Buckingham Branch train Z710 picking up rock loads in Arvonia, VA.

 

In a now mostly homogenized railroading world, there are still some gems to be found. GP7 #1 is the old 8851, the unit that started up this line in 1988. And here it is leading a train on that same line 36 years later. Nevermind the fact it was built in 1951 and is still operating in revenue freight service...

I can't believe Sara is going out with that guy. I know he looks good and acts sweet, but he's just a phoney...not even that...he's all imitation. I tried to tell Sara, but she won't listen. In fact, she eats him up with a spoon!

Sometimes I feel the world has become homogenized. If it wasn't for the older lady in the photo this could easily pass of as any generic city in the world. I also wonder sometimes what it feels like when clothes, customs, fashion, habits, language change around you and you come to be seen as the oddity, the one who sticks out just because you couldn't or wouldn't change with the times.

Times Square is a major commercial intersection and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue, and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. Brightly adorned with billboards and advertisements, Times Square is sometimes referred to as The Crossroads of the World, The Center of the Universe, and the heart of The Great White Way. One of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. Times Square is one of the world's most visited tourist attractions, drawing an estimated fifty million visitors annually. Approximately 330,000 people pass through Times Square daily, many of them tourists.

 

Formerly Longacre Square, Times Square was renamed in 1904 after The New York Times moved its headquarters to the newly erected Times Building, the site of the annual ball drop which began on December 31, 1907, and continues today, attracting over a million visitors to Times Square every New Year's Eve.

 

Duffy Square, the northernmost of Times Square's triangles, was dedicated in 1937 to Chaplain Francis P. Duffy of New York City's U.S. 69th Infantry Regiment and is the site of a memorial to him, along with a statue of George M. Cohan and the TKTS discount theatre tickets booth.

 

When Manhattan Island was first settled by the Dutch, three small streams united near what is now 10th Avenue and 40th street. These three streams formed the "Great Kill" (Dutch: Grote Kill). From there the Great Kill wound through the low-lying Reed Valley, known for fish and waterfowl and emptied into a deep bay in the Hudson River at the present 42nd Street. The name was retained in a tiny hamlet, Great Kill, that became a center for carriage-making, as the upland to the south and east became known as Longacre.

 

Before and after the American Revolution, the area belonged to John Morin Scott, a general of the New York militia, in which he served under George Washington. Scott's manor house was at what is currently 43rd Street, surrounded by countryside used for farming and breeding horses. In the first half of the 19th century, it became one of the prized possessions of John Jacob Astor, who made a second fortune selling off lots to hotels and other real estate concerns as the city rapidly spread uptown.

 

By 1872, the area had become the center of New York's carriage industry. The area not having previously been named, the city authorities called it Longacre Square after Long Acre in London, where the carriage trade in that city was centered and which was also a home to stables. William Henry Vanderbilt owned and ran the American Horse Exchange there until the turn of the 20th century.

 

As more profitable commerce and industrialization of lower Manhattan pushed homes, theaters, and prostitution northward from the Tenderloin District, Long Acre Square became nicknamed the Thieves Lair for its rollicking reputation as a low entertainment district. The first theater on the square, the Olympia, was built by cigar manufacturer and impresario Oscar Hammerstein I. "By the early 1890s this once sparsely settled stretch of Broadway was ablaze with electric light and thronged by crowds of middle- and upper-class theatre, restaurant and cafe patrons."

 

In 1904, New York Times publisher Adolph S. Ochs moved the newspaper's operations to a new skyscraper on 42nd Street at Longacre Square, on the site of the former Pabst Hotel, which had existed on the site for less than a decade. Ochs persuaded Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr. to construct a subway station there, and the area was renamed "Times Square" on April 8, 1904. Just three weeks later, the first electrified advertisement appeared on the side of a bank at the corner of 46th Street and Broadway. The north end later became Duffy Square.

 

The New York Times, according to Nolan, moved to more spacious offices west of the square in 1913. The old Times Building was later named the Allied Chemical Building. Now known simply as One Times Square, it is famed for the Times Square Ball drop on its roof every New Year's Eve.

 

In 1913, the Lincoln Highway Association, headed by entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, chose the intersection of 42nd Street and Broadway, at the southeast corner of Times Square, to be the Eastern Terminus of the Lincoln Highway, the first road across the United States, which originally spanned 3,389 miles (5,454 km) coast-to-coast through 13 states to its western end in Lincoln Park in San Francisco, California.

 

As the growth in New York City continued, Times Square quickly became a cultural hub full of theatres, music halls, and upscale hotels.

 

Times Square quickly became New York's agora, a place to gather to await great tidings and to celebrate them, whether a World Series or a presidential election

—James Traub, The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square

 

Celebrities such as Irving Berlin, Fred Astaire, and Charlie Chaplin were closely associated with Times Square in the 1910s and 1920s. During this period, the area was nicknamed The Tenderloin because it was supposedly the most desirable location in Manhattan. However, it was during this period that the area was besieged by crime and corruption, in the form of gambling and prostitution; one case that garnered huge attention was the arrest and subsequent execution of police officer Charles Becker.

 

The general atmosphere changed with the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Times Square acquired a reputation as a dangerous neighborhood in the following decades. From the 1960s to the early 1990s, the seediness of the area, especially due to its go-go bars, sex shops, and adult theaters, became an infamous symbol of the city's decline.

1970s–1980s

 

As early as 1960, 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenue, was described by The New York Times as "the 'worst' [block] in town", Times Square in that decade, as depicted in Midnight Cowboy, was gritty, dark and desperate, and it got worse in the 1970s and 1980s, as did the crime situation in the rest of the city things were worse still. By 1984, an unprecedented 2,300 annual crimes occurred on that single block, of which 460 were serious felonies such as murder and rape. At the time, since police morale was low, misdemeanors were allowed to go unpunished. William Bratton, who was appointed New York City Police Commissioner in 1994 and again in 2014, stated, "The [NYPD] didn't want high performance; it wanted to stay out of trouble, to avoid corruption scandals and conflicts in the community. For years, therefore, the key to career success in the NYPD, as in many bureaucratic leviathans, was to shun risk and avoid failure. Accordingly, cops became more cautious as they rose in rank, right up to the highest levels." As the city government did not implement broken windows theory at first, the allowance of low-profile crime was thought to have caused more high-profile crimes to occur. Formerly elegant movie theaters began to show porn, and hustlers were common. The area was so abandoned at one point during the time that the entire Times Square area paid the city only $6 million in property taxes, which is less than what a medium-sized office building in Manhattan typically would produce in tax revenue today in 1984 dollars.

 

In the 1980s, a commercial building boom began in the western parts of Midtown as part of a long-term development plan developed under Mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins. In the mid-1990s, Rudolph Giuliani led an effort to clean up the area, an effort that is described by Steve Macekin in Urban Nightmares: The Media, the Right, And the Moral Panic Over the City: Security was increased, pornographic theatres were closed, and “undesirable” low-rent residents were pressured to relocate, and then more tourist-friendly attractions and upscale establishments were opened. Advocates of the remodeling claim that the neighborhood is safer and cleaner. Detractors have countered that the changes have homogenized or "Disneyfied" the character of Times Square and have unfairly targeted lower-income New Yorkers from nearby neighborhoods such as Hell's Kitchen.

 

In 1990, the state of New York took possession of six of the nine historic theatres on 42nd Street, and the New 42nd Street non-profit organization was appointed to oversee their restoration and maintenance. The theatres underwent renovation for Broadway shows, conversion for commercial purposes, or demolition.

 

In 1992, the Times Square Alliance (formerly the Times Square Business Improvement District, or "BID" for short), a coalition of city government and local businesses dedicated to improving the quality of commerce and cleanliness in the district, started operations in the area. Times Square now boasts attractions such as ABC's Times Square Studios, where Good Morning America is broadcast live, an elaborate Toys "Я" Us store, and competing Hershey's and M&M's stores across the street from each other, as well as multiple multiplex movie theaters. Additionally, the area contains restaurants such as Ruby Foo's, a Chinese eatery; the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, a seafood establishment; Planet Hollywood Restaurant and Bar, a theme restaurant; and Carmine's, serving Italian cuisine. It has also attracted a number of large financial, publishing, and media firms to set up headquarters in the area. A larger presence of police has improved the safety of the area.

 

The theatres of Broadway and the huge number of animated neon and LED signs have been one of New York's iconic images, as well as a symbol of the intensely urban aspects of Manhattan. The prevalence of such signage is because Times Square is the only neighborhood with zoning ordinances requiring building owners to display illuminated signs. The neighborhood actually has a minimum limit for lighting instead of the standard maximum limit. The density of illuminated signs in Times Square rivals that in Las Vegas. Officially, signs in Times Square are called "spectaculars", and the largest of them are called "jumbotrons." This signage ordnance was implemented in accordance with guidelines set in a revitalization program that New York Governor Mario Cuomo implemented in 1993.

Notable signage includes the Toshiba billboard directly under the NYE ball drop and the curved seven-story NASDAQ sign at the NASDAQ MarketSite at 4 Times Square on 43rd Street and the curved Coca-Cola sign located underneath another large LED display owned and operated by Samsung. Both the Coca-Cola sign and Samsung LED displays were built by LED display manufacturer Daktronics. Times Square's first environmentally friendly billboard powered by wind and solar energy was first lit on December 4, 2008. On completion, the 20 Times Square development will host the largest LED signage in Times Square at 18,000 square feet. The display will be 1,000 square feet larger than the Times Square Walgreens display and one of the largest video-capable screen in the world.

2000s–present

 

In 2002, New York City's mayor, Rudy Giuliani, gave the oath of office to the city's next mayor, Michael Bloomberg, at Times Square after midnight on January 1 as part of the 2001–2002 New Year's celebration. Approximately 500,000 revelers attended. Security was high following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, with more than 7,000 New York City police officers on duty in the Square, twice the number for an ordinary year.

 

Since 2002, the summer solstice has been marked by "Mind over Madness", a mass yoga event involving up to 15,000 people. Tim Tompkins, co-founder of the event, said part of its appeal was "finding stillness and calm amid the city rush on the longest day of the year".

 

On February 26, 2009, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that traffic lanes along Broadway from 42nd Street to 47th Street would be de-mapped starting Memorial Day 2009 and transformed into pedestrian plazas until at least the end of the year as a trial. The same was done from 33rd to 35th Street. The goal was to ease traffic congestion throughout the Midtown grid. The results were to be closely monitored to determine if the project worked and should be extended. Bloomberg also stated that he believed the street shutdown would make New York more livable by reducing pollution, cutting down on pedestrian accidents and helping traffic flow more smoothly.

 

The pedestrian plaza project was originally opposed by local businesses, who thought that closing the street to cars would hurt business. The original seats put out for pedestrians were inexpensive multicolored plastic lawn chairs, a source of amusement to many New Yorkers; they lasted from the onset of the plaza transformation until August 14, 2009, when they were ceremoniously bundled together in an installation christened "Now You See It, Now You Don't" by the artist Jason Peters, and shortly afterward were replaced by sturdier metal furniture. Although the plaza had mixed results on traffic in the area, injuries to motorists and pedestrians decreased, fewer pedestrians were walking in the road and the number of pedestrians in Times Square increased. On February 11, 2010, Bloomberg announced that the pedestrian plazas would become permanent.

 

By December 2013, the first phase of the Times Square pedestrian plaza, at the southern end of the square, was complete, in time for the Times Square Ball drop of New Year's Eve 2013. The project will be complete by the end of 2015. Snøhetta is responsible for the renovations.

 

from Wikipedia

 

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This Case feature is extra special for me because he was one of the first writers I met in '95 when I didn't know anybody and we were still in high school. Case has been famous twice, both as a writer and as Video director when he won an Juno for a video with Arcade Fire.

 

1.) How long have you been actively writing for?

I started writing in '92. I slowed down in 2002 to a couple pieces a year, but I never stopped writing. So it's been 28 years.

 

2.) How has your work changed or evolved since you started, and what made it change?

My work has gotten better since I started... First couple years were pretty toy. But at my peak, my work was known worldwide, I got the chance to paint with Daim, Loomit, Seen, Duster, Tats Cru and many other international writers. Also in the big magazines like The Source, 12oz Prophet, etc. All these experiences improved my style and made me look at pushing graffiti further.

 

3.) Tell me about your approach to street art?

My approach comes from a freestyle frame of mind. I like to paint to the wall instead of to the sketch. I sketch to practice but when I paint I rarely use sketch's. I find them to constricting. I do all aspects from 2d to 3d to characters and backgrounds.

  

4.) Any other interests you have apart from painting/art?

Apart from art, Im interested in film making and have directed and animated many music videos for a variety of recording artist from 2001-2009

  

5.) How do you see the further evolution of your work? The city, and scene at large? Seems to have changed alot in the last decade.

My work has evolved onto canvases using Spray paint in a different way. Portraits, scenics and abstracts that adhere to the traditional rules of graffiti - no stencils, no brushes, just pure freehand spray painting. The scene really changed with the advent of the internet. Regional styles started disappearing and a more homogenized style replaced it. Street cred was easier to fake and the real street culture turned into legal walls and sponsored jams. Its great to see many writers from the pre-internet era coming back and still kings. Shout out to the graffiti grandpa's keeping it real and my crews Kwota, TDV, AFC, BIF, PFD

 

You can see more of Case's art here: casemackeen.com

 

He also has a show coming up at Run Gallery in Toronto opening Dec 12, 2020.

 

This woman was standing alone, in a shady corner of Omonoia Square.

 

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When we hear the phrase “first impression,” we tend to think of a person. Was the politician I recently voted for as inspiring when I heard his first speech as he was years later? (More so, sadly.) Was the girl that I married as beautiful at 13 as she was years later, in her twenties and thirties? (Yes, and yes.) Did Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind send more of a shiver down my spine in 1963 than it did when I heard it drifting from a car radio 45 years later? (No. It stops me dead in my tracks every time I hear it.)

 

It’s not just people that make first impressions on me. Cities do, too, perhaps because I encountered so many of them while my family moved every year throughout my childhood. Or perhaps it’s because, after seeing so many cities that I thought were different in the United States, I was so completely unprepared for the wild variety of sights and sounds and smells that I encountered as a grown man, when I traveled to Europe and South America, to Africa and Asia and Australia. And even today, there are cities that I’m visiting for the first time, and which continue to take me by surprise.

 

Athens is one of those cities. I don’t know what I was expecting… Something old, of course, something downright ancient, filled with smashed statues and marble columns like Rome, engraved with unreadable inscriptions in a language I never learned — but probably not as ancient as Cairo. Something hot and noisy and polluted and smelly, perhaps like Calcutta or the slums of Mumbai. Something gridlocked with noisy, honking traffic congestion, perhaps like Moscow.

 

What I didn’t expect was the wide, nearly-empty highways leading from the airport into the city. I didn’t expect the cleanliness of the tree-lined streets that ran in every direction. I did expect the white-washed buildings and houses that climbed the hills that surround the city — but the local people told me that buildings in Athens were positively gray compared to what I would have seen if I had stayed longer and ventured out to the Greek islands.

 

I also didn’t expect the graffiti that covered nearly every wall, on every building, up and down every street. They were mostly slogans and phrases in Greek (and therefore completely unintelligible to me), but with occasional crude references in English to IMF bankers, undercover policemen, a politician or two, and the CIA. There were a couple slogans from the Russian revolution of 1917, from the Castro uprising in Cuba, and even from the American revolution (“united we stand, divided we fall.”)

 

Naturally, I thought all of this had come about in just the past few months, as Greece has wrestled with its overwhelming financial crisis. But I was told by local citizens that much of the graffiti has been around for quite a bit longer than that – just as it has been in cities like New York and London. Some of it was wild and colorful, with cartoon figures and crazy faces … though I don’t think it quite rises to the level of “street art” that one sees in parts of SoHo, Tribeca, and the East Village in New York. What impressed me most about the graffiti in Athens was its vibrant energy; I felt like the artists were ready to punch a hole through the walls with their spray-cans.

 

These are merely my own first impressions; they won’t be the same as yours. Beyond that, there are a lot of facts, figures, and details if one wants to fully describe a city like Athens. Its recorded history spans some 3,400 years, and it includes the exploits of kings and generals, gods and philosophers, athletes and artists. There are statues and columns and ruins everywhere; and towering above it all is the breath-taking Acropolis. It’s far too rich and complex for me to describe here in any reasonable way; if you want to know more, find some books or scan the excellent Wikipedia summary.

 

It’s also hard to figure out what one should photograph on a first visit to a city like Athens. It’s impossible not to photograph the Acropolis, especially since it’s lit at night and visible from almost every corner of the city. I was interested in the possibility of photographing the complex in the special light before dawn or after sunset, but it’s closed to visitors except during “civilized” daytime hours. It’s also undergoing extensive renovations and repair, so much of it is covered in scaffolding, derricks, and cranes. In the end, I took a few panorama shots and telephoto shots, and explored the details by visiting the new Acropolis Museum, with the camera turned off.

 

Aside from that, the photos you’ll see here concentrate on two things: my unexpected “first impression” of the local graffiti, and my favorite of all subjects: people. In a couple cases, the subjects are unmistakably Greek – Greek orthodox priests, for example – and in a couple cases, you might think you were looking at a street scene in São Paulo or Mexico City. But in most of the shots, you’ll see examples of stylish, fashionable, interesting people that don’t look all that much different from the people I’ve photographed in New York, London, Rome, or Paris. Maybe we can attribute that to the homogenization of fashion and style in today’s interconnected global environment. Or maybe we can just chalk it up to the fact that people are, well … interesting … wherever you go.

 

In any case, enjoy. And if you get to Athens yourself, send me some photos of your own first impressions.

In the beginning of 2023, a pair of UP SD60's, classified as SD62's, assigned to the Alton & Gateway Yard at East St. Louis, IL emerged from paint booth at North Little Rock, AR wearing updated A&S paint.

 

This scheme was first applied when the A&S was jointly owned by the Missouri Pacifc and the Chicago & Northwestern starting in 1968. The paint reflects ownership of both roads as does their logo, which is a combination of the MOP's buzzsaw and the CNW's bar and ball logo. CNW sold their share to the Cotton Belt, an SP subsidiary, in 1972, and the UP and MP merged a decade later. In 1996, UP merged with the SP, thus giving UP full control of the A&S.

 

Over the years, the number of switchers on the A&S have dwindled and the two GP38-2's that wore this scheme have since been retired and sold for a few years now. Even though the A&S remains a separate legal entity, it's been rumored UP wants to them phase them out entirely, but seemingly out of no where, a pair of SD62's and an SD40N were sent to Jenks Shops to be painted in this iconic scheme. Once again, locomotives adorned in the MOP-CNW inspired paint scheme have become a fairly common sight around the St. Louis area.

 

It's almost incredible this has even happened in this day and age of railroading where almost everything has become so boring and homogenized. 3/16/24.

The Suizhou meteorite shower occurred on April 15, 1986 in Dayanpo, Suizhou Prefecture, Hubei Province at 6:50pm, a witnessed fall. Suizhou is most widely known for containing a mineral never before seen in nature. Found in the thin veins of shock melt which run through Suizhou— the result of a cataclysmic collision in outer space— is Tuite, a new polymorph of the mineral Whitlockite. Its creamy matrix vividly contrasts with broad surfaces of black fusion crust - the result of its fiery plunge through Earth's atmosphere.

 

Classification: L6 – An ordinary chondrite from the L (Low Iron) group that is petrologic type 6 (Designates chondrites that have been metamorphosed under conditions sufficient to homogenize all mineral compositions, convert all low-Ca pyroxene to orthopyroxene, coarsen secondary phases such as feldspar to sizes ≥50 µm, and obliterate many chondrule outlines).

It measures 4 x 3.5 x 1.75 inches (98 x 87 x 43 mm) and weighs 0.75 pounds (353.57 grams).

By Nam June Paik

 

When Nam June Paik came to the United States in 1964, the interstate highway system was only nine years old, and superhighways offered everyone the freedom to "see the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet." Walking along the entire length of this installation suggests the enormous scale of the nation that confronted the young Korean artist when he arrived. Neon outlines the monitors, recalling the multicolored maps and glowing enticements of motels and restaurants that beckoned Americans to the open road. The different colors remind us that individual states still have distinct identities and cultures, even in today's information age.

 

Paik augmented the flashing images "seen as though from a passing car" with audio clips from The Wizard of Oz, Oklahoma, and other screen gems, suggesting that our picture of America has always been influenced by film and television. Today, the Internet and twenty-four-hour broadcasting tend to homogenize the customs and accents of what was once a more diverse nation. Paik was the first to use the phrase "electronic superhighway," and this installation proposes that electronic media provide us with what we used to leave home to discover. But Electronic Superhighway is real. It is an enormous physical object that occupies a middle ground between the virtual reality of the media and the sprawling country beyond our doors.

 

From AmericanArt.SI.edu

 

A few notes:

~ The televisions behind Oklahoma are playing the movie musical "Oklahoma!"

~ Missouri: playing the movie "Meet Me In St. Louie"

~ Kansas: playing "The Wizard of Oz"

~ Idaho: shows potatoes. Just potatoes. Over and over again.

~ Kentucky: scenes from the Kentucky Derby

~ Indiana: scenes from the Indy 500

~ Iowa: politicians campaigning during the Iowa caucuses

~ Illinois: rapid scenes of Chicago with an occassion photo of Lincoln

~ Colorado: amateur sports

~ Mississippi: scenes from the civil rights movement

~ Rhode Island: has a little tiny television

~ Hawaii: scenes from "South Pacific"?

~ Alaska: ice and snow

~ South Dakota: George McGovern

I've visited Bangkok numerous times, though this last visit was the first time I made it to Wat Pho. If you're unfamiliar, Wat Pho is one of six temples in Thailand classed as the highest grade of the first-class royal temples. The temple, one of the oldest in Bangkok, is home to the largest collection of Buddha images in Thailand, including a 46m (+/- 150 ft) long reclining Buddha. Often Wat Pho is also referred to as the Temple of the Reclining Buddha.

 

Long story short, Wat Pho and the Reclining Buddha are important to Thai Buddhists. In fact, the temple complex is sacred. It's not uncommon to see locals, or Buddhists, pray at various places with the complex - especially at the king-size Reclining Buddha.

 

Common sense tells us to respect the area and symbols as we would our own churches, temples or mosques. On the day I visited Wat Pho a small group of three tourists decided it was a good idea to stop the flow of visitors - literally stop them - while they took turns laying on the floor in the Reclining Buddha pose and then snap selfies. If the selfie-takers weren't satisfied with their 'pics,' they'd retake the photos until they were pleased. To top off the outrageous behaviour, they took time to post their 'clever' images to their social media accounts.

 

If I had not witnessed the ridicule with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it. If the vast population did not own smartphones and if social media didn't exist, it's highly probably the sort of behaviour I saw wouldn't take place. That's not to say mobile phones or social media are to blame, because they're not. People are to blame. Phones and social media encourage the distasteful acts.

 

A number of popular destinations around the world experience bad behaviour from visitors. It's not uncommon to see angry rallies in Venice, attacks on tour buses in Barcelona and plans to limit visitor numbers in Dubrovnik. From Venice to Amsterdam, Hvar to San Sebastian, locals are becoming increasingly vocal and vigilant about the negative impact tourism is having on their homes. Who can blame them?

 

On Rialto Bridge I witnessed a young Venetian's date ruined when two tourists burst onto the scene with no regard to who or what was around them. Their loud voices carried into the night like a crowd cheering at a football match. The young male Venetian took his stand and let the two female tourists know in no uncertain terms Venice belonged to him and they were not welcome. The moment was so intense even I backed away and I wasn't part of the conflict.

 

It's easy to say common sense and respect should rule the day. What does that mean? Below is a list of some key things tourists can do to make destinations better for locals and ultimately yourselves.

 

1. Go Somewhere Else. If you're planning on visiting a destination that is up in arms about tourism, consider going somewhere else. Our world is vast and our travel choices are many. Perhaps choose Utrecht instead of Amsterdam or Siena over Rome. Going elsewhere will likely improve your holiday experience. Chances are you'll also experience fewer visitors and lesser known destinations tend to be less expensive. I'm not a typical tourist by any stretch of the word. In fact, I'm more of a traveler than a tourist. When I travel the road less traveled, I often find a place more interesting, I'm more at ease and it's more rewarding in the end.

 

2. Avoid The Must-See Sights. In fact, avoid the guidebooks that lead you to the hot spots all together. If ever I see a headline that reads something like "10 Things You Must Do in Hong Kong," it is a cue for me to avoid every one of the places on the guidebook's list or blogger's lists. If you do a little research and talk to the locals you'll learn of better places to visit at a similar site elsewhere. What's more is you'll have a much better experience because there are far fewer people visiting it. Besides, creating your own journey and personal experience in a destination is better and more memorable. Create your own story that is yours and yours alone.

 

3. Forget High Season. An obvious way to get the most out of your travel is to avoid the time when everyone else goes. I've always visited Venice during the off-season. When I'm exploring Venice at night with my camera, I often have the island to myself except for St Mark's Square. The shops and restaurants operate as normal in off-season. The added bonus - the hotel rates are less expensive even at high end accommodations. I love it and I also love that the manager of UNA Hotel Venezia meets me at the water taxi welcoming me back with a hug.

 

4. Leave Your Home and Customs At Home. In Bali, once, I challenged a London friend to leave London behind for two weeks. I knew he couldn't stop himself from saying, "In London, we ......." Each time he'd start, I'd cut him off. Toward the end of his time in Bali all I had to do was glance at him. It was sort of a game with my friend, though you can't expect your habits, customs and way of thinking to be the same wherever you travel. Do you think Parisians really want to hear (or care) how you eat breakfast at home as opposed to their way? If you think Parisians do, I want to hear all about it. The same is true everywhere. Open your mind and your heart and embrace the diversity you'll discover along the way. You'll grow when you leave home behind.

 

5. Don't Ask For International Chains. As I travel around the world I notice homogenized cities. More and more I can count on finding Starbuck's, Gap, Levi's, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Swatch, Disney, Lancome and more. Kuala Lumpur looks the same to me as London despite the cultural differences. Why would you travel 6000 or more miles to visit the same stores you can find at home? I'm an avid shopper but if I shop when I travel, I want something local and something I can find nowhere else. Think about it - do you really want to buy an imported item? Instead consider spending money on regional products in local shops.

 

6. Learn A Few Words Of The Local Language. Even if you can't correctly complete a proper sentence in Arabic, at least try. If you can attempt to converse with the locals in their language, they'll love you for it even if they chuckle. Additionally, the local might be more accommodating to your question if you attempt their language. The old trick of pointing and talking loudly really is an insult. Trust me, speaking loudly and slowly while asking your question to a local will not gain your foreign friends.

 

7. Put Your Selfie Sticks Away. In fact, forget selfies all together. I'm sure locals take their own selfies, but when you obstruct a passageway for your own narcissistic reasons, you're not projecting a positive image of yourself or where you come from.

 

8. Be Respectful. Wherever you to, abide by the local laws, respect the local customs and dress appropriately. Locals sometimes feel outnumbered by tourists and oftentimes they are. People in destinations like Venice are becoming increasingly angry that some tourists are disrespecting their hometown. Don't be that person. Ultimately, give the locals one less thing to complain about. Try being a traveler instead of a tourist. You'll be a better person for it.

 

I help aspiring and established photographers get noticed so they can earn an income from photography or increase sales. My blog, Photographer’s Business Notebook is a wealth of information as is my Mark Paulda’s YouTube Channel. I also offer a variety of books, mentor services and online classes at Mark Paulda Photography Mentor

 

All images are available as Museum Quality Photographic Prints and Commercial Licensing. Feel free to contact me with any and all inquiries.

 

Follow My Once In A Lifetime Travel Experiences at Mark Paulda’s Travel Journal

This was taken on Panepistimiou Avenue, one of the main streets in the center of Athens. It was right in front of the National Library, and just a couple blocks from the hotel where I stayed.

 

I had just missed one of the open-air buses that takes tourists like me around the city, and I had half an hour until the next one arrived. So I sat on one of the steps and photographed people as they walked by me, just to get a sense of what "ordinary" Athens people look like ...

 

Note: this photo was published in a Jul 3, 2012 Go Pin It blog, with the same caption and detailed notes that I had written here on this Flickr page.

 

Moving into 2013, the photo was published in a May 19, 2013 blog simply titled "Athens."

 

Moving into 2014, the photo was published in a Sep 10, 2014 blog titled "Sommergefühle im fashionable Griechenland."

 

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When we hear the phrase “first impression,” we tend to think of a person. Was the politician I recently voted for as inspiring when I heard his first speech as he was years later? (More so, sadly.) Was the girl that I married as beautiful at 13 as she was years later, in her twenties and thirties? (Yes, and yes.) Did Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind send more of a shiver down my spine in 1963 than it did when I heard it drifting from a car radio 45 years later? (No. It stops me dead in my tracks every time I hear it.)

 

It’s not just people that make first impressions on me. Cities do, too, perhaps because I encountered so many of them while my family moved every year throughout my childhood. Or perhaps it’s because, after seeing so many cities that I thought were different in the United States, I was so completely unprepared for the wild variety of sights and sounds and smells that I encountered as a grown man, when I traveled to Europe and South America, to Africa and Asia and Australia. And even today, there are cities that I’m visiting for the first time, and which continue to take me by surprise.

 

Athens is one of those cities. I don’t know what I was expecting… Something old, of course, something downright ancient, filled with smashed statues and marble columns like Rome, engraved with unreadable inscriptions in a language I never learned — but probably not as ancient as Cairo. Something hot and noisy and polluted and smelly, perhaps like Calcutta or the slums of Mumbai. Something gridlocked with noisy, honking traffic congestion, perhaps like Moscow.

 

What I didn’t expect was the wide, nearly-empty highways leading from the airport into the city. I didn’t expect the cleanliness of the tree-lined streets that ran in every direction. I did expect the white-washed buildings and houses that climbed the hills that surround the city — but the local people told me that buildings in Athens were positively gray compared to what I would have seen if I had stayed longer and ventured out to the Greek islands.

 

I also didn’t expect the graffiti that covered nearly every wall, on every building, up and down every street. They were mostly slogans and phrases in Greek (and therefore completely unintelligible to me), but with occasional crude references in English to IMF bankers, undercover policemen, a politician or two, and the CIA. There were a couple slogans from the Russian revolution of 1917, from the Castro uprising in Cuba, and even from the American revolution (“united we stand, divided we fall.”)

 

Naturally, I thought all of this had come about in just the past few months, as Greece has wrestled with its overwhelming financial crisis. But I was told by local citizens that much of the graffiti has been around for quite a bit longer than that – just as it has been in cities like New York and London. Some of it was wild and colorful, with cartoon figures and crazy faces … though I don’t think it quite rises to the level of “street art” that one sees in parts of SoHo, Tribeca, and the East Village in New York. What impressed me most about the graffiti in Athens was its vibrant energy; I felt like the artists were ready to punch a hole through the walls with their spray-cans.

 

These are merely my own first impressions; they won’t be the same as yours. Beyond that, there are a lot of facts, figures, and details if one wants to fully describe a city like Athens. Its recorded history spans some 3,400 years, and it includes the exploits of kings and generals, gods and philosophers, athletes and artists. There are statues and columns and ruins everywhere; and towering above it all is the breath-taking Acropolis. It’s far too rich and complex for me to describe here in any reasonable way; if you want to know more, find some books or scan the excellent Wikipedia summary.

 

It’s also hard to figure out what one should photograph on a first visit to a city like Athens. It’s impossible not to photograph the Acropolis, especially since it’s lit at night and visible from almost every corner of the city. I was interested in the possibility of photographing the complex in the special light before dawn or after sunset, but it’s closed to visitors except during “civilized” daytime hours. It’s also undergoing extensive renovations and repair, so much of it is covered in scaffolding, derricks, and cranes. In the end, I took a few panorama shots and telephoto shots, and explored the details by visiting the new Acropolis Museum, with the camera turned off.

 

Aside from that, the photos you’ll see here concentrate on two things: my unexpected “first impression” of the local graffiti, and my favorite of all subjects: people. In a couple cases, the subjects are unmistakably Greek – Greek orthodox priests, for example – and in a couple cases, you might think you were looking at a street scene in São Paulo or Mexico City. But in most of the shots, you’ll see examples of stylish, fashionable, interesting people that don’t look all that much different from the people I’ve photographed in New York, London, Rome, or Paris. Maybe we can attribute that to the homogenization of fashion and style in today’s interconnected global environment. Or maybe we can just chalk it up to the fact that people are, well … interesting … wherever you go.

 

In any case, enjoy. And if you get to Athens yourself, send me some photos of your own first impressions.

Kumbabhishegam or Consecration is a Hindu Temple ritual that is believed to homogenize,synergize and unite the mystic powers of the deityKumbha means the Head and denotes the crown of the temple,usually in the Gopuram or Tower ang abishgam is ritual bathin with holy waters

Dualism in cosmology is the moral, or spiritual belief that two fundamental concepts exist, which often oppose each other. It is an umbrella term that covers a diversity of views from various religions, including both traditional religions and scriptural religions.

 

Moral dualism is the belief of the great complement of, or conflict between, the benevolent and the malevolent. It simply implies that there are two moral opposites at work, independent of any interpretation of what might be "moral" and independent of how these may be represented. Moral opposites might, for example, exist in a worldview which has one god, more than one god, or none. By contrast, duotheism, bitheism or ditheism implies (at least) two gods. While bitheism implies harmony, ditheism implies rivalry and opposition, such as between good and evil, or light and dark, or summer and winter. For example, a ditheistic system could be one in which one god is a creator, and the other a destroyer. In theology, dualism can also refer to the relationship between the deity and creation or the deity and the universe (see theistic dualism). This form of dualism is a belief shared in certain traditions of Christianity and Hinduism.[1] Alternatively, in ontological dualism, the world is divided into two overarching categories. The opposition and combination of the universe's two basic principles of yin and yang is a large part of Chinese philosophy, and is an important feature of Taoism. It is also discussed in Confucianism.

 

Many myths and creation motifs with dualistic cosmologies have been described in ethnographic and anthropological literature. These motifs conceive the world as being created, organized, or influenced by two demiurges, culture heroes, or other mythological beings, who either compete with each other or have a complementary function in creating, arranging or influencing the world. There is a huge diversity of such cosmologies. In some cases, such as among the Chukchi, the beings collaborate rather than competing, and contribute to the creation in a coequal way. In many other instances the two beings are not of the same importance or power (sometimes, one of them is even characterized as gullible). Sometimes they can be contrasted as good versus evil.[2] They may be often believed to be twins or at least brothers.[3][4] Dualistic motifs in mythologies can be observed in all inhabited continents. Zolotaryov concludes that they cannot be explained by diffusion or borrowing, but are rather of convergent origin: they are related to a dualistic organization of society (moieties); in some cultures, this social organization may have ceased to exist, but mythology preserves the memory in more and more disguised ways.[5]

Moral dualism[edit]

 

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Moral dualism is the belief of the great complement or conflict between the benevolent and the malevolent. Like ditheism/bitheism (see below), moral dualism does not imply the absence of monist or monotheistic principles. Moral dualism simply implies that there are two moral opposites at work, independent of any interpretation of what might be "moral" and—unlike ditheism/bitheism—independent of how these may be represented.

 

For example, Mazdaism (Mazdean Zoroastrianism) is both dualistic and monotheistic (but not monist by definition) since in that philosophy God—the Creator—is purely good, and the antithesis—which is also uncreated–is an absolute one. Zurvanism (Zurvanite Zoroastrianism), Manichaeism, and Mandaeism are representative of dualistic and monist philosophies since each has a supreme and transcendental First Principle from which the two equal-but-opposite entities then emanate. This is also true for the lesser-known Christian gnostic religions, such as Bogomils, Catharism, and so on. More complex forms of monist dualism also exist, for instance in Hermeticism, where Nous "thought"—that is described to have created man—brings forth both good and evil, dependent on interpretation, whether it receives prompting from the God or from the Demon. Duality with pluralism is considered a logical fallacy.

 

History[edit]

Moral dualism began as a theological belief. Dualism was first seen implicitly in Egyptian religious beliefs by the contrast of the gods Set (disorder, death) and Osiris (order, life).[6] The first explicit conception of dualism came from the Ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism around the mid-fifth century BC. Zoroastrianism is a monotheistic religion that believes that Ahura Mazda is the eternal creator of all good things. Any violations of Ahura Mazda's order arise from druj, which is everything uncreated. From this comes a significant choice for humans to make. Either they fully participate in human life for Ahura Mazda or they do not and give druj power. Personal dualism is even more distinct in the beliefs of later religions.

 

The religious dualism of Christianity between good and evil is not a perfect dualism as God (good) will inevitably destroy Satan (evil). Early Christian dualism is largely based on Platonic Dualism (See: Neoplatonism and Christianity). There is also a personal dualism in Christianity with a soul-body distinction based on the idea of an immaterial Christian soul.[7]

 

Duotheism, bitheism, ditheism[edit]

When used with regards to multiple gods, dualism may refer to duotheism, bitheism, or ditheism. Although ditheism/bitheism imply moral dualism, they are not equivalent: ditheism/bitheism implies (at least) two gods, while moral dualism does not necessarily imply theism (theos = god) at all.

 

Both bitheism and ditheism imply a belief in two equally powerful gods with complementary or antonymous properties; however, while bitheism implies harmony, ditheism implies rivalry and opposition, such as between good and evil, bright and dark, or summer and winter. For example, a ditheistic system would be one in which one god is creative, the other is destructive (cf. theodicy). In the original conception of Zoroastrianism, for example, Ahura Mazda was the spirit of ultimate good, while Ahriman (Angra Mainyu) was the spirit of ultimate evil.

 

In a bitheistic system, by contrast, where the two deities are not in conflict or opposition, one could be male and the other female (cf. duotheism[clarification needed]). One well-known example of a bitheistic or duotheistic theology based on gender polarity is found in the neopagan religion of Wicca. In Wicca, dualism is represented in the belief of a god and a goddess as a dual partnership in ruling the universe. This is centered on the worship of a divine couple, the Moon Goddess and the Horned God, who are regarded as lovers. However, there is also a ditheistic theme within traditional Wicca, as the Horned God has dual aspects of bright and dark - relating to day/night, summer/winter - expressed as the Oak King and the Holly King, who in Wiccan myth and ritual are said to engage in battle twice a year for the hand of the Goddess, resulting in the changing seasons. (Within Wicca, bright and dark do not correspond to notions of "good" and "evil" but are aspects of the natural world, much like yin and yang in Taoism.)

 

Radical and mitigated dualism[edit]

Radical Dualism – or absolute Dualism which posits two co-equal divine forces.[8] Manichaeism conceives of two previously coexistent realms of light and darkness which become embroiled in conflict, owing to the chaotic actions of the latter. Subsequently, certain elements of the light became entrapped within darkness; the purpose of material creation is to enact the slow process of extraction of these individual elements, at the end of which the kingdom of light will prevail over darkness. Manicheanism likely inherits this dualistic mythology from Zoroastrianism, in which the eternal spirit Ahura Mazda is opposed by his antithesis, Angra Mainyu; the two are engaged in a cosmic struggle, the conclusion of which will likewise see Ahura Mazda triumphant. 'The Hymn of the Pearl' included the belief that the material world corresponds to some sort of malevolent intoxication brought about by the powers of darkness to keep elements of the light trapped inside it in a state of drunken distraction.

Mitigated Dualism – is where one of the two principles is in some way inferior to the other. Such classical Gnostic movements as the Sethians conceived of the material world as being created by a lesser divinity than the true God that was the object of their devotion. The spiritual world is conceived of as being radically different from the material world, co-extensive with the true God, and the true home of certain enlightened members of humanity; thus, these systems were expressive of a feeling of acute alienation within the world, and their resultant aim was to allow the soul to escape the constraints presented by the physical realm.[8]

However, bitheistic and ditheistic principles are not always so easily contrastable, for instance in a system where one god is the representative of summer and drought and the other of winter and rain/fertility (cf. the mythology of Persephone). Marcionism, an early Christian sect, held that the Old and New Testaments were the work of two opposing gods: both were First Principles, but of different religions.[9]

 

Theistic dualism[edit]

In theology, dualism can refer to the relationship between God and creation or God and the universe. This form of dualism is a belief shared in certain traditions of Christianity and Hinduism.[10][1]

 

In Christianity[edit]

 

The Cathars being expelled from Carcassonne in 1209. The Cathars were denounced as heretics by the Roman Catholic Church for their dualist beliefs.

The dualism between God and Creation has existed as a central belief in multiple historical sects and traditions of Christianity, including Marcionism, Catharism, Paulicianism, and other forms of Gnostic Christianity. Christian dualism refers to the belief that God and creation are distinct, but interrelated through an indivisible bond.[1] However, Gnosticism is a diverse, syncretistic religious movement consisting of various belief systems generally united in a belief in a distinction between a supreme, transcendent God and a blind, evil demiurge responsible for creating the material universe, thereby trapping the divine spark within matter.[11]

 

In sects like the Cathars and the Paulicians, this is a dualism between the material world, created by an evil god, and a moral god. Historians divide Christian dualism into absolute dualism, which held that the good and evil gods were equally powerful, and mitigated dualism, which held that material evil was subordinate to the spiritual good.[12] The belief, by Christian theologians who adhere to a libertarian or compatibilist view of free will, that free will separates humankind from God has also been characterized as a form of dualism.[1] The theologian Leroy Stephens Rouner compares the dualism of Christianity with the dualism that exists in Zoroastrianism and the Samkhya tradition of Hinduism. The theological use of the word dualism dates back to 1700, in a book that describes the dualism between good and evil.[1]

 

The tolerance of dualism ranges widely among the different Christian traditions. As a monotheistic religion, the conflict between dualism and monism has existed in Christianity since its inception.[13] The 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia describes that, in the Catholic Church, "the dualistic hypothesis of an eternal world existing side by side with God was of course rejected" by the thirteenth century, but mind–body dualism was not.[14] The problem of evil is difficult to reconcile with absolute monism, and has prompted some Christian sects to veer towards dualism. Gnostic forms of Christianity were more dualistic, and some Gnostic traditions posited that the Devil was separate from God as an independent deity.[13] The Christian dualists of the Byzantine Empire, the Paulicians, were seen as Manichean heretics by Byzantine theologians. This tradition of Christian dualism, founded by Constantine-Silvanus, argued that the universe was created through evil and separate from a moral God.[15]

 

The Cathars, a Christian sect in southern France, believed that there was a dualism between two gods, one representing good and the other representing evil. Whether or not the Cathari possessed direct historical influence from ancient Gnosticism is a matter of dispute, as the basic conceptions of Gnostic cosmology are to be found in Cathar beliefs (most distinctly in their notion of a lesser creator god), though unlike the second century Gnostics, they did not apparently place any special relevance upon knowledge (gnosis) as an effective salvific force. In any case, the Roman Catholic Church denounced the Cathars as heretics, and sought to crush the movement in the 13th century. The Albigensian Crusade was initiated by Pope Innocent III in 1208 to remove the Cathars from Languedoc in France, where they were known as Albigesians. The Inquisition, which began in 1233 under Pope Gregory IX, also targeted the Cathars.[16]

 

In Hinduism[edit]

The Dvaita Vedanta school of Indian philosophy espouses a dualism between God and the universe by theorizing the existence of two separate realities. The first and the more important reality is that of Shiva or Shakti or Vishnu or Brahman. Shiva or Shakti or Vishnu is the supreme Self, God, the absolute truth of the universe, the independent reality. The second reality is that of dependent but equally real universe that exists with its own separate essence. Everything that is composed of the second reality, such as individual soul (Jiva), matter, etc. exist with their own separate reality. The distinguishing factor of this philosophy as opposed to Advaita Vedanta (monistic conclusion of Vedas) is that God takes on a personal role and is seen as a real eternal entity that governs and controls the universe.[17][better source needed] Because the existence of individuals is grounded in the divine, they are depicted as reflections, images or even shadows of the divine, but never in any way identical with the divine. Salvation therefore is described as the realization that all finite reality is essentially dependent on the Supreme.[18]

 

Ontological dualism[edit]

 

The yin and yang symbolizes the duality in nature and all things in the Taoist religion.

Alternatively, dualism can mean the tendency of humans to perceive and understand the world as being divided into two overarching categories. In this sense, it is dualistic when one perceives a tree as a thing separate from everything surrounding it. This form of ontological dualism exists in Taoism and Confucianism, beliefs that divide the universe into the complementary oppositions of yin and yang.[19] In traditions such as classical Hinduism (Samkhya, Yoga, Vaisheshika and the later Vedanta schools, which accepted the theory of Gunas), Zen Buddhism or Islamic Sufism, a key to enlightenment is "transcending" this sort of dualistic thinking, without merely substituting dualism with monism or pluralism.

 

In Chinese philosophy[edit]

 

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The opposition and combination of the universe's two basic principles of yin and yang is a large part of Chinese philosophy, and is an important feature of Taoism, both as a philosophy and as a religion, although the concept developed much earlier. Some argue that yin and yang were originally an earth and sky god, respectively.[20] As one of the oldest principles in Chinese philosophy, yin and yang are also discussed in Confucianism, but to a lesser extent.

 

Some of the common associations with yang and yin, respectively, are: male and female, light and dark, active and passive, motion and stillness. Some scholars believe that the two ideas may have originally referred to two opposite sides of a mountain, facing towards and away from the sun.[20] The yin and yang symbol in actuality has very little to do with Western dualism; instead it represents the philosophy of balance, where two opposites co-exist in harmony and are able to transmute into each other. In the yin-yang symbol there is a dot of yin in yang and a dot of yang in yin. In Taoism, this symbolizes the inter-connectedness of the opposite forces as different aspects of Tao, the First Principle. Contrast is needed to create a distinguishable reality, without which we would experience nothingness. Therefore, the independent principles of yin and yang are actually dependent on one another for each other's distinguishable existence.

 

The complementary dualistic concept seen in yin and yang represent the reciprocal interaction throughout nature, related to a feedback loop, where opposing forces do not exchange in opposition but instead exchange reciprocally to promote stabilization similar to homeostasis. An underlying principle in Taoism states that within every independent entity lies a part of its opposite. Within sickness lies health and vice versa. This is because all opposites are manifestations of the single Tao, and are therefore not independent from one another, but rather a variation of the same unifying force throughout all of nature.

 

In traditional religions[edit]

Samoyed peoples[edit]

In a Nenets myth, Num and Nga collaborate and compete with each other, creating land,[21] there are also other myths about competing-collaborating demiurges.[22]

 

Comparative studies of Kets and neighboring peoples[edit]

Among others, also dualistic myths were investigated in researches which tried to compare the mythologies of Siberian peoples and settle the problem of their origins. Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov compared the mythology of Ket people with those of speakers of Uralic languages, assuming in the studies, that there are modelling semiotic systems in the compared mythologies; and they have also made typological comparisons.[23][24] Among others, from possibly Uralic mythological analogies, those of Ob-Ugric peoples[25] and Samoyedic peoples[26] are mentioned. Some other discussed analogies (similar folklore motifs, and purely typological considerations, certain binary pairs in symbolics) may be related to dualistic organization of society—some of such dualistic features can be found at these compared peoples.[27] It must be admitted that, for Kets, neither dualistic organization of society[28] nor cosmological dualism[29] has been researched thoroughly: if such features existed at all, they have either weakened or remained largely undiscovered;[28] although there are some reports on division into two exogamous patrilinear moieties,[30] folklore on conflicts of mythological figures, and also on cooperation of two beings in creating the land:[29] the diving of the water fowl.[31] If we include dualistic cosmologies meant in broad sense, not restricted to certain concrete motifs, then we find that they are much more widespread, they exist not only among some Siberian peoples, but there are examples in each inhabited continent.[32]

 

Chukchi[edit]

A Chukchi myth and its variations report the creation of the world; in some variations, it is achieved by the collaboration of several beings (birds, collaborating in a coequal way; or the creator and the raven, collaborating in a coequal way; or the creator alone, using the birds only as assistants).[33][34]

 

Fuegians[edit]

See also: Fuegians § Spiritual culture

All three Fuegian tribes had dualistic myths about culture heros.[35] The Yámana have dualistic myths about the two [joalox] brothers. They act as culture heroes, and sometimes stand in an antagonistic relation with each other, introducing opposite laws. Their figures can be compared to the Kwanyip-brothers of the Selk'nam.[36] In general, the presence of dualistic myths in two compared cultures does not imply relatedness or diffusion necessarily.[32]

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualistic_cosmology

 

In spirituality, nondualism, also called non-duality, means "not two" or "one undivided without a second".[1][2] Nondualism primarily refers to a mature state of consciousness, in which the dichotomy of I-other is "transcended", and awareness is described as "centerless" and "without dichotomies". Although this state of consciousness may seem to appear spontaneous,[note 1] it usually follows prolonged preparation through ascetic or meditative/contemplative practice, which may include ethical injunctions. While the term "nondualism" is derived from Advaita Vedanta, descriptions of nondual consciousness can be found within Hinduism (Turiya, sahaja), Buddhism (emptiness, pariniṣpanna, nature of mind, rigpa), Islam (Wahdat al Wujud, Fanaa, and Haqiqah) and western Christian and neo-Platonic traditions (henosis, mystical union).

 

The Asian ideas of nondualism developed in the Vedic and post-Vedic Upanishadic philosophies around 800 BCE,[3] as well as in the Buddhist traditions.[4] The oldest traces of nondualism in Indian thought are found in the earlier Hindu Upanishads such as Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, as well as other pre-Buddhist Upanishads such as the Chandogya Upanishad, which emphasizes the unity of individual soul called Atman and the Supreme called Brahman. In Hinduism, nondualism has more commonly become associated with the Advaita Vedanta tradition of Adi Shankara.[5]

 

In the Buddhist tradition non-duality is associated with the teachings of emptiness (śūnyatā) and the two truths doctrine, particularly the Madhyamaka teaching of the non-duality of absolute and relative truth,[6][7] and the Yogachara notion of "mind/thought only" (citta-matra) or "representation-only" (vijñaptimātra).[5] These teachings, coupled with the doctrine of Buddha-nature have been influential concepts in the subsequent development of Mahayana Buddhism, not only in India, but also in East Asian and Tibetan Buddhism, most notably in Chán (Zen) and Vajrayana.

 

Western Neo-Platonism is an essential element of both Christian contemplation and mysticism, and of Western esotericism and modern spirituality, especially Unitarianism, Transcendentalism, Universalism and Perennialism.Etymology[edit]

When referring to nondualism, Hinduism generally uses the Sanskrit term Advaita, while Buddhism uses Advaya (Tibetan: gNis-med, Chinese: pu-erh, Japanese: fu-ni).[8]

 

"Advaita" (अद्वैत) is from Sanskrit roots a, not; dvaita, dual, and is usually translated as "nondualism", "nonduality" and "nondual". The term "nondualism" and the term "advaita" from which it originates are polyvalent terms. The English word's origin is the Latin duo meaning "two" prefixed with "non-" meaning "not".

 

"Advaya" (अद्वय) is also a Sanskrit word that means "identity, unique, not two, without a second," and typically refers to the two truths doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism, especially Madhyamaka.

 

One of the earliest uses of the word Advaita is found in verse 4.3.32 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (~800 BCE), and in verses 7 and 12 of the Mandukya Upanishad (variously dated to have been composed between 500 BCE to 200 CE).[9] The term appears in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad in the section with a discourse of the oneness of Atman (individual soul) and Brahman (universal consciousness), as follows:[10]

 

An ocean is that one seer, without any duality [Advaita]; this is the Brahma-world, O King. Thus did Yajnavalkya teach him. This is his highest goal, this is his highest success, this is his highest world, this is his highest bliss. All other creatures live on a small portion of that bliss.

 

— Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.3.32, [11][12][13]

The English term "nondual" was also informed by early translations of the Upanishads in Western languages other than English from 1775. These terms have entered the English language from literal English renderings of "advaita" subsequent to the first wave of English translations of the Upanishads. These translations commenced with the work of Müller (1823–1900), in the monumental Sacred Books of the East (1879).

 

Max Müller rendered "advaita" as "Monism", as have many recent scholars.[14][15][16] However, some scholars state that "advaita" is not really monism.[17]

 

Definitions[edit]

See also: Monism, Mind-body dualism, Dualistic cosmology, and Pluralism (philosophy)

Nondualism is a fuzzy concept, for which many definitions can be found.[note 2]

 

According to Espín and Nickoloff, "nondualism" is the thought in some Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist schools, which, generally speaking:

 

... teaches that the multiplicity of the universe is reducible to one essential reality."[18]

 

However, since there are similar ideas and terms in a wide variety of spiritualities and religions, ancient and modern, no single definition for the English word "nonduality" can suffice, and perhaps it is best to speak of various "nondualities" or theories of nonduality.[19]

 

David Loy, who sees non-duality between subject and object as a common thread in Taoism, Mahayana Buddhism, and Advaita Vedanta,[20][note 3] distinguishes "Five Flavors Of Nonduality":[web 1]

 

The negation of dualistic thinking in pairs of opposites. The Yin-Yang symbol of Taoism symbolises the transcendence of this dualistic way of thinking.[web 1]

Monism, the nonplurality of the world. Although the phenomenal world appears as a plurality of "things", in reality they are "of a single cloth".[web 1]

Advaita, the nondifference of subject and object, or nonduality between subject and object.[web 1]

Advaya, the identity of phenomena and the Absolute, the "nonduality of duality and nonduality",[web 1] c.q. the nonduality of relative and ultimate truth as found in Madhyamaka Buddhism and the two truths doctrine.

Mysticism, a mystical unity between God and man.[web 1]

The idea of nondualism is typically contrasted with dualism, with dualism defined as the view that the universe and the nature of existence consists of two realities, such as the God and the world, or as God and Devil, or as mind and matter, and so on.[23][24]

 

Ideas of nonduality are also taught in some western religions and philosophies, and it has gained attraction and popularity in modern western spirituality and New Age-thinking.[25]

 

Different theories and concepts which can be linked to nonduality are taught in a wide variety of religious traditions. These include:

 

Hinduism:

In the Upanishads, which teach a doctrine that has been interpreted in a nondualistic way, mainly tat tvam asi.[26]

The Advaita Vedanta of Shankara[27][26] which teaches that a single pure consciousness is the only reality, and that the world is unreal (Maya).

Non-dual forms of Hindu Tantra[28] including Kashmira Shaivism[29][28] and the goddess centered Shaktism. Their view is similar to Advaita, but they teach that the world is not unreal, but it is the real manifestation of consciousness.[30]

Forms of Hindu Modernism which mainly teach Advaita and modern Indian saints like Ramana Maharshi and Swami Vivekananda.

Buddhism:

"Shūnyavāda (emptiness view) or the Mādhyamaka school",[31][32] which holds that there is a non-dual relationship (that is, there is no true separation) between conventional truth and ultimate truth, as well as between samsara and nirvana.

"Vijnānavāda (consciousness view) or the Yogācāra school",[31][33] which holds that there is no ultimate perceptual and conceptual division between a subject and its objects, or a cognizer and that which is cognized. It also argues against mind-body dualism, holding that there is only consciousness.

Tathagatagarbha-thought,[33] which holds that all beings have the potential to become Buddhas.

Vajrayana-buddhism,[34] including Tibetan Buddhist traditions of Dzogchen[35] and Mahamudra.[36]

East Asian Buddhist traditions like Zen[37] and Huayan, particularly their concept of interpenetration.

Sikhism,[38] which usually teaches a duality between God and humans, but was given a nondual interpretation by Bhai Vir Singh.

Taoism,[39] which teaches the idea of a single subtle universal force or cosmic creative power called Tao (literally "way").

Subud[25]

Abrahamic traditions:

Christian mystics who promote a "nondual experience", such as Meister Eckhart and Julian of Norwich. The focus of this Christian nondualism is on bringing the worshiper closer to God and realizing a "oneness" with the Divine.[40]

Sufism[39]

Jewish Kabbalah

Western traditions:

Neo-platonism [41] which teaches there is a single source of all reality, The One.

Western philosophers like Hegel, Spinoza and Schopenhauer.[41] They defended different forms of philosophical monism or Idealism.

Transcendentalism, which was influenced by German Idealism and Indian religions.

Theosophy

New age

Hinduism[edit]

"Advaita" refers to nondualism, non-distinction between realities, the oneness of Atman (individual self) and Brahman (the single universal existence), as in Vedanta, Shaktism and Shaivism.[42] Although the term is best known from the Advaita Vedanta school of Adi Shankara, "advaita" is used in treatises by numerous medieval era Indian scholars, as well as modern schools and teachers.[note 4]

 

The Hindu concept of Advaita refers to the idea that all of the universe is one essential reality, and that all facets and aspects of the universe is ultimately an expression or appearance of that one reality.[42] According to Dasgupta and Mohanta, non-dualism developed in various strands of Indian thought, both Vedic and Buddhist, from the Upanishadic period onward.[4] The oldest traces of nondualism in Indian thought may be found in the Chandogya Upanishad, which pre-dates the earliest Buddhism. Pre-sectarian Buddhism may also have been responding to the teachings of the Chandogya Upanishad, rejecting some of its Atman-Brahman related metaphysics.[43][note 5]

 

Advaita appears in different shades in various schools of Hinduism such as in Advaita Vedanta, Vishishtadvaita Vedanta (Vaishnavism), Suddhadvaita Vedanta (Vaishnavism), non-dual Shaivism and Shaktism.[42][46][47] In the Advaita Vedanta of Adi Shankara, advaita implies that all of reality is one with Brahman,[42] that the Atman (soul, self) and Brahman (ultimate unchanging reality) are one.[48][49] The advaita ideas of some Hindu traditions contrasts with the schools that defend dualism or Dvaita, such as that of Madhvacharya who stated that the experienced reality and God are two (dual) and distinct.[50][51]

 

Vedanta[edit]

Main article: Vedanta

Several schools of Vedanta teach a form of nondualism. The best-known is Advaita Vedanta, but other nondual Vedanta schools also have a significant influence and following, such as Vishishtadvaita Vedanta and Shuddhadvaita,[42] both of which are bhedabheda.

 

Advaita Vedanta[edit]

Main article: Advaita Vedanta

 

Swans are important figures in Advaita

The nonduality of the Advaita Vedanta is of the identity of Brahman and the Atman.[52] Advaita has become a broad current in Indian culture and religions, influencing subsequent traditions like Kashmir Shaivism.

 

The oldest surviving manuscript on Advaita Vedanta is by Gauḍapāda (6th century CE),[5] who has traditionally been regarded as the teacher of Govinda bhagavatpāda and the grandteacher of Adi Shankara. Advaita is best known from the Advaita Vedanta tradition of Adi Shankara (788-820 CE), who states that Brahman, the single unified eternal truth, is pure Being, Consciousness and Bliss (Sat-cit-ananda).[53]

 

Advaita, states Murti, is the knowledge of Brahman and self-consciousness (Vijnana) without differences.[54] The goal of Vedanta is to know the "truly real" and thus become one with it.[55] According to Advaita Vedanta, Brahman is the highest Reality,[56][57][58] The universe, according to Advaita philosophy, does not simply come from Brahman, it is Brahman. Brahman is the single binding unity behind the diversity in all that exists in the universe.[57] Brahman is also that which is the cause of all changes.[57][59][60] Brahman is the "creative principle which lies realized in the whole world".[61]

 

The nondualism of Advaita, relies on the Hindu concept of Ātman which is a Sanskrit word that means "real self" of the individual,[62][63] "essence",[web 3] and soul.[62][64] Ātman is the first principle,[65] the true self of an individual beyond identification with phenomena, the essence of an individual. Atman is the Universal Principle, one eternal undifferentiated self-luminous consciousness, asserts Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism.[66][67]

 

Advaita Vedanta philosophy considers Atman as self-existent awareness, limitless, non-dual and same as Brahman.[68] Advaita school asserts that there is "soul, self" within each living entity which is fully identical with Brahman.[69][70] This identity holds that there is One Soul that connects and exists in all living beings, regardless of their shapes or forms, there is no distinction, no superior, no inferior, no separate devotee soul (Atman), no separate God soul (Brahman).[69] The Oneness unifies all beings, there is the divine in every being, and all existence is a single Reality, state the Advaita Vedantins.[71] The nondualism concept of Advaita Vedanta asserts that each soul is non-different from the infinite Brahman.[72]

 

Advaita Vedanta – Three levels of reality[edit]

Advaita Vedanta adopts sublation as the criterion to postulate three levels of ontological reality:[73][74]

 

Pāramārthika (paramartha, absolute), the Reality that is metaphysically true and ontologically accurate. It is the state of experiencing that "which is absolutely real and into which both other reality levels can be resolved". This experience can't be sublated (exceeded) by any other experience.[73][74]

Vyāvahārika (vyavahara), or samvriti-saya,[75] consisting of the empirical or pragmatic reality. It is ever-changing over time, thus empirically true at a given time and context but not metaphysically true. It is "our world of experience, the phenomenal world that we handle every day when we are awake". It is the level in which both jiva (living creatures or individual souls) and Iswara are true; here, the material world is also true.[74]

Prāthibhāsika (pratibhasika, apparent reality, unreality), "reality based on imagination alone". It is the level of experience in which the mind constructs its own reality. A well-known example is the perception of a rope in the dark as being a snake.[74]

Similarities and differences with Buddhism[edit]

Scholars state that Advaita Vedanta was influenced by Mahayana Buddhism, given the common terminology and methodology and some common doctrines.[76][77] Eliot Deutsch and Rohit Dalvi state:

 

In any event a close relationship between the Mahayana schools and Vedanta did exist, with the latter borrowing some of the dialectical techniques, if not the specific doctrines, of the former.[78]

 

Advaita Vedanta is related to Buddhist philosophy, which promotes ideas like the two truths doctrine and the doctrine that there is only consciousness (vijñapti-mātra). It is possible that the Advaita philosopher Gaudapada was influenced by Buddhist ideas.[5] Shankara harmonised Gaudapada's ideas with the Upanishadic texts, and developed a very influential school of orthodox Hinduism.[79][80]

 

The Buddhist term vijñapti-mātra is often used interchangeably with the term citta-mātra, but they have different meanings. The standard translation of both terms is "consciousness-only" or "mind-only." Advaita Vedanta has been called "idealistic monism" by scholars, but some disagree with this label.[81][82] Another concept found in both Madhyamaka Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta is Ajativada ("ajāta"), which Gaudapada adopted from Nagarjuna's philosophy.[83][84][note 6] Gaudapada "wove [both doctrines] into a philosophy of the Mandukaya Upanisad, which was further developed by Shankara.[86][note 7]

 

Michael Comans states there is a fundamental difference between Buddhist thought and that of Gaudapada, in that Buddhism has as its philosophical basis the doctrine of Dependent Origination according to which "everything is without an essential nature (nissvabhava), and everything is empty of essential nature (svabhava-sunya)", while Gaudapada does not rely on this principle at all. Gaudapada's Ajativada is an outcome of reasoning applied to an unchanging nondual reality according to which "there exists a Reality (sat) that is unborn (aja)" that has essential nature (svabhava), and this is the "eternal, fearless, undecaying Self (Atman) and Brahman".[88] Thus, Gaudapada differs from Buddhist scholars such as Nagarjuna, states Comans, by accepting the premises and relying on the fundamental teaching of the Upanishads.[88] Among other things, Vedanta school of Hinduism holds the premise, "Atman exists, as self evident truth", a concept it uses in its theory of nondualism. Buddhism, in contrast, holds the premise, "Atman does not exist (or, An-atman) as self evident".[89][90][91]

 

Mahadevan suggests that Gaudapada adopted Buddhist terminology and adapted its doctrines to his Vedantic goals, much like early Buddhism adopted Upanishadic terminology and adapted its doctrines to Buddhist goals; both used pre-existing concepts and ideas to convey new meanings.[92] Dasgupta and Mohanta note that Buddhism and Shankara's Advaita Vedanta are not opposing systems, but "different phases of development of the same non-dualistic metaphysics from the Upanishadic period to the time of Sankara."[4]

 

Vishishtadvaita Vedanta[edit]

 

Ramanuja, founder of Vishishtadvaita Vedanta, taught 'qualified nondualism' doctrine.

See also: Bhedabheda

Vishishtadvaita Vedanta is another main school of Vedanta and teaches the nonduality of the qualified whole, in which Brahman alone exists, but is characterized by multiplicity. It can be described as "qualified monism," or "qualified non-dualism," or "attributive monism."

 

According to this school, the world is real, yet underlying all the differences is an all-embracing unity, of which all "things" are an "attribute." Ramanuja, the main proponent of Vishishtadvaita philosophy contends that the Prasthana Traya ("The three courses") – namely the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma Sutras – are to be interpreted in a way that shows this unity in diversity, for any other way would violate their consistency.

 

Vedanta Desika defines Vishishtadvaita using the statement: Asesha Chit-Achit Prakaaram Brahmaikameva Tatvam – "Brahman, as qualified by the sentient and insentient modes (or attributes), is the only reality."

 

Neo-Vedanta[edit]

Main articles: Neo-Vedanta, Swami Vivekananda, and Ramakrishna Mission

Neo-Vedanta, also called "neo-Hinduism"[93] is a modern interpretation of Hinduism which developed in response to western colonialism and orientalism, and aims to present Hinduism as a "homogenized ideal of Hinduism"[94] with Advaita Vedanta as its central doctrine.[95]

 

Neo-Vedanta, as represented by Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan, is indebted to Advaita vedanta, but also reflects Advaya-philosophy. A main influence on neo-Advaita was Ramakrishna, himself a bhakta and tantrika, and the guru of Vivekananda. According to Michael Taft, Ramakrishna reconciled the dualism of formlessness and form.[96] Ramakrishna regarded the Supreme Being to be both Personal and Impersonal, active and inactive:

 

When I think of the Supreme Being as inactive – neither creating nor preserving nor destroying – I call Him Brahman or Purusha, the Impersonal God. When I think of Him as active – creating, preserving and destroying – I call Him Sakti or Maya or Prakriti, the Personal God. But the distinction between them does not mean a difference. The Personal and Impersonal are the same thing, like milk and its whiteness, the diamond and its lustre, the snake and its wriggling motion. It is impossible to conceive of the one without the other. The Divine Mother and Brahman are one.[97]

 

Radhakrishnan acknowledged the reality and diversity of the world of experience, which he saw as grounded in and supported by the absolute or Brahman.[web 4][note 8] According to Anil Sooklal, Vivekananda's neo-Advaita "reconciles Dvaita or dualism and Advaita or non-dualism":[99]

 

The Neo-Vedanta is also Advaitic inasmuch as it holds that Brahman, the Ultimate Reality, is one without a second, ekamevadvitiyam. But as distinguished from the traditional Advaita of Sankara, it is a synthetic Vedanta which reconciles Dvaita or dualism and Advaita or non-dualism and also other theories of reality. In this sense it may also be called concrete monism in so far as it holds that Brahman is both qualified, saguna, and qualityless, nirguna.[99]

 

Radhakrishnan also reinterpreted Shankara's notion of maya. According to Radhakrishnan, maya is not a strict absolute idealism, but "a subjective misperception of the world as ultimately real."[web 4] According to Sarma, standing in the tradition of Nisargadatta Maharaj, Advaitavāda means "spiritual non-dualism or absolutism",[100] in which opposites are manifestations of the Absolute, which itself is immanent and transcendent:[101]

 

All opposites like being and non-being, life and death, good and evil, light and darkness, gods and men, soul and nature are viewed as manifestations of the Absolute which is immanent in the universe and yet transcends it.[102]

 

Kashmir Shaivism[edit]

Main articles: Shaivism and Kashmir Shaivism

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Advaita is also a central concept in various schools of Shaivism, such as Kashmir Shaivism[42] and Shiva Advaita.

 

Kashmir Shaivism is a school of Śaivism, described by Abhinavagupta[note 9] as "paradvaita", meaning "the supreme and absolute non-dualism".[web 5] It is categorized by various scholars as monistic[103] idealism (absolute idealism, theistic monism,[104] realistic idealism,[105] transcendental physicalism or concrete monism[105]).

 

Kashmir Saivism is based on a strong monistic interpretation of the Bhairava Tantras and its subcategory the Kaula Tantras, which were tantras written by the Kapalikas.[106] There was additionally a revelation of the Siva Sutras to Vasugupta.[106] Kashmir Saivism claimed to supersede the dualistic Shaiva Siddhanta.[107] Somananda, the first theologian of monistic Saivism, was the teacher of Utpaladeva, who was the grand-teacher of Abhinavagupta, who in turn was the teacher of Ksemaraja.[106][108]

 

The philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism can be seen in contrast to Shankara's Advaita.[109] Advaita Vedanta holds that Brahman is inactive (niṣkriya) and the phenomenal world is an illusion (māyā). In Kashmir Shavisim, all things are a manifestation of the Universal Consciousness, Chit or Brahman.[110][111] Kashmir Shavisim sees the phenomenal world (Śakti) as real: it exists, and has its being in Consciousness (Chit).[112]

 

Kashmir Shaivism was influenced by, and took over doctrines from, several orthodox and heterodox Indian religious and philosophical traditions.[113] These include Vedanta, Samkhya, Patanjali Yoga and Nyayas, and various Buddhist schools, including Yogacara and Madhyamika,[113] but also Tantra and the Nath-tradition.[114]

 

Contemporary vernacular Advaita[edit]

Advaita is also part of other Indian traditions, which are less strongly, or not all, organised in monastic and institutional organisations. Although often called "Advaita Vedanta," these traditions have their origins in vernacular movements and "householder" traditions, and have close ties to the Nath, Nayanars and Sant Mat traditions.

 

Ramana Maharshi[edit]

 

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) explained his insight using Shaiva Siddhanta, Advaita Vedanta and Yoga teachings.

Main article: Ramana Maharshi

Ramana Maharshi (30 December 1879 – 14 April 1950) is widely acknowledged as one of the outstanding Indian gurus of modern times.[115] Ramana's teachings are often interpreted as Advaita Vedanta, though Ramana Maharshi never "received diksha (initiation) from any recognised authority".[web 6] Ramana himself did not call his insights advaita:

 

D. Does Sri Bhagavan advocate advaita?

M. Dvaita and advaita are relative terms. They are based on the sense of duality. The Self is as it is. There is neither dvaita nor advaita. "I Am that I Am."[note 10] Simple Being is the Self.[117]

 

Neo-Advaita[edit]

Main article: Neo-Advaita

Neo-Advaita is a New Religious Movement based on a modern, western interpretation of Advaita Vedanta, especially the teachings of Ramana Maharshi.[118] According to Arthur Versluis, neo-Advaita is part of a larger religious current which he calls immediatism,[119][web 9] "the assertion of immediate spiritual illumination without much if any preparatory practice within a particular religious tradition."[web 9] Neo-Advaita is criticized for this immediatism and its lack of preparatory practices.[120][note 11][122][note 12] Notable neo-advaita teachers are H. W. L. Poonja[123][118] and his students Gangaji,[124] Andrew Cohen,[note 13], and Eckhart Tolle.[118]

 

According to a modern western spiritual teacher of nonduality, Jeff Foster, nonduality is:

 

the essential oneness (wholeness, completeness, unity) of life, a wholeness which exists here and now, prior to any apparent separation [...] despite the compelling appearance of separation and diversity there is only one universal essence, one reality. Oneness is all there is – and we are included.[126]

 

Natha Sampradaya and Inchegeri Sampradaya[edit]

Main articles: Nath, Sahaja, and Inchegeri Sampradaya

The Natha Sampradaya, with Nath yogis such as Gorakhnath, introduced Sahaja, the concept of a spontaneous spirituality. Sahaja means "spontaneous, natural, simple, or easy".[web 13] According to Ken Wilber, this state reflects nonduality.[127]

 

Buddhism[edit]

There are different Buddhist views which resonate with the concepts and experiences of non-duality or "not two" (advaya). The Buddha does not use the term advaya in the earliest Buddhist texts, but it does appear in some of the Mahayana sutras, such as the Vimalakīrti.[128] While the Buddha taught unified states of mental focus (samadhi) and meditative absorption (dhyana) which were commonly taught in Upanishadic thought, he also rejected the metaphysical doctrines of the Upanishads, particularly ideas which are often associated with Hindu nonduality, such as the doctrine that "this cosmos is the self" and "everything is a Oneness" (cf. SN 12.48 and MN 22).[129][130] Because of this, Buddhist views of nonduality are particularly different than Hindu conceptions, which tend towards idealistic monism.

 

In Indian Buddhism[edit]

 

The layman Vimalakīrti Debates Manjusri, Dunhuang Mogao Caves

According to Kameshwar Nath Mishra, one connotation of advaya in Indic Sanskrit Buddhist texts is that it refers to the middle way between two opposite extremes (such as eternalism and annihilationism), and thus it is "not two".[131]

 

One of these Sanskrit Mahayana sutras, the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra contains a chapter on the "Dharma gate of non-duality" (advaya dharma dvara pravesa) which is said to be entered once one understands how numerous pairs of opposite extremes are to be rejected as forms of grasping. These extremes which must be avoided in order to understand ultimate reality are described by various characters in the text, and include: Birth and extinction, 'I' and 'Mine', Perception and non-perception, defilement and purity, good and not-good, created and uncreated, worldly and unworldly, samsara and nirvana, enlightenment and ignorance, form and emptiness and so on.[132] The final character to attempt to describe ultimate reality is the bodhisattva Manjushri, who states:

 

It is in all beings wordless, speechless, shows no signs, is not possible of cognizance, and is above all questioning and answering.[133]

 

Vimalakīrti responds to this statement by maintaining completely silent, therefore expressing that the nature of ultimate reality is ineffable (anabhilāpyatva) and inconceivable (acintyatā), beyond verbal designation (prapañca) or thought constructs (vikalpa).[133] The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, a text associated with Yogācāra Buddhism, also uses the term "advaya" extensively.[134]

 

In the Mahayana Buddhist philosophy of Madhyamaka, the two truths or ways of understanding reality, are said to be advaya (not two). As explained by the Indian philosopher Nagarjuna, there is a non-dual relationship, that is, there is no absolute separation, between conventional and ultimate truth, as well as between samsara and nirvana.[135][136] The concept of nonduality is also important in the other major Indian Mahayana tradition, the Yogacara school, where it is seen as the absence of duality between the perceiving subject (or "grasper") and the object (or "grasped"). It is also seen as an explanation of emptiness and as an explanation of the content of the awakened mind which sees through the illusion of subject-object duality. However, it is important to note that in this conception of non-dualism, there are still a multiplicity of individual mind streams (citta santana) and thus Yogacara does not teach an idealistic monism.[137]

 

These basic ideas have continued to influence Mahayana Buddhist doctrinal interpretations of Buddhist traditions such as Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Zen, Huayan and Tiantai as well as concepts such as Buddha-nature, luminous mind, Indra's net, rigpa and shentong.

 

Madhyamaka[edit]

Main articles: Madhyamika, Shunyata, and Two truths doctrine

 

Nagarjuna (right), Aryadeva (middle) and the Tenth Karmapa (left).

Madhyamaka, also known as Śūnyavāda (the emptiness teaching), refers primarily to a Mahāyāna Buddhist school of philosophy [138] founded by Nāgārjuna. In Madhyamaka, Advaya refers to the fact that the two truths are not separate or different.,[139] as well as the non-dual relationship of saṃsāra (the round of rebirth and suffering) and nirvāṇa (cessation of suffering, liberation).[42] According to Murti, in Madhyamaka, "Advaya" is an epistemological theory, unlike the metaphysical view of Hindu Advaita.[54] Madhyamaka advaya is closely related to the classical Buddhist understanding that all things are impermanent (anicca) and devoid of "self" (anatta) or "essenceless" (niḥsvabhāvavā),[140][141][142] and that this emptiness does not constitute an "absolute" reality in itself.[note 14].

 

In Madhyamaka, the two "truths" (satya) refer to conventional (saṃvṛti) and ultimate (paramārtha) truth.[143] The ultimate truth is "emptiness", or non-existence of inherently existing "things",[144] and the "emptiness of emptiness": emptiness does not in itself constitute an absolute reality. Conventionally, "things" exist, but ultimately, they are "empty" of any existence on their own, as described in Nagarjuna's magnum opus, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (MMK):

 

The Buddha's teaching of the Dharma is based on two truths: a truth of worldly convention and an ultimate truth. Those who do not understand the distinction drawn between these two truths do not understand the Buddha's profound truth. Without a foundation in the conventional truth the significance of the ultimate cannot be taught. Without understanding the significance of the ultimate, liberation is not achieved.[note 15]

 

As Jay Garfield notes, for Nagarjuna, to understand the two truths as totally different from each other is to reify and confuse the purpose of this doctrine, since it would either destroy conventional realities such as the Buddha's teachings and the empirical reality of the world (making Madhyamaka a form of nihilism) or deny the dependent origination of phenomena (by positing eternal essences). Thus the non-dual doctrine of the middle way lies beyond these two extremes.[146]

 

"Emptiness" is a consequence of pratītyasamutpāda (dependent arising),[147] the teaching that no dharma ("thing", "phenomena") has an existence of its own, but always comes into existence in dependence on other dharmas. According to Madhyamaka all phenomena are empty of "substance" or "essence" (Sanskrit: svabhāva) because they are dependently co-arisen. Likewise it is because they are dependently co-arisen that they have no intrinsic, independent reality of their own. Madhyamaka also rejects the existence of absolute realities or beings such as Brahman or Self.[148] In the highest sense, "ultimate reality" is not an ontological Absolute reality that lies beneath an unreal world, nor is it the non-duality of a personal self (atman) and an absolute Self (cf. Purusha). Instead, it is the knowledge which is based on a deconstruction of such reifications and Conceptual proliferations.[149] It also means that there is no "transcendental ground," and that "ultimate reality" has no existence of its own, but is the negation of such a transcendental reality, and the impossibility of any statement on such an ultimately existing transcendental reality: it is no more than a fabrication of the mind.[web 14][note 16] Susan Kahn further explains:

 

Ultimate truth does not point to a transcendent reality, but to the transcendence of deception. It is critical to emphasize that the ultimate truth of emptiness is a negational truth. In looking for inherently existent phenomena it is revealed that it cannot be found. This absence is not findable because it is not an entity, just as a room without an elephant in it does not contain an elephantless substance. Even conventionally, elephantlessness does not exist. Ultimate truth or emptiness does not point to an essence or nature, however subtle, that everything is made of.[web 15]

 

However, according to Nagarjuna, even the very schema of ultimate and conventional, samsara and nirvana, is not a final reality, and he thus famously deconstructs even these teachings as being empty and not different from each other in the MMK where he writes:[41]

 

The limit (koti) of nirvāṇa is that of saṃsāra

 

The subtlest difference is not found between the two.

 

According to Nancy McCagney, what this refers to is that the two truths depend on each other; without emptiness, conventional reality cannot work, and vice versa. It does not mean that samsara and nirvana are the same, or that they are one single thing, as in Advaita Vedanta, but rather that they are both empty, open, without limits, and merely exist for the conventional purpose of teaching the Buddha Dharma.[41] Referring to this verse, Jay Garfield writes that:

 

to distinguish between samsara and nirvana would be to suppose that each had a nature and that they were different natures. But each is empty, and so there can be no inherent difference. Moreover, since nirvana is by definition the cessation of delusion and of grasping and, hence, of the reification of self and other and of confusing imputed phenomena for inherently real phenomena, it is by definition the recognition of the ultimate nature of things. But if, as Nagarjuna argued in Chapter XXIV, this is simply to see conventional things as empty, not to see some separate emptiness behind them, then nirvana must be ontologically grounded in the conventional. To be in samsara is to see things as they appear to deluded consciousness and to interact with them accordingly. To be in nirvana, then, is to see those things as they are - as merely empty, dependent, impermanent, and nonsubstantial, not to be somewhere else, seeing something else.[150]

 

It is important to note however that the actual Sanskrit term "advaya" does not appear in the MMK, and only appears in one single work by Nagarjuna, the Bodhicittavivarana.[151]

 

The later Madhyamikas, states Yuichi Kajiyama, developed the Advaya definition as a means to Nirvikalpa-Samadhi by suggesting that "things arise neither from their own selves nor from other things, and that when subject and object are unreal, the mind, being not different, cannot be true either; thereby one must abandon attachment to cognition of nonduality as well, and understand the lack of intrinsic nature of everything". Thus, the Buddhist nondualism or Advaya concept became a means to realizing absolute emptiness.[152]

 

Yogācāra tradition[edit]

 

Asaṅga (fl. 4th century C.E.), a Mahayana scholar who wrote numerous works which discuss the Yogacara view and practice.

Main article: Yogacara

In the Mahayana tradition of Yogācāra (Skt; "yoga practice"), adyava (Tibetan: gnyis med) refers to overcoming the conceptual and perceptual dichotomies of cognizer and cognized, or subject and object.[42][153][154][155] The concept of adyava in Yogācāra is an epistemological stance on the nature of experience and knowledge, as well as a phenomenological exposition of yogic cognitive transformation. Early Buddhism schools such as Sarvastivada and Sautrāntika, that thrived through the early centuries of the common era, postulated a dualism (dvaya) between the mental activity of grasping (grāhaka, "cognition", "subjectivity") and that which is grasped (grāhya, "cognitum", intentional object).[156][152][156][157] Yogacara postulates that this dualistic relationship is a false illusion or superimposition (samaropa).[152]

 

Yogācāra also taught the doctrine which held that only mental cognitions really exist (vijñapti-mātra),[158][note 17] instead of the mind-body dualism of other Indian Buddhist schools.[152][156][158] This is another sense in which reality can be said to be non-dual, because it is "consciousness-only".[159] There are several interpretations of this main theory, which has been widely translated as representation-only, ideation-only, impressions-only and perception-only.[160][158][161][162] Some scholars see it as a kind of subjective or epistemic Idealism (similar to Kant's theory) while others argue that it is closer to a kind of phenomenology or representationalism. According to Mark Siderits the main idea of this doctrine is that we are only ever aware of mental images or impressions which manifest themselves as external objects, but "there is actually no such thing outside the mind."[163] For Alex Wayman, this doctrine means that "the mind has only a report or representation of what the sense organ had sensed."[161] Jay Garfield and Paul Williams both see the doctrine as a kind of Idealism in which only mentality exists.[164][165]

 

However, it is important to note that even the idealistic interpretation of Yogācāra is not an absolute monistic idealism like Advaita Vedanta or Hegelianism, since in Yogācāra, even consciousness "enjoys no transcendent status" and is just a conventional reality.[166] Indeed, according to Jonathan Gold, for Yogācāra, the ultimate truth is not consciousness, but an ineffable and inconceivable "thusness" or "thatness" (tathatā).[153] Also, Yogācāra affirms the existence of individual mindstreams, and thus Kochumuttom also calls it a realistic pluralism.[82]

 

The Yogācārins defined three basic modes by which we perceive our world. These are referred to in Yogācāra as the three natures (trisvabhāva) of experience. They are:[167][168]

 

Parikalpita (literally, "fully conceptualized"): "imaginary nature", wherein things are incorrectly comprehended based on conceptual and linguistic construction, attachment and the subject object duality. It is thus equivalent to samsara.

Paratantra (literally, "other dependent"): "dependent nature", by which the dependently originated nature of things, their causal relatedness or flow of conditionality. It is the basis which gets erroneously conceptualized,

Pariniṣpanna (literally, "fully accomplished"): "absolute nature", through which one comprehends things as they are in themselves, that is, empty of subject-object and thus is a type of non-dual cognition. This experience of "thatness" (tathatā) is uninfluenced by any conceptualization at all.

To move from the duality of the Parikalpita to the non-dual consciousness of the Pariniṣpanna, Yogācāra teaches that there must be a transformation of consciousness, which is called the "revolution of the basis" (āśraya-parāvṛtti). According to Dan Lusthaus, this transformation which characterizes awakening is a "radical psycho-cognitive change" and a removal of false "interpretive projections" on reality (such as ideas of a self, external objects, etc).[169]

 

The Mahāyānasūtrālamkāra, a Yogācāra text, also associates this transformation with the concept of non-abiding nirvana and the non-duality of samsara and nirvana. Regarding this state of Buddhahood, it states:

 

Its operation is nondual (advaya vrtti) because of its abiding neither in samsara nor in nirvana (samsaranirvana-apratisthitatvat), through its being both conditioned and unconditioned (samskrta-asamskrtatvena).[170]

 

This refers to the Yogācāra teaching that even though a Buddha has entered nirvana, they do no "abide" in some quiescent state separate from the world but continue to give rise to extensive activity on behalf of others.[170] This is also called the non-duality between the compounded (samskrta, referring to samsaric existence) and the uncompounded (asamskrta, referring to nirvana). It is also described as a "not turning back" from both samsara and nirvana.[171]

 

For the later thinker Dignaga, non-dual knowledge or advayajñāna is also a synonym for prajñaparamita (transcendent wisdom) which liberates one from samsara.[172]

 

Other Indian traditions[edit]

Buddha nature or tathagata-garbha (literally "Buddha womb") is that which allows sentient beings to become Buddhas.[173] Various Mahayana texts such as the Tathāgatagarbha sūtras focus on this idea and over time it became a very influential doctrine in Indian Buddhism, as well in East Asian and Tibetan Buddhism. The Buddha nature teachings may be regarded as a form of nondualism. According to Sally B King, all beings are said to be or possess tathagata-garbha, which is nondual Thusness or Dharmakaya. This reality, states King, transcends the "duality of self and not-self", the "duality of form and emptiness" and the "two poles of being and non being".[174]

 

There various interpretations and views on Buddha nature and the concept became very influential in India, China and Tibet, where it also became a source of much debate. In later Indian Yogācāra, a new sub-school developed which adopted the doctrine of tathagata-garbha into the Yogācāra system.[166] The influence of this hybrid school can be seen in texts like the Lankavatara Sutra and the Ratnagotravibhaga. This synthesis of Yogācāra tathagata-garbha became very influential in later Buddhist traditions, such as Indian Vajrayana, Chinese Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism.[175][166] Yet another development in late Indian Buddhism was the synthesis of Madhymaka and Yogacara philosophies into a single system, by figures such as Śāntarakṣita (8th century). Buddhist Tantra, also known as Vajrayana, Mantrayana or Esoteric Buddhism, drew upon all these previous Indian Buddhist ideas and nondual philosophies to develop innovative new traditions of Buddhist practice and new religious texts called the Buddhist tantras (from the 6th century onwards).[176] Tantric Buddhism was influential in China and is the main form of Buddhism in the Himalayan regions, especially Tibetan Buddhism.

  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism

   

These meteorites are made of thousands of little spheres called chondrules, molten droplets of silicates that accreted together with some free metals to form the first asteroids 4.55 billion years ago. They are the earliest condensates from the swirling gas disc of our solar system, and preserved in the asteroid belt, having never been absorbed into the molten mass of the planets. They are pristine time capsules from before the planets formed.

 

But looking at them, I was struck with a curiosity: What makes some chondrites have a rough triangular cleavage?

 

I am relatively new to collecting, so perhaps this is understood, but I have not seen it mentioned in any of the meteorite books I have read. All five of these stones are from the same find in Oman, an L5 chondrite called Jiddat al Harasis 091 in the Met Bull. Each of them has triangular forms visible to the eye, some more rounded than others. All five here are whole stones, from 374g to 5.75kg with a beautiful dark reddish-brown sand-polished patina.

 

From my intuition from terrestrial geology, one would expect sharp cleavage in homogenous crystals (from cut diamonds to the cubic cleavage of salt) and quite the opposite in a fine-grained conglomerate. I would think that chondrites are conglomerates from space.

 

As an L5, it has been “metamorphosed under conditions sufficient to homogenize olivine and pyroxene, convert all low-Ca pyroxene to orthopyroxene, cause the growth of various secondary minerals, and blur chondrule outlines” as defined in the Met Bull. Does this process commonly cause bulk material cleavage like this? If it were a homogenized mineral like an achondrite stone, I might expect to see bulk effects like this, but not from a fine-grained composite rock, with some impact-induced blurring of outlines. Each grain would presumably have a random orientation versus its neighbors, if it had any orientation at all.

 

And lastly, if this is a common phenomenon, could it be used to judge the degree of metamorphosis from visual inspection at the time of discovery — a rounded stone being closer to an L3 as a possibility and an angular form almost certainly an L5, L6 or L7 (assuming it is an L chondrite, but the same generalization could hold for H and LL I would think)?

 

The images from the series “Infrastructure of Artifice” were shot on location in the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 2007, using a large format view camera. Being the largest port in Europe, (second only to Shanghai globally) the Port of Rotterdam is a construct of enormous proportions that necessitates the globalized economy in which we all reside. In an increasingly globalized world, society becomes ever more homogenized creating a level of disassociation and isolation within the human psyche. The photographic gaze is drawn to the literal infrastructure of the port, at the same time highlighting the artificial construct of a landscape entirely reclaimed from the sea. This extreme example of how humankind affects the ‘natural’ landscape acts as a metaphor for the implications of artifice within the modern world. The images herein, seek to meditate upon the Port of Rotterdam as a simulacrum of modern day society and how this reflects upon the human condition.

Avec « Blessures héritées », He Xiangyu explore une fois de plus les frontières entre imitation et authenticité, résultat et processus. Les 24 chaises de cette œuvre, trouvées par l'artiste dans des écoles, sont marquées de gribouillages et de griffonnages, suggérant une violence innocente et une résistance destructrice à l'« homogénéisation ». Ces chaises sont soigneusement disposées en trois diagonales, témoignant d'un ordre rigoureux. Un groupe de chaises miniatures suit le même schéma, chacune préservant l'expérience physique de l'original d'une manière grotesque, à la fois anthropomorphique et artificielle. Ces répliques héritent également du traumatisme engendré par l'oppression et la restriction de l'identité individuelle. Se reflétant mutuellement, les deux ensembles de chaises témoignent de la continuité des blessures causées par la discipline et la rébellion.

 

With "Inherited Wounds," He Xiangyu once again explores the boundaries between imitation and authenticity, outcome and process. The 24 chairs in this work, found by the artist in schools, are marked with scribbles and doodles, suggesting innocent violence and a destructive resistance to "homogenization." These chairs are carefully arranged in three diagonals, demonstrating rigorous order. A group of miniature chairs follows the same pattern, each preserving the physical experience of the original in a grotesque manner that is both anthropomorphic and artificial. These replicas also inherit the trauma caused by oppression and the restriction of individual identity. Mirroring one another, the two sets of chairs demonstrate the continuity of wounds caused by discipline and rebellion.

Italien / Venetien - Gardasee

 

seen from the cable car station

 

gesehen von der Seilbahnstation

 

Lake Garda (Italian: Lago di Garda [ˈlaːɡo di ˈɡarda] or (Lago) Benaco [beˈnaːko]; Eastern Lombard: Lach de Garda; Venetian: Ƚago de Garda; Latin: Benacus; Ancient Greek: Βήνακος) is the largest lake in Italy. It is a popular holiday location in northern Italy, about halfway between Brescia and Verona, and between Venice and Milan on the edge of the Dolomites. Glaciers formed this alpine region at the end of the last Ice Age. The lake and its shoreline are divided between the provinces of Verona (to the south-east), Brescia (south-west), and Trentino (north). The name Garda, which the lake has been referred to in documents dating to the 8th century, comes from the town of the same name. It is evolved from the Germanic word warda, meaning "place of guard", "place of observation" or "place of safety".

 

Geography

 

The northern part of the lake is narrower, surrounded by mountains, the majority of which belong to the Gruppo del Baldo. The shape is typical of a moraine valley, probably having been formed under the action of a Paleolithic glacier. Although traces of the glacier's actions are evident today, in more recent years it has been hypothesised that the glacier occupied a previously existing depression, created by stream erosion 5 to 6 million years ago.

 

The lake has numerous small islands and five main ones, the largest being Isola del Garda, where, in 1220 St. Francis of Assisi founded a monastery. In its place now stands a 19th-century building in the Venetian Gothic style. Nearby to the south is Isola San Biagio, also known as the Isola dei Conigli ("Island of the Rabbits"). Both are offshore of San Felice del Benaco, on the lake's western side. The three other main islands are Isola dell'Olivo, Isola di Sogno, and Isola di Trimelone, all farther north near the eastern side. The main tributary is the Sarca River, others include the Ponale River (fed by Lago di Ledro), the Varone/Magnone River (via the Cascate del Varone) and various streams from both mountainsides, while the only outlet is the Mincio River (79 metres (259 ft), at Peschiera). The subdivision is created by the presence of a fault submerged between Sirmione and Punta San Vigilio which is almost a natural barrier that hampers the homogenization between the water of the two zones.

 

If the water level of the Adige river is excessive, water is diverted to the lake through the Mori-Torbole tunnel.

 

History

 

Battle of Lake Benacus, in which Roman forces defeated the Alamanni on the shores of Lake Garda, in the year 268.

Battle between Milan and Venetian Republic in 1438 following the military engineering feat of galeas per montes.

Battle of Rivoli, in 1797 during the French campaign of Napoleon I in Italy against Austria.

Battle of Solferino in 1859, during the Italian Risorgimento. The terrible aftermath of this battle led to the Geneva Convention and the formation of the Red Cross.

The lake was the site of naval battles in 1866 between Italy and Austria.

As persuaded by the Nazis, Benito Mussolini established the capital of his Italian Social Republic in late 1943 in a villa in the town of Salò on its shores. It served as a nexus for military operations and communications for German troops who occupied northern Italy in late 1943 during World War II.

 

Mythology

 

According to the Greco-Roman mythology, the River Mincius was the child of the Lake Benacus.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

Monte Altissimo di Nago is one of the highest summits of the Monte Baldo mountain range and thereby part of the Garda Mountains in northern Italy.

 

Morphology

 

The Altissimo is the highest peak in the northern part of the Monte-Baldo range, which stretches roughly from north to south. Other important peaks in the range are Punta Telegrafo to the south and the highest peak of the range Cima Valdritta. The saddle Bocca di Navene separates the southern part from the northern part.

 

Alpinism

 

On top of the Altissimo there is a mountain hut, the Rifugio Damiano Chiesa. The easiest way to reach the top is a hike over a dirt road from Strada Provinciale del Monte Baldo, also a prominent mountain-biking route. The important alpine long-distance hiking Peace Trail (Sentiero della Pace) also leads over the top of the Altissimo.

 

History

 

Besides the mountain hut, there are also leftover military installations from World War I and a chapel for remembrance to the wars victims.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

Der Gardasee (italienisch Lago di Garda oder Bènaco), einer der oberitalienischen Seen, ist der größte See Italiens, benannt nach der Gemeinde Garda am Ostufer. Sein antiker Name lautete von etwa 200 v. Chr. bis 800 n. Chr. Lacus benacus. Der Name soll von einer alten Gottheit namens Benacus abstammen. Der Gardasee wurde in der vergangenen Eiszeit durch einen Seitenast des Etschgletschers geformt, dessen Spuren man noch heute verfolgen kann, insbesondere durch die Endmoränen um das Südufer z. B. bei Lonato del Garda, Solferino, Valeggio sul Mincio und Custoza. Erste Besiedlungen des Seeufers datieren um das Jahr 2000 v. Chr.

 

Geographie

 

Lage

 

Der Gardasee liegt zwischen den Alpen im Norden und der Po-Ebene im Süden und ist daher ein Alpenrandsee. Der Norden des Sees gehört zur Region Trentino-Südtirol, der Westen zur Lombardei und der Osten zu Venetien. Damit teilen sich die drei Provinzen Trient (Norden), Verona (Osten) und Brescia (Westen) die Verwaltung.

 

Das nördliche Ufer des Sees ist von Zweitausendern der Gardaseeberge wie dem Monte Baldo umsäumt; das südliche Ufer liegt bereits in der norditalienischen Tiefebene.

 

In der Nähe des Sees befinden sich bekannte Weinbaugebiete:

 

Südlich von Desenzano del Garda liegt das Lugana-Gebiet

Östlich vom Gardasee finden sich die Gebiete des Bardolino- und des Soave-Weins

Ebenfalls östlich (zwischen dem Gardasee und Verona) liegt das Valpolicella-Gebiet

 

Zu- und Abflüsse

 

Der Gardasee wird hauptsächlich durch den Fluss Sarca gespeist. Dieser fließt am Nordende bei Torbole in den See. Als Mincio verlässt der Fluss bei Peschiera del Garda den Gardasee und fließt später in den Po. Neben den insgesamt 25 Zuflüssen gibt es noch einen künstlichen Zufluss in Form des 1959 fertiggestellten Etsch-Gardasee-Tunnels, dessen Tunnelausgang am südlichen Ortsausgang von Torbole liegt und der im Falle einer stark Hochwasser führenden Etsch geöffnet wird.

 

Pegel

 

Der Pegelnullpunkt liegt bei Peschiera del Garda bei 64,027 m s.l.m. Er unterliegt zum Teil starken saisonalen Schwankungen, da das Wasser des Gardasees über seinen Abfluss Mincio zur Bewässerung der intensiv landwirtschaftlich genutzten Flächen zwischen Verona und Mantua genutzt wird. Zum anderen sind die Schwankungen auch durch die Wasserentnahme für die Stromerzeugung im Oberlauf der Sarca bedingt.

 

Der Pegeltiefstand wurde in den Jahren 2003 und 2007 mit jeweils 8 cm unter Pegelnull erreicht, der Höchststand lag am 2. Juli 1879 bei 216 cm über Pegelnull. 1960 stand der Pegel bei 212 cm aufgrund der Öffnung des Etsch-Gardasee-Tunnels. Nicht festlegen lässt sich der Pegel von 1673 und 1746, als der Ort Desenzano del Garda überschwemmt wurde. Außer in Peschiera wird der Pegelstand auch in Riva del Garda und Torri del Benaco gemessen.

 

Inseln

 

Im See befinden sich fünf Inseln, die größte, Isola del Garda mit der Villa Borghese, liegt in der Nähe von Salò. Etwa zwei Kilometer südlich davon, ebenfalls in der Bucht von Manerba und San Felice, liegt die Isola San Biagio auch als „i Conigli“ (deutsch: die Kaninchen) bezeichnet. San Biagio ist ein beliebtes Ausflugsziel, das mit dem Boot oder zu Fuß vom Festland (je nach Wasserstand hüfttief oder trockenen Fußes) erreicht werden kann. Vor Assenza (zwischen Porto di Brenzone und Malcesine) liegt die Isola di Trimelone, diese ist allerdings militärisches Sperrgebiet. Etwas weiter nördlich von Trimelone liegt bei Malcesine im Val di Sogno die Isola del Sogno und nördlich davon die Isola dell’Olivo.

 

Geschichte

 

Aus der Bronzezeit stammen zahlreiche Pfahlbautensiedlungen, die direkt am Seeufer oder im unmittelbaren Hinterland des Gardasees errichtet wurden und seit 2011 zum UNESCO-Weltkulturerbe zählen.

 

Die Schlacht am Lacus Benacus (lateinisch für Gardasee) wurde im November des Jahres 268 an den Ufern des Gardasees in Norditalien zwischen Alamannen und Römern unter Kaiser Claudius Gothicus ausgetragen.

 

Unter den Signorie fiel der Gardasee zwischen dem 13. und 14. Jahrhundert unter den Einflussbereich der Scaliger, die zahlreiche Burgen insbesondere an den östlichen und südlichen Uferorten (Malcesine, Torri del Benaco, Lazise und Sirmione) errichteten. Im 15. Jahrhundert wurde der See und seine Uferorte zum Schauplatz im Kampf um die Vorherrschaft in Oberitalien zwischen dem Herzogtum Mailand unter den Viscontis und der Republik Venedig. Als militärische Glanzleistung zählte hierbei der Transport einer venezianischen Flotte vom Etschtal über die Berge nach Torbole im Jahr 1439, ein von der Republik Venedig als Galeas per montes bezeichnetes Unternehmen. Mit der im Frieden von Lodi 1454 festgelegten Grenze am Fluss Adda fiel der Gardasee endgültig unter den Einflussbereich der Dogenrepublik. Letztere baute insbesondere Peschiera am strategisch wichtigen Abfluss des Mincio zur Festung aus, die 2017 von der UNESCO zum Weltkulturerbe erklärt wurde.

 

Während des Spanischen Erbfolgekrieges zu Beginn des 18. Jahrhunderts versuchte General Vendôme mit seinen Truppen über das Nordufer in Richtung Norden vorzustoßen und hinterließ eine Spur der Verwüstung. Dabei wurden zahlreiche Burgen von den Franzosen zerstört, wie Castel Penede in Nago, die Burg von Arco oder Castel Drena, die als Ruinen erhalten sind. Am 19. April 1706 schlug Vendôme in der Schlacht bei Calcinato am Südufer des Sees die kaiserlichen Truppen unter dem Oberbefehl von Christian Detlev von Reventlow.

 

Die Schlacht bei Rivoli, die im Ersten Koalitionskrieg im Januar 1797 in der Nähe des Ortes Rivoli (südöstlich von Garda) stattfand, war ein Schlüsselerfolg der französischen Armee unter Napoleon Bonaparte im Italienfeldzug über ein zahlenmäßig überlegenes habsburgisches Heer unter Feldmarschall Alvinczy. Aufgrund des Vertrages von Pressburg vom 26. Dezember 1805, mit dem die Grafschaft Tirol zu Bayern fiel, gehörte die Nordspitze des Gardasees von Anfang 1806 bis Anfang 1810 als sogenannter Etschkreis zum Königreich Bayern und anschließend, wie der übrige See auch, zum Königreich Italien. Nach dem Wiener Kongress 1815 fiel der gesamte See dem Kaisertum Österreich zu und war Bestandteil des Königreichs Lombardo-Venetien.

 

Die Schlacht von Solferino am Südufer war die Entscheidungsschlacht im Sardinischen Krieg zwischen dem Kaisertum Österreich und dem Königreich Sardinien und dessen Verbündetem Frankreich unter Napoléon III. Durch die Niederlage der Österreicher bei Solferino am 24. Juni 1859 wurde der Weg zur Einigung Italiens frei gemacht. Die Grausamkeit der Schlacht und die Hilflosigkeit der verwundeten Soldaten veranlassten Henry Dunant (1828–1910) zur Gründung des Roten Kreuzes und führten zur Vereinbarung der Genfer Konvention von 1864.

 

Nach dem Verlust der Lombardei und dem dazugehörigen Westufer des Gardasees 1859, verlor Österreich 1866 nach dem Dritten Italienischen Unabhängigkeitskrieg mit Venetien auch das Ostufer, nur die Nordspitze, mit Riva del Garda, verblieb bis 1918 bei Österreich-Ungarn. Der See wurde in dieser Zeit auch „Gartsee“ genannt. Während des Ersten Weltkrieges verlief die Front direkt am Nordufer des Sees entlang, an dem zahlreiche Festungsanlagen errichtet worden waren.

 

Nach dem Sturz Mussolinis 1943 wurde auf Forderung der deutschen, nationalsozialistischen Regierung in Nord- und Mittelitalien die Marionettenregierung der faschistischen Italienischen Sozialrepublik (Repubblica Sociale Italiana, auch: Republik von Salò) unter Mussolinis Führung als Gegenregierung installiert, die im gleichnamigen Ort am Westufer des Gardasees ihren Regierungssitz hatte. Der Staat bestand zwischen dem 23. September 1943 und dem 25. April 1945. Am 30. April 1945 endete mit der Befreiung von Torbole und Riva durch die 10. US-Gebirgsdivision der Zweite Weltkrieg am Gardasee.

 

Tourismus

 

Der Gardasee ist ein beliebtes Reiseziel. Rund um den See gibt es Hotels, Pensionen, Ferienwohnungen und Campingplätze. Ein Großteil der Ferienunterkünfte ist von Ende März bis Anfang Oktober geöffnet. Die Hauptsaison ist Juli und speziell der August. In den Wintermonaten sind die meisten Hotels, Cafés und Restaurants geschlossen. 2018 gab es am Ufer 24 Millionen Übernachtungen.

 

Am Südufer des Sees befinden sich zahlreiche Freizeitparks wie das Gardaland oder das Canevaworld. Das Nordufer ist vor allem bei Kletterern, Mountainbikern und Surfern beliebt.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

Der Monte Altissimo di Nago (2078 m s.l.m.) ist einer der höchsten Gipfel des Monte-Baldo-Bergrückens und gehört damit zu den Gardaseebergen in Norditalien.

 

Topographie

 

Der Monte Altissimo di Nago ist der höchste Gipfel im nördlichen Teil des langgestreckten Monte-Baldo-Bergrückens, der sich grob von Norden nach Süden erstreckt. Weitere wichtige Gipfel in dieser Kette sind Punta Telegrafo im Süden und Cima delle Pozzette im Norden. Von der weiter im Süden gelegenen Kette ist der Altissimo di Nago durch den Pass Bocca di Navene (1420 m s.l.m.) getrennt.

 

Zur Untergruppe des Altissimo gehören des Weiteren die Gipfel Corna Piana (1736 m), Monte Campo (1667 m) und Monte Varagna (1778 m). Vom Monte Varagna fällt der Berg über einen langgestreckten Rücken im Nordwesten bis nach Nago-Torbole ab. Dort befindet sich noch das Klettergebiet des Nebengipfels Segrom. Den nordöstlichen Ausläufer bildet dagegen der im Gemeindegebiet zwischen Brentonico und Mori gelegene Monte Giovo, der in der Vergangenheit als Marmorabbaugebiet bekannt war.

 

Alpinismus

 

Auf dem Gipfel des Altissimo di Nago befindet sich das bewirtschaftete Rifugio Altissimo Damiano Chiesa. Der Gipfel ist am einfachsten über die Schotterpiste von der Strada Provinciale del Monte Baldo von Süden aus zu erreichen, ein auch bei Mountain-Bikern beliebter Weg. Alternativ bieten sich der Friedensweg Sentiero della Pace (601) oder die Alta Via del Monte Baldo als Bergwanderung an.

 

Geschichte

 

Am Gipfel befinden sich neben dem Rifugio Altissimo Damiano Chiesa noch Schützengräben aus dem Ersten Weltkrieg, sowie eine Kapelle und eine Gedenkstätte an dessen Opfer.

 

(Wikipedia)

Times Square is a major commercial intersection and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue, and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. Brightly adorned with billboards and advertisements, Times Square is sometimes referred to as The Crossroads of the World, The Center of the Universe, and the heart of The Great White Way. One of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. Times Square is one of the world's most visited tourist attractions, drawing an estimated fifty million visitors annually. Approximately 330,000 people pass through Times Square daily, many of them tourists.

 

Formerly Longacre Square, Times Square was renamed in 1904 after The New York Times moved its headquarters to the newly erected Times Building, the site of the annual ball drop which began on December 31, 1907, and continues today, attracting over a million visitors to Times Square every New Year's Eve.

 

Duffy Square, the northernmost of Times Square's triangles, was dedicated in 1937 to Chaplain Francis P. Duffy of New York City's U.S. 69th Infantry Regiment and is the site of a memorial to him, along with a statue of George M. Cohan and the TKTS discount theatre tickets booth.

 

When Manhattan Island was first settled by the Dutch, three small streams united near what is now 10th Avenue and 40th street. These three streams formed the "Great Kill" (Dutch: Grote Kill). From there the Great Kill wound through the low-lying Reed Valley, known for fish and waterfowl and emptied into a deep bay in the Hudson River at the present 42nd Street. The name was retained in a tiny hamlet, Great Kill, that became a center for carriage-making, as the upland to the south and east became known as Longacre.

 

Before and after the American Revolution, the area belonged to John Morin Scott, a general of the New York militia, in which he served under George Washington. Scott's manor house was at what is currently 43rd Street, surrounded by countryside used for farming and breeding horses. In the first half of the 19th century, it became one of the prized possessions of John Jacob Astor, who made a second fortune selling off lots to hotels and other real estate concerns as the city rapidly spread uptown.

 

By 1872, the area had become the center of New York's carriage industry. The area not having previously been named, the city authorities called it Longacre Square after Long Acre in London, where the carriage trade in that city was centered and which was also a home to stables. William Henry Vanderbilt owned and ran the American Horse Exchange there until the turn of the 20th century.

 

As more profitable commerce and industrialization of lower Manhattan pushed homes, theaters, and prostitution northward from the Tenderloin District, Long Acre Square became nicknamed the Thieves Lair for its rollicking reputation as a low entertainment district. The first theater on the square, the Olympia, was built by cigar manufacturer and impresario Oscar Hammerstein I. "By the early 1890s this once sparsely settled stretch of Broadway was ablaze with electric light and thronged by crowds of middle- and upper-class theatre, restaurant and cafe patrons."

 

In 1904, New York Times publisher Adolph S. Ochs moved the newspaper's operations to a new skyscraper on 42nd Street at Longacre Square, on the site of the former Pabst Hotel, which had existed on the site for less than a decade. Ochs persuaded Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr. to construct a subway station there, and the area was renamed "Times Square" on April 8, 1904. Just three weeks later, the first electrified advertisement appeared on the side of a bank at the corner of 46th Street and Broadway. The north end later became Duffy Square.

 

The New York Times, according to Nolan, moved to more spacious offices west of the square in 1913. The old Times Building was later named the Allied Chemical Building. Now known simply as One Times Square, it is famed for the Times Square Ball drop on its roof every New Year's Eve.

 

In 1913, the Lincoln Highway Association, headed by entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, chose the intersection of 42nd Street and Broadway, at the southeast corner of Times Square, to be the Eastern Terminus of the Lincoln Highway, the first road across the United States, which originally spanned 3,389 miles (5,454 km) coast-to-coast through 13 states to its western end in Lincoln Park in San Francisco, California.

 

As the growth in New York City continued, Times Square quickly became a cultural hub full of theatres, music halls, and upscale hotels.

 

Times Square quickly became New York's agora, a place to gather to await great tidings and to celebrate them, whether a World Series or a presidential election

—James Traub, The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square

 

Celebrities such as Irving Berlin, Fred Astaire, and Charlie Chaplin were closely associated with Times Square in the 1910s and 1920s. During this period, the area was nicknamed The Tenderloin because it was supposedly the most desirable location in Manhattan. However, it was during this period that the area was besieged by crime and corruption, in the form of gambling and prostitution; one case that garnered huge attention was the arrest and subsequent execution of police officer Charles Becker.

 

The general atmosphere changed with the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Times Square acquired a reputation as a dangerous neighborhood in the following decades. From the 1960s to the early 1990s, the seediness of the area, especially due to its go-go bars, sex shops, and adult theaters, became an infamous symbol of the city's decline.

1970s–1980s

 

As early as 1960, 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenue, was described by The New York Times as "the 'worst' [block] in town", Times Square in that decade, as depicted in Midnight Cowboy, was gritty, dark and desperate, and it got worse in the 1970s and 1980s, as did the crime situation in the rest of the city things were worse still. By 1984, an unprecedented 2,300 annual crimes occurred on that single block, of which 460 were serious felonies such as murder and rape. At the time, since police morale was low, misdemeanors were allowed to go unpunished. William Bratton, who was appointed New York City Police Commissioner in 1994 and again in 2014, stated, "The [NYPD] didn't want high performance; it wanted to stay out of trouble, to avoid corruption scandals and conflicts in the community. For years, therefore, the key to career success in the NYPD, as in many bureaucratic leviathans, was to shun risk and avoid failure. Accordingly, cops became more cautious as they rose in rank, right up to the highest levels." As the city government did not implement broken windows theory at first, the allowance of low-profile crime was thought to have caused more high-profile crimes to occur. Formerly elegant movie theaters began to show porn, and hustlers were common. The area was so abandoned at one point during the time that the entire Times Square area paid the city only $6 million in property taxes, which is less than what a medium-sized office building in Manhattan typically would produce in tax revenue today in 1984 dollars.

 

In the 1980s, a commercial building boom began in the western parts of Midtown as part of a long-term development plan developed under Mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins. In the mid-1990s, Rudolph Giuliani led an effort to clean up the area, an effort that is described by Steve Macekin in Urban Nightmares: The Media, the Right, And the Moral Panic Over the City: Security was increased, pornographic theatres were closed, and “undesirable” low-rent residents were pressured to relocate, and then more tourist-friendly attractions and upscale establishments were opened. Advocates of the remodeling claim that the neighborhood is safer and cleaner. Detractors have countered that the changes have homogenized or "Disneyfied" the character of Times Square and have unfairly targeted lower-income New Yorkers from nearby neighborhoods such as Hell's Kitchen.

 

In 1990, the state of New York took possession of six of the nine historic theatres on 42nd Street, and the New 42nd Street non-profit organization was appointed to oversee their restoration and maintenance. The theatres underwent renovation for Broadway shows, conversion for commercial purposes, or demolition.

 

In 1992, the Times Square Alliance (formerly the Times Square Business Improvement District, or "BID" for short), a coalition of city government and local businesses dedicated to improving the quality of commerce and cleanliness in the district, started operations in the area. Times Square now boasts attractions such as ABC's Times Square Studios, where Good Morning America is broadcast live, an elaborate Toys "Я" Us store, and competing Hershey's and M&M's stores across the street from each other, as well as multiple multiplex movie theaters. Additionally, the area contains restaurants such as Ruby Foo's, a Chinese eatery; the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, a seafood establishment; Planet Hollywood Restaurant and Bar, a theme restaurant; and Carmine's, serving Italian cuisine. It has also attracted a number of large financial, publishing, and media firms to set up headquarters in the area. A larger presence of police has improved the safety of the area.

 

The theatres of Broadway and the huge number of animated neon and LED signs have been one of New York's iconic images, as well as a symbol of the intensely urban aspects of Manhattan. The prevalence of such signage is because Times Square is the only neighborhood with zoning ordinances requiring building owners to display illuminated signs. The neighborhood actually has a minimum limit for lighting instead of the standard maximum limit. The density of illuminated signs in Times Square rivals that in Las Vegas. Officially, signs in Times Square are called "spectaculars", and the largest of them are called "jumbotrons." This signage ordnance was implemented in accordance with guidelines set in a revitalization program that New York Governor Mario Cuomo implemented in 1993.

Notable signage includes the Toshiba billboard directly under the NYE ball drop and the curved seven-story NASDAQ sign at the NASDAQ MarketSite at 4 Times Square on 43rd Street and the curved Coca-Cola sign located underneath another large LED display owned and operated by Samsung. Both the Coca-Cola sign and Samsung LED displays were built by LED display manufacturer Daktronics. Times Square's first environmentally friendly billboard powered by wind and solar energy was first lit on December 4, 2008. On completion, the 20 Times Square development will host the largest LED signage in Times Square at 18,000 square feet. The display will be 1,000 square feet larger than the Times Square Walgreens display and one of the largest video-capable screen in the world.

2000s–present

 

In 2002, New York City's mayor, Rudy Giuliani, gave the oath of office to the city's next mayor, Michael Bloomberg, at Times Square after midnight on January 1 as part of the 2001–2002 New Year's celebration. Approximately 500,000 revelers attended. Security was high following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, with more than 7,000 New York City police officers on duty in the Square, twice the number for an ordinary year.

 

Since 2002, the summer solstice has been marked by "Mind over Madness", a mass yoga event involving up to 15,000 people. Tim Tompkins, co-founder of the event, said part of its appeal was "finding stillness and calm amid the city rush on the longest day of the year".

 

On February 26, 2009, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that traffic lanes along Broadway from 42nd Street to 47th Street would be de-mapped starting Memorial Day 2009 and transformed into pedestrian plazas until at least the end of the year as a trial. The same was done from 33rd to 35th Street. The goal was to ease traffic congestion throughout the Midtown grid. The results were to be closely monitored to determine if the project worked and should be extended. Bloomberg also stated that he believed the street shutdown would make New York more livable by reducing pollution, cutting down on pedestrian accidents and helping traffic flow more smoothly.

 

The pedestrian plaza project was originally opposed by local businesses, who thought that closing the street to cars would hurt business. The original seats put out for pedestrians were inexpensive multicolored plastic lawn chairs, a source of amusement to many New Yorkers; they lasted from the onset of the plaza transformation until August 14, 2009, when they were ceremoniously bundled together in an installation christened "Now You See It, Now You Don't" by the artist Jason Peters, and shortly afterward were replaced by sturdier metal furniture. Although the plaza had mixed results on traffic in the area, injuries to motorists and pedestrians decreased, fewer pedestrians were walking in the road and the number of pedestrians in Times Square increased. On February 11, 2010, Bloomberg announced that the pedestrian plazas would become permanent.

 

By December 2013, the first phase of the Times Square pedestrian plaza, at the southern end of the square, was complete, in time for the Times Square Ball drop of New Year's Eve 2013. The project will be complete by the end of 2015. Snøhetta is responsible for the renovations.

 

from Wikipedia

 

Pedestrian footbridge is part of the Calvin S. Hamilton Pedway:

 

"The Calvin S. Hamilton Pedway, as the system is formally known, is a network of elevated walkways that was first presented in the 1970 Concept Los Angeles: The Concept for the Los Angeles General Plan. Hamilton was the city planning director at the time, having taken the position in 1964. The plan, adopted by the city in 1974, promoted dense commercial developments connected to one another by a rapid transit system. The plan was abandoned in 1981 when federal funding for the project was eliminated. Hamilton stepped down from his position in 1985 after a criminal investigation."

www.kcet.org/socal/departures/landofsunshine/block-by-blo...

 

"The pedways fall within the Downtown Center Business Improvement District, but the organization's CEO says its strained resources can only cover maintenance crews on the pedways about once a week."

articles.latimes.com/2013/may/23/opinion/la-ed-pedways-20...

 

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Los Angeles World Trade Center:

350 South Figueroa Street

Built 1974

Original Developer: Edward K. Rice (general partner of Bunker Hill Center Associates)

 

ZIMAS:

Central City Community Plan Area, Freeway Adjacent Advisory Notice for Sensitive Uses, Greater Downtown Housing Incentive Area, Los Angeles State Enterprise Zone, General Plan Land Use ="Regional Center Commercial", Downtown Adaptive Reuse Incentive Area, Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project, w/in 500 ft of USC Hybrid High, Downtown Center Business Improvement District, Central City Revitalization Zone.

 

Assessment:

Use Code: 2730 - Parking Structure (Commercial)

Assessed Land Val.: $1,154,591

Assessed Improvement Val.: $1,500,967

Last Owner Change: 07/14/06

Last Sale Amount: $9

...

Year Built: 1974

 

It was decertified by the World Trade Centers Association in 1983, but limped along anyway. A "Greater Los Angeles World Trade Center" was subsequently built in Long Beach. The two merged into one organization in 1989. This latter is now a subsidiary of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC).

 

In the early 1990s there was an attempt to reorganize the space as a more public retail space oriented at evening uses and take advantage of the pedestrian infrastructure:

 

"Haseko's revitalization plans include three full-service restaurants--Italian, French and Japanese--stages for live performances, a video rental store, an art gallery and a newsstand. The restaurants would open onto the center's mall-like main concourse, which is connected through pedestrian bridges to the Bonaventure and Sheraton Grande hotels, Security Pacific Plaza and Bunker Hill Towers. 'We want to create a streetscape here,' said Haseko Vice President and General Manager Terry Tornek. 'This is a logical crossroads.'"

articles.latimes.com/1991-01-11/local/me-8359_1_bunker-hi...

 

This was opposed by residents of Bunker Hill Towers who had grown to quite like the quietness of downtown at that time.

 

Apparently part of the building is now (2013) being used for a charter school.

 

wtca-lalb.org

laedc.org

www.emporis.com/building/losangelesworldtradecenter-losan...

articles.latimes.com/1988-09-26/business/fi-1869_1_trade-...

articles.latimes.com/1988-09-26/business/fi-1867_1_world-...

articles.latimes.com/1989-03-20/business/fi-201_1_trade-c...

 

----

 

Citi Building:

aka CitiGroup Center aka 444 Flower aka 444 Flower Building aka Flower Building aka L.A. Law Building aka 444 aka 444 Building

444 S. Flower Street

Built ca. 1976–81.

Architect: A.C. Martin & Associates

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citigroup_Center_(Los_Angeles)

www.hines.com/property/detail.aspx?id=2243

www.emporis.com/building/citigroupcenter-losangeles-ca-usa

forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=154492

 

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United California Bank Building / First Interstate Tower building / Aon Center:

707 Wilshire Boulevard

Built 1970–73.

Architect: Charles Luckman (or at least The Luckman Partnership)

Client: United California Bank (with note of the particular influence of Norman Barker Jr.), financed by United California Bank and the Equitable Group

Project management for post-fire clean-up and other work ca. 1988–89: Abraxas Architecture

Renovated: 2008 by Johnson Fain Architects

 

In 1988, part of the building caught on fire, injuring 40 people and killing one.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aon_Center_(Los_Angeles)

articles.latimes.com/keyword/aon-center

brighamyen.com/2012/02/17/did-you-know-downtown-los-angel...

articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/16/local/la-me-norman-barke...

www.glasssteelandstone.com/BuildingDetail/3624.php

forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=152120

skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=1291

articles.latimes.com/keyword/united-california-bank

digital.lib.washington.edu/architect/structures/6162/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Interstate_Tower_fire

blogdowntown.com/2009/09/4647-downtowns-history-light-on-...

www.lafire.com/famous_fires/1988-0504_1stInterstateFire/0...

www.lafire.com/famous_fires/1988-0504_1stInterstateFire/E...

www.drj.com/drworld/content/w1_119.htm

www.abraxasarchitecture.com/fitfire.html

www.aon.com/default.jsp

www.emporis.com/building/aoncenter-losangeles-ca-usa

www.mkp-us.com/building.php?portfolioID=4&building=AO...

 

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Westin Bonaventure:

404 South Figueroa Street

Built: 1974–76.

Architect: John Portman

 

ZIMAS data:

Central City Community Plan Area, Los Angeles State Enterprise Zone, Freeway Adjacent Advisory Notice for Sensitive Uses, Greater Downtown Housing Incentive Area, General Plan Land Use ="Regional Center Commercial", Downtown Adaptive Reuse Incentive Area, Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project, w/in 500 feet of USC Hybrid High, Downtown Center Business Improvement District, Central City Revitalization Zone

 

Assessment:

Assessed Land Val.: $31,878,705

Assessed Improvement Val.: $20,033,803

Last Owner Change: 12/18/95

Last Sale Amount: $260,002

...

Year Built: 1976

 

Famous for the elevators, the revolving cocktail lounge, the mirror glass exterior, et cetera et cetera, and for being the star of a famous essay by Fredric Jameson on postmodernism.

 

Before I get into that, let me just say that what I currently find interesting about the Westin Bonaventure and the urbanism of this section of Figueroa and Bunker Hill in general are the really complex histories about what was happening with and against modernism from the 1950s through the 1980s, especially in Los Angeles, especially with regards to Bunker Hill, housing, car culture, et cetera.

 

But with the Westin Bonaventure in particular, I'm also interested in visual/formal comparisons with both Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago (1975), the BMW headquarters in Munich (1968–73), and LaForet Harajuku (1975–80).

www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/arts/design/adapting-prentice-...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_Headquarters

www.mori.co.jp/en/img/article/en081121.pdf

 

Or in terms of textures and materials, there's the more local Samuel Goldwyn Theater:

www.flickr.com/photos/jannon/4653822940/

(There used to be a lot more examples in Los Angeles of mirror glass facades combined with concrete, but I feel like a lot have been torn down.)

 

Because of its dramatic qualities and because of how Jameson explicated them, people don't really talk about this building in the context of Brutalism, even though that style arguably was just as interested in dramatic effects and complexity. (There's also the totally different social uses of the "main" buildings of each style as well, of course.)

 

Of course, I'm probably just massively ignorant and there are a ton of good books already out there that are full of chapters that explicitly talk about connections between architecture and urban planning in Los Angeles and the UK, with lovely details about Victor Gruen Associates and Milton Keynes and the Barbican and the Glendale Galleria. Even better if they also bring in Metabolism and connections with what was going on in Japan. Particularly since Mori Yoshiko seems a lot more important and successful at building the massive city-in-a-city projects than John Portman, on the whole. Anyway, if so, let me know what they are?

 

Jameson's essay (or at least the beginning of it):

newleftreview.org/I/146/fredric-jameson-postmodernism-or-... (original version, 1984, sub required)

books.google.com/books?id=oRJ9fh9BK8wC&lpg=PA39&v... (book version, first few pages of the part on the Westin Bonaventure)

books.google.com/books?id=wfd-c0blcb0C&lpg=PA103&... (another book version, w/ an intro by Asa Berger, again the first few pages about the Westin Bonaventure)

 

More of other people quoting Jameson:

" In Frederick Jameson’s essay on the utterly bizarre Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles, he describes a 'postmodern hyperspace,' an emblem of the 80s trend in which building design hoped to create hermetically sealed miniature cities. At the Bonaventure, human activity is directed in a space threaded with fitness centers, plants that thrive without any natural light and functionless open spaces offering the blank hyperreality of grandeur and respite contained in concrete."

www.newmediacaucus.org/wp/a-room-to-view/

 

"Citing the example of the Westin Bonaventure hotel in Los Angeles, Jameson argues that 'this latest mutation in space -- postmodern hyperspace -- has finally succeeded in transcending the capacities of the individual human body to locate itself, to organize its immediate surroundings perceptually, and cognitively to map its position in a mappable external world'. The effect on cultural politics, according to Jameson, is that the subject 'submerged' by this postmodern hyperspace is deprived of the 'critical distance' that makes possible the 'positioning of the cultural act outside of the massive Being of capital.'"

muse.jhu.edu/journals/dia/summary/v029/29.3reynolds.html

 

"Its reflective glass façades seemed to disappear into their surroundings. Behind them (for those who could afford it) there opened up a city within a city. Portman’s Hotels—where client, financier, and architect were all one and the same—are for Jameson the epitome of late-capitalist space. He writes of the lobby: 'I am tempted to say that such space makes it impossible for us to use the language of volume or volumes any longer, since these are impossible to seize. ... A constant busyness gives the feeling that emptiness is here absolutely packed, that it is an element within which you yourself are immersed, without any of that distance that formerly enabled the perception of perspective or volume. You are in this hyperspace up to your eyes and your body.'"

www.olafureliasson.net/studio/pdf/Ursprung_Taschen_S.pdf

 

Or drawing on Jameson:

"In his book Postmodern Geographies: the reassertion of space in critical social theory (1989), Edward W. Soja describes the hotel as 'a concentrated representation of the restructured spatiality of the late capitalist city: fragmented and fragmenting, homogeneous and homogenizing, divertingly packaged yet curiously incomprehensible, seemingly open in presenting itself to view but constantly pressing to enclose, to compartmentalize, to circumscribe, to incarcerate. Everything imaginable appears to be available in this micro-urb but real places are difficult to find, its spaces confuse an effective cognitive mapping, its pastiche of superficial reflections bewilder co-ordination and encourage submission instead. Entry by land is forbidding to those who carelessly walk but entrance is nevertheless encouraged at many different levels. Once inside, however, it becomes daunting to get out again without bureaucratic assistance. In so many ways, its architecture recapitulates and reflects the sprawling manufactured spaces of Los Angeles' (p. 243-44)."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westin_Bonaventure_Hotel

See also Soja on Jameson on the Westin Bonaventure for the BBC: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWlu3OlvL58

 

"Writing from California, Jameson imagined the whole new era was summed up in the alienating 'disorientation' one felt in hotels like John Portman's Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles. Lost in its lobby, without any 'cognitive map,' Jameson found an allegory of a supposedly late phase in capitalism (coming before what?), which explained the kind of space to which French theory had unwittingly been leading us. For architecture, the art closest to capitalism, was the one best able to point out late capitalism's 'totality.' Frank Gehry, for one, was not pleased; more generally, at the very moment Jameson was confidently offering his allegory, architects like Gehry were departing from so-called po-mo (quotationalist, historicist) architecture, often to rediscover modernist strategies. Indeed, the architects that the Museum of Modern Art would group together in a 1988 exhibition as 'deconstructivists' (e.g., Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, and Peter Eisenman) were linked less by any sustained interest in Derrida than by their contempt for postmodernism. Jameson, though, was unable or unwilling to give up the 'totality-allegory' view of works, and in the face of this and other difficulties, he was gradually forced to admit that he no longer knew what to do with the categories modernity and postmodernity. In the absence of new works or ideas to 'totalize,' he tried to look back and reassert the Marxist sources of critical theory, now itself in a late or disappointed state."

—John Rajchman, "Unhappy Returns: John Rajchman on the Po-Mo Decade. (Writing the '80s)," Artforum International, Vol. 41 (2003), No. 8

www.questia.com/library/1G1-101938549/unhappy-returns-joh...

 

"The programmed music of the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles follows patterns of use typical to that of most programmed music. In the large open expanse of the lobby/atrium, music is always playing in the background. During the mornings and early afternoon typical small jazz group arrangements are played, never with vocals, and as the day progresses and the bar opens for the evening the music slowly shifts towards a more upbeat genre, signaling to the guests that the objectified content of the contemporary nightlife experience is beginning. Speaking to the maître d’ at the reception desk, however, he informed me that the neither the amplitude of the music nor its aesthetic intensity ever crosses above a consciousness level threshold where any guest would be forced to acknowledge its presence."

music.columbia.edu/~alec/page2/assets/Muzak%20as%20the%20...

 

"Downtown Los Angeles is notoriously quiet in the evening; the streets develop an abandoned, out-of-season feel, and the BonaVista Lounge shared some of this atmosphere. At first we were the only customers. Two people drinking alone in a revolving restaurant -- now there's an existential image for you. . . . It had been a clear, sunny day and now the sky was coalescing into a spectacular sunset. Because we were downtown we had a close-up view of some very untypical Los Angeles features: the few skyscrapers in this essentially low-rise city, shiny corporate blocks; then beyond them were the more familiar Los Angeles sights -- mountains, interweaving freeways, the vast ground-hugging grids of street lights, all bathed in a deep orange light. I wasn't so naïve, or so easily satisfied, as to think that I'd really found the perfect revolving restaurant; but for an hour or so, with the city far below, with a Cloud Buster in my hand, I found it hard to imagine anything better."

www.nytimes.com/2003/07/13/travel/done-to-a-turn-at-360-d...

 

"The Westin Bonaventure Hotel looks like something out of Robocop. Typical of architect John C. Portman Junior's style, at its heart is a large atrium and multi-story labyrinth of walkways, shops, and mostly empty seating pods. The building's inward orientation and imposing exterior make it feel, if not as impregnable as a fortress ideally is, something like an arcology, biosphere or space station. It's designed to provide everything one would need for tourists and business travelers within its walls, although most of it shuts down after lunch. I just managed to grab a bánh mì from Mr. Baguette before its closing time of 3:00 pm. Forced to order my food to-go, after wandering around the building I ventured back out into the lawless outlands."

www.kcet.org/socal/departures/landofsunshine/block-by-blo...

 

www.thebonaventure.com

www.thebonaventure.com/history/

www.starwoodhotels.com/westin/property/overview/index.htm...

www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/architecture/events/kreider-oleary...

www.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/travel/22iht-hotdesign.html?pa...

www.artslant.com/ny/articles/show/11785

memory.loc.gov/phpdata/pageturner.php?type=contactminor&a...

 

John Portman:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Portman,_Jr.

www.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/garden/john-portman-symphonic-...

 

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Paul Hastings Building (the old ARCO Tower, one part of City National Plaza):

515 South Flower Street

Built 1970–72.

Architects: Albert C. Martin & Associates (A.C. Martin & Associates)

Renovated: 1994.

Owner: Thomas Properties Group Inc.

 

Also formerly known as: ARCO Center, ARCO Plaza, Atlantic Richfield Tower, ARCO Tower, ARCO building.

 

Built controversially on the former site of the Richfield Tower.

  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_National_Plaza

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richfield_Tower

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Hastings

www.cnp-la.com

www.cnp-la.com/building/history.htm

www.emporis.com/building/paulhastingstower-losangeles-ca-usa

www.paulhastings.com

skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=2730

www.southlandarchitecture.com/Building/3656/Paul-Hastings...

articles.latimes.com/2001/dec/14/business/fi-14660

Portfolio || Flickr Archive || Instagram

 

This Case feature is extra special for me because he was one of the first writers I met in '95 when I didn't know anybody and we were still in high school. Case has been famous twice, both as a writer and as Video director when he won an Juno for a video with Arcade Fire.

 

1.) How long have you been actively writing for?

I started writing in '92. I slowed down in 2002 to a couple pieces a year, but I never stopped writing. So it's been 28 years.

 

2.) How has your work changed or evolved since you started, and what made it change?

My work has gotten better since I started... First couple years were pretty toy. But at my peak, my work was known worldwide, I got the chance to paint with Daim, Loomit, Seen, Duster, Tats Cru and many other international writers. Also in the big magazines like The Source, 12oz Prophet, etc. All these experiences improved my style and made me look at pushing graffiti further.

 

3.) Tell me about your approach to street art?

My approach comes from a freestyle frame of mind. I like to paint to the wall instead of to the sketch. I sketch to practice but when I paint I rarely use sketch's. I find them to constricting. I do all aspects from 2d to 3d to characters and backgrounds.

  

4.) Any other interests you have apart from painting/art?

Apart from art, Im interested in film making and have directed and animated many music videos for a variety of recording artist from 2001-2009

  

5.) How do you see the further evolution of your work? The city, and scene at large? Seems to have changed alot in the last decade.

My work has evolved onto canvases using Spray paint in a different way. Portraits, scenics and abstracts that adhere to the traditional rules of graffiti - no stencils, no brushes, just pure freehand spray painting. The scene really changed with the advent of the internet. Regional styles started disappearing and a more homogenized style replaced it. Street cred was easier to fake and the real street culture turned into legal walls and sponsored jams. Its great to see many writers from the pre-internet era coming back and still kings. Shout out to the graffiti grandpa's keeping it real and my crews Kwota, TDV, AFC and BIF.

 

You can see more of Case's art here: casemackeen.com

 

He also has a show coming up at Run Gallery in Toronto opening Dec 12, 2020.

 

This was taken on Panepistimiou Avenue, one of the main streets in the center of Athens. It was right in front of the National Library, and just a couple blocks from the hotel where I stayed.

 

Note: this photo was published in a Sep 10, 2014 blog titled "Sommergefühle im fashionable Griechenland."

 

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When we hear the phrase “first impression,” we tend to think of a person. Was the politician I recently voted for as inspiring when I heard his first speech as he was years later? (More so, sadly.) Was the girl that I married as beautiful at 13 as she was years later, in her twenties and thirties? (Yes, and yes.) Did Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind send more of a shiver down my spine in 1963 than it did when I heard it drifting from a car radio 45 years later? (No. It stops me dead in my tracks every time I hear it.)

 

It’s not just people that make first impressions on me. Cities do, too, perhaps because I encountered so many of them while my family moved every year throughout my childhood. Or perhaps it’s because, after seeing so many cities that I thought were different in the United States, I was so completely unprepared for the wild variety of sights and sounds and smells that I encountered as a grown man, when I traveled to Europe and South America, to Africa and Asia and Australia. And even today, there are cities that I’m visiting for the first time, and which continue to take me by surprise.

 

Athens is one of those cities. I don’t know what I was expecting… Something old, of course, something downright ancient, filled with smashed statues and marble columns like Rome, engraved with unreadable inscriptions in a language I never learned — but probably not as ancient as Cairo. Something hot and noisy and polluted and smelly, perhaps like Calcutta or the slums of Mumbai. Something gridlocked with noisy, honking traffic congestion, perhaps like Moscow.

 

What I didn’t expect was the wide, nearly-empty highways leading from the airport into the city. I didn’t expect the cleanliness of the tree-lined streets that ran in every direction. I did expect the white-washed buildings and houses that climbed the hills that surround the city — but the local people told me that buildings in Athens were positively gray compared to what I would have seen if I had stayed longer and ventured out to the Greek islands.

 

I also didn’t expect the graffiti that covered nearly every wall, on every building, up and down every street. They were mostly slogans and phrases in Greek (and therefore completely unintelligible to me), but with occasional crude references in English to IMF bankers, undercover policemen, a politician or two, and the CIA. There were a couple slogans from the Russian revolution of 1917, from the Castro uprising in Cuba, and even from the American revolution (“united we stand, divided we fall.”)

 

Naturally, I thought all of this had come about in just the past few months, as Greece has wrestled with its overwhelming financial crisis. But I was told by local citizens that much of the graffiti has been around for quite a bit longer than that – just as it has been in cities like New York and London. Some of it was wild and colorful, with cartoon figures and crazy faces … though I don’t think it quite rises to the level of “street art” that one sees in parts of SoHo, Tribeca, and the East Village in New York. What impressed me most about the graffiti in Athens was its vibrant energy; I felt like the artists were ready to punch a hole through the walls with their spray-cans.

 

These are merely my own first impressions; they won’t be the same as yours. Beyond that, there are a lot of facts, figures, and details if one wants to fully describe a city like Athens. Its recorded history spans some 3,400 years, and it includes the exploits of kings and generals, gods and philosophers, athletes and artists. There are statues and columns and ruins everywhere; and towering above it all is the breath-taking Acropolis. It’s far too rich and complex for me to describe here in any reasonable way; if you want to know more, find some books or scan the excellent Wikipedia summary.

 

It’s also hard to figure out what one should photograph on a first visit to a city like Athens. It’s impossible not to photograph the Acropolis, especially since it’s lit at night and visible from almost every corner of the city. I was interested in the possibility of photographing the complex in the special light before dawn or after sunset, but it’s closed to visitors except during “civilized” daytime hours. It’s also undergoing extensive renovations and repair, so much of it is covered in scaffolding, derricks, and cranes. In the end, I took a few panorama shots and telephoto shots, and explored the details by visiting the new Acropolis Museum, with the camera turned off.

 

Aside from that, the photos you’ll see here concentrate on two things: my unexpected “first impression” of the local graffiti, and my favorite of all subjects: people. In a couple cases, the subjects are unmistakably Greek – Greek orthodox priests, for example – and in a couple cases, you might think you were looking at a street scene in São Paulo or Mexico City. But in most of the shots, you’ll see examples of stylish, fashionable, interesting people that don’t look all that much different from the people I’ve photographed in New York, London, Rome, or Paris. Maybe we can attribute that to the homogenization of fashion and style in today’s interconnected global environment. Or maybe we can just chalk it up to the fact that people are, well … interesting … wherever you go.

 

In any case, enjoy. And if you get to Athens yourself, send me some photos of your own first impressions.

After two of the dancers got up there to set the pace, the other dancers hit the stage. All this is the more traditional Celtic dance that would be later homogenized into that crowd pleasing morass known as "Riverdance." This is the genuine article. Accept no substitutes, especially if it comes in the form of a shirtless Michael Flatley.

“All over the world major museums have bowed to the influence of Disney and become theme parks in their own right. The past, whether Renaissance Italy or Ancient Egypt, is re-assimilated and homogenized into its most digestible form. Desperate for the new, but disappointed with anything but the familiar, we recolonise past and future.”

 

― J.G. Ballard, The Atrocity Exhibition

The Alexander Nevsky Memorial Church is an historic Russian Orthodox church building in Potsdam, Germany.

 

The church was built for the Russian residents of the settlement of Alexandrowka, now part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin", below the Kapellenberg. Consecrated in 1826, it is still an active congregation and the oldest Russian Orthodox church in Germany. Designed by Vasily Stasov, Nevsky Church is a very early example of the Byzantine Revival architecture in Germany, and one of the earliest examples of Byzantine Revival in Russian Revival architecture.

 

The Russian colony of Alexandrowka is located north of downtown Potsdam. It was built in 1826-1827 by King Frederick William III of Prussia for the last twelve Russian singers in a choir that had previously 62 members.

 

Alexandrowka was named after Tsar Alexander I as a tribute to the strong ties between the Hohenzollern and Romanov families. This name was chosen following the death of Tsar Alexander I in 1825. The colony is currently part of the UNESCO World Heritage site of Potsdam Castles and Parks, as it constitutes an integral part of Potsdam's cultural landscape.

 

History

In 1806, the Prussian-Saxon army was defeated by Napoleonic forces at the battle of Jena and Auerstedt. After Napoleon's victory over Prussia in 1812, France and Prussia were compelled to form an alliance against Russia.

 

Out of the significant number of Russian soldiers captured in Russia during 1812, 62 soldiers remained in Potsdam by October of that year. A choir was formed from this group and officially affiliated with the King's 1st Prussian Guard Regiment. After the signing of the neutrality agreement known as the Convention of Tauroggen on December 30, 1812, Prussia and Russia became allies against France in the spring of 1813. At the request of the Prussian king, most of the former prisoners of war who were Russian soldiers were integrated into a separate regiment. Russian and Prussian troops, along with former Russian prisoners of war and Prussian deserters, joined forces under common leadership to fight against Napoleon. Tsar Alexander I not only permitted the soldiers' choir to remain in Prussia, but he also transferred seven grenadiers from one of his regiments to the king's guard regiment. The choir of former Russian prisoners of war continued to provide entertainment in the king's army camp, and losses in its ranks were compensated in 1815 by the transfer of additional grenadiers from a Russian regiment.

 

When Tsar Alexander I died in 1825, only 12 of these Russian singers were still living in Potsdam. On April 10, 1826, Frederick William III issued the following order:

 

"It is My intention, as a lasting monument to the memory of the bonds of friendship between Me and the High Seas Emperor Alexander of Russia's Majesty, to found a colony near Potsdam, which I intend to occupy with the Russian Singers given to Me by His Majesty as Colonists and name Alexandrowka."

 

— Friedrich Wilhelm III.

The new residents moved into the fully furnished estates in 1827. Every household received a cow, and the gardens were carefully designed to accommodate their needs. While the colonists had the right to pass down their holdings to male descendants, they were prohibited from selling, renting, or mortgaging the properties.

 

A Russian Orthodox memorial church, named Alexander Nevsky, was built on Chapel Hill and consecrated in September 1829. Adjacent to the church is the fourteenth residential house, which was inhabited by Tarnowsky, a royal footman of Russian origin.

 

The last singer died in 1861. After a century the founding of the Russian colony, only four families remained, and following the land reform, only two families could trace their direct lineage back to the original singers. The last member of the Shishkoff family, associated with the colony, died in 2008. Initially, the colony was privately owned by the House of Hohenzollern until it was expropriated in 1926. However, military control over the colony was held by the 1st Guards Regiment on Foot. It was only after the disbandment of the regiment in 1919 that the House of Hohenzollern took over the maintenance of the location. The previous royal laws governing the obligations and privileges of the citizens remained in effect until 1945. Fundamental changes in the legal status of the colony and its residents occurred during the period of the Soviet Zone of Occupation (SBZ) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Following German reunification, the majority of the homes have been privately owned.

 

Frederick William III (German: Friedrich Wilhelm III.; 3 August 1770 – 7 June 1840) was King of Prussia from 16 November 1797 until his death in 1840. He was concurrently Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire until 6 August 1806, when the empire was dissolved.

 

Frederick William III ruled Prussia during the times of the Napoleonic Wars. The king reluctantly joined the Sixth Coalition against Napoleon in the German Campaign of 1813. Following Napoleon's defeat, he took part in the Congress of Vienna, which assembled to settle the political questions arising from the new, post-Napoleonic order in Europe. His primary interests were internal – the reform of Prussia's Protestant churches. He was determined to unify the Protestant churches to homogenize their liturgy, organization, and architecture. The long-term goal was to have fully centralized royal control of all the Protestant churches in the Prussian Union of Churches. The king was said to be extremely shy and indecisive. His wife Queen Louise (1776–1810) was his most important political advisor.[citation needed] She led a mighty group that included Baron Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein, Prince Karl August von Hardenberg, Gerhard von Scharnhorst, and Count August von Gneisenau. They set about reforming Prussia's administration, churches, finance, and military. He was the dedicatee of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in 1824.

 

Early life

Frederick William was born in Potsdam on 3 August 1770 as the son of Frederick William II of Prussia and Frederica Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt. He was considered to be a shy and reserved boy, which became noticeable in his particularly reticent conversations, distinguished by the lack of personal pronouns. This manner of speech subsequently came to be considered entirely appropriate for military officers He was neglected by his father during his childhood and suffered from an inferiority complex his entire life.

 

As a child, Frederick William's father (under the influence of his mistress,[3] Wilhelmine Enke, Countess of Lichtenau) had him handed over to tutors, as was quite normal for the period. He spent part of the time living at Paretz, the estate of the old soldier Count Hans von Blumenthal who was the governor of his brother Prince Henry. They thus grew up partly with the count's son, who accompanied them on their Grand Tour in the 1780s. Frederick William was happy at Paretz, and for this reason, in 1795, he bought it from his boyhood friend and turned it into an important royal country retreat. He was a melancholy boy, but he grew up pious and honest. His tutors included the dramatist Johann Jakob Engel.

 

As a soldier, he received the usual training of a Prussian prince, obtained his lieutenancy in 1784, became a lieutenant colonel in 1786, a colonel in 1790, and took part in the campaigns against France of 1792–1794. On 24 December 1793, Frederick William married Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who bore him ten children. In the Kronprinzenpalais (Crown Prince's Palace) in Berlin, Frederick William lived a civil life with a problem-free marriage, which did not change even when he became King of Prussia in 1797. His wife Louise was particularly loved by the Prussian people, which boosted the popularity of the whole House of Hohenzollern, including the King himself.

 

Reign

Frederick William succeeded to the throne on 16 November 1797. He also became, in personal union, the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel (1797–1806 and again 1813–1840). At once, the new king showed that he was earnest of his good intentions by cutting down the royal establishment's expenses, dismissing his father's ministers, and reforming the most oppressive abuses of the late reign. He had the Hohenzollern determination to retain personal power but not the Hohenzollern genius for using it. Too distrustful to delegate responsibility to his ministers, he greatly reduced the effectiveness of his reign since he was forced to assume the roles he did not delegate. This is the main factor of his inconsistent rule.

 

Disgusted with his father's court (in both political intrigues and sexual affairs), Frederick William's first and most successful early endeavor was to restore his dynasty's moral legitimacy. The eagerness to restore dignity to his family went so far that it nearly caused sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow to cancel the expensive and lavish Prinzessinnengruppe project, which was commissioned by the previous monarch Frederick William II. He was quoted as saying the following, which demonstrated his sense of duty and peculiar manner of speech:

 

Every civil servant has a dual obligation: to the sovereign and the country. It can occur that the two are not compatible; then, the duty to the country is higher.

 

At first, Frederick William and his advisors attempted to pursue a neutrality policy in the Napoleonic Wars. Although they succeeded in keeping out of the Third Coalition in 1805, eventually, Frederick William was swayed by the queen's attitude, who led Prussia's pro-war party and entered into the war in October 1806. On 14 October 1806, at the Battle of Jena-Auerstädt, the French effectively decimated the Prussian Army's effectiveness and functionality; led by Frederick William, the Prussian army collapsed entirely soon after. Napoleon occupied Berlin in late October. The royal family fled to Memel, East Prussia, where they fell on the mercy of Emperor Alexander I of Russia.

 

Alexander, too, suffered defeat at the hands of the French, and at Tilsit on the Niemen France made peace with Russia and Prussia. Napoleon dealt with Prussia very harshly, despite the pregnant queen's interview with the French emperor, which was believed to soften the defeat. Instead, Napoleon took much less mercy on the Prussians than what was expected. Prussia lost many of its Polish territories and all territory west of the Elbe and had to finance a large indemnity and pay French troops to occupy key strong points within the kingdom.

 

Although the ineffectual king himself seemed resigned to Prussia's fate, various reforming ministers, such as Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein, Prince Karl August von Hardenberg, Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst, and Count August von Gneisenau, set about reforming Prussia's administration and military, with the encouragement of Queen Louise (who died, greatly mourned, in 1810). After bereavement, Frederick William fell under the influence of a 'substitute family' of courtiers, among whom included Friedrich Ancillon, a Huguenot preacher that provided the king with strong ideological support against political reforms that might restrain monarchical power, Sophie Marie von Voß, an older woman with conservative views and Prince Wilhelm zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein.

 

In 1813, following Napoleon's defeat in Russia and pressured by the Convention of Tauroggen, Frederick William turned against France and signed an alliance with Russia at Kalisz. However, he had to flee Berlin, still under French occupation. Prussian troops played a crucial part in the victories of the allies in 1813 and 1814, and the king himself traveled with the main army of Karl Philipp Fürst zu Schwarzenberg, along with Alexander of Russia and Francis of Austria.

 

At the Congress of Vienna, Frederick William's ministers succeeded in securing significant territorial increases for Prussia. However, they failed to obtain the annexation of all of Saxony, as they had wished.[citation needed] Following the war, Frederick William turned towards political reaction, abandoning the promises he had made in 1813 to provide Prussia with a constitution.

 

Prussian Union of Churches

Frederick William was determined to unify the Protestant churches to homogenize their liturgy, organization, and architecture. The long-term goal was to have fully centralized royal control of all the Protestant churches in the Prussian Union of Churches. The merging of the Lutheran and Calvinist (Reformed) confessions to form the United Church of Prussia was highly controversial. Angry responses included a large and well-organized opposition. Especially the "Old Lutherans" in Silesia refused to abandon their liturgical traditions. The crown responded by attempting to silence protest. The stubborn Lutheran minority was coerced by military force, their churches' confiscation, and their pastors' imprisonment or exile. By 1834 outward union was secured based on common worship but separate symbols—the opponents of the measure being forbidden to form communities of their own. Many left Prussia, settling in South Australia, Canada, and the United States. The king's unsuccessful counterattack worsened tensions at the highest levels of government. The crown's aggressive efforts to restructure religion were unprecedented in Prussian history. In a series of proclamations over several years, the Church of the Prussian Union was formed, bringing together the majority group of Lutherans and the minority group of Reformed Protestants. The main effect was that the government of Prussia had full control over church affairs, with the king himself recognized as the leading bishop.

 

In 1824 Frederick William III remarried (morganatically) Countess Auguste von Harrach, Princess of Liegnitz.They had no children.

 

In 1838 the king distributed large parts of his farmland at Erdmannsdorf Estate to 422 Protestant refugees from the Austrian Zillertal, who built Tyrolean style farmhouses in the Silesian village.

 

Death

Frederick William III died on 7 June 1840 in Berlin, from a fever, survived by his second wife. His eldest son, Frederick William IV, succeeded him. Frederick William III is buried at the Mausoleum in Schlosspark Charlottenburg, Berlin.

 

Potsdam is the capital and largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of Berlin, and lies embedded in a hilly morainic landscape dotted with many lakes, around 20 of which are located within Potsdam's city limits. It lies some 25 kilometres (16 miles) southwest of Berlin's city centre. The name of the city and of many of its boroughs are of Slavic origin.

 

Potsdam was a residence of the Prussian kings and the German Emperor until 1918. Its planning embodied ideas of the Age of Enlightenment: through a careful balance of architecture and landscape, Potsdam was intended as "a picturesque, pastoral dream" which would remind its residents of their relationship with nature and reason.

 

The city, which is over 1,000 years old, is widely known for its palaces, its lakes, and its overall historical and cultural significance. Landmarks include the parks and palaces of Sanssouci, Germany's largest World Heritage Site, as well as other palaces such as the Orangery Palace, the New Palace, Cecilienhof Palace, and Charlottenhof Palace. Potsdam was also the location of the significant Potsdam Conference in 1945, the conference where the three heads of government of the USSR, the US, and the UK decided on the division of Germany following its surrender, a conference which defined Germany's history for the following 45 years.

 

Babelsberg, in the south-eastern part of Potsdam, was already by the 1930s the home of a major film production studio and it has enjoyed success as an important center of European film production since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Filmstudio Babelsberg, founded in 1912, is the oldest large-scale film studio in the world.

 

Potsdam developed into a centre of science in Germany in the 19th century. Today, there are three public colleges, the University of Potsdam, and more than 30 research institutes in the city.

Portfolio || Flickr Archive || Instagram

 

This Case feature is extra special for me because he was one of the first writers I met in '95 when I didn't know anybody and we were still in high school. Case has been famous twice, both as a writer and as Video director when he won an Juno for a video with Arcade Fire.

 

1.) How long have you been actively writing for?

I started writing in '92. I slowed down in 2002 to a couple pieces a year, but I never stopped writing. So it's been 28 years.

 

2.) How has your work changed or evolved since you started, and what made it change?

My work has gotten better since I started... First couple years were pretty toy. But at my peak, my work was known worldwide, I got the chance to paint with Daim, Loomit, Seen, Duster, Tats Cru and many other international writers. Also in the big magazines like The Source, 12oz Prophet, etc. All these experiences improved my style and made me look at pushing graffiti further.

 

3.) Tell me about your approach to street art?

My approach comes from a freestyle frame of mind. I like to paint to the wall instead of to the sketch. I sketch to practice but when I paint I rarely use sketch's. I find them to constricting. I do all aspects from 2d to 3d to characters and backgrounds.

  

4.) Any other interests you have apart from painting/art?

Apart from art, Im interested in film making and have directed and animated many music videos for a variety of recording artist from 2001-2009

  

5.) How do you see the further evolution of your work? The city, and scene at large? Seems to have changed alot in the last decade.

My work has evolved onto canvases using Spray paint in a different way. Portraits, scenics and abstracts that adhere to the traditional rules of graffiti - no stencils, no brushes, just pure freehand spray painting. The scene really changed with the advent of the internet. Regional styles started disappearing and a more homogenized style replaced it. Street cred was easier to fake and the real street culture turned into legal walls and sponsored jams. Its great to see many writers from the pre-internet era coming back and still kings. Shout out to the graffiti grandpa's keeping it real and my crews Kwota, TDV, AFC and BIF.

 

You can see more of Case's art here: casemackeen.com

 

He also has a show coming up at Run Gallery in Toronto opening Dec 12, 2020.

 

Portfolio || Flickr Archive || Instagram

 

This Case feature is extra special for me because he was one of the first writers I met in '95 when I didn't know anybody and we were still in high school. Case has been famous twice, both as a writer and as Video director when he won an Juno for a video with Arcade Fire.

 

1.) How long have you been actively writing for?

I started writing in '92. I slowed down in 2002 to a couple pieces a year, but I never stopped writing. So it's been 28 years.

 

2.) How has your work changed or evolved since you started, and what made it change?

My work has gotten better since I started... First couple years were pretty toy. But at my peak, my work was known worldwide, I got the chance to paint with Daim, Loomit, Seen, Duster, Tats Cru and many other international writers. Also in the big magazines like The Source, 12oz Prophet, etc. All these experiences improved my style and made me look at pushing graffiti further.

 

3.) Tell me about your approach to street art?

My approach comes from a freestyle frame of mind. I like to paint to the wall instead of to the sketch. I sketch to practice but when I paint I rarely use sketch's. I find them to constricting. I do all aspects from 2d to 3d to characters and backgrounds.

  

4.) Any other interests you have apart from painting/art?

Apart from art, Im interested in film making and have directed and animated many music videos for a variety of recording artist from 2001-2009

  

5.) How do you see the further evolution of your work? The city, and scene at large? Seems to have changed alot in the last decade.

My work has evolved onto canvases using Spray paint in a different way. Portraits, scenics and abstracts that adhere to the traditional rules of graffiti - no stencils, no brushes, just pure freehand spray painting. The scene really changed with the advent of the internet. Regional styles started disappearing and a more homogenized style replaced it. Street cred was easier to fake and the real street culture turned into legal walls and sponsored jams. Its great to see many writers from the pre-internet era coming back and still kings. Shout out to the graffiti grandpa's keeping it real and my crews Kwota, TDV, AFC, PFD and BIF.

 

You can see more of Case's art here: casemackeen.com

 

He also has a show coming up at Run Gallery in Toronto opening Dec 12, 2020.

 

You always read about it:

the plumber with the twelve children

who wins the Irish Sweepstakes.

From toilets to riches.

That story.

 

Or the nursemaid,

some luscious sweet from Denmark

who captures the oldest son's heart.

from diapers to Dior.

That story.

 

Or a milkman who serves the wealthy,

eggs, cream, butter, yogurt, milk,

the white truck like an ambulance

who goes into real estate

and makes a pile.

From homogenized to martinis at lunch.

 

Or the charwoman

who is on the bus when it cracks up

and collects enough from the insurance.

From mops to Bonwit Teller.

That story.

 

Once

the wife of a rich man was on her deathbed

and she said to her daughter Cinderella:

Be devout. Be good. Then I will smile

down from heaven in the seam of a cloud.

The man took another wife who had

two daughters, pretty enough

but with hearts like blackjacks.

Cinderella was their maid.

She slept on the sooty hearth each night

and walked around looking like Al Jolson.

Her father brought presents home from town,

jewels and gowns for the other women

but the twig of a tree for Cinderella.

She planted that twig on her mother's grave

and it grew to a tree where a white dove sat.

Whenever she wished for anything the dove

would drop it like an egg upon the ground.

The bird is important, my dears, so heed him.

 

Next came the ball, as you all know.

It was a marriage market.

The prince was looking for a wife.

All but Cinderella were preparing

and gussying up for the event.

Cinderella begged to go too.

Her stepmother threw a dish of lentils

into the cinders and said: Pick them

up in an hour and you shall go.

The white dove brought all his friends;

all the warm wings of the fatherland came,

and picked up the lentils in a jiffy.

No, Cinderella, said the stepmother,

you have no clothes and cannot dance.

That's the way with stepmothers.

 

Cinderella went to the tree at the grave

and cried forth like a gospel singer:

Mama! Mama! My turtledove,

send me to the prince's ball!

The bird dropped down a golden dress

and delicate little slippers.

Rather a large package for a simple bird.

So she went. Which is no surprise.

Her stepmother and sisters didn't

recognize her without her cinder face

and the prince took her hand on the spot

and danced with no other the whole day.

 

As nightfall came she thought she'd better

get home. The prince walked her home

and she disappeared into the pigeon house

and although the prince took an axe and broke

it open she was gone. Back to her cinders.

These events repeated themselves for three days.

However on the third day the prince

covered the palace steps with cobbler's wax

and Cinderella's gold shoe stuck upon it.

Now he would find whom the shoe fit

and find his strange dancing girl for keeps.

He went to their house and the two sisters

were delighted because they had lovely feet.

The eldest went into a room to try the slipper on

but her big toe got in the way so she simply

sliced it off and put on the slipper.

The prince rode away with her until the white dove

told him to look at the blood pouring forth.

That is the way with amputations.

They just don't heal up like a wish.

The other sister cut off her heel

but the blood told as blood will.

The prince was getting tired.

He began to feel like a shoe salesman.

But he gave it one last try.

This time Cinderella fit into the shoe

like a love letter into its envelope.

 

At the wedding ceremony

the two sisters came to curry favor

and the white dove pecked their eyes out.

Two hollow spots were left

like soup spoons.

 

Cinderella and the prince

lived, they say, happily ever after,

like two dolls in a museum case

never bothered by diapers or dust,

never arguing over the timing of an egg,

never telling the same story twice,

never getting a middle-aged spread,

their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.

Regular Bobbsey Twins.

That story.

 

-- Anne Sexton

Early 1960s prototype milk ad photo. You don't see the word "Homo" on milk cartons much anymore.

 

"Homo" just meant homogenized, of course.

picture was shot by my dear friend Baqar Nassar ..

 

I got a message on my Facebook wall from another dear friend Dr Robi Ludwig, she loves turquoise,,as much as I do or more...she wants one for Valentines Day..

 

Much of the turquoise I have is from Nishapur Iran.

The two big ones on my hand have a strange story, I got one of them the one on the left hand from a Indo-Iranian jewellery fair that was held at Bandra Reclamation..by Nassar of Lucky Hotel ..the guy who sold it to me was called Fairuz Iranian name turquoise ..my name is derived from the Iranian root Firoze.

 

We became good friends and because of my attire people thronged to his stall, he made a killing and gave me the turquoise stone at a very special price, he also gave me a ruby ring..I too bought a lot of amber from him, Kerba..

 

The ring on my right hand I found at a stall at Bhendi Bazar its an identical twin, just two shades lighter , normally I would dip my rings in badam oil, to get the depth of color ..and it gives a luster too.

 

I have a humongous collection of rings, many I have given away to some of my Gurus..

but my favorite are the claws and my set of black Sulaimani Akeek or agate.

 

I also have a huge rocky turquoise pendant from Tibet.. and two bead turquoise necklaces from Ladakh..

 

About Turquoise

 

Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrous phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula CuAl6(PO4)4(OH)8·4H2O. It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gem and ornamental stone for thousands of years owing to its unique hue. In recent times turquoise, like most other opaque gems, has been devalued by the introduction of treatments, imitations, and synthetics onto the market, some difficult to detect even by experts.

 

The substance has been known by many names, but the word turquoise was derived around 16th century from the French language either from the word for Turkish (Turquois) or dark-blue stone (pierre turquin).[4] This may have arisen from a misconception: turquoise does not occur in Turkey but was traded at Turkish bazaars to Venetian merchants who brought it to Europe.[4] The colour, however, has been employed extensively in the decorative tiles adorning Turkish places of worship and homes for hundreds of years, beginning with the Seljuks, or was derived from the colour of the Mediterranean Sea on the southern Turkish coast and the association quite possibly has caused the name to take root.

 

Even the finest of turquoise is fracturable, reaching a maximum hardness of just under 6, or slightly more than window glass.[2] Characteristically a cryptocrystalline mineral, turquoise almost never forms single crystals and all of its properties are highly variable. Its crystal system is proven to be triclinic via X-ray diffraction testing. With lower hardness comes lower specific gravity (high 2.90, low 2.60) and greater porosity: These properties are dependent on grain size. The lustre of turquoise is typically waxy to subvitreous, and transparency is usually opaque, but may be semitranslucent in thin sections. Colour is as variable as the mineral's other properties, ranging from white to a powder blue to a sky blue, and from a blue-green to a yellowish green. The blue is attributed to idiochromatic copper while the green may be the result of either iron impurities (replacing aluminium) or dehydration.

 

The refractive index (as measured by sodium light, 589.3 nm) of turquoise is approximately 1.61 or 1.62; this is a mean value seen as a single reading on a gemmological refractometer, owing to the almost invariably polycrystalline nature of turquoise. A reading of 1.61–1.65 (birefringence 0.040, biaxial positive) has been taken from rare single crystals. An absorption spectrum may also be obtained with a hand-held spectroscope, revealing a line at 432 nanometres and a weak band at 460 nanometres (this is best seen with strong reflected light). Under longwave ultraviolet light, turquoise may occasionally fluoresce green, yellow or bright blue; it is inert under shortwave ultraviolet and X-rays.

 

Turquoise is insoluble in all but heated hydrochloric acid. Its streak is a pale bluish white and its fracture is conchoidal, leaving a waxy lustre. Despite its low hardness relative to other gems, turquoise takes a good polish. Turquoise may also be peppered with flecks of pyrite or interspersed with dark, spidery limonite veining.

 

[edit] Formation

 

As a secondary mineral, turquoise apparently forms by the action of percolating acidic aqueous solutions during the weathering and oxidation of pre-existing minerals. For example, the copper may come from primary copper sulfides such as chalcopyrite or from the secondary carbonates malachite or azurite; the aluminium may derive from feldspar; and the phosphorus from apatite. Climate factors appear to play an important role as turquoise is typically found in arid regions, filling or encrusting cavities and fractures in typically highly altered volcanic rocks, often with associated limonite and other iron oxides. In the American southwest turquoise is almost invariably associated with the weathering products of copper sulfide deposits in or around potassium feldspar bearing porphyritic intrusives. In some occurrences alunite, potassium aluminium sulfate, is a prominent secondary mineral. Typically turquoise mineralization is restricted to a relatively shallow depth of less than 20 m, although it does occur along deeper fracture zones where secondary solutions have greater penetration or the depth to the water table is greater.

 

Although the features of turquoise occurrences are consistent with a secondary or supergene origin, some sources refer to a hypogene origin. The hypogene hypothesis, which holds that the aqueous solutions originate at significant depth, from hydrothermal processes. Initially at high temperature, these solutions rise upward to surface layers, interacting with and leaching essential elements from pre-existing minerals in the process. As the solutions cool, turquoise precipitates, lining cavities and fractures within the surrounding rock. This hypogene process is applicable to the original copper sulfide deposition; however, it is difficult to account for the many features of turquoise occurrences by a hypogene process. That said, there are reports of two phase fluid inclusions within turquoise grains that give elevated homogenization temperatures of 90 to 190 oC that require explanation.

 

Turquoise is nearly always cryptocrystalline and massive and assumes no definite external shape. Crystals, even at the microscopic scale, are exceedingly rare. Typically the form is vein or fracture filling, nodular, or botryoidal in habit. Stalactite forms have been reported. Turquoise may also pseudomorphously replace feldspar, apatite, other minerals, or even fossils. Odontolite is fossil bone or ivory that has been traditionally thought to have been altered by turquoise or similar phosphate minerals such as the iron phosphate vivianite. Intergrowth with other secondary copper minerals such as chrysocolla is also common.

 

[edit] Occurrence

Massive turquoise in matrix with quartz from Mineral Park, Arizona.

 

Turquoise was among the first gems to be mined, and while many historic sites have been depleted, some are still worked to this day. These are all small-scale, often seasonal operations, owing to the limited scope and remoteness of the deposits. Most are worked by hand with little or no mechanization. However, turquoise is often recovered as a byproduct of large-scale copper mining operations, especially in the United States.

 

[edit] Iran

Cutting and grinding turquoise in Meshed, Iran. 1973.

 

For at least 2,000 years, the region once known as Persia, has remained the most important source of turquoise, for it is here that fine material is most consistently recovered. This "perfect colour" deposit, which is blue naturally, and turns green when heated due to dehyration, is restricted to a mine-riddled in Neyshabur,[5][6][7] the 2,012-metre mountain peak of Ali-mersai, which is tens of kilometers from Mashhad, the capital of Khorasan province, Iran. A weathered and broken trachyte is host to the turquoise, which is found both in situ between layers of limonite and sandstone, and amongst the scree at the mountain's base. These workings, together with those of the Sinai Peninsula, are the oldest known.

 

Iranian turquoise is often found replacing feldspar. Although it is commonly marred by whitish patches, its colour and hardness are considered superior to the production of other localities. Iranian turquoise has been mined and traded abroad for centuries, and was probably the source of the first material to reach Europe.

 

[edit] Sinai

 

Since at least the First Dynasty (3000 BCE), and possibly before then, turquoise was used by the Egyptians and was mined by them in the Sinai Peninsula, called "Country of Turquoise" by the native Monitu. There are six mines in the region, all on the southwest coast of the peninsula, covering an area of some 650 km². The two most important of these mines, from a historic perspective, are Serabit el-Khadim and Wadi Maghareh, believed to be among the oldest of known mines. The former mine is situated about 4 kilometres from an ancient temple dedicated to Hathor.

 

The turquoise is found in sandstone that is, or was originally, overlain by basalt. Copper and iron workings are present in the area. Large-scale turquoise mining is not profitable today, but the deposits are sporadically quarried by Bedouin peoples using homemade gunpowder. In the rainy winter months, miners face a risk from flash flooding; even in the dry season, death from the collapse of the haphazardly exploited sandstone mine walls is not unheard of. The colour of Sinai material is typically greener than Iranian material, but is thought to be stable and fairly durable. Often referred to as Egyptian turquoise, Sinai material is typically the most translucent, and under magnification its surface structure is revealed to be peppered with dark blue discs not seen in material from other localities.

 

In proximity to nearby Eilat, Israel, an attractive intergrowth of turquoise, malachite, and chrysocolla is found. This rock is called Eilat stone and is often referred to as Israel's national stone: it is worked by local artisans for sale to tourists.

 

[edit] United States

A selection of Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) turquoise and orange argillite inlay pieces from Chaco Canyon (dated ca. 1020–1140 CE) show the typical colour range and mottling of American turquoise.

Bisbee turquoise commonly has a hard chocolate brown coloured matrix, and is considered some of the finest in the world.

 

The Southwest United States is a significant source of turquoise; Arizona, California (San Bernardino, Imperial, and Inyo counties), Colorado (Conejos, El Paso, Lake, and Saguache counties), New Mexico (Eddy, Grant, Otero, and Santa Fe counties) and Nevada (Clark, Elko, Esmerelda County, Eureka, Lander, Mineral County and Nye counties) are (or were) especially rich. The deposits of California and New Mexico were mined by pre-Columbian Native Americans using stone tools, some local and some from as far away as central Mexico. Cerrillos, New Mexico is thought to be the location of the oldest mines; prior to the 1920s, the state was the country's largest producer; it is more or less exhausted today. Only one mine in California, located at Apache Canyon, operates at a commercial capacity today.

 

The turquoise occurs as vein or seam fillings, and as compact nuggets; these are mostly small in size. While quite fine material—rivalling Iranian material in both colour and durability—is sometimes found, most American turquoise is of a low grade (called "chalk turquoise"); high iron levels mean greens and yellows predominate, and a typically friable consistency precludes use in jewellery in the turquoise's untreated state. Arizona is currently the most important producer of turquoise by value, with the vivid Bisbee Blue being a good example of the state's natural endowment; much of the Arizona material is recovered as a byproduct of copper mining. Currently the only two active Turquoise mines in the world exist in the state.[citation needed] The first is the Kingman Turquoise Mine which was started up again on the back of the copper mine in the area. The other is the Sleeping Beauty Mine found near Globe. Both mines work together in order to better pull out the material and both have been finding some of their best material in decades, including material out of the Kingman mine similar to what was once found in the Ithica Peak mine.[citation needed]

 

Nevada is the country's other major producer, with more than 120 mines which have yielded significant quantities of turquoise. Unlike elsewhere in the US, most Nevada mines have been worked primarily for their gem turquoise and very little has been recovered as a byproduct of other mining operations. Nevada turquoise is found as nuggets, fracture fillings and in breccias as the cement filling interstices between fragments. Because of the geology of the Nevada deposits, a majority of the material produced is hard and dense, being of sufficient quality that no treatment or enhancement is required. While nearly every county in the state has yielded some turquoise, the chief producers are in Lander and Esmerelda Counties. Most of the turquoise deposits in Nevada occur along a wide belt of tectonic activity that coincides with the state's zone of thrust faulting. It strikes about N15E and extends from the northern part of Elko County, southward down to the California border southwest of Tonopah. Nevada has produced a wide diversity of colours and mixes of different matrix patterns, with turquoise from Nevada coming in various shades of blue, blue-green, and green. Nevada produces some unique shades of bright mint to apple to neon yellow green. Some of this unusually coloured turquoise may contain significant zinc and iron, which is the cause of the beautiful bright green to yellow-green shades. Some of the green to green yellow shades may actually be Variscite or Faustite, which are secondary phosphate minerals similar in appearance to turquoise. A significant portion of the Nevada material is also noted for its often attractive brown or black limonite veining, producing what is called "spiderweb matrix". While a number of the Nevada deposits were first worked by Native Americans, the total Nevada turquoise production since the 1870s has been estimated at more than 600 tons, including nearly 400 tons from the Carico Lake mine. In spite of increased costs, small scale mining operations continue at a number of turquoise properties in Nevada, including the Godber, Orvil Jack and Carico Lake Mines in Lander County, the Pilot Mountain Mine in Mineral County, and several properties in the Royston and Candelaria areas of Esmerelda County.[8]

Untreated turquoise, Nevada USA. Rough nuggets from the McGuinness Mine, Austin; Blue and green cabochons showing spiderweb, Bunker Hill Mine, Royston

 

In 1912, the first deposit of distinct, single-crystal turquoise was discovered in Lynch Station, Campbell County, Virginia. The crystals, forming a druse over the mother rock, are very small; 1 mm (0.04 inches) is considered large. Until the 1980s Virginia was widely thought to be the only source of distinct crystals; there are now at least 27 other localities.[9] The specimens are highly valued by collectors.

 

In an attempt to recoup profits and meet demand, some American turquoise is treated or enhanced to a certain degree. These treatments include innocuous waxing and more controversial procedures, such as dyeing and impregnation (see Treatments). There are however, some American mines which produce materials of high enough quality that no treatment or alterations are required. Any such treatments which have been performed should be disclosed to the buyer on sale of the material.

 

[edit] Other sources

 

China has been a minor source of turquoise for 3,000 years or more. Gem-quality material, in the form of compact nodules, is found in the fractured, silicified limestone of Yunxian and Zhushan, Hubei province. Additionally, Marco Polo reported turquoise found in present-day Sichuan. Most Chinese material is exported, but a few carvings worked in a manner similar to jade exist. In Tibet, gem-quality deposits purportedly exist in the mountains of Derge and Nagari-Khorsum in the east and west of the region respectively.[10]

 

Other notable localities include: Afghanistan; Australia (Victoria and Queensland); northern Chile (Chuquicamata); Cornwall; Saxony; Silesia; and Turkestan.

 

[edit] History of its use

Moche turquoise nose ornament. Larco Museum Collection. Lima-Peru

Trade in turquoise crafts, such as this freeform pendant dating from 1000–1040 CE, is believed to have brought the Ancestral Puebloans of the Chaco Canyon great wealth.

 

The pastel shades of turquoise have endeared it to many great cultures of antiquity: it has adorned the rulers of Ancient Egypt, the Aztecs (and possibly other Pre-Columbian Mesoamericans), Persia, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and to some extent in ancient China since at least the Shang Dynasty.[11] Despite being one of the oldest gems, probably first introduced to Europe (through Turkey) with other Silk Road novelties, turquoise did not become important as an ornamental stone in the West until the 14th century, following a decline in the Roman Catholic Church's influence which allowed the use of turquoise in secular jewellery. It was apparently unknown in India until the Mughal period, and unknown in Japan until the 18th century. A common belief shared by many of these civilizations held that turquoise possessed certain prophylactic qualities; it was thought to change colour with the wearer's health and protect him or her from untoward forces.

 

The Aztecs inlaid turquoise, together with gold, quartz, malachite, jet, jade, coral, and shells, into provocative (and presumably ceremonial) mosaic objects such as masks (some with a human skull as their base), knives, and shields. Natural resins, bitumen and wax were used to bond the turquoise to the objects' base material; this was usually wood, but bone and shell were also used. Like the Aztecs, the Pueblo, Navajo and Apache tribes cherished turquoise for its amuletic use; the latter tribe believe the stone to afford the archer dead aim. Among these peoples turquoise was used in mosaic inlay, in sculptural works, and was fashioned into toroidal beads and freeform pendants. The Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) of the Chaco Canyon and surrounding region are believed to have prospered greatly from their production and trading of turquoise objects. The distinctive silver jewelry produced by the Navajo and other Southwestern Native American tribes today is a rather modern development, thought to date from circa 1880 as a result of European influences.

 

In Persia, turquoise was the de facto national stone for millennia, extensively used to decorate objects (from turbans to bridles), mosques, and other important buildings both inside and out, such as the Medresseh-I Shah Husein Mosque of Isfahan. The Persian style and use of turquoise was later brought to India following the establishment of the Mughal Empire there, its influence seen in high purity gold jewellery (together with ruby and diamond) and in such buildings as the Taj Mahal. Persian turquoise was often engraved with devotional words in Arabic script which was then inlaid with gold.

The iconic gold burial mask of Tutankhamun, inlaid with turquoise, lapis lazuli, carnelian and coloured glass.

 

Cabochons of imported turquoise, along with coral, was (and still is) used extensively in the silver and gold jewellery of Tibet and Mongolia, where a greener hue is said to be preferred. Most of the pieces made today, with turquoise usually roughly polished into irregular cabochons set simply in silver, are meant for inexpensive export to Western markets and are probably not accurate representations of the original style.

 

The Egyptian use of turquoise stretches back as far as the First Dynasty and possibly earlier; however, probably the most well-known pieces incorporating the gem are those recovered from Tutankhamun's tomb, most notably the Pharaoh's iconic burial mask which was liberally inlaid with the stone. It also adorned rings and great sweeping necklaces called pectorals. Set in gold, the gem was fashioned into beads, used as inlay, and often carved in a scarab motif, accompanied by carnelian, lapis lazuli, and in later pieces, coloured glass. Turquoise, associated with the goddess Hathor, was so liked by the Ancient Egyptians that it became (arguably) the first gemstone to be imitated, the fair structure created by an artificial glazed ceramic product known as faience. (A similar blue ceramic has been recovered from Bronze Age burial sites in the British Isles.)

 

The French conducted archaeological excavations of Egypt from the mid-19th century through the early 20th. These excavations, including that of Tutankhamun's tomb, created great public interest in the western world, subsequently influencing jewellery, architecture, and art of the time. Turquoise, already favoured for its pastel shades since c. 1810, was a staple of Egyptian Revival pieces. In contemporary Western use, turquoise is most often encountered cut en cabochon in silver rings, bracelets, often in the Native American style, or as tumbled or roughly hewn beads in chunky necklaces. Lesser material may be carved into fetishes, such as those crafted by the Zuni. While strong sky blues remain superior in value, mottled green and yellowish material is popular with artisans. In Western culture, turquoise is also the traditional birthstone for those born in the month of December.

 

[edit] In Judeo-Christian scripture

 

Turquoise may have significance in Judeo-Christian scripture: In the Book of Exodus, the construction of a "breastplate of judgment" is described as part of the priestly vestments of Aaron (Exodus 28:15–30). Attached to the ephod, the breastplate (Hoshen) was adorned with twelve gemstones set in gold and arranged in four rows, each stone engraved with the name of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Of the four stones in the third row, the first and second have been translated to be turquoise by various scholars and English bible versions (usually not having both as turquoise at the same time); many others disagree, however.[12]

 

In regard to the first of these stones, the translation is based on the Septuagint rendering the identity of the stone as chrysolithos (the masoretic text calls it tarshish, which just refers to Tarshish, a place, and gives no clue to the gem in question); at the time it was written chrysolithos did not mean Chrysolite specifically, but only golden stone (chryso-lithos). Chrysolithos is considered by scholars to possibly mean Topaz, Chrysolite, yellow Jasper, yellow Serpentine, or Turquoise - the last of these on the basis that Turquoise contains golden flecks, and that targums identified the stone as being sea coloured. Scholars favour stones which are mostly yellow as being the more likely solution, and opaque stones (Jasper or Serpentine) as more likely than translucent ones, on the consideration of nearby stones in the Hoshen.

 

In regard to the second of these stones, the masoretic text calls it shoham, and the Septuagint calls it Beryllios (Beryl), though elsewhere it translates shoham as onychion (Onyx), or as smaragdos (green stone). Shoham is of uncertain meaning. Following the Septuagint, some people think the stone should be an onyx (and many more traditional English versions of the Bible take this translation), but scholars think that the stone is actually Malachite (because it is green like beryl and smaragdos, cloudy as beryl can be, and in bands like onyx).

 

Scholars also disagree as to which tribes of the Israelites each stone is meant to represent; traditional sources are in just as much disagreement.

 

[edit] Imitations

 

The Egyptians were the first to produce an artificial imitation of turquoise, in the glazed earthenware product faience. Later glass and enamel were also used, and in modern times more sophisticated ceramics, porcelain, plastics, and various assembled, pressed, bonded, and sintered products (composed of various copper and aluminium compounds) have been developed: examples of the latter include "Viennese turquoise", made from precipitated aluminium phosphate coloured by copper oleate; and "neolith", a mixture of bayerite and copper phosphate. Most of these products differ markedly from natural turquoise in both physical and chemical properties, but in 1972 Pierre Gilson introduced one fairly close to a true synthetic (it does differ in chemical composition owing to a binder used, meaning it is best described as a simulant rather than a synthetic). Gilson turquoise is made in both a uniform colour and with black "spiderweb matrix" veining not unlike the natural Nevada material.

Some natural blue to blue-green materials, such as this botryoidal chrysocolla with quartz drusy, are occasionally confused with, or used to imitate turquoise.

 

The most common imitation of turquoise encountered today is dyed howlite and magnesite, both white in their natural states, and the former also having natural (and convincing) black veining similar to that of turquoise. Dyed chalcedony, jasper, and marble is less common, and much less convincing. Other natural materials occasionally confused with or used in lieu of turquoise include: variscite and faustite;[13] chrysocolla (especially when impregnating quartz); lazulite; smithsonite; hemimorphite; wardite; and a fossil bone or tooth called odontolite or "bone turquoise", coloured blue naturally by the mineral vivianite. While rarely encountered today, odontolite was once mined in large quantities—specifically for its use as a substitute for turquoise—in southern France.

 

These fakes are detected by gemmologists using a number of tests, relying primarily on non-destructive, close examination of surface structure under magnification; a featureless, pale blue background peppered by flecks or spots of whitish material is the typical surface appearance of natural turquoise, while manufactured imitations will appear radically different in both colour (usually a uniform dark blue) and texture (usually granular or sugary). Glass and plastic will have a much greater translucency, with bubbles or flow lines often visible just below the surface. Staining between grain boundaries may be visible in dyed imitations.

 

Some destructive tests may, however, be necessary; for example, the application of diluted hydrochloric acid will cause the carbonates odontolite and magnesite to effervesce and howlite to turn green, while a heated probe may give rise to the pungent smell so indicative of plastic. Differences in specific gravity, refractive index, light absorption (as evident in a material's absorption spectrum), and other physical and optical properties are also considered as means of separation. Imitation turquoise is so prevalent that it likely outnumbers real turquoise by a wide margin. Even material used in authentic Native American and Tibetan jewellery is often fake or, at best, heavily treated.

 

[edit] Treatments

An early turquoise mine in the Madan village of Khorasan.

 

Turquoise is treated to enhance both its colour and durability (i.e., increased hardness and decreased porosity). As is so often the case with any precious stones, full disclosure about treatment is frequently not given. It is therefore left to gemologists to detect these treatments in suspect stones using a variety of testing methods—some of which are necessarily destructive. For example, the use of a heated probe applied to an inconspicuous spot will reveal oil, wax, or plastic treatment with certainty.

 

[edit] Waxing and Oiling

 

Historically, light waxing and oiling were the first treatments used in ancient times, providing a wetting effect, thereby enhancing the colour and lustre. This treatment is more or less acceptable by tradition, especially because treated turquoise is usually of a higher grade to begin with. Oiled and waxed stones are prone to "sweating" under even gentle heat or if exposed to too much sun, and they may develop a white surface film or bloom over time. (With some skill, oil and wax treatments can be restored.)

 

[edit] Stabilization

 

Material treated with plastic or water glass is termed "bonded" or "stabilized" turquoise. This process consists of pressure impregnation of otherwise unsaleable chalky American material by epoxy and plastics (such as polystyrene) and water glass to produce a wetting effect and improve durability. Plastic and water glass treatments are far more permanent and stable than waxing and oiling, and can be applied to material too chemically or physically unstable for oil or wax to provide sufficient improvement. Conversely, stabilization and bonding are rejected by some as too radical an alteration.[14]

 

The epoxy binding technique was first developed in the 1950s and has been attributed to Colbaugh Processing of Arizona, a company that still operates today. The majority of American material is now treated in this manner although it is a costly process requiring many months to complete. Without such impregnation, most American mining operations would be unprofitable.

 

[edit] Dyeing

 

The use of Prussian blue and other dyes (often in conjunction with bonding treatments) to "enhance" – that is, make uniform or completely change – colour is regarded as fraudulent by some purists,[14] especially since some dyes may fade or rub off on the wearer. Dyes have also been used to darken the veins of turquoise.

 

[edit] Reconstitution

 

Perhaps the most radical of treatments is "reconstitution", wherein fragments of fine turquoise material, too small to be used individually, are powdered and then bonded to form a solid mass. Much, if not all, of this "reconstituted" material is likely artificial with no natural components, or may have foreign filler material added to it (see Imitations section).

 

[edit] Irradiation

 

Not well known, but some turquoise is irradiated to become less "chalky". This treatment is rarely disclosed. Like all irradiated gemstones, it should be tested by a Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensed laboratory before being sold in the USA.

  

[edit] Backing

 

Since finer turquoise is often found as thin seams, it may be glued to a base of stronger foreign material as a means of reinforcement. These stones are termed "Backed" and it is standard practice that all thinly cut turquoise in the Southwestern United States is backed. Native indigenous peoples of this region, because of their considerable use and wearing of turquoise, found that backing increased the durability of thinly cut slabs and cabs of turquoise. They observed that if the stone was not backed it would, for the most part, end up cracking. Early backing materials were the casings of old model T batteries and progressed to old phonograph records and most recently to the use of epoxy steel resins. Backing of turquoise is not known outside of the Native American and Southwestern United States jewelry trade. The value of turquoise of the highest quality is not discounted because it is backed and indeed the process is expected for most thinly cut American commercial gemstones.[citation needed]

 

[edit] Valuation and care

Slab of turquoise in matrix showing a large variety of different colouration

 

Hardness and richness of colour are two of the major factors in determining the value of turquoise; while colour is a matter of individual taste, generally speaking, the most desirable is a strong sky to "robin's egg" blue (in reference to the eggs of the American Robin).[15] Whatever the colour, turquoise should not be excessively soft or chalky; even if treated, such lesser material (to which most turquoise belongs) is liable to fade or discolour over time and will not hold up to normal use in jewellery.

 

The mother rock or matrix in which turquoise is found can often be seen as splotches or a network of brown or black veins running through the stone in a netted pattern; this veining may add value to the stone if the result is complementary, but such a result is uncommon. Such material is sometimes described as "spiderweb matrix"; it is most valued in the Southwest United States and Far East, but is not highly appreciated in the Near East where unblemished and vein-free material is ideal (regardless of how complementary the veining may be). Uniformity of colour is desired, and in finished pieces the quality of workmanship is also a factor; this includes the quality of the polish and the symmetry of the stone. Calibrated stones—that is, stones adhering to standard jewellery setting measurements—may also be more sought after. Like coral and other opaque gems, turquoise is commonly sold at a price according to its physical size in millimetres rather than weight.

 

Turquoise is treated in many different ways, some more permanent and radical than others. Controversy exists as to whether some of these treatments should be acceptable, but one can be more or less forgiven universally: This is the light waxing or oiling applied to most gem turquoise to improve its colour and lustre; if the material is of high quality to begin with, very little of the wax or oil is absorbed and the turquoise therefore does not "rely" on this impermanent treatment for its beauty. All other factors being equal, untreated turquoise will always command a higher price. Bonded and "reconstituted" material is worth considerably less.

 

Being a phosphate mineral, turquoise is inherently fragile and sensitive to solvents; perfume and other cosmetics will attack the finish and may alter the colour of turquoise gems, as will skin oils, as will most commercial jewelry cleaning fluids. Prolonged exposure to direct sunlight may also discolour or dehydrate turquoise. Care should therefore be taken when wearing such jewels: cosmetics, including sunscreen and hair spray, should be applied before putting on turquoise jewellery, and they should not be worn to a beach or other sun-bathed environment. After use, turquoise should be gently cleaned with a soft cloth to avoid a build up of residue, and should be stored in its own container to avoid scratching by harder gems. Turquoise can also be adversely affected if stored in an airtight container.

 

[edit] See also

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turquoise

  

As Marina Gogeanu writes in her blog: "The intentions of the country’s leaders in that period were to uproot the inhabitants of Romania in huge apartment blocks districts. This action was meant to accomplish several objectives: alienation, homogenization, the transformation of the Romanians into “automatic machines of modernity” in order to finally fulfil their evolution towards the 'new man'."

ALS Job 102 waits at Valley JCT on the MacArthur Bridge Approach for a spot at the A&S Gateway Yard to bring in their transfer from UP's 12th St. Yard across the river.

 

This engine was built new for the UP in May of 1986 as the UP SD60 No. 6049. It was eventually renumbered as the 2204 and rebuilt as an SD62 in May of 2015. It's been assigned to the A&S Gateway Yard, and in early 2023, it was repainted into an updated version of their paint scheme.

 

In the beginning of 2023, a pair of UP SD60's, classified as SD62's, assigned to the Alton & Gateway Yard at East St. Louis, IL emerged from paint booth at North Little Rock, AR wearing updated A&S paint.

 

This scheme was first applied when the A&S was jointly owned by the Missouri Pacifc and the Chicago & Northwestern starting in 1968. The paint reflects ownership of both roads as does their logo, which is a combination of the MOP's buzzsaw and the CNW's bar and ball logo. CNW sold their share to the Cotton Belt, an SP subsidiary, in 1972, and the UP and MP merged a decade later. In 1996, UP merged with the SP, thus giving UP full control of the A&S.

 

Over the years, the number of switchers on the A&S have dwindled and the two GP38-2's that wore this scheme have since been retired and sold for a few years now. Even though the A&S remains a separate legal entity, it's been rumored UP wants to them phase them out entirely, but seemingly out of no where, a pair of SD62's and an SD40N were sent to Jenks Shops to be painted in this iconic scheme. Once again, locomotives adorned in the MOP-CNW inspired paint scheme have become a fairly common sight around the St. Louis area.

 

It's almost incredible this has even happened in this day and age of railroading where almost everything has become so boring and homogenized. 3/16/24.

Times Square is a major commercial intersection and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue, and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. Brightly adorned with billboards and advertisements, Times Square is sometimes referred to as The Crossroads of the World, The Center of the Universe, and the heart of The Great White Way. One of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. Times Square is one of the world's most visited tourist attractions, drawing an estimated fifty million visitors annually. Approximately 330,000 people pass through Times Square daily, many of them tourists.

 

Formerly Longacre Square, Times Square was renamed in 1904 after The New York Times moved its headquarters to the newly erected Times Building, the site of the annual ball drop which began on December 31, 1907, and continues today, attracting over a million visitors to Times Square every New Year's Eve.

 

Duffy Square, the northernmost of Times Square's triangles, was dedicated in 1937 to Chaplain Francis P. Duffy of New York City's U.S. 69th Infantry Regiment and is the site of a memorial to him, along with a statue of George M. Cohan and the TKTS discount theatre tickets booth.

 

When Manhattan Island was first settled by the Dutch, three small streams united near what is now 10th Avenue and 40th street. These three streams formed the "Great Kill" (Dutch: Grote Kill). From there the Great Kill wound through the low-lying Reed Valley, known for fish and waterfowl and emptied into a deep bay in the Hudson River at the present 42nd Street. The name was retained in a tiny hamlet, Great Kill, that became a center for carriage-making, as the upland to the south and east became known as Longacre.

 

Before and after the American Revolution, the area belonged to John Morin Scott, a general of the New York militia, in which he served under George Washington. Scott's manor house was at what is currently 43rd Street, surrounded by countryside used for farming and breeding horses. In the first half of the 19th century, it became one of the prized possessions of John Jacob Astor, who made a second fortune selling off lots to hotels and other real estate concerns as the city rapidly spread uptown.

 

By 1872, the area had become the center of New York's carriage industry. The area not having previously been named, the city authorities called it Longacre Square after Long Acre in London, where the carriage trade in that city was centered and which was also a home to stables. William Henry Vanderbilt owned and ran the American Horse Exchange there until the turn of the 20th century.

 

As more profitable commerce and industrialization of lower Manhattan pushed homes, theaters, and prostitution northward from the Tenderloin District, Long Acre Square became nicknamed the Thieves Lair for its rollicking reputation as a low entertainment district. The first theater on the square, the Olympia, was built by cigar manufacturer and impresario Oscar Hammerstein I. "By the early 1890s this once sparsely settled stretch of Broadway was ablaze with electric light and thronged by crowds of middle- and upper-class theatre, restaurant and cafe patrons."

 

In 1904, New York Times publisher Adolph S. Ochs moved the newspaper's operations to a new skyscraper on 42nd Street at Longacre Square, on the site of the former Pabst Hotel, which had existed on the site for less than a decade. Ochs persuaded Mayor George B. McClellan, Jr. to construct a subway station there, and the area was renamed "Times Square" on April 8, 1904. Just three weeks later, the first electrified advertisement appeared on the side of a bank at the corner of 46th Street and Broadway. The north end later became Duffy Square.

 

The New York Times, according to Nolan, moved to more spacious offices west of the square in 1913. The old Times Building was later named the Allied Chemical Building. Now known simply as One Times Square, it is famed for the Times Square Ball drop on its roof every New Year's Eve.

 

In 1913, the Lincoln Highway Association, headed by entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, chose the intersection of 42nd Street and Broadway, at the southeast corner of Times Square, to be the Eastern Terminus of the Lincoln Highway, the first road across the United States, which originally spanned 3,389 miles (5,454 km) coast-to-coast through 13 states to its western end in Lincoln Park in San Francisco, California.

 

As the growth in New York City continued, Times Square quickly became a cultural hub full of theatres, music halls, and upscale hotels.

 

Times Square quickly became New York's agora, a place to gather to await great tidings and to celebrate them, whether a World Series or a presidential election

—James Traub, The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square

 

Celebrities such as Irving Berlin, Fred Astaire, and Charlie Chaplin were closely associated with Times Square in the 1910s and 1920s. During this period, the area was nicknamed The Tenderloin because it was supposedly the most desirable location in Manhattan. However, it was during this period that the area was besieged by crime and corruption, in the form of gambling and prostitution; one case that garnered huge attention was the arrest and subsequent execution of police officer Charles Becker.

 

The general atmosphere changed with the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Times Square acquired a reputation as a dangerous neighborhood in the following decades. From the 1960s to the early 1990s, the seediness of the area, especially due to its go-go bars, sex shops, and adult theaters, became an infamous symbol of the city's decline.

1970s–1980s

 

As early as 1960, 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenue, was described by The New York Times as "the 'worst' [block] in town", Times Square in that decade, as depicted in Midnight Cowboy, was gritty, dark and desperate, and it got worse in the 1970s and 1980s, as did the crime situation in the rest of the city things were worse still. By 1984, an unprecedented 2,300 annual crimes occurred on that single block, of which 460 were serious felonies such as murder and rape. At the time, since police morale was low, misdemeanors were allowed to go unpunished. William Bratton, who was appointed New York City Police Commissioner in 1994 and again in 2014, stated, "The [NYPD] didn't want high performance; it wanted to stay out of trouble, to avoid corruption scandals and conflicts in the community. For years, therefore, the key to career success in the NYPD, as in many bureaucratic leviathans, was to shun risk and avoid failure. Accordingly, cops became more cautious as they rose in rank, right up to the highest levels." As the city government did not implement broken windows theory at first, the allowance of low-profile crime was thought to have caused more high-profile crimes to occur. Formerly elegant movie theaters began to show porn, and hustlers were common. The area was so abandoned at one point during the time that the entire Times Square area paid the city only $6 million in property taxes, which is less than what a medium-sized office building in Manhattan typically would produce in tax revenue today in 1984 dollars.

 

In the 1980s, a commercial building boom began in the western parts of Midtown as part of a long-term development plan developed under Mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins. In the mid-1990s, Rudolph Giuliani led an effort to clean up the area, an effort that is described by Steve Macekin in Urban Nightmares: The Media, the Right, And the Moral Panic Over the City: Security was increased, pornographic theatres were closed, and “undesirable” low-rent residents were pressured to relocate, and then more tourist-friendly attractions and upscale establishments were opened. Advocates of the remodeling claim that the neighborhood is safer and cleaner. Detractors have countered that the changes have homogenized or "Disneyfied" the character of Times Square and have unfairly targeted lower-income New Yorkers from nearby neighborhoods such as Hell's Kitchen.

 

In 1990, the state of New York took possession of six of the nine historic theatres on 42nd Street, and the New 42nd Street non-profit organization was appointed to oversee their restoration and maintenance. The theatres underwent renovation for Broadway shows, conversion for commercial purposes, or demolition.

 

In 1992, the Times Square Alliance (formerly the Times Square Business Improvement District, or "BID" for short), a coalition of city government and local businesses dedicated to improving the quality of commerce and cleanliness in the district, started operations in the area. Times Square now boasts attractions such as ABC's Times Square Studios, where Good Morning America is broadcast live, an elaborate Toys "Я" Us store, and competing Hershey's and M&M's stores across the street from each other, as well as multiple multiplex movie theaters. Additionally, the area contains restaurants such as Ruby Foo's, a Chinese eatery; the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, a seafood establishment; Planet Hollywood Restaurant and Bar, a theme restaurant; and Carmine's, serving Italian cuisine. It has also attracted a number of large financial, publishing, and media firms to set up headquarters in the area. A larger presence of police has improved the safety of the area.

 

The theatres of Broadway and the huge number of animated neon and LED signs have been one of New York's iconic images, as well as a symbol of the intensely urban aspects of Manhattan. The prevalence of such signage is because Times Square is the only neighborhood with zoning ordinances requiring building owners to display illuminated signs. The neighborhood actually has a minimum limit for lighting instead of the standard maximum limit. The density of illuminated signs in Times Square rivals that in Las Vegas. Officially, signs in Times Square are called "spectaculars", and the largest of them are called "jumbotrons." This signage ordnance was implemented in accordance with guidelines set in a revitalization program that New York Governor Mario Cuomo implemented in 1993.

Notable signage includes the Toshiba billboard directly under the NYE ball drop and the curved seven-story NASDAQ sign at the NASDAQ MarketSite at 4 Times Square on 43rd Street and the curved Coca-Cola sign located underneath another large LED display owned and operated by Samsung. Both the Coca-Cola sign and Samsung LED displays were built by LED display manufacturer Daktronics. Times Square's first environmentally friendly billboard powered by wind and solar energy was first lit on December 4, 2008. On completion, the 20 Times Square development will host the largest LED signage in Times Square at 18,000 square feet. The display will be 1,000 square feet larger than the Times Square Walgreens display and one of the largest video-capable screen in the world.

2000s–present

 

In 2002, New York City's mayor, Rudy Giuliani, gave the oath of office to the city's next mayor, Michael Bloomberg, at Times Square after midnight on January 1 as part of the 2001–2002 New Year's celebration. Approximately 500,000 revelers attended. Security was high following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, with more than 7,000 New York City police officers on duty in the Square, twice the number for an ordinary year.

 

Since 2002, the summer solstice has been marked by "Mind over Madness", a mass yoga event involving up to 15,000 people. Tim Tompkins, co-founder of the event, said part of its appeal was "finding stillness and calm amid the city rush on the longest day of the year".

 

On February 26, 2009, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that traffic lanes along Broadway from 42nd Street to 47th Street would be de-mapped starting Memorial Day 2009 and transformed into pedestrian plazas until at least the end of the year as a trial. The same was done from 33rd to 35th Street. The goal was to ease traffic congestion throughout the Midtown grid. The results were to be closely monitored to determine if the project worked and should be extended. Bloomberg also stated that he believed the street shutdown would make New York more livable by reducing pollution, cutting down on pedestrian accidents and helping traffic flow more smoothly.

 

The pedestrian plaza project was originally opposed by local businesses, who thought that closing the street to cars would hurt business. The original seats put out for pedestrians were inexpensive multicolored plastic lawn chairs, a source of amusement to many New Yorkers; they lasted from the onset of the plaza transformation until August 14, 2009, when they were ceremoniously bundled together in an installation christened "Now You See It, Now You Don't" by the artist Jason Peters, and shortly afterward were replaced by sturdier metal furniture. Although the plaza had mixed results on traffic in the area, injuries to motorists and pedestrians decreased, fewer pedestrians were walking in the road and the number of pedestrians in Times Square increased. On February 11, 2010, Bloomberg announced that the pedestrian plazas would become permanent.

 

By December 2013, the first phase of the Times Square pedestrian plaza, at the southern end of the square, was complete, in time for the Times Square Ball drop of New Year's Eve 2013. The project will be complete by the end of 2015. Snøhetta is responsible for the renovations.

 

from Wikipedia

 

Italien / Trentino - Gardasee

 

Sunset seen from Cima Stussia above Pregasina (Riva del Garda). In the background you can see Monte Stivo.

 

Sonnenuntergang gesehen von der Cima Strussia oberhalb Pregasina (Riva del Garda). Im Hintergrund sieht man den Monte Stivo.

 

Lake Garda (Italian: Lago di Garda [ˈlaːɡo di ˈɡarda] or (Lago) Benaco [beˈnaːko]; Eastern Lombard: Lach de Garda; Venetian: Ƚago de Garda; Latin: Benacus; Ancient Greek: Βήνακος) is the largest lake in Italy. It is a popular holiday location in northern Italy, about halfway between Brescia and Verona, and between Venice and Milan on the edge of the Dolomites. Glaciers formed this alpine region at the end of the last Ice Age. The lake and its shoreline are divided between the provinces of Verona (to the south-east), Brescia (south-west), and Trentino (north). The name Garda, which the lake has been referred to in documents dating to the 8th century, comes from the town of the same name. It is evolved from the Germanic word warda, meaning "place of guard", "place of observation" or "place of safety".

 

Geography

 

The northern part of the lake is narrower, surrounded by mountains, the majority of which belong to the Gruppo del Baldo. The shape is typical of a moraine valley, probably having been formed under the action of a Paleolithic glacier. Although traces of the glacier's actions are evident today, in more recent years it has been hypothesised that the glacier occupied a previously existing depression, created by stream erosion 5 to 6 million years ago.

 

The lake has numerous small islands and five main ones, the largest being Isola del Garda, where, in 1220 St. Francis of Assisi founded a monastery. In its place now stands a 19th-century building in the Venetian Gothic style. Nearby to the south is Isola San Biagio, also known as the Isola dei Conigli ("Island of the Rabbits"). Both are offshore of San Felice del Benaco, on the lake's western side. The three other main islands are Isola dell'Olivo, Isola di Sogno, and Isola di Trimelone, all farther north near the eastern side. The main tributary is the Sarca River, others include the Ponale River (fed by Lago di Ledro), the Varone/Magnone River (via the Cascate del Varone) and various streams from both mountainsides, while the only outlet is the Mincio River (79 metres (259 ft), at Peschiera). The subdivision is created by the presence of a fault submerged between Sirmione and Punta San Vigilio which is almost a natural barrier that hampers the homogenization between the water of the two zones.

 

If the water level of the Adige river is excessive, water is diverted to the lake through the Mori-Torbole tunnel.

 

History

 

Battle of Lake Benacus, in which Roman forces defeated the Alamanni on the shores of Lake Garda, in the year 268.

Battle between Milan and Venetian Republic in 1438 following the military engineering feat of galeas per montes.

Battle of Rivoli, in 1797 during the French campaign of Napoleon I in Italy against Austria.

Battle of Solferino in 1859, during the Italian Risorgimento. The terrible aftermath of this battle led to the Geneva Convention and the formation of the Red Cross.

The lake was the site of naval battles in 1866 between Italy and Austria.

As persuaded by the Nazis, Benito Mussolini established the capital of his Italian Social Republic in late 1943 in a villa in the town of Salò on its shores. It served as a nexus for military operations and communications for German troops who occupied northern Italy in late 1943 during World War II.

 

Mythology

 

According to the Greco-Roman mythology, the River Mincius was the child of the Lake Benacus.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

Der Gardasee (italienisch Lago di Garda oder Bènaco), einer der oberitalienischen Seen, ist der größte See Italiens, benannt nach der Gemeinde Garda am Ostufer. Sein antiker Name lautete von etwa 200 v. Chr. bis 800 n. Chr. Lacus benacus. Der Name soll von einer alten Gottheit namens Benacus abstammen. Der Gardasee wurde in der vergangenen Eiszeit durch einen Seitenast des Etschgletschers geformt, dessen Spuren man noch heute verfolgen kann, insbesondere durch die Endmoränen um das Südufer z. B. bei Lonato del Garda, Solferino, Valeggio sul Mincio und Custoza. Erste Besiedlungen des Seeufers datieren um das Jahr 2000 v. Chr.

 

Geographie

 

Lage

 

Der Gardasee liegt zwischen den Alpen im Norden und der Po-Ebene im Süden und ist daher ein Alpenrandsee. Der Norden des Sees gehört zur Region Trentino-Südtirol, der Westen zur Lombardei und der Osten zu Venetien. Damit teilen sich die drei Provinzen Trient (Norden), Verona (Osten) und Brescia (Westen) die Verwaltung.

 

Das nördliche Ufer des Sees ist von Zweitausendern der Gardaseeberge wie dem Monte Baldo umsäumt; das südliche Ufer liegt bereits in der norditalienischen Tiefebene.

 

In der Nähe des Sees befinden sich bekannte Weinbaugebiete:

 

Südlich von Desenzano del Garda liegt das Lugana-Gebiet

Östlich vom Gardasee finden sich die Gebiete des Bardolino- und des Soave-Weins

Ebenfalls östlich (zwischen dem Gardasee und Verona) liegt das Valpolicella-Gebiet

 

Zu- und Abflüsse

 

Der Gardasee wird hauptsächlich durch den Fluss Sarca gespeist. Dieser fließt am Nordende bei Torbole in den See. Als Mincio verlässt der Fluss bei Peschiera del Garda den Gardasee und fließt später in den Po. Neben den insgesamt 25 Zuflüssen gibt es noch einen künstlichen Zufluss in Form des 1959 fertiggestellten Etsch-Gardasee-Tunnels, dessen Tunnelausgang am südlichen Ortsausgang von Torbole liegt und der im Falle einer stark Hochwasser führenden Etsch geöffnet wird.

 

Pegel

 

Der Pegelnullpunkt liegt bei Peschiera del Garda bei 64,027 m s.l.m. Er unterliegt zum Teil starken saisonalen Schwankungen, da das Wasser des Gardasees über seinen Abfluss Mincio zur Bewässerung der intensiv landwirtschaftlich genutzten Flächen zwischen Verona und Mantua genutzt wird. Zum anderen sind die Schwankungen auch durch die Wasserentnahme für die Stromerzeugung im Oberlauf der Sarca bedingt.

 

Der Pegeltiefstand wurde in den Jahren 2003 und 2007 mit jeweils 8 cm unter Pegelnull erreicht, der Höchststand lag am 2. Juli 1879 bei 216 cm über Pegelnull. 1960 stand der Pegel bei 212 cm aufgrund der Öffnung des Etsch-Gardasee-Tunnels. Nicht festlegen lässt sich der Pegel von 1673 und 1746, als der Ort Desenzano del Garda überschwemmt wurde. Außer in Peschiera wird der Pegelstand auch in Riva del Garda und Torri del Benaco gemessen.

 

Inseln

 

Im See befinden sich fünf Inseln, die größte, Isola del Garda mit der Villa Borghese, liegt in der Nähe von Salò. Etwa zwei Kilometer südlich davon, ebenfalls in der Bucht von Manerba und San Felice, liegt die Isola San Biagio auch als „i Conigli“ (deutsch: die Kaninchen) bezeichnet. San Biagio ist ein beliebtes Ausflugsziel, das mit dem Boot oder zu Fuß vom Festland (je nach Wasserstand hüfttief oder trockenen Fußes) erreicht werden kann. Vor Assenza (zwischen Porto di Brenzone und Malcesine) liegt die Isola di Trimelone, diese ist allerdings militärisches Sperrgebiet. Etwas weiter nördlich von Trimelone liegt bei Malcesine im Val di Sogno die Isola del Sogno und nördlich davon die Isola dell’Olivo.

 

Geschichte

 

Aus der Bronzezeit stammen zahlreiche Pfahlbautensiedlungen, die direkt am Seeufer oder im unmittelbaren Hinterland des Gardasees errichtet wurden und seit 2011 zum UNESCO-Weltkulturerbe zählen.

 

Die Schlacht am Lacus Benacus (lateinisch für Gardasee) wurde im November des Jahres 268 an den Ufern des Gardasees in Norditalien zwischen Alamannen und Römern unter Kaiser Claudius Gothicus ausgetragen.

 

Unter den Signorie fiel der Gardasee zwischen dem 13. und 14. Jahrhundert unter den Einflussbereich der Scaliger, die zahlreiche Burgen insbesondere an den östlichen und südlichen Uferorten (Malcesine, Torri del Benaco, Lazise und Sirmione) errichteten. Im 15. Jahrhundert wurde der See und seine Uferorte zum Schauplatz im Kampf um die Vorherrschaft in Oberitalien zwischen dem Herzogtum Mailand unter den Viscontis und der Republik Venedig. Als militärische Glanzleistung zählte hierbei der Transport einer venezianischen Flotte vom Etschtal über die Berge nach Torbole im Jahr 1439, ein von der Republik Venedig als Galeas per montes bezeichnetes Unternehmen. Mit der im Frieden von Lodi 1454 festgelegten Grenze am Fluss Adda fiel der Gardasee endgültig unter den Einflussbereich der Dogenrepublik. Letztere baute insbesondere Peschiera am strategisch wichtigen Abfluss des Mincio zur Festung aus, die 2017 von der UNESCO zum Weltkulturerbe erklärt wurde.

 

Während des Spanischen Erbfolgekrieges zu Beginn des 18. Jahrhunderts versuchte General Vendôme mit seinen Truppen über das Nordufer in Richtung Norden vorzustoßen und hinterließ eine Spur der Verwüstung. Dabei wurden zahlreiche Burgen von den Franzosen zerstört, wie Castel Penede in Nago, die Burg von Arco oder Castel Drena, die als Ruinen erhalten sind. Am 19. April 1706 schlug Vendôme in der Schlacht bei Calcinato am Südufer des Sees die kaiserlichen Truppen unter dem Oberbefehl von Christian Detlev von Reventlow.

 

Die Schlacht bei Rivoli, die im Ersten Koalitionskrieg im Januar 1797 in der Nähe des Ortes Rivoli (südöstlich von Garda) stattfand, war ein Schlüsselerfolg der französischen Armee unter Napoleon Bonaparte im Italienfeldzug über ein zahlenmäßig überlegenes habsburgisches Heer unter Feldmarschall Alvinczy. Aufgrund des Vertrages von Pressburg vom 26. Dezember 1805, mit dem die Grafschaft Tirol zu Bayern fiel, gehörte die Nordspitze des Gardasees von Anfang 1806 bis Anfang 1810 als sogenannter Etschkreis zum Königreich Bayern und anschließend, wie der übrige See auch, zum Königreich Italien. Nach dem Wiener Kongress 1815 fiel der gesamte See dem Kaisertum Österreich zu und war Bestandteil des Königreichs Lombardo-Venetien.

 

Die Schlacht von Solferino am Südufer war die Entscheidungsschlacht im Sardinischen Krieg zwischen dem Kaisertum Österreich und dem Königreich Sardinien und dessen Verbündetem Frankreich unter Napoléon III. Durch die Niederlage der Österreicher bei Solferino am 24. Juni 1859 wurde der Weg zur Einigung Italiens frei gemacht. Die Grausamkeit der Schlacht und die Hilflosigkeit der verwundeten Soldaten veranlassten Henry Dunant (1828–1910) zur Gründung des Roten Kreuzes und führten zur Vereinbarung der Genfer Konvention von 1864.

 

Nach dem Verlust der Lombardei und dem dazugehörigen Westufer des Gardasees 1859, verlor Österreich 1866 nach dem Dritten Italienischen Unabhängigkeitskrieg mit Venetien auch das Ostufer, nur die Nordspitze, mit Riva del Garda, verblieb bis 1918 bei Österreich-Ungarn. Der See wurde in dieser Zeit auch „Gartsee“ genannt. Während des Ersten Weltkrieges verlief die Front direkt am Nordufer des Sees entlang, an dem zahlreiche Festungsanlagen errichtet worden waren.

 

Nach dem Sturz Mussolinis 1943 wurde auf Forderung der deutschen, nationalsozialistischen Regierung in Nord- und Mittelitalien die Marionettenregierung der faschistischen Italienischen Sozialrepublik (Repubblica Sociale Italiana, auch: Republik von Salò) unter Mussolinis Führung als Gegenregierung installiert, die im gleichnamigen Ort am Westufer des Gardasees ihren Regierungssitz hatte. Der Staat bestand zwischen dem 23. September 1943 und dem 25. April 1945. Am 30. April 1945 endete mit der Befreiung von Torbole und Riva durch die 10. US-Gebirgsdivision der Zweite Weltkrieg am Gardasee.

 

Tourismus

 

Der Gardasee ist ein beliebtes Reiseziel. Rund um den See gibt es Hotels, Pensionen, Ferienwohnungen und Campingplätze. Ein Großteil der Ferienunterkünfte ist von Ende März bis Anfang Oktober geöffnet. Die Hauptsaison ist Juli und speziell der August. In den Wintermonaten sind die meisten Hotels, Cafés und Restaurants geschlossen. 2018 gab es am Ufer 24 Millionen Übernachtungen.

 

Am Südufer des Sees befinden sich zahlreiche Freizeitparks wie das Gardaland oder das Canevaworld. Das Nordufer ist vor allem bei Kletterern, Mountainbikern und Surfern beliebt.

 

(Wikipedia)

100 g de chocolat noir / 0,2 pound dark chocolate

3 œufs / 3 eggs

1 cuillère à soupe de sucre / 1 tablespoon caster sugar

2 cuillères à soupe de crème liquide / 2 tablespoons liquid cream (fleurette)

 

75 g de beurre salé / 0,16 pound salted butter

75 g de sucre brun / 0,16 pound brown sugar

20 cl de lait concentré sucré / 6,75 oz sweet condensed milk

 

Faire fondre le chocolat 1' 30 '' au microondes / Melt chocolate 1' 30'' in microwaves

Battre les jaunes et le sucre jusque triplement du volume / Beat yolks with sugar until to treble the volume

Battre les blancs / Whisk the egg whites

Ajouter la crème au chocolat fondu, mélanger / Add the cream to the melted chocolate, mix

Ajouter les jaunes battus, mélanger / Add the yolks, mix

Ajouter les blancs, mélanger / Add the whisked whites, mix

Verser dans des verrines, refroidir 3h / Pour into glasses, 3h in fridge

 

Faire fondre le beurre et le sucre dans une casserole, bien homogénéiser / Mel butter and sugar in a pan, homogenize

Ajouter le lait concentré, mélanger et cuire doucement une vingtaine de minutes pour épaissir un peu, tout en remuant / Add the condensed milk, mix,, heat 20' or so

Verser le coulis sur les mousses / Pour the coulis on the mousse

The Tharaka live on the eastern side of Mount Kenya. About 10% of them live in towns, the rest in the villages of the area.Meaning "starving", the Tharaka belong to the Ameru ethnic group. They speak a Bantu-language, the Meru. They are farmers and shepherds: they grow cereal crops, cotton, and sun flowers and rear cows, goats and sheeps. The decrease in livestock holdings, attributed to droughts and declining cultivable lands, is a concern for the Tharaka. Goat meat in particular is central both for their diet and custom. The Tharaka are also merchants, since they trade with people all over the country. They live in small huts with a corrigated iron roof.Village life is better considered (compared to the life in towns) since it preserves their culture. They have a strong sense of belonging. The "mukuru" (elder) is the most important person of the community, who gives advice and settle conflicts. In this tribe, like in others, there are age-sets: men have to go through several stages before reaching the highest one. There are various important celebrations: the birth of a child, circumcision, marriage and the harvests of June and January. Before marriage, a high brideprice is paid by the prospective groom to the wife's father. They have also an important rite of passage called "Kirimo", name of the mythical animal that swallows human beings and spits it out thereafter. They use arrows and have very efficient fighting techniques. So they still have kept their traditions, even if they are now also christians. There is an estimated 20% active Christians, and 70% have now adopted the christian faith. Tharaka people have an elaborate set of myths, that they share with the other Meru groups and keep in through their oral tradition. One of them involves an exodus from an original homeland (called Mbwa) near a large body of water, another the origins of the Tharaka art of healing (called ugao). According to the legend, the clan of Nyaga was born with the ugao art, which comes from the Mbwa land. But since they were poor, they had to teach other clans this art, in order to get some goats and food. Consequently, as per the myth, the art of healing is a single clan’s attribute. Furthermore, in the myth, there is a reference to clans classified by colours (black, white and red), the red clans being associated with the ugao art. As a consequence, Kenya is a country of a great diversity, as much for its environment and climate (which changes from tropical along the coast to arid in the interior) as for its peoples. And even if they tend to homogenize because of the modern life in cities, some clans still preserve their traditional customs and lifestyle.

  

Les Tharakas vivent dans la partie est du Mont Kenya. Environ 10% d’entre eux vivent dans des villes, le reste dans les villages de la zone.Signifiant « affamé », les Tharaka appartiennent au groupe ethnique Ameru. Ils parlent une langue bantoue, le mérou. Ils sont agriculteurs et éleveurs : ils ont des cultures céréalières, du coton, et des tournesols et élèvent des vaches, chèvres et brebis. La diminution dans l’exploitation de bétail, attribuée aux sècheresses et aux terres cultivables en déclin, est un sujet de préoccupation pour les Tharaka. La viande de chèvre en particulier est centrale à la fois pour leur alimentation et coutumes. Les Tharaka sont aussi des marchants, puisqu’ils commercent avec des individus de tout le pays. Ils vivent dans des petites huttes au toit de tôles ondulées.La vie au village est davantage considérée (comparée à la vie en ville) puisque préservant leur culture. Ils ont un sens poussé de l’appartenance communautaire. Le « mukuru » (aîné) est la personne la plus importante de la communauté, qui prodigue des conseils et règle les conflits. Dans cette tribu, comme dans d’autres, il y a des classes d’âge : les hommes doivent passer par plusieurs étapes avant d’atteindre la plus élevée. Il y a diverses célébrations importantes : la naissance d’un enfant, la circoncision, le mariage et les moissons de Juin et Janvier. Avant le mariage, un paiement de la mariée élevé est fait par le futur époux au père de la fiancée. Ils ont aussi un rite de passage important appelé « Kirimo », du nom de l’animal mythique qui avale les êtres humains et les recrache ensuite. Ils utilisent des flèches et ont des techniques de combat très efficaces. Ils ont donc gardé leurs traditions, même s’ils sont maintenant aussi chrétiens. Il y a environ 20% de chrétiens actifs, et 70% ont désormais adopté la foi chrétienne. Les Tharaka ont un ensemble de mythes élaborés, qu’ils partagent avec les autres groupes Mérou et conservent grâce à leur tradition orale. L’un d’entre eux parle du départ d’une terre originelle (appelée Mbwa) située près d’un large plan d’eau, un autre des origines de l’art de soigner tharaka (appelé ugao). Selon la légende, le clan des Nyaga est né avec l’art ugao, qui provient de la terre Mbwa. Mais comme ils étaient pauvres, ils ont dû apprendre à d’autres clans cet art pour obtenir des chèvres et de la nourriture. En conséquence, selon le mythe, l’art de soigner est l’attribut d’un seul et même clan. De plus, dans le mythe, on trouve une référence au classement des clans par couleur (noir, blanc et rouge), les clans rouges étant associés à l’art ugao.En conséquence, le Kénya est un pays d’une grande diversité, autant pour son environnement et climat (qui change de tropical le long des côtes à aride à l’intérieur) que pour ses peuples. Et même s’ils ont tendance à s’homogénéiser à cause de la vie moderne des villes, certains clans préservent encore leurs coutumes et modes de vie traditionnels.

 

© Eric Lafforgue

www.ericlafforgue.com

    

The young woman is clearly admiring the details of the motorcycle ... but it seemed to me that the three men should have been admiring the details of her, rather than arguing with each other.

 

Note: this photo was published as part of a photo contest in a Mar 2, 2012 issue of Freaking News, titled "Nice Bike, Dude!"

 

Moving into 2013, the photo was published in a May 19, 2013 blog simply titled "Athens."

 

Moving into 2014, the photo was published in a Sep 10, 2014 blog titled "Sommergefühle im fashionable Griechenland."

 

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When we hear the phrase “first impression,” we tend to think of a person. Was the politician I recently voted for as inspiring when I heard his first speech as he was years later? (More so, sadly.) Was the girl that I married as beautiful at 13 as she was years later, in her twenties and thirties? (Yes, and yes.) Did Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind send more of a shiver down my spine in 1963 than it did when I heard it drifting from a car radio 45 years later? (No. It stops me dead in my tracks every time I hear it.)

 

It’s not just people that make first impressions on me. Cities do, too, perhaps because I encountered so many of them while my family moved every year throughout my childhood. Or perhaps it’s because, after seeing so many cities that I thought were different in the United States, I was so completely unprepared for the wild variety of sights and sounds and smells that I encountered as a grown man, when I traveled to Europe and South America, to Africa and Asia and Australia. And even today, there are cities that I’m visiting for the first time, and which continue to take me by surprise.

 

Athens is one of those cities. I don’t know what I was expecting… Something old, of course, something downright ancient, filled with smashed statues and marble columns like Rome, engraved with unreadable inscriptions in a language I never learned — but probably not as ancient as Cairo. Something hot and noisy and polluted and smelly, perhaps like Calcutta or the slums of Mumbai. Something gridlocked with noisy, honking traffic congestion, perhaps like Moscow.

 

What I didn’t expect was the wide, nearly-empty highways leading from the airport into the city. I didn’t expect the cleanliness of the tree-lined streets that ran in every direction. I did expect the white-washed buildings and houses that climbed the hills that surround the city — but the local people told me that buildings in Athens were positively gray compared to what I would have seen if I had stayed longer and ventured out to the Greek islands.

 

I also didn’t expect the graffiti that covered nearly every wall, on every building, up and down every street. They were mostly slogans and phrases in Greek (and therefore completely unintelligible to me), but with occasional crude references in English to IMF bankers, undercover policemen, a politician or two, and the CIA. There were a couple slogans from the Russian revolution of 1917, from the Castro uprising in Cuba, and even from the American revolution (“united we stand, divided we fall.”)

 

Naturally, I thought all of this had come about in just the past few months, as Greece has wrestled with its overwhelming financial crisis. But I was told by local citizens that much of the graffiti has been around for quite a bit longer than that – just as it has been in cities like New York and London. Some of it was wild and colorful, with cartoon figures and crazy faces … though I don’t think it quite rises to the level of “street art” that one sees in parts of SoHo, Tribeca, and the East Village in New York. What impressed me most about the graffiti in Athens was its vibrant energy; I felt like the artists were ready to punch a hole through the walls with their spray-cans.

 

These are merely my own first impressions; they won’t be the same as yours. Beyond that, there are a lot of facts, figures, and details if one wants to fully describe a city like Athens. Its recorded history spans some 3,400 years, and it includes the exploits of kings and generals, gods and philosophers, athletes and artists. There are statues and columns and ruins everywhere; and towering above it all is the breath-taking Acropolis. It’s far too rich and complex for me to describe here in any reasonable way; if you want to know more, find some books or scan the excellent Wikipedia summary.

 

It’s also hard to figure out what one should photograph on a first visit to a city like Athens. It’s impossible not to photograph the Acropolis, especially since it’s lit at night and visible from almost every corner of the city. I was interested in the possibility of photographing the complex in the special light before dawn or after sunset, but it’s closed to visitors except during “civilized” daytime hours. It’s also undergoing extensive renovations and repair, so much of it is covered in scaffolding, derricks, and cranes. In the end, I took a few panorama shots and telephoto shots, and explored the details by visiting the new Acropolis Museum, with the camera turned off.

 

Aside from that, the photos you’ll see here concentrate on two things: my unexpected “first impression” of the local graffiti, and my favorite of all subjects: people. In a couple cases, the subjects are unmistakably Greek – Greek orthodox priests, for example – and in a couple cases, you might think you were looking at a street scene in São Paulo or Mexico City. But in most of the shots, you’ll see examples of stylish, fashionable, interesting people that don’t look all that much different from the people I’ve photographed in New York, London, Rome, or Paris. Maybe we can attribute that to the homogenization of fashion and style in today’s interconnected global environment. Or maybe we can just chalk it up to the fact that people are, well … interesting … wherever you go.

 

In any case, enjoy. And if you get to Athens yourself, send me some photos of your own first impressions.

Kumbabhishegam or Consecration is a Hindu Temple ritual that is believed to homogenize,synergize and unite the mystic powers of the deityKumbha means the Head and denotes the crown of the temple,usually in the Gopuram or Tower ang abishgam is ritual bathin with holy waters

This was taken on Panepistimiou Avenue, one of the main streets in the center of Athens. It was right in front of the National Library, and just a couple blocks from the hotel where I stayed.

 

Note: this photo was published in a Jul 15, 2011 blog titled "Δωρεάν «χώροι δροσιάς» το Σαββατοκύριακο στην Αθήνα." It was also published in a Nov 8, 2011 blog titled "WorldWide Photography #15 - Athens."

 

Moving into 2012, the photo was published in an Oct 7, 2012 blog titled "#DayThree Γυμνή τριγυρνά στην πόλη."

 

Moving into 2014, the photo was published in a Sep 10, 2014 blog titled "Sommergefühle im fashionable Griechenland."

 

***************************

 

When we hear the phrase “first impression,” we tend to think of a person. Was the politician I recently voted for as inspiring when I heard his first speech as he was years later? (More so, sadly.) Was the girl that I married as beautiful at 13 as she was years later, in her twenties and thirties? (Yes, and yes.) Did Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind send more of a shiver down my spine in 1963 than it did when I heard it drifting from a car radio 45 years later? (No. It stops me dead in my tracks every time I hear it.)

 

It’s not just people that make first impressions on me. Cities do, too, perhaps because I encountered so many of them while my family moved every year throughout my childhood. Or perhaps it’s because, after seeing so many cities that I thought were different in the United States, I was so completely unprepared for the wild variety of sights and sounds and smells that I encountered as a grown man, when I traveled to Europe and South America, to Africa and Asia and Australia. And even today, there are cities that I’m visiting for the first time, and which continue to take me by surprise.

 

Athens is one of those cities. I don’t know what I was expecting… Something old, of course, something downright ancient, filled with smashed statues and marble columns like Rome, engraved with unreadable inscriptions in a language I never learned — but probably not as ancient as Cairo. Something hot and noisy and polluted and smelly, perhaps like Calcutta or the slums of Mumbai. Something gridlocked with noisy, honking traffic congestion, perhaps like Moscow.

 

What I didn’t expect was the wide, nearly-empty highways leading from the airport into the city. I didn’t expect the cleanliness of the tree-lined streets that ran in every direction. I did expect the white-washed buildings and houses that climbed the hills that surround the city — but the local people told me that buildings in Athens were positively gray compared to what I would have seen if I had stayed longer and ventured out to the Greek islands.

 

I also didn’t expect the graffiti that covered nearly every wall, on every building, up and down every street. They were mostly slogans and phrases in Greek (and therefore completely unintelligible to me), but with occasional crude references in English to IMF bankers, undercover policemen, a politician or two, and the CIA. There were a couple slogans from the Russian revolution of 1917, from the Castro uprising in Cuba, and even from the American revolution (“united we stand, divided we fall.”)

 

Naturally, I thought all of this had come about in just the past few months, as Greece has wrestled with its overwhelming financial crisis. But I was told by local citizens that much of the graffiti has been around for quite a bit longer than that – just as it has been in cities like New York and London. Some of it was wild and colorful, with cartoon figures and crazy faces … though I don’t think it quite rises to the level of “street art” that one sees in parts of SoHo, Tribeca, and the East Village in New York. What impressed me most about the graffiti in Athens was its vibrant energy; I felt like the artists were ready to punch a hole through the walls with their spray-cans.

 

These are merely my own first impressions; they won’t be the same as yours. Beyond that, there are a lot of facts, figures, and details if one wants to fully describe a city like Athens. Its recorded history spans some 3,400 years, and it includes the exploits of kings and generals, gods and philosophers, athletes and artists. There are statues and columns and ruins everywhere; and towering above it all is the breath-taking Acropolis. It’s far too rich and complex for me to describe here in any reasonable way; if you want to know more, find some books or scan the excellent Wikipedia summary.

 

It’s also hard to figure out what one should photograph on a first visit to a city like Athens. It’s impossible not to photograph the Acropolis, especially since it’s lit at night and visible from almost every corner of the city. I was interested in the possibility of photographing the complex in the special light before dawn or after sunset, but it’s closed to visitors except during “civilized” daytime hours. It’s also undergoing extensive renovations and repair, so much of it is covered in scaffolding, derricks, and cranes. In the end, I took a few panorama shots and telephoto shots, and explored the details by visiting the new Acropolis Museum, with the camera turned off.

 

Aside from that, the photos you’ll see here concentrate on two things: my unexpected “first impression” of the local graffiti, and my favorite of all subjects: people. In a couple cases, the subjects are unmistakably Greek – Greek orthodox priests, for example – and in a couple cases, you might think you were looking at a street scene in São Paulo or Mexico City. But in most of the shots, you’ll see examples of stylish, fashionable, interesting people that don’t look all that much different from the people I’ve photographed in New York, London, Rome, or Paris. Maybe we can attribute that to the homogenization of fashion and style in today’s interconnected global environment. Or maybe we can just chalk it up to the fact that people are, well … interesting … wherever you go.

 

In any case, enjoy. And if you get to Athens yourself, send me some photos of your own first impressions.

FR en haut / EN below

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[FR] Vous voyez cette image bizarre ? A gauche, c'est la transformée de Fourier image de l'image de la nébuleuse trifide postée ici : flic.kr/p/2oS9che. A droite, c'est la photo tout juste sortie de Siril, qu'il a fallu traiter (en résolution plus basse). Zoomez dessus et vous comprendrez le problème.

Dans la Transformée de Fourier image, au lieu d'avoir une image composée de pixels de couleurs dans les directions x et y, vous avez maintenant un spectre en z et w, c'est à dire une information qui vous dit à quelle fréquence vous retrouvez telle ou telle structure, couleur ... dans l'image d'origine. Le signal d'intérêt (la nébuleuse), c'est surtout les petites tâches de couleur au milieu. La trame, c'est les ondulations ! C'est ces rayures qu'on voit sur la photo à traiter. C'est ça que j'ai du enlever !!!

NB: la trame se manifeste comme des lignes diffuses avec une orientation plutôt verticale. La diffusion des lignes est gaussienne et cela dénote une variabilité fine des orientations d'une trame. Comme c'est un peu mon job, ça m'inspire un algo réposant sur d'une part la recherche de mélange gaussiens, d'autre part de la déconvolution. Si l'on est capable de trouver l'ensemble des gausiennes de chaque ligne (ce qui n'est pas compliqué), l'orientation des lignes et le coefficient d'élargissement (d'augmentation de l'écart type), on a un modèle générateur qui permet de reconstruire le fond, fond qui peut alors être rendu homogène. Je vais peut-être essayer d'écrire cet algo qui pourrait avoir un intérêt en astro.

Voila, c'est un peu inhabituel de mettre une photo moche, mais ça permet aussi de realiser que l'astrophoto passe par des traitement parfois très complexes.

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[EN] Please have a look at this strange image. On the left, it's the Fourier transform image of the Trifid Nebula photo posted here: flic.kr/p/2oS9che. On the right, it's the photo just processed with Siril, at a lower resolution. Zoom in on it, and you'll understand the issue.

In the Fourier transform image, instead of having an image composed of colored pixels in the x and y directions, you now have a spectrum in z and w. This means it provides information about the frequency of structures, colors, etc., found in the original image. The region of interest (the nebula) is mainly the small colored dots in the middle. The interference pattern or "trame" is represented by the ripples or waves on the image to be processed. That's what I had to remove!

NB: The interference pattern appears as diffuse lines with a predominantly vertical orientation. The diffusion of the lines is Gaussian, indicating fine variability in the orientations of the pattern. As this is somewhat related to my job, it inspires me to develop an algorithm based on two main components: first, the search for Gaussian mixtures, and second, deconvolution. If we can identify all the Gaussians for each line (which is something quite easy), along with their orientations and widening coefficient (increase in standard deviation), we can create a generative model that reconstructs the background, allowing for homogenization. I might try to write this algorithm, which could be of interest in astrophotography.

There you go ! it's a bit unusual to share an unattractive photo, but it also helps to realize that astrophotography sometimes involves very complex processing.

AIN SOKHNA: In the labyrinthine world of politics, ever more complicated by the global phenomenon of the “businessman-politician” it’s not always easy to separate the wheat from the chaff.

 

Nothing is simpler than lumping the usual suspects together – politicians with powerful party affiliations, who double as businessmen, running huge conglomerates, and developing mega-projects that target the crème de la crème of society and, of course, making a sizable fortune in the process.

 

So when the chairman of a weighty establishment like Amer Group, National Democratic Party member and former MP Mansour Amer, organizes a field visit for the press to tour his project in Ain Sokhna, it’s difficult not to be suspicious of his “real” intentions.

 

After all, we are journalists and it’s our job to be suspicious of those with power and influence.

 

But first, a disclaimer: I don’t usually accept such invitations because it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that most of these “site trips” are only after some good free publicity.

 

So why did I go? I was simply curious to meet the man whose new concept in Porto Marina in the North Coast was the talk of the town all summer. But if I thought there was nothing worth writing about, I said to myself, I won’t write a single word.

 

When we arrived at Porto Sokhna, we were greeted warmly by an extremely down-to-earth Amer, who ushered us into French café/patisserie Alain Le Notre, one of Amer Group’s restaurants which include other international chains like Chili’s and Johnny Carino’s.

 

I was surprised to find that even though the first phase of the project was not complete, a huge part of it was fully functional, with sizable luxury hotel rooms, restaurants and a marina boasting some very sleek yachts.

 

After getting the dime tour of the completed part of the facility, we were driven up a craggy mountain road about 190 meters above sea level, where a tent was pitched to house the press roundtable discussion.

 

There was nothing there but the tent and the power of Amer’s contagious imagination, which had us envision his plans for this rough plateau of seemingly impenetrable mountain overlooking the glorious Red Sea: A residential and vacation resort covering 2.5 million square meters of cliff face with the highest point measuring some 270 square meters above sea level.

 

This would be a good 20-or so minute drive uphill, except that when Amer is through with it, residents and vacationers won’t have to drive anywhere, all they’ll need to do is hop on to Egypt’s first and only cable car.

 

“And when you reach the highest peak, you’ll find yourself at a picturesque replica of an ancient Italian village packed with designer boutiques, restaurants and coffee shops,” he explained.

 

All I was thinking was why on earth would anybody come to Ain Sokhna to buy an Armani suit, or a pair of Christian Dior boots?

 

Only during the ensuing discussion did I comprehend the scale of Amer Group’s Porto Sokhna project, dubbed their most ambitious enterprise yet.

 

At a cost of LE 3 billion, Amer said, “we are creating a destination and changing the map of tourism in the area.”

 

The source of funding, he explained, was a combination of personal, pre-sale and bank loans, which will not exceed 10 percent of the total cost.

 

Banking on Ain Sokhna’s year-round warm climate, Amer sees no reason why this destination would not be as popular as the Swiss Alps and the Lebanese mountains.

 

And there’s no dearth of superlatives when it comes to listing the facilities on offer: a 2 million-square meter world class, 18-hole mountain golf course, a yacht marina, the largest spa compound in the region housing five spa resorts of various themes over a 5000-square meter area, three shopping malls with a total number of 260 shops, restaurants and cinemas, the largest swimming pool in the country at 30,000 square meters, and a 250-person capacity gymnasium.

 

With a luxurious hotel, hotel apartments, villas and ranches, Amer Groups hopes to promote the vacation home concept where the Group would lease the apartments year round on behalf of the owners in return for 30 percent of the rent value.

 

“By offering complete housekeeping facilities, the owners, who don’t spend more than one month of the year there, will get a return on their investment and we will be keeping the destination alive all year. With 400 hotel rooms and 1,690 vacation homes, we will target 2,686,400 tourist nights per year,” said Amer.

 

“We want to change the notion of Ain Sokhna as a weekend destination, and rebrand it as ‘Cairo’s Beach’.”

 

Powering this massive project, he said, is the strategic decision to allow charter flights to land at Cairo Airport, which means that vacationers are merely a couple of hours’ drive away from Ain Sokhna.

 

Marketing it mainly as a family destination, Amer reaffirms his commitment to the Group’s no-alcohol and none-smoking policy — none of his facilities sell alcohol or shisha, but guests and residents are free to bring their own drinks — and the resort’s focus on sports, where he hopes to attract teams from all over the world to hold their training camps.

 

Another interesting addition to the mix, though I’m not quite sure how it fits in, were plans to build a boarding school that offers world-class education and enjoys all the sports facilities available at the site.

 

Asked whether he’s targeting Egyptian or foreign buyers, Amer said that it made no difference. “The point is that now the owners will be the new stake-holders.”

 

“But will average Egyptians be able to afford any of this ‘elite’ living as you advertise it?” I asked Amer.

 

“I am not targeting the highest-end buyer,” he said. “Where else in the world would you be able to buy a luxury apartment overlooking a golf course for $50,000? As for the hotel rates, it’s a matter of supply and demand. The more rooms available, the lower the rates.”

 

Suites at the 650-room hotel at Porto Marina, however, cost anywhere between LE 4,000-7,500 per night, while a standard double room goes for LE 1,200-2,000 per night.

 

I wasn’t convinced.

 

And as we embarked on the bumpy ride down the hill and I was once more faced with the massive concrete construction site that lay beneath, just a couple of hundred meters from the marina, I suddenly wondered about the environmental impact of tampering with the Red Sea coast’s topography.

 

What about marine life? And will the new Koraymat highway be able to absorb all the truck traffic and improve road safety? How can Porto Sokhna market itself as a health tourism destination when merely 40 km away, there’s an industrial zone with cement factories? What about homogenization — Porto Marina, Porto Sokhna and perhaps the newest kid on the block Porto Golf — all replicas of each other? Is that a good thing?

 

Then I remembered that this project alone provides jobs for about 7,000 people — nearly 8 million paid working days until it is complete in November 2009.

 

Enough said. (FROM NET)

A Cream Top milk bottle shown with the seperator inserted, allowing the cream to be poured while the milk remained in the lower part of the bottle.

 

The Cream Top bottles had a space for the cream to rise into. They became popular in the 1930s and used until the 1940s, when homogenization, which eliminates the cream from rising, became common.

Kirimi chief wears a headdress made with a colobus monkey skin tail. It's complicated to still see the Tharaka wearing those traditional stuff...I think this is the only picture on the web!

 

The Tharaka live on the eastern side of Mount Kenya. About 10% of them live in towns, the rest in the villages of the area.Meaning "starving", the Tharaka belong to the Ameru ethnic group. They speak a Bantu-language, the Meru. They are farmers and shepherds: they grow cereal crops, cotton, and sun flowers and rear cows, goats and sheeps. The decrease in livestock holdings, attributed to droughts and declining cultivable lands, is a concern for the Tharaka. Goat meat in particular is central both for their diet and custom. The Tharaka are also merchants, since they trade with people all over the country. They live in small huts with a corrigated iron roof.Village life is better considered (compared to the life in towns) since it preserves their culture. They have a strong sense of belonging. The "mukuru" (elder) is the most important person of the community, who gives advice and settle conflicts. In this tribe, like in others, there are age-sets: men have to go through several stages before reaching the highest one. There are various important celebrations: the birth of a child, circumcision, marriage and the harvests of June and January. Before marriage, a high brideprice is paid by the prospective groom to the wife's father. They have also an important rite of passage called "Kirimo", name of the mythical animal that swallows human beings and spits it out thereafter. They use arrows and have very efficient fighting techniques. So they still have kept their traditions, even if they are now also christians. There is an estimated 20% active Christians, and 70% have now adopted the christian faith. Tharaka people have an elaborate set of myths, that they share with the other Meru groups and keep in through their oral tradition. One of them involves an exodus from an original homeland (called Mbwa) near a large body of water, another the origins of the Tharaka art of healing (called ugao). According to the legend, the clan of Nyaga was born with the ugao art, which comes from the Mbwa land. But since they were poor, they had to teach other clans this art, in order to get some goats and food. Consequently, as per the myth, the art of healing is a single clan’s attribute. Furthermore, in the myth, there is a reference to clans classified by colours (black, white and red), the red clans being associated with the ugao art. As a consequence, Kenya is a country of a great diversity, as much for its environment and climate (which changes from tropical along the coast to arid in the interior) as for its peoples. And even if they tend to homogenize because of the modern life in cities, some clans still preserve their traditional customs and lifestyle.

  

Les Tharakas vivent dans la partie est du Mont Kenya. Environ 10% d’entre eux vivent dans des villes, le reste dans les villages de la zone.Signifiant « affamé », les Tharaka appartiennent au groupe ethnique Ameru. Ils parlent une langue bantoue, le mérou. Ils sont agriculteurs et éleveurs : ils ont des cultures céréalières, du coton, et des tournesols et élèvent des vaches, chèvres et brebis. La diminution dans l’exploitation de bétail, attribuée aux sècheresses et aux terres cultivables en déclin, est un sujet de préoccupation pour les Tharaka. La viande de chèvre en particulier est centrale à la fois pour leur alimentation et coutumes. Les Tharaka sont aussi des marchants, puisqu’ils commercent avec des individus de tout le pays. Ils vivent dans des petites huttes au toit de tôles ondulées.La vie au village est davantage considérée (comparée à la vie en ville) puisque préservant leur culture. Ils ont un sens poussé de l’appartenance communautaire. Le « mukuru » (aîné) est la personne la plus importante de la communauté, qui prodigue des conseils et règle les conflits. Dans cette tribu, comme dans d’autres, il y a des classes d’âge : les hommes doivent passer par plusieurs étapes avant d’atteindre la plus élevée. Il y a diverses célébrations importantes : la naissance d’un enfant, la circoncision, le mariage et les moissons de Juin et Janvier. Avant le mariage, un paiement de la mariée élevé est fait par le futur époux au père de la fiancée. Ils ont aussi un rite de passage important appelé « Kirimo », du nom de l’animal mythique qui avale les êtres humains et les recrache ensuite. Ils utilisent des flèches et ont des techniques de combat très efficaces. Ils ont donc gardé leurs traditions, même s’ils sont maintenant aussi chrétiens. Il y a environ 20% de chrétiens actifs, et 70% ont désormais adopté la foi chrétienne. Les Tharaka ont un ensemble de mythes élaborés, qu’ils partagent avec les autres groupes Mérou et conservent grâce à leur tradition orale. L’un d’entre eux parle du départ d’une terre originelle (appelée Mbwa) située près d’un large plan d’eau, un autre des origines de l’art de soigner tharaka (appelé ugao). Selon la légende, le clan des Nyaga est né avec l’art ugao, qui provient de la terre Mbwa. Mais comme ils étaient pauvres, ils ont dû apprendre à d’autres clans cet art pour obtenir des chèvres et de la nourriture. En conséquence, selon le mythe, l’art de soigner est l’attribut d’un seul et même clan. De plus, dans le mythe, on trouve une référence au classement des clans par couleur (noir, blanc et rouge), les clans rouges étant associés à l’art ugao.En conséquence, le Kénya est un pays d’une grande diversité, autant pour son environnement et climat (qui change de tropical le long des côtes à aride à l’intérieur) que pour ses peuples. Et même s’ils ont tendance à s’homogénéiser à cause de la vie moderne des villes, certains clans préservent encore leurs coutumes et modes de vie traditionnels.

 

© Eric Lafforgue

www.ericlafforgue.com

       

There is a certain affection that individuals develop for a place, especially where railroading is concerned. Drop names such as Cajon or Donner or Tehachapi and it is easy to understand the pull that those places have.

 

But, had the early railroad builders seen a better way to expand their empires and get from Point A to Point B without loops and black powder and tunnels and shelves blasted out of mountainsides, they certainly would have.

 

But they didn’t, and their efforts created legends that spread around the world, and people from far and wide have come to witness it.

 

But mention Black, Texas or Canadian or White Deer and those same people scratch their heads and ask “Where?”

 

To most, the draw of the High Plains is inexplicable.

 

To a few, it is inexorable.

 

“It seems big and empty,” some might say.

 

It’s hot, it’s dusty, it rains, it hails, and it snows---

All in the same day.

 

Yet it is a land steeped rich in history; of the Comanche and herds of bison roaming free through the yellow grasses; of barbed wire and cattle brands of the great XIT ranch or the Matador or the JA, whose cowboys drove their Herefords across the same parched grassland and past the bleached-white bones of buffalo, the cows not stopping to mourn as they were herded on their way to trackside holding pens along the Fort Worth & Denver or the Santa Fe, where they were loaded aboard slat-sided stock cars and shipped off to market.

 

The Plains are not merely experienced; to be fully appreciated and understood, they must be absorbed through the soles of our feet and inhaled by all of our senses.

 

It is a land that speaks to the vastness of one’s soul---

Of a limitless scape and a horizon that is never reached, where time and direction are easily lost---

The taste of dust and dry grass and the damp smell of rain on the wind as dark clouds billow high in the sky---

A storm promising to refill the playas after another scorching summer.

 

Jack Delano came here in 1943, and it was his masterful imagery that dropped the seed in the fertile soil of a young mind, there to be watered in well by a monochrome conductor standing at his caboose steps reviewing his train orders in front of the tiny and windswept yet immaculate depot at Black.

 

But things have changed since the Office of War Information tour.

 

The 2-10-4s are long gone, and massed Warbonnet PAs no longer roll the eastbound San Francisco Chief out of Amarillo at 25 minutes past midnight, sharp.

 

And in the time since, it seems that railroading has become homogenized, where both sides of the coin look the same, and individual traits or signatures or trademarks of long standing have been watered-down or merged away entirely by a modern-day corporate environment.

 

This is the world we live in.

 

But the rails themselves still stretch between dots on a map, and the trains still run on them, and the crews still operate them in a dedicated and professional manner.

 

And there is still the expanse of Texas.

 

Perhaps it is for us to challenge oneself with the impossible task of choosing a single image that is the embodiment of today’s railroading across the High Plains, one that represents the total essence of the land and the trains that run through it.

 

How best to depict the round-the-clock nature of railroading itself; of crews awakened in the dead of night, or in the full light of day, assigned a train and given the task of getting it over the road to the next terminal?

 

It would have to be an image showing a sense of urgency, of efficiency and pricing and speed, perhaps a duel between the flexibility of rubber and asphalt versus the volume of steel rails and crossties and ballast.

 

There would have to be a sense of destination or purpose; trains don’t just run across a vast landscape without someplace to go, and there’s a lot of wide-open railroading that happens across the panhandle between Oklahoma and New Mexico.

The scenes and the moments are endless and not easily narrowed down to one.

 

Perhaps.

 

Tonight, there’s a fast train at Amarillo with a crew on board that was roused from sleep, grabbed a quick bite at Penny’s Diner, checked out of the Windham Baymont in Wellington, Kansas, and boarded their train.

 

They’ll have 12 hours to cover 312 track miles across the Panhandle Subdivision, and in that time a brace of four modern General Electric locomotives will allow them to achieve the track speed of 70 mph while a long string of containers and semi-trailers tugs on the drawbar, vital traffic taken off the roads and away from the truckers who constantly have trouble fielding a competitive team and keeping drivers in the seat.

 

It's dusk on a perfect Texas evening, and our westbound BNSF crew has a clear block ahead and the lights of home on the horizon. In just a few more miles, they’ll roll to a stop near the yard office in Amarillo, grab their grips and their coolers and the ever-present Stanley Thermos, and step down into the night, there to chat with the outbound crew who will forward the train across to Belen, putting the High Plains and a few more double-tracked subdivisions behind it on its way to the West Coast.

 

In a day or so it will find itself in a very different scape as it winds through desert mountains on its way up Cajon, the ghosts of Kistler and Steinheimer and Walker moving about the shadows of Hill 582 as GEVO prime movers pay them homage.

 

Those standing trackside will snap away at one of the finest and most dramatic scenes in railway history; for them it will be an occurrence teetering on the abyss of nirvana.

 

Meanwhile, two time zones to the east, somewhere out on the Llano Estacado, perhaps near Cuyler or Panhandle or Pantex, there will be a lone figure standing trackside, shaggy gray hair sprouting from beneath an old T&P cap, clad in blue jeans and an old Wrangler cowboy shirt flapping in the breeze. With the Nikon that dangles from his neck, he’ll line up a sunset shot on a fast train heading to Amarillo.

 

And as a symphony of steel wheels roars past, the crescendo rising and fading as each wheelset makes room for the next on rails that seem as endless as the horizon---

The experience will be no less intense than that on Cajon.

 

And while it may never be acclaimed as legendary, for those who have absorbed the place---

Inhaled it into their very soul---

 

It comes pretty damn close.

 

Rick Malo©2023

 

And off they go...

 

***************************

 

When we hear the phrase “first impression,” we tend to think of a person. Was the politician I recently voted for as inspiring when I heard his first speech as he was years later? (More so, sadly.) Was the girl that I married as beautiful at 13 as she was years later, in her twenties and thirties? (Yes, and yes.) Did Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind send more of a shiver down my spine in 1963 than it did when I heard it drifting from a car radio 45 years later? (No. It stops me dead in my tracks every time I hear it.)

 

It’s not just people that make first impressions on me. Cities do, too, perhaps because I encountered so many of them while my family moved every year throughout my childhood. Or perhaps it’s because, after seeing so many cities that I thought were different in the United States, I was so completely unprepared for the wild variety of sights and sounds and smells that I encountered as a grown man, when I traveled to Europe and South America, to Africa and Asia and Australia. And even today, there are cities that I’m visiting for the first time, and which continue to take me by surprise.

 

Athens is one of those cities. I don’t know what I was expecting… Something old, of course, something downright ancient, filled with smashed statues and marble columns like Rome, engraved with unreadable inscriptions in a language I never learned — but probably not as ancient as Cairo. Something hot and noisy and polluted and smelly, perhaps like Calcutta or the slums of Mumbai. Something gridlocked with noisy, honking traffic congestion, perhaps like Moscow.

 

What I didn’t expect was the wide, nearly-empty highways leading from the airport into the city. I didn’t expect the cleanliness of the tree-lined streets that ran in every direction. I did expect the white-washed buildings and houses that climbed the hills that surround the city — but the local people told me that buildings in Athens were positively gray compared to what I would have seen if I had stayed longer and ventured out to the Greek islands.

 

I also didn’t expect the graffiti that covered nearly every wall, on every building, up and down every street. They were mostly slogans and phrases in Greek (and therefore completely unintelligible to me), but with occasional crude references in English to IMF bankers, undercover policemen, a politician or two, and the CIA. There were a couple slogans from the Russian revolution of 1917, from the Castro uprising in Cuba, and even from the American revolution (“united we stand, divided we fall.”)

 

Naturally, I thought all of this had come about in just the past few months, as Greece has wrestled with its overwhelming financial crisis. But I was told by local citizens that much of the graffiti has been around for quite a bit longer than that – just as it has been in cities like New York and London. Some of it was wild and colorful, with cartoon figures and crazy faces … though I don’t think it quite rises to the level of “street art” that one sees in parts of SoHo, Tribeca, and the East Village in New York. What impressed me most about the graffiti in Athens was its vibrant energy; I felt like the artists were ready to punch a hole through the walls with their spray-cans.

 

These are merely my own first impressions; they won’t be the same as yours. Beyond that, there are a lot of facts, figures, and details if one wants to fully describe a city like Athens. Its recorded history spans some 3,400 years, and it includes the exploits of kings and generals, gods and philosophers, athletes and artists. There are statues and columns and ruins everywhere; and towering above it all is the breath-taking Acropolis. It’s far too rich and complex for me to describe here in any reasonable way; if you want to know more, find some books or scan the excellent Wikipedia summary.

 

It’s also hard to figure out what one should photograph on a first visit to a city like Athens. It’s impossible not to photograph the Acropolis, especially since it’s lit at night and visible from almost every corner of the city. I was interested in the possibility of photographing the complex in the special light before dawn or after sunset, but it’s closed to visitors except during “civilized” daytime hours. It’s also undergoing extensive renovations and repair, so much of it is covered in scaffolding, derricks, and cranes. In the end, I took a few panorama shots and telephoto shots, and explored the details by visiting the new Acropolis Museum, with the camera turned off.

 

Aside from that, the photos you’ll see here concentrate on two things: my unexpected “first impression” of the local graffiti, and my favorite of all subjects: people. In a couple cases, the subjects are unmistakably Greek – Greek orthodox priests, for example – and in a couple cases, you might think you were looking at a street scene in São Paulo or Mexico City. But in most of the shots, you’ll see examples of stylish, fashionable, interesting people that don’t look all that much different from the people I’ve photographed in New York, London, Rome, or Paris. Maybe we can attribute that to the homogenization of fashion and style in today’s interconnected global environment. Or maybe we can just chalk it up to the fact that people are, well … interesting … wherever you go.

 

In any case, enjoy. And if you get to Athens yourself, send me some photos of your own first impressions.

While visiting a friend this past spring in Princeton I spent some time at Labyrinth Bookstore exploring their unusual offering of books. The visit made me appreciate the small bookstore that has made selections that are of specific interest that you would be unlikely to encounter in a large chain. After browsing for an hour or two, I walked out relieved of a burden of cash but rich in interesting reading material on topics of very personal interest. This just published book was one of the treats I found and I will include this short review from Amazon:

 

"Charles Cushman (1896-1972) photographed a disappearing world in living color. Cushman's midcentury America--a place normally seen only through a scrim of gray--reveals itself as a place as vivid and real as the view through our window.

The Day in Its Color introduces readers to Cushman's extraordinary work, a recently unearthed archive of photographs that is the largest known body of early color photographs by a single photographer, 14,500 in all, most shot on vivid, color-saturated Kodachrome stock. From 1938-1969, Cushman--a sometime businessman and amateur photographer with an uncanny eye for everyday detail--travelled constantly, shooting everything he encountered as he ventured from New York to New Orleans, Chicago to San Francisco, and everywhere in between. His photos include portraits, ethnographic studies, agricultural and industrial landscapes, movie sets and media events, children playing, laborers working, and thousands of street scenes, all precisely documented in time and place. The result is a chronicle of an era almost never seen, or even envisioned, in color.

This well-preserved collection is all the more remarkable for having gone undiscovered for decades. What makes the photos most valuable, however, is the wide range of subjects, landscapes, and moods it captures--snapshots of a lost America as yet untouched by a homogenizing overlay of interstate highways, urban renewal, chain stores, and suburban development--a world of hand-painted signs, state fairs, ramshackle shops, small town living and bustling urban scenes. The book also reveals the fascinating and startling life story of the man who stood, unseen, on the other side of the lens, surely one of America's most impressive amateur photographers and outsider artists.

With over 150 gorgeous color prints, The Day in Its Color gives us one of the most evocative visual histories of mid-20th century America that we have."

 

More on the bookstore:

www.wildriverreview.com/interview/literature/why-independ...

This was taken on Panepistimiou Avenue, one of the main streets in the center of Athens. It was right in front of the National Library, and just a couple blocks from the hotel where I stayed.

 

I had just missed one of the open-air buses that takes tourists like me around the city, and I had half an hour until the next one arrived. So I sat on one of the steps and photographed people as they walked by me, just to get a sense of what "ordinary" Athens people look like ...

 

Note: this photo was published in a May 19, 2013 blog simply titled "Athens."

 

***************************

 

When we hear the phrase “first impression,” we tend to think of a person. Was the politician I recently voted for as inspiring when I heard his first speech as he was years later? (More so, sadly.) Was the girl that I married as beautiful at 13 as she was years later, in her twenties and thirties? (Yes, and yes.) Did Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind send more of a shiver down my spine in 1963 than it did when I heard it drifting from a car radio 45 years later? (No. It stops me dead in my tracks every time I hear it.)

 

It’s not just people that make first impressions on me. Cities do, too, perhaps because I encountered so many of them while my family moved every year throughout my childhood. Or perhaps it’s because, after seeing so many cities that I thought were different in the United States, I was so completely unprepared for the wild variety of sights and sounds and smells that I encountered as a grown man, when I traveled to Europe and South America, to Africa and Asia and Australia. And even today, there are cities that I’m visiting for the first time, and which continue to take me by surprise.

 

Athens is one of those cities. I don’t know what I was expecting… Something old, of course, something downright ancient, filled with smashed statues and marble columns like Rome, engraved with unreadable inscriptions in a language I never learned — but probably not as ancient as Cairo. Something hot and noisy and polluted and smelly, perhaps like Calcutta or the slums of Mumbai. Something gridlocked with noisy, honking traffic congestion, perhaps like Moscow.

 

What I didn’t expect was the wide, nearly-empty highways leading from the airport into the city. I didn’t expect the cleanliness of the tree-lined streets that ran in every direction. I did expect the white-washed buildings and houses that climbed the hills that surround the city — but the local people told me that buildings in Athens were positively gray compared to what I would have seen if I had stayed longer and ventured out to the Greek islands.

 

I also didn’t expect the graffiti that covered nearly every wall, on every building, up and down every street. They were mostly slogans and phrases in Greek (and therefore completely unintelligible to me), but with occasional crude references in English to IMF bankers, undercover policemen, a politician or two, and the CIA. There were a couple slogans from the Russian revolution of 1917, from the Castro uprising in Cuba, and even from the American revolution (“united we stand, divided we fall.”)

 

Naturally, I thought all of this had come about in just the past few months, as Greece has wrestled with its overwhelming financial crisis. But I was told by local citizens that much of the graffiti has been around for quite a bit longer than that – just as it has been in cities like New York and London. Some of it was wild and colorful, with cartoon figures and crazy faces … though I don’t think it quite rises to the level of “street art” that one sees in parts of SoHo, Tribeca, and the East Village in New York. What impressed me most about the graffiti in Athens was its vibrant energy; I felt like the artists were ready to punch a hole through the walls with their spray-cans.

 

These are merely my own first impressions; they won’t be the same as yours. Beyond that, there are a lot of facts, figures, and details if one wants to fully describe a city like Athens. Its recorded history spans some 3,400 years, and it includes the exploits of kings and generals, gods and philosophers, athletes and artists. There are statues and columns and ruins everywhere; and towering above it all is the breath-taking Acropolis. It’s far too rich and complex for me to describe here in any reasonable way; if you want to know more, find some books or scan the excellent Wikipedia summary.

 

It’s also hard to figure out what one should photograph on a first visit to a city like Athens. It’s impossible not to photograph the Acropolis, especially since it’s lit at night and visible from almost every corner of the city. I was interested in the possibility of photographing the complex in the special light before dawn or after sunset, but it’s closed to visitors except during “civilized” daytime hours. It’s also undergoing extensive renovations and repair, so much of it is covered in scaffolding, derricks, and cranes. In the end, I took a few panorama shots and telephoto shots, and explored the details by visiting the new Acropolis Museum, with the camera turned off.

 

Aside from that, the photos you’ll see here concentrate on two things: my unexpected “first impression” of the local graffiti, and my favorite of all subjects: people. In a couple cases, the subjects are unmistakably Greek – Greek orthodox priests, for example – and in a couple cases, you might think you were looking at a street scene in São Paulo or Mexico City. But in most of the shots, you’ll see examples of stylish, fashionable, interesting people that don’t look all that much different from the people I’ve photographed in New York, London, Rome, or Paris. Maybe we can attribute that to the homogenization of fashion and style in today’s interconnected global environment. Or maybe we can just chalk it up to the fact that people are, well … interesting … wherever you go.

 

In any case, enjoy. And if you get to Athens yourself, send me some photos of your own first impressions.

Kumbabhishegam or Consecration is a Hindu Temple ritual that is believed to homogenize,synergize and unite the mystic powers of the deityKumbha means the Head and denotes the crown of the temple,usually in the Gopuram or Tower ang abishgam is ritual bathin with holy waters