just possible there were actually three separate sessions. In any case, this session (or sessions) might well not have been in New Orleans as Cosimo’s Jazz City studio had now closed and, in addition to using other Crescent City studios, Toussaint and Sehorn also apparently did some recording in Atlanta. (However, when Betty herself recalled her Sansu years, she implied that she cut all her songs for Toussaint actually in New Orleans).
Anyway, the first song in the can was “Mean Man”, by far the funkiest record Betty had yet cut for Sansu which possibly introduced the use on her recordings of the Meters, whom Toussaint and Sehorn had by now more or less recruited as a ‘house-band’. The track was released on Sansu 478 with the older but wonderful “What’d I Do Wrong” re-used on the flip.
The other songs recorded allegedly at the same session were the mid-paced “Hook, Line n’ Sinker” on which Betty’s vocal is well up to its usual potent standard as she really tries to ‘sell’ what is, in truth, a fairly ‘average’ song; and “Show It”, a slightly pacier but rather mediocre item. These two were coupled on the very next Sansu release (#479).
By about June of ’68 it seems Toussaint was getting a bit desperate as to how to return Betty to the charts and he selected for her session at that time a revival of Lee Dorsey’s “Ride Your Pony” hit. I’m sure Betty’s heart would not have been in this one but as always her professionalism took over and she really delivers on what is a fine, funky foot-tapper, proving she could handle a driving piece of soul as well as anyone.
Some wonderful bass-lines introduce and underpin the very impressive other track cut at that time, namely ListenTrouble With My Lover. This is a rare case where mid-paced funky soul can also be very telling in the hands of a singer of the quality of Harris. For me, this is the best mid-to-uptempo side Betty cut for Sansu, along with “There’s A Break In the Road” (see shortly). Sadly, when released together on #480, neither of the mid-’68-recorded sides caused much of a stir saleswise.
There followed a longish gap in recording before Betty returned to Toussaint in about March of 1969. This is possibly due to the abandonement at that time of the Sansu label, only a couple of Art Neville singles having crept out after Betty’s last effort. The label would not be re-activated until the mid-70’s and the two sides Betty cut in ’69 were leased out for single release to Shelby Singleton’s SSS-International label.
As already implied, “There’s A Break In the Road” is a terrific piece of mid-paced Meters-led funky-soul, with Betty riding the potent riff in great style. I love the guitar-feedback that seems to have been deliberately featured here as it just adds ‘edge’ to what is almost a groundbreaking track for the late-60’s.
Conversely, the other track recorded for inclusion on the SSS-Int single is just one huge musical ‘mistake’ as far as I’m concerned. In about mid-’68, an artiste called Zilla Mayes (her surname more usually excluded the ‘e’) recorded a great Allen Toussaint song called “All I Want Is You” for one of Allen and Marshall’s subsidiary labels, Tou-Sea (#132). Zilla was older than Betty and, in addition to sporadically recording since 1951, she was also an Atlanta Radio dee-jay and gospel singer. Her 45 also had an excellent Toussaint song on the other side called “I Love You Still”.
Anyway, at her1969 (and last) session for Toussaint, Betty also cut a Toussaint song called “All I Want Is You” but this was a totally different, appalling tuneless ‘turkey’ of a song which sounded like it was destined for some third-class theatrical musical show. What’s more, if it really is Betty Harris trying to sing it (which I can barely believe), she has real trouble even holding what little there is of a tune and also struggles to hit some of the notes. This awful track should have been left to go mouldy on the cutting room floor.
This untypical Harris performance and Zilla Mayes’ amazing similarity to Betty’s more usual singing-style on her own very different song of the same name, would later completely ‘throw’ UK Charly Records whose 1980 “In The Saddle” CRB 1002 compilation would wrongly use Zilla’s recording in place of Betty’s, whilst crediting Betty on both the label and sleeve track-listing (aurally an absolutely understandable mistake).
It’s a great shame that such a wretched recording was the last side Betty would ever cut for Allen Toussaint as, overall, her body of work for him was outstanding. However, it seems that, although Betty clearly always gave of her professional best for Allen, she did not relate to him as well as she did to Bert Berns during her admittedly far fewer sessions with the New York producer.
Of her nearly 4 years of sporadic recording for Sansu, she agreed that “…the music was fantastic” but she clearly felt that she was not involved enough in the song-selection and recording process when she added: “All my sessions…were put together before I arrived…and some things were done after I left.”
Mind you, to be fair, with Betty simply flying in from the east coast to cut maybe no more than a couple of tracks and then flying home again as soon as possible, one can perhaps see how a writer, arranger and producer as adept as Allen Toussaint would want to have songs and maybe some rhythm tracks ready in advance of her arrival and then to arrange sweetening processes perhaps after her departure.
Musically, it’s clear Betty liked her ‘deeper’ work best when she concurred: “That was me, that’s just me. The faster stuff I did because you had to do it but lyrics have always meant a lot to me. Out of the things Allen did, I was in love with ‘Can’t Last Much Longer’ (and) ‘Nearer To You’. Some of his music was, like, very, very meaningful to me.” Us too, Betty!
Having cut 20 known tracks for Sansu, Betty might well have expected at least one album to have been issued by the label but – no, it was left to the UK to provide one.
Her earlier Jubillee material had seen scant coverage in the UK at the time (only “Cry To Me”/”I’ll Be A Liar” appearing there on UK Decca’s London American label #9796); however, EMI’s UK Stateside label did at least issue two singles of Sansu material, while a small UK label called Buffalo picked up just on the Dorsey-Harris two-sider.
Thanks to Sansu’s distribution by Bell, the first (close to contemporaneous) album releases anywhere of some of Harris’ Sansu recordings appeared on the revered UK various-artist 3LP set “Bell’s Cellar Of Soul” (issued separately on MBLL 102, 107 and 117, the first two albums appearing in 1968 and the third in 1969).
However, also in 1969, as Betty’s tenure with Sansu came to an end, a small UK label called Action put out what became for many years the definitive Betty Harris LP, still much sought-after and pricey, entitled “Soul Perfection” (ACLP 6007). This contained 16 of Betty’s Sansu outings (a large number of tracks for an LP in those days).
Action had been formed in 1968 by record-store owner, soul music magazine editor and later UK Contempo and US Ichiban owner John Abbey. It was distributed by Island Records and based at Music House, 12 Neasden Lane, London NW10. Action issued no less than 56 singles in the 1968-1969 period from many different chiefly US soul-related sources (including a pairing of Betty’s “Ride Your Pony” and “Trouble With My Lover” on ACT 4535), plus another 24 singles when the label was revived between 1971 and 1974. It also put out 12 albums, including Betty’s.
Regarding later Harris reissues, apart from the aforementioned 45s of Jubilee material by Jubilee itself (1969) and Virgo (1973 and 1975), it would be 1980 before UK Charly issued their also already-mentioned CRB 1002 Harris LP “In The Saddle”, another 16-tracker, although only 13 Harris Sansu sides were featured, as also included were both sides of Betty’s first Jubilee single and the Zilla Mayes recording of “All I Want Is You” masquerading as by Betty.
In the same year, UK Charly also issued a three-track black-and-white picture sleeve single featuring “Ride Your Pony”, “Trouble With My Lover” and “Nearer To You” (CTD 102).
The CD era saw the aforementioned 1998 “Soul Perfection Plus” comprehensive Harris collection from UK Westside (WESA 807), followed by the also already mentioned “The Lost Soul Queen – Soul Perfection Plus Rare Tracks” Australian AIM 1502 set from 2005.
After Betty ended her association with Allen Toussaint, she decided to give up major musical activity chiefly because she was tired of the almost endless touring, drab hotel rooms and living out of a suitcase. However, the exact chronology of her movements from this point right up until 1996/7 have so far never been satisfactorily clarified.
At some point she returned to Alabama about which she recalls: "I said I'd rather be broke and be happy, than to have money and be miserable. And with that in mind, I went back home to Alabama, and I knew that it was going to be hard because I had lived an upscale life.”
However, possibly after she had returned to her native State, it seems she moved to Miami where she performed just at one or two clubs before deciding to quit all forms of the music scene completely. She says: "Otis had passed, Bert had passed, ‘Babe’ had passed. I looked at this business and said maybe this is not what God wanted me to do. As much as I loved singing, I just did not find things in the world the way I thought they were. I had to find me.”
Betty went ‘back to school’ for a time to learn business studies, married, and settled with her new husband and son in Florida. Then, in about 1982, her daughter came along and she gave much of her life over to raising her. Betty says: “I guess God put my child in my life. My daughter Christina, I just did everything for her. I put her in pageants and parades. My daughter became the focus of my life.”
In addition to her family responsibilities, Betty still sang, but now only in churches and at community events, as she had done in Alabama in her childhood.
In 1996/7 she moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where she joined an Artists Collective and began giving singing lessons. It was here too that she put her daughter through high school, also temporarily spending some time in Atlanta during her mother’s final months.
Then in 2001, her daughter found several Betty Harris fan sites on the web, prompting the singer to join a soul mailing list to announce her whereabouts. Her re-emergence caused quite a stir in deep soul circles and this inspired Betty to consider the possibility of performing again. Indeed, by 2004 she was anticipating that the BBC in the UK would be making a film about her life and announcing her intention to co-produce a new CD slated to be cut in Boston starting September 6th and released that December. This was to have been in conjunction with Boston-based guitarist and producer Chris Stovall Brown. However, neither of these projects came to fruition and Betty finally resurfaced in the music world on April 17, 2005, when she played her first live gig in 35 years at a benefit at Weaver High School in Hartford, which her daughter, by then at college, had once attended. Just a few weeks after this, Harris performed at New Orleans’ legendary annual Ponderosa Stomp.
Later in 2005 she went to Melbourne, Australia where she played a Hurricane Katrina benefit gig at the city’s Prince Of Wales venue that raised more than $30,000 for the New Orleans Musicians Clinic. The Australian band was comprised of carefully chosen members of the local roots scene who had cut their teeth on early New Orleans soul, R&B and funk sounds, fronted by Andy Baylor on guitar.
Harris was so impressed with this band that she allegedly parted company with the Stovall Brown unit on her return to the States and re-visited Melbourne again in November 2006 to play once more with Baylor and co. at the Prince Of Wales and at the Queenscliff Music Festival. While ‘down under’ she also appeared on the television program "Rockwiz", where she sang "Cry to Me" solo and her old Lee Dorsey duet "Love Lots of Lovin'" with Australian singer John Paul Young.
It had been during her 2005 trip to Australia that a visit to Hound Dog's Bop Shop in West Melbourne had triggered a series of events that led to Harris obtaining the rights to her Sansu master tapes. When she was shown the AIM compilation CD of her work, her lawyer Fred Wilhelms III contacted the Australian label and asked them who had licensed Harris' music to them. The trail led to a company called Gulf Coast Music. Fred Wilhelms explained to Red Kelly that GCM had been the entity set up by the Federal court to handle Marshall Sehorn's music assets when he declared bankruptcy in the mid-90s as a result of several judgments against him for bootlegging the Chess catalogue. When approached, Wilhelms says GCM accepted Betty’s claim to the Sansu masters because there was no proof she had ever been paid royalties and the rights were duly transferred to her.
This was just in time, as pop diva Christina Aguilera had then only recently sampled Allen Toussaint’s Harris-recorded song “Nearer To You” as part of her “Understand” track from her “Back To Basics” album, which had then already sold 2 million copies worldwide.
So, finally, not only was Harris' soul legacy being recognised but she would also receive some long-overdue and well-deserved financial reward for her past endeavours. In 2006, Betty commented: "I was angry because I did all of that work and didn't get anything for it. Normally you would get paid for studio time - I didn't even get that. It was a very hurtful time in my life. I thought what I was doing was worth a lot more than that. But you have to move on, so I got out of show business, went back to school, and I married and had kids. I refused to be labelled as a has-been in this business. I've always been a very determined person, to try and make the best of any situation. I've learnt that if you wait long enough, it's bound to come to you. I was able to get all my masters back from Sansu. We went to Nashville and I had them digitally redone and before too long we’re going to release them”.
It was also suggested that some of the songs Betty obtained have never yet seen reissue and so these would therefore have to be unissued Sansu Harris recordings. To my knowledge some 4 separate reissue compilations have appeared between 2006 and 2011 (see cover shots nearby), two of them, “Soul Cuts” (28 tracks on Master Classics) and “Selected Hits” (16 tracks on Charly) apparently being for MP3 download only, while the other two, “Greatest Hits” (15 tracks on Platinum Records) and “”Lonely Hearts” (16 tracks on Jukebox Entertainment) were also made available on CD. I am not aware of the inclusion on any of these releases of ‘new’ titles from Betty’s past recording history, although it seems the “Lonely Hearts” set did include 2 versions of “I Don’t Want To Hear It”.
2007 was another busy year for Betty, including an appearance at the "Porretta Soul Festival" in Italy before travelling on to make her French debut at the Perigueux New Orleans Music Festival that August. Betty would be back home in time for the release in November of her long-awaited ‘come back’ CD “Intuition”, but what a disappointment it proved to be. She had signed a deal with Jon Tiven to produce it in Nashville for his Evidence label (# ECD 26135-2) but, despite one or two names from the soul past like Jerry Ragovoy, Don Covay and Freddie Scott having some marginal input, and despite Betty herself being in fine voice, most of the songs had no soulful content at all, running closer to modern country-blues in style (the best is a moving tale of domestic violence entitled “She Stays On” which has a very Swamp Dogg feel to it). Tiven would produce the same level of mediocrity on his two Evidence CDs the following year featuring two more soul legends, Garnet Mimms and Howard Tate (whose earlier Ragovoy-produced “Rediscovered” Private Music/BMG CD in 2004 had been much better). In my opinion, Tiven simply failed to major on the great expressive vocal talents who had come his way.
If you want to hear just how soulfully emotive Betty could have been with the right material, then go here to catch a 1 min 52 sec. clip of her singing part of her “Cry To Me” rendition at the Porretta Terme festival in the same year her CD emerged. Allowing for the ‘iffy’ sound, one can soon tell that Betty could still sing deeply and impressively and it’s a shame that the clip cuts off abruptly for some reason well before the performance is finished. Tiven should have been watching and listening and, whilst one can understand that neither he nor Betty would have wanted a CD merely full of re-vamped old soul favourites, at least more of the modern songs could have been given a soulful feel.
Since 2007 Betty has also visited Spain, Italy, France once again, Australia twice more and has appeared at New York’s Lincoln Center.
With her daughter now married and having produced a grandchild, Betty has since based herself in another Connecticut city, Middletown. In January 2012, the local paper reported that, after all her touring, she was now ready to play “where she lives”, with a new band of her own, The Breaking News, which included musical director Tony Cafiero of Guilford on keyboards and Tom Smith of Cheshire on drums, these English-sounding cities actually being in Connecticut of course. Betty said: “Out of all this time that I’ve played, I’ve never had my own group, my own band, and I’ve found that to be an excellent experience; to have guys who rehearse with you, they know what you’re going to do. To have someone that has sat down and worked it out and is not just playing a chart. ... it’s really nice.”
Betty and her band played a ‘tune-up’ gig in December 2011 at The Cypress Restaurant in Middletown and on 7th January 2012 they played a bona fide $30-at-the-door Soul & Funk concert at Trinity-on-Main, a former church in New Britain that’s now a local cultural and performing arts center.
It’s nice to know that a great performer from the classic soul era is still ‘on song’ and entertaining the masses. Long may it be so.
UPDATE ~ On Saturday July 21st, 2012 Betty gave a radio interview on Station WRTC-FM out of Hartford, Connecticut (near her own present home). A few interesting observations emerged which add a little more info. to that contained in the main article.
Betty confirmed her high regard for Bert Berns. She said her “Cry To Me” session at Bell Sound took just 3 takes, the shortest session she ever had, although Berns was a person who “knew what he wanted to hear” and apparently, at a later session for him, another of Betty’s songs would see her made to sing 33 takes. She had nothing but praise too for the Sweet Inspirations who linked into “Cry To Me” so easily with only a minimum of discussion between them about what they were going to do.
On her 1967 3-month gruelling road-tour with the Otis Redding Review, she notes that they started off at the Apollo with 18 acts on the bill, including Johnnie Taylor and Bettye Swann (though neither she nor the generally knowledgeable dee-jay could remember Bettye’s surname!) She found Otis to be quiet, focused but not pushy, serious about what he did, a businessman but also a guy who could just be himself and didn’t worry about other acts maybe being in competition with him in any way.
Re her Sansu recording “Love Lot’s Of Loving” with Lee Dorsey, she confirms this was not a true duet in that Dorsey’s vocal and much, if not all of the backing track had already been cut by Allen Toussaint before Betty hit the Big Easy and Betty merely added her own vocal to the proceedings. Betty comments that she actually preferred the way she cut her Sansu tracks (by adding vocals to existing backing-tracks) to cutting ‘live’ in the studio. She maintained this allowed her to be more creative regarding her vocal before it got added into the mix. It was also made clear that Betty was already living in Miami during the time of her Sansu tracks and she was flying into New Orleans from there (not New York) for mainly 2-week periods to cut her sessions with Toussaint (some four weeks for her first ones).
Re her “Nearer To You” Sansu track, she confirms that, when she arrived to cut her vocal, there was very little already laid down, namely just a basic Toussaint piano track plus a bass. She left New Orleans of course before Toussaint mixed the final track and was amazed when, back in Miami, she heard the finished product with all the overdubs etc and barely recognised the piece.
When the dee-jay played Betty’s “A Bible And A Beer” from her 2007 Evidence CD, “Intuition”, Betty commented that her preacher-mother would not have approved of that title as she used to say to her when she was a younger secular soul singer: “That’s not the way God wants you to live”. It’s also clear that Betty shares my own view about this particular CD – basically she doesn’t rate it and doesn’t consider it to showcase “the real Betty Harris”.
When she first began her legal processes to recover her rights to her Sansu recordings - via her first lawyer Fred Wilhelms (now sadly deceased after contracting pancreatic cancer) - she was having a pretty rough time, as she says that was soon after she had lost both her mother and her husband.
While talking about her currently on-going legal action against Sony over Christine Aguilera’s sampling of her “Nearer To You” track, it was made pretty clear that she apparently regards all four of the reissue Harris CDs shown in the montage picture near the end of the main article as unlicensed and may well be bringing further actions against those responsible for these particular releases.
Campbell Road, Stoke
Another for #projectstoke
I am completely overwhelmed at the support from you all with #projectstoke, we are nearly at £25 of the total and there is still 26 days to go!
Do you want to see #projectstoke exhibited? The shots printed and placed around Stoke on Trent? Shown to the elderly to allow them to reminisce? And even possibly be brought together in a book?
www.kickstarter.com/projects/projectstoke/project-stoke
Then please, support #projectstoke however you can, even just sharing this status and these pictures will help to spread the awareness!
Thank you!
Jenna
Had a wonderful shoot with Evelynn yesterday! What a little Diva! But all that attitude makes for a fantastic little model!
You should also follow Raven Photography on
Please click here to view this large!
This picture was shot on a tripod with nine exposures (-4..-3..-2..-1..0..+1..+2..+3..+4 EV). I used Photomatix to create the HDR with tonemapping and detail enhanced. I increased the overall saturation with Hue/Saturation in Photoshop. Curve adjustment to increase the overall contrast. 1 layer mask in soft light mode at 50% gray, using brush tool to lighten and darken some areas of the image, to bring out details. Used Nik Sharpener Pro to sharpen image.
My wife and I were just driving around last Sunday rather aimlessly trying to figure where to go do some photo shoot. Three hours later, we ended up in Seattle, Washington simply by driving in one direction -- North! Kerry Park is a small neighborhood park in Queen Anne area. There were many tourists and photographers when we were up there. Apparently, a very popular spot to photograph this classic Seattle skyline along with Space Needle and Mount Rainier. Glad we made it up there on this gorgeous day. Fortunately, by driving in the opposite direction, we got back home to Portland that night! Presented in full HDR!
You can view more Seattle Skyline images at my Facebook Page
View Large for whatever reason. view original for a good laugh at grainy perfection.
Fiction and reality collide
Faceless and so busted up inside
You've been searching you've been crying out
Will you be destroyed by all your doubt?
You decide
(Who will you run to)
Wrong or right
(There is no reason)
For you to hide
Only love can change your life
You decide
God is calling out to you again
Let Him pull you, let Him take you in
From the fear that swallows up for your life
Will you stay the same or will you fight?
You decide
(Who will you run to)
Wrong or right
(There is no reason)
For you to hide
Only love can change your life
Only love can change your life
Every day you hold on to your lonely broken heart
(It's tearing you apart)
God is calling out to you just let healing start
(Will you open up and let Him in)
You decide
(Who will you run to)
Wrong or right
(There is no reason)
For you to hide
Only love can change your life
You decide
~You Decide
By: Fireflight
no big story or significant connection here. too tired to go do creative interperative stuff, so i just put up the lyrics to whatever song was on at the very second i posted this shot. pandora radio = win.
couldnt sleep. no, not by choice, i layed down, head on pillow, 2 hours passed, im stil up. couldnt find anything to occupy my mind so i went back into some old files of possible HDR processing shots that i never made time to explore. there are specific reasons why i choose not to spend too much time fixing these batches up, this being a good example... overprocessed is an understatement, and sadly, without doing so, the entire set would be in the recycle bin. this one however, showed promise in the raw stages, but once it came together, it proved to be more work and attention to detail than i was willing to apply when i was shooting this, thus making it ten times as much a hassel to process. GEESH!
ok there, i did something almost creative. i tilted my watermark and hid it in the photo, can you find it? muahaha.
in the words and hit song title by Paramore: "For a pessemist, i'm pretty optimistic." don't ya think?
have a great monday everyone.
Perhaps a dicey shot but something worth talking about! East Yorkshire have been given a new Amazon contract using their National Express vehicles. I'm guessing they use all 7 NX coaches for this, i've seen 6 so far (in the depot), the other one was probably out and about. I'm not sure how long this will be for, i don't know what will happen once NX routes resume...... again.... I believe this is for Craven Park but i may be wrong.
Seen at the depot reserving to go do it's Amazon route is the all-mighty East Yorshire 1, a 2018 Scania K410EB6 Caetano Levante 3. I won't be counting this a tick, don't worry.
This is dedicated to Mr Brian, thank you Bri for a wonderful testimonial, your words are so lovely. If you are interested in reading his wonderful words go here www.flickr.com/people/carshamus/ :)
Well I went out last night to take some shot at sunset, mother nature did not disappoint me and gave off a lovely display of colour. After taking a few here I raced around and got a few in the city as well. And even manages a few light trails as there were actually a couple of cars around. (not including me lol) It was great to be out taking shots again.
I plan on getting up tomorrow to go do some sunrises now the weather has cleared. I can sleep later lol Any takers on joining me let me know lol :)
Sooooooooooooooo today is Friday for me...wooo bloody whooooo lol Thursday for some and Saturday in the morn :) Have a great end to your week all :) Car
Today's Carsounds - www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPospvRqP_s
"Go drum, do go out
Make your hands ache - Play it out
Go march through crowds
Make your day break...
[...]
You will survive, we'll never stop wonders
You and sunrise will never fall under
We should always know that we can do anything."
i haven't been able to shoot new stuff for these past couple of days because i've been packing to go back to college (sunday!) / seeing friends before they go / doing all those last minute errands.
i'm kind of on the fence about this one. partly because i don't like uploading too many similar things from one shoot, partly because the idea here centers around contrast - light and dark, shy and bold, etc., and i don't know how i feel about the way that translates, if it does at all.
Inspired by Ali Edwards One Little Word challenge I created this arrow for myself... My word is GO. Go make stuff, Go play with my kids, Go do something you love....
Ok, some of you may vaguely recall this incident with the poaching and my blood boiling etc, well the ranger was able to track down the guy with the number plates and called to his house. He denied the accusation and as I hadn't thought to photograph them in action it was his word against mine :( HOWEVER the ranger said she put the fear of god was in him and it was unlikely he'd go do do it again, plus a sign (apparently) has been erected with a crayfish and a giant X, I haven't seen it as I'm to depressed to go back.
On the up side (an UPSIDE??) the time I went back to give a statement we found more people poaching and being with the ranger on this occasion meant they couldn't deny it, those little guys were saved, and THEE best news, they were fined €900 each, whoohoo!!! Justice at last!
PREVIOUS TEXT:
Well what can I say, if the end of this video doesn't bring a tear to your eye then you have to be made of stone... What the hell happened I hear you all say, well here this the background story, be prepared to feel really angry like I did, GRRRRRRR
I was going home to Mayo on Friday evening and decided to pull over at the Royal Canal at Lough Owel near Mullingar as I knew it was a stronghold for the white clawed crayfish (European Annex II designated and protected as it's endangered) and I wanted to get some footage with the underwater camera, however was bearing in mind the last time I was here there was no CF :(
I arrive and standing at the steps that lead down into the water is a shifty looking Eastern Europan (?) dude, he didn't seem to have much English but I was friendly and one stage thought maybe he loved CF as much as I did and would show him the pictures after. He seemed to understand he was kinda in my way and disappeared around the back of the old mill house. His pudgy son and beagle dog were around too, no doubt illegally taking the Perch from the other side of the old mill house but I didn't care so much about that.... anyway..... out of the corner of my eye I notice the son taking something out of the water/or from behind some bushes at the waters edge, I nearly died, a crateful of dead and dying CF!!! For F**KS sake! How pathetic and sad an individual would you have to be to think these guys are worth eating (and that's not even taking into account that they're protected and endangered!!).
So there I am, all alone, a little girl, 5ft1, no mobile phone, with a confrontation on her hands! I am thee most unconfrontational person ever, I hate it!! but I knew I had to say something or I'd never forgive myself and so I go up to the son and start a big rant along the lines of "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, THIS IS A WILDLIFE CRIME, I CAN CALL THE GUARDS RIGHT NOW (I can just see the guards raised eyebrow) PUT THEM BACK THIS INSTANT!" The son gave me a blank WTF look and said in a quite tone "I need to talk to my Dad" I'm thinking shit, this guy could tell me to f**k off, steal my camera and push me in the canal to die and slow death looking at the CF I just filmed.. I regained my composure and launched into the same rant all over again (see above), luckily for me he said nothing but walked back over to the 'step' and feiced all the poor ickle CF's into the water (yay) but... they all landed in a dead and dying pile as can be seen in the last scene of my video (the other clips were filmed prior to this horrible realisation that all these little guys were being exploited and poached).
I waited another 15 mins or so but had the distinct feeling as soon as I left these guys would be back in to collect their loot, may they all get chronic food poisoning and anyone else involved I say.
Now my next and final thing was to take pics of the 5 cars regs in the carpark, if this was Criminal Minds then Garcia would match the reg to a guy with a 10/11 year son and a beagle and then there would be a serious prosecution and signage put up so this would never happen again, however this is Ireland so while I will ring the NPWS tomorrow I have a distinct feeling nothing will happen as nothing ever does in this stupid country where wildlife ranks lower than....oh I don't know but something very insignificant! Not the fault of the NPWS may I add but the present government and especially the previous government, they cut this department so much I'm surprised they can function at all.
If you read this far I salute you! My biggest rant in a while!
Soundtrack is Terrible Love by The National
Ash :(
Painted this on saturday along side yems and storm. Was raining outside and I was feeling a bit hung over but we decided around 4 to get off our asses and go do something. Grabbed a bunch of cans without thinking too much and just headed out.
Found this interior spot right between two windows that made me want to try this little piece out. Added the greens hands after to have it be more involved in the wall ...
All in all a fun day. I painted this real quickly then just spent the rest of the time kicking back and messing about. Should've thought out my colors a bit more before grabbing them but whatever ...
Roma, ITALY
I'm going doing a big update of the photos on my website so going through lots of hard-drive looking for suitable pictures to complete the galleries. Here's one taken before dawn of the Trevi. Not my favourite place during the day but full of atmosphere was the sun goes down.
Canon 5D, 17-40mm 4L, f11, 10s, Gitzo tripod
WEEK 22 – Principle Toyota of Hernando
For our final shot today – and of this album – here’s one last, angled view of the front of the all-new Principle Toyota of Hernando. As I’ve said, this is Hernando’s first modern-day car dealership, and it looks very nice, so this is all quite the spectacle, at least as far as I’m concerned. I’m not sure if I’ll ever showcase any other car dealerships in my photostream since those are just old news up along Goodman Road in Southaven (“if it doesn’t say Landers, you paid too much!”), but hopefully you enjoyed this week’s change of pace, and found it as noteworthy of a development as I did :)
Now: since I’ve just written this week’s entire set of 15 descriptions all in one sitting, it’s time for me to get up and go do something else, haha! NEXT WEEK – a liquidation begins…
Principle Toyota of Hernando // 2887 McIngvale Road S, Hernando, MS 38632
(c) 2020 Retail Retell
These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)
haunt me wherever I go.
I'm itching to go do another photoshoot. I never expected senior year to be so freakin' stressful ahhh! Or maybe it's because I spend all of my time on flickr! I need to find some time for myself
Explore Oct 26, 2008!
I just bought a 50 mm lens! Wooooo!
© Sarah Allegra
One year ago today, Calantha went to the Rainbow Bridge. It has been a very difficult year, both internally and externally. There were many times when I didn't feel like I'd be able to make it, that the weight of my grief would crush me. Somehow I did make it, though it was often a moment-to-moment struggle with gritted teeth to survive. Getting Lissar in January helped tremendously, but I also needed time without a dog, to honor the hole Calantha's absence left in my life. To say, this beautiful creature was here and my life will never be the same... in good ways and in grief.
There is a lot of grief in the world right now and great unrest. And rightly so; we need to take a very hard look at our society and redo the parts that are contributing to systemic racism. Black lives do matter and equality needs to be ensured for all. These times are painful, but we need to pass through them to get to the changes we must make.
When I knew that Calantha's time was, barring a miracle, quickly running out, I asked my therapist for any advice on dealing with the agony that would be coming. "The only way I know through grief is to go through it," she told me. "Let yourself feel what you need to feel. Don't try to find shortcuts, just keep going through it." I can say that I do believe she's absolutely correct in this (as she always is). If you are also having a difficult time, if you're grieving and in pain, that's ok. Let yourself feel the things you need to feel. These emotions need to be felt, fully and deeply, honored and then you can move past them. Until you do that, you're stuck.
Also, the often-cited "steps" of grief are pretty meaningless. Not only were they not created as a roadmap through living grief (they were intended to help terminally ill people, not those left behind), it's not a linear path. You might find acceptance one day, then find yourself back to anger the next. And that's ok. Let that be ok for you. You will forge your own way; no two people will have the exact same steps. I found a grief journal with prompts to be very helpful, but you might find other things that help you. That's ok too.
Calantha was one of a kind and no one will ever replace her. She was effortlessly beautiful, graceful, with a radiant aura of kind gentleness that meant I could trust her in any situation we found ourselves in. Toddler wants to pet her? She'll graciously put up with any clumsiness. I find myself with an armful of baby opossums? She will only want to try to lick and mother them (I kept them apart anyway, but it was a relief to have one less thing to worry about). I could rely on her more than any human. That's part of the magic of dogs.
I know that she paw-selected Lissar as the next companion, best friend and member of my pack. While they are different in many ways from each other, each is equally perfect for me. I am very grateful to her for maneuvering things from the other side, for making sure that I'd have another incredible friend to share my life with. I wanted to portray both of them in this image, but I wasn't sure how Lissar would feel about modeling. Calantha grew up with a photographer/artist mother so she was already used to posing by the time she was an adult, but Lissar has only lived with me for a few months. I decided I would play Calantha and let Lissar be herself, if she wanted to join me for the image. The moment I sat on the floor, costume on, made up, wig on, she hurried over to flop herself across my lap. She was wonderful.
Here's to my two girls. My life would be much smaller, lack meaning and joy without them in it. And I know that Calantha is still a part of me, and a part of my life. Nothing can break the bond we share. She, obviously, still watches over me and makes sure I'm doing ok. I will see her again. And while that doesn't erase the pain I feel at her not being here physically now, it's comforting. Love conquers all, even death. Especially death. She is still here with me and she always will be. Always.
I have a number of activities to do today to grieve, honor and remember Cal with today, so I'm going to go do those. If you ever had the pleasure of meeting Calantha, or knew her through me, I invite you to share a favorite memory of her. She will never be forgotten, even,to steal a line from Peter S Beagle, when men are fairytales in books written by rabbits.
See my blog for detailed shots and more about this image and the symbolism behind it.
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and maybe those troubles you have
could disappear into the night sky
maybe each burden you carry
could float up into the night
and maybe they would become stars
could you ever see what you have become?
maybe you search for contentment
could it just be you are looking in the wrong spaces?
and maybe you will realize you can over come it all
and be with me.
sooc. film.
So the other day it was about 10:30 or so, and my uncle walks in and says, "what are you doing???" I respond by saying, "uh, nothing.." So he says that he wants to go do something so we pick a 11pm movie, go to that, then we go to In-n-Out. Which happens to be just amazing. Then around 1am, we go to Walmart to see weird people and shop. There were not many weird people but we did get blue oreos, chips, a tub of cookie dough and goldfish.
Then today I went out and found another antique shop! I bought a Kodak film camera for 5 bucks, then film for it for 3 bucks (It's a very old camera with special film) then another film camera for a dollar!!! It's a good day so far (: I also picked pomegranates off my grandparents tree and now I think I will lay in the sun. Well, whoever just read this, thanks (:
We made it to the end of 2016! I've chosen a heck of a year to take on this very ambitious 366 day challenge. I set off with the goal to bring you all a daily photo post (images not shown in my portfolio prior), garnered from imagery captured in previous years, lost in a pool of hard drives, but also photographed from this year's travels. You see it as a quick flip of your thumb or scroll of the mouse, but behind the scenes, each day's post involves hours of digging deep in archives, finding an image that spoke to me and presenting it to the world. Every image is tagged, mapped, and meticulously massaged to my liking. I researched locations to bring out facts, wrote musings and ramblings, and cursed often at my nagging writer's block.
One thing to note: I have no complaints about this choice â it's been one of the best projects I've taken on. It has forced me to experiment, relearn processing techniques, hone my skills and even find a lot of beautiful images I had already captured and forgotten about (many of which are my new favorites)! For anyone who desires to be an artist or further their skills â go do and do often. Don't stop and keep moving forward. All castles are built brick by brick.
I started on January 1st of 2016 and today's post should be the last, however, there were a few days skipped due to personal reasons or lack of internet during travel days. You'll see those remaining posts in the coming days.
Somewhere in all of this, for those in the know, my wife and I welcomed a new daughter to the world last March. As all parents know (and we quickly learned), sleep is depreciated heavily in these early years. But we keep our beautiful daughter involved and at nine months old now, she has already visited 18 states and 21 National Park locations. I'm quite proud that she's getting the opportunity to travel and experience the world.
I want to say thank you to all of you for the support and encouraging likes, comments and shares over the past year. And a mega-big thanks to my wife who believes in my efforts and keeps me on task. I do this because it gives a smile to those in need, offers a path to learn something new, and even provides a pause in the every day monotony for many. This is far from being a lucrative endeavor, in the monetary sense, but the value in experience often outweighs the negatives. Keep supporting your artist friends, their dreams and their passions because they make the world a better place. It's a long winding road to success but let's enjoy the view at every turn.
I wish you all a happy, safe New Years and I look forward to wandering in wonder with you next year!
when you sleep where do your fingers go?
what do your fingers know,
what do your fingers show,
where do your fingers go?
do they tremble on the edge of the bed,
or do you fold them neatly by your head,
do they clench like claws against your own skin,
when you're living your day all over again
do they play guitar in a latin bar,
are they strangers or lovers
do they drive your car?
are they swimming submissively
through acts of life,
or just cutting through jello with a very sharp knife?
when you sleep where do your fingers go?
are they pulling out weeds from the dusty soil,
but then never rewarded with the fruits of their toil?
when you sleep,
do they tremble on the edge of the bed,
or do you fold them neatly by your head?
For ODC: "Faceless portrait" OK, there are faces but not mine! Just my hand... : P
View Large on Black at www.thewindypixel.com!
I missed the Blues Festival. Sacrilege, I know. More so given that I am a big fan of blues music (I’ve sworn to myself I’ll bring my camera along with me the next time I head to the Kingston Mines). I could hear the festival from where I was shooting south along the lakefront, but it was too late by the time I made it north and I had to leave for home. I did, however, make it to the Taste of Chicago this past weekend to enjoy some food and take a few pictures. As you can see in the image below, there was quite a storm blowing in from the west and I didn’t get too many shots off before the rain scattered the crowd.
The Taste is the authentic Chicago festival. It is loud, it is crowded, it’s expensive, its messy (the garbage “juice” is a thing of legends for those who have worked there), and it features food that can be had in larger portions for less money the rest of the year in comfort. Yet, millions of us flock there every year to bitch about the heat and spend $5 on three chicken wings. It’s magic – can you think of anything more like Chicago? Here’s a link for more information – dates, vendors, schedules, etc…
I bought my wife a camera as a gift a few months ago – she’s been so busy that we’ve rarely had a chance to go do some photography together. Click through to tWp to see Val's pic!
Feel free right now, going do what you want to do
Can’t let nobody take it away, from you, from me, from we
No time for moping around, are you kidding?
And no time for negative vibes, cause I’m winning
It’s been a long week, I put in my hardest
Gonna live my life, feels so good to get it right
Nathan and Ozz track down one of the spies mentioned in Mayla's destroyed Manifest, but they run into obstacles. Enter an unexpected ally, a mysterious young man who might be able to help them in their mission, but Ozz resents the intrusion of another goody-two-shoes human into his and Nathan's still-new partnership.
Suffering a bit of turbulence on re-entry, Nathan stumbled against one of the Lucky Star’s bulkheads. As soon as he made impact, an overhead storage bin flapped open, spilling junk onto the floor.
“Hey, watch that spot, would you?” Ozz complained. “It’s loose!”
“No kidding? That nearly hit me in the head!”
“Well then, watch that spot!”
“I’m going to make some…adjustments to your ship when we land, I swear. This thing is a death trap.”
“Stow it and grab a seat, we’re comin’ in on Yavin IV.”
The Lucky Star hurried down out of orbit, over the vast green jungles covering the fourth moon of Yavin. Nathan reached across the dashboard to point at a temple that breached the trees.
"Massassi 12, that's got to be it. See the landing beacons?"
"Yeah, yeah. I can land the ship myself! You must think I need help, but I don’t. Perfectly capable on my own…"
“Someone seems hangry.”
“Shut it.”
Their craft sunk below the dense, green foliage to join a few other starships at a makeshift landing platform. The buzz of activity reached them from the temple grounds.
Nathan and Ozz made for the market to get the lay of the land. Massassi 12 was originally just a private dig site, but then merchants arrived to service the guards and archeologists. Colonists and refugees followed the merchants, and they were followed by more merchants, and before long Massassi 12 had become a colony all of its own.
The dig site itself had only become more exclusive and well-guarded in response to the surge in population. Armed guards stood watch at the crumbling old entrances, keeping things quiet for the researchers inside. There was a thin film between the bustling markets in the stone courtyards and the secretive work happening meters away.
The ruins were pretty impressive. The ground was mostly broken cobblestones, and tarps and trees overhead created shade. Merchants had built their stalls on the bedrock of the ruined temple grounds, a strange kind of contrast to Nathan’s fresh perspective.
Ozz gave one of the guards a wary eye. "There's no way we're getting in there. Oh well! Guess we’ll give up. I wasn’t too excited about all this anyway."
Nathan looked at him incredulously. “I thought you wanted a payday?”
“Yeah, well, I also want to live. That guard looks like he wants his payday too.”
Nathan shook his head. “I'm not giving up just like that. There's an Imperial spy on this planet, Mayla’s Manifest listed this settlement as one of the hotspots. I bet you they're not far."
Ozz smelled the money in that. "I'm still not convinced you can bring home the bacon. Flying isn't free! You go do what you're gonna do, I can make busy for a few hours..."
"Yeah, you can. I’ll need your help, Ozz."
Ozz was pleased to hear it, but hid any sign of being so behind a veneer of suspicion. He raised a wispy white eyebrow. "You want help, you gotta have a plan. Let me hear your plan."
Nathan laid out what he had so far. The Iakaru wasn't impressed.
"Nope, no sir! I'm not playing your muscle. Nobody would believe it anyway, I'm obviously the brains of the operation."
Nathan frowned. "It's the best I've got. Do you want to get this bounty? You know it means money, right? You like money, don't you?"
"You do what you want to do, nerd," Ozz said, shrugging. "I'm gonna sample the local wares, breath some fresh air, and come up with a better plan."
He turned to leave, nearly walking into someone in the process. A man in a black tunic, wearing a brown cloak, had approached them from a nearby alley.
"Excuse me, sorry to eavesdrop,” the man said calmly. “But...I'm on your side. The Archeologists have things pretty tight, don't they?"
Nathan and Oz exchanged looks. The 'are we in trouble' kind. They turned towards the man, prepared to disavow anything they'd said.
Nathan peered at the man's face. He didn't look dangerous. He had wide blue eyes, sandy hair...he looked trustworthy. Of course, that really meant nothing. Danger came in all forms. Mayla came to Nathan's mind (not an uncommon occurance): she was cute, and he’d trusted her, but she was also an Imperial spy. He probably needed to be a little more on guard.
"You've got a good plan, and I can help," the stranger continued. "You should see some of the places I've just...walked inside."
Ozz crossed his arms. "Oh yeah? Like what?" He challenged.
The stranger shrugged. "A dangerous tribal village...a Hutt's palace...an Imperial base..."
"Pretty good resume...if it's TRUE. What do you want out of it?"
"Same thing as you: a look at what they've dug up, and to expose any spies. And like you, I'd rather get it over with quickly. Let's just say I'd like to avoid any entanglements."
Ozz stared up into the hood suspiciously, jabbing a finger at the man's chest. "You some kind of bounty hunter? We've got claim, pal."
"No, no! I'm just a do-gooder,” said the man, smiling and holding his hands up peacefully. “I promise, I don't mean you any harm."
Nathan was feeling a bit more cheered about his plan, and the idea of having another co-conspirator that wasn’t Ozz didn’t hurt. "It's not our place to judge," Nathan said. "And I guess we could use some actual muscle."
Ozz looked alarmed, and pulled Nathan by the lapels of his jacket into a private conversation.
"Are you kidding me? You let the first guy we see join our secret mission?"
"I trust him. I mean, come on, it's not crazy that someone might want to help uncover an Imperial spy."
“I thought this was just you and me, kid!”
“I thought you didn’t want to do my plan? This guy does,” Nathan said smugly.
Ozz, who felt somewhat betrayed and cast aside (though it was up for discussion whether he had any right to complain), tried to manage his grumbling expression. He threw up his hands.
"...Geez, fine, he seems alright. But you gotta get out more." The Iakaru sighed. "I guess we can make him the fall guy, instead of you."
Nathan gave him an admonishing look. Ozz brushed it off.
“I’m jokin’, obviously.”
They turned back to the hooded stranger, who had been waiting patiently while they talked. Nathan extended his hand, which the stranger shook.
"You're in. What should we call you?"
"I'm Luke," said the stranger. "Ozz, Nathan, right?"
Ozz glowered. He still didn’t trust this newcomer. He seemed a little too knowledgeable. "You catch on fast, clean-cut."
"Yeah, nice to meet you, Luke." Nathan glanced at his short, grumpy companion with a wry smile. "Hey Ozz, you don’t have to play muscle anymore, you’re off the hook.”
Ozz crossed his arms and grumbled, “Oh boy. You got anything for me to do? You gonna include me in this little plan? Or is this guy your new partner?” he jabbed a thumb at Luke.
"He’ll warm up to you,” Nathan said, grinning. He tried to come up with someone useful for the Iakaru to do. “You can be on lookout, Ozz. Let me go change clothes, and then we'll do this thing."
"That's right, Inspector Strader, from the CFS Research Grant Foundation,” Nathan said in his firmest, most confident voice. “As I told you before, the CFS is interested in contributing funding to your research, but they'll require an audit of your operation's safety standards before they even consider sending a credit."
"All our credentials check out," Luke added gently.
The guard left to bring someone in charge. A researcher, fresh from the dig site, approached with a suspicious look already on her face. But as Nathan explained his purpose, her manner became much more open and welcoming. Something about "tens of thousands of credits in grant funding" seemed to help her relax. Luke wasn't a problem: he apparently came off as trustworthy to everyone else, too.
"I see! Well, we'll need to have you carefully watched, but allow me to show you around the site."
"I'll need full access. And I'll need my assistant, of course."
The researcher frowned and met eyes with the guard. Nathan looked aside to Luke, who smiled reassuringly.
"I'm not going to be a problem," he told the suspicious scientist. She stared, her face contorting as though she was struggling to make a decision, but finally she turned to the guard. "He's not going to be a problem. Let them in."
Once inside, they had to move quickly. Nathan played the role of overbearing, severe safety inspector, checking over everything and making all the researchers very nervous. It was the sort of long plan that would fall apart in the hands of a conman, but Nathan came with the experience, appearance, and know-how needed. He just walked around and inspected their safety standards for real, occasionally mentioning some jargon to communicate his authenticity.
Seemingly unnoticed, Luke ducked away to peek into the project records and the personnel communications.
Meanwhile, Ozz had nothing to do. He stood on an outer corner of the dig site and watched pedestrians amble by.
“Keep walkin’,” he barked at a leering thug, a gran who kept watching him even as he walked on. Guys with that look were trouble.
“Blondie sure takes over everything, doesn’t he? Hah, ‘partners’ my arp. Doesn’t need Ozzie anymore, does he? Not now that he’s got the majestic hooded child-man. Pah! Nerd’s gonna get killed one day, trusting every loser he sees.”
The thought surfaced that Nathan had also, in fact, trusted Ozz himself on many occasions when others had not, and had stood up for him the first several times he was in-line to be fired from the plant on Targonn. He pushed this thought down somewhere deep and dark and summarily ignored it. After all, he’d let him get fired in the end anyway, so what difference did it make? And he knew he hadn’t done anything to deserve that.
“Pah! ‘Lookout duty’. What a load of plog. Might as well have gone back to the ship,” he mumbled bitterly to himself.
The more he thought about it, the more that sounded like a great idea. He was doing absolutely nothing here, except wearing out his legs and offering all the local pickpockets an enticing challenge. Cursing humans (Nathan in particular), Ozz stomped off through the crowds, heading back for the landing pad.
Ozz was napping soundly in the Lucky Star’s cockpit when he was suddenly awoken by the beeping of his comlink.
“Ozz, are you there? OZZ!”
Ozz lurched up in his chair and smacked the transmit button. “What?” he said groggily.
“Are we clear? Is the coast clear?”
“Oh yeah, yeah. Super clear,” the Iakaru replied, still half-asleep. The comlink went silent, and Ozz once again began to snore.
Ozz’s dreams were tumultuous.
“Get out of here! I don’t want to see your face again!”
“But, pop! I swear I got it this next time, no more problems!”
“Get out!” the father screamed. “You’ve been nothing but trouble since the day we first had the misfortune to call you our son! You will always be a problem, and we cannot have more problems! Leave my house, or I’ll call security!”
“You know what, that’s fine!” the son shouted back. “You stupid old fool! You think you’re always right? I don’t gotta be what you think is right. I’ll be what I think is right, and do what I wanna do, and I’ll be just dandy, watch!”
“You idiot, you’re making your mother weep!”
“Oh sure, I’m—that was YOU!” the son yelled. He was shaking with rage. His father looked ready to kill. “Whatever, I’m outta here…See ya never, pops!”
He heard his father launch into another tirade over the sound of his mother crying, but he didn’t look back. He never did.
Ozz was rudely awoken again, this time by Nathan and Luke as they came hurtling into the parked ship.
“Ozz! Get out the medkit!” Nathan shouted.
Ozz flew out of his seat, blinking sleep from his eyes. “Wha-what?”
“A medkit, Ozz! Luke’s hit!”
Ozz flailed into action, popping the latch on a storage container and rummaging inside for the medkit. “Medkit! Right! It’s here somewhere, I know it…”
Nathan was supporting Luke up the ramp, and helped heave him into a chair. Smoke rose from a blaster burn on Luke’s leg.
Ozz’s eyes widened. “Geez, kid! What in the world happened?”
“Bounty hunters,” Luke groaned. “Looking for me. Sorry to make things more complicated.”
Nathan turned to Ozz, glaring. “Wouldn’t have been a problem if someone was where they were supposed to be! ‘Super clear’? You’ve got to be kidding me…where’s that Medkit?”
Ozz blinked again, staring dumbly at the two humans. “…Bounty hunters? But…”
When it was clear the medkit was somewhere deep in the recesses of the ship, Nathan threw up his hands.
“I’ve got to go find a doctor. Wrap something around that wound!” he called back, and he ran down the ramp and back towards the ruins.
Ozz finally came to his senses, and found some loose old clothes to use as wrappings. He knelt by Luke, wincing. “Geez, doesn’t look too good, pal…”
Luke, to his credit, smiled. “I’ve had worse,” he said through his teeth.
“Hey, look, I’m—I feel terrible—“ Ozz managed.
“I appreciate it, but…things happen as they’re meant to. No hard feelings.”
“Well, that’s bunk. But…Aw, geez. Let me keep lookin’ for that medkit. You keep that pressure on good and tight, you got it?”
“Sure, sure,” Luke replied, grimacing.
Soon, Nathan had returned with someone in tow. He came up the ramp followed by two males: a polished man in a coat, along with his Gran assistant…
The Gran from before, the one that was trouble.
“How did this happen?” asked the doctor, hurrying over to the wounded young man.
“Uh, a…weapons malfunction,” Nathan lied, badly.
Ozz immediately knew, with the kind of instinct honed over many years, that these guys were here for Luke. And not here for Luke in a nice, supportive way. Here for Luke in a bounty hunting way.
He kept himself from shouting. They weren’t tipping their hand. He couldn’t either.
The doctor took something out of his coat. “Just a bacta stim, do not worry.”
That was no bacta stim. Wrong fluid color, wrong consistency. Ozz didn’t know what he was about to inject into Luke, but it wasn’t gonna heal him.
The Gran shot him a look. Its hand inched towards its jacket, where a concealed blaster sat holstered. The look said, “Don’t interfere.”
To hell with that, Ozz thought. He made a fist, and bashed the wall with his hand. In a very specific spot.
The overhead storage unit flopped open, spilling debris and a large white case—the Medkit. The deluge of junk hit the Gran in the head, and he fell to the floor with a ‘thwump!’
The doctor spun to look, then, realizing he’d lost his backup, tried to jab the dubious stim into Luke’s leg. Before he could, a “SCHWISH” sound filled the ship, and he found himself stopped by the glow of a blade of green light. Ozz and Nathan leapt back with shouts of alarm. The doctor, only inches from the humming weapon, blinked and gasped in terror, his hand frozen in the air.
Luke, sweaty and injured, stared the man in the eye.
“I’ll let you choose what you do next.”
Nathan and Ozz dropped both of the Bounty Hunters off with a local constable, but the dangerous looks they got made them beat a path back to the Lucky Star as quickly as they could.
“Where did you go, Ozz?” Nathan said angrily.
“What?” Ozz grunted.
“You were supposed to be on lookout, where did you go?” Nathan demanded.
“Back to my ship, of course. Where else would I go?”
“You weren’t supposed to go anywhere in the first place. If you hadn’t, he might not have gotten shot!”
Ozz spun toward him, jabbing a finger at his chest. “Whatcha gonna do about it, you gonna fire me? Huh? Well you can’t, because without my ship, you’re nowhere. And what about you, huh? Your bright-eyed view of the galaxy just almost got us all killed! You wanna check somebody out with me next time you bring ‘em on board my ship? Oh, and that’s right, you’d be on Targonn in cuffs if not for me, and MY SHIP!”
Nathan backed down, speechless. Breathing hard, Ozz slowly cooled off too. They both stood awkwardly outside the Lucky Star, avoiding having to look at each other.
“You’re right,” Nathan admitted.
Ozz let out a heavy sigh. “Yeah, yeah…well, maybe you are too, about part of this,” he mumbled.
Nathan looked sheepishly at his companion. “Ozz, I’m sorry.”
The Iakaru turned and glowered at him. “Look here, you don’t you cut me out of plans, and you don’t bring just anyone you see onto our operation! We’re partners, ain’t that what you said back on Garel? We’re doing this bounty hunting gig together, until you pay me what you owe me! You don’t just charge ahead without the both of us bein’ okay with it. That goes for everything we do, you got it?”
Nathan nodded seriously. “…That’s…yeah. Agreed.”
“…Well…good. Glad that’s settled, then,” Ozz muttered. He hadn’t expected so little resistance, but Nathan was obviously sincere. “Let’s…get back onboard, huh?”
They turned to ascend the ramp.
“Hey nerd,” Oz said. “Still worried about the overhead bins?”
“Are you kidding me? Way more than before. Now the Star is a proven deathtrap.”
“But a useful deathtrap!”
Onboard, Nathan and Luke briefed Ozz on what they’d gotten from the dig site, before the Bounty Hunters had jumped them. Luke managed to extract not only the identity of the Imperial Spy, based on info Nathan gave him, but he had found communication records locked up with old Imperial codes; nearly verifiable proof of Imperial activity.
“But that’s not all,” Nathan said with a sigh. “It also looks like the dig site is partly funded by some sketchy, Imperial-linked sources. That means they probably won’t turn over one of their own researchers just because we say he’s an Imperial.”
“Hmm, makes things tough,” Ozz agreed. “Maybe we can make this guy disappear some other way. Grab him when he makes a borka run, or somethin’?”
“Maybe.”
Ozz stood up and rummaged in the storage unit. “Well, you think about it, I’m gonna rustle us up some grub. Who likes Tortaul?”
“Only in stew,” Luke said. “My aunt used to make great Tortaul stew.”
“Well, I ain’t your aunt. No promises.”
Smiling, Nathan went to step outside. “I’m gonna get some air. Be back in a few.”
They had what they needed: the identity of the spy, and proof of his wrongdoing. But learning about the Imperial funding complicated things; there was no guarantee that trying to turn the spy over wouldn’t land them in even deeper trouble. Nathan stood outside the Lucky Star, looking into the night-dark tree line and listening to the sounds of the forest, conflict roiling in his head. He must’ve been too deep in thought to notice Luke approach him.
“Nice work today,” he said.
“Thanks, you too.”
Luke looked at him closely. “Everything alright?”
“Sure, sure…” Nathan replied, but it was hollow and untrue. Luke knew it. His incredulous look made Nathan scoff at himself, and he relaxed his defenses.
“Well, no.”
“I thought so,” Luke said kindly. “What’s on your mind?”
Nathan took a deep breath. “Right now, the Empire isn’t causing any trouble,” he said. “This place is…peaceful. I’m not sure how we’re going to stop the spy. If we can’t trust the law here, then we might have to take things into our own hands. It feels…I don’t know. It almost feels wrong to bring violence somewhere where things are peaceful.”
Luke thought for a moment before responding. “Things aren’t peaceful, just quiet. I know what you mean, Nathan, but you have to look past the way that things appear and see what they really are.”
“…What do you mean?”
“The Empire isn’t oppressing this place, you’re right. But their research here could lead to the deaths of people elsewhere. It wouldn’t be the first time.” He turned to the younger man, his expression serious. “Just because evil is speaking in a whisper doesn’t mean we should stop up our ears and ignore it.”
That made sense to Nathan, and he saw a clear path through part of his confusion. “Okay, you’re right. Being afraid to start trouble now could mean much worse for someone later. So, what do we do?” he asked helplessly. “Murder the spy? How can that be right?”
Luke raised an eyebrow. “Is that your only possible option?”
Nathan thought for a moment. He was being dumb. “No,” he admitted.
“What else is there?”
Nathan hesitated before answering. He wanted to be confident of his reply. “…We confront him. We let him make the choice. If we have to, we use our weapons in defense. Otherwise, we take him to somewhere he’ll never hurt someone again.”
Luke nodded. “I think that’s wise. See? There’s always a right way. Sometimes you have to look hard to see it, but it’s always there.”
“Thanks for helping me look.”
Luke smiled and clapped him on the back. “Anytime! I think Ozz has something resembling food ready.”
Dinner was surprisingly edible. Ozz had spiced the stew with a variety of flavoring cocktails he’d picked up on his travels. It turns out he perceived himself as something of a gourmet.
“My specialty is taking trash, and turning it into a bee-ute-a-ful artful masterpiece,” he had said, grinning toothily in a way that did not inspire confidence.
“We need a plan. What have we got to work with? Tell me about everything you have on the ship, Ozz. Anything that could be useful.”
“Useful for…”
“Specifically, for hunting bounties. But I don’t want you to leave anything out, so think useful for anything at all.”
They talked over their bowls about how to trap the Imperial spy and eventually decided on a final plan, one that mitigated the risk of their untimely deaths. It was nevertheless a bold plan, once that was to be executed that very night. They busied themselves with finding the various pieces of equipment they would need, and stumbled on a few along the way that Ozz had either neglected to mention, or had never seen in his life, so deep had they delved into the Lucky Star’s storage bins.
“Luke, you should stay here.” Nathan said.
“No, no, I’m coming along, you guys will want the help—“
Nathan shook his head sternly, glancing at Ozz. They had obviously talked it over in private. “I appreciate that, but this is something we’ve got to do on our own.”
“Not like we’ll have ya next time, clean-cut,” Ozz added.
“Besides, you should rest that leg.”
Luke was surprised, but he complied with their wishes. He borrowed a bunk on the Lucky Star for the night, and saw them off with a wish of good luck.
Ked Ereda said goodnight to his fellow researchers and stole away to the communications relay. Tense, he watched the stone entrance for any interruptions while he uploaded the most recent batch of encoded data, but once again, he was undiscovered and successful.
He slept in a habitat just outside the ruin complex, a Spartan, bare space that befitted a servant. This suited him. His life for the cause. His comfort, as well. His comfort was the dream of a new Sith Empire, the kind of the former order could only have dreamed of. But he had done the research, seen things in his studies. These temples were their monuments. He would bleed for the honor to scrape the stones they’d walked on.
His nature had him keep away from the main paths, preferring to go unnoticed by the rabble who leeched off the dig site. He crossed into the shadows of a narrow passage, stone on both sides and tangled vines overhead.
Someone stepped into his path ahead. Instinctively, he turned to go back, but another had blocked him there. One tall, one stocky, both wearing helmets that hid their faces. He ground his teeth. Muggers, no doubt. He carried nothing valuable, the fools could do what they liked.
“You’re Dr. Ereda, aren’t you?” said the taller one.
Ereda raised his hands. “I have nothing of value, please, leave me be,” he said carefully.
“Ha! Nothing of value?” scoffed the shorter. “Why? Didja already send it off to your Imperial pals?”
The researcher paled in the darkness. They knew. How could they know? His mind flew to the capsule embedded his wisdom teeth. He knew what he was supposed to do, but Dr. Ereda did not welcome death.
“Hit it, Nate.”
A flash of blue came from the taller thug, and Dr. Ereda felt a strange, painless shock course through his body. An ion blast. Startled, he realized this would disable the disintegration capsule. How could they have known? These were no simple thugs, these creatures were a threat to the dream.
He grabbed for the knife at his belt.
“Feisty, eh? Wait…Nate! Stop him before he--!”
Nathan rushed forward and grabbed the man’s wrist, just as he had been pushing the knife towards his own throat.
“Woah, not today, pal!” he said as they struggled, and the knife was knocked safely away. “You’re coming with us, doctor!”
Dr. Ereda felt something hot press into his back. His body jolted, and he slumped to the ground, stunned and unconscious.
Ozz pocketed the stunner and depolarized the visor of the old EVA harness he was wearing, revealing the wide grin on his face. Nathan followed suit with his old mining helmet.
“Not bad, nerd! Not bad at all!” Ozz said. “You’re scrappier than I thought. Gotta admit, Ozzie’s a little bit—a tiny bit—impressed. Where the hell’d you learn to hit like that?”
“Grew up in an orphanage,” Nathan said, his breath short. “Comes with the territory, I guess.”
“Huh! We might just be able to do this bounty hunting thing!”
Nathan gave him a wry smile. “What, you had doubts?”
“Only ‘bout you,” Ozz grunted, as he tried to lift the limp, flailing form of the unconscious spy. “But hey, gotta admit, that helmet helps you look the part. Covers up the serious, snot-nosed brat face of yours. Help me out here, would ya?”
Nathan positioned himself at the man’s torso while Ozz had the legs. “I can’t believe that didn’t go wrong. I was sure it was going to wrong.”
“Hey, bring back the optimism, would ya? You know, you’re not bad for muscle. Wanna be my official employee?”
“Shut up.”
They were lucky the streets were quiet, they only had to spin a “he had a little too much to drink” explanation a few times, and nobody seemed interested in questioning them any further. Apparently, Massassi 12 was a terrible place to get kidnapped if you’re relying on community spirit to come to your aid.
When they reached the ship, they found Luke sitting just outside. He smiled and clapped as they set the man down.
“Hey! You guys did it, you apprehended an Imperial spy.”
“Well, kid, we are professionals,” Ozz boasted.
Luke’s smile took on a wry quality. “Sure, sure, and these spies aren’t what they were a few years ago, but…”
Nathan gave Luke a pained look. He grinned.
“…But still, you should be proud,” he said earnestly, and then he stood in preparation to leave. “Thank you both, you helped me find what I was looking for.”
“Hey, likewise, clean-cut!”
Nathan stepped forward, worry creasing his face. “Luke, did you find anything about Mayla?”
“No, I didn’t,” replied the young man, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Nathan.”
Nathan’s face fell, and the hope left him in a sigh. Before he could get too despondent, Luke continued.
“But I have something else. A lead on what Moff Pyerce is looking for. If you’re able to find it first, maybe you’ll find her too.”
“Yes! I’ll take anything you’ve got.”
“Pyerce is searching for old artifacts, holocrons, objects used to store knowledge by both the Jedi and the Sith in ages past.”
“He must be getting desperate, I thought all that stuff was just fairy tales.”
“Maybe less than you think,” Luke said with a coy smile. “Nathan, can I trust you to help me with something?”
Nathan nodded seriously. Ozz rolled his eyes at the two humans, who were painfully sincere from his point of view.
Luke produced a small, weathered book, which he held out to Nathan. “These are just a few notes I’ve written down while searching for similar objects. You can take them, they might help on your search.”
“Wow, thanks—“
“If you could, I’d like you to add to them as you go. One day, when we meet again, I want to hear about what you learned.”
Nathan looked at the book, skimmed its contents, and looked up at Luke with wide eyes. “You want…my help? Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have your book?”
“I trust you, Nathan. I sense a good heart in you. Besides, I remember everything in the book.”
Ozz looked on, speechless, as Nathan eagerly stepped forward and shook the man’s hand. “I’d be glad to.”
“Great,” Luke smiled. “As for your next steps, I recommend the planet Ossus. There’s a Duros there, studying the ancient Jedi ruins. His name is Abay. He should be able to help you out.” Luke lifted his hood over his head, and turned back before leaving. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Nathan. Take care of each other! May the Force be with both of you.”
Nathan looked at him quizzically. “Uh, sure. You too, with the force thing.”
“Huh,” Ozz grunted. “It’s been real, clean-cut. Take care of yourself, alright?"
Luke grinned and nodded. “I will.”
Then he turned, and disappeared into the darkness of Yavin’s jungle.
Ozz and Nathan stood there for a moment, watching where he had been, before they finally returned to the present.
“Weird guy,” said Nathan, staring at the book he’d been given.
“Sure is,” Ozz agreed. “No wonder you two get along.” He turned and gave the unconscious spy a gentle kick.
“Alright, Payday. Let’s get you to a guild broker, eh? I got fuel to put in my tank.” He leaned down to drag the man up the ramp. “You get to share a closet with the droid.”
Once everything was settled, they raised the ramp and took their spots in the cockpit.
“We’ve got a heading. We’re looking for these ‘holocron’ things. If we can beat Pyerce’s agents to them, that’s our best bet of stopping whatever he’s got planned.”
“And findin’ yer girl.”
“And finding Mayla.”
“This better not be a wild bantha chase,” Ozz said, shaking his head. “We’re still gonna make money, right?”
Nathan nodded. “If we don’t, we won’t be at this long…imagine if we brought in Pyerce himself. You can’t even imagine the credits that’d get us.”
“Oh yeah? Betcha I can.” He eased up the throttle, lifting the Lucky Star slowly into the air. “I’m going to fly to one of the bigger settlements, bet we’ll find a broker in one of those. Strap yourself in, nerd. I don’t need anyone else getting a head injury on my ship. It’s bad luck.”
Nathan tapped the navicomputer’s controls, zeroing in a course for Ossus. “Once we’ve offloaded the guy, and we’re out of orbit, we’re jumping to Maridun, then Phindar. From there, we’ll take the Salin Corridor. I’ve never heard of Ossus,” he mused. “What do you think it’s like?”
“I bet it’s terrible,” Ozz said grimly. “This whole ‘holocron hunt’ thing is going to bankrupt me, just you watch.”
Nathan watched the tops of the trees fly by underneath them. He looked down, to the weathered book sitting in his lap. It was nice to be entrusted with something again. He had always taken to tasks quickly, he liked to do things well. This would be no different.
One step closer to Mayla, he thought to himself. That also meant another step closer to danger, danger that, at the moment, he couldn't even imagine.
Welcome to the most wonderful Northern Hemisphere globular cluster... The Great Hercules Cluster. This cluster is easily seen under a dark sky and with binoculars from the suburbs. Go do down the side of Hercules. Use the bright star Vega to find the "keystone" (Shown in Red) of Hercules.
Optics: SGO 6" f/4 Imaging Newtonian @ 610mm FL
Explore Scientific 2" HR Coma Corrector
Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro
Filter: 2" Optolong L-Enhance
Mount: Losmandy GM8
Guiding: QHY Mini Guide Scope + PHD2 Software
Acquisition: Sequence Generator Pro
Exposure: Light (Gain 101) - 24 exposures @ 15 Seconds (6 Minutes)
Calibration: 50 Bias, 30 Darks, 0 Flats
Processing: Deep Sky Stacker, Adobe Photoshop, Topaz Denoise AI, Astronomy Action Set plug in for PS, Astro Flat Pro plug in for PS
#m13 #astrophotography #astrobackyard #losmandy #losmandygm8 #zwo #asi533mcpro
Promise me you'll press L!
I really like this picture. So far for this whole summer I've been documenting my every day activities in an online diary. I'm thinking of making a blog for my pictures, but I'm not so sure. What do you guys think? I used to have quite a few people who checked on my Flickr daily, but now I'm pretty sure not so many people keep up. I hope everyone is doing well. Now get off the computer and go do something outside! PS This was taken at MOMA. Nick has been popular on my stream lately.
Us: Go do a flip
Kid: *obliges*
:D
Testing out the new DiCaPac-WP300 underwater casing. I actually like the vignetting and lens problems. Makes it distinct.
True North Attitude
In the late 60's the Mama's & Papa's sang:
"You gotta go where you wanna go,
Do what you wanna do
With whoever you wanna do it with."
Joe and Jenny Hohner (and Molly) are doing exactly that. We met in the spring of 2018 on a trip to Cuba and we've become steadfast friends ever since. The Hohner's are on a mission to go where they wanna go and do what they wanna do. Last winter they hopped in their jazzed up Mercedes Sportsmobile and spent the entire winter wandering around the southwest United States. They left Michigan and spent this weekend in Carmel before heading out for winter #2 in the Sportsmobile. This winter they'll head from Carmel down the eastern seaboard to Florida to visit family and then embark west through New Orleans, then along the entire coast line of Texas, before heading further west along the Mexico/USA border, then up the coast of California.
Along the way, Joe will be taking spectacular photographs, Jenny will be writing the narratives, and Molly will be the envy of Portuguese Water Dogs all across America . You should follow them at www.truenorthattitude.com.
designed by Alex No
Fabulous
Its out with the old and in with the new,
Goodbye clouds of Gray, hello skies of blue
A dip in the pool, a trip to the spa
Endless days in my chaise
The whole world according to moi
Excuse Me Thank You
Iced tea imported from England,
Lifeguards imported from Spain,
Towels imported from Turkey,
Turkey imported from Maine,
Sharpay and Ryan:
We're gonna relax and renew,
Sharpay:
You, go, do!
I want fabulous,
That is my simple request,
All things fabulous,
Bigger and better and best,
I need something inspiring to help me get along,
I need a little fabulous is that so wrong?
It was so nice out yesterday so I thought I would go do a light run out on the trail in my ops. I wore my shorts over my ops for the run but took it off later on down the trail. On the way back to my car, I put them back on to to cross the street to get to my car and as I was crossing the street I saw at a distance a car approaching me but by the time the car reached me, I was already across the street halfway to my car. As the approaching car got closer, the car slowed down where I crossed and was pretty sure they saw that I was wearing a ops. At that moment, I had a smirk on my face and felt slightly liberated knowing I was seen in public in my ops.
If you say something often enough, people will begin to think and believe it's true, regardless of its basis in reality and/or truthfulness.
If you come by my stream at all, or are in any of the groups I participate in, most of you folks know me fairly well as I don't hide myself or my beliefs (even though I probably should sometimes) and from that you've probably gathered that I am a moderately "conservative" dude. Being a moderate, everything requires balance, so I would say that I am moderately "liberal" as well.
I suppose my visceral, pissed off reaction to reading this today falls on my liberal side, but I would like to think that it really falls on my freaking common sense side.
It got me thinking about something that happened to me last week and I didn't think much of it at the time, but this article brought me snapping back to reality and brought a bigger picture into focus...
I went downtown last week to my local, old skool camera shop where I bought my D80, lenses, etc. I paid a little extra to the local guy because I want to support local businesses and having a face to talk to, a person to glean information and experience from is invaluable to me as I try to soak this stuff up.
It's down on 4th Avenue, and it's been around for over 40 Years. (Check out this photo I found from right before the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake! Stewart's is in the background. :-) It even has the same signs today!) Being around so long, it's right next to the Old Federal Building and I had to walk by it (with my camera, natch) to get back to my car. I noticed this great symmetry in the lines created by the front of it and wanted to shoot a photo of it.
I am standing there, on a public sidewalk, trying to figure out how to frame what my eyes see for the lens. I don't have the camera to my face yet, I'm just looking, but I do have it in my hands. This security guard comes out of the doors in his pretty little burgundy blazer there and tells me to move along. "No "pitchers"."
I thought about arguing with the guy, but realized rather quickly that I didn't even know if I had a shot worth arguing over. I'll be honest, though. I wanted to argue. It was a public sidewalk. It's not even a Federal Building any more, it's more of an historic landmark that houses some national parks stuff (I think) and the like. No FBI, no Justice, no IRS, not even the actual Park Service.
I hate (and I don't use that word lightly) what happened to our country in 2001. No need to expound on that. But this link above to a guy who gets charged with a Felony (*!*) for videotaping a traffic stop he was involved in (which the police do EVERY DAY [and imho, should do for their and your safety, btw...]) and me getting harassed for taking a photograph in public, just makes me feel like we have passed through some sort of invisible barrier or something...
We've gone from being blissfully unaware and at ease with ourselves straight to a culture of fear with no shades of gray for anything at all.
Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
I know I have seen other things that have pushed me into feeling this way, but the liberal half of me is screaming out right now, trying to get me to see that no one can continue in a state of fear without fundamental change to themselves (ergo us as a Nation.).
Change is important. In fact, change is the only thing we can count on in life, short of death. But change to the things that our nation is at the core? Freedom, Democracy, Liberty, Pursuing Happiness? That's a change I think we should try to avoid, actually.
Thanks for hanging around for my rant. I just got a little worked up, but I meant it all. : )
Think for yourselves, people. Just sayin'. : )
This isn't half bad Large and On Black, I guess. : )
In September and October 2021, we spent three weeks touring the Italian regions of Abruzzo, Umbria, Marches and Emilia-Romagna, which we hadn’t visited yet.
Personally, I had my sights firmly set on a series of early Romanesque churches of high architectural and artistic interest, so you will see quite a few of those, in spite of the typical Italian administration-related problems I encountered, and which were both stupid and quite unpleasant.
There will also be other sorts of old stones, landscapes, etc., and I hope you will enjoy looking at them and have a good time doing so. If it makes you want to go, do, by all means, Italy is a wonderful country.
Today, we begin a new visit, and an unexpectedly memorable one, this time in the province of Marches, not very far from the coastal city of Ancona.
Just like we had tried to do (so unsuccessfully) at the abbey of San Pietro in Valle in Umbria, we intended to spend a night at the very nice hotel into which the abbey of San Pietro has been converted on Monte Conero, so that we could both enjoy a nice stopover and have a look at what remained of the abbey church.
Unlike its Umbrian namesake, entrance to this San Pietro abbey church was free, even for people not staying at the hotel, and what we found inside was magnificent!
Besides, our room with a balcony and a gorgeous vista on the Adriatic and all the surrounding area was great, and the food at the restaurant that evening was quite enjoyable as well, so I can only recommend the place!
We had to drive way up to the top of Monte Conero to find the place, indeed a great location for an abbey. This one was built by Benedictine monks around Year 1000, as we know from a written source that it was fully functional and operational in 1037.
The original church was without any adornments inside, but pilasters and capitals were added around 1200. In the 16th century, the Benedictines were replaced by other orders between whose members there were some disputes, until the Camaldolese monks prevailed. They were those who remodeled the façade into the uninteresting one we can see today –truly the only part of the church that doesn’t deserve to be photographed!
A typical example of how foliage admired on Antiquity capitals was imitated as best they could by the early Christian sculptors, with the tools and knowledge they had. It is to be remembered that, following the great invasions, all the know-how of the Roman builders was lost, and all had to be re-created through observation of what was left, and then trial and error...
Took this series of pictures last night. I asked my wife if she wanted to go out and walk on the beach and do some photography...she agreed readily! Little that I knew her plans were to drop me off at the beach and she would go do some shopping. PERFECT! I had lots of time to contemplate and try and envision what I would photograph and what filters I would use.
I used my light meter and took an incident reading from the sky and one from the foreground...a total of 5 stops! So I used a reverse 0.9GND and a 0.3GND SE allong the horizon for this series of shots.
As you will see from the earlier pics, I had some magical friends come for a visit. It was a wonderous time without time! My friends approached so closely I could nearly touch them. See for yourselves...
The white feather is a wonderful gift from my seagull friends!
Nikon D300, Induro Tripod, Markins Ballhead
Tokina AT-X 116 Pro @ 12mm f/11.0 EXP 13 s ISO 200
Hitech Filters: 0.9 Reverse GND; 0.3 GND SE
In September and October 2021, we spent three weeks touring the Italian regions of Abruzzo, Umbria, Marches and Emilia-Romagna, which we hadn’t visited yet.
Personally, I had my sights firmly set on a series of early Romanesque churches of high architectural and artistic interest, so you will see quite a few of those, in spite of the typical Italian administration-related problems I encountered, and which were both stupid and quite unpleasant.
There will also be other sorts of old stones, landscapes, etc., and I hope you will enjoy looking at them and have a good time doing so. If it makes you want to go, do, by all means, Italy is a wonderful country.
Today, I am uploading the last photos from our memorable visit to the San Pietro Abbey on Monte Conero in the province of Marches, not very far from the coastal city of Ancona.
Just like we had tried to do (so unsuccessfully) at the abbey of San Pietro in Valle in Umbria, we intended to spend a night at the very nice hotel into which the abbey of San Pietro has been converted on Monte Conero, so that we could both enjoy a nice stopover and have a look at what remained of the abbey church.
Unlike its Umbrian namesake, entrance to this San Pietro abbey church was free, even for people not staying at the hotel, and what we found inside was magnificent!
Besides, our room with a balcony and a gorgeous vista on the Adriatic and all the surrounding area was great, and the food at the restaurant that evening was quite enjoyable as well, so I can only recommend the place!
We had to drive way up to the top of Monte Conero to find the place, indeed a great location for an abbey. This one was built by Benedictine monks around Year 1000, as we know from a written source that it was fully functional and operational in 1037.
The original church was without any adornments inside, but pilasters and capitals were added around 1200. In the 16th century, the Benedictines were replaced by other orders between whose members there were some disputes, until the Camaldolese monks prevailed. They were those who remodeled the façade into the uninteresting one we can see today –truly the only part of the church that doesn’t deserve to be photographed!
Fine examples of pre-Romanesque and early Romanesque sculpture on the capitals in the nave: early Romanesque imitation of Corinthian foliage, around Year 1000.
WHAT DO YOU SEE? oh and try that L button it really POPS
I REALLY HAVE BEEN GOING THRU A RATHER ABSTRACT AND COLOR FULL WEEK SO FAR, AND I GUESS IT HAS BEEN BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT CHANGE,
I THINK IT IS GOOD TO LOOK AROUND AND MAKE CHANGES ON OCCASION, IN OUR WAYS OF OUR ART FORMS, I HAVE FOUND I LOVE EDITING. AND I REALLY LIKE ABSTRACT.
NOW DON'T GET ME WRONG, I LOVE STRAIGHT ON PHOTOGRAPHY AND MY FRIEND STEVE AND MY FRIEND GARY, BOTH OF FLICKR FAME HAVE DISCUSSED THIS THEORY OF REALISM AND SURREALISM IN PHOTOGRAPHY.
AND I PROJECT, THAT AS AN ARTIST WE USE WHAT EVER TOOLS THAT ARE AVAILABLE TO US, TO CREATE THE VISIONS THAT WE SEE IN OUR MINDS EYE WHEN WE TAKE OUR EYE'S TO AN OBJECT AND PICK UP EITHER A CAMERA OR
A BRUSH OR ANY OBJECT THAT CREATES A PIECE OF ARTISTIC BEAUTY.
AND I WANT TO EXPLORE MANY AVENUES, AND GO DOWN MANY PATHS STILL IN MY LIFE TIME, THERE ARE STILL SO MANY TRAILS TO CHALLENGE AND I HAVE STILL YET TO SWIM WITH THE FISH .
SO I SAY GO DANCE, GO SWIM, JUST GO DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO, AND HAVE FUN DOING IT. JUST DON'T DAMAGE ANYONE OR ANYTHING ALONG THE WAY.
JUST MY THOUGHT FOR THE DAY,
OOOOOPS BETTER GO SEE WHAT LACEY POSTED!!!
HUGS ALL,
billie
p.s.
Thanks Ms. Judi So much you know I love you like my little sister sometimes more!
You know all my secrets!
And thank you Nanaohuck also another good friend named Judy who posted a lovely picture of me on one of our fun outings together
you should go to her sight not to see me but she has some wonderful photos
www.flickr.com/photos/sweethugs/5389358306
and is the sweetest person and best of contacts you would eve want
yesterday, at like 11 o'clock at night, rachel&i started chatting via fbook about how much we both wanted to do a photoshoot. i suggested that we go do a sunrise photoshoot, &she agreed. it was THE MOST spontaneous, and little did i know that the photos i would produce would be among the best photos i have taken this summer. i love spontaneity.
after the hour long shoot, we went to caribou coffee&got two smoothies&a scone. omnomnom.
a few hours later, the editing was done. rachel&i rode our bikes to get dinner. &then we got ice cream for dessert. <3
as great as the first part of the day was, the ending turned a slight bit sour. i hate when i have the feeling of great exhaustion that is holding me back from really living. and here i am, up at 2 o'clock. i really just need to sleep at normal times. SIGH. off to watch the office.
+many more in the comments. it's a lot, i know, but i couldn't pick only one.