The same family. The little boy bent down to pic up some stones when another wave came over and soaked him - poor little thing... but I did laugh!

Japanese bronze sculpture situated in front of the house. It depicts a man dressed in traditional Japanese traveling costume sitting on the back of an ox, reading a book as he is carried along.

It could be a statue of Sugawara no Michizane (845-903), a Japanese scholar and courtier. When Michizane’s enemies managed to get him expelled from court a faithful ox carried him into exile. He was later worshiped as a patron of scholars and deity of calligraphy.

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Visit this location at 150L MultiScene Skyhomes (A) - Pay 4 Weeks, Get 1 Free in Second Life

History:

The identity of the criminal known as Halloween is a mystery. In fact, very little is known about him at all. His costume provides him with moderate body armor that may be made of Kevlar. He uses a wide variety of devices and gadgets including shock gloves, explosives, and a strange collection of throwing knives to terrorize the communities of New Blok City. His favorite method of causing chaos is by using a fear toxin either in gas or liquid form on his victims. He is unpredictable when it comes to the extent of damage he chooses to do at any given time, which might be the biggest reason to fear Halloween.

 

Built for the League of Lego Heroes

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Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), often referred to mononymously as Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style, combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines during a transformative era in race relations, led him to both great success and initial controversy.

 

Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family when he was 13 years old. His music career began there in 1954, recording at Sun Records with producer Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African-American music to a wider audience. Presley, on rhythm acoustic guitar, and accompanied by lead guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, was a pioneer of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country music and rhythm and blues. In 1955, drummer D. J. Fontana joined to complete the lineup of Presley's classic quartet and RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, who would manage him for more than two decades. Presley's first RCA Victor single, "Heartbreak Hotel", was released in January 1956 and became a number-one hit in the United States. Within a year, RCA would sell ten million Presley singles. With a series of successful network television appearances and chart-topping records, Presley became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll; though his performative style and promotion of the then-marginalized sound of African Americans[6] led to him being widely considered a threat to the moral well-being of the White American youth.

 

In November 1956, Presley made his film debut in Love Me Tender. Drafted into military service in 1958, Presley relaunched his recording career two years later with some of his most commercially successful work. He held few concerts, however, and guided by Parker, proceeded to devote much of the 1960s to making Hollywood films and soundtrack albums, most of them critically derided. Some of his most famous films included Jailhouse Rock (1957), Blue Hawaii (1961), and Viva Las Vegas (1964). In 1968, following a seven-year break from live performances, he returned to the stage in the acclaimed television comeback special Elvis, which led to an extended Las Vegas concert residency and a string of highly profitable tours. In 1973, Presley gave the first concert by a solo artist to be broadcast around the world, Aloha from Hawaii. Years of prescription drug abuse and unhealthy eating habits severely compromised his health, and he died suddenly in 1977 at his Graceland estate at the age of 42.

 

Having sold over 400 million records worldwide, Presley is recognized as the best-selling solo music artist of all time by Guinness World Records. He was commercially successful in many genres, including pop, country, rhythm & blues, adult contemporary, and gospel. Presley won three Grammy Awards, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36, and has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame. He holds several records, including the most RIAA-certified gold and platinum albums, the most albums charted on the Billboard 200, the most number-one albums by a solo artist on the UK Albums Chart, and the most number-one singles by any act on the UK Singles Chart. In 2018, Presley was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

 

Elvis Aaron Presley was born on January 8, 1935, in Tupelo, Mississippi, to Vernon Elvis (April 10, 1916 – June 26, 1979) and Gladys Love (née Smith; April 25, 1912 – August 14, 1958) Presley in a two-room shotgun house that his father built for the occasion. Elvis's identical twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley, was delivered 35 minutes before him, stillborn. Presley became close to both parents and formed an especially close bond with his mother. The family attended an Assembly of God church, where he found his initial musical inspiration.

 

Presley's father Vernon was of German, Scottish and English origins. He was a descendant of the Harrison family of Virginia through his ancestor Tunis Hood. Presley's mother Gladys was Scots-Irish with some French Norman ancestry. His mother and the rest of the family believed that her great-great-grandmother, Morning Dove White, was Cherokee. This belief was restated by Elvis's granddaughter Riley Keough in 2017. Elaine Dundy, in her biography, supports the belief.

 

Vernon moved from one odd job to the next, showing little ambition. The family often relied on help from neighbors and government food assistance. In 1938, they lost their home after Vernon was found guilty of altering a check written by his landowner and sometime-employer. He was jailed for eight months, while Gladys and Elvis moved in with relatives.

 

In September 1941, Presley entered first grade at East Tupelo Consolidated, where his teachers regarded him as "average". He was encouraged to enter a singing contest after impressing his schoolteacher with a rendition of Red Foley's country song "Old Shep" during morning prayers. The contest, held at the Mississippi–Alabama Fair and Dairy Show on October 3, 1945, was his first public performance. The ten-year-old Presley stood on a chair to reach the microphone and sang "Old Shep". He recalled placing fifth. A few months later, Presley received his first guitar for his birthday; he had hoped for something else—by different accounts, either a bicycle or a rifle. Over the following year, he received basic guitar lessons from two of his uncles and the new pastor at the family's church. Presley recalled, "I took the guitar, and I watched people, and I learned to play a little bit. But I would never sing in public. I was very shy about it."

 

In September 1946, Presley entered a new school, Milam, for sixth grade; he was regarded as a loner. The following year, he began bringing his guitar to school on a daily basis. He played and sang during lunchtime and was often teased as a "trashy" kid who played hillbilly music. By then, the family was living in a largely black neighborhood. Presley was a devotee of Mississippi Slim's show on the Tupelo radio station WELO. He was described as "crazy about music" by Slim's younger brother, who was one of Presley's classmates and often took him into the station. Slim supplemented Presley's guitar instruction by demonstrating chord techniques. When his protégé was 12 years old, Slim scheduled him for two on-air performances. Presley was overcome by stage fright the first time, but succeeded in performing the following week.

 

In November 1948, the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee. After residing for nearly a year in rooming houses, they were granted a two-bedroom apartment in the public housing complex known as the Lauderdale Courts. Enrolled at L. C. Humes High School, Presley received only a C in music in eighth grade. When his music teacher told him that he had no aptitude for singing, he brought in his guitar the next day and sang a recent hit, "Keep Them Cold Icy Fingers Off Me", to prove otherwise. A classmate later recalled that the teacher "agreed that Elvis was right when he said that she didn't appreciate his kind of singing". He was usually too shy to perform openly and was occasionally bullied by classmates who viewed him as a "mama's boy".

 

In 1950, he began practicing guitar regularly under the tutelage of Lee Denson, a neighbor two and a half years his senior. They and three other boys—including two future rockabilly pioneers, brothers Dorsey and Johnny Burnette—formed a loose musical collective that played frequently around the Courts. That September, he began working as an usher at Loew's State Theater. Other jobs followed at Precision Tool, Loew's again, and MARL Metal Products. Presley also helped Jewish neighbors, the Fruchters, by being their shabbos goy.

 

During his junior year, Presley began to stand out more among his classmates, largely because of his appearance: he grew his sideburns and styled his hair with rose oil and Vaseline. In his free time, he would head down to Beale Street, the heart of Memphis's thriving blues scene, and gaze longingly at the wild, flashy clothes in the windows of Lansky Brothers. By his senior year, he was wearing those clothes. Overcoming his reticence about performing outside the Lauderdale Courts, he competed in Humes' Annual "Minstrel" show in April 1953. Singing and playing guitar, he opened with "Till I Waltz Again with You", a recent hit for Teresa Brewer. Presley recalled that the performance did much for his reputation: "I wasn't popular in school ... I failed music—only thing I ever failed. And then they entered me in this talent show ... when I came onstage I heard people kind of rumbling and whispering and so forth, 'cause nobody knew I even sang. It was amazing how popular I became in school after that."

 

Presley, who received no formal music training and could not read music, studied and played by ear. He also frequented record stores that provided jukeboxes and listening booths to customers. He knew all of Hank Snow's songs, and he loved records by other country singers such as Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, Ted Daffan, Jimmie Rodgers, Jimmie Davis, and Bob Wills. The Southern gospel singer Jake Hess, one of his favorite performers, was a significant influence on his ballad-singing style. He was a regular audience member at the monthly All-Night Singings downtown, where many of the white gospel groups that performed reflected the influence of African-American spiritual music. He adored the music of black gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

 

Like some of his peers, he may have attended blues venues—of necessity, in the segregated South—only on nights designated for exclusively white audiences. He certainly listened to the regional radio stations, such as WDIA-AM, that played "race records": spirituals, blues, and the modern, backbeat-heavy sound of rhythm and blues. Many of his future recordings were inspired by local African-American musicians such as Arthur Crudup and Rufus Thomas. B.B. King recalled that he had known Presley before he was popular when they both used to frequent Beale Street. By the time he graduated from high school in June 1953, Presley had already singled out music as his future.

 

Graceland is a mansion on a 13.8-acre (5.6-hectare) estate in Memphis, Tennessee, United States, which was once owned by the rock and roll singer Elvis Presley. His daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, inherited Graceland after his death in 1977. Following Lisa Marie Presley's death in 2023, the mansion is to be inherited by her daughters. In addition to being the final resting place of Elvis Presley himself, the property contains the graves of his parents, paternal grandmother and grandson, and contains a memorial to Presley's stillborn twin brother. In addition, Lisa Marie Presley will be buried there.

 

Graceland is located at 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard in the Whitehaven neighborhood, about nine miles (14 kilometers) south of central Memphis and fewer than four miles (6.4 km) north of the Mississippi border.[5] It was opened to the public as a house museum on June 7, 1982. The site was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on November 7, 1991, becoming the first site recognized for significance related to rock music. Graceland was declared a National Historic Landmark on March 27, 2006, also a first for such a site. Graceland attracts more than 650,000 visitors annually.

 

Graceland Farms was originally owned by Stephen C. Toof, founder of S.C. Toof & Co., the oldest commercial printing firm in Memphis. He worked previously as the pressroom foreman of the Memphis newspaper, the Memphis Daily Appeal. The "grounds" (before the mansion was built in 1939) were named after Toof's daughter, Grace. She inherited the farm/property from her father in 1894. After her death, the property was passed to her niece Ruth Moore, a Memphis socialite. Together with her husband, Thomas Moore, Ruth Moore commissioned construction of a 10,266-square-foot (953.7 m2) Colonial Revival style mansion in 1939. The house was designed by architects Furbringer and Ehrman.

 

After Elvis Presley began his musical career, he purchased a $40,000 home for himself and his family at 1034 Audubon Drive in Memphis. As his success and fame grew, especially after his appearances on television, the number of fans who would congregate outside the house multiplied. Presley's neighbors, although happy to have a celebrity living nearby, soon concluded that the constant gathering of fans and journalists was a nuisance.

 

In early 1957, Presley gave his parents, Vernon and Gladys Presley, a budget of $100,000 and asked them to find a "farmhouse"-like property to purchase, with buffer space around it. At the time, Graceland was located in southern Shelby County, several miles south of Memphis' main urban area. In later years, Memphis would expand with residential developments, resulting in Graceland being surrounded by other properties. Presley purchased Graceland on March 19, 1957, for the amount of $102,500.

 

Later that year, Presley invited Richard Williams and singer Buzz Cason to the house. Cason said: "We proceeded to clown around on the front porch, striking our best rock 'n' roll poses and snapping pictures with the little camera. We peeked in the not-yet-curtained windows and got a kick out of the pastel colored walls in the front rooms with shades of bright reds and purples that Elvis most certainly had picked out." Presley was fond of claiming that the US government had mooted a visit to Graceland by Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union, "to see how in America a fellow can start out with nothing and, you know, make good."

 

After Gladys died in 1958 aged 46, Presley's father Vernon remarried to Dee Stanley in 1960, and the couple lived at Graceland for a time. There was some discord between Presley and his stepmother Dee at Graceland, however. Elaine Dundy, who wrote about Presley and his mother, said that

 

"Vernon had settled down with Dee where Gladys had once reigned, while Dee herself – when Elvis was away – had taken over the role of mistress of Graceland so thoroughly as to rearrange the furniture and replace the very curtains that Gladys had approved of." This was too much for the singer, who still loved his late mother deeply. One afternoon, "a van arrived ... and all Dee's household's goods, clothes, 'improvements,' and her own menagerie of pets, were loaded on ... while Vernon, Dee and her three children went by car to a nearby house on Hermitage until they finally settled into a house on Dolan Drive which ran alongside Elvis' estate."

 

According to Mark Crispin Miller, Graceland became for Presley "the home of the organization that was himself, was tended by a large vague clan of Presleys and deputy Presleys, each squandering the vast gratuities which Elvis used to keep his whole world smiling." The author adds that Presley's father Vernon "had a swimming pool in his bedroom", that there "was a jukebox next to the swimming pool, containing Elvis' favorite records", and that the singer himself "would spend hours in his bedroom, watching his property on a closed-circuit television." According to the singer's cousin, Billy Smith, Presley spent the night at Graceland with Smith and his wife Jo many times: "we were all three there talking for hours about everything in the world! Sometimes he would have a bad dream and come looking for me to talk to, and he would actually fall asleep in our bed with us."

 

Priscilla Beaulieu lived at Graceland for five years before she and Presley wed in Las Vegas, Nevada, on May 1, 1967. Their daughter Lisa Marie Presley was born on February 1, 1968, and spent the first years of her life on the estate. After her parents divorced in 1972, her mother moved with the girl to California. Every year around Christmas, Lisa Marie Presley and all her family would go to Graceland to celebrate Christmas together. Lisa Marie often returned to Graceland for visits.

 

When Elvis would tour, staying in hotels, "the rooms would be remodeled in advance of his arrival, so as to make the same configurations of space as he had at home – the Graceland mansion. His furniture would arrive, and he could unwind after his performances in surroundings which were completely familiar and comforting." 'The Jungle Room' was described as being "an example of particularly lurid kitsch."[

 

On August 16, 1977, Presley died aged 42 at Graceland. The official cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia, although later toxicology reports strongly suggested that polypharmacy was the primary cause of death; "fourteen drugs were found in Elvis' system, with several drugs such as codeine in significant quantities. Presley lay in repose in a 900-pound (410 kg), copper-lined coffin just inside the foyer; more than 3,500 of his mourning fans passed by to pay their respects. A private funeral with 200 mourners was held on August 18, 1977, in the house, with the casket placed in front of the stained glass doorway of the music room. Graceland continued to be occupied by members of the family until the death of Presley's aunt Delta in 1993, who had moved in at Elvis's invitation after her husband's death. Elvis's daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, inherited the estate in 1993 when she turned 25.

 

Presley's tombstone, along with those of his parents Gladys and Vernon Presley, and his grandmother Minnie Mae Presley, are installed in the Meditation Garden next to the mansion. They can be visited during the mansion tours or for free before the mansion tours begin. A memorial gravestone for Presley's stillborn twin brother, Jesse Garon, is also at the site.

 

In 2019, the owners of Graceland threatened to leave Memphis unless the city provided tax incentives. The Memphis City Council subsequently voted on a deal to help fund a $100 million expansion of Graceland.

 

Constructed at the top of a hill and surrounded by rolling pastures and a grove of oak trees, Graceland is designed by the Memphis architectural firm, Furbringer and Erhmanis. It's a two-story, five-bay residence in the Colonial Revival style, with a side-facing gabled roof covered in asphalt shingles, a central two-story projecting pedimented portico, and two one-story wings on the north and south sides. Attached to the wing is an additional one-story stuccoed wing, which was originally a garage that houses up to four cars. The mansion has two chimneys; one on the north side's exterior wall, the second rising through the south side's roof ridge. The central block's front and side facades are veneered with tan Tishomingo limestone from Mississippi and its rear wall is stuccoed, as are the one-story wings. The front facade fenestration on the first floor includes 9x9 double-hung windows set in arched openings with wooden panels above, and 6x6 double-hung windows on the second floor.

 

Flanked by two marble lions, four stone steps ascend from the driveway to the two-story central projecting pedimented portico. The pediment has dentils and a small, leaded oval window in the center while the portico contains four Corinthian columns with capitals modeled after architect James Stuart's conjectural porticos for the "Tower of the Winds" in Athens, Greece. The portico's cornered columns are matched by pilasters on the front facade. The doorway has a broken arched pediment, full entablature, and engaged columns while its transom and sidelights contain elaborate and colorful stained glass. And above the main entrance is another rectangular window, completed with a shallow iron balcony.

 

Graceland is 17,552 square feet (1,630.6 m2) and has a total of 23 rooms, including eight bedrooms and bathrooms. To the right of the Entrance Hall, through an elliptical-arched opening with classical details, is the Living Room. The Living Room contains a 15-foot-long (4.6 m) white couch against the wall overlooking the front yard. To the left are two white sofas, a china cabinet and a fireplace with a mirrored wall. The painting that hangs in the room was Elvis' last Christmas present from his father, Vernon, and also displayed are photographs of Elvis' parents Vernon and Gladys, Elvis and Lisa Marie. Behind an adjoined doorway is the Music Room, framed by vivid large peacocks set in stained glass and contains a black baby grand piano and a 1950s style TV. And the third adjacent room is a bedroom that was occupied by Elvis' parents. The walls, carpet, dresser, and queen size bed are bright white with the bed draped in a velvet-looking dark purple bedspread along with an en-suite full bathroom done in pink.

 

To the left of the Entrance Hall, mirroring the Living Room, is the Dining Room, headlined by a massive crystal chandelier. It features six plush chairs in golden metal frames set around a marble table, all of which are placed on black marble flooring in the center with carpet around the perimeter. Connected to the Dining Room is the Kitchen, which was used by Elvis' aunt Delta until her death in 1993 before it was opened to the public two years later.

 

The original one-story wing on the north end of the residence includes a mechanical room, bedroom, and bath. In the mid-1960s, Presley enlarged the house to create a den known as the Jungle Room which features an indoor waterfall of cut field stone on the north wall. The room also contains items both related to and imported from the state of Hawaii because, after starring in the tropical film "Blue Hawaii" (1961), the musician wanted to bring some memorabilia from The Aloha State to his mansion, which gives visitors the same feeling. In 1976, the Jungle Room was converted into a recording studio, where he recorded the bulk of his final two albums, From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee (1976) and Moody Blue (1977); these were his final known recordings in a studio setting.[27] During the mid-1960s expansion of the house, Presley constructed a large wing on the south side of the main house that was a sidewalk, between the music room in the original one-story wing and the swimming pool area, that connected to the house by a small enclosed gallery. The new wing initially housed a slot car track and to store his many items of appreciation, but was later remodeled to what is now known as the Trophy Building, which now features an exhibit about the Presley family, and includes Priscilla's wedding dress, Elvis' wedding tuxedo, Lisa Marie's toy chest and baby clothes and more.

 

The Entrance Hall contains a white staircase leading to the house's second floor with a wall of mirrors. However, the second floor is not open to visitors, out of respect for the Presley family, and partially to avoid any improper focus on the bathroom which was the site of his death. Still, it features Elvis' bedroom at the southwest corner that connects to his dressing room and bathroom in the northwest. His daughter Lisa Marie's bedroom is in the northeast corner, and in the southeast is a bedroom that served as a private personal office for the musician. The floor has been untouched since the day Elvis died and is rarely seen by non-family members.

 

Downstairs in the basement is the TV room, where Elvis often watched three television sets at once, and was within close reach of a wet bar. The three TV sets are built into the room's south wall and there's a stereo, and cabinets for Elvis' record collection. And painted on the west wall is The King's 1970s logo of a lightning bolt and cloud with the initials TCB, both of which represent 'taking care of business in a flash'. And the last room in the mansion opposite of the TV room is the billiard room; an avid billiards player, Elvis bought the pool table in 1960 and had the walls and ceiling covered with 350–400 yards of pleated cotton fabric after the two basement rooms were remodeled in 1974. The pool balls are arranged just the way they were in the musician's final days along with a strict warning sign to visitors that says "Please Do Not Touch! Thank You!" in capital letters. And in one corner of the pool table, there's a rip in the green felt, which was caused by one of Elvis' friends in a failed attempt of a trick shot.

 

Critics such as Albert Goldman write: "Though it cost a lot of money to fill up Graceland with the things that appealed to Elvis Presley, nothing in the house is worth a dime." In chapter 1 of his book, Elvis (1981), the author describes Graceland as looking like a brothel: "it appears to have been lifted from some turn-of-the-century bordello down in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Lulu White or the Countess Willie Piazza might have contrived this plushy parlor for the entertainment of Gyp the Blood. The room is a gaudy mélange of red velour and gilded tassels, Louis XV furniture and porcelain bric-a-brac..." And he dismisses the interior as "bizarre," "garish" and "phony," adding that "King Elvis's obsession with royal red reaches an intensity that makes you gag."

 

In similar terms, Greil Marcus writes that people who visited the inside of Graceland—"people who to a real degree shared Elvis Presley’s class background, and whose lives were formed by his music—have returned with one word to describe what they saw: ‘Tacky.’ Tacky, garish, tasteless—words others translated as white trash."

 

According to Karal Ann Marling, Graceland is "a Technicolor illusion. The façade is Gone With the Wind all the way. The den in the back is Mogambo with a hint of Blue Hawaii. Living in Graceland was like living on a Hollywood backlot, where patches of tropical scenery alternated with the blackened ruins of antebellum Atlanta. It was like living in a Memphis movie theater... Diehard fans are sometimes disappointed by the formal rooms along the highway side of Graceland. They’re beautiful, in a chilly blue-and-white way, but remote and overarranged." The Jungle Room's "overt bad taste" lets nonbelievers "recoil in horror and imagine themselves a notch or two higher than Elvis on the class scale."

 

After purchasing the property Presley spent in excess of $500,000 carrying out extensive modifications to suit his needs including a pink Alabama fieldstone wall surrounding the grounds that has several years' worth of graffiti (signatures and messages) from visitors, who simply refer to it as "the wall". Designed and built by Abe Sauer is the wrought-iron front gate shaped like a book of sheet music, along with green colored musical notes and two mirrored silhouettes of Elvis playing his guitar. Sauer also installed a kidney shaped swimming pool and a racquetball court, which is reminiscent of an old country club, furnished in dark leather and a functional bar. There is a sunken sitting area with the ever-present stereo system found throughout Graceland, as well as the dark brown upright piano upon which Elvis played for what were to be his last songs, Willie Nelson's "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" and "Unchained Melody".

 

However, reports conflict about which one was the last song. The sitting area has a floor-to-ceiling shatterproof window designed to watch the many racquetball games that took place there when Elvis was alive. In the early hours of the morning on which Elvis died, he played a game of racquetball with his girlfriend Ginger Alden, his first cousin Billy Smith and Billy's wife Jo before ending the game with the song on the piano before walking into the main house to wash his hair and go to bed. Today the two story court has been restored to the way it was when Elvis used the building.

 

Elsewhere on the estate is a small white building that served as an office for Vernon, along with an old smokehouse that housed a shooting range and a fully functional stable of horses.

 

One of Presley's better known modifications was the addition of the Meditation Garden, designed and built by architect Bernard Grenadier. It was used by the musician to reflect on any problems or situations that arose during his life. It is also where his entire family is buried: himself (1935–1977), his parents Gladys (1912–1958) and Vernon (1916–1979), and grandmother Minnie Mae Hood (1890–1980) while a small stone memorializes his twin brother Jesse Garon, who died at birth thirty minutes before Elvis was born on January 8, 1935. In late 2020, Lisa Marie's son Benjamin Keough was laid to rest on the opposite end of the Meditation Garden after his death from suicide in July of that year. Lisa Marie Presley died from sudden cardiac arrest in January 2023 and is buried next to her son.

 

After Elvis Presley's death in 1977, Vernon Presley served as executor of his estate. Upon his death in 1979, he chose Priscilla to serve as the estate executor for Elvis's only child, Lisa Marie, who was only 11. Graceland itself cost $500,000 a year in upkeep, and expenses had dwindled Elvis's and Priscilla's daughter Lisa Marie's inheritance to only $1 million. Taxes were due on the property; those and other expenses due came to over $500,000. Faced with having to sell Graceland, Priscilla examined other famous houses/museums, and hired a CEO, Jack Soden, to turn Graceland into a moneymaker. Graceland was opened to the public on June 7, 1982. Priscilla's gamble paid off; after only a month of opening Graceland's doors the estate made back all the money it had invested. Priscilla Presley became the chairwoman and president of Elvis Presley Enterprises, or EPE, stating at that time she would do so until Lisa Marie reached 21 years of age. The enterprise's fortunes soared and eventually the trust grew to be worth over $100 million.

 

An annual procession through the estate and past Elvis's grave is held on the anniversary of his death. Known as Elvis Week, it includes a full schedule of speakers and events, including the only Elvis Mass at St. Paul's Church, the highlight for many Elvis fans of all faiths. The 20th Anniversary in 1997 had several hundred media groups from around the world that were present resulting in the event gaining its greatest media publicity.

 

One of the largest gatherings assembled on the 25th anniversary in 2002 with one estimate of 40,000 people in attendance, despite the heavy rain. On the 38th anniversary of Elvis's death, an estimated 30,000 people attended the Candlelight Vigil during the night of August 15–16, 2015. On the 40th anniversary of Elvis's death, on August 15–16, 2017, at least 50,000 fans were expected to attend the Candlelight Vigil. No official figure seems to have been released, maybe because, for the first time, attendees had to pay at least the lowest tour fare, $28.75, to cover the extra security costs due to a larger than usual crowd.

 

For many of the hundreds of thousands of people who visit Graceland each year, the visit takes on a quasi-religious perspective. They may plan for years to journey to the home of the 'King' of rock and roll. On site, headphones narrate the salient events of Elvis's life and introduce the relics that adorn the rooms and corridors. The rhetorical mode is hagiographic, celebrating the life of an extraordinary man, emphasizing his generosity, his kindness and good fellowship, how he was at once a poor boy who made good, an extraordinary musical talent, a sinner and substance abuser, and a religious man devoted to the Gospel and its music. At the meditation garden, containing Elvis's grave, some visitors pray, kneel, or quietly sing one of Elvis's favorite hymns. The brick wall that encloses the mansion's grounds is covered with graffiti that express an admiration for Presley as well as petitions for help and thanks for favors granted.

 

The Graceland grounds include a new exhibit complex, Elvis Presley's Memphis, which includes a new car museum, Presley Motors, which houses Elvis's Pink Cadillac. The complex features new exhibits and museums, as well as a studio for Sirius Satellite Radio's all-Elvis Presley channel. The service's subscribers all over North America can hear Presley's music from Graceland around the clock. Not far away on display are his two aircraft including Lisa Marie (a Convair 880 jetliner) and Hound Dog II (a Lockheed JetStar business jet). The jets are owned by Graceland and are on permanent static display.

 

In early August 2005, Lisa Marie Presley sold 85% of the business side of her father's estate. She kept the Graceland property itself, as well as the bulk of the possessions found therein, and she turned over the management of Graceland to CKX, Inc., an entertainment company (on whose board of directors Priscilla Presley sat) that also owns 19 Entertainment, creator of the American Idol TV show.

 

Graceland Holdings LLC, led by managing partner Joel Weinshanker, is the majority owner of EPE. Lisa Marie Presley's estate retains a 15% ownership in the company.

 

In August 2018, Gladys Presley's headstone, which contained the Jewish star of David on one side and a cross on the other and was designed by Elvis himself, which become publicly displayed when it placed in Graceland's Mediation Garden after being stored for many years in the Graceland Archive.

 

Lisa Marie Presley's estate, which is being held in trust for her daughters Riley Keough and Harper and Finley Lockwood, retain 100% sole personal ownership of Graceland Mansion itself and its over 13-acre original grounds as well as Elvis Presley's personal effects – including costumes, wardrobe, awards, furniture, cars, etc. Prior to her death in 2023, Lisa Marie Presley had made the mansion property and her father's personal effects permanently available for tours of Graceland and for use in all of EPE's operations.

 

According to Elvis Presley's Enterprises, staff at Graceland informally kept a list of celebrities who had visited in the first years following Elvis's death. This practice was not formalized for a decade. Muhammad Ali was an early celebrity visitor in 1978, as was singer Paul Simon. He toured Graceland in the early 80s and afterward wrote a song of the same name; it was the title track of his Grammy-winning album Graceland.

 

During the Joshua Tree Tour in 1987, U2 toured Graceland. The footage was filmed for the film Rattle & Hum. During the visit, drummer, Larry Mullen Jr., sat on Elvis Presley's motorcycle -- against the rules for Graceland visitors.

 

On June 30, 2006, then US President George W. Bush hosted Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi for a tour of the mansion. It was one of the few private residences on United States soil to have been the site of an official joint-visit by a sitting US president and a serving head of a foreign government. On August 6, 2010, Prince Albert II, Head of State of the Principality of Monaco, and his fiancée (now Princess of Monaco) Charlene Wittstock, toured Graceland while vacationing in the US. On May 26, 2013, Paul McCartney of The Beatles visited Graceland. Prince William and Prince Harry, while in Memphis for a friend's wedding, visited Graceland on May 2, 2014.

 

The home has also been visited by former US President Jimmy Carter; the late Duchess of Devonshire, the sitting ambassadors of India, France, China, Korea and Israel to the United States; as well as several US governors, members of the US Congress, and at least two Nobel Prize winners, namely singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, a Literature Prize laureate, and the former President of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, a Peace Prize honoree, who visited it on October 10, 2001.

 

In May 2016, Graceland welcomed a newlywed couple as its 20 millionth visitor.

 

In June 2022, actors Austin Butler and Tom Hanks visited the mansion and were interviewed virtually by the Good Morning America news program from the Jungle Room to talk about their biographical film Elvis.

 

In popular culture

Paul Simon named an album Graceland, as well as its title track. The song won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1987.

The song "Walking in Memphis" by Marc Cohn mentions Graceland; in the second verse, he refers to the mansion and the Jungle Room. This song was later covered by Cher and Lonestar, among others.

The film 3000 Miles to Graceland is about a group of criminals who plan to rob a casino during an international Elvis week, disguised as Elvis impersonators. No scenes take place at or near the estate.

The film Finding Graceland stars Harvey Keitel with Johnathon Schaech. Keitel is an impersonator who claims to be the real Elvis after Schaech picks him up as a hitch-hiker.

In the rock music "mockumentary" This Is Spinal Tap, band members gather around Presley's grave at Graceland and attempt to sing a verse of "Heartbreak Hotel".

Pop punk group Groovie Ghoulies have a song called "Graceland" on their 1997 album Re-Animation Festival.

In the movie Zombieland: Double Tap, the protagonists venture to Graceland in hopes of shelter during a zombie apocalypse, but are distressed to find it in a ruined state.

During the credits of Lilo & Stitch, there's a photograph of Lilo, Nani, David and Stitch visiting the front gates of Graceland. Almost 20 years later, the original painting of that shot was put on display as part of the traveling Walt Disney Archives exhibition at Graceland.

In the season three episode of American Dad “The Vacation Goo”, Steve Smith asks Stan Smith if they can go to Graceland for their next vacation and Stan says “Steve, if you want to pay your respects to a fat man who died on the toilet, we can visit your Aunt Mary’s grave.”

Phoebe Bridgers has a song "Graceland Too" on her second studio album Punisher.

In the third episode of National Treasure: Edge of History, "Graceland Gambit," the main protagonist, Jess (portrayed by Lisette Olivera) is on a treasure hunt that leads her and her friends to Graceland.

Florence + The Machine reference Graceland and Elvis in their song "Morning Elvis" on their 2022 album Dance Fever.

DJ is being fostered at one of my client's homes. They so wanted to adopt him, but their other dog Emma, was having no part of it. She wanted him out! They are devastated, but have to do the right thing for Emma and their household.

I called another client whose dog died in august. I know they wanted to get another dog around the holidays. I thought DJ was a perfect match for this family, so I brought him over to their house for a few hours today. They fell in love with him immediately. So they are adopting him tomorrow. DJ is a lucky dog. Another happy rescue. And the best news is.... I get to see him M-F every week. :)) I'm crazy about this dog. I would have adopted him myself, if I didn't already have three dogs..

 

Better On Black

 

florabella textures and actions

So in the continuing (mis)adventures of me and my cameras, my pinhole, apparently thinking there was little left to live for, threw himself headfirst out of the car the other day, spraying wooden pieces of himself across the sidewalk in the northwest. I immediately rushed him into emergency procedures at Blue Moon and following a thorough but nerve-wracking surgery involving wood glue and electrical tape, the pinhole lived again. To celebrate him and I (and Mark Talley aka Silton) took a trip out to the Gorge and Wahkeena Falls, all on a very wet and rainy Sunday. In other words, perfect Oregon weather for pinhole photography. This is one of the results. Perhaps it was his brush with death, perhaps it was the magic of the day. Most likely a combination of both, but this roll produced quite a few exciting images, of which this is one.

 

Taken with my Zero Image 6x9, which is looking more and more weathered and scarred with every passing day. I daresay he is more handsome than the day he came out of the box. ;-) Shot on Kodak 400UC color film. Exposed for about 60 seconds.

A Double Play...for Doubleday?

 

Hah, well if not for him...for me at least. To those that are even casual students of our National Pastime will know the name Abner Doubleday and the town of Cooperstown. The latter is a quaint upstate New York village beside Otsego Lake that is home of the Baseball Hall of fame. The former is the alleged inventor of the game of baseball in that very town in 1839, hence the choice to locate the hall of fame here in 1937. And while most historians believe the Mills Commision's assertions about Doubleday and Cooperstown are nothing but fiction, the legend still sticks here.

 

But to railfans there is more than just baseball in Cooperstown. The Cooperstown & Charlotte Valley operates a heritage railroad and museum along the historic line of the same name first opened in 1869. The original road came under D&H ownership in 1903 and was operated as branch of that Class 1 for 67 years. The branch was sold to the Delaware Otsego Corp in 1970 and freight trains continued to operate into the mid 1980s along with excursion trains. The last freight ran in 1987 and the line was completely moribund until being sold to the Leatherstocking Chapter of the NRHS in 1996. Incidentally, despite selling the branch the Delaware Otsego Corp (parent company of the NYS&W) retained ownership of the passenger depot in Cooperstown where they still maintain their corporate headquarters despite having no rail operations in town.

 

Despite having been in existence as a tourist railroad for more than two decades I'd never visited the operation. But in a twist of good fortune I made a totally unplanned trip to Binghamton chasing an NS train on the old D&H the day prior to this photo. While out that evening with an old railroader/railfan friend he told me that the CACV just happened to be celebrating the 150th anniversary of the opening of their railroad the very next day.

 

Based out of the small town of Milford south of Cooperstown they had a full weekend of special events and extra trains. The highlight of the event was the first steam locomotive to traverse these rails since the 1970s and included a bit of rare mileage almost into downtown Cooperstown.

 

Viscose Company #6 is an 0-4-0 saddle tank loco built by Baldwin in 1924. Originally assigned to the American Viscose Company plant in Roanoke, VA she was sold for scrap in the early 1960s. Never cut up she languished for decades in the yard of Gem City Iron & Metal Company in Pulaski, VA. Purchased by Scott Symans of Dunkirk, NY in 2004 and restored over the next three years she now travels by truck to shortlines and tourist railroads all over the country that do not have steam locomotives of their own.

 

She weighs 60,000 lbs and has a 17,360 lb tractive effort.

 

Here she is just starting to pull south from her photo op at the Cooperstown village welcome sign just north of here at Chestnut St. / Route 28 crossing.. This little bit is rare mileage as the normal northern limits of CACV operations is the runaround track a half mile south of this point and this crossing is clearly out of service and marked exempt.

 

So there you have it...a double hit of rare mileage and rare steam...and all totally unplanned!

 

Cooperstown, New York

Saturday July 13, 2019

Six Years Ago: The East End

 

Perched on the fire escape, Eric Needham chapped gently on his apartment's window. “Linda, can we talk?”

 

No response. He figured that may have been the case. Since he had caught her using again, their relationship had been... Well, ‘strained’ didn’t exactly cover it. But with every dealer he took off the streets, Eric was certain he was making a brighter future for them, for their son. Mikey wouldn’t have to grow up like he did. Mikey wouldn’t have to do the things that Eric had to.

 

Behind the glass, he could make out his girlfriend’s unmoving silhouette on the sofa, his son sitting on the ground beside her.

 

No, not sitting… Lying; sprawled out across the ground. Eric’s eyes widened and a sense of dread washed over him. 'God, please, not them too.'

 

He punched through the glass window, paying no attention to the shards tearing his hand open as he entered the room. He rushed to Mikey first, his eyes drawn to an overturned bowl of cereal and the white powder on the ground beside him. ‘The cereal… He’d put the smack in the cereal… Must have thought it was sugar, I mean, why wouldn’t he?’

 

‘Please… Please God, let there be a pulse,’ he begged, shaking Mikey’s still body frantically. He turned to Linda next, his face twisted with anger and sorrow.

 

“Do you know what you’ve done?!” he shook her. “Do you know what-”

 

His lip twitched. Tears streaming down his fear, he huddled his family together and wept. Not just for his family, but for the death of a normal life.

 

Now:

 

Sionis Warehouse: South Gotham

 

Jenna’s head was spinning. She could just hear Franco arguing with Ferris. She tried to move but found herself unable to; her wrist was wrapped in cold metal: Handcuffs, pinning her to a steel pipe.

 

“You brought the girl?” Ferris was complaining. “Sloppy, Davey. Sloppy. Fortunately, I can work with sloppy.”

 

Franco ruffled his hair awkwardly. “They got Rosso.”

 

“Eh. No real loss.”

 

“You think? If they find out what he did for me, we’re both dead.”

 

“You’re dead anyway," Jenna spat.

 

“Ah! The sleeping beauty awakes,” Ferris cocked his head to one side.

 

“When Gar gets here-”

 

Ferris flicked his finger on her forehead. “When ‘Gar’ gets here, we’re gonna blast him full of lead. Heh. This girl of yours must be real handy with those lips, Davey, ‘cause I can’t figure out why else you’d let her keep flapping ‘em.”

 

Six Years Ago: Dixon Docks

 

The henchmen all wore grotesque masks, loading pallets onto a group of large semi-trucks. One, in a rubber elephant mask, was talking to the others. “There was some killing on Third and Milton. Nasty stuff: had the lieutenants real spooked. Strung him up like a fly.”

 

“Was it The Bat?” a henchman in a chicken mask asked.

 

“Was it the-? The Bat don’t kill, moron. Everybody knows that,” a third, in a pink bear mask, chided the second.

 

“Ain’t what I heard. Heard there was this guy; The KGBeast; a high-profile Russian hitman or mercenary or something? Bat trapped him in a sewer, left him to starve to death,” a fourth in an astronaut helmet chimed in.

 

“That’s horsecrap. He’d have let the cops know where to pick him up, the Commissioner at least. They’re tight,” a goon in a white rabbit mask stated.

 

“Nah, man. This Beast guy? Killed 130 people, good half of them were innocents. You don’t fuck with innocents. Not with The Bat,” the astronaut claimed.

 

“Bull! I’ve met the Beast. He works with the bosses now and then. You’re talking outta your ass,” the bear masked henchman frowned. “It’s probably that new guy, the-”

 

He didn’t finish his sentence. A strand of red webbing latched itself around his neck and raised him off the ground. His legs flailed helplessly for what seemed like an eternity and then, snap. The body went limp.

 

“What the fuck was that?!”

 

“Holy crap, he’s dead!”

 

The Rabbit fired his machine gun into the rafters, hoping to weed out the assailant. Screams echoed throughout the warehouse. “Come on out, you son of a bitch! You’re outnumbered.”

 

Something rolled across the ground towards him, shattering his confidence: A bloodied chicken mask, the head still inside. The Rabbit stepped backwards, colliding with an upside-down body; a disembowelled corpse in an elephant mask, pinned to the wall by that same red webbing. Before the Rabbit could call for help, a serrated blade tore his throat open.

 

“This is fucked, man!” the astronaut panicked. “There were at least twenty other guys in here, where the hell are they?”

 

He tripped over the chicken’s headless body, falling to the ground. A figure in an orange mask and several layers of body armour grabbed him by his lapels and pulled him close.

 

“Who are you working for?” the figure asked.

 

“I don’t-! I can’t-!” the Astronaut stammered.

 

“This warehouse is the biggest heroin plant in the city now talk!"

 

"I can't! He'll kill me!"

 

"I'LL KILL YOU! NOW, WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR?!” the Black Spider roared.

 

"The Black Mask,” the goon spluttered. “We’re working for the Black Mask!”

 

Before the goon could divulge more information, an armoured fist intervened, flooring Needham. The assailant was dressed in a suit of purple and grey armour, a single red visor across his eyes. Their gloves buzzed with yellow sparks. Needham hadn’t met this one before.

 

“No-no-no-no, please! I didn’t tell him nothing! I swear to Chri-”

 

The goon’s shout of protest was muffled by the Lightning Bug’s hand around his mouth. The gauntlet crackled with yellow electricity and lightning shot through the goon’s body, burning them from the inside. The body glowed with brilliant light, and then with a final muffled shriek: the light went out. Lightning Bug slackened his grip, and a charred corpse crumpled to the ground, smoke rising from the mouth of the blackened body. Beneath his mask, the Lightning Bug smirked: now he could turn his attention back to the intruder

 

As he approached, lightning dragged along the grated floor and railings, every metal surface a death trap beneath the Bug’s boots. So, Needham had to stick to the air; narrowly dodging a blast of yellow electricity, he leapt off the narrow walkway, firing a web at the wooden rafters to keep himself airborne. Recognising the Spider’s strategy, Lightning Bug shot at the rafters; as the blast found its mark, the wooden supports caught fire, the flames carrying down across the walls.

 

Needham lost his balance when the Bug struck the beams and fell into a pile of wooden crates. Shaking the wooden splinters off his person, Needham fired another web, carrying him onto the opposite end of the gantry. Aiming for the Bug’s visor, Needham grabbed a machine gun from a fallen False Facer and opened fire. The Bug raised his arm out in front of his face and used his gauntlet to shield his eyes, aiming to outlast Needham’s ammunition. And sure enough, the clip was emptied before it could penetrate the Bug’s armour.

 

As the fire intensified, the sprinkler systems kicked into gear; the water sizzling as it battered down onto the Bug’s armour. Needham discarded the gun, and firing two more webs, he brought a large crane down on top of the Bug. ‘The roof was going to cave in any minute,’ he realised. 'And soon the cops would be here.' Needham fired a web up at the open skylight, and swung out into the night, hoping the flames would finish the Bug off. But as he left, an armoured fist broke free from the debris.

 

The Gotham Royal Hotel

 

Lobby: Ground Floor

 

Time went on, and the remaining Misfits reunited in the lobby. The group’s attention was momentarily drawn to the window; the reporters had started to gather outside, taking pictures and forcibly extracting statements from the irritated witnesses and handcuffed prisoners. From inside the lobby, Sharpe stuck his tongue out at Jack Ryder, and pulled down the curtains. Mayo was slowly waltzing around the lobby. Bridget, who had arrived with Chuck, Kuttler and Ten, kept her distance from the group.

Chuck’s head was resting on the check-in desk, his arms sprawled out in front of him. Beside him, a sorrowful Rigger lay the broken hilt of his katana on the countertop, lamenting the weapon’s loss. Ten sat on his right, wearing a sling around his injured shoulder. Blake joined them last; a series of white bandages wrapped around his bare chest. Smiling, he plopped a quartet of glasses down beside them. “Drink,” he encouraged the trio, pouring a generous amount of dark liquid into each glass.

Chuck smiled back. “Cheers,” he toasted his teammates.

 

As they drank, Flannegan approached the group, dressed in an ugly, dark green raincoat.

 

“You’re leaving?” Chuck asked.

 

“Job’s done, isn’t it?” Flannegan challenged him.

 

"Unbelievable…” Chuck voiced his disapproval but knew there was little point in keeping Flannegan here against his will. Flannegan saluted the group, and took the remainder of the bottle for himself, tucking it under his overcoat.

 

Kuttler was sitting at the bottom of the staircase, pressing an ice pack against his bruised forehead. He lowered the ice pack from his forehead and rolled his eyes: Sionis was strutting down the marble staircase, Li by his side. Needham stood at the entrance, his arms folded and his back leaning against the door in defiance of the new arrival.

 

“What a dutiful bunch you all are. Can’t imagine how anyone got past you,” Sionis addressed the room of downtrodden C-Listers.

 

“That said..." he cleared his throat as if the words were painful to admit: "Thank you.” Clearly, he had been prompted by Li.

 

Mayo scratched his forehead as he struggled to make sense of the unexpected compliment. “But we ruined everything. A bunch of people died. The damages to the hotel-”

 

Sionis flapped his hand at him dismissively. “Oh, I know. But I’m insured on all of that. Well, not the men, but those are replaceable. Good work people, I hope I never have to see any of you again.”

 

The latter comment seemed to be directed at Kuttler specifically, as Sionis came to a stop at his side, paying no attention to the Black Spider's judgemental glare. “Oh, elevator’s back online, yeah?” he growled at him.

 

“They’re pre-programmed to shut down in the event of a fire,” Kuttler claimed.

 

“While occupied?” Sionis asked.

 

“It’s your building,” Kuttler challenged him, lowering his purple-tinted glasses. “We had no way to know Carson was coming,”

 

Sionis eyed him up and down, unsatisfied with his response. “Smartass,” he snarled, shoving him aside. "And you, kid, you on their side now?" he examined Bridget.

 

"Play nice," Needham warned, a hand rested by his sheathed blade. For the first time that night, Sionis noticed him.

 

"That's right, I forgot we had a Bat-Chaperone with us,” he raised his arms in the air. As he made a beeline for the check-in desk, Chuck looked down into his glass, avoiding eye contact.

 

“Doubt there’s any point asking the blind man…” Sionis stood intrusively close to Chuck. “So, how about you? You see Tiger Shark pass by here, Kite-Man?” he asked.

 

Chuck’s back straightened, and he turned to Sionis stone-faced.

 

“Who?”

 

Sionis took a step back. If he had eyebrows, he’d have surely raised one. “Well, aren’t you a grumpy little bastard tonight... You hit your head? Maybe fly into my desk headfirst?”

 

As tensions began to mount, Li stepped between the pair, handing Sionis his tablet. “Sir, you’ll want a look at this. The security footage from the 13th floor.”

 

As Sionis glanced at the recording, his eyes narrowed. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

 

“Just keep watching,” Li said calmly. As the footage played, a familiar man wearing a wolf-like helmet and purple suit walked into focus and pressed a button on the nearby keypad.

 

“Ferris-?” Sionis grimaced. “What the hell was he up to-?”

 

As he finished inputting the code, the wall slid out, and Ferris disappeared behind it, the wall closing back up behind him.

 

“I told you it wasn’t Day,” Li finished, his tone suggesting he felt vindicated.

 

“I wish I could say I was happy for you…” Sionis murmured. “Wait a minute,” he gestured to the corner of the screen. “The time stamp… This happened two hours before Day attacked,” he glared at Li, waiting for his explanation.

 

“If I might suggest something... Kuttler is a tech genius. The only way someone; Krill, Day; could bypass his systems is if they already had the security codes. Or knew someone who did.”

 

“And?”

 

“Ferris knew something was going down. That’s why he left the party prematurely.”

 

“Well,” Sionis scoffed. “It’s a hell of a theory.”

 

“It is. But I do my research,” Li spoke, swiping his fingers across the tablet to another photo. “This was taken outside the Thompkins Homeless Center. And that’s Ferris, sat across from Abner Krill.”

 

Sionis gritted his teeth. “Is there anyone who doesn’t want to kill me?” he snarled.

 

“Nope." Needham’s arms stayed folded.

 

Sionis growled, as he swung back around. “Hey, Misfits, maybe I could still use you.”

 

“Are you serious?” Chuck asked. “Drury’s gone. Have someone else do your dirty work.”

 

“Well, that would be nice, Kite-Man. However, you may not have noticed, but all my employees seem to be betraying me!"

 

As if on cue, the stairwell door swung open, and Garfield Lynns staggered into the lobby; his shirt drenched in sweat, his face bruised and swollen, and covered in still damp blood.

 

Joey's eyes widened. "Gar!"

 

"Here, take it easy, Garfield," Reardon advised him, offering him his seat at the desk.

 

"Woah," Sharpe whistled. "You look like shit! Like, more than usual. Like, think how bad you must look now if on your best day, you look like a shaved testi-"

 

"Gar, what happened?" Chuck asked, expressing concern as Lynns collapsed onto the stool beside him and drank his half full glass of alcohol.

 

"Gar, where's Jenna?" Joey asked anxiously. "Gar?"

 

Gar didn't respond. His eyes appeared to stare off into nowhere. “He took her," he said finally, his jaw slackening. "I tried to stop him, but he took her."

 

“Who? Franco?” Joey asked. That got Sionis’ attention, whose previous reaction to the conversation had been one of pure apathy.

 

"Franco did that?” Sharpe gestured to Gar’s wounds. “I’ll be honest, between this and the car crash, I think you might be losing your touch.”

 

"No, not him... His assistant… bodyguard. He is… was a metahuman. A blood monster. Took him out with a Molotov but... By that point, Franco had already sealed the upstairs passage."

 

“Cool,” Sharpe and Mayo nodded in admiration. The former, stuck his head around the door Gar had come through, hoping to catch a glimpse of the 'blood monster.'

 

“That tunnel, where does it come out?” Gar asked Li frantically.

 

“One of our old warehouses, South Gotham, I think. You said it was a blood monster?” he asked Gar.

 

“What?” Gar asked, failing to see the relevancy. “Yeah, some kinda bloodbender. Like, from Avatar. Have you seen Avatar?”

 

“No.”

 

“Well, I have. Blame Rigger.”

 

“I shall.”

 

“You shouldn’t, it’s a good show!” Joey interjected.

 

“It’s fine," Gar conceded, realising he was getting off-topic. "This guy made me beat myself within an inch of my life, made Jenna watch, healed Franco’s injuries… Bloodwork, he said his name was.”

 

“And where is he now?”

 

Gar paused. “He’s splattered across the east stairwell.

 

“Aw, that’s not a monster!” Sharpe complained loudly as he re-entered the lobby. “That’s just a pile of blood.”

 

Li and Sionis looked at each other.

 

Li swallowed. “Sir… You don’t think-?”

 

“I want Franco's blood tested," Sionis ordered. “Dig up any files we have on Blackgate, including his connection to Gaige, and find out when his correspondence with Ferris first began; I need to know if they were conspiring before we lifted his exile...”

 

"That may take time," Li stated. "We'd need to find an uncorrupted blood sample, run it against the one we received from Blackgate."

 

"Franco took a polka dot to the stomach earlier," Gar stated. "I'd start there."

 

"Hmff," Sionis grunted. "Richardson's still on the take," he reminded his assistant. "Have him swipe a sample from upstairs. While we wait, I want you to surround the South Warehouse. No one in or out, capiche?”

 

“That may prove difficult. If Franco indeed got to Ferris, while he was exiled on another continent, he may have also enlisted your captains. We’re talking about a full-scale power play.”

 

“Then we’ll do it.”

 

Sionis tilted his head back. "Hm?"

 

Gar had risen from the stool and stepped between Sionis and Li. “We’ll take the job,” he clarified.

 

"Now, Gar, wait a minute-" Chuck protested, following him as he offered Sionis his hand.

 

"Bookworm’s right. You can't trust your own guys. Franco could've already bought them off. But you can trust me, because there ain’t nothing I wouldn’t do to protect that woman.”

 

“Well, aren’t you the romantic.” Sionis smirked as he accepted the handshake. “You remember Iron-Hat Ferris, I take it?”

 

Behind them, Blake laughed. “’Iron-Hat?’ What does he do, haunt abandoned fairgrounds for the insurance money?”

 

“Didn’t realise we were taking pointers from the Catman.”

 

“You’re not coming,” Gar shook his head. “Not with that stab wound. Ten neither. And Mayo... Not Mayo."

 

“Hold that thought,” Sionis’ phone buzzed, and he rolled his eyes. “Penguin.” He turned his head to the quarrelling Misfits. “I have to take this. Mingle among yourselves," he said patronisingly, as he left the room, followed by Li.

 

As Sionis departed, Joey shook his head. “That man deserves a fiery death...” he muttered.

 

“Yes,” Reardon murmured in agreement. “And for some reason, we prevented one.”

 

"What's your problem?" Gar glared at Chuck.

 

"My problem?" Chuck squinted.

 

“Franco has Jenna. Jenna! This might be my only chance of getting her back. Why are you trying to mess that up?”

 

"Why? Because we're not his personal kill squad. Look, Julian was one of us, as were the rest of the Outcasts; to an extent, but I draw the line with Franco and this Ferris guy. That's mob business and I don't want to see any more of us caught in the crossfire."

 

“And you'd leave Jenna to die instead?” Gar spluttered in indignation. "Isn't she one of us?"

 

Chuck sighed. “That’s not what I’m saying! But God, Gar, at least think it through. You do what you’re planning, if you kill Franco, do you really think she can love you? You’re being used. You’ll be little more than Sionis’ executioner. Again.”

 

"You don’t understand! I love her!”

 

"Of course, I understand, but she’s a grown woman. A grown woman, who, I might add, managed to hit Carson with a car.”

 

“To be fair though, who hasn’t,” Sharpe interjected.

 

“Just have faith in her! Give her some credit, please," Chuck urged.

 

"It's not just mob business."

 

"What?" Chuck stared at Bridget.

 

"It's not just mob business,” she repeated, a little unsure of herself.

 

“Go on," Needham encouraged her. "It's alright."

 

Bridget turned to Gar. “Dad followed Carpenter home one night. He was looking for you; must’ve thought that she’d lead him to you and Walker. But he found Franco instead. I guess they developed some kind of understanding, because, well they’re both still breathing. Tonight, Franco phoned dad out of the blue. Said he knew where to find Drury. And his friends.”

 

“Franco phoned him? Not Jules?” Blake asked.

 

Bridget scratched her arm. “Uh-uh. Day thought Dad was beneath him. He was always bragging about these secret partners of his. Seemed to think they were going to take over the city.”

 

“Drury,” Gar whispered. He looked ashamed, disgusted that he hadn’t noticed his best friend’s absence. “Where is Drury?”

 

The Misfits looked at each other guiltily. Ten swallowed. “You don’t know?”

 

Six Years Ago: Dixon Docks

 

Roman Sionis stood by the harbour. Smoke was still billowing from the charred warehouse. His warehouse. “30 men dead. 30. The East End operation is fucked…” he gritted his teeth. “What the hell happened exactly?” he asked, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

 

A man in a violet mask and a red suit and cape stepped forward. “Per the Bug’s account, this was the work of one man; calls himself Black Spider. He’s been active for a couple of years, never been worth our time; went after street dealers, the small stuff,” he explained.

 

“And? What changed?”

 

James Carter lowered his notepad. “We’re still working on that, sir. Still, it’s not uncommon for these types to get reckless, or cocky. Take down one street thug and they think they’re invincible all of a sudden. The Bug said he likely died in the blaze. We’re checking the river for a body. It’ll turn up soon enough.”

 

Sionis reached into his pocket and opened a bottle of his prescription heart medication. “30... Shit. You’re the PI, right? Gaige’s,” he inquired, swallowing a handful of orange pills.

 

“Incognito,” the red suited man introduced himself.

 

Sionis snorted derisively. “Yeah, with that cape?”

 

The Gotham Royal Hotel:

 

Room 792: Floor 25

 

A lone GCPD officer, Richardson, shone a torch at the wall. What looked to be Walker’s signature cocoon formula was peeling off the wall. A good chunk of the residue appeared to have been removed somehow, eaten, the cop suspected. And whatever the webbing had held, was gone

 

Six Years Ago: Sionis’ Penthouse. Diamond District

 

Sionis poured a bottle of scotch into a pair of glasses, offering a tumbler to his guest first. The guest declined, instead retrieving a thin cigarette from a pouch in his dark grey utility belt. Sionis shrugged, and after chugging down his whiskey, got down to business: “You come highly recommended from a… mutual friend of ours. Can’t say I’ve ever held his opinion in high regard, but my boys vouch for you. That kid, Joseph, he’s the one who set up the initial meet between me and your... manager.”

 

“He’s not my manager,” the guest frowned, flicking his lighter on and off compulsively.

 

“Well, he hyped you up plenty.”

 

“That’s just Drury. He exaggerates.”

 

“Yeah, no shit,” Sionis inhaled. “Joseph... is getting cold feet. Guess that mess in the East End was too much for him to handle: bit of a softie, that one... I take it you saw the news?”

 

The guest, dressed in a dark grey jumpsuit and a bandolier lined with explosives around his torso, smiled thinly. “Saw your warehouse up in smoke, if that’s what you mean. Helluva blaze. Wish I’d been there in person.”

 

“You and me both,” Sionis glared at him. “That little... accident cost me a dozen of my best guys. High earners. I need someone to pick up the slack, recoup our losses. That gonna be you, Lynns?”

 

The guest closed his lighter suddenly. “Please, sir. Call me Firefly.”

 

The Gotham Royal Hotel

 

Lobby: Ground Floor

 

Gar sat back down as he processed this. Franco sent Carson. Carson, who Drury had sacrificed his freedom to take down. He remembered the look Drury gave him in that hallway, a non-verbal plea to find Jenna, to be happy. And his hand formed a fist.

 

“That settles it.”

 

The Misfits looked at Gar.

 

“Franco’s just given me two reasons to kill him.”

 

“I’m in,” Rigger patted him on the back, tucking the broken katana into its sheath. “A guy’s gotta have his wingman.”

 

Gar nodded appreciatively, then turned to Chuck, gesturing to Blake and Reardon. “Those two need a doctor. Can I count on you to be their designated driver?”

 

Chuck nodded hesitantly. “Sharpe says he knows a guy.”

 

The two stared at each other as realization washed over them.

 

“The lizard?”

 

“The lizard.”

 

Gar scoffed, then turned to Joey. “Suit up.”

 

“Already have!” he beamed back as he ripped his shirt open, revealing the red and yellow fireproof spandex beneath.

 

Needham’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve been wearing that the whole time?”

 

Gar scratched his scalp. “Christ. You must smell like an old boot...”

 

“Like my pop’s old flip flops!”

 

~-~

 

“Oswald, this had better be good,” Sionis drawled into his phone. As Cobblepot spoke, Sionis’ eyes widened. “What?” he snapped.

 

Li watched from the side, concerned.

 

“Where? Yes, I’ll be there. Tell White to meet me there.”

 

“Sir?” Li tilted his head to one side.

 

Sionis didn’t elaborate. Instead, he swung around, placing a hand around his assistant’s arm.

 

"You still got that gun I gave you?" he asked. His tone was one of uncharacteristic concern.

 

Li nodded, gesturing to the bulge behind his tweed jacket.

 

"Good,” Sionis’ head swayed from side to side. And without another word, he stepped into the awaiting black limousine.

 

~-~

 

Li re-entered the Royal alone, his coat damp from the snow outside. “Have we reached a consensus?” he asked the group.

 

“Chuck here is gonna take care of our wounded,” Gar stated, “So Joey and I are all you’ve got.”

 

...

 

“Very well,” Li said, although he was clearly disappointed with this turn of events. “But be aware: Henry Ferris is not to be underestimated. He is a ruthless, unrepentant monster."

 

“Yeah, um, your boss is Black Mask. All things considered, isn’t that a little hypothetical?" Blake scratched his head.

 

"Hypocritical," Kuttler corrected him.

 

“You don’t understand,” Li shook his head. “Upon his return, I did some digging; research into the circumstances behind his exile, behind that mask he wears... Six years ago, Henry Ferris increased the potency of our drugs, and distributed them among poor neighbourhoods. Black neighbourhoods.”

 

‘Six years...’ Needham thought to himself, as he was filled with dread. ‘It wasn’t an accident...’ He remembered little Mikey on the floor, an overturned bowl of cereal at his side. Linda, her face white, stained with vomit. The still hot spoon on the table… The bag of heroin spilled across the sofa and along the floor...

 

‘It wasn’t an accident.’

 

Suddenly he leapt to his feet and grabbed Li by his collar. “Did you say six years?”

 

Six Years Ago: The Monarch’s Court

 

“Henry Ferris. You stand before the High Table, today, on July 14th, 2013, accused of the reckless endangerment of our assets and of drawing unwanted attention to our East End operations. How do you plead?” the red-suited man at the end of the table asked.

 

“How do I plead?” the accused repeated, a bewildered look upon his chiselled face. “This is a joke, right?”

 

“Hardly,” the man in the striped scuba suit snarled.

 

“Uh, should I repeat the question-?” the speaker asked his superiors.

 

“I heard you fine, Incognito,” Ferris responded. “I’m just confused. Confused why I’m on some sham trial and not shaking hands with the big bosses; No offense, pirate; in the Falcone penthouse.”

 

Ferris ran his finger along his crooked nose. “If I’m guilty of anything, and I do mean ‘if,’ it’s of maintaining the high standards that you’ve all let slip in Falcone’s absence. If the Roman were here-”

 

“He’s not,” the scuba-suited enforcer spat.

 

“If the Roman were here, I can guarantee you all that he’d be thanking me for purifying that disgusting, dirty little corner of Gotham.”

 

“Enough.” The man to Carter’s right raised his hand, a golden crown atop his head. “I’ve heard enough. 30 of our own men dead. 42 of our buyers dead from a modified supply of heroin you approved without our consent.”

 

“Drugs kill, who knew?” Ferris whistled.

 

“Enough!” The Monarch spat. “If you want to draw attention to yourself like a demented court jester, to hue and cry, then so be it. But you shall do so on my terms.”

 

The large man behind Ferris placed his hand on his shoulder, forcing Ferris to his knees.

 

“Rhino, you sack of shit-” he protested, spit flying from his mouth. “What the hell is this?!”

 

The Monarch rose from his throne, holding an iron mask in his hand. It was green in colour, with pointed ears attached to either side. “This, is a mask of shame. Rather popular in the 16th century… It’s also known as The Gossiper’s Bridle, used to punish women accused of witchcraft and so forth. It’s archaic, barbaric, needlessly cruel… And I’m sure it will fit you like a glove.”

 

ca. 2006 --- Zooey Deschanel --- Image by © Susanna Howe/Corbis Outline

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Fifty eight metres at 07:18am just as the light broke through the dawn on an Autumn morning, Saturday Octyober 22nd 2022 off Hythe Avenue and Chessington Avenue in Bexleyheath, Kent.

 

Here we see an adult male Carrion crow (Corvus corone), one of a pair who I have fed for three years now. Nicknamed Russell, he sits on an aerial opposite my front door, calling to Sheryl his wife, and Baboo, thier young'en from this year.

  

AN IN DEPTH LOOK AT CORVUS CORONE

  

LEGEND AND MYTHOLOGY

By Paul Williams

  

Crows appear in the Bible where Noah uses one to search for dry land and to check on the recession of the flood. Crows supposedly saved the prophet, Elijah, from famine and are an Inuit deity. Legend has it that England and its monarchy will end when there are no more crows in the Tower of London. And some believe that the crows went to the Tower attracted by the regular corpses following executions with written accounts of their presence at the executions of Anne Boleyn and Jane Gray.

  

In Welsh mythology, unfortunately Crows are seen as symbolic of evilness and black magic thanks to many references to witches transforming into crows or ravens and escaping. Indian legend tells of Kakabhusandi, a crow who sits on the branches of a wish-fulfilling tree called Kalpataru and a crow in Ramayana where Lord Rama blessed the crow with the power to foresee future events and communicate with the souls.

  

In Native American first nation legend the crow is sometimes considered to be something of a trickster, though they are also viewed positively by some tribes as messengers between this world and the next where they carry messages from the living to those deceased, and even carry healing medicines between both worlds. There is a belief that crows can foresee the future. The Klamath tribe in Oregon believe that when we die, we fly up to heaven as a crow. The Crow can also signify wisdom to some tribes who believe crows had the power to talk and were therefore considered to be one of the wisest of birds. Tribes with Crow Clans include the Chippewa (whose Crow Clan and its totem are called Aandeg), the Hopi (whose Crow Clan is called Angwusngyam or Ungwish-wungwa), the Menominee, the Caddo, the Tlingit, and the Pueblo tribes of New Mexico.

  

The crow features in the Nanissáanah (Ghost dance), popularized by Jerome Crow Dog, a Brulé Lakota sub-chief and warrior born at Horse Stealing Creek in Montana Territory in 1833, the crow symbolizing wisdom and the past, when the crow had became a guide and acted as a pathfinder during hunting. The Ghost dance movement was originally created in 1870 by Wodziwob, or Gray Hair, a prophet and medicine man of the Paiute tribe in an area that became known as Nevada. Ghost dancers wore crow and eagle feathers in their clothes and hair, and the fact that the Crow could talk placed it as one of the sages of the animal kingdom. The five day dances seeking trance,prophecy and exhortations would eventually play a major part in the pathway towards the white man's broken treaties, the infamous battle at Wounded knee and the surrender of Matȟó Wanáȟtaka (Kicking Bear), after officials began to fear the ghost dancers and rituals which seemed to occur prior to battle.

  

Historically the Vikings are the group who made so many references to the crow, and Ragnarr Loðbrók and his sons used this species in his banner as well as appearances in many flags and coats of arms. Also, it had some kind of association with Odin, one of their main deities. Norse legend tells us that Odin is accompanied by two crows. Hugin, who symbolizes thought, and Munin, who represents a memory. These two crows were sent out each dawn to fly the entire world, returning at breakfast where they informed the Lord of the Nordic gods of everything that went on in their kingdoms. Odin was also referred to as Rafnagud (raven-god). The raven appears in almost every skaldic poem describing warfare.Coins dating back to 940's minted by Olaf Cuaran depict the Viking war standard, the Raven and Viking war banners (Gonfalon) depicted the bird also.

  

In Scandinavian legends, crows are a representative of the Goddess of Death, known as Valkyrie (from old Norse 'Valkyrja'), one of the group of maidens who served the Norse deity Odin, visiting battlefields and sending him the souls of the slain worthy of a place in Valhalla. Odin ( also called Wodan, Woden, or Wotan), preferred that heroes be killed in battle and that the most valiant of souls be taken to Valhöll, the hall of slain warriors. It is the crow that provides the Valkyries with important information on who should go. In Hindu ceremonies that are associated to ancestors, the crow has an important place in Vedic rituals. They are seen as messengers of death in Indian culture too.

  

In Germanic legend, Crows are seen as psychonomes, meaning the act of guiding spirits to their final destination, and that the feathers of a crow could cure a victim who had been cursed. And yet, a lone black crow could symbolize impending death, whilst a group symbolizes a lucky omen! Vikings also saw good omens in the crow and would leave offerings of meat as a token.

  

The crow also has sacred and prophetic meaning within the Celtic civilization, where it stood for flesh ripped off due to combat and Morrighan, the warrior goddess, often appears in Celtic mythology as a raven or crow, or else is found to be in the company of the birds. Crow is sacred to Lugdnum, the Celtic god of creation who gave his name to the city of Lug

  

In Greek mythology according to Appolodorus, Apollo is supposedly responsible for the black feathers of the crow, turning them forever black from their pristine white original plumage as a punishment after they brought news that Κορωνις (Coronis) a princess of the Thessalian kingdom of Phlegyantis, Apollo's pregnant lover had left him to marry a mortal, Ischys. In one legend, Apollo burned the crows feathers and then burned Coronis to death, in another Coronis herself was turned into a black crow, and another that she was slain by the arrows of Αρτεμις (Artemis - twin to Apollo). Koronis was later set amongst the stars as the constellation Corvus ("the Crow"). Her name means "Curved One" from the Greek word korônis or "Crow" from the word korônê.A similar Muslim legend allegedly tells of Muhammad, founder of Islam and the last prophet sent by God to Earth, who's secret location was given away by a white crow to his seekers, as he hid in caves. The crow shouted 'Ghar Ghar' (Cave, cave) and thus as punishment, Muhammad turned the crow black and cursed it for eternity to utter only one phrase, 'Ghar, ghar). Native Indian legend where the once rainbow coloured crows became forever black after shedding their colourful plumage over the other animals of the world.

  

In China the Crow is represented in art as a three legged bird on a solar disk, being a creature that helps the sun in its journey. In Japan there are myths of Crow Tengu who were priests who became vain, and turned into this spirit to serve as messengers until they learn the lesson of humility as well as a great Crow who takes part in Shinto creation stories.

  

In animal spirit guides there are general perceptions of what sightings of numbers of crows actually mean:

  

1 Crow Meaning: To carry a message from your near one who died recently.

 

2 Crows Meaning: Two crows sitting near your home signifies some good news is on your way.

 

3 Crows Meaning: An upcoming wedding in your family.

 

4 Crows Meaning: Symbolizes wealth and prosperity.

 

5 Crows Meaning: Diseases or pain.

 

6 Crows Meaning: A theft in your house!

 

7 Crows Meaning: Denotes travel or moving from your house.

 

8 Crows Meaning: Sorrowful events

  

Crows are generally seen as the symbolism when alive for doom bringing, misfortune and bad omens, and yet a dead crow symbolises potentially bringing good news and positive change to those who see it. This wonderful bird certainly gets a mixed bag of contradictory mythology and legend over the centuries and in modern days is often seen as a bit of a nuisance, attacking and killing the babies of other birds such as Starlings, Pigeons and House Sparrows as well as plucking the eyes out of lambs in the field, being loud and noisy and violently attacking poor victims in a 'crow court'....

  

There is even a classic horror film called 'THE CROW' released in 1994 by Miramax Films, directed by Alex Proyas and starring Brandon Lee in his final film appearance as Eric Draven, who is revived by a Crow tapping on his gravestone a year after he and his fiancée are murdered in Detroit by a street gang. The crow becomes his guide as he sets out to avenge the murders. The only son of martial arts expert Bruce Lee, Brandon lee suffered fatal injuries on the set of the film when the crew failed to remove the primer from a cartridge that hit Lee in the abdomen with the same force as a normal bullet. Lee died that day, March 31st 1993 aged 28.

  

The symbolism of the Crow resurrecting the dead star and accompanying him on his quest for revenge was powerful, and in some part based on the history of the carrion crow itself and the original film grossed more than $94 Million dollars with three subsequent sequels following.

  

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK

  

So let's move away from legend, mythology and stories passed down from our parents and grandparents and look at these amazing birds in isolation.

  

Carrion crow are passerines in the family Corvidae a group of Oscine passerine birds including Crows, Ravens, Rooks, Jackdaws, Jays, Magpies, Treepies, Choughs and Nutcrackers. Technically they are classed as Corvids, and the largest of passerine birds. Carrion crows are medium to large in size with rictal bristles and a single moult per year (most passerines moult twice). Carrion crow was one of the many species originally described by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (Carl Von Linne after his ennoblement) in his 1758 and 1759 editions of 'SYSTEMA NATURAE', and it still bears its original name of Corvus corone, derived from the Latin of Corvus, meaning Raven and the Greek κορώνη (korōnē), meaning crow.

  

Carrion crow are of the Animalia kingdom Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Passeriformes Family: Corvidae Genus: Corvus and Species: Corvus corone

  

Corvus corone can reach 45-47cm in length with a 93-104cm wingspan and weigh between 370-650g. They are protected under The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 in the United Kingdom with a Green UK conservation status which means they are of least concern with more than 1,000,000 territories. Breeding occurs in April with fledging of the chicks taking around twenty nine days following an incubation period of around twenty days with 3 to 4 eggs being the average norm. They are abundant in the UK apart from Northwest Scotland and Ireland where the Hooded crow (Corvus cornix) was considered the same species until 2002. They have a lifespan of around four years, whilst Crow species can live to the age of Twenty years old, and the oldest known American crow in the wild was almost Thirty years old. The oldest documented captive crow died at age Fifty nine. They are smaller and have a shorter lifespan than the Raven, which again is used as a symbol in history to live life to the full and not waste a moment!

  

They are often mistaken for the Rook (Corvus frugilegus), a similar bird, though in the UK, the Rook is actually technically smaller than the Carrion crow averaging 44-46cm in length, 81-99cm wingspan and weighing up to 340g. Rooks have white beaks compared to the black beaks of Carrion crow, a more steeply raked ratio from head to beak, and longer straighter beaks as well as a different plumage pattern. There are documented cases in the UK of singular and grouped Rooks attacking and killing Carrion crows in their territory. Rooks nest in colonies unlike Carrion crows. Carrion crows have only a few natural enemies including powerful raptors such as the northern goshawk, the peregrine falcon, the Eurasian eagle-owl and the golden eagle which will all readily hunt them.

  

Regarded as one of the most intelligent birds, indeed creatures on the planet, studies suggest that Corvids cognitive abilities can rival that of primates such as chimpanzees and gorillas and even provide clues to understanding human intelligence. Crows have relatively large brains for their body size, compared to other animals. Their encephalization quotient (EQ) a ratio of brain to body size, adjusted for size because there isn’t a linear relationship is 4.1. That is remarkably close to chimps at 4.2 whilst humans are 8.1. Corvids also have a very high neuronal density, the number of neurons per gram of brain, factoring in the number of cortical neurons, neuron packing density, interneuronal distance and axonal conduction velocity shows that Corvids score high on this measure as well, with humans scoring the highest.

  

A corvid's pallium is packed with more neurons than a great ape's. Corvids have demonstrated the ability to use a combination of mental tools such as imagination, and anticipation of future events. They can craft tools from twigs and branches to hook grubs from deep recesses, they can solve puzzles and intricate methods of gaining access to food set by humans., and have even bent pieces of wire into hooks to obtain food. They have been proven to have a higher cognitive ability level than seven year old humans. Communications wise, their repertoire of wraw-wraw's is not fully understood, but the intensity, rhythm, and duration of caws seems to form the basis of a possible language. They also remember the faces of humans who have hindered or hurt them and pass that information on to their offspring.

  

Aesop's fable of 'The Crow and the Pitcher, tells of a thirsty crow which drops stones into a water pitcher to raise the water level and enable it to take a drink. Scientists have conducted tests to see whether crows really are this intelligent. They placed floating treats in a deep tube and observed the crows indeed dropping dense objects carefully selected into the water until the treat floated within reach. They had the intelligence to pick up, weigh and discount objects that would float in the water, they also did not select ones that were too large for the container.

  

Pet crows develop a unique call for their owners, in effect actually naming them. They also know to sunbathe for a dose of vitamin D, regularly settling on wooden garden fences, opening their mouths and wings and raising their heads to the sun. In groups they warn of danger and communicate vocally. They store a cache of food for later if in abundance and are clever enough to move it if they feel it has been discovered. They leave markers for their cache. They have even learned to place walnuts and similar hard food items under car tyres at traffic lights as a means of cracking them!

  

Crows regularly gather around a dead fellow corvid, almost like a funeral, and it is thought they somehow learn from each death. They can even remember human faces for decades.Crows group together to attack larger predators and even steal their food, and they have different dialects in different areas, with the ability to mimic the dialect of the alpha males when they enter their territory!

  

They have a twenty year life span, the oldest on record reaching the age of Fifty nine. Crows can leave gifts for those who feed them such as buttons or bright shiny objects as a thank you, and they even kiss and make up after an argument, having mated for life.

  

In mythology they are associated with good and bad luck, being the bringers of omens and even witchcraft and are generally reviled for their attacks on baby birds and small mammals. They have an attack method of to stunning smaller birds before consuming them, tearing violently at smaller, less aggressive birds, which is simply down to the fact that they are so highly intelligent, and also the top of the food chain. Their diet includes over a thousand different items: Dead animals (as their name suggests), invertebrates, grain, as well as stealing eggs and chicks from other birds' nests, worms, insects, fruit, seeds, kitchen scraps. They are highly adaptable when food sources grow scarce. I absolutely love them, they are magnificent, bold, beautiful and incredibly interesting to watch and though at times it is hard to witness attacks made by them, I cannot help but adore them for so many other and more important reasons.

  

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAIR IN MY GARDEN

  

Crows have been in the area for a while, but rarely had strayed into my garden, leaving the Magpies to own the territory. Things changed towards the end of May when a beautiful female Carrion crow appeared and began to take some of the food that I put down for the other birds. Within a few days she began to appear regularly, on occasions stocking up on food, whilst other times placing pieces in the birdbath to soften them. She would stand on the birdbath and eat and drink and come back over the course of the day to eat the softened food.

  

Shortly afterwards she brought along her mate, a tall and handsome fella, much larger than her who was also very vocal if he felt she was getting a little too close to me. By now I had moved from a seated position from the patio as an observer, to laying on a mat just five feet from the birdbath with my Nikon so that I could photograph the pair as they landed, scavenged and fed. She was now confident enough to let me be very close, and she even tolerated and recognized the clicking of the camera. At first I used silent mode to reduce the noise but this only allowed two shooting frame rates of single frame or continuous low frame which meant I was missing shots. I reverted back to normal continuous high frames and she soon got used to the whirring of the mechanisms as the mirror slapped back and forth.

  

The big fella would bark orders at her from the safety of the fence or the rear of the garden, whilst she rarely made a sound. That was until one day when in the sweltering heat she kept opening her beak and sunning on the grass, panting slightly in the heat. I placed the circular water sprayer nearby and had it rotating so that the birdbath and grass was bathed in gentle water droplets and she soon came back, landed and seemed to really like the cooling effect on offer. She then climbed onto the birdbath and opened her wings slightly and made some gentle purring, cooing noises....

  

I swear she was expressing happiness, joy....

  

On another blisteringly hot day when the sprayer was on, she came down, walked towards it and opened her wings up running into the water spray. Not once, but many times.

  

A further revelation into the unseen sides to these beautiful birds came with the male and female on the rear garden fence. They sat together, locked beaks like a kiss and then the male took his time gently preening her head feathers and the back of her neck as she made tiny happy sounds. They stayed together like that for several minutes, showing a gentle, softer side to their nature and demonstrating the deep bond between them. Into July and the pair started to bring their three youngsters to my garden, the nippers learning to use the birdbath for bathing and dipping food, the parents attentive as ever. Two of the youngsters headed off once large enough and strong enough.

  

I was privileged to be in close attendance as the last juvenile was brought down by the pair, taught to take food and then on a night in July, to soar and fly with it's mother in the evening sky as the light faded. She would swoop and twirl, and at regular intervals just touch the juvenile in flight with her wing tip feathers, as if to reassure it that she was close in attendance. What an amazing experience to view. A few days later, the juvenile, though now gaining independence and more than capable of tackling food scraps in the garden, was still on occasions demand feeding from it's mother who was now teaching him to take chicken breast, hotdogs or digestive biscuits and bury them in the garden beds for later delectation. The juvenile also liked to gather up peanuts and bury them in the grass. On one occasion I witnessed a pair of rumbunctious Pica Pica (Magpies), chasing the young crow on rooftops, leaping at him no matter how hard he tried to get away. He defended himself well and survived the attacks, much to my relief.

  

Into August and the last youngster remained with the adults, though now was very independent even though he still spent time with his parents on rooftops, and shared food gathering duties with his mum.Hotdog sausages were their favourite choice, followed by fish fingers and digestive biscuits which the adult male would gather up three at a time. In October, the three Crows were still kings of the area, but my time observing them was pretty much over as I will only put food out now for the birds in the winter months. The two adults are still here in December and now taking the food that I put out to help all birds survive in the winter months. They also have a pair of Magpies to compete with now.

 

Late February 2022 and Cheryl and Russell and their youngster are still with me, still dominant in the area and still taking raw chicken, hotdogs, biscuits and fatballs that I put out for them. Today I saw them mating for the first time this year in the tree and the cycle continues.

 

By October 2022 the pair had successfully reared a new baby who we nicknamed Baboo, and the other youngster flew the coup. The three no recognised our car returning from weekends away, and were enjoying sausages, hotdogs, raw chicken, fish and especially cheese, but life was hard as they aged with daily morning and evening tustles in the air with invaders and intruders hoping to take their land.

  

Corvus Corone.... magnificently misunderstood by some!

  

Paul Williams June 4th 2021 (Updated in October 2022)

  

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Nikon D850 Focal length 550mm Shutter speed: 1/40s Aperture f/11.0 iso640 Hand held with Tamron VC Vibration control set to ON in position 1 14 Bit uncompressed RAW NEF file size L (8256 x 5504 pixels) FX (36 x 24) Focus mode: AF-C AF-Area mode: 3D-tracking AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points Exposure mode: Manual exposure mode Metering mode: Matrix metering ISO Sensitivity: Auto 360 White balance on: Auto1 (5390k) Colour space: RGB Picture control: Standard (Sharpening +3)

  

Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 95mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 circular polariser glass filter.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Black Rapid Curve Breathe strap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag.

     

LATITUDE: N 51d 28m 28.36s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 8m 10.61s

ALTITUDE: 58.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF FILE: 90.90MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 40.00MB

    

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

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It's easy to pick holes in the legend of Thomas the Rhymer. Many of the references to him and his predictions were written centuries after his death, but folklore is not necessarily unreliable just because it's verbal, and there's a good argument that in this case, where there's smoke there may once have been fire!

 

The problem is that the historical reality of True Thomas has been almost completely submerged in the tidal wave of myth and legend that has grown up around him over the centuries since. While it seems reasonable to dismiss the story that he "disappeared for seven years to live with the Queen of Elfland and returned to Ercildoune with the gift of prophecy", there are plenty of predictions attributed to him that may either be genuine or may have contained some degree of truth.

 

Popular lore recounts that he prophesied some of the great events in Scottish history, including the death of Alexander III of Scotland in 1286. He is said to have told the Earl of Dunbar:

 

"On the morrow, afore noon, shall blow the greatest wind that ever was heard before in Scotland."

 

There having been no significant change in the weather by the time his lordship sat down for his lunch the following day, a "please explain" was sent to Thomas, who replied that the appointed hour had not yet come, shortly after which, news arrived from Fife of the king's death.

 

Another of the Rhymer's predictions is said to go like this:

 

"When the Yowes o' Gowrie come to land,

The Day o' Judgment's near at hand"

 

A "Yowe" in the country parts of Scotland, is a ewe and the Yowes of Gowrie were two large rounded ovine looking rocks in the Tay estuary, just off the shore from Invergowrie, close to the outlet of the Fowlis Burn. Why and how should two large rocks ever come ashore you might well wonder? Well they had been observed over a period of many years to be getting slowly but surely closer to the shoreline! Or to be more precise, the shoreline was getting closer to them! Then in the 19th century they finally did come ashore. The Dundee to Perth railway line was built along that part of the coast line, seemingly just offshore of the yowes, after which the area to landward of the railway was used as a rubbish dump - supposedly burying the yowes in the process. So technically the yowes have "come to land", without triggering the Day of Judgement, although there are parts of Dundee where it probably can't come soon enough!

 

Perhaps my favourite of the Rhymer's prophecies, concerns Fyvie Castle in Aberdeenshire. He is said to have said:

 

"Fyvie, Fyvie thou'se never thrive,

lang's there's in thee stanes three :

There's ane intill the highest tower,

There's ane intill the ladye's bower,

There's ane aneath the water-yett,

And thir three stanes ye'se never get."

 

What does that mean when translated loosely into understandable English?

 

It is believed that there were three special stones at Fyvie - weeping stones. They remained permanently damp, whatever the weather and the whereabouts of two of them are unknown. The Rhymer's prediction is interpreted as meaning that until all three were located, no eldest son would succeed to his father at Fyvie. The 'Ladye's bower' is the castle's charter room, and the one surviving stone is kept there to this day. Whether there is another one built into the castles 'highest tower', nobody seems to know, but the biggest problem is the one said to be underneath the water-gate. This would place it in the River Ythan, which runs around the castle, and trying to identify a damp stone is a river is of course a difficult task!

 

So what about the prediction, that no oldest son would inherit? I have known this story, without questioning it, for most of my life, having been solemnly told that indeed, no eldest son had ever inherited the castle. But in the interests of science, I though I would spend some time now trying to find out whether that's true!

 

Fyvie was originally (before the time of the Rhymer a royal castle. We know that King Alexander II signed charters here in February 1222 and The Bruce stayed here in the early years of the 14th century. Since then, it has been owned by five families - the Prestons, the Meldrums, the Setons, the Gordons and the Forbes-Leiths.

 

Actually, technically, there were six families! In 1370, King Robert II granted Fyvie to his son and heir John (later Robert III), who in turn passed the castle to his cousin, Sir James Lindsay. However, in 1388 the Scots had a rare victory over the English at the Battle of Otterburn, during which Ralph de Percy was captured by Sir Henry Preston, the brother-in-law of Sir James Lindsay. When Robert III came to the throne two years later in 1390 he purchased the rights to Ralph de Percy's ransom by transferring ownership of Fyvie Castle from Sir James Lindsay to Sir Henry Preston. This would seem rather unfair, although I imagine Sir James would have been adequately compensated, but it does of course set the prophesy off in the right direction - Sir James' heir never inherited Fyvie!

 

So leaving Sir James Lyndsay to one side, the first effective owner of Fyvie in the post royal era, was Sir Henry Preston. When he died around the year 1433, he wasn't succeeded by his son, because he didn't have any! Fyvie went to Sir Alexander Meldrum of that ilk, who had married one of Sir Henry's two daughters.

 

Fyvie remained in the hands of the Meldrums for about 160 years, passing through the hands of several (probably five) generations of the family, but as we don't know the genealogy of this part of the Meldrum family, we can't say whether an eldest son ever inherited. Probably yes, but the accuracy of the prophesy can't be disproved! In 1596, Fyvie was sold by the Meldrums to Alexander Seton, later Chancellor of Scotland.

 

Alexander Seton, 1st Earl of Dunfermline and Chancellor of Scotland, was born in 1555. His first wife, to whom he was already married when he bought Fyvie, was Lillias Drummond and after producing five children for him, all girls, it is said that Lord Seton, blaming his wife for the lack of a son and heir, began an affair with her cousin (and future wife) Grizel Leslie. Betrayed and heartbroken Lillias died not long after learning of the affair, .

 

Lillias Drummond died in May 1601 and Lord Seton married Grizel Leslie a few months later in October 1601. On their wedding night at Fyvie it is said that they were both distracted by a 'mournful moaning' from outside their bedroom window. A search for the source of the noises produced no results but the next morning the words D. LILLIAS DRUMMOND were found carved into the stone sill outside their bedroom window, in letters three inches high and upside down, the window being over 50 feet above ground level. The letters remain visible to this day and since that time, Fyvie Castle is said to have been haunted by a lady in green, roaming the corridors of the castle, crying at her betrayal by her husband and leaving behind the scent of Rose petals!

 

How much of that is true, I don’t know, but what is true is that before her death in 1606, Grizel Leslie produced two daughters and a son Charles, and that Charles died young! It was up to Lord Seton's third wife to produce his successor, another Charles.

 

The eldest son and heir of Charles Seton, 2nd Earl of Dunfermline, also named Charles, died in 1672, just before his father! Alexander, the 2nd son became 3rd Earl of Dunfermline, but dying unmarried, the title passed to his brother James.

 

James Seton, 4th Earl of Dunfermline, died in 1694, also unmarried - which was somewhat immaterial because, having supported the Jacobite cause in the 1689 Rising, his castle and estate had already been confiscated by the crown. Fyvie remained a crown property until it was sold in 1733.

 

The purchaser in 1733 was William Gordon, 2nd Earl of Aberdeen. His wife at the time was Anne Gordon, daughter of the 2nd Duke of Gordon and their eldest son William inherited Fyvie from his father. But those that have read this far and are hoping the Rhymer's prophesy will hold true will be delighted to learn that Lord William Gordon had already been married, twice and had two sons by his 2nd wife. So once again, the eldest son and heir didn't inherit Fyvie.

 

General William Gordon, 1st of Fyvie died in 1816 when, unfortunately for Thomas the Rhymer, who now can never be taken seriously again, was succeeded by his only son William Gordon, 2nd of Fyvie Castle. He died without children in 1847, whereupon Fyvie passed to his nephew, Charles Gordon 3rd of Fyvie.

 

When the 3rd laird died in 1851, Fyvie passed to his son and heir, for the 2nd (and last) time that we know of in five centuries, William Cosmo Gordon. Either he or his executors put Fyvie up for sale and it sold in 1889 to the 5th and last family to own it.

 

Fyvie's new owner was Alexander John Forbes-Leith, later 1st Baron Leith of Fyvie. He was a local boy who had made his fortune in the steel industry in the US of A and used Fyvie to house his huge collection of paintings, tapestries, armour and furniture. His only son and heir, Percy Forbes-Leith, 2nd Lt Royal Dragoons, was killed aged 19 in 1900 during the Boer War.

 

In 1982 Fyvie Castle was once again placed on the market, and in 1984 it was purchased by the National Trust for Scotland.

 

So could Thomas the Rhymer predict the future? Well it's my belief he could do so every bit as accurately as Nostradamus!

Cookies made for a young lady who just moved into her first apartment.

This was taken at a MAD DADS event to bring a bit of joy into the life of this young man. Jamar and his mother, who is standing next to him, and the rest of his family had just moved into a nice quiet residential community in Norht Minneapolis.

 

Jamar and his family were walking up to the store one May evening, and a a stray bullet from a drive-by caught him in the leg. This even was about two months after the incident.

 

I noticed the look on his face changed very little. It was quite apparent that this very gentle spirited abd quiet lad still could not understand how this could happen.

 

He is recovering, but his plans to play on the basketball team at school has been curtailed. He did not seem angry, just bewildered. Mom is angry and I don't blame her. They will be moving out of the area.

 

He looked so small during the interviews by two syndicated station, and I could imagine that even with Mom standing by, he felt very alone. He looked that way as well.

 

I wanted to convey how he must have felt, facing a microphone, a cluster of people, a high-tech TV camera, a news anchor and cameraman. I hoped I achieved that thru the altered perspective and knocking down the tonal values around him.

 

The wound will heal in time and through therapy. But the emotional scars will always be there. Jamar is only one example of that is happening to our kids in this violent society. And it IS a violent society and has been for some time.

 

North Minneapolis . . . a residential area of neatly kept homes, hardworking people, and gardens is a hotbed of violence. The previous City Council did absolutely nothing . . . Will this one be any better? Possibly.

  

More from Shanghai

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French postcard by Edycard, no. 29. Photo: Tom Cruise in Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986).

 

American actor and producer Tom Cruise (1962) became with his charismatic smile the most successful member of Hollywood's Brat Pack, the golden boys and girls of the 1980s. Top Gun (1986) made him an action star, but with his roles in The Color of Money (1986), Rain Man (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) he proved himself to be an all-round star and excellent actor. During the 1990s, he continued to combine action blockbusters like Mission Impossibe (1996) with highly acclaimed dramas like A Few Good Men (1992), Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and Magnolia (1999). He received more praise for his roles in Minority Report (2000) and Collateral (2002) and was for years one of the highest paid actors in the world. Although he continued to score major box office hits with the Mission Impossible franchise, his later work was overshadwowed by his outspoken attitude about Scientology which alienated him from many of his viewers.

 

Tom Cruise was born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV in 1962 in Syracuse, NY. He is the only son of Mary Lee (Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. He has three sisters: Marian, Lee Anne De Vette and Cass. In 1974, when Cruise was 12, his parents divorced. Young Tom spent his boyhood always on the move, and by the time he was 14 he had attended 15 different schools in the U.S. and Canada. He finally settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, with his mother and her new husband. Deeply religious, he enrolled in a Franciscan seminary with the ambition to join the priesthood. He dropped out after one year. At high-school, he was a wrestler until he was sidelined by a knee injury. Soon taking up acting, he found that the activity served a dual purpose: performing satiated his need for attention, while the memorisation aspect of acting helped him come to grips with his dyslexia. Moving to New York in 1980, he studied drama at the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse, in conjunction with the Actors Studio, New School University, New York. He signed with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and began acting in films. His film debut was a small part in Endless Love (Franco Zeffirelli, 1981), starring Brooke Shields. It was followed by a major supporting role as a crazed military academy student in Taps (Harold Becker, 1981), starring George C. Scott and Timothy Hutton. In 1983, Cruise was part of the ensemble cast of The Outsiders (Francis Ford Coppola, 1983). The Hollywood press corps began touting Cruise as one of the 'Brat Pack', a group of twenty-something actors who seemed on the verge of taking over the movie industry in the early 1980s. Cruise's first big hit was the coming-of-age comedy Risky Business (Paul Brickman, 1983), in which he entered film-trivia infamy with the scene wherein he celebrates his parents' absence by dancing around the living room in his underwear. From the outset, he exhibited an undeniable box office appeal to both male and female audiences. Cruise played the male lead in the dark fantasy Legend (Ridley Scott, 1985) and the action film Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986) with Kelly McGillis and Val Kilmer. Top Gun (1986) established Cruise as an action star. However, he refused to be pigeonholed, and followed it up with a solid characterszation of a fledgling pool shark in The Color of Money (Martin Scorsese, 1986), for which co-star Paul Newman earned an Academy Award. In 1988, he played the brother of an autistic savant played by Dustin Hoffman in the drama Rain Man (Barry Levinson, 1988). However, Cruise had not yet totally convinced critics he was more than a pretty face while he also starred in Cocktail (Roger Donaldson, 1988), which earned him a nomination for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor. His chance came when he played paraplegic Vietnam vet Ron Kovic in Born on the Fourth of July (Oliver Stone, 1989). For his role, he won a Golden Globe Award and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

 

In 1990 Tom Cruise renounced his devout Catholic beliefs and embraced The Church Of Scientology claiming that Scientology teachings had cured him of the dyslexia that had plagued him all of his life. He was introduced to Scientology by his ex-wife Mimi Rogers. Though Cruise's bankability faltered a bit with the expensive disappointment Far and Away (Ron Howard, 1990) with his-then wife Nicole Kidman, A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner, 1992) brought him back into the game. By 1994, the star was undercutting his own leading man image with the role of the slick, dastardly vampire Lestat in the long-delayed film adaptation of the Anne Rice novel Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994), opposite Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas. Although the author was vehemently opposed to Cruise's casting, Rice famously reversed her decision upon seeing the actor's performance, and publicly praised Cruise's portrayal. In 1996, Cruise scored financial success with the reboot of Mission: Impossible (Brian De Palma, 1996), but it was with his multilayered performance in Jerry Maguire (Cameron Crowe, 1996), that Cruise proved once again why he is considered a major Hollywood player. For Jerry Maguire, he won another Golden Globe and received his second Oscar nomination. According to IMDb, Cruise is the first actor in history to star in five consecutive films that grossed $100 million in the United States: A Few Good Men (1992), the thriller The Firm (Sydney Pollack, 1993), Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996). 1999 saw Cruise reunited onscreen with Kidman in a project of a very different sort, Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1990). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "The film, which was the director's last, had been the subject of controversy, rumour, and speculation since it began filming. It opened to curious critics and audiences alike across the nation, and was met with a violently mixed response. However, it allowed Cruise to once again take part in film history, further solidifying his position as one of Hollywood's most well-placed movers and shakers. Cruise's enviable position was again solidified later in 1999, when he earned a third Golden Globe and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a loathsome 'sexual prowess' guru in Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)."

 

In 2000, Tom Cruise scored again when he returned as international agent Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible II (John Woo, 2000), which proved to be one of the summer blockbusters. Like its predecessor, it was the highest-grossing film of the year, and had a mixed critical reception. He then reteamed with Jerry Maguire director Cameron Crowe for a remake of the Spanish film Abre los Ojos/Open Your Eyes (Alejandro Amenábar, 1997) titled Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe, 2001) with Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz. Though Vanilla Sky's sometimes surreal trappings found the film receiving a mixed reception at the box office, the same could not be said for the following year's massively successful Sci-Fi chase film Minority Report (Steven Spielberg, 2001), or of the historical epic The Last Samurai (Edward Zwick, 2003). For his next film, Cruise picked a role unlike any he'd ever played; starring as a sociopathic hitman in the psychological thriller Collateral (Michael Mann, 2004). He received major praise for his departure from the good-guy characters he'd built his career on, and for doing so convincingly. He teamed up with Spielberg again for the second time in three years with an epic adaptation of the H.G. Wells alien invasion story War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg, 2005). The summer blockbuster was in some ways overshadowed, however, by a cloud of negative publicity. It began, when Cruise became suddenly vocal about his beliefs in Scientology, the religion created by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. Cruise publicly denounced actress Brooke Shields for taking medication to combat her postpartum depression, going so far as to call the psychological science a "Nazi science" in an Entertainment Weekly interview. In 2005, he was interviewed by Matt Lauer for The Today Show during which time he appeared to be distractingly argumentative in his insistence that psychiatry is a "pseudoscience," and in a Der Spiegel interview, he was quoted as saying that Scientology has the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. This behaviour caused a stirring of public opinion about Cruise, as did his relationship with 27-year-old actress Katie Holmes. The two announced their engagement in the spring of 2005, and Cruise's enthousiasm for his new romantic interest created more curiosity about his mental stability. He appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where he jumped up and down on the couch, professing his love for the newly-Scientologist Holmes. The actor's new public image alienated many of his viewers. As he geared up for the spring release of Mission: Impossible III (J.J. Abrams, 2006), his ability to sell a film based almost purely on his own likability was in question for the first time in 20 years. Despite this, the film was more positively received by critics than the previous films in the series, and grossed nearly $400 million at the box office. Cruise moved on to making headlines on the business front, when he and corporate partner Paula Wagner in 2006 officially "took over" the United Artists studio, which was all but completely defunct. One of the first films to be produced by the new United Artists was the tense political thriller Lions for Lambs (Robert Redford, 2007), with Redford, Cruise and Meryl Streep. The film took an earnest and unflinching look at the politics behind the Iraq war but was a commercial disappointment. This was followed by the World War II thriller Valkyrie (Bryan Singer, 2008) with kenneth Branagh and Carice van Houten.

 

Tom Cruise would find a solid footing as the 2010s progressed, with blockbusters like Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (Brad Bird, 2011) and Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (Christopher McQuarrie, 2015). He is known for doing many of his own stunts in these films, even exceptionally dangerous ones. The Mission Impossible franchise earned a total of 3 billion dollars worldwide. Cruise reteamed with Cameron Diaz in the action-comedy Knight and Day (James Mangold, 2010). He starred as Jack Reacher in the film adaptation of British author Lee Child's 2005 novel One Shot (Christopher McQuarrie, 2012). He also starred in big budget fantasy projects like Oblivion (Joseph Kosinski, 2013) and Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman, 2014). Tom Cruised was married three times. His first wife was actress Mimi Rogers, with whom he was married from 1987 till their divorce in 1990. His second marriage with Nicole Kidman from 1990 till 2001. They adopted two children Isabella Jane Cruise (1992) and Connor Antony Cruise (1995). he lived together with Vanilla Sky (2001) co-star Penélope Cruz from 2001 - 2004. His 2006 marriage to Katie Holmes ended in a divorce in 2012. They have one daughter, Surie Cruise (2006). Recently, Cruise returned on the screen as Ethan Hunt in the sixth installment of the Mission Impossible series, Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Christopher McQuarrie, 2018). In 2020, he will also return as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski, 2020), in which Val Kilmer will also reprise his role from the first film.

 

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

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

Going to market..talking to people is source of energy for him...

Feeling defeated by the sudden and unrelenting downpour of rain (I mean seriously it's supposed to be nearing summer in the UK) I had packed my camera away and was headign back to the car - it was of course at this point that I spotted this geezer walking by and decided to chase after him for a street portrait - he had a cool look and the yellow flower kinda lifted his image.

 

He was happy to stop, even moving into the tramlines for me (I really wanted to use them in the rain) and I backed up a fair bit to bag the shot with the 85mm.

 

Andy even let me get up for a detail shot with the reflector popping in some fill light.

 

Andy is an interior designer, I always think anything to do with design has a cool edge and I feel that comes across in his own style here.

 

He has been in touch soon and explained he was in a rush to get a train - thanks for taking the time to stop and I hope you like the images - I'll send you a dropbox link via Facebook to them later!

 

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Check my ongoing photo blog and connect with me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/UrbanScot

 

Shot 262 in my 100 strangers project - find out more in the100 Strangers Flickr Group page on Flickr.

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Urban Scot www.urbanscot.co.uk

HAL would like to remind you that this holiday is too important for him to allow you to jeopardize it.

 

Source: popfig.jdhancock.com/2017/10/31/happy-hal-loween/

Flippant on marketplace.

Visit my In world store.

The Legend of Face Rock

 

HIYU COLE KOPET KUMTX HOW SEE

(Many years; I forget how many)

 

Seatka, the evil spirit of the ocean, lived along the coast. No good came from him. All the coast tribes feared him, for they knew how dangerous and treacherous he was. The tribes of the far mountains feared him not and when they came to the coast to trade, they brought with them their families, horses and dogs, and the children carried their pets.

 

The great Chief Siskiyou was coming that Chinook moon of long ago, bringing with him his beautiful daughter Ewauna. This being a great honor, a potlatch was planned by the four chiefs of the coast. Necomah, being the strongest of them all, was appointed by the three other chiefs manager of the affair.

 

Because of the determination to show how prosperous the coast nations were, the potlatch of all potlatches was decided upon. The days before the potlatch were busy days for the coast tribes. Necomah ordered great quantities of clams and mussels gathered and placed in huge mounds covered with sea moss and spicy leaves of the myrtle tree ready for the fires. Eight fat bear were ready also for the hot spit. The Elks brought one hundred salmon cleaned and ready for spit of green willow boughs under which glowed driftwood fires, the hot coals of which were best for the roasting. The old squaws tended these. The Sixes brought the meat of a dozen elk; the Rogues twenty cayuses loaded with deer dressed ready for the feast. Under a long arbor of cedar trees the tables were placed – logs split down the middle were used with the flat side up. From cedar bark the squaws made huge trays which were filled with huckleberries and wild honey. Spoons of clam shells, plates of bark and cups hollowed from burnt wood kept the squaws busy, although plenty of time was allowed for the preparations. On the hills back of the camp a lookout was placed to herald the approaching visitors. On the bluff, armed warriors were watching so that Seatka could not cause trouble.

 

With a yell the runners tell of the coming of the Siskiyou a day and a night off. Into the pit go the bear, elk and deer, covered deep with hot bark. The clams are not cooked until the last hour before the feast.

 

First to arrive was Chief Siskiyou with the beautiful daughter. He encamped at some distance from the potlatch grounds. Ewauna had never before seen the ocean. To her it was most beautiful for she thought that at last she had found the place where the beautiful clouds were made that she saw each day from her home in the mountains. She laughed at the warnings of the old men to be careful not to wander alone near the bluff as Seatka might see her and claim her for his own. She brought with her her dog Komax and her cat and kittens which she carried in a basket. Her father had bought the cat from a French trapper who had carried it from Montreal. The cat and kittens were great curiosities to the coast tribes who had never before seen a domestic cat. The wonder of the Tenas Puss Puss was passed from tribe to tribe.

 

In the early morn of the second day came the four chiefs dressed in their magnificent regalia. Necomah with salutations of good will magnanimously presented his gift of wampum inviting the great chief and his people to the greatest of all potlatches given in honor of the magnitude of Chief Siskiyou’s power. This impressed the great chief and he accepted with stoical indifference. The four chiefs were followed by Chief Siskiyou and in single file the men were followed by the women.

 

The wind wafted the odors of the great vians of the feast. It quickened their steps. Soon all were seated. Necomah gave the welcome talk.

 

Klakahama my friend;

Klakahama talk to great spirit –

Great spirit talk to Klakahama:

I make plenty sun, plenty grass,

Plenty bear, plenty elk, plenty fish.

I make plenty eat eat.

 

All day they feasted until drunk with food. They slept where they sat. Ewauna slipped away from the sleeping camp. Calling her dog and taking her cat and kittens she started for the beach. She wished to see old Wecoma, the sea, making the white clouds. The full Chinook moon hung low over the sea – lucid, resplendent in all its glory. Ewauna ran and danced with delight, singing her dance song to the moon. So happy was she with the grandeur of this beautiful Wecoma, she danced nearer and nearer to the water, feeling the wonder at the cool touch of it.

 

She dropped her basket, telling Komax to watch. She ran out into Wecoma and swam and swam and swam – wild with glee. On and on and on she swam, paying no heed to the dog’s cry of danger. On and on far from shore she swam. The friendly moon became obscured as by a black hand and the next thing she knew, she was being grasped by a fearsome creature who came out of the water near her. Komax, who had failed to make her hear his danger call, swam out with the basket and, as the monster seized his beloved mistress, he stuck his sharp teeth into his hand. Howling with rage he kicked the dog off, causing him to drop the basket. Grabbing the cat and kittens he threw them far out into the sea. Seatka held the girl tightly, trying to make her look at him, as his treacherous power lay in his eyes. This she refused to do, telling him she never never would, keeping her face toward the friendly moon.

 

At sunrise her father awoke and finding his daughter gone gave the alarm. They all rushed to the sea. Fearfully they gazed out, seeing the dawn break through the white mist, and then they saw the beautiful face of Ewauna lying on the sea smiling up at the white clouds coming from the north. To the west they saw her cat and kittens and near the beach poor Komax baying for his mistress. Behind the large rocks near the shore sits Seatka, gazing at Ewauna still trying to catch her eye. But never, never does she falter. Many, many moons she has been there. Now they have all turned to stone.

 

-Written by O.K. Kronenberg

Samuel Wensley Blackall:

 

Samuel Wensley Blackall (1809 - 1871), governor, was born on 1 May 1809 in Dublin, son of Major Robert Blackall of the East India Co. army, and his wife Catherine, née Lewis. A member of a prosperous Irish family, he was educated by a private tutor and at 15 went to Trinity College, Dublin, but did not graduate. He joined the 85th Regiment in June 1827 but in 1833 he sold his commission as lieutenant and entered the Royal Longford Militia, where he became a major. In 1833 he married Georgiana Rowles in London; the couple had a son and a daughter, the former surviving him. After his first wife’s death, Samuel married Catherine Bond at Dublin in 1858. Blackall took an active part in Irish public life, becoming high sheriff of County Longford in 1833: in 1847-51 he represented Longford in the House of Commons, and in 1861 became high sheriff of Tyrone. Meanwhile he had been lieutenant-governor of Dominica in 1851-57. Through seeking to rule with a high hand he had to combat a petition for his recall. He was also in trouble with the Colonial Office for extending his leave because of family difficulties. In 1862 he re-entered the colonial service as governor of Sierra Leone, in 1865 became governor in chief at the West African Settlements and in 1868 was appointed governor of Queensland.

 

Blackall took an active part in Irish public life, becoming high sheriff of County Longford in 1833: in 1847-51 he represented Longford in the House of Commons, and in 1861 became high sheriff of Tyrone. Meanwhile he had been lieutenant-governor of Dominica in 1851-57. Through seeking to rule with a high hand he had to combat a petition for his recall. He was also in trouble with the Colonial Office for extending his leave because of family difficulties. In 1862 he re-entered the colonial service as governor of Sierra Leone, in 1865 became governor in chief at the West African Settlements and in 1868 was appointed governor of Queensland.

 

On arrival in Brisbane on 14 August Blackall was met by a tremendous popular welcome, but at once was plunged into a constitutional crisis, which had been temporarily held in check by the administrator, Sir Maurice O'Connell. After a deadlock in the Legislative Assembly the Liberals had been defeated in an election but were petitioning the governor to dissolve the assembly on the ground that it did not properly represent the colony. Perhaps because of his experience in Dominica or because his health had suffered in West Africa, Blackall pursued a strictly constitutional course and refused to intervene directly. The crisis did not end until the rule of his successor, the marquis of Normanby. Despite the bitterness of the constitutional battle Blackall made no personal enemies, though he had to face a few personal attacks. Kindly and soft-spoken, he had developed the gift of making friends and became very popular. Willing to assist any genuine public cause, he made frequent appearances on public platforms. He worked hard to improve agriculture and to link the Queensland grammar schools with the University of Sydney.

 

By 1870 Blackall's health was failing rapidly and he knew the end was near. In 1870 when the government decided to set aside a new cemetery reserve at Toowong he inspected the area and selected the highest spot for his grave. At the same time he requested that his funeral be such as could be attended by even the humblest. Three months later, on 2 January 1871, he died and his wishes were gratified. A fine memorial was erected over his grave, the first in the cemetery. His memory is also preserved by the town of Blackall, the Blackall Range, and the first Queensland government steamer, Governor Blackall, bought by Charles Lilley when premier of Queensland in 1870.

 

Toowong Cemetery:

 

Bureaucratic procrastination, manoeuvring and public discontent colour the early history of the Brisbane General Cemetery at Toowong and contributed to the decades of delay in providing a new General Cemetery for Brisbane in the second half of the nineteenth century.

 

The first cemetery serving the small penal settlement that was Brisbane between 1825 and 1842 was located near Skew Street, the northern approach to the William Jolly Bridge. It was here that soldiers and convicts were interred but was considered unfit for the burial of children. One soldier's four children were buried in a brick crypt in an area at North Quay near Herschel Street.

 

The concept of a rural cemetery located outside the bounds of town limits emerged as a major transformation in burial practices in the late 18th century in Britain and Europe and was well established by the time towns and settlements were being formed in Queensland. The new burial grounds surveyed at North and South Brisbane in 1844, just beyond the western boundary of the municipality, proved however, not to be sufficiently removed from the settlement. Whilst the proximity of both grounds allowed customary procession on foot, and natural drainage away from the early settlement served to allay sanitary concerns, as early as 1851, the public were petitioning the Government of NSW to relocate the North Brisbane Burial Grounds known as the Milton/Paddington Cemetery. Brisbane's rapid expansion following its opening to free settlement in 1842 was such that the Paddington Cemetery, was now in the heart of a prime inner residential area and was being challenged by the residents who feared for their health.

 

The first progress to establish a new cemetery were made in 1861 when 200 acres was set aside for cemetery purposes, 2 miles south west of the Milton Cemetery at Toowong. The land however, was chosen by default rather than by design. Augustus Gregory, the Surveyor -General had not favoured the Toowong site but found it to be the only locality to present the requisite requirements. The appropriateness of the site at Toowong for the purpose of a General Cemetery was an issue contested for the next two decades. The isolation and suitability of the Toowong site with its lack of access and public transport fuelled dissent and debate and the public continued to use the cheaper, more accessible familial grounds at Milton.

 

Although the Cemetery Act was passed in 1866 providing the means to establish general cemeteries under the control of government appointed trustees, it was another decade before the Cemetery was officially opened. In 1868, a further portion of Crown land, 53 acres in area, north of the cemetery reserve was added to fulfil of the Trustee's requirement for the entire cemetery to be surrounded with public roads.

 

The reserve of 250 acres 1 rood was gazetted and the Cemetery Trust established in October 1870 and its honorary trustees were amongst Brisbane's most prominent political and business figures - James Cowlishaw, John Hardgrave, William Pettigrew, Samuel Walker Griffith, George Edmonstone, Alexander Raff, John Petrie (Chairman), Michael Quinlan and Nathaniel Lade.

 

Trial sinkings at Toowong in December 1870 found the ground to be unsuitable, but this knowledge did not prompt the government to secure a more appropriate location. Queensland's second governor, Samuel Wensley Blackall had been a supporter of the Toowong site and in his ill health indicated his desire to be buried there. He was buried on the highest knoll on 3 January 1871 and his memorial is the largest and most prominent in the cemetery with commanding views of the city and surrounds.

 

The Surveyor General, the Trustees and the Colonial Secretary had not favoured the Toowong Site and even after the burial of Governor Blackall on its most prominent peak, the Trustees were still pursuing other more suitable prospects for a cemetery site. Three private properties had been offered for sale for cemetery purposes. Of these, Trustee George Edmondstone's property on Enoggera Creek was identified as being most suitable, however the Colonial Treasurer could not reach an agreement on price and the Toowong site came to be accepted as the Brisbane General Cemetery grounds.

 

In June 1871, Petrie, Pettigrew and Perry were nominated to chose a suitable 40 acres for clearing for the general cemetery. In 1872, ground lying north of the road and east of the western boundary of the 53 acre portion was cleared and enclosed by 540 rods of good quality pig fencing (a four rail fence) with two entrances not more than 4 rods on each side of the main entrance erected by John Ballard.

 

A Keeper's Lodge was built by E Lewis and gates and ornamental fencing at the main entrance, designed by the Colonial Architect, FDG Stanley, were erected in 1873-74.

 

Between Governor Blackall's burial and the official opening of the Cemetery, there were six burials. The next interment was Ann Hill, wife of Walter Hill, superintendent of the Botanical Gardens on 2 November 1871. Thomas and Martha McCulloch were buried in November 1873, Teresa Maria Love on 16 March 1875 and Florence and Ethel Gordon on 4 July 1875.

 

The Trustees received numerous requests for separate burial sections from churches and other like minded group to ensure that religious and social class distinctions within society were perpetuated in mortality. Between November 1874 and August 1875 portions were allocated by the Trustees upon request. Portion No 1, was allocated to the Church of England, Portion No 2 to the Wesleyans, Portion No 3 to the Hebrews, Portion No 7 to the Roman Catholics, Portion No 16 to paupers and No 17 and parts of No 1 and 7 to public graves, Portion No 15 to criminals. In 1879, the Chinese were allocated part of Portion 2, then relocated in January 1884 to the ground below 7 and then again in April of that year to Portion No 8. The various cultural and religious groups were separated and boundaries clearly formed by winding roads. There is a strong showing of the Christian section of the graves, supporting the demographic dominance of Anglo-Saxons in Brisbane and the relocation of the Chinese several times (now in Portion 19) demonstrates the disregard afforded to this section of the community, which exhumed many of its dead for reinterment in China.

 

The lack of public transportation for funeral processions was one of the perceived shortfalls of the Toowong site, so the extension of the railway line through the western suburbs to Toowong in 1875 with the promise of a mortuary rail service provided the catalyst for the opening of the cemetery.

 

The grounds at the Cemetery were laid out by the prominent surveyor, George Phillips and a set of books drawn up by the Government Printer. The Cemetery was officially opened on 5 July 1875.

 

Controversy was quelled for a time but the respite was short lived and the Cemetery was subjected to a parliamentary inquiry in 1877 where public health issues, the steep and rocky terrain, the distance and inconvenience for mourners and the cost in relation to other alternatives including mortuary trains to Toowong were considered. No further meetings were held by the Trustees until March 1878.

 

The Cemetery had come to be valued for not only its heritage as the resting place of Governor Blackall but as a place for recreation and repose. Had the government decided from its inquiry to abandon the Toowong Cemetery in favour of another proposed site at Woogaroo, the Trustees wanted to retain the management of the Toowong site and for it to be maintained in an ornamental way as a place of resort for the people of Brisbane.

 

Community health concerns relating to the Cemetery began to dissipate in the second half of the 1880s. Whilst a public meeting of concerned residents discussed the closure of the cemetery in July 1885, within six months the local community was petitioning the Trustees to endorse the opening of a road through the cemetery reserve. Approval for the public thoroughfare through the cemetery was given in July 1886. The approval renewed concern in some quarters for the health risks associated with the increase in public activity at the Cemetery and the planting of trees amongst the graves especially of those dying of virulent diseases was advocated.

 

The cemetery was however, well established with trees by this time. From 1876, one year after its official opening, many plants and young trees had been supplied to the Cemetery from the Botanical Gardens and Acclimatisation Society. Initially, Walter Hill, the Botanical Gardens superintendent donated 38 shade and ornamental trees to the Cemetery and Mr Bernays of the Acclimatisation Society offered 50 trees in exchange for a subscription from the Trustees.

 

From 1878, the Cemetery gardens were attended by dresser, William Melville, a position he held for 38 years. Flowers, shrubs and plants were cultivated on the site on Portion 10 and sold to meet the needs of the site's visitors from a flower shed that straddled the creek. Mature camellias at the Cemetery, located in Portion 4 and 13 may be the first planted in Queensland from cuttings from Camden Park, the home of John McCarthur, who may have been the first to import them into Australia. A dam on Portion 16 was used for irrigation until 1905 when water taps were installed.

 

In 1886, the Defence Force leased the largely unused area of the cemetery, now occupied by Anzac Park, as a Rifle Range and the whole paddock and the Cemetery Overseer's cottage designed by Trustee, James Cowlishaw and built by E Bishop in 1877 came under the control of the Brigade Officer in charge of the Range. In exchange, the Government built another cottage in 1887 for the overseer at a cost of £250. A pavilion, also designed by Cowlishaw was built in 1885 at the northern end of Portion 10.

 

In 1891, extensive public usage of the cemetery land spurred the newly formed Toowong Shire Council to seek an arrangement with the Trustees to utilise some of the land for the purpose of public recreation. Whilst initially reluctant, the Trustees came to support the idea. In 1915, the Toowong Park Act was passed providing the Trustees with the means to transfer 132 acres 2 roods 18 perches to the Toowong Town Council for Park and Recreation purposes known in part as the Old Rifle Range for the sum of £1,000. This revenue was used to finance the construction of new gates and fencing and the purchase in 1916, of Portion 872, the sole adjoining private property, to satisfy the Trustees preference for completely surrounding the cemetery with public roads.

 

Agitation for public transport within close proximity of the cemetery was finally achieved with the extension of the tramway to the cemetery in 1901. A shelter shed was erected by the Brisbane Tramways Co in 1916.

 

The Paddington Cemeteries Act of 1911, authorised the Government to resume the several cemeteries at Milton and, upon the request of any relative of any person buried therein within 12 months, to disinter the remains of the deceased. The remains were removed together with any memorials to any cemetery agreed upon with associated costs borne by the Government. Of the 4,643 identifiable graves at Milton, there were 178 applications made. 139 remains and 105 memorials were relocated from Milton to Toowong throughout the site, with the greatest concentration to be found in Portion 6.

 

Tenders for a sanitary block were called by Trustee and architect, Edward Myer Myers in November 1923. The successful tenderer was Marberete Co and the construction was completed prior to Anzac Day 1924 when the Shrine of Remembrance and Cross of Sacrifice were unveiled. A report of the ceremony in the Sydney Mail incorrectly refers to the building as a mortuary chapel and flags of the Union Jack were hung over the entries to the men's and ladies' toilets to disguise the signage.

 

On 1 August 1930, Toowong Cemetery and all others with the Brisbane City Council municipality were placed under the management and control of the Council. The following year, the area of the Toowong Cemetery bounded by Mt Coot-tha Road and Miskin and Dean Streets was used by the Australian Military Forces for training and later was transferred to the Brisbane City Council and was developed as a Bus Depot. A substation was erected in the south-east corner of this site in 1935.

 

Flowers were cultivated and sold at the Cemetery from Portion 10 until the 1930s. In 1934 the area set apart for soldier's graves within Portion 10 was extended and incorporated the flower gardens and the octagonal pavilion was probably demolished at this time. Other shelter sheds were erected and six, including two with toilets, are dotted over the site. In 1936 the last available block, Portion 30, was laid out for burial purposes. To allow for more burials, the plot sizes were reduced from 9'x5'to 8'x4'.

 

By April 1975, all burial plots in the Cemetery had been sold and the Cemetery was closed with the exception of burials in family graves. That same year, hundreds of worn, forgotten headstones in three major city cemeteries were removed by Brisbane City Council workmen employed under the Regional Employment Development Scheme. Old, neglected monuments were removed from Toowong, Lutwyche and South Brisbane cemeteries and trees and shrubs planted. The long term aim of the scheme was to return the cemeteries to open space with a parkland atmosphere. It is thought approximately 1,000 memorials were removed from Toowong.

 

In the early 1980s, footpath clearances were substantially reduced along the Frederick Street and Mt Coot-tha Road boundaries and the tram shelter and tram lines were removed as part of the Route 20 overpass and roundabout development. As a result of this work, direct access through the main gates of the Cemetery from all directions but the west has been disconnected.

 

The Sexton's office, built around the turn of the century on Portion 10 above the floor of the flower shed, fell into disuse once the new Sexton's office was built in 1989. Restoration work to repair and reconstruct the former Sexton's office and its conversion to a museum was initiated by the Brisbane City Council Heritage Advisory Committee and the work carried out by the Heritage Unit in 1991. Another initiative by the Brisbane City Council Heritage Unit, also undertaken in 1991, was the establishment of the Toowong Cemetery Heritage Trail together with the Adopt-a-Pioneer program for plots in need of maintenance and to raise public awareness of the invaluable resource that the cemetery provides.

 

In 1992, steel boom gates were erected at the Birdwood Terrace and Frederick Street entrances of the Cemetery to deter vandalism, theft and drag racing. The same year, a group of volunteers formed The Friends of Toowong Cemetery and their activities include tending to neglected gravesites and organising tours of the Cemetery for interested parties. They have also produced several booklets including the Toowong Cemetery Resource Manual and Extraordinary Lives of Ordinary People.

 

The Cemetery was reopened in 1998 with approximately 450 plots available for sale.

 

Source: Australian Dictionary Of Biography & Queensland Heritage Register.

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

 

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

 

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

 

ETYMOLOGY AND OTHER NAMES

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

ICONOGRAPHY

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

 

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

 

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

 

COMMON ATTRIBUTES

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

 

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

 

VAHANAS

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

 

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

 

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

 

ASSOCIATIONS

 

OBSTACLES

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

 

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

 

BUDDHI (KNOWLEDGE)

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

 

AUM

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

 

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

 

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

 

FIRST CHAKRA

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

 

FAMILY AND CONSORTS

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

WOSHIP AND FESTIVALS

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

GANESH CHATURTI

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

 

TEMPLES

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

 

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

 

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

 

RISE TO PROMINENCE

 

FIRST APEARANCE

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

 

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

 

POSSIBLE INFLUENCES

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

VEDIC AND EPIC LITERATURE

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

 

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

 

Ganesha does not appear in Indian epic literature that is dated to the Vedic period. A late interpolation to the epic poem Mahabharata says that the sage Vyasa (Vyāsa) asked Ganesha to serve as his scribe to transcribe the poem as he dictated it to him. Ganesha agreed but only on condition that Vyasa recite the poem uninterrupted, that is, without pausing. The sage agreed, but found that to get any rest he needed to recite very complex passages so Ganesha would have to ask for clarifications. The story is not accepted as part of the original text by the editors of the critical edition of the Mahabharata, in which the twenty-line story is relegated to a footnote in an appendix. The story of Ganesha acting as the scribe occurs in 37 of the 59 manuscripts consulted during preparation of the critical edition.[174] Ganesha's association with mental agility and learning is one reason he is shown as scribe for Vyāsa's dictation of the Mahabharata in this interpolation. Richard L. Brown dates the story to the 8th century, and Moriz Winternitz concludes that it was known as early as c. 900, but it was not added to the Mahabharata some 150 years later. Winternitz also notes that a distinctive feature in South Indian manuscripts of the Mahabharata is their omission of this Ganesha legend. The term vināyaka is found in some recensions of the Śāntiparva and Anuśāsanaparva that are regarded as interpolations. A reference to Vighnakartṛīṇām ("Creator of Obstacles") in Vanaparva is also believed to be an interpolation and does not appear in the critical edition.

 

PURANIC PERIOD

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

SCRIPTURES

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

 

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

 

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

 

BEYOND INDIA AND HINDUISM

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

WIKIPEDIA

 

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*Happy birthday!* ( a Bioshock fanfic)

*Anarchy Writer* (2012)

 

Earl blinked. His vision was blurry as water dropped from a leak in the ceiling, arousing him from his sleep. He struggled to his feet and screamed. He was the monster of Rapture. He was a Big Daddy! Earl was wearing a thin diving suit with shoulder guards and knee and elbow pads that had multicolored tubes inserted in them from a pack in his back, he looked in a a pool he was wearing a gas mask like helmet with two glowing portholes where his eyes were. He backed up and looked at his hands on one was a fingerless glove with the palm exposed on the other hand was a heavy gauntlet with spiked knuckles strangely in place of the bulky drill. He looked around he didn't seem much tall and he was a lot more agile then most Daddies.

"What...? What Happened to me?"

He walked over to a table with a syringe and a Revolver he looked at the Syringe which a tag hanging off.

ELECTRO BOLT! CONTROL THE POWER OF THUNDER WITH A SNAP OF YOUR FINGERS

REMEMBER DON'T BE A DOLT USE ELECTRO BOLT!

Earl hated needles but it seemed like the only smart thing to do. He closed his eyes and jammed the needle into his exposed palm, for an instant nothing happened then suddenly Earl feel to his knees. His head felt like it had been electrocuted, every cell popped then reformed the pain most emanated from his right hand, He looked at the smoking flesh and saw electricity crackle. Earl allowed himself a smile, took the revolver and walked out of the room. He thought for a second then remembered he had been going to rapture for his Birthday when he and his sister were kidnapped now he was...This. He kept walking when he heard whispering.

"I told you you was wrong!"

"I'm not THE NUMBERS NEVER LIE!"

"Shush! Here it comes!"

Earl slowly walked towards the door and kicked it open. When he saw nothing he turned both ways, left and right. Nothing. He kept walking when something dropped behind him he whirled around as a woman with no nose or mouth swung with hooks at him, Grabbing her arm Earl slammed the barrel against her forehead and pulled the trigger. Her brain exploding from her skull with a sickening crunch. Earl looked at the dead body, He had always hated Splicers freaks of nature he walked over looking for the second voice when he felt a sharp pain on his hand. Looking down, He saw a large wasp about three inches long perched on his palm. As he swatted it away He looked up at at a Splicer wearing a lab coat who was hurriedly injecting a plasmid into his arm which was covered with boils, Earl aimed with his revolver but the man blasted a swarm of the wasps distracting him causing Earl to stumble back waving his arms blindly in hopes of swatting the wasps when he tripped and smashed through a window, letting the thick sea water flood into the hallway. He floated through the hallway, Struggling. His lungs were on fire. His mind was going black. Forcing his mouth open for air he realized he could breathe, he slowly trudged through the flooded cavern when he saw the Splicer who attacked with the wasps struggling for air.He grabbed it by it's neck and twisted, breaking it.The man still flailed wildly, Earl twisted again ripping the entire head from it's shoulders he scowled at the mutated head in his hand and crushed it,

"Scumbag."

He kept walking for what felt like hours when he came to a room. A door slammed shut behind him as the water drained into grates below him, He inspected the electric arcs between his fingers and opened the door and walked into what seemed to be an amusement park a little girl in a blue dress was running past him when a splicer grabbed her and threw her to the ground,

"MISTER BUBBLES! HELP!"

The Splicer raised his wrench to strike but Earl was behind him he grabbed his arm put his hand on the Splicer's shoulder and ripped it off. the Splicer turned and tried to run but Earl shot him in the back of his head blowing his brains all over a cut out of a clown. Earl walked over to the girl.

"Hey? you okay?"

"Mister Bubbles?"

"Who?"

A loud groan sounded through the area Earl turned

"What was that!?!"

The girl smiled.

"Mister Bubbles."

Earl turned to see a large hunched over creature with multiple portholes coming out with glowing red. for one hand it had a massive drill. Earl slowly backed away the creature groaned and charged Earl slamming into him. Earl felt the wind leave his body as he was smashed into a wall he looked up to see the creature swing towards him with it's drill. Earl rolled out of the way and shot the creature in the head with his revolver before kicking it .unfazed the creature grabbed him by his leg and smashed him into the wall then swung with the side of his drill hitting with a crack. Earl felt several Ribs ache as he was sent face first into the ground. Earl turned and looked at the glass ceiling. he took his revolver and fired, breaking the glass on a panel and causing water to gush down on the creature causing it to look up quizzically Earl took that time to blast it as much as possible with Electro-Bolt. the creature stumbled and collapsed flailing as the Brain sent a few last signals to it's limbs Earl walked over to the corpse and kicked it to see if it was alive. the girl rushed over and started crying at the sight of the creature. Earl looked at the girl.

"Uh, You need to get out of here!"

The room was filled with shouts of Splicers, Earl weighed his options. He didn't have enough ammo and using Electricity would fry him too, due to the water on the ground. Either way, he was dead!

   

It got your attention, didn’t it? It got mine too when I saw him approaching in Nathan Phillips Square in front of Toronto’s City Hall.

 

I knew there had to be a story behind that message on his hoodie so I told him I was curious about the message on his hoodie and wanted to know the story behind it. His response was friendly and he explained it’s a nonprofit organization with the goal of making the world a better place. Their website is www.utwnow.org and it explains “Our mission is to empower and inspire people around the world to take positive actions in their own communities. No positive action is too small, and it will make a difference. It’s the sum of our actions that will move the world in the right direction.” Their home base is Los Angeles where they have projects to help the homeless. Meet Shayne.

 

Shayne explained that the wording shocks some people but that the aim is to be noticed. It sure worked on me. As we chatted on the square, I told Shayne about my photo project, The Human Family, and noted that some of our objectives are similar to those of the Unfuck The World organization. I asked if he would participate in my photo project and bring a bit of extra attention to the UTW movement. He said he would be glad to and had a few minutes on his way home from work.

 

The square is a large open space which posed some challenges for portrait backgrounds. I suggested we walk a few steps and use the windows of the public library branch and café which occupy the ground floor of City Hall. Photos taken, we chatted.

 

Shayne is 28 and came to Toronto from Sioux Saint Marie near the juncture of Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron. He is a tower crane operator, a job central to the efficiency and safety of worksites where highrise buildings are going up. Tower crane operators have to have a good understanding of the construction site so they can efficiently move materials to keep the worksite progressing efficiently and safely. He works in solitude in a cabin high above the city and is in constant communication with construction supervisors on ground level who direct his activities through a walkie-talkie.

 

Shayne likes his work because it carries a lot of responsibility. He grew up being responsible from a young age. He explained that his parents split up when he was young and he learned to be self-directed and independent early on. He said he has always been motivated to help others; it seems to be in his personality. Shayne described himself as a Humanitarian who is committed to making the world a better place. When I asked him one thing that would help “unfuck the world” he said “Teamwork. As simple as it sounds, if we would all think more of We and less of Me, the world would be a much better place.”

 

Shayne was on his way home from work and I didn’t want to detain him but I found him a very thoughtful and community-minded fellow and it was a pleasure meeting him. I thanked him for taking the time to meet and explain the “Unfuck The World” movement and wished him well. He, in turn, thanked me and said “It was nice meeting you too… and thanks for noticing my hoodie.” We parted with a friendly handshake.

 

The next time I see someone working high above the city in the cab of a tower crane (of which there are so many in Toronto right now) I’m going to be wondering if that speck in the cab above is Shayne.

 

Thank you Shayne for participating in my photo project. This is my 350th submission to The Human Family group on Flickr.

 

You can view more street portraits and stories by visiting The Human Family.

 

Follow-up:

Receiving an email like this one from Shayne really does reaffirm what we already know: That this project really does have a positive impact.

"I'm glad to be apart of your human family project. Thanks for not putting the photos up with my eyes closed. You have very well written articles. I am humbled by the wording in the description of our encounter.

Thanks again Jeff. I wish you well in your pursuit of inspiring people. Take care ."

 

Spotted on King Street.

Love him to the moon and back!!

 

Visit this location at JARED'S WILDCAT COUNTRY in Second Life

VILLE VALO from HIM (2nd Prototipe)

Custom Taeyang by Sheryl Designs to Karlfromleads

 

MODIFICATIONS:

Complette Make Up

Replaced acrylic eyes

©2007-2010 Sheryl Designs Eyemech Modification

 

Real Ville Valo

Hilo en el Foro de Pullips: Pullip. es

T21 - Typhon, overcoming Jupiter, casts him into the cave of Corycus, at the foot of Parnassus

 

Gem impression

Source:

www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/XDB/ASP/recordDetailsLarge.asp?recor...{ACBDF58F-16F5-4B45-A7A7-DBAD759B49F0}&returnPage=&start=0

This little guy was on the deck of our cottage at Lighthouse Landing, he would of come in the cottage if we would let him...