I don't think any of these people look like "typical" Greek citizens. If you didn't know better, you might well think this photograph was taken somewhere in South America

 

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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.

 

a garden competition in quebec. myself, a grandchild of northern irish immigrants, and my partner, seh kang, an american with south korean roots.

 

garden not symbolic, ecological, or reflection on nature alone but a cultural, didactic tool. representative of contemporary strife between iconic tradition and global homogenization. a space to celebrate the heritage and traditions of korea, ireland, and the quebecois through positive cultivation, play and partaking in shared space. a garden refuge imbued with tradition that looks forward to the cultural mingling brought about by globaliztion, that utilizes traditional symbols and meaning not to separate but to bring co existence while respecting movement towards a diverse global community

 

The last half of '66, just out of high school, time to set out in the world, to seek my fortune. I ended up working the railroad by day, teaching guitar by night.

 

It wasn't to last long, Vietnam was raging, and anybody not in school soon found themselves wearing green (instead of railroad blue) real soon. Besides, (though I didn't know it at the time), the ill-fated Casey Jones was an ancestor from the Welsh branch of the family tree--so railroading was a career field was probably best abandoned after that summer.

 

I gathered a few skills that helped me endure the military time that was inevitably to come (type 60 wpm, shoot a camera, drive truck, answer a phone with a suitably homogenized midwest/California accent)--and headed down the road on Life's Journey.

 

Looking back at my past self, what magical words of advice would I share? "Facebook"? "Craigslist, Microsoft, digital photography?" (This was a time when "Honda" meant 50cc minibikes.) No, even if I could do it, there would be no projecting the future into that past. "I am from the future and here to tell you, jump into computers and meld CB radio to your typewriter (already an IBM Selectric)--move to Palo Alto, and look for these guys, Gates & Allen, and tell them you want to clean their garage for free?" Hah. Leave the poor kid alone, he'll find his own way.

 

It's what I try to remind myself with my own kids now. Stay in the present. Every moment gets shattered and battered by the past and future--instead, trust the moment! There will always be enough money, perhaps not as much as you might like, but enough. Enough food, enough whatever, as long as you enjoy the present, and learn from the dog. Stay awake, live like your grandparents, and Be "Bhole Baba" (easily pleased).

     

YOGURT

Yogurt, yoghurt or yoghourt (/ˈjoʊɡərt/ or /ˈjɒɡərt/; from Turkish: yoğurt) is a food produced by bacterial fermentation of milk. The bacteria used to make yogurt are known as yogurt cultures. The fermentation of lactose by these bacteria produces lactic acid, which acts on milk protein to give yogurt its texture and characteristic tart flavor. Cow's milk is commonly available worldwide and, as such, is the milk most commonly used to make yogurt. Milk from water buffalo, goats, ewes, mares, camels, and yaks is also used to produce yogurt where available locally. The milk used may be homogenized or not, even pasteurized or raw. Each type of milk produces substantially different results.

 

Yogurt is produced using a culture of Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus bacteria. In addition, other lactobacilli and bifidobacteria are sometimes added during or after culturing yogurt. Some countries require yogurt to contain a certain amount of colony-forming units (CFU) of bacteria; in China, for example, the requirement for the number of lactobacillus bacteria is at least 1 million CFU per milliliter.

 

To produce yogurt, milk is first heated, usually to about 85 °C , to denature the milk proteins so that they do not form curds. After heating, the milk is allowed to cool to about 45 °C. The bacterial culture is mixed in, and that temperature of 45 °C is maintained for 4 to 12 hours to allow fermentation to occur.

 

ETYMOLOGY AND SPELLING

The word is derived from Turkish: yoğurt, and is usually related to the verb yoğurmak, "to knead", or "to be curdled or coagulated; to thicken". It may be related to yoğun, meaning thick or dense. The sound ğ was traditionally rendered as "gh" in transliterations of Turkish from around 1615–1625. In modern Turkish the letter ğ marks a diaeresis between two vowels, without being pronounced itself, which is reflected in some languages' versions of the word (e.g. Greek γιαούρτι giaoúrti, French yaourt, Romanian iaurt).

 

In English, the several variations of the spelling of the word include yogurt, yoghurt, and to a lesser extent yoghourt or yogourt.

 

HISTORY

Analysis of the L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus genome indicates that the bacterium may have originated on the surface of a plant. Milk may have become spontaneously and unintentionally exposed to it through contact with plants, or bacteria may have been transferred from the udder of domestic milk-producing animals. The origins of yogurt are unknown, but it is thought to have been invented in Mesopotamia around 5000 BC. In ancient Indian records, the combination of yogurt and honey is called "the food of the gods". Persian traditions hold that "Abraham owed his fecundity and longevity to the regular ingestion of yogurt".

 

The cuisine of ancient Greece included a dairy product known as oxygala (οξύγαλα) which is believed to have been a form of yogurt. Galen (AD 129 – c. 200/c. 216) mentioned that oxygala was consumed with honey, similar to the way thickened Greek yogurt is eaten today. The oldest writings mentioning yogurt are attributed to Pliny the Elder, who remarked that certain "barbarous nations" knew how "to thicken the milk into a substance with an agreeable acidity". The use of yogurt by medieval Turks is recorded in the books Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk by Mahmud Kashgari and Kutadgu Bilig by Yusuf Has Hajib written in the 11th century. Both texts mention the word "yogurt" in different sections and describe its use by nomadic Turks. The earliest yogurts were probably spontaneously fermented by wild bacteria in goat skin bags.

 

Some accounts suggest that Indian emperor Akbar's cooks would flavor yogurt with mustard seeds and cinnamon. Another early account of a European encounter with yogurt occurs in French clinical history: Francis I suffered from a severe diarrhea which no French doctor could cure. His ally Suleiman the Magnificent sent a doctor, who allegedly cured the patient with yogurt. Being grateful, the French king spread around the information about the food which had cured him.

 

Until the 1900s, yogurt was a staple in diets of people in the Russian Empire (and especially Central Asia and the Caucasus), Western Asia, South Eastern Europe/Balkans, Central Europe, and India. Stamen Grigorov (1878–1945), a Bulgarian student of medicine in Geneva, first examined the microflora of the Bulgarian yogurt. In 1905, he described it as consisting of a spherical and a rod-like lactic acid-producing bacteria. In 1907, the rod-like bacterium was called Bacillus bulgaricus (now Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus). The Russian Nobel laureate and biologist Ilya Mechnikov, from the Institut Pasteur in Paris, was influenced by Grigorov's work and hypothesized that regular consumption of yogurt was responsible for the unusually long lifespans of Bulgarian peasants. Believing Lactobacillus to be essential for good health, Mechnikov worked to popularize yogurt as a foodstuff throughout Europe.

 

Isaac Carasso industrialized the production of yogurt. In 1919, Carasso, who was from Ottoman Salonika, started a small yogurt business in Barcelona, Spain, and named the business Danone ("little Daniel") after his son. The brand later expanded to the United States under an Americanized version of the name: Dannon. Yogurt with added fruit jam was patented in 1933 by the Radlická Mlékárna dairy in Prague.

 

Yogurt was introduced to the United States in the first decade of the twentieth century, influenced by Élie Metchnikoff's The Prolongation of Life; Optimistic Studies (1908); it was available in tablet form for those with digestive intolerance and for home culturing. It was popularized by John Harvey Kellogg at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, where it was used both orally and in enemas, and later by Armenian immigrants Sarkis and Rose Colombosian, who started "Colombo and Sons Creamery" in Andover, Massachusetts in 1929.

 

Colombo Yogurt was originally delivered around New England in a horse-drawn wagon inscribed with the Armenian word "madzoon" which was later changed to "yogurt", the Turkish name of the product, as Turkish was the lingua franca between immigrants of the various Near Eastern ethnicities who were the main consumers at that time. Yogurt's popularity in the United States was enhanced in the 1950s and 1960s, when it was presented as a health food by scientists like Hungarian-born bacteriologist Stephen A. Gaymont. By the late 20th century, yogurt had become a common American food item and Colombo Yogurt was sold in 1993 to General Mills, which discontinued the brand in 2010.

 

NUTRITION AND HEALTH

Yogurt (plain yogurt from whole milk) is 81% water, 9% protein, 5% fat, and 4% carbohydrates, including 4% sugars (table). A 100-gram amount provides 406 kilojoules (97 kcal) of dietary energy. As a proportion of the Daily Value (DV), a serving of yogurt is a rich source of vitamin B12 (31% DV) and riboflavin (23% DV), with moderate content of protein, phosphorus, and selenium (14 to 19% DV; table).

 

VARIETIES AND PRESENTATION

Dahi is a yogurt of the Indian subcontinent, known for its characteristic taste and consistency. The word dahi seems to be derived from the Sanskrit word dadhi ("sour milk"), one of the five elixirs, or panchamrita, often used in Hindu ritual. Sweetened dahi (mishti doi or meethi dahi) is common in eastern parts of India, made by fermenting sweetened milk. While cow's milk is considered sacred and is currently the primary ingredient for yogurt, goat and buffalo milk were widely used in the past, and valued for the fat content (see buffalo curd).

 

Dadiah or dadih is a traditional West Sumatran yogurt made from water buffalo milk, fermented in bamboo tubes. Yogurt is common in Nepal, where it is served as both an appetizer and dessert. Locally called dahi, it is a part of the Nepali culture, used in local festivals, marriage ceremonies, parties, religious occasions, family gatherings, and so on. One Nepalese yogurt is called juju dhau, originating from the city of Bhaktapur. In Tibet, yak milk (technically dri milk, as the word yak refers to the male animal) is made into yogurt (and butter and cheese) and consumed.

 

In Northern Iran, Mâst Chekide is a variety of kefir yogurt with a distinct sour taste. It is usually mixed with a pesto-like water and fresh herb purée called delal. Common appetizers are spinach or eggplant borani, Mâst-o-Khiâr with cucumber, spring onions and herbs, and Mâst-Musir with wild shallots. In the summertime, yogurt and ice cubes are mixed together with cucumbers, raisins, salt, pepper and onions and topped with some croutons made of Persian traditional bread and served as a cold soup. Ashe-Mâst is a warm yogurt soup with fresh herbs, spinach and lentils. Even the leftover water extracted when straining yogurt is cooked to make a sour cream sauce called kashk, which is usually used as a topping on soups and stews.

 

Matsoni is a Georgian yogurt in the Caucasus and Russia. Tarator and Cacık are cold soups made from yogurt during summertime in eastern Europe. They are made with ayran, cucumbers, dill, salt, olive oil, and optionally garlic and ground walnuts. Tzatziki in Greece and milk salad in Bulgaria are thick yogurt-based salads similar to tarator.

 

Khyar w Laban (cucumber and yogurt salad) is a dish in Lebanon and Syria. Also, a wide variety of local Lebanese and Syrian dishes are cooked with yogurt like "Kibbi bi Laban" Rahmjoghurt, a creamy yogurt with much higher fat content (10%) than many yogurts offered in English-speaking countries. Dovga, a yogurt soup cooked with a variety of herbs and rice, is served warm in winter or refreshingly cold in summer. Jameed, yogurt salted and dried to preserve it, is consumed in Jordan. Zabadi is the type of yogurt made in Egypt, usually from the milk of the Egyptian water buffalo. It is particularly associated with Ramadan fasting, as it is thought to prevent thirst during all-day fasting.

 

SWEETENED AND FLAVORED

To offset its natural sourness, yogurt is also sold sweetened, sweetened and flavored or in containers with fruit or fruit jam on the bottom. The two styles of yogurt commonly found in the grocery store are set-style yogurt and Swiss-style yogurt. Set-style yogurt is poured into individual containers to set, while Swiss-style yogurt is stirred prior to packaging. Either may have fruit added to increase sweetness.

 

Lassi and moru are common beverages in India. Lassi is stirred liquified curd that is either salted or sweetened with sugar commonly, less commonly honey and often combined with fruit pulp to create flavored lassi. Mango lassi is a western favorite, as is coconut lassi. Consistency can vary widely, with urban and commercial lassis being of uniform texture through being processed, whereas rural and rustic lassi has curds in it, and sometimes has malai (cream) added or removed. Moru is a South Indian summer drink, meant to keep drinkers hydrated through the hot and humid summers of the South. It is prepared by considerably thinning down yogurt with water, adding salt (for electrolyte balance) and spices, usually green chili peppers, asafoetida, curry leaves and mustard.

 

Large amounts of sugar – or other sweeteners for low-energy yogurts – are often used in commercial yogurt. Some yogurts contain added modified starch, pectin (found naturally in fruit), and/or gelatin to create thickness and creaminess artificially at lower cost. This type of yogurt is also marketed under the name Swiss-style, although it is unrelated to the way yogurt is eaten in Switzerland. Some yogurts, often called "cream line", are made with whole milk which has not been homogenized so the cream rises to the top. In the UK, Ireland, France and United States, sweetened, flavored yogurt is common, typically sold in single-serving plastic cups. Common flavors include vanilla, honey, and toffee, and fruit such as strawberry, cherry, blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, mango and peach. In the early twenty-first century yogurt flavors inspired by desserts, such as chocolate or cheesecake, have been available. There is concern about the health effects of sweetened yogurt, due to its high sugar content.

 

STRAINING

Strained yogurt has been strained through a filter, traditionally made of muslin and more recently of paper or non-muslin cloth. This removes the whey, giving a much thicker consistency. Strained yogurt is made at home, especially if using skimmed milk which results in a thinner consistency. Yogurt that has been strained to filter or remove the whey is known as Labneh in Middle Eastern countries. It has a consistency between that of yogurt and cheese. It may be used for sandwiches in Middle Eastern countries. Olive oil, cucumber slices, olives, and various green herbs may be added. It can be thickened further and rolled into balls, preserved in olive oil, and fermented for a few more weeks. It is sometimes used with onions, meat, and nuts as a stuffing for a variety of pies or kibbeh balls.

 

Some types of strained yogurts are boiled in open vats first, so that the liquid content is reduced. The East Indian dessert, a variation of traditional dahi called mishti dahi, offers a thicker, more custard-like consistency, and is usually sweeter than western yogurts. Strained yogurt is also enjoyed in Greece and is the main component of tzatziki (from Turkish "cacık"), a well-known accompaniment to gyros and souvlaki pita sandwiches: it is a yogurt sauce or dip made with the addition of grated cucumber, olive oil, salt and, optionally, mashed garlic. Srikhand, a dessert in India, is made from strained yogurt, saffron, cardamom, nutmeg and sugar and sometimes fruits such as mango or pineapple.

 

In North America and Britain, strained yogurt is commonly called “Greek yogurt”. Strained yogurt is sometimes marketed in North America as "Greek yogurt" and in Britain as "Greek-style yoghurt". In Britain the name "Greek" may only be applied to yogurt made in Greece.

 

BEVERAGES

Ayran, doogh ("dawghe" in Neo-Aramaic) or dhallë is a yogurt-based, salty drink. It is made by mixing yogurt with water and (sometimes) salt.

 

Borhani (or burhani) is a spicy yogurt drink. It is usually served with kacchi biryani at weddings and special feasts. Key ingredients are yogurt blended with mint leaves (mentha), mustard seeds and black rock salt (Kala Namak). Ground roasted cumin, ground white pepper, green chili pepper paste and sugar are often added.

 

Lassi is a yogurt-based beverage that is usually slightly salty or sweet, and may be commercially flavored with rosewater, mango or other fruit juice. Salty lassi is usually flavored with ground, roasted cumin and red chilies, may be made with buttermilk.

 

An unsweetened and unsalted yogurt drink usually called simply jogurt is consumed with burek and other baked goods. Sweetened yogurt drinks are the usual form in Europe (including the UK) and the US, containing fruit and added sweeteners. These are typically called "drinkable yogurt". Also available are "yogurt smoothies", which contain a higher proportion of fruit and are more like smoothies.

 

PLANT-MILK YOGHURT

A variety of plant-milk yogurts appeared in the 2000s, using soy milk, rice milk, and nut milks such as almond milk and coconut milk. So far the most widely sold variety of plant milk yogurts is soy yogurt. These yogurts are suitable for vegans, people with intolerance to dairy milk, and those who prefer plant milks.

 

HOMEMADE

Yogurt is made by heating milk to a temperature that denaturates its proteins (scalding), essential for making yogurt, cooling it to a temperature that will not kill the live microorganisms that turn the milk into yogurt, inoculating certain bacteria (starter culture), usually Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus, into the milk, and finally keeping it warm for several hours. The milk may be held at 85 °C for a few minutes, or boiled (giving a somewhat different result). It must be cooled to 50 °C or somewhat less, typically 40–46 °C. Starter culture must then be mixed in well, and the mixture must be kept undisturbed and warm for some time, anywhere between 5 and 12 hours. Longer fermentation times produces a more acidic yogurt. The starter culture may be a small amount of live (not sterilized) existing yogurt or commercially available dried starter culture.

 

Milk with a higher concentration of solids than normal milk may be used; the higher solids content produces a firmer yogurt. Solids can be increased by adding dried milk. The yogurt-making process provides two significant barriers to pathogen growth, heat and acidity (low pH). Both are necessary to ensure a safe product. Acidity alone has been questioned by recent outbreaks of food poisoning by E. coli O157:H7 that is acid-tolerant. E. coli O157:H7 is easily destroyed by pasteurization (heating); the initial heating of the milk kills pathogens as well as denaturing proteins. The microorganisms that turn milk into yogurt can tolerate higher temperatures than most pathogens, so that a suitable temperature not only encourages the formation of yogurt, but inhibits pathogenic microorganisms. Once the yogurt has formed it can, if desired, be strained to reduce the whey content and thicken it.

 

COMMERCIAL YOGURT

Two types of yogurt are supported by the Codex Alimentarius for import and export, implemented similarly by the US Food and Drug Administration.

 

Pasteurized yogurt ("heat treated fermented milk") is yogurt pasteurized to kill bacteria.

Probiotic yogurt (labeled as "live yogurt" or "active yogurt") is yogurt pasteurized to kill bacteria, with Lactobacillus added in measured units before packaging.

Yogurt probiotic drink is a drinkable yogurt pasteurized to kill bacteria, with Lactobacillus added before packaging.

 

Research suggests Homemade Yogurt and Live Yogurt are much more beneficial than 'Heat Treated Fermented Milk' (Pasteurized Yogurt). European Food Safety Authority has confirmed the probiotic benefits of Yogurt containing 108 CFU 'live Lactobacilli'

 

LACTOSE INTOLERANCE

Lactose intolerance is a condition in which people have symptoms due to the decreased ability to digest lactose, a sugar found in dairy products. In 2010, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) determined that lactose intolerance can be alleviated by ingesting live yogurt cultures (lactobacilli) that are able to digest the lactose in other dairy products. The scientific review by EFSA enabled yogurt manufacturers to use a health claim on product labels, provided that the "yoghurt should contain at least 108 CFU live starter microorganisms (Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus) per gram. The target population is individuals with lactose maldigestion."

 

WIKIPEDIA

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 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.

 

old school QNS signage. I'm missing these as they are being torn down and replaced with homogenized awning -- three font options, regulates sizes, and shapes. For what? To strip the city of its character?

Biennale di Venezia 2014 - 14th International Architecture Exhibition - Fundamentals.

Fundamentals consists of three interlocking exhibitions:

1.Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014 is an invitation to the national pavilions to show the process of the erasure of national characteristics.

2.Elements of Architecture, in the Central Pavilion, pays close attention to the fundamentals of our buildings used by any architect, anywhere, anytime.

3.Monditalia dedicates the Arsenale to a single theme – Italy – with exhibitions, events, and theatrical productions.

 

The 14th International Architecture Exhibition, titled Fundamentals, directed by Rem Koolhaas and organized by la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, was open to the public from June 7 through November 23, 2014, in Venica Italy. 65 National Participations were exhibiting in the historic pavilions in the Giardini, in the Arsenale, and in the city of Venice. They examine key moments from a century of modernization. Together, the presentations start to reveal how diverse material cultures and political environments transformed a generic modernity into a specific one. Participating countries show, each in their own way, a radical splintering of modernity's in a century where the homogenizing process of globalization appeared to be the master narrative

 

Absorbing Modernity 1914–2014 has been proposed for the contribution of all the pavilions, and they too are involved in a substantial part of the overall research project, whose title is Fundamentals. The history of the past one hundred years prelude to the Elements of Architecture section hosted in the Central Pavilion, where the curator offers the contemporary world those elements that should represent the reference points for the discipline: for the architects but also for its dialogue with clients and society. Monditalia section in the Corderie with 41 research projects, reminds us of the complexity of this reality without complacency or prejudice, which is paradigmatic of what happens elsewhere in the world; complexities that must be deliberately experienced as sources of regeneration. Dance, Music, Theatre and Cinema with the programmes of the directors will participate in the life of the section, with debates and seminars along the six-month duration of the exhibition.

 

Elements of Architecture / Central Pavilions

This exhibition is the result of a two-year research studio with the Harvard Graduate School of Design and collaborations with a host of experts from industry and academia. Elements of Architecture looks under a microscope at the fundamentals of our buildings, used by any architect, anywhere, anytime: the floor, the wall, the ceiling, the roof, the door, the window, the façade, the balcony, the corridor, the fireplace, the toilet, the stair, the escalator, the elevator, the ramp. The exhibition is a selection of the most revealing, surprising, and unknown moments from a new book, Elements of Architecture, that reconstructs the global history of each element. It brings together ancient, past, current, and future versions of the elements in rooms that are each dedicated to a single element. To create diverse experiences, we have recreated a number of very different environments – archive, museum, factory, laboratory, mock-up, simulation.

Times Square, NYC

 

by navema

www.navemastudios.com

 

Times Square is a major intersection in Manhattan, a borough of New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. The Times Square area consists of the blocks between Sixth and Eighth Avenues from east to west, and West 40th and West 53rd Streets from south to north, making up the western part of the commercial area of Midtown Manhattan.

 

Times Square, nicknamed "The Crossroads of the World," has achieved the status of an iconic world landmark and has become a symbol of New York City. Times Square is principally defined by its spectaculars, animated, digital advertisements.

 

HISTORY:

 

Before and after the American Revolution, the area belonged to John Morin Scott, a general of the New York militia where he served under George Washington. Scott's Manor House was at what is now 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.

 

In 1904, New York Times publisher Adolph S. Ochs moved the newspaper's operations to a new skyscraper on 42nd Street at Longacre Square. 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 New York Times, according to Nolan, moved to more spacious offices across Broadway 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.

 

Also 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 coast-to-coast through 13 states to its Western Terminus in Lincoln Park in San Francisco, California.

 

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

 

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 its go-go bars, sex shops, and adult theaters, became an infamous symbol of the city's decline.

 

In the 1980s, a commercial building boom began in the western parts of the Midtown as part of a long-term development plan developed under Mayor Ed Koch and David Dinkins. In the mid-1990s, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (1994–2002) led an effort to "clean up" the area, increasing security, closing pornographic theaters, pressuring drug dealers and "squeegee men" to relocate, and opening more tourist-friendly attractions and upscale establishments. Advocates of the remodeling claim that the neighborhood is safer and cleaner. Detractors, on the other hand, argue 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.

 

The theaters of Broadway and the huge number of animated neon and LED signs have long made them one of New York's iconic images, and a symbol of the intensely urban aspects of Manhattan. Times Square is the only neighborhood with zoning ordinances requiring building owners to display illuminated signs. The density of illuminated signs in Times Square now rivals that of Las Vegas. Officially, signs in Times Square are called "spectaculars", and the largest of them are called "jumbotrons."

 

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 restaurants such as Ruby Foo's, the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, Planet Hollywood Restaurant and Bar and Carmine's, along with a number of multiplex movie theaters. 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.

 

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 is to ease traffic congestion throughout the Midtown grid.

 

Times Square is the site of the annual New Year's Eve ball drop. On December 31, 1907, a ball signifying New Year's Day was first dropped at Times Square, and the Square has held the main New Year's celebration in New York City ever since.

And now a bit of a break from the SCAA posts.

 

This is my first (well, third) steaming attempt with the new Toroid frothing pitcher from espro.ca. Funky mojo rosetta heart is the result. The deets:

 

- Steaming Pitcher: 20oz Toroid from Espro

- Grinder: Anfim Super Caimano with the Timer Mod

- Machine: La Marzocco FrankenLinea, 202.5 / 199.0 (with the offset)

- Coffee: blowing my mind Matt Riddle USBC 2007 comp blend

- Dose: 17g, 50ml extraction, 28 seconds.

- Milk: Plain old Homogenized, 3.25% fat

 

Tasted to die for.

I'm pretty sure this is the National Library. Maybe the pigeons were all waiting for the library to open, so they could go in and check out a couple books...

 

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

 

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.

 

I posted my comment on Amazon:

"I have had many friends with breast cancer - and none of them look like Barbie - a white anorexic blonde with two breasts. To assign a plastic face such as Barbie to such a socially complex health issue, is really disappointing. It homogenizes the breast cancer population and ignores the class dimensions of access to healthcare that increases the chances of optimal treatment. For example, here is a quote from the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved.

"The lower rate of utilization of mammography and cervical cancer screening observed for Latinas in the United States has been attributed to cultural, economic, and linguistic barriers they may encounter."

muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_health_care_for_the_poor...

 

In addition, the physical body of Breast Cancer Barbie is problematic because many survivors have had to get masectomies, and some have chosen to not have their breast(s) reconstructed. It also brings up the gender biases of males as reconstructrion surgeons, in that they assume a woman post-masectomy wants new breasts and may want to use reconstruction as an opportunity to increase their breast size. For example, it is noted that most women don't reconstruct their breasts post-masectormy and that white women have the highest rates of reconstruction www.medscape.com/viewarticle/522469. In a study that came out in September 2006, they found that women who have reconstruction are 75% more likey to commit suicide www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060920081703.htm. "Figures from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons show a 22% decline in breast reconstruction procedures between 2000 and 2004," dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/health?e=pub&dt=common&...

 

I bring up these articles to show that showing "a pair of breasts" for a Breast Cancer Barbie is a highly contentious decision for a company that has been know to create beautiful Barbies and philanthropically has donated money to causes, but has now constructed an actual doll that doesn't fully represent the heterogeneous breast cancer population is problematic.

 

And BTW MATTEL - many chemo patients are thin like Barbie NOT BY CHOICE! It's because of all the raditation and chemo drugs that are pumped into them that causes them to lose their appetite and therefore look thin, emaciated and weak. Being thin like Barbie is NOT A HEALTHY IDEAL for breast cancer patients!

 

Here is doll on Amazon: www.amazon.com/Barbie-Collector-Pink-Ribbon-Doll/dp/B000E...

 

My friends adriene who is a breast cancer survivor and documented her process online softservegirl.com/2005/archives.html, wrote this comment about the doll:

 

"I am a breast cancer survivor and I find this pink dressed, blond "doll" of perfection rather insulting to my female self, the perfect perky boobs, the long blond hair, the body that does not exist on a woman after the ravages of chemotheraphy. I can perfectly understand Mattel wanting to support breast cancer research and donate a portion of proceedes towards funding (and thank you for your generosity), but to do it under the guise of selling a "doll" which does not reflect the community of women who have experienced the challenges of recovery and survivorship...a doll which does not look like a survivor is literally painful and insulting! Why doesn't this doll have a wig? Why doesn't she have a breast removed? Why doesn't she have a bra fitted with a form to mimic the shape of a breast? What is wrong with reality? Why can't Mattel acknowledge the true nature of this disease and make a doll which comforts, not insults the sensibility of women who have suffered from this disease. I will purchase this doll, just because I am horrified by the product itself. I will disrobe her, and with a saw, cut off her breast so that she will look more like me, a survivor, a woman of pride. I will dismantle the construct of supposed beauty and make this image more like my own - because I am what is woman, not the facade of a false construction."

 

Set of milk and dairy farm product labels.

 

Want to use this image? Grab it here: stockfresh.com/image/3119194/?affiliate=785

MONOLOGUE OF THE ARTIST, top quadrant of the center diptych of the West Wall. The entire monologue may be read below.

 

STUDIO SECTION 2008-2009 is an extension of the “non-specific autobiography” realized and examined by Robert Cremean in VATICAN CORRIDOR, A Non-Specific Autobiography. It consists of three parts: East Wall: Calvary—Donors With Crucifixion, in which the artist gives unprecedented voice both to Gestas and to Dismas who were crucified with Jesus; Il Passetto, the corridor in which he makes a metaphoric exposition of the treatment of women by the three “hats”: the helmet of the warrior, the mitre of religion, and the bowler of commerce; and West Wall: Self-Portrait As a Young Artist in which “the young artist” is addressed verbally and metaphorically through three monologues: the Monologue of Art, the Monologue of the Artist, and the Monologue of History. Listening to the conflicting and diametrically opposing views written on the diptych behind him on the West Wall is the bust of the young artist who looks with an inscrutable gaze through the horrors of Il Passetto to the horrors of Calvary on the East Wall and at the Donors, aloof and blinded to the controlled chaos behind and in front of them.

 

These are but a few of the ideas and images contained within STUDIO SECTION 2008-2009. As in any work of art, the viewer may create his own world out of the images, metaphors and words confronted therein.

 

STUDIO SECTION 2008-2009

East Wall: Calvary--Donors With Crucifixion

West wall: Self-Portrait As A Young Artist

Middle: Il Passetto

 

2008-2009

Wood, wood mâché, metal, gesso, modeling paste, acrylic, graphite

Each of the six diptychs measures 8' x 8' 1"

Over all dimension for exhibition: 40' x 40'

 

Collection:

Toledo Art Museum

Toledo, Ohio

  

Monologue of the Artist

 

Who I am signifies nothing. What I am signifies something. What I seek signifies everything. I know not who I am. I know not what I am. I exist as a question that has no answer—as an answer that has no question—as the cleaving wedge between absolutes—as the mortar that cements opposites—as the paradox that eludes reproach. I am feared, resented, titillating and tiresome. I am the gray space between black and white, untransversable and obliquitous...an unfathomable separation that spawns questions and inhibits answers...shades of gray in osmotic separation unto infinity. My very existence belies the metaphors of dogma...this I know, but I do not know what it signifies, not for me, not for my work— and not for others. I sense that I must redefine myself in terms of a new configuration. How I have been shaped must be reconfigured...undone and reconfigured, for I was shaped to hate myself, to hate the very spine of my selfness. Through the deception of love and duty, my selfness, the core of me, was crucified, without pain or permission—the agony postponed. My re-creation of selfness, my pursuit of that which was stolen and perverted through love and through fear is one of profound joy. This I that I am I have ripped from the womb of mediocrity and it will end because I will end, and I will end because it is over. Knowing that there can be no judgement other than my own, I intend to live my life in neither intimidation nor subservience, pandering neither to culture nor to history. Being hierarchies of winners and losers, they are simply that, playgrounds in a separate reality. I am, was, and will always be a young artist; Death is my only concession to age and death is only an inconvenience that will leave my work unfinished. My distance from the horizon has never wavered. I continue to exist on an unchanging arc of possibility. I would speak now of my one exquisite experience with transparency, that once and only orgasm of exile which rips one from the security and complacency of a past and future into the chaos of the eternal now. There is no return...the experience is overwhelming, the orgasm, explosive and inexplicable. There are no words, only the knowing that one must survive within a seismic shift of metaphor. I now exist on the other side of the mirror; the hierarchies of history and culture, incoherent. I have embraced failure—reward, a distant memory. I speak now from inevitability. Time is of no consequence. There is only now. I cannot project forward or back for they do not exist. What I was and what I will be is for the metaphors of others. I speak from the now for that is my amness. There is no other. Another event that requires no sequel to reinforce instruction occurred while viewing Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes: A pigeon alighted on Judith’s head and shat, thus proclaiming Art’s nothingness. Art, history, and culture exist within human solipsism. Humankind and its realities are artifacts and nothing is as it should or must be. Only the pigeon had the advantage to inform...Nature does not share our reality. The entire human condition is an invention. I find great beauty and horror in this enlightenment. We are both free and enslaved by choice. Religion, culture, Art, war, history—civilization, nothing, absolutely nothing, has to be the way it is. Humankind is a gestalt of many metaphors jockeying for the alpha position of reality; that image which flatters the majority in the mirror of possibility. The war for position is engaged ceaselessly on battlefields of live or die intensity bloody with error and circumvention. It is a winner take all conflagration where losers are slaughtered like flies on tongues salivating acid...What we accept is an accumulation of repeats. It is on the common battlefield of culture and art history that my conflict lies. It is their aura of inevitability that galls. But they, too, are artifacts, artificial and self-proclaimed arbiters of a synthetic intellectual systematization which imposes the smothering order of sameness protecting predictable repeat from the chaotic impulses of response and epiphany. Nothing must be the way it is—especially the bland mediocrity of processed thought. How contained and neatly packaged it is now where every programmed gesture becomes a new ism; how quickly dealt this one card deck, the avant-garde, the expected and demanded Ace in the play of hierarchies and linearities. Commerce and culture have homogenized into an inseparable putrescence fit only for blind consumption. Even irony—especially irony—has lost its edge. Vulgarity has outdistanced its subtlety. Only the culture and history itself lend credence to irony’s persistence. Art history, still enthralled with its reflection of masculine metaphors, continues to perceive itself as creator and anointer of movements and moments...this is irony of the highest order. Since 8/6/45 all metaphors of masculinity have been struggling to remain indelible as they fade into the palimpsest of evolution. History, by virtue of its definition in the human lexicon, is ironical in the extreme for it has failed to record its own demise. 8/6/45 was not a link like any other in a chain of linear recordation. It was the definitive event marking the end of history and the laying down of fossils. Art history has become the ultimate authority in the validation of artifacts and the culture dutifully collects these would be fossils for the presumptive proof of time’s linear progression. This retention of evidence has assumed a bathos bordering on pathology...But I am not a culture-maker, neither critic nor curator of artifacts or articles. I am an artist and must seek—or invent—the truth...and that, too, is an artifact. I search, then, for that which I have invented, an abstraction as ephemeral and duplicitous as I, myself, an invention layered invention upon invention, like fossils in sectioned complexity. As I descend this purpled plane, this triangle wedged between Art and history, their opposing forces press me smaller. Soon they will be rid of me, the who of me, leaving an ascending wedge of whatness to re-engage separation. This hourglass is the who and what of me, my life, my truth, my isness, and homogenization of Failure and Desire. I am in the time of strangers...Names no longer signify. Spaces have been emptied and refilled with unlined faces. Dark hair turned white and dark again. Genders shifted, sexes changed. Whos have turned to whats and back again. Dreams and memories have blurred boundaries of premonition. What is this schism of histories that has left me on one side of the horizon and culture on the other? Personal memory is my truth and all else is hearsay. Art demands this loyalty and I abide. This is not choice—it is abdication. If I subside, so be it. If I am lonely, so be it, for I reside among strangers...But I am not lonely; my perceived loneliness, an exclusivity of purpose. I sense I am wrestling with a chimera—a tactility of fabulous dimension, a reality more significant than my own life. I am dwarfed by it, attaining stature only through engagement. My life ended with it’s first embrace—and only then did my life begin. Now I know no other and am exalted in its suffocation. It is my isness and by it must I be measured. I expect nothing more...I demand nothing less. My whoness wanders the vaults of what might have been. So many choices and yet no choice at all. I have done what I am doing and rejoice in its possibility. Always there is failure, always there is possibility. Only in death can success find purchase...And still I am torn by history, by remembrance, by the idea of never being forgotten, to live on in my artifacts...And here lurks hope, that monstrous seducer, destroyer of the now, hope, grasping, snatching purveyor of misery and perpetuator of culture, enemy of Art. Culture demands allegiance and exacts punishment for non compliance. Art is its enemy and is a threat to any culture that must, by definition, be cumulative and hierarchical. Any defection or deviation is a depletion of authority, power, and control; a direct and unadulterated response to Art is anarchy. Art’s endurance and survival is serendipitous. It relies neither on cultural intimidation nor the recordation of history. It is free associating and catalytic affording any viewer, at any time, at any place, with any artifact the possibility for response exclusive of the culture-maker’s obsession for intimidation and indoctrination. My now is dominated by the parity of art and culture. They are become synonymous.This presents for me two questions: What difference does it make? And: What are you bitching about? My answer to the first question is: Because I am an artist...and my answer to the second: Because I am an artist. I revolt against enforced historicity—especially when there is no history to enforce; then it is tyranny, and then, as always, is now. Consensus is neo this and neo that. The distance between isms has shrunk to preposterous dimension. One can smell the fear and anticipation. History is being manufactured beyond draftsmanship and its frangibility is percussive. Our culture-makers would have us believe that “contemporary art stresses the importance of multiple coexisting interpretations and the role of the viewer’s perceptions in ‘completing’ the work.” This appears to be the law of first pretensions: the denial of vacuity and the con of altruism. From where comes this preening self-serving superiority to presume to know what art should be and the roles artist and viewer should play to “complete the work” and to complete what work? Obviously, “the work” refers to that of the culture-maker since it is he who has created the roles and set the rules for the continuing homogenization of art and culture. With his metaphors of investment and entertainment, Art is being vitiated from the inside out. “Art for fun and profit” is not my metaphor. It is this culture’s own. When culture-makers “discovered” the masses, art became just another stall in the marketplace. Viewing the now with the monocularity of a young artist with a 77 year old male homosexual is justified by their juxtaposition. The struggle for the furtherance of self has been similar and singular, a laminate of expansion and contraction to avoid cracking and crumbling. The desire to annihilate and erase has been experienced from both gay basher and critic. The intent of an insecure critic who commits an ignorant insecure hatchet attack review is no different from the ignorant, insecure, and bigoted rants of the homophobe. The desire to inflict pain and fear is the same. This is not a complaint—rather, perhaps, a clarification. A young artist, no less than a young person, is prepared for such assault and I, for one, have never met an old artist—only, perhaps, dead ones. But death can come at any age...even to critics and homophobes. The walking dead surround us. As I work this wall, my mind slips through the narrow throat of this descension onto the plain of possibility. New work is scattered and obtuse. I wander this wall as a familiar though it will not release me until failure is confirmed. What if there were nothing worth saving from a culture such as this that depends so heavily on history to commend it for having taken up time and space? Primarily this culture exists in magazines, photographs, reviews and bloated intellectualism...a belief system, really, that relys on wealth and intimidation. Art=culture...Culture=art. A simple, elegant equation. Unfortunately, it is a lie. It resembles Catholicism; all aspects are outsized, ritualized, and hierarchical...Whos beneath whats and small whats beneath larger whats, huge imposing galleries with huge imposing artifacts with huge imposing prices by artists with huge imposing names, all manufactured by huge imposing culture-movers with blind taste, all operating behind the humble non-self-serving, cultural metaphor of “...stressing the importance of multiple co-existing interpretations and the viewers perceptions in ‘completing’ the work.” This farce is so obviously naive—or devious—that it defies credibility. Just as Catholicism has nothing to do with Jesus, this cultural metaphor has nothing to do with Art. It is all bullshit and pomegranates, having only to do with commerce and commodification. Desire is the essence of human isness. Everything that I have ever been or will ever be springs from this single source, and from here springs history, culture, and Art. And each spawns artifacts and ideas; metaphors vying for survival. The human condition’s struggle for survival has been magnificent and, in the face of what is to come, erased.

  

Etrigan the Demon was mystically bound to his human host, Jason Blood, in an uneasy arrangement and they eventually made a compact to become more like each other. Blood became more like Etrigan and Etrigan, true to his demonic nature, became more like Etrigan as well. Etrigan believed men were little more than chariots of wrath by demons driven but were he more keenly aware of human nature, he might have known that men, when driven to fear, could transform each other into demons without resorting to magic.

 

In sociology, the term "folk devils" refers to people demonised by society for their deviant ways. Stanley Cohen described in his book how they may change their forms dramatically over time -- "the Mod, the Rocker, the Greaser, the student militant, the drug fiend, the vandal, the soccer hooligan, the hippy, the skinhead" -- but folk devils are always deemed by society to be "visible reminders of what we should not be". The naming and condemnation of the folk devil is part of the social control that takes place during a moral panic.

 

"Moral panics are expressions of disapproval, condemnation, or criticism, that arise every now and then to phenomenon, which could be defined as deviant," Cohen explained in an interview. "The moral part is the condemnation and social disapproval, and the panic is the element of hysteria and over reaction."

 

The moral panic label is earned when the controversy is blown all out of proportion in two ways: the incident itself is exaggerated and it is relatively minor in comparison with the major issues of the day. Cohen used the Mods and Rockers incident in England as a case study and the fact most would be blissfully unaware of that Sixties moral panic serves to illustrate just how overblown these short-lived incidences can be.

 

Cohen identified the three key elements necessary for a successful moral panic. "First, a suitable enemy: a soft target, easily denounced, with little power and preferably without even access to the battlefields of cultural politics." Next, "a suitable victim: someone with whom you can identify, someone who could have been and one day could be anybody." And finally, "a consensus that the beliefs or action being denounced were not insulated entities ('it's not only this') but integral parts of the society or else could (and would) be unless 'something was done'."

 

Once in the grip of a moral panic, the public and press bring such immense pressure upon the authorities to do something that previously unthinkable measures are considered acceptable.

 

Proposed solutions usually include casting out the folk devils (e.g. "… we must get rid of the Mods and Rockers by either driving them out, or by not letting them in the first place; we don't care where they go …"). Cohen wrote, "These demands echo the sanction of banishment used in tribal and other simpler communities, the same primal in-group aggression towards the deviant enshrined in our folklore by Westerns in which the outlaw is 'ridden out of town'."

 

But the primary danger during moral panics is legislative overreaction after the government is implored to take action. The Fifties panic over comic books serves as the perfect example.

 

"Comic books were an adaptable demon," wrote David Hadju. "While American patriots rallied to stop them from spreading unconventional and probably Communist ideas, a leader of the Socialist movement in the UK lead the English in a campaign to banish American comics" because "crime and horror comics served as tangible evidence of the monstrous vulgarity of American popular culture; they represented the sociopolitical plague of cultural imperialism."

 

The widespread disapproval of comic books made it easier for lawmakers to take action. A Gallup poll in 1954 revealed "some 70 percent of American adults said they believed that comic books deserved to be blamed for juvenile delinquency."

 

Laws were hastily proposed on both sides of the Atlantic to deal with the menace. "The legal engineering was wondrous in its variety, yet simple in its intent: to do something--anything--about those nasty comic books," Hadju wrote. "In January 1955, the British cabinet announced support for legislation to ban horror comics, ostensibly to reduce a potential impetus to crime, despite the fact that juvenile arrests were in decline throughout the UK. The resulting bill, called the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act, would prohibit the sale or the publication of 'horror comics' explicitly; in addition, it would bar all publications which 'would tend to incite or encourage to the commission of crimes or acts of violence or cruelty, or otherwise to corrupt, a child or young person into whole hands it might fall.'"

 

On the same day the British law passed, teachers at a Catholic school in Illinois had their students burn comics featuring those dangerously subversive characters, Superman and Captain Marvel.

 

"The comics business was collapsing under pressure not only from the schools, the churches, and the legislatures, but also from the distributors and the industry's own desperate, overzealous attempts to regulate itself. There were fewer and fewer comics to purchase, and those available were so bowdlerized that they were losing their idiosyncratic appeal to young people," Hadju noted. "Between 1954 and 1956, more than half the comic books on the newsstands disappeared; the number of titles published in the United States dropped from about 650 to some 250."

 

National/DC artist Carmine Infantino recounted, "It was like the plague. The work dried up, and you had nowhere to go, because comics were a dirty word. You couldn't say you were a comics artist, and you had nothing to put in your portfolio. If you said you drew comic books, it was like saying you were a child molester."

 

Cohen made it plain moral panics over deviant behaviour caused by new and therefore suspect media forms are mainly driven by more traditional media in the business of highlighting deviance e.g. "sensational crimes, scandals, bizarre happenings and strange goings on."

 

Cohen wrote, "It is largely created by the media: no media – no moral panic. The media are carriers of moral panics, which they either initiate themselves, or they carry the message of other groups."

 

However, he also noted, "The media play a disingenuous game. They know that their audiences are exposed to multiple meanings and respond differently to the 'same' message. They use this knowledge to support their indignation that they could have any malignant effect; they forget this when they start another round of simple-minded blaming of others. The powerful, increasingly homogenized and corporate news media blame other media forms. But their own effect is the most tangible and powerful, shaping the populist discourse and political agenda-setting."

 

A classic example of the press playing this disingenuous game of blaming other media forms could be seen in the aftermath of Orson Welles's War of the Worlds radio broadcast. This was a minor incident which was exaggerated by a press threatened by a new medium competing with it for attention and advertising.

 

W. Joseph Campbell wrote, "… by 1938, radio's immediacy in bringing news to Americans had become all-too apparent, and troubling, to newspapers." The newspapermen had a very low opinion of radio and an even lower opinion of its listeners. The Chicago Tribune sniffed, "Perhaps it would be more tactful to say that some members of the radio audience are a trifle retarded mentally, and that many a program is prepared for their consumption." The newspaper trade journal Editor and Publisher dispensed with 1930s tact and simply warned "the nation as a whole continues to face the danger of incomplete, misunderstood news over a medium which has yet to prove, even to itself, that it is competent to perform the news job."

 

The irony is incompetent newspaper coverage of the War of the Worlds panic was accepted credulously for decades. Campbell wrote, "Inaccurate reporting gave rise to a misleading historical narrative and produced a savory and resilient media-driven myth." As a measure of just how resilient this media myth was, The New York Times repeated the radio panic narrative in 2019 -- a mere 10 days after pointing out it was a media-driven myth.

 

Although it's generally assumed moral panics are bad, Cohen suggested it was sometimes desirable to foment a moral panic over serious issues to call public attention to them. Yet the typical moral panic detracts from more serious concerns.

 

"The pathetic ease and gullibility with which the mass media are lured into conventional moral panics may be contrasted to the deep denial behind their refusal to sustain a moral panic about torture, political massacres or social suffering in distant places," Cohen wrote.

 

"This is why moral panics are condensed political struggles to control the means of cultural reproduction," he explained. "It also allows us to identify and conceptualize the lines of power in any society, the ways we are manipulated into taking some things too seriously and other things not seriously enough."

 

Matters aren't helped in this regard by the involvement of moral crusaders -- "the Mary Whitehouses, the Lord Longfords, the Cyril Blacks". They share in common a "single-mindedness, dedication, self-righteousness, a tendency to exaggerate grossly and over-simplify even more so."

 

According to Cohen, "The crusader is moved by righteous indignation as well as self-interest. Unlike the pragmatist, he sees the action as a 'cause' or a 'mission' and he sees the enterprise as continuing even after the short-term goals are achieved. Indeed, objective evidence means little to him …" It's very much in the interests of the moral crusaders to perpetuate the moral panic in order to raise their profile and justify their own actions.

 

Although Cohen did not address it in his book, it's also possible moral panics could be used as a cynical political strategy. For instance, political operatives and their media accomplices could turn supporters of a rival political candidate into folk devils to smear that candidate by association. One imagines this approach could well succeed in a political contest but might backfire spectacularly in a later election. Moral panics tend to benefit demagogues who thrive in a climate of fear.

 

If there's a tendency by the media and moral crusaders to overreact and turn minor incidents into moral panics, there is also a tendency by their critics to dismiss any issue as a moral panic to downplay its seriousness. Cohen wrote, "For cultural liberals (today's 'cosmopolitans'), this was an opportunity to condemn moral entrepreneurs, to sneer at their small-mindedness, puritanism or intolerance; for political radicals, these were easy targets, the soft side of hegemony or elite interests."

 

Cohen noted "the term has been used by left liberals (and their sociological cronies) to undermine conservative ideologies and popular anxieties by labelling their concerns as irrational." He added, "We cannot expect to find conservatives trying to expose liberal or radical concerns as being 'moral panics.'" That failed to anticipate the possibility the far-left might turn puritanical once it wholeheartedly embraced politics as a substitute for religion and would go on to police culture with all the zeal of the new convert. The modern moral panic is just as likely to be driven by the "small-mindedness, puritanism and intolerance" of the left as it is of the right.

 

"Between 1984 and 1991 (inclusive) there were about 8 citations of 'moral panic' in the UK newspapers; then 25 in 1992, then a sudden leap to 145 in 1993. From 1994 to 2001, the average was at 109 per year," Cohen wrote.

 

This increased awareness doesn't mean the public is going to be any less susceptible to moral panics. Indeed, there might be more of them as the economic, geographical and cultural separation of the haves and the have-nots grows ever greater. "As long as there is not one single set of moral values across a whole society, there will always be these episodes of moral panic," Cohen concluded.

 

It doesn't necessarily have to be that way. If moral panics are primarily caused by media-amplified fearmongering campaigns, the solution is to overcome that fear by refusing to give in to it. When confronted by a media-constructed folk devil, simply place it in proper context to diminish its exaggerated power. The final step is to swallow your fear. It may be easier than it seems. As Etrigan once observed, "Fear, no matter how small it has grown, retains a certain flavor of its own."

2005-2007

80" x 96"

Colored pencil, graphite, acrylic on wood panels

 

Collection:

Crocker Art Museum

 

(Robert Cremean: Metaphor and Process, the video, may be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgrxW8xSvrA)

 

Hereafter is a transcription of the handwritten text on the diptych above:

 

ECCE HOMO

 

This is as it is. Behold me. I am you, a reflection in the artist’s eye; and as I see you, myself, I reflect on our condition. Ecce homo. I do not wash my hands of responsibility. I embrace it. It is not for me to judge. I am a simple craftsman of recordation and as an artist I am pledged to record what I see. This is neither excuse nor evasion; rather, a simple statement of isness. I accept full responsibility for my reflection. This is what I see. If what I see is viewed as judgement, this is a reflection of the beholder. As I accept responsibility as artist, I expect the beholder to accept his. We meet only on this plane of shared reflection. Only here does intimacy occur free of interpretation, cultural catechism and correctness. If you insist on encumbering yourself in the armor of cultural correctness, your performance here will be clumsy and predictable. In a sense, sensuality on this plane is similar to sexual intimidation. Your ability to perform and to penetrate lies within your bourn of possibility. If you predetermine my limitations by your reflection, our mirror will remain opaque, your image obscured, and your subservience to cultural and historical prudery reified. I have the disinterest of a whore. It is not my business to guarantee gratification. I can only service the possibility. Consider the compass of our sexuality; setting the due male North, the due female South, the due homosexual male West, and the due female homosexual East creates a 360° horizon of infinite possibility. Although the magnetic North has always determined the direction of human entelechy, that entelechy has a 360º choice of direction. Due North is no longer viable. That way lies oblivion. This is as it is. The diameter stretches from due East to due West, a horizontal demarcation between life and death. The arrow points South, a 180º shift of our vision of expectation. We must establish now an entirely new triangle of possibility, a state of being shorn of masculine hegemony, an oppositeness of all that was and all that was always expected to be. All of masculine entelechy has become toxic. The entire hemisphere must be abandoned. As we continue to explore the sphere of human possibility, the Northern Hemisphere with its redundancies and repetitious predictability is barren of resource, hackneyed and clichéd. It has been exploited ad nauseum and further indulgence threatens continuance. If we, the explorers of human entelechy, were to turn 180º to confront possibility rather than repeat, what new discoveries and alternatives might be presented. What new metaphors might flower in the nourishing soil of oppositeness...through technology, masculine necessity is redundant; only his metaphors continue to control the human condition. War, religion, commerce, history, tradition—this gestalt of metaphors which make masculine human reality is no longer viable. We must turn our back on death and face a new world for survival and fecundity. What the Masculine has made finite, the feminine must make possible. The alternative is repetition unto oblivion. A 90º shift to the West on the horizon of possibility is now credible; the homosexual male can replace the heterosexual masculine in all ways including, through technology, reproduction of the species. It is the unexplored West that pulls tight the severing horizon line on the vertical axis of Masculine redundancy. The remaining poles of diversity which describe the human compass present an infinity of possibilities for the survival of all species and the nourishing planet. As the technology of death advances beyond the stasis of masculine gestalt, humankind can no longer tolerate the immutability of mankind’s Isness. If we continue to define ourselves in the mirror of masculine redundancy, our extinction is assured. The severing horizontal diameter of the East/West homosexual horizon offers the human condition the rationale for redrawing the maps of possibility. Through decapitation of the necrophagous North, an entire frontier of new metaphors based on other gendered realities would be explored. Ecce Homo. As I view the simplistic vertical axis of staff and distaff, the linear reality of repetition is entropy, a metastasis of boredom and predictability of repeat. Inevitability is the saddest of life’s consequences. 8/6/45. I am an artist at the end of history. In this final concentric ripple of linear time, the confusion is noisome, an explosion of masculine frustration and hypocrisy. Man’s surrogate, god, is everywhere, an excuse for slaughter, pillage and destruction. Art is a frantic recordation of nihility to support a culture our culture-makers can no longer create. Information and intimidation have unnerved personal response and we eat what we are fed and live in fantasy and fabrication pretending to a culture that does not exist. We claim that what Is is not and what is not Is. Our drift into entropy and stasis has created an illusion of movement as the groove of repetition digs deeper and deeper our blind addiction to a necrophagous gestalt. Situated on the East/West homosexual horizon, I view the possibility for human extension by the light of a setting sun. I cast my glance at what has been, not as historical accumulation but as evidence of what might be because it always was. The compass of human Isness is dominated by the magnetic arrow of a due masculine imperative. The arrow now points toward death. The pointer must be demagnetized so that the compass can be turned without the constant insistence of a dogmatic actuality. The monocularity of this actuality has erased the horizon line and replaced it with a single and simplistic vanishing point. Infinity. This ignorance of the sensual curvature of the sphere of human possibility makes phobic the human condition and toxic our repetitive diminution into entropy. As an artist, I find perspective to be the most complex and challenging of the many disciplines of Making. What one sees, how one sees, and how one relates that which is seen, is an artist’s statement. Further, perspective is for the artist a monocular though ever-shifting viewpoint of a multidimensional universe, an examination of interior and exterior landscapes as seen through the dual silvered mirror of self. The way he sees, his so-called “style,” is an admission of limitation rather than an academic virtue of cultural and historical value. For me, the most fascinating discovery was the difference between Greek and Roman perspective wherein Roman or scientific perspective establishes the vanishing points on the horizon whereas Greek perspective implants the vanishing point within the mind of the viewer. The philosophical difference is explosive, separating the masculine hemisphere from the feminine along the homosexual diameter of the sphere of comprehension. By placing the vanishing point within the bourn of the viewer, humankind’s exploration of Isness is internalized and enlarged through a demystification of the masculine horizon. Objects and concepts are adjusted to the expanding interior universe as they pass through the lens of human understanding. It is the inner world of human possibility that incubates reality rather than obdurate dogmas and rote that inculcate fear of self-discovery through the imposition of unquestionable answers. Metaphors and concepts are diminished as they pass through the lens; their viability, objectified. They assume human proportion in terms of the reflecting curvature of the sphere. It is the viewer who commands the 360º horizon of human possibility from the infinity of centered entelechy. Because objects and concepts enlarge as they recede from the eyes of the viewer, Greek perspective, by placing the vanishing point within the bourn of human perception, affirms humanity’s absoluteness in terms of unique Isness. Ecce Humanitas. By spanning the horizon across dual lobes of perception, the focus of human need is internalized according to interpretation. By this process is reality created and communicated through metaphor. I embrace chaos. My desire to shear the magnetic needle of cultural/historical imperium from the compass of possibility fuels my enterprise. Every viewer has choice. Response cannot be forced regardless of critical intervention or cultural intimidation. Your being here with me on this plane at this time commits us to nothing. If, by chance, esthetic orgasm occurs, your release confirms your existence on this plane. I will never know you as I have never known you. I am an object if conveyance, nothing more. This plane confirms your existence—not mine. Only in the act of making do I exist. Only on this plane do I convey. The orgasm is yours. You have created me in your desire for creation. And on this plane, you are the creator. You are creating yourself. And this is Art. And the creating of Art is the essence of human Isness. It is the pinnacle of our reality. No artist aspires to the creation of Art; he is enveloped in the process of Making. This process is circumstantial to the viewer and his creation. Through making, the artist creates himself. Through response, the viewer may experience epiphany. Whether the responder can or will demagnetize the needle of hegemonic gestalt and embrace the chaos of self-creation is not the maker’s concern; it lies within the bourn of the creator.... I, the maker, have attended this plane time after innumerable time. This is a place I have known always and yet is always unknown. There is no place more mysterious and exotic than this foreign place. Here, I am always a stranger. I come here to create shadows out of pure light. I come here to destroy my face. I come here to create a stranger. If my enterprise here is successful, my failure is worthy of return. Here, on this plane of paradox where viewer becomes creator, anarchy is born. The chimera of hierarchy is dissolved into noisome pixels of deposed authority. Silence erases dimension and actuality reforms to a palimpsest of alternate realities. always the way it was becomes always the way it is and always the way it might have been and always the way it might be. Always there is choice. Always there is choice until a final choice is made. Ecce humanitas.... I speak now for myself as maker, as skater across a seamless and boundless plane of light, a single glide of ever increasing weightlessness and space. There is no sound, there are no shadows. I remember only the future. The unforgiving coldness of this place inflames me. I embrace it as it enfolds me. As it has always enfolded me. I am in and of its vacuity and provoke its indifference. I would be recognized but shun all that would recognize me. I skate this plane like one pursued by shame, erasing, and honing my blades against distraction and obstruction, clearing and cutting a path through the shadowless light. I am dissolved by light and hidden in its brilliance. The light has eaten my edges and destroyed definition. Do not seek me here. I am finished with it. Only you, the viewer, responder, perhaps creator can define this space. For me, it has become a weighted opacity, an artifact of indifference. As this triangle impends to infinity, the ghosts of new work present themselves. As I prepare to leave this plane, they will consort me. It is they who have prepared my next place of encounter which is this same place...which I will not recognize. I sense their presence. I know they are here, pressing altering, shifting their weights and contours in spasms of peripheral excitation, creases and undulations in the light. These glimpses are the essence of Greek perspective. I grasp their enormity as they distance themselves in ambiguity. As my desire enlarges, my hand is hastened in anticipation. I must quit this plane before they materialize, before objectification. They yearn for closure. They seek unbroken light as this plane layers, a triplicity of past, present and future, a scumbled erasure of recordation. Stains of the past cavort with ghosts of the future on the labored plane of the present in a noise of absence, a clamor of silence. Completion becomes an auto-da-fé, an execution enforcing conversion. An admission, of sorts, that the plane of the Future could not be homogenized beyond recognition. My failure can only be rectified by the creator. Purity exists only in his response and ever and always I, the maker, remain senseless of creation. I search not so that others can find. There is no selflessness in my production. I make only to free myself of repetition, to free myself of linearity and history and compilation. I long to create absence...to be free of evidence...to be pure light...to exist in orgasm and epiphany. To destroy my face. Recognition repels me. I court no audience and leave this plane to its creator. Only through his creations will I be erased. By his self-creation are we become light. As the triplicity tilts more and more this plane toward the future, the present bends into a shadowing and weighted past. It can no longer sustain purchase. I, the maker, must enforce the present on this plane of possibility through the reification of light. I cannot erase the stains of the past from this bent and bended plane; they are beyond redemption. In order to retain balance and achieve departure, I must restrict peripheral vision and banish ghosts of the future to their predestination. Narrow is the way to withdrawal from this emptied space. No curiosity attends my departure as to its future occupancy. If I, the maker, have furnished this space and enhanced its capacity for occupation, then my stripping of self has served further purpose. This plane, for me, has entered into palimpsest and erasure. My success will once again be measured in the unforgiving light of failure on a new plane in a foreign place in the paradox of self-creation...Ecce Humanitas. The triangle descends from the horizon of east/west diversity to its apex of direction pointing toward survival on the compass of human possibility. The imperium of masculine gestalt must be castrated, the directive needle de-magnetized, the reality of repeat annihilated. In redundancy, mankind must learn to destroy its face, its mask which was never a face whose empty sockets stare blindly toward a future which is no future which is neither past nor present but the end of time and dimension and all things measurable, which is the completion of direction and directive, which is the end of the human experiment and the fulfillment of prophecy which was no prophecy but, rather, the obfuscation of process. An excuse for inevitability, the obviousness of conclusion. Ecce homo.

   

I passed under the shade of The Bendy Tree for 25 years, more than half of the time I have been alive.

 

In the early days of my time in this neighborhood, I carried a coffin to The Bendy Tree and hundreds of us held an open-casket funeral there for a remarkable East Villager, back in the days when alarmed cops were still capable of making room for alarming things. We were adamant about passing, so the police blocked First Avenue for our procession, and granted us several police-free hours in the park.

 

For years I burned incense under The Bendy Tree, and left flowers, in memory of my friend.

 

Later, whenever death entered my life, I went to The Bendy Tree. I left beads and feathers, photos, letters. As it turned out, there were many memorials there over the years, and not just mine.

 

This weekend my dog and I went to visit The Bendy Tree and discovered a ridiculous police cordon, surrounded by red crime scene tape. A small official notice from an "arborist" declared that the tree had been determined to be "structurally unsound."

 

Many years ago, in true East Villager fashion, The Bendy Tree decided to start heading off THAT way. In perfect alignment with the gentrified and homogenized new East Village, the eccentric tree was cordoned off and condemned to death.

 

I found myself unexpectedly upset, as if this tree represented the last reminder of everything I had once loved about the neighborhood. I went home after taking this picture, despondent, but saw a message from Reverend Billy, inviting people to come out for a night of prayers and songs for The Bendy Tree.

This milk hasn't been homogenized so tomorrow morning when I take it out of the regfrigerator I'll see a layer of delicious fat at the top of my milk bottle.

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.

 

The Palace of Versailles is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about 19 kilometers (12 mi) west of Paris, France.

 

The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, under the direction of the French Ministry of Culture, by the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles. About 15,000,000 people visit the palace, park, or gardens of Versailles every year, making it one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world.

 

Louis XIII built a simple hunting lodge on the site of the Palace of Versailles in 1623. With his death came Louis XIV who expanded the château into the beginnings of a palace that went through several changes and phases from 1661 to 1715. It was a favorite residence for both kings, and in 1682, Louis XIV moved the seat of his court and government to Versailles, making the palace the de facto capital of France. This state of affairs was continued by Kings Louis XV and Louis XVI, who primarily made interior alterations to the palace, but in 1789 the royal family and capital of France returned to Paris. For the rest of the French Revolution, the Palace of Versailles was largely abandoned and emptied of its contents, and the population of the surrounding city plummeted.

 

Napoleon, following his coronation as Emperor, used Versailles as a summer residence from 1810 to 1814, but did not restore it. Following the Bourbon Restoration, when the king was returned to the throne, he resided in Paris and it was not until the 1830s that meaningful repairs were made to the palace. A museum of French history was installed within it, replacing the apartments of the southern wing.

 

The palace and park were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979 for its importance as the center of power, art, and science in France during the 17th and 18th centuries. The French Ministry of Culture has placed the palace, its gardens, and some of its subsidiary structures on its list of culturally significant monuments.

 

History

Main article: History of the Palace of Versailles

An engraving of Louis XIII's château as it appeared in 1652

Versailles around 1652, engraving by Jacques Gomboust [fr]

In 1623, Louis XIII, King of France, built a hunting lodge on a hill in a favorite hunting ground, 19 kilometers (12 mi) west of Paris and 16 kilometers (10 mi) from his primary residence, the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye The site, near a village named Versailles, was a wooded wetland that Louis XIII's court scorned as being generally unworthy of a king; one of his courtiers, François de Bassompierre, wrote that the lodge "would not inspire vanity in even the simplest gentleman". From 1631 to 1634, architect Philibert Le Roy replaced the lodge with a château for Louis XIII, who forbade his queen, Anne of Austria, from staying there overnight, even when an outbreak of smallpox at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1641 forced Louis XIII to relocate to Versailles with his three-year-old heir, the future Louis XIV.

 

When Louis XIII died in 1643, Anne became Louis XIV's regent, and Louis XIII's château was abandoned for the next decade. She moved the court back to Paris, where Anne and her chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, continued Louis XIII's unpopular monetary practices. This led to the Fronde, a series of revolts against royal authority from 1648 to 1653 that masked a struggle between Mazarin and the princes of the blood, Louis XIV's extended family, for influence over him. In the aftermath of the Fronde, Louis XIV became determined to rule alone. Following Mazarin's death in 1661, Louis XIV reformed his government to exclude his mother and the princes of the blood, moved the court back to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and ordered the expansion of his father's château at Versailles into a palace.

 

Louis XIV had hunted at Versailles in the 1650s, but did not take any special interest in Versailles until 1661. On 17 August 1661, Louis XIV was a guest at a sumptuous festival hosted by Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances, at his palatial residence, the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte. Louis XIV was impressed by the château and its gardens, which were the work of Louis Le Vau, the court architect since 1654, André Le Nôtre, the royal gardener since 1657, and Charles Le Brun, a painter in royal service since 1647. Vaux-le-Vicomte's scale and opulence inspired Louis XIV's aesthetic sense, but also led him to imprison Fouquet that September, as he had also built an island fortress and a private army. Louis XIV was also inspired by Vaux-le-Vicomte, and he recruited its authors for his own projects. Louis XIV replaced Fouquet with Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a protégé of Mazarin and enemy of Fouquet, and charged him with managing the corps of artisans in royal employment. Colbert acted as the intermediary between them and Louis XIV, who personally directed and inspected the planning and construction of Versailles.

 

Construction

Work at Versailles was at first concentrated on gardens, and through the 1660s, Le Vau only added two detached service wings and a forecourt to the château. But in 1668–69, as a response to the growth of the gardens, and victory over Spain in the War of Devolution, Louis XIV decided to turn Versailles into a full-scale royal residence. He vacillated between replacing or incorporating his father's château, but settled on the latter by the end of the decade, and from 1668 to 1671, Louis XIII's château was encased on three sides in a feature dubbed the enveloppe. This gave the château a new, Italianate façade overlooking the gardens, but preserved the courtyard façade, resulting in a mix of styles and materials that dismayed Louis XIV and that Colbert described as a "patchwork". Attempts to homogenize the two façades failed, and in 1670 Le Vau died, leaving the post of First Architect to the King vacant for the next seven years.

 

Le Vau was succeeded at Versailles by his assistant, architect François d'Orbay. Work at the palace during the 1670s focused on its interiors, as the palace was then nearing completion, though d'Orbay expanded Le Vau's service wings and connected them to the château, and built a pair of pavilions for government employees in the forecourt. In 1670, d'Orbay was tasked by Louis XIV with designing a city, also called Versailles, to house and service Louis XIV's growing government and court. The granting of land to courtiers for the construction of townhouses that resembled the palace began in 1671. The next year, the Franco-Dutch War began and funding for Versailles was cut until 1674, when Louis XIV had work begun on the Ambassadors' Staircase , a grand staircase for the reception of guests, and demolished the last of the village of Versailles.

 

Following the end of the Franco-Dutch War with French victory in 1678, Louis XIV appointed as First Architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart, an experienced architect in Louis XIV's confidence, who would benefit from a restored budget and large workforce of former soldiers. Mansart began his tenure with the addition from 1678 to 1681 of the Hall of Mirrors, a renovation of the courtyard façade of Louis XIII's château, and the expansion of d'Orbay's pavilions to create the Ministers' Wings in 1678–79. Adjacent to the palace, Mansart built a pair of stables called the Grande and Petite Écuries from 1679 to 1682 and the Grand Commun, which housed the palace's servants and general kitchens, from 1682 to 1684. Mansart also added two entirely new wings in Le Vau's Italianate style to house the court, first at the south end of the palace from 1679 to 1681 and then at its north end from 1685 to 1689.

 

War and the resulting diminished funding slowed construction at Versailles for the rest of the 17th century. The Nine Years' War, which began in 1688, stopped work altogether until 1698. Three years later, however, the even more expensive War of the Spanish Succession began and, combined with poor harvests in 1693–94 and 1709–10, plunged France into crisis. Louis XIV thus slashed funding and canceled some of the work Mansart had planned in the 1680s, such as the remodeling of the courtyard façade in the Italianate style. Louis XIV and Mansart focused on a permanent palace chapel, the construction of which lasted from 1699 to 1710.

 

Louis XIV's successors, Louis XV and Louis XVI, largely left Versailles as they inherited it and focused on the palace's interiors. Louis XV's modifications began in the 1730s, with the completion of the Salon d'Hercule, a ballroom in the north wing, and the expansion of the king's private apartment, which required the demolition of the Ambassadors' Staircase In 1748, Louis XV began construction of a palace theater, the Royal Opera of Versailles at the northernmost end of the palace, but completion was delayed until 1770; construction was interrupted in the 1740s by the War of the Austrian Succession and then again in 1756 with the start of the Seven Years' War. These wars emptied the royal treasury and thereafter construction was mostly funded by Madame du Barry, Louis XV's favorite mistress. In 1771, Louis XV had the northern Ministers' Wing rebuilt in Neoclassical style by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, his court architect, as it was in the process of falling down. That work was also stopped by financial constraints, and it remained incomplete when Louis XV died in 1774. In 1784, Louis XVI briefly moved the royal family to the Château de Saint-Cloud ahead of more renovations to the Palace of Versailles, but construction could not begin because of financial difficulty and political crisis. In 1789, the French Revolution swept the royal family and government out of Versailles forever.

 

Role in politics and culture

The Palace of Versailles was key to Louis XIV's politics, as an expression and concentration of French art and culture, and for the centralization of royal power. Louis XIV first used Versailles to promote himself with a series of nighttime festivals in its gardens in 1664, 1668, and 1674, the events of which were disseminated throughout Europe by print and engravings. As early as 1669, but especially from 1678, Louis XIV sought to make Versailles his seat of government, and he expanded the palace so as to fit the court within it. The moving of the court to Versailles did not come until 1682, however, and not officially, as opinion on Versailles was mixed among the nobility of France.

 

By 1687, however, it was evident to all that Versailles was the de facto capital of France, and Louis XIV succeeded in attracting the nobility to Versailles to pursue prestige and royal patronage within a strict court etiquette, thus eroding their traditional provincial power bases. It was at the Palace of Versailles that Louis XIV received the Doge of Genoa, Francesco Maria Imperiale Lercari in 1685, an embassy from the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1686, and an embassy from Safavid Iran in 1715.[

 

Louis XIV died at Versailles on 1 September 1715 and was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV, then the duke of Anjou, who was moved to Vincennes and then to Paris by Louis XV's regent, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. Versailles was neglected until 1722, when Philippe II removed the court to Versailles to escape the unpopularity of his regency, and when Louis XV began his majority. The 1722 move, however, broke the cultural power of Versailles, and during the reign of Louis XVI, courtiers spent their leisure in Paris, not Versailles.

 

During Christmas 1763, Mozart and his family visited Versailles and dined with the kings. The 7-year-old Mozart played several works during his stay and later dedicated his first two harpsichord sonatas, published in 1764 in Paris, to Madame Victoria, daughter of Louis XV.

 

In 1783, the palace was the site of the signing of the last two of the three treaties of the Peace of Paris (1783), which ended the American Revolutionary War. On September 3, British and American delegates, led by Benjamin Franklin, signed the Treaty of Paris at the Hôtel d'York (now 56 Rue Jacob) in Paris, granting the United States independence. On September 4, Spain and France signed separate treaties with England at the Palace of Versailles, formally ending the war.

 

The King and Queen learned of the Storming of the Bastille in Paris on 14 July 1789, while they were at the palace, and remained isolated there as the Revolution in Paris spread. The growing anger in Paris led to the Women's March on Versailles on 5 October 1789. A crowd of several thousand men and women, protesting the high price and scarcity of bread, marched from the markets of Paris to Versailles. They took weapons from the city armory, besieged the palace, and compelled the King and royal family and the members of the National Assembly to return with them to Paris the following day.

 

As soon as the royal family departed, the palace was closed. In 1792, the National Convention, the new revolutionary government, ordered the transfer of all the paintings and sculptures from the palace to the Louvre. In 1793, the Convention declared the abolition of the monarchy and ordered all of the royal property in the palace to be sold at auction. The auction took place between 25 August 1793 and 11 August 1794. The furnishings and art of the palace, including the furniture, mirrors, baths, and kitchen equipment, were sold in seventeen thousand lots. All fleurs-de-lys and royal emblems on the buildings were chambered or chiseled off. The empty buildings were turned into a storehouse for furnishings, art and libraries confiscated from the nobility. The empty grand apartments were opened for tours beginning in 1793, and a small museum of French paintings and art school was opened in some of the empty rooms.

 

By virtue of an order issued by the Versailles district directorate in August 1794, the Royal Gate was destroyed, the Cour Royale was cleared and the Cour de Marbre lost its precious floor.

 

19th century – history museum and government venue

When Napoleon became Emperor of the French in 1804, he considered making Versailles his residence but abandoned the idea because of the cost of the renovation. Prior to his marriage with Marie-Louise in 1810, he had the Grand Trianon restored and refurnished as a springtime residence for himself and his family, in the style of furnishing that it is seen today.

 

In 1815, with the final downfall of Napoleon, Louis XVIII, the younger brother of Louis XVI, became King, and considered returning the royal residence to Versailles, where he had been born. He ordered the restoration of the royal apartments, but the task and cost was too great. Louis XVIII had the far end of the south wing of the Cour Royale demolished and rebuilt (1814–1824) to match the Gabriel wing of 1780 opposite, which gave greater uniformity of appearance to the front entrance. Neither he nor his successor Charles X lived at Versailles.

 

The French Revolution of 1830 brought a new monarch, Louis-Philippe to power, and a new ambition for Versailles. He did not reside at Versailles but began the creation of the Museum of the History of France, dedicated to "all the glories of France", which had been used to house some members of the royal family. The museum was begun in 1833 and inaugurated on 30 June 1837. Its most famous room is the Galerie des Batailles (Hall of Battles), which lies on most of the length of the second floor of the south wing. The museum project largely came to a halt when Louis Philippe was overthrown in 1848, though the paintings of French heroes and great battles still remain in the south wing.

 

Emperor Napoleon III used the palace on occasion as a stage for grand ceremonies. One of the most lavish was the banquet that he hosted for Queen Victoria in the Royal Opera of Versailles on 25 August 1855.

 

During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, the palace was occupied by the general staff of the victorious German Army. Parts of the château, including the Gallery of Mirrors, were turned into a military hospital. The creation of the German Empire, combining Prussia and the surrounding German states under William I, was formally proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors on 18 January 1871. The Germans remained in the palace until the signing of the armistice in March 1871. In that month, the government of the new Third French Republic, which had departed Paris during the War for Tours and then Bordeaux, moved into the palace. The National Assembly held its meetings in the Opera House.

 

The uprising of the Paris Commune in March 1871, prevented the French government, under Adolphe Thiers, from returning immediately to Paris. The military operation which suppressed the Commune at the end of May was directed from Versailles, and the prisoners of the Commune were marched there and put on trial in military courts. In 1875 a second parliamentary body, the French Senate, was created and held its meetings for the election of a President of the Republic in a new hall created in 1876 in the south wing of the palace. The French Senate continues to meet in the palace on special occasions, such as the amendment of the French Constitution.

 

20th century

The end of the 19th and the early 20th century saw the beginning of restoration efforts at the palace, first led by Pierre de Nolhac, poet and scholar and the first conservator, who began his work in 1892. The conservation and restoration were interrupted by two world wars but have continued until the present day.

 

The palace returned to the world stage in June 1919, when, after six months of negotiations, the Treaty of Versailles, formally ending the First World War, was signed in the Hall of Mirrors. Between 1925 and 1928, the American philanthropist and multi-millionaire John D. Rockefeller, Jr. gave $2,166,000, the equivalent of about thirty million dollars today, to restore and refurbish the palace.

 

More work took place after World War II, with the restoration of the Royal Opera of Versailles. The theater was reopened in 1957, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

 

In 1978, parts of the palace were heavily damaged in a bombing committed by Breton terrorists.

 

Starting in the 1950s, when the museum of Versailles was under the directorship of Gérald van der Kemp, the objective was to restore the palace to its state – or as close to it as possible – in 1789 when the royal family left the palace. Among the early projects was the repair of the roof over the Hall of Mirrors; the publicity campaign brought international attention to the plight of post-war Versailles and garnered much foreign money including a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

 

One of the more costly endeavors for the museum and France's Fifth Republic has been to repurchase as much of the original furnishings as possible. Consequently, because furniture with a royal provenance – and especially furniture that was made for Versailles – is a highly sought-after commodity on the international market, the museum has spent considerable funds on retrieving much of the palace's original furnishings.

 

21st century

In 2003, a new restoration initiative – the "Grand Versailles" project – was started, which began with the replanting of the gardens, which had lost over 10,000 trees during Cyclone Lothar on 26 December 1999. One part of the initiative, the restoration of the Hall of Mirrors, was completed in 2006. Another major project was the further restoration of the backstage areas of the Royal Opera of Versailles in 2007 to 2009.

 

The Palace of Versailles is currently owned by the French state. Its formal title is the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles. Since 1995, it has been run as a Public Establishment, with an independent administration and management supervised by the French Ministry of Culture.

 

The grounds of the palace will host the equestrian competition during the 2024 Summer Olympics.

 

Architecture and plan

The Palace of Versailles is a visual history of French architecture from the 1630s to the 1780s. Its earliest portion, the corps de logis, was built for Louis XIII in the style of his reign with brick, marble, and slate, which Le Vau surrounded in the 1660s with Enveloppe, an edifice that was inspired by Renaissance-era Italian villas. When Mansart made further expansions to the palace in the 1680s, he used the Enveloppe as the model for his work. Neoclassical additions were made to the palace with the remodeling of the Ministers' Wings in the 1770s, by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, and after the Bourbon Restoration.

 

The palace was largely completed by the death of Louis XIV in 1715. The eastern facing palace has a U-shaped layout, with the corps de logis and symmetrical advancing secondary wings terminating with the Dufour Pavilion on the south and the Gabriel Pavilion to the north, creating an expansive cour d'honneur known as the Royal Court (Cour Royale). Flanking the Royal Court are two enormous asymmetrical wings that result in a façade of 402 metres (1,319 ft) in length. Covered by around a million square feet (10 hectares) of roof, the palace has 2,143 windows, 1,252 chimneys, and 67 staircases.[

 

The palace and its grounds have had a great influence on architecture and horticulture from the mid-17th century to the end of the 18th century. Examples of works influenced by Versailles include Christopher Wren's work at Hampton Court Palace, Berlin Palace, the Palace of La Granja, Stockholm Palace, Ludwigsburg Palace, Karlsruhe Palace, Rastatt Palace, Nymphenburg Palace, Schleissheim Palace, and Esterházy Palace.

 

Royal Apartments

The construction in 1668–1671 of Le Vau's enveloppe around the outside of Louis XIII's red brick and white stone château added state apartments for the king and the queen. The addition was known at the time as the château neuf (new château). The grands appartements (Grand Apartments, also referred to as the State Apartments[141][142]) include the grand appartement du roi and the grand appartement de la reine. They occupied the main or principal floor of the château neuf, with three rooms in each apartment facing the garden to the west and four facing the garden parterres to the north and south, respectively. The private apartments of the king (the appartement du roi and the petit appartement du roi) and those of the queen (the petit appartement de la reine) remained in the château vieux (old château). Le Vau's design for the state apartments closely followed Italian models of the day, including the placement of the apartments on the main floor (the piano nobile, the next floor up from the ground level), a convention the architect borrowed from Italian palace design.

 

The king's State Apartment consisted of an enfilade of seven rooms, each dedicated to one of the known planets and their associated titular Roman deity. The queen's apartment formed a parallel enfilade with that of the grand appartement du roi. After the addition of the Hall of Mirrors (1678–1684) the king's apartment was reduced to five rooms (until the reign of Louis XV, when two more rooms were added) and the queen's to four.

 

The queen's apartments served as the residence of three queens of France – Marie-Thérèse d'Autriche, wife of Louis XIV, Marie Leczinska, wife of Louis XV, and Marie-Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI. Additionally, Louis XIV's granddaughter-in-law, Princess Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy, duchesse de Bourgogne, wife of the Petit Dauphin, occupied these rooms from 1697 (the year of her marriage) to her death in 1712.

 

Ambassador's Staircase

The Ambassadors' Staircase (Escalier des Ambassadeurs) was an imperial staircase built from 1674 to 1680 by d'Orbay. Until Louis XV had it demolished in 1752 to create a courtyard for his private apartments, the staircase was the primary entrance into the Palace of Versailles and the royal apartments especially. It was entered from the courtyard via a vestibule that, cramped and dark, contrasted greatly with the tall, open space of the staircase – famously lit naturally with a skylight – so as to overawe visitors.

 

The staircase and walls of the room that contained it were clad in polychrome marble and gilded bronze, with decor in the Ionic order. Le Brun and painted the walls and ceiling of the room according to a festive theme to celebrate Louis XIV's victory in the Franco-Dutch War. On the wall immediately above the staircase were trompe-l'œil paintings of people from the Four Parts of the World looking into the staircase over a balustrade, a motif repeated on the ceiling fresco. There they were joined by allegorical figures for the twelve months of the year and various Classical Greek figures such as the Muses. A marble bust of Louis XIV, sculpted by Jean Warin in 1665–66, was placed in a niche above the first landing of the staircase.

 

The State Apartments of the King

The construction of the Hall of Mirrors between 1678 and 1686 coincided with a major alteration to the State Apartments. They were originally intended as his residence, but the King transformed them into galleries for his finest paintings, and venues for his many receptions for courtiers. During the season from All-Saints Day in November until Easter, these were usually held three times a week, from six to ten in the evening, with various entertainments.

 

The Salon of Hercules

This was originally a chapel. It was rebuilt beginning in 1712 under the supervision of the First Architect of the King, Robert de Cotte, to showcase two paintings by Paolo Veronese, Eleazar and Rebecca and Meal at the House of Simon the Pharisee, which was a gift to Louis XIV from the Republic of Venice in 1664. The painting on the ceiling, The Apotheosis of Hercules, by François Lemoyne, was completed in 1736, and gave the room its name.

 

The Salon of Abundance

The Salon of Abundance was the antechamber to the Cabinet of Curios (now the Games Room), which displayed Louis XIV's collection of precious jewels and rare objects. Some of the objects in the collection are depicted in René-Antoine Houasse's painting Abundance and Liberality (1683), located on the ceiling over the door opposite the windows.

 

The Salon of Venus

This salon was used for serving light meals during evening receptions. The principal feature in this room is Jean Warin's life-size statue of Louis XIV in the costume of a Roman emperor. On the ceiling in a gilded oval frame is another painting by Houasse, Venus subjugating the Gods and Powers (1672–1681). Trompe-l'œil paintings and sculpture around the ceiling illustrate mythological themes.

 

The Salon of Mercury

The Salon of Mercury was the original State Bedchamber when Louis XIV officially moved the court and government to the palace in 1682. The bed is a replica of the original commissioned by King Louis-Philippe in the 19th century when he turned the palace into a museum. The ceiling paintings by the Flemish artist Jean Baptiste de Champaigne depict the god Mercury in his chariot, drawn by a rooster, and Alexander the Great and Ptolemy surrounded by scholars and philosophers. The Automaton Clock was made for the King by the royal clockmaker Antoine Morand in 1706. When it chimes the hour, figures of Louis XIV and Fame descend from a cloud.

 

The Salon of Mars

The Salon of Mars was used by the royal guards until 1782, and was decorated on a military theme with helmets and trophies. It was turned into a concert room between 1684 and 1750, with galleries for musicians on either side. Portraits of Louis XV and his Queen, Marie Leszczinska, by the Flemish artist Carle Van Loo decorate the room today.

 

The Salon of Apollo

The Salon of Apollo was the royal throne room under Louis XIV, and was the setting for formal audiences. The eight-foot-high silver throne was melted down in 1689 to help pay the costs of an expensive war, and was replaced by a more modest throne of gilded wood. The central painting on the ceiling, by Charles de la Fosse, depicts the Sun Chariot of Apollo, the King's favorite emblem, pulled by four horses and surrounded by the four seasons.

 

The Salon of Diana

The Salon of Diana was used by Louis XIV as a billiards room, and had galleries from which courtiers could watch him play. The decoration of the walls and ceiling depicts scenes from the life of the goddess Diana. The celebrated bust of Louis XIV by Bernini made during the famous sculptor's visit to France in 1665 is on display here.

 

Private apartments of the King and Queen

The apartments of the King were the heart of the château; they were in the same location as the rooms of Louis XIII, the creator of the château, on the first floor (second floor US style). They were set aside for the personal use of Louis XIV in 1683. He and his successors Louis XV and Louis XVI used these rooms for official functions, such as the ceremonial lever ("waking up") and the coucher ("going to bed") of the monarch, which was attended by a crowd of courtiers.

 

The King's apartment was accessed from the Hall of Mirrors from the Oeil de Boeuf antechamber or from the Guardroom and the Grand Couvert, the ceremonial room where Louis XIV often took his evening meals, seated alone at a table in front of the fireplace. His spoon, fork, and knife were brought to him in a golden box. The courtiers could watch as he dined.

 

The King's bedchamber had originally been a Drawing Room before Louis XIV transformed it into his own bedroom in 1701. He died there on 1 September 1715. Both Louis XV and Louis XVI continued to use the bedroom for their official awakening and going to bed. On 6 October 1789, from the balcony of this room Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, joined by the Marquis de Lafayette, looked down on the hostile crowd in the courtyard, shortly before the King was forced to return to Paris.

 

The bed of the King is placed beneath a carved relief by Nicolas Coustou entitled France watching over the sleeping King. The decoration includes several paintings set into the paneling, including a self-portrait of Antony van Dyck.

 

Private apartments of The Queen

The petit appartement de la reine is a suite of rooms that were reserved for the personal use of the queen. Originally arranged for the use of the Marie-Thérèse, consort of Louis XIV, the rooms were later modified for use by Marie Leszczyńska and finally for Marie-Antoinette. The Queen's apartments and the King's Apartments were laid out on the same design, each suite having seven rooms. Both suites had ceilings painted with scenes from mythology; the King's ceilings featured male figures, the Queen's featured females.

 

Hall of Mirrors

The Hall of Mirrors is a long gallery at the westernmost part of the palace that looks out onto the gardens. The hall was built from 1678 to 1681 on the site of a terrace Le Vau built between the king and queen's suites. The hall is clad in marble and decorated in a modified version of the Corinthian order, with 578 mirrors facing 17 windows and reflecting the light provided by them. The ceiling fresco, painted by Le Brun over the next four years, embellishes the first 18 years of Louis XIV's reign in 30 scenes, 17 of which are military victories over the Dutch. The fresco depicts Louis XIV himself alongside Classical figures in the scenes celebrating moments in his reign such as the beginning of personal rule in 1661, breaking from earlier frescoes at Versailles that used allegories derived from Classical and mythological scenes.

 

The Salon of War and the Salon of Peace bookend the Hall of Mirrors on its northern and southern ends respectively. The Salon of War, constructed and decorated from 1678 to 1686, celebrates French victories in the Franco-Dutch War with marble panels, gilded bronze trophies of arms, and a stucco bas-relief of Louis XIV on horsebask riding over his enemies. The Salon of Peace is decorated in the same fashion but according to its eponymous theme.

 

Royal Chapel

The Royal Chapel of Versailles is located at the southern end of the north wing. The building stands 40-meter (130 ft) high, and measures 42 meters (138 ft) long and 24 meters (79 ft) wide. The chapel is rectangular with a semicircular apse, combining traditional, Gothic royal French church architecture with the French Baroque style of Versailles. The ceiling of the chapel is constituted by an unbroken vault, divided into three frescos by Antoine Coypel, Charles de La Fosse, and Jean Jouvenet. The palette of motifs beneath the frescoes glorify the deeds of Louis IX, and include images of David, Constantine, Charlemagne, and Louis IX, fleur de lis, and Louis XIV's monogram. The organ of the chapel was built by Robert Clicquot and Julien Tribuot in 1709–1710.

 

Louis XIV commissioned the chapel, its sixth, from Mansart and Le Brun in 1683–84. It was the last building constructed at Versailles during Louis XIV's reign. Construction was delayed until 1699, however, and it was not completed until 1710. The only major modification to the chapel since its completion was the removal of a lantern from its roof in 1765. A full restoration of the chapel began in late 2017 and lasted into early 2021.

 

Royal Opera

The Royal Opera of Versailles was originally commissioned by Louis XIV in 1682 and was to be built at the end of the North Wing with a design by Mansart and Vigarani. However, due to the expense of the King's continental wars, the project was put aside. The idea was revived by Louis XV with a new design by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1748, but this was also temporarily put aside. The project was revived and rushed ahead for the planned celebration of the marriage of the Dauphin, the future Louis XVI, and Marie-Antoinette. For economy and speed, the new opera was built almost entirely of wood, which also gave it very high quality acoustics. The wood was painted to resemble marble, and the ceiling was decorated with a painting of the Apollo, the god of the arts, preparing crowns for illustrious artists, by Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau. The sculptor Augustin Pajou added statuary and reliefs to complete the decoration. The new Opera was inaugurated on 16 May 1770, as part of the celebration of the royal wedding.

 

In October 1789, early in the French Revolution, the last banquet for the royal guardsmen was hosted by the King in the opera, before he departed for Paris. Following the Franco-German War in 1871 and then the Paris Commune until 1875, the French National Assembly met in the opera, until the proclamation of the Third French Republic and the return of the government to Paris.

 

Museum of the History of France

Shortly after becoming King in 1830, Louis Philippe I decided to transform the palace into a museum devoted to "All the Glories of France," with paintings and sculpture depicting famous French victories and heroes. Most of the apartments of the palace were entirely demolished (in the main building, practically all of the apartments were annihilated, with only the apartments of the king and queen remaining almost intact), and turned into a series of several large rooms and galleries: the Coronation Room (whose original volume was left untouched by Louis-Philippe), which displays the celebrated painting of the coronation of Napoleon I by Jacques-Louis David; the Hall of Battles; commemorating French victories with large-scale paintings; and the 1830 room, which celebrated Louis-Philippe's own coming to power in the French Revolution of 1830. Some paintings were brought from the Louvre, including works depicting events in French history by Philippe de Champaigne, Pierre Mignard, Laurent de La Hyre, Charles Le Brun, Adam Frans van der Meulen, Nicolas de Largillière, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Jean-Antoine Houdon, Jean-Marc Nattier, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Hubert Robert, Thomas Lawrence, Jacques-Louis David, and Antoine-Jean Gros. Others were commissioned especially for the museum by prominent artists of the early 19th century, including Eugène Delacroix, who painted Saint Louis at the French victory over the British in the Battle of Taillebourg in 1242. Other painters featured include Horace Vernet and François Gérard. A monumental painting by Vernet features Louis Philippe himself, with his sons, posing in front of the gates of the palace.

 

The overthrow of Louis Philippe in 1848 put an end to his grand plans for the museum, but the Gallery of Battles is still as it was, and is passed through by many visitors to the royal apartments and grand salons. Another set of rooms on the first floor has been made into galleries on Louis XIV and his court, displaying furniture, paintings, and sculptures. In recent years, eleven rooms on the ground floor between the Chapel and the Opera have been turned into a history of the palace, with audiovisual displays and models.

 

Estate of Versailles

The estate of Versailles consists of the palace, the subsidiary buildings around it, and its park and gardens. As of June 2021, the estate altogether covers an area of 800 hectares (8.0 km2; 2,000 acres), with the park and gardens laid out to the south, west, and north of the palace. The palace is approached from the east by the Avenue de Paris, measuring 17 miles (27 km) from Paris to a gate between the Grande and Petite Écuries. Beyond these stables is the Place d'Armes, where the Avenue de Paris meets the Avenue de Sceaux and Avenue de Saint-Cloud (see map), the three roads that formed the main arteries of the city of Versailles. Exactly where the three roads meet is a gate leading into the cour d'honneur. hemmed in by the Ministers' Wings. Beyond is the Royal Gate and the main palace, which wraps around the Royal and finally Marble Courts

 

The estate was established by Louis XIII as a hunting retreat, with a park just to the west of his château. From 1661, Louis XIV expanded the estate until, at its greatest extent, the estate was made up by the Grand Parc , a hunting ground of 15,000 hectares (150 km2; 37,000 acres), and the gardens, called the Petit Parc, which covered 1,700 hectares (17 km2; 4,200 acres). A 25-mile (40 km) long, 10-foot (3.0 m) high wall with 24 gateways enclosed the estate.

 

The landscape of the estate had to be created from the bog that surrounded Louis XIII's château using landscape architecture usually employed in fortress building. The approach to the palace and the gardens were carefully laid out via the moving of earth and construction of terraces. The water from the marsh was marshalled into a series of lakes and ponds around Versailles, but these reservoirs were not sufficient for the palace, city, or gardens. Great lengths were taken to supply Versailles with water, such as the damming of the river Bièvre to create an inflow in the 1660s, the construction of an enormous pumping station at the river Seine near Marly-le-Roi in 1681, and an attempt to divert water from the river Eure with a canal in the later 1680s.

 

Gardens

The gardens of Versailles, as they have existed since the reign of Louis XIV, are the work of André Le Nôtre. Le Nôtre's gardens were preceded by a simple garden laid out in the 1630s by landscape architects Jacques Boyceau and Jacques de Nemours, which he rearranged along an east–west axis that, because of Louis XIV's land purchases and the clearing of woodland, were expanded literally as far as could be seen. The resulting gardens were a collaboration between Le Nôtre, Le Brun, Colbert, and Louis XIV, marked by rigid order, discipline, and open space, with axial paths, flowerbeds, hedges, and ponds and lakes as motifs. They became the epitome of the French formal garden style, and have been very influential and widely imitated or reproduced.

 

Subsidiary structures

The first of the subsidiary structures of the Palace of Versailles was the Versailles Menagerie [fr],[199][200] built by Le Vau between the years 1662 and 1664, at the southern end of the Grand Canal. The apartments, overlooking the pens, were renovated by Mansart from 1698 to 1700, but the Menagerie fell into disuse in 1712. After a long period of decay, it was demolished in 1801. The Versailles Orangery, just to the south of the palace, was first built by Le Vau in 1663, originally as part of the general moving of earth to create the Estate.[191] It was also modified by Mansart, who, from 1681 to 1685, totally rebuilt it and doubled its size.

 

In late 1679, Louis XIV commissioned Mansart to build the Château de Marly, a retreat at the edge of Versailles's estate, about 5 miles (8.0 km) from the palace. The château consisted of a primary residential building and twelve pavilions, in Palladian style placed in two rows on either side of the main building. Construction was completed in 1686, when Louis XIV spent his first night there. The château was nationalized and sold in 1799, and subsequently demolished and replaced with industrial buildings. These were themselves demolished in 1805, and then in 1811 the estate was purchased by Napoleon. On 1 June 2009, the grounds of the Château de Marly were ceded to the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles.

 

La Lanterne, is a hunting lodge named after the lantern that topped the nearby Menagerie that was built in 1787 by Philippe Louis de Noailles, then the palace governor. It has since 1960 been a state residence.

 

Petit Trianon

The Petit Trianon, whose construction from 1762 to 1768 led to the advent of the names "Grand" and "Petit Trianon", was constructed for Louis XV and the Madame du Barry in the Neoclassical style by Gabriel. The building has a piano nobile, basement, and attic, with five windows on each floor. On becoming king, Louis XVI gave the Petit Trianon to Marie Antoinette, who remodeled it, relaid its gardens in the then-current English and Oriental styles, and formed her own court there.

 

In 1668, Louis XIV purchased and demolished the hamlet of Trianon, near the northern tip of the Grand Canal, and in its place, he commissioned Le Vau to construct a retreat from court, remembered as the Porcelain Trianon. Designed and built by Le Vau in 1670, it was the first example of Chinoiserie (faux Chinese) architecture in Europe, though it was largely designed in French style. The roof was clad not with porcelain but with delftware, and was thus prone to leaks, so in 1687 Louis XIV ordered it demolished. Nevertheless, the Porcelain Trianon was itself influential and copycats were built across Europe.

 

The Grand Trianon

The Grand Trianon with courtyard and gardens. The wing at left is a residence of the President of France.

The Grand Trianon with courtyard and gardens. The wing at left is a residence of the President of France.

 

To replace the Porcelain Trianon, Louis XIV tasked Mansart with the construction in 1687 of the Grand Trianon, built from marble in three months. The Grand Trianon has a single story, except for its attached service wing, which was modified by Mansart in 1705–06. The east façade has a courtyard while the west faces the gardens of the Grand Trianon, and between them a peristyle. The interiors are mostly original,[214] and housed Louis XIV, the Madame de Maintenon, Marie Leszczynska, and Napoleon, who ordered restorations to the building. Under de Gaulle, the north wing of the Grand Trianon became a residence of the President of France.

 

The Queen's hamlet and Theater

Near the Trianons are the French pavilion, built by Gabriel in 1750 between the two residences, and the Queen's Theater and Queen's Hamlet, built by architect Richard Mique in 1780 and from 1783 to 1785 respectively. These were both built at the behest of Marie Antoinette; the theater, hidden in the gardens, indulged her appreciation of opera and is absolutely original, and the hamlet to extend her gardens with rustic amenities. The building scheme of the Queen's Hamlet includes a farmhouse (the farm was to produce milk and eggs for the queen), a dairy, a dovecote, a boudoir, a barn that burned down during the French Revolution, a mill and a tower in the form of a lighthouse.

 

Modern political and ceremonial functions

The palace still serves political functions. Heads of state are regaled in the Hall of Mirrors; the bicameral French Parliament—consisting of the Senate (Sénat) and the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale)—meet in joint session (a congress of the French Parliament) in Versailles to revise or otherwise amend the French Constitution, a tradition that came into effect with the promulgation of the 1875 Constitution. For example, the Parliament met in joint session at Versailles to pass constitutional amendments in June 1999 (for domestic applicability of International Criminal Court decisions and for gender equality in candidate lists), in January 2000 (ratifying the Treaty of Amsterdam), and in March 2003 (specifying the "decentralized organization" of the French Republic).

 

In 2009, President Nicolas Sarkozy addressed the global financial crisis before a congress in Versailles, the first time that this had been done since 1848, when Charles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte gave an address before the French Second Republic. Following the November 2015 Paris attacks, President François Hollande gave a speech before a rare joint session of parliament at the Palace of Versailles. This was the third time since 1848 that a French president addressed a joint session of the French Parliament at Versailles. The president of the National Assembly has an official apartment at the Palace of Versailles. In 2023 a state visit by Charles III to France included a state banquet at the Palace.

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

In Los Angeles, Allison Lang is a bored girl from an upper class dysfunctional family that acts and dresses like a slut. Her wealthy boyfriend and friends are totally influenced by the hip-hop culture, behaving like rappers, dressing and imitating their lifestyle. When they decide to drive to East L.A. for fun, they meet a Latin gang of drug-dealers and Allison and her best friend Emily become fascinated with their "gangsta" lifestyle. Later they return to the ghetto to visit and excite Hector and his friends, expecting to join their 16th Street gang. When the guys propose them to have sex as a form of initiation, they change their mind, leading to a tragic consequence. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

 

The lives of wealthy teenagers living in Los Angeles whose exposure to "hip hop culture" inspires them to imitate the "gangsta lifestyle." Although, they soon run into trouble when they come face-to-face with a real gang of Latino drug dealers. Written by Zeno

 

A pair of naive young girls learn that even the most insignificant actions can have lasting consequences. Influenced by the hip-hop thug lifestyle and seeking to explore life outside of their insulated, culturally homogenized suburb, pretty young teenagers Allison and Emily set their sights on East L.A. to experience the "gangsta" lifestyle firsthand. By the time the pair meet a ruthless Mexican drug dealer named Hector, some true-life Latino gang-bangers, and realize just how far out of their element they really are, it may already be too late to turn back.

 

Dos chicas adolescentes de clase acomodada abandonan la seguridad de sus hogares en las afueras de la ciudad para explorar el peligroso ambiente de Los Ángeles Este, un barrio conflictivo donde aprenden que hasta las acciones más inocentes pueden tener consecuencias...

  

Anne Hathaway ... Allison Lang

Bijou Phillips ... Emily

Shiri Appleby ... Amanda

Michael Biehn ... Stuart Lang

Joseph Gordon-Levitt ... Sam

Matt O'Leary ... Eric

Freddy Rodríguez ... Hector

Laura San Giacomo ... Joanna Lang

Mike Vogel ... Toby

Raymond Cruz ... Chino

Alexis Dziena ... Sasha

Channing Tatum ... Nick

Jose L. Vasquez ... Manuel (as Johnny Vasquez)

Luis Robledo ... Ace

Sam Hennings ... Mr. Rubin

 

Rating: 5/10

Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.

 

Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii 1995

 

Nam June Paik

born Seoul, Korea 1932-died Miami Beach, FL 2006

 

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.

 

49-channel closed circuit video installation, neon, steel and electronic components | approx. 15 x 40 x 4 ft.

 

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Gift of the artist.

 

Comments Welcome.

  

“Solutions don’t come from above. What is socialism? I don’t live in socialism? But I live and suffer in capitalism. Some people have told us that what we’re doing in Tlaxcala is anarchism. But we said, ‘what we’re doing is Tlaxcalan.’ Grand schemes won’t work. It’s got to start with the people. We don’t know what the grand solutions are. But we know what we don’t want.” ---Luz Rivera-Martinez, thru interpreter Tony Nelson of Mexico Solidarity Network.

  

Don’t waste time and energy on believing those in power will solve our problems for us.

  

“It’s much easier to think that someone else is going to do my work and solve something for me. It’s much easier to leave my responsibility in the hands of others. Unfortunately, here as in Mexico, those above have their own worries which are not ours. They’re looking for ways they can easily do their jobs against the people. So why are we wondering about whether they’re going to come and solve something for us ? The person who has hunger has to fight to have food. If you’re from below, you look for others that also have hunger and you look for communal food or a roof or some land where you can grow food.”

 

She said those in power are doing their homework when it comes to defending their interests.

 

“It doesn’t surprise us they do what they have to do. The question is, are we doing what we have to do to change the situation? If we look at those above, we end up just hurting our necks, and never see those who are at our side. That’s my equal, someone who has the same needs as me and suffers the same things that those who are above are putting on us.”

 

Love

 

“If you work with the people, it represents a great love for humanity. I would not throw flowers at those that promote hatred and degradation against the people who are fighting for their rights. I don’t believe in hatred, but I believe firmly in dignity. So if it’s about love for people of my class, the people who are at my side, then it’s very welcome love.

 

“For those that are above, I don’t have any respect or love. I have a profound disrespect for them. Even though they are human beings, I never make the mistake of knowing who they are. They are those who are putting humanity and this planet at risk.

 

Violence and nonviolence

 

“From what I see, the violence has been coming from the police against the people in the Occupy movement. I saw an old woman in Seattle that was bathed in pepper spray. I saw how in Portland they unleashed a complete attack on the people with Occupy Portland…The history of violence is the history of those from above, of those who exploited, dominated and conquered. We shouldn’t be surprised that when you are opposed to being someone’s slave they sacrifice you like they did in Spartacus. It’s the story of humanity. Are going stay slaves? Are we going to forgive them for destroying us?

 

“ I have to speak in the name of my organization, not about my own personal beliefs. My organization is profoundly civil and pacifist. Those that attack us and those that have others attack us are the people in power. But our patience is running out. We’re not going to be constantly ok with those that act violently against us. We simply want to live with dignity. We want to work without being exploited. We want them to respect what is ours. We don’t want them to take what is ours. We don’t want them to look down on us. Part of our work is to make people see that those who hate, those who are making wars, those that are exploiting and destroying humanity are those from above.”

 

The Fight for Water

 

“Here in the US, you open the tap and water comes out…In Tlaxcala, we’ve fought for years for water, for just one hydrant. And we had to fight for a well. After that, we worked to organize with each other on how to put together all the tubes and the other equipment for getting the water to houses. We worked hard to put together groups of people for doing this. Then, when we got it set up, the government said ‘we need to administer the water and we need to charge your for it.’ When there was no water, there was no one from the government to help. But when we did all the work in our communities to get the water, then they come around to charge us for it.”

 

Monsanto and the Fight for Corn

 

Tlaxcala means land of the men and women of the corn.

 

“They want to take away our name. They hit us and beat us. Some say ‘be quiet.’ But we in CNUC are breaking the silence. One of the fights we’re taking on is the defense of our corn. Monsanto has a name but not a face. They want to take away what’s been our work for centuries. We don’t put a price on our tradition of corn. We put our sweat and pain into it. But they want to brand our corn and take away our knowledge of much more than our seeds.”

 

She said government officials passed a law to enable Monsanto to do this.

 

“The law asks all Tlaxcalans to register their seeds. But one of the campesinos said ‘how, can I register what belongs to the whole community?’ Those who don’t register their seeds are going to end up having property of Monsanto.”

 

“We put in many resources and signatures against this law. We’ve been doing seed exchanges so we don’t get transgenic seeds. This law passed last year. The government made an offense against our organization. ..There was a big freeze that killed all the corn in the state. It was a bad year for CNUC.

 

Rivera said there are 52 types of corn in Tlaxcala, but that the introduction of GMO crops threatens this diversity.

 

“For us, corn is more than just food. It’s our life. It’s not a brand. It’s purple, white, yellow, red…It comes from the mountains.

 

Rivera said the corn ethanol industry has badly affected Chiapas, Mexico’s most impoverished state.

 

“They didn’t think about ridding hunger. They thought of making the corn into fuel. This is the best example of what’s wrong in a world where profit is put before the needs of people. They don’t care what the land is for unless it’s for ethanol or housing complexes or buildings.”

 

One of the ways those who lead Monsanto get their way is by blurring the lines between industry insiders and what are supposed to be government regulators. Rivera said the agriculture in Tlaxcala formerly worked for Monsanto.

 

“This applies to the US too, as men of business want to turn everything in the world into merchandise. Over the centuries we developed our corn with great care. Corn isn’t created in a lab. Every seed was cared for to make the next crop better. This didn’t come from a test tube.”

 

GMO corn is problematic, said Rivera.

 

“Corn is very promiscuous. The wind, birds, and the bees make it so it is everywhere. So, if GMO seeds are introduced to Tlaxcala, the contamination will be spread far and wide.”

 

She said some people in Tlaxcala have used GMO seeds because of not knowing it and because of being desperate.

 

“Most of them don’t know it’s GMO, the same as when they hide it from people here in the US. People in our community gave each other GMO seeds. We realized that because of the corn stalks. There were many ears, but they were very small. It didn’t fill the husks and the corn was so tough some of the animals we fed it to had blood in their mouths when they chewed it. So, we identified those GMOS and we uprooted them and burned them.”

 

Rivera said that for Tlaxcalans freeing themselves from GMOs is as challenging getting away from chemical fertilizers.

 

“First the fertilizers were gifts from the government. Now they sell it and it’s expensive. So, we must create a relationship of respect for the land. We compost. Every time we do it, the government says, ‘fertilizer is cheap, but making compost is hard.’ In the political campaigns they say, ‘don’t tire yourself, let me gift you with fertilizer.’”

   

Building the Global Justice Movement

 

“We don’t want to homogenize or hegemonize. What unites us is the fight, not the names (of organizations) So CNUC is with Sonoreros and with the transportation collectives, and we are with you here in Columbus. We have the same problem: capital. It squeezes and exploits us. We stand up to take what is ours. They have the resources to beat us and jail us and kill us.

 

“We oppose the denigration of the poor, people of color, women, the young, those who are different, those who are not heterosexual, those outside of the market. They want to take our water, our land, and the resources from our mines.”

 

She said the fight against the exploitation from capitalism is global.

 

“When you realize you don’t want this, you start walking. Every step you take, you find more people ready for change.”

 

She said capitalism risks destroying the planet.

 

“A global movement can do away with the black night of capital, and illuminate the many better ways. Use the Tlaxcalan style here in Columbus. We’ll use the Columbus style in Tlaxcala. In the future, CNUC has many important battles. Now we’re defending our corn. None of the political parties opposed this law which is going to walk thru our lands. There is also the fight against Coca Cola. It’s many fights, not just Monsanto. Before they wanted gold, now it’s everything-- water, seeds, land…They say it’s progress. But, no, it’s business.”

 

Rivera said take part in the global movement against the exploitation from capitalism by fighting the battles we have here, such as those with the banks.

 

She said solidarity within communities builds and then recedes and then builds up again. She accepts this as a natural process in social movements.

 

Speaking to a small gathering in a classroom at Ohio State University, she said peasant farmers who are fighting for their rights graduate from one stage in their rebellion to another, similar to how students progress thru their formal education.

 

She said these steps apply to activists in the US as they do to people fighting for their rights in Tlaxcala.

 

“In the first stage, we think no one will listen to us. In the second, we learn there are many others with us. In the third, we form respect between equals. In the fourth, we win a victory.” After that, the process repeats, said Rivera. She said CNUC learned about this from the Zapatista Liberation Army.

 

She said it’s important to come together as humans across generations and borders.

 

“Don’t believe what’s happening in your country is not also happening in other countries,” said Rivera.

 

Rivera said the movement that CNUC has been building has more than just one vision. It has many ways of looking at things.

 

“When you come from Tlaxcala, the needs are many. The Zapatistas have a good saying, ‘we want a world where many worlds fit.’”

 

Amid loses and wins, she said it’s important to never give up on fighting for justice. She said she respects what she’s seen of the Occupy Movement.

 

“These are important historic moments. The repression we’re experiencing in Mexico is going on all over the world. We don’t accept what they propose. We’re coming up with alternatives. As men and women of the planet, we’re not going to let capitalism destroy it.”

 

Nelson said Tlaxcala is the geographically smallest state in Mexico but among its most important because of the resistance work of CNUC, translated in English as National Rural and Urban Council.

 

Rivera said when the Chiapas uprising happened, she and other activists in her community identified with it.

 

“We said, ‘this is our program too. We’re not going to complicate things.’ We walked the path as they did. The first thing to do is to question. We say ‘walk while questioning,’ not with the arrogance of thinking we know all the answers but with the humility to ask people in their community what their needs are. Everything falls into place when we come together and talk about the problems we have.”

 

Nelson said the same.

 

“The responsibility of people is to find out what part of capital we can defeat from where we are.”

 

Nelson continued.

 

“CNUC is very organized. A lot of the time we in the US think ‘how can we help them?’ But when we go to Tlaxcala, we’re humbled and say, ‘how can we learn from you?’ We hear about mining companies exploiting villages. But we in the US don’t hear about the resistance movements there.”

 

Nelson said apply the 99 percent concept globally.

 

Rivera told the gathering here in Columbus she doesn’t compare resistance efforts in Tlaxcala to see if she and her communities are more organized than people standing up for their rights in other parts of the world.

 

“ I need to learn from you, too. The Zapatistas tell us to stop pretending we have all the answers. We need lots of questions and listening campaigns. We shouldn’t get discouraged if there’s not an immediate answer for replacing capitalism,” Rivera said.

 

Nelson said people in Tlaxcala last fall asked him and his study abroad students to explain the Occupy Movement that as it gained global attention.

 

“I told them ‘I don’t know. I’m here in Tlaxcala.’ But it was interesting when some of the people with Occupy got worried about the disagreements people were having within the movement. I was in Tlaxcala and some of the people there told me, ‘Don’t worry. It’s a new movement. They’re trying to figure it out.’”

 

Both Nelson and Rivera said don’t stop the movement; creatively grapple with disagreements within and among groups.

 

Rivera said there is not yet an alliance between CNUC and peasant farmers in India, though they face common foes such as Monsanto.

 

“We want to work with movements in other countries but we don’t have access to global media. Laws in favor of Monsanto turn campesinos into criminals. So we have to globalize the struggle against Monsanto. There are many places in the world where people are taking on this fight. It’s a fight with no guarantee of victory. But we have to break thru that fear or we won’t be happy.”

 

She said CNUC is not working with Via Campesina. Rivera said governments convinced some organizations within Via Campesina to support NAFTA.

 

“We believe they now think it was a huge error. But we remember the betrayal, so we’re not with Via Campesina.”

  

Beyond Socialism- Vs- Capitalism

 

One of the authors in the anthology The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex suggests social movements in the Global South have outgrown seeing their options as a choice between capitalism and socialism. Rivera agreed with this, though she denounced capitalism.

 

“Solutions don’t come from above. What is socialism? I don’t live in socialism? But I live and suffer in capitalism. Some people have told us that what we’re doing in Tlaxcala is anarchism. But we said, ‘what we’re doing is Tlaxcalan.’ Grand schemes or recipes won’t work. It’s got to start with the people. We don’t know what the grand solutions are. But we know what we don’t want. And we have questions. Why are they taking away our corn? Why are the banks taking away the houses of people here in your country? Why are supermarkets filled with every type of food when so many people are hungry?”

 

NAFTA: We’re Dreamers but We’re not Naïve

 

“It’s difficult for some people in the US to understand how NAFTA exploited and displaced us. We didn’t want NAFTA. We didn’t want to be displaced or exploited. We didn’t want something created from above. We’re 15 times more dependent on the US for corn, after NAFTA. There are no farm subsidy supports, no matching grants. We maintain agriculture however we can in the face of competition that is different from the competition farmers have in the US and Canada.”

 

She said she and other peasant farmers anticipated the negative effects of NAFTA.

 

“We saw the storm coming, so we prepared ourselves. That is how CNUC was born in 1993.” The English translation of what the acronym stands for is National Urban-Rural Council.

 

“We weren’t born overnight. We came from campesinos and we came from urban struggles.”

 

She said proponents of NAFTA said it was for equalizing trade between the US, Canada, and Mexico.

 

“We’re dreamers, but we’re not naïve. We don’t believe in the good intentions of those in power. The government said NAFTA would bring development. But it’s like everything from above that doesn’t take the people into account.

 

Rivera said the elite of the 3 countries created a mechanism for exploiting and dislocating agrarian people.

 

“The political class permitted NAFTA. So we distance ourselves from them. In every step we take, we want to walk with those who are forgotten. We have no respect for the government. They don’t know how to govern other than by doing the bidding of capital.

 

Child Labor

 

Rivera said she other members of her community shut down a maquiladora that was using child labor.

 

“We learned about this thru the teachers at the primary school when they said their students were falling asleep in class and not doing their homework. By talking with teachers and students, we were able to find out where this factory was.”

 

They called the press and gathered with mothers of the children. It was like the bursting of a dam, she said. They found about 100 other houses where children were working for less than $1 per day.

 

After her community fought back in this way, owners of the machines took them away, Rivera said. She said they also took away the grinder for making corn flour, and that a local government official threatened to take away from their community all services except for medical exams for those who prick their fingers while sewing.

 

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.

 

"Lisa: Mom, romance is dead. It was acquired in a hostile takeover by Hallmark and Disney, homogenized, and sold off piece by piece. "

 

(updated: also, check out Toy Collection from snailbooty)

Suspended Animation Classic #9

First published on Sun. March 5, 1989

 

Archie Comics Digest #95

By Michael Vance

 

Who’s the most famous Archie in literature? Only a meathead would answer Archie Bunker. The title belongs to a teenager with orange hair and a big R on his sweater.

The sides of his head are a tic-tac-toe of lines, and this kid’s no Jughead. He’s Archie Andrews, and since 1941, he’s been every parent’s dream of the “perfect” teenager.

For forty-eight years, long before television’s Dobie Gillis, Welcome Back Kotter, and Head of the Class, Archie has been entertaining millions worldwide.

Archie and his pals live in a generic world outside of time. Trends in fashion, slang, and politics are generally ignored, creating a timeless setting unaffected by stoical change, an eternal Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood.

Plots spring more from clearly defined personalities and teenage problems always faced at school or home than from outside influences. And therein may lay the universal appeal of Archie’s formula.

Archie is cute, fun and safe.

Archie’s Comics Digest #95 doesn’t digress from simple stories told simply either. In the first brief tale, Archie is caught by principal Weatherbee arriving late at school. Weatherbee demands Archie’s best behavior; a representative of the state education association arrives tomorrow, but on his way to Riverdale the following day, Archie stops to help a stranded motorist. He is late to school.

Can you guess the ending?

The stranded motorist turns out to be the stranded (fill in the blank).

In the second story, Weatherbee catches Archie wearing a fake mustache, but learns it’s for a barber shop quartet.

The principal loves this, and encourages other students to don mustaches and join quartets, but the outraged teacher, Miss Gundy, also sees the mustached students and rushes to report to Weatherbee. There, she discovers that Weatherbee is also wearing (fill in the blank).

These comic books alternate short, caustic stories with half or single page jokes. Will this homogenized formula ever change? Why change what works?

Archie Comics Digest #95/$1.35/128 pages/for all ages/various artists and writers/available everywhere.

 

neolithic-like pottery

 

The prehistoric pottery in Romania fascinates by its diversity, quality and exquisite sense of beauty. A number of European Neolithic cultures are known all over the world for their extremely valuable pottery production. Each of these cultures can be distinguished according to their specific forms and decors. From the archaeological perspective, pottery is considered to be a “vectorial / leading fossil” helping to identify the human communities that occupied a certain area during a certain past period of time.

 

The project

The ongoing project entitled “Replica” intends to recreate, in an experimental manner, the clay “adventure” from its starting point as a geologic sediment to its final phase, when it becomes a finite art object. While achieving this complex process, we have minutely tried to rediscover and at the same time apply the prehistoric pottery and statue carving techniques.

 

The beginning

Basket working was considered to be the first handcrafted recipients. Later on these baskets were covered with clay. This is one of the hypotheses regarding the starting point of pottery making. It is believed that ceramic recipients appeared as a result of some chance basket burning. These recipients had a major peculiarity – water could be boiled into them. Gradually, people ceased using the wickerwork support and started using long clay bands to build the recipient. These bands went upwards, from the basis to the recipient aperture.

 

The clay

The first step taken in realising the recipient you are holding in this very moment was to discover a resource of high quality raw material. Thus, the clay we have used was found in the proximity of ancient pottery centres situated in the southern regions of Romania. It has been used for centuries in pottery production. The clay needs to be exposed to at least one winter frost in order to acquire the necessary plastic qualities; only afterwards water is added and it gets sufficiently well homogenized to obtain the consistency to mould the recipient.

 

The technique

The process we use to build the recipients tries to reproduce as close as possible the Neolithic one, called en colombin. The construction of such a recipient starts form the basis, superposing clay bands which are consequently homogenized, from both the interior and exterior, by means of a bone or wooden spatula. Building bigger dimension recipients raises some problems - in this case the technical procedure requires higher attention as well as a longer time for its construction. This technique resembles the one that swallows use to build their nests – while the basis of the recipient begins to dry, the upper part is maintained wet so that the building process could be continued. The recipients’ decoration with incisions or excisions is realised before they are completely dried. After the completion of these first stages, the recipients are stored in a shadowy place since a rapid dehydration could deform or even crack them.

 

The pigments

Before being burnt, the recipients are painted with mineral pigments, resistant to high temperatures of over 700° Celsius. The pigments’ extraction is realised in a quite resembling manner to the one practiced in prehistory. The red pigment is obtained from sediment containing a high concentration of iron oxide. The white is obtained from a special type of clay brought from an area rich in kaolin deposits, situated in the proximity of Medgidia town. The black colour is obtained by grinding the slag resulted from iron burning.

   

The kiln

The recipients are burnt in a kiln built after the Neolithic model – it is a bicameral clay kiln in which a high quality oxidising burning can be realised. The recipients are carefully placed into the kiln in a well established order so that the hot air can circulate, realising thus a complete burning. They are positioned in circles; the widest circle comes first. On the pile top, a lid of broken recipients is made.

 

The burning

At the beginning, the fire is made with soft wood such as poplar, lime tree or willow wood cut in small pieces – 30 cm at most. They have a lesser caloric power and are used for the gradual kiln heating. At this stage, the wood is set at the kiln aperture, as far as possible from the recipients because a high temperature without a preliminary gradual heating would crack them. This stage can last up to three hours. At this point, wood with a higher caloric power such as poplar, lime tree or willow wood is introduced. The best wood that can be used in pottery burning is the fir wood. The wood pieces should be 80 cm long and cut thinly. The burning can last up to twelve hours.

   

The culture of Cucuteni is known to have appeared around 5000 years ago in the eastern part of Romania, more precisely in the Central and Western parts of a region called Moldavia. It started its existence during the last phase of a Precucutenian culture and undertook some influences from Gumelnita and Petresti cultures. It belongs to the great painted ceramics complex known by the name of Ariuşd – Cucuteni – Tripolie. Further phases – A, A-B, B and C have been stratigraphically and typologically identified to have existed during its long-lasting life of more than 700 years (around 3500 BC – 2900 BC).

Working the land was considered to be the basic occupation of these communities, but they were animal breeders as well. They took great interest in breeding taurines. Haunting was of a secondary importance to them.

Among the countless and outstanding artistic manifestations belonging to the Neo- eneolithic epoch 5000 years ago, and which appeared in both Romania and the rest of Europe, Cucuteni culture stands as the symbol of one of the greatest achievements of the prehistoric man’s genius. As compared to the contemporary cultures, Cucuteni is undoubtly the most impressive of them. The artistic value of its painted pottery is genuine and surpasses the most exquisite manifestations belonging to most of the European cultures of that epoch.

 

the Flat Cube is my last self made astronomy device done for performing the best possible flat field calibration image. Inspired by L. Comolli project I have done my self modification in a more reduced structure more solid (made of wood) more reflective (inside there's a particular reflective surface) powered by 12v dc it has two serial dimmer (one in the back side of the "cube" one in the cable) with this combination is possible to set every kind of light intensity needed for any kind of canera ccd and filter (the light Kelvin is about 4000k real white perfect also for color DSRL or CCD) two parallel opal white plexyglass homogenize the internal light.done!

We Are Vacancy

 

© Arace Photographic

 

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"La ciudad de piedra de Zanzíbar es un magnífico ejemplo de las ciudades comerciales swahilíes del litoral del África Oriental. Ha conservado su tejido y paisaje urbanos prácticamente intactos, así como muchos edificios soberbios que ponen de manifiesto la peculiar cultura de la región, en la que se han fundido y homogeneizado a lo largo de más de un milenio elementos muy diversos de las civilizaciones de África, Arabia, la India y Europa."

 

Fuente: whc.unesco.org/en/list/173

 

"The Stone Town of Zanzibar is a fine example of the Swahili coastal trading towns of East Africa. It retains its urban fabric and townscape virtually intact and contains many fine buildings that reflect its particular culture, which has brought together and homogenized disparate elements of the cultures of Africa, the Arab region, India, and Europe over more than a millennium."

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)

The Ipswich Project: bikes

 

This video was filmed from the south bank of the River Orwell, looking across to the skateboard park and Ipswich town centre beyond.

 

I'm intrigued by the way that the Bridge Street skateboard park is host to this extraordinary extemporised dance, taking place day after day, in a setting of urban decay and renewal. All around, other people go about their business, cars shuttle across Stoke Bridge, and the cranes are ceaselessly building the waterfront ever higher. But still the dance goes on.

 

The music, by Israeli saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, is meant to accentuate this sense of isolation and alienation. It is called The Burning Bush. Atzmon is a fierce critic of Israel, and of the American-led occupation of Iraq. It struck me that the skateboard park is a little like a small country surrounded by hostile neighbours, and there is a tension, a sense of unease, of an intensely introspective culture in contrast to the great project to complete the homogenization of England .

sierraclub.typepad.com/mrgreen/2009/02/advice-about-recre...

 

In drive-throughs or anyplace, idling is, to summon the old saying, the devil's workshop. Every hour you idle, you waste up to 0.7 gallons of gas (depending on your engine type) going nowhere. So it pays to turn your engine off if you're going to be still for more than 30 seconds. In a given year, U.S. cars burn some 1.4 billion gallons of fuel just idling. Not to mention idling trucks, which waste another 1.5 billion gallons. Collectively, we emit about 58 million tons of carbon dioxide while we're essentially doing nothing.

 

Taking the fast-food industry as an example, and taking into account that the average McDonald's drive-through wait is 159 seconds, we can calculate that the company's consumers burn some 7.25 million gallons of gas each year. The figure for the entire U.S. fast-food industry? Roughly 50 million gallons.

 

The spread of American idle may be an exciting prospect for companies seeking to expand this lazy food-getting method to the rest of the world--but it's a devastating one for the environment. Consider that McDonald's plans to open 25 drive-throughs in China, following KFC's lead. KFC installed its first drive-through there in 2002 and is working on 100 more. If China and India, which is also jumping aboard the drive-through bandwagon, get up to speed, they can idle away a truly staggering figure: 30 billion gallons of gas. Every year.

 

www.thesmartset.com/article/article09120901.aspx

 

In 2000, Wendy’s led the industry in terms of speediness, taking an average of only 150.3 second to serve customers at its drive-through window. By 2008, it had reduced its average serving time to 131 seconds. But that’s still 131 seconds during which drivers are idling noisily and wastefully. According to Sierra Club estimates, people waiting at fast food restaurants burn approximately 50 million gallons of gasoline a year. At the current rate of $2.58 per gallon, that’s $129 million.

 

. . . All across Canada and the U.S., there are efforts to ban drive-throughs, just as there have been for at least the two decades. For many, the drive-through — and especially the fast-food drive-through — is the most potent symbol of the unhealthy, car-centric culture that’s making us fat and unhealthy, poisoning the planet, and locking us into an alienating, stressed-out consumerist lifestyle that for all its abundance and variety, doesn’t deliver true satisfaction and is ultimately unsustainable.

 

drivethrulies.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/drive-through-sham...

  

McDonald's is the nation's largest purchaser of beef, pork and potatoes - and the second largest purchaser of chicken.

 

The McDonald's Corporation is the largest owner of retail property in the world. Indeed, the company earns the majority of its profits not from selling food but from collecting rent.

 

McDonald's spends more money on advertising and marketing than any other brand.

 

. . . The impact of McDonald's on the way we live today is hard to overstate. . . . In the early 1970s, the farm activist Jim Hightower warned of "the McDonaldization of America". He viewed the emerging fast food industry as a threat to independent businesses, as a step toward a food economy dominated by giant corporations, and as a homogenizing inluence on American life. . . . Much of what Hightower feared has come to pass. The centralized purchasing decisions of the large restaurant chains and their demand for standardized products have given a handful of corporations an unprecedented degree of power over the nation's food supply. Moreover, the tremendous success of the fast food industry has encouraged other industries to adopt similar business methods.

 

from Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

neolithic-like pottery

 

neolithic-like pottery

 

The prehistoric pottery in Romania fascinates by its diversity, quality and exquisite sense of beauty. A number of European Neolithic cultures are known all over the world for their extremely valuable pottery production. Each of these cultures can be distinguished according to their specific forms and decors. From the archaeological perspective, pottery is considered to be a “vectorial / leading fossil” helping to identify the human communities that occupied a certain area during a certain past period of time.

 

The project

The ongoing project entitled “Replica” intends to recreate, in an experimental manner, the clay “adventure” from its starting point as a geologic sediment to its final phase, when it becomes a finite art object. While achieving this complex process, we have minutely tried to rediscover and at the same time apply the prehistoric pottery and statue carving techniques.

 

The beginning

Basket working was considered to be the first handcrafted recipients. Later on these baskets were covered with clay. This is one of the hypotheses regarding the starting point of pottery making. It is believed that ceramic recipients appeared as a result of some chance basket burning. These recipients had a major peculiarity – water could be boiled into them. Gradually, people ceased using the wickerwork support and started using long clay bands to build the recipient. These bands went upwards, from the basis to the recipient aperture.

 

The clay

The first step taken in realising the recipient you are holding in this very moment was to discover a resource of high quality raw material. Thus, the clay we have used was found in the proximity of ancient pottery centres situated in the southern regions of Romania. It has been used for centuries in pottery production. The clay needs to be exposed to at least one winter frost in order to acquire the necessary plastic qualities; only afterwards water is added and it gets sufficiently well homogenized to obtain the consistency to mould the recipient.

 

The technique

The process we use to build the recipients tries to reproduce as close as possible the Neolithic one, called en colombin. The construction of such a recipient starts form the basis, superposing clay bands which are consequently homogenized, from both the interior and exterior, by means of a bone or wooden spatula. Building bigger dimension recipients raises some problems - in this case the technical procedure requires higher attention as well as a longer time for its construction. This technique resembles the one that swallows use to build their nests – while the basis of the recipient begins to dry, the upper part is maintained wet so that the building process could be continued. The recipients’ decoration with incisions or excisions is realised before they are completely dried. After the completion of these first stages, the recipients are stored in a shadowy place since a rapid dehydration could deform or even crack them.

 

The pigments

Before being burnt, the recipients are painted with mineral pigments, resistant to high temperatures of over 700° Celsius. The pigments’ extraction is realised in a quite resembling manner to the one practiced in prehistory. The red pigment is obtained from sediment containing a high concentration of iron oxide. The white is obtained from a special type of clay brought from an area rich in kaolin deposits, situated in the proximity of Medgidia town. The black colour is obtained by grinding the slag resulted from iron burning.

   

The kiln

The recipients are burnt in a kiln built after the Neolithic model – it is a bicameral clay kiln in which a high quality oxidising burning can be realised. The recipients are carefully placed into the kiln in a well established order so that the hot air can circulate, realising thus a complete burning. They are positioned in circles; the widest circle comes first. On the pile top, a lid of broken recipients is made.

 

The burning

At the beginning, the fire is made with soft wood such as poplar, lime tree or willow wood cut in small pieces – 30 cm at most. They have a lesser caloric power and are used for the gradual kiln heating. At this stage, the wood is set at the kiln aperture, as far as possible from the recipients because a high temperature without a preliminary gradual heating would crack them. This stage can last up to three hours. At this point, wood with a higher caloric power such as poplar, lime tree or willow wood is introduced. The best wood that can be used in pottery burning is the fir wood. The wood pieces should be 80 cm long and cut thinly. The burning can last up to twelve hours.

   

The culture of Cucuteni is known to have appeared around 5000 years ago in the eastern part of Romania, more precisely in the Central and Western parts of a region called Moldavia. It started its existence during the last phase of a Precucutenian culture and undertook some influences from Gumelnita and Petresti cultures. It belongs to the great painted ceramics complex known by the name of Ariuşd – Cucuteni – Tripolie. Further phases – A, A-B, B and C have been stratigraphically and typologically identified to have existed during its long-lasting life of more than 700 years (around 3500 BC – 2900 BC).

Working the land was considered to be the basic occupation of these communities, but they were animal breeders as well. They took great interest in breeding taurines. Haunting was of a secondary importance to them.

Among the countless and outstanding artistic manifestations belonging to the Neo- eneolithic epoch 5000 years ago, and which appeared in both Romania and the rest of Europe, Cucuteni culture stands as the symbol of one of the greatest achievements of the prehistoric man’s genius. As compared to the contemporary cultures, Cucuteni is undoubtly the most impressive of them. The artistic value of its painted pottery is genuine and surpasses the most exquisite manifestations belonging to most of the European cultures of that epoch.

 

wwwdumitruflorin.eu

 

Submitted: June 29, 2004

   

Any more description would be overkill.

   

I stared at the man, suddenly, shockingly, realizing who he was.

The steam from my breakfast wafted up into my nostrils. 2 hotcakes, tasting more like stainless steal than batter… but that was alright, you could coat them with cheap lard and drown them with artificial maple flavour (with added caramel colour) and they would slide right down.

My pitiful pile of eggs cowered in the corner of my Styrofoam tray; their nutrients whipped away, leaving them flavourless, hidden underneath the dripping residue of whatever my preprocessed sausage patty and biscuit had been cooked in.

I bit into my hashbrown, carefully wrapped in a waxpaper sheath so I could not feel with my fingers the half-cup of oil I was ingesting.

I. I had been degraded to this. I, the strong savage adventurer of the great white north, I, who had survived for days on end what was mine to trap in the bush, I, who had lived with the scent of pines in my breath, who was raised by the Naskapi, who was strengthened by the rich meat of the caribou, Canadian goose and lake trout, I, I had been reduced to this. Scraping greasy mass produced filth off a non-biodegradable platter with a plastic spoon and shoveling it into my mouth. I had been degraded, AND by my own doing.

 

I stared at the man, suddenly, shockingly, realizing who he was.

I had given into the pressure of the giant yellow magnet (that IS what the M stands for, isn’t it?).

Lured off the road by cheap prices, and their shapely African-American ad model smiling widely and purring thickly “I’m Lovin’ it!”™; I had pulled my car into the lot, ordered my food, and sat down on the sticky red bench to ingest. It was my duty. Doing my part. My four dollars and seven cents was making some fat white man somewhere rich. My four dollars and seven cents (one dollar and thirteen cents of which had actually paid for the price of my food) was robbing some delicate mom & pop breakfast shop of the four dollars and seven cents I could have given them for a decent meal.

 

I stared at the man, suddenly, shockingly, realizing who he was.

He hunched over a cheap plastic display case of cheap plastic sponsored children’s toys (not suitable for munchkins under 3) smiling. He smiled down at me, his wide hips emblazoned with the logo and tilted off to one side gauntly. Green signs displaying new salads (in a meager attempt fluttered over his shock of a red afro in the artificial breeze of the air conditioners. His shoes were the same, but now they had been spray painted bright red and garnished with bright yellow laces to match his striped socks. The shoes were no longer a coal-stained brown, no longer had holes big enough to drive a train through, but were still the same shoes. His nose had a spot of red on it, carefully placed to make it seem larger, wider, flatter. His eyes, (though tear stained; his mascara running down his face) sparkled. And his lips. His lips were huge. Shockingly red, they took up over half his face with a monstrous grin.

 

I stared at the man, suddenly, shockingly, realizing WHO HE WAS.

I got up.

Of course, now they had painted his face white, an ironic mockery making everything ok.

The elderly silvered man with the Windex spray bottle squirted my table as I headed toward the door, and he gave it a swipe with his disposable towel. I threw my tray in the trash, along with all the rest of the evidence of McHotcakes, McHashbrowns, McEggs, McSausage and the Homogenized, Ultra-Pasteurized, Vitamin A&D added McMilk.

And with it’s “Thank You” flap swinging mockingly, the trash can caused me to shiver with what it wore as a crown. The future was before my very eyes, sitting regally next to the mud-brown used trays. A single cup half-empty of watered down Coke. The African American ad woman stood plastered on the side with her African American daughter smiling. And around them, in every language and alphabet one could read the prophetic words: “I’m Lovin’ it!”.

This is essentially a breakfast casserole (eggs, potato, some kind of breakfast meat (bacon today)) topped with some traditional pizza toppings (pepperoni, mozzarella, tomato sauce).

 

Step 1: Fry some bacon. Nice and crispy, but not burnt. Set it aside to dry off some. Drain off most of the grease because, while delicious, it's terrible for you.

 

Step 2: Add some vegetable oil to the pan and add a bunch of shredded potatoes. I use the "Simply Potatoes" store-bought kind because last time I shredded potatoes manually, I shredded my thumb pretty good. It hurt. You're essentially making hash browns at this stage, though you don't want two thick layers of "crispy," just one, and it ends up on the bottom. Use your lid so the whole of the potatoes cook, not just what's in the oil/on the bottom of the pan. Turn about halfway through where you would for regular hash browns and add some seasonings (salt, pepper, rosemary, oregano, parsley in my case today). Let this go with the lid on until the bottom starts to get nice and crispy and, well, "crust-like."

 

Step 3: Mix about 2:1 eggs to milk until it's all roughly homogenized. I used four eggs. Pour overtop the potatoes. Throw a little tomato sauce in overtop the eggs, then your toppings (today crumbled bacon, sliced pepperoni, and sliced mozzarella), and a little more sauce. Lid up and cook some more until the eggs have mostly coagulated.

 

Step 4: Throw in the oven under the broiler (on low) for a few minutes or until it looks all done and delicious.

 

Step 5: Let it sit for a couple minutes so everything can set up properly, slice and serve.

i'm sorry, but italian sausage doesn't taste nearly as good if it doesn't come from under a garish orange, red & black sign ... i'm sort of shocked that an arts festival dumbed down the local color.

The Palace of Versailles is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about 19 kilometers (12 mi) west of Paris, France.

 

The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, under the direction of the French Ministry of Culture, by the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles. About 15,000,000 people visit the palace, park, or gardens of Versailles every year, making it one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world.

 

Louis XIII built a simple hunting lodge on the site of the Palace of Versailles in 1623. With his death came Louis XIV who expanded the château into the beginnings of a palace that went through several changes and phases from 1661 to 1715. It was a favorite residence for both kings, and in 1682, Louis XIV moved the seat of his court and government to Versailles, making the palace the de facto capital of France. This state of affairs was continued by Kings Louis XV and Louis XVI, who primarily made interior alterations to the palace, but in 1789 the royal family and capital of France returned to Paris. For the rest of the French Revolution, the Palace of Versailles was largely abandoned and emptied of its contents, and the population of the surrounding city plummeted.

 

Napoleon, following his coronation as Emperor, used Versailles as a summer residence from 1810 to 1814, but did not restore it. Following the Bourbon Restoration, when the king was returned to the throne, he resided in Paris and it was not until the 1830s that meaningful repairs were made to the palace. A museum of French history was installed within it, replacing the apartments of the southern wing.

 

The palace and park were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979 for its importance as the center of power, art, and science in France during the 17th and 18th centuries. The French Ministry of Culture has placed the palace, its gardens, and some of its subsidiary structures on its list of culturally significant monuments.

 

History

Main article: History of the Palace of Versailles

An engraving of Louis XIII's château as it appeared in 1652

Versailles around 1652, engraving by Jacques Gomboust [fr]

In 1623, Louis XIII, King of France, built a hunting lodge on a hill in a favorite hunting ground, 19 kilometers (12 mi) west of Paris and 16 kilometers (10 mi) from his primary residence, the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye The site, near a village named Versailles, was a wooded wetland that Louis XIII's court scorned as being generally unworthy of a king; one of his courtiers, François de Bassompierre, wrote that the lodge "would not inspire vanity in even the simplest gentleman". From 1631 to 1634, architect Philibert Le Roy replaced the lodge with a château for Louis XIII, who forbade his queen, Anne of Austria, from staying there overnight, even when an outbreak of smallpox at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1641 forced Louis XIII to relocate to Versailles with his three-year-old heir, the future Louis XIV.

 

When Louis XIII died in 1643, Anne became Louis XIV's regent, and Louis XIII's château was abandoned for the next decade. She moved the court back to Paris, where Anne and her chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, continued Louis XIII's unpopular monetary practices. This led to the Fronde, a series of revolts against royal authority from 1648 to 1653 that masked a struggle between Mazarin and the princes of the blood, Louis XIV's extended family, for influence over him. In the aftermath of the Fronde, Louis XIV became determined to rule alone. Following Mazarin's death in 1661, Louis XIV reformed his government to exclude his mother and the princes of the blood, moved the court back to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and ordered the expansion of his father's château at Versailles into a palace.

 

Louis XIV had hunted at Versailles in the 1650s, but did not take any special interest in Versailles until 1661. On 17 August 1661, Louis XIV was a guest at a sumptuous festival hosted by Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances, at his palatial residence, the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte. Louis XIV was impressed by the château and its gardens, which were the work of Louis Le Vau, the court architect since 1654, André Le Nôtre, the royal gardener since 1657, and Charles Le Brun, a painter in royal service since 1647. Vaux-le-Vicomte's scale and opulence inspired Louis XIV's aesthetic sense, but also led him to imprison Fouquet that September, as he had also built an island fortress and a private army. Louis XIV was also inspired by Vaux-le-Vicomte, and he recruited its authors for his own projects. Louis XIV replaced Fouquet with Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a protégé of Mazarin and enemy of Fouquet, and charged him with managing the corps of artisans in royal employment. Colbert acted as the intermediary between them and Louis XIV, who personally directed and inspected the planning and construction of Versailles.

 

Construction

Work at Versailles was at first concentrated on gardens, and through the 1660s, Le Vau only added two detached service wings and a forecourt to the château. But in 1668–69, as a response to the growth of the gardens, and victory over Spain in the War of Devolution, Louis XIV decided to turn Versailles into a full-scale royal residence. He vacillated between replacing or incorporating his father's château, but settled on the latter by the end of the decade, and from 1668 to 1671, Louis XIII's château was encased on three sides in a feature dubbed the enveloppe. This gave the château a new, Italianate façade overlooking the gardens, but preserved the courtyard façade, resulting in a mix of styles and materials that dismayed Louis XIV and that Colbert described as a "patchwork". Attempts to homogenize the two façades failed, and in 1670 Le Vau died, leaving the post of First Architect to the King vacant for the next seven years.

 

Le Vau was succeeded at Versailles by his assistant, architect François d'Orbay. Work at the palace during the 1670s focused on its interiors, as the palace was then nearing completion, though d'Orbay expanded Le Vau's service wings and connected them to the château, and built a pair of pavilions for government employees in the forecourt. In 1670, d'Orbay was tasked by Louis XIV with designing a city, also called Versailles, to house and service Louis XIV's growing government and court. The granting of land to courtiers for the construction of townhouses that resembled the palace began in 1671. The next year, the Franco-Dutch War began and funding for Versailles was cut until 1674, when Louis XIV had work begun on the Ambassadors' Staircase , a grand staircase for the reception of guests, and demolished the last of the village of Versailles.

 

Following the end of the Franco-Dutch War with French victory in 1678, Louis XIV appointed as First Architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart, an experienced architect in Louis XIV's confidence, who would benefit from a restored budget and large workforce of former soldiers. Mansart began his tenure with the addition from 1678 to 1681 of the Hall of Mirrors, a renovation of the courtyard façade of Louis XIII's château, and the expansion of d'Orbay's pavilions to create the Ministers' Wings in 1678–79. Adjacent to the palace, Mansart built a pair of stables called the Grande and Petite Écuries from 1679 to 1682 and the Grand Commun, which housed the palace's servants and general kitchens, from 1682 to 1684. Mansart also added two entirely new wings in Le Vau's Italianate style to house the court, first at the south end of the palace from 1679 to 1681 and then at its north end from 1685 to 1689.

 

War and the resulting diminished funding slowed construction at Versailles for the rest of the 17th century. The Nine Years' War, which began in 1688, stopped work altogether until 1698. Three years later, however, the even more expensive War of the Spanish Succession began and, combined with poor harvests in 1693–94 and 1709–10, plunged France into crisis. Louis XIV thus slashed funding and canceled some of the work Mansart had planned in the 1680s, such as the remodeling of the courtyard façade in the Italianate style. Louis XIV and Mansart focused on a permanent palace chapel, the construction of which lasted from 1699 to 1710.

 

Louis XIV's successors, Louis XV and Louis XVI, largely left Versailles as they inherited it and focused on the palace's interiors. Louis XV's modifications began in the 1730s, with the completion of the Salon d'Hercule, a ballroom in the north wing, and the expansion of the king's private apartment, which required the demolition of the Ambassadors' Staircase In 1748, Louis XV began construction of a palace theater, the Royal Opera of Versailles at the northernmost end of the palace, but completion was delayed until 1770; construction was interrupted in the 1740s by the War of the Austrian Succession and then again in 1756 with the start of the Seven Years' War. These wars emptied the royal treasury and thereafter construction was mostly funded by Madame du Barry, Louis XV's favorite mistress. In 1771, Louis XV had the northern Ministers' Wing rebuilt in Neoclassical style by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, his court architect, as it was in the process of falling down. That work was also stopped by financial constraints, and it remained incomplete when Louis XV died in 1774. In 1784, Louis XVI briefly moved the royal family to the Château de Saint-Cloud ahead of more renovations to the Palace of Versailles, but construction could not begin because of financial difficulty and political crisis. In 1789, the French Revolution swept the royal family and government out of Versailles forever.

 

Role in politics and culture

The Palace of Versailles was key to Louis XIV's politics, as an expression and concentration of French art and culture, and for the centralization of royal power. Louis XIV first used Versailles to promote himself with a series of nighttime festivals in its gardens in 1664, 1668, and 1674, the events of which were disseminated throughout Europe by print and engravings. As early as 1669, but especially from 1678, Louis XIV sought to make Versailles his seat of government, and he expanded the palace so as to fit the court within it. The moving of the court to Versailles did not come until 1682, however, and not officially, as opinion on Versailles was mixed among the nobility of France.

 

By 1687, however, it was evident to all that Versailles was the de facto capital of France, and Louis XIV succeeded in attracting the nobility to Versailles to pursue prestige and royal patronage within a strict court etiquette, thus eroding their traditional provincial power bases. It was at the Palace of Versailles that Louis XIV received the Doge of Genoa, Francesco Maria Imperiale Lercari in 1685, an embassy from the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1686, and an embassy from Safavid Iran in 1715.[

 

Louis XIV died at Versailles on 1 September 1715 and was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV, then the duke of Anjou, who was moved to Vincennes and then to Paris by Louis XV's regent, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. Versailles was neglected until 1722, when Philippe II removed the court to Versailles to escape the unpopularity of his regency, and when Louis XV began his majority. The 1722 move, however, broke the cultural power of Versailles, and during the reign of Louis XVI, courtiers spent their leisure in Paris, not Versailles.

 

During Christmas 1763, Mozart and his family visited Versailles and dined with the kings. The 7-year-old Mozart played several works during his stay and later dedicated his first two harpsichord sonatas, published in 1764 in Paris, to Madame Victoria, daughter of Louis XV.

 

In 1783, the palace was the site of the signing of the last two of the three treaties of the Peace of Paris (1783), which ended the American Revolutionary War. On September 3, British and American delegates, led by Benjamin Franklin, signed the Treaty of Paris at the Hôtel d'York (now 56 Rue Jacob) in Paris, granting the United States independence. On September 4, Spain and France signed separate treaties with England at the Palace of Versailles, formally ending the war.

 

The King and Queen learned of the Storming of the Bastille in Paris on 14 July 1789, while they were at the palace, and remained isolated there as the Revolution in Paris spread. The growing anger in Paris led to the Women's March on Versailles on 5 October 1789. A crowd of several thousand men and women, protesting the high price and scarcity of bread, marched from the markets of Paris to Versailles. They took weapons from the city armory, besieged the palace, and compelled the King and royal family and the members of the National Assembly to return with them to Paris the following day.

 

As soon as the royal family departed, the palace was closed. In 1792, the National Convention, the new revolutionary government, ordered the transfer of all the paintings and sculptures from the palace to the Louvre. In 1793, the Convention declared the abolition of the monarchy and ordered all of the royal property in the palace to be sold at auction. The auction took place between 25 August 1793 and 11 August 1794. The furnishings and art of the palace, including the furniture, mirrors, baths, and kitchen equipment, were sold in seventeen thousand lots. All fleurs-de-lys and royal emblems on the buildings were chambered or chiseled off. The empty buildings were turned into a storehouse for furnishings, art and libraries confiscated from the nobility. The empty grand apartments were opened for tours beginning in 1793, and a small museum of French paintings and art school was opened in some of the empty rooms.

 

By virtue of an order issued by the Versailles district directorate in August 1794, the Royal Gate was destroyed, the Cour Royale was cleared and the Cour de Marbre lost its precious floor.

 

19th century – history museum and government venue

When Napoleon became Emperor of the French in 1804, he considered making Versailles his residence but abandoned the idea because of the cost of the renovation. Prior to his marriage with Marie-Louise in 1810, he had the Grand Trianon restored and refurnished as a springtime residence for himself and his family, in the style of furnishing that it is seen today.

 

In 1815, with the final downfall of Napoleon, Louis XVIII, the younger brother of Louis XVI, became King, and considered returning the royal residence to Versailles, where he had been born. He ordered the restoration of the royal apartments, but the task and cost was too great. Louis XVIII had the far end of the south wing of the Cour Royale demolished and rebuilt (1814–1824) to match the Gabriel wing of 1780 opposite, which gave greater uniformity of appearance to the front entrance. Neither he nor his successor Charles X lived at Versailles.

 

The French Revolution of 1830 brought a new monarch, Louis-Philippe to power, and a new ambition for Versailles. He did not reside at Versailles but began the creation of the Museum of the History of France, dedicated to "all the glories of France", which had been used to house some members of the royal family. The museum was begun in 1833 and inaugurated on 30 June 1837. Its most famous room is the Galerie des Batailles (Hall of Battles), which lies on most of the length of the second floor of the south wing. The museum project largely came to a halt when Louis Philippe was overthrown in 1848, though the paintings of French heroes and great battles still remain in the south wing.

 

Emperor Napoleon III used the palace on occasion as a stage for grand ceremonies. One of the most lavish was the banquet that he hosted for Queen Victoria in the Royal Opera of Versailles on 25 August 1855.

 

During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, the palace was occupied by the general staff of the victorious German Army. Parts of the château, including the Gallery of Mirrors, were turned into a military hospital. The creation of the German Empire, combining Prussia and the surrounding German states under William I, was formally proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors on 18 January 1871. The Germans remained in the palace until the signing of the armistice in March 1871. In that month, the government of the new Third French Republic, which had departed Paris during the War for Tours and then Bordeaux, moved into the palace. The National Assembly held its meetings in the Opera House.

 

The uprising of the Paris Commune in March 1871, prevented the French government, under Adolphe Thiers, from returning immediately to Paris. The military operation which suppressed the Commune at the end of May was directed from Versailles, and the prisoners of the Commune were marched there and put on trial in military courts. In 1875 a second parliamentary body, the French Senate, was created and held its meetings for the election of a President of the Republic in a new hall created in 1876 in the south wing of the palace. The French Senate continues to meet in the palace on special occasions, such as the amendment of the French Constitution.

 

20th century

The end of the 19th and the early 20th century saw the beginning of restoration efforts at the palace, first led by Pierre de Nolhac, poet and scholar and the first conservator, who began his work in 1892. The conservation and restoration were interrupted by two world wars but have continued until the present day.

 

The palace returned to the world stage in June 1919, when, after six months of negotiations, the Treaty of Versailles, formally ending the First World War, was signed in the Hall of Mirrors. Between 1925 and 1928, the American philanthropist and multi-millionaire John D. Rockefeller, Jr. gave $2,166,000, the equivalent of about thirty million dollars today, to restore and refurbish the palace.

 

More work took place after World War II, with the restoration of the Royal Opera of Versailles. The theater was reopened in 1957, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

 

In 1978, parts of the palace were heavily damaged in a bombing committed by Breton terrorists.

 

Starting in the 1950s, when the museum of Versailles was under the directorship of Gérald van der Kemp, the objective was to restore the palace to its state – or as close to it as possible – in 1789 when the royal family left the palace. Among the early projects was the repair of the roof over the Hall of Mirrors; the publicity campaign brought international attention to the plight of post-war Versailles and garnered much foreign money including a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

 

One of the more costly endeavors for the museum and France's Fifth Republic has been to repurchase as much of the original furnishings as possible. Consequently, because furniture with a royal provenance – and especially furniture that was made for Versailles – is a highly sought-after commodity on the international market, the museum has spent considerable funds on retrieving much of the palace's original furnishings.

 

21st century

In 2003, a new restoration initiative – the "Grand Versailles" project – was started, which began with the replanting of the gardens, which had lost over 10,000 trees during Cyclone Lothar on 26 December 1999. One part of the initiative, the restoration of the Hall of Mirrors, was completed in 2006. Another major project was the further restoration of the backstage areas of the Royal Opera of Versailles in 2007 to 2009.

 

The Palace of Versailles is currently owned by the French state. Its formal title is the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles. Since 1995, it has been run as a Public Establishment, with an independent administration and management supervised by the French Ministry of Culture.

 

The grounds of the palace will host the equestrian competition during the 2024 Summer Olympics.

 

Architecture and plan

The Palace of Versailles is a visual history of French architecture from the 1630s to the 1780s. Its earliest portion, the corps de logis, was built for Louis XIII in the style of his reign with brick, marble, and slate, which Le Vau surrounded in the 1660s with Enveloppe, an edifice that was inspired by Renaissance-era Italian villas. When Mansart made further expansions to the palace in the 1680s, he used the Enveloppe as the model for his work. Neoclassical additions were made to the palace with the remodeling of the Ministers' Wings in the 1770s, by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, and after the Bourbon Restoration.

 

The palace was largely completed by the death of Louis XIV in 1715. The eastern facing palace has a U-shaped layout, with the corps de logis and symmetrical advancing secondary wings terminating with the Dufour Pavilion on the south and the Gabriel Pavilion to the north, creating an expansive cour d'honneur known as the Royal Court (Cour Royale). Flanking the Royal Court are two enormous asymmetrical wings that result in a façade of 402 metres (1,319 ft) in length. Covered by around a million square feet (10 hectares) of roof, the palace has 2,143 windows, 1,252 chimneys, and 67 staircases.[

 

The palace and its grounds have had a great influence on architecture and horticulture from the mid-17th century to the end of the 18th century. Examples of works influenced by Versailles include Christopher Wren's work at Hampton Court Palace, Berlin Palace, the Palace of La Granja, Stockholm Palace, Ludwigsburg Palace, Karlsruhe Palace, Rastatt Palace, Nymphenburg Palace, Schleissheim Palace, and Esterházy Palace.

 

Royal Apartments

The construction in 1668–1671 of Le Vau's enveloppe around the outside of Louis XIII's red brick and white stone château added state apartments for the king and the queen. The addition was known at the time as the château neuf (new château). The grands appartements (Grand Apartments, also referred to as the State Apartments[141][142]) include the grand appartement du roi and the grand appartement de la reine. They occupied the main or principal floor of the château neuf, with three rooms in each apartment facing the garden to the west and four facing the garden parterres to the north and south, respectively. The private apartments of the king (the appartement du roi and the petit appartement du roi) and those of the queen (the petit appartement de la reine) remained in the château vieux (old château). Le Vau's design for the state apartments closely followed Italian models of the day, including the placement of the apartments on the main floor (the piano nobile, the next floor up from the ground level), a convention the architect borrowed from Italian palace design.

 

The king's State Apartment consisted of an enfilade of seven rooms, each dedicated to one of the known planets and their associated titular Roman deity. The queen's apartment formed a parallel enfilade with that of the grand appartement du roi. After the addition of the Hall of Mirrors (1678–1684) the king's apartment was reduced to five rooms (until the reign of Louis XV, when two more rooms were added) and the queen's to four.

 

The queen's apartments served as the residence of three queens of France – Marie-Thérèse d'Autriche, wife of Louis XIV, Marie Leczinska, wife of Louis XV, and Marie-Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI. Additionally, Louis XIV's granddaughter-in-law, Princess Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy, duchesse de Bourgogne, wife of the Petit Dauphin, occupied these rooms from 1697 (the year of her marriage) to her death in 1712.

 

Ambassador's Staircase

The Ambassadors' Staircase (Escalier des Ambassadeurs) was an imperial staircase built from 1674 to 1680 by d'Orbay. Until Louis XV had it demolished in 1752 to create a courtyard for his private apartments, the staircase was the primary entrance into the Palace of Versailles and the royal apartments especially. It was entered from the courtyard via a vestibule that, cramped and dark, contrasted greatly with the tall, open space of the staircase – famously lit naturally with a skylight – so as to overawe visitors.

 

The staircase and walls of the room that contained it were clad in polychrome marble and gilded bronze, with decor in the Ionic order. Le Brun and painted the walls and ceiling of the room according to a festive theme to celebrate Louis XIV's victory in the Franco-Dutch War. On the wall immediately above the staircase were trompe-l'œil paintings of people from the Four Parts of the World looking into the staircase over a balustrade, a motif repeated on the ceiling fresco. There they were joined by allegorical figures for the twelve months of the year and various Classical Greek figures such as the Muses. A marble bust of Louis XIV, sculpted by Jean Warin in 1665–66, was placed in a niche above the first landing of the staircase.

 

The State Apartments of the King

The construction of the Hall of Mirrors between 1678 and 1686 coincided with a major alteration to the State Apartments. They were originally intended as his residence, but the King transformed them into galleries for his finest paintings, and venues for his many receptions for courtiers. During the season from All-Saints Day in November until Easter, these were usually held three times a week, from six to ten in the evening, with various entertainments.

 

The Salon of Hercules

This was originally a chapel. It was rebuilt beginning in 1712 under the supervision of the First Architect of the King, Robert de Cotte, to showcase two paintings by Paolo Veronese, Eleazar and Rebecca and Meal at the House of Simon the Pharisee, which was a gift to Louis XIV from the Republic of Venice in 1664. The painting on the ceiling, The Apotheosis of Hercules, by François Lemoyne, was completed in 1736, and gave the room its name.

 

The Salon of Abundance

The Salon of Abundance was the antechamber to the Cabinet of Curios (now the Games Room), which displayed Louis XIV's collection of precious jewels and rare objects. Some of the objects in the collection are depicted in René-Antoine Houasse's painting Abundance and Liberality (1683), located on the ceiling over the door opposite the windows.

 

The Salon of Venus

This salon was used for serving light meals during evening receptions. The principal feature in this room is Jean Warin's life-size statue of Louis XIV in the costume of a Roman emperor. On the ceiling in a gilded oval frame is another painting by Houasse, Venus subjugating the Gods and Powers (1672–1681). Trompe-l'œil paintings and sculpture around the ceiling illustrate mythological themes.

 

The Salon of Mercury

The Salon of Mercury was the original State Bedchamber when Louis XIV officially moved the court and government to the palace in 1682. The bed is a replica of the original commissioned by King Louis-Philippe in the 19th century when he turned the palace into a museum. The ceiling paintings by the Flemish artist Jean Baptiste de Champaigne depict the god Mercury in his chariot, drawn by a rooster, and Alexander the Great and Ptolemy surrounded by scholars and philosophers. The Automaton Clock was made for the King by the royal clockmaker Antoine Morand in 1706. When it chimes the hour, figures of Louis XIV and Fame descend from a cloud.

 

The Salon of Mars

The Salon of Mars was used by the royal guards until 1782, and was decorated on a military theme with helmets and trophies. It was turned into a concert room between 1684 and 1750, with galleries for musicians on either side. Portraits of Louis XV and his Queen, Marie Leszczinska, by the Flemish artist Carle Van Loo decorate the room today.

 

The Salon of Apollo

The Salon of Apollo was the royal throne room under Louis XIV, and was the setting for formal audiences. The eight-foot-high silver throne was melted down in 1689 to help pay the costs of an expensive war, and was replaced by a more modest throne of gilded wood. The central painting on the ceiling, by Charles de la Fosse, depicts the Sun Chariot of Apollo, the King's favorite emblem, pulled by four horses and surrounded by the four seasons.

 

The Salon of Diana

The Salon of Diana was used by Louis XIV as a billiards room, and had galleries from which courtiers could watch him play. The decoration of the walls and ceiling depicts scenes from the life of the goddess Diana. The celebrated bust of Louis XIV by Bernini made during the famous sculptor's visit to France in 1665 is on display here.

 

Private apartments of the King and Queen

The apartments of the King were the heart of the château; they were in the same location as the rooms of Louis XIII, the creator of the château, on the first floor (second floor US style). They were set aside for the personal use of Louis XIV in 1683. He and his successors Louis XV and Louis XVI used these rooms for official functions, such as the ceremonial lever ("waking up") and the coucher ("going to bed") of the monarch, which was attended by a crowd of courtiers.

 

The King's apartment was accessed from the Hall of Mirrors from the Oeil de Boeuf antechamber or from the Guardroom and the Grand Couvert, the ceremonial room where Louis XIV often took his evening meals, seated alone at a table in front of the fireplace. His spoon, fork, and knife were brought to him in a golden box. The courtiers could watch as he dined.

 

The King's bedchamber had originally been a Drawing Room before Louis XIV transformed it into his own bedroom in 1701. He died there on 1 September 1715. Both Louis XV and Louis XVI continued to use the bedroom for their official awakening and going to bed. On 6 October 1789, from the balcony of this room Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, joined by the Marquis de Lafayette, looked down on the hostile crowd in the courtyard, shortly before the King was forced to return to Paris.

 

The bed of the King is placed beneath a carved relief by Nicolas Coustou entitled France watching over the sleeping King. The decoration includes several paintings set into the paneling, including a self-portrait of Antony van Dyck.

 

Private apartments of The Queen

The petit appartement de la reine is a suite of rooms that were reserved for the personal use of the queen. Originally arranged for the use of the Marie-Thérèse, consort of Louis XIV, the rooms were later modified for use by Marie Leszczyńska and finally for Marie-Antoinette. The Queen's apartments and the King's Apartments were laid out on the same design, each suite having seven rooms. Both suites had ceilings painted with scenes from mythology; the King's ceilings featured male figures, the Queen's featured females.

 

Hall of Mirrors

The Hall of Mirrors is a long gallery at the westernmost part of the palace that looks out onto the gardens. The hall was built from 1678 to 1681 on the site of a terrace Le Vau built between the king and queen's suites. The hall is clad in marble and decorated in a modified version of the Corinthian order, with 578 mirrors facing 17 windows and reflecting the light provided by them. The ceiling fresco, painted by Le Brun over the next four years, embellishes the first 18 years of Louis XIV's reign in 30 scenes, 17 of which are military victories over the Dutch. The fresco depicts Louis XIV himself alongside Classical figures in the scenes celebrating moments in his reign such as the beginning of personal rule in 1661, breaking from earlier frescoes at Versailles that used allegories derived from Classical and mythological scenes.

 

The Salon of War and the Salon of Peace bookend the Hall of Mirrors on its northern and southern ends respectively. The Salon of War, constructed and decorated from 1678 to 1686, celebrates French victories in the Franco-Dutch War with marble panels, gilded bronze trophies of arms, and a stucco bas-relief of Louis XIV on horsebask riding over his enemies. The Salon of Peace is decorated in the same fashion but according to its eponymous theme.

 

Royal Chapel

The Royal Chapel of Versailles is located at the southern end of the north wing. The building stands 40-meter (130 ft) high, and measures 42 meters (138 ft) long and 24 meters (79 ft) wide. The chapel is rectangular with a semicircular apse, combining traditional, Gothic royal French church architecture with the French Baroque style of Versailles. The ceiling of the chapel is constituted by an unbroken vault, divided into three frescos by Antoine Coypel, Charles de La Fosse, and Jean Jouvenet. The palette of motifs beneath the frescoes glorify the deeds of Louis IX, and include images of David, Constantine, Charlemagne, and Louis IX, fleur de lis, and Louis XIV's monogram. The organ of the chapel was built by Robert Clicquot and Julien Tribuot in 1709–1710.

 

Louis XIV commissioned the chapel, its sixth, from Mansart and Le Brun in 1683–84. It was the last building constructed at Versailles during Louis XIV's reign. Construction was delayed until 1699, however, and it was not completed until 1710. The only major modification to the chapel since its completion was the removal of a lantern from its roof in 1765. A full restoration of the chapel began in late 2017 and lasted into early 2021.

 

Royal Opera

The Royal Opera of Versailles was originally commissioned by Louis XIV in 1682 and was to be built at the end of the North Wing with a design by Mansart and Vigarani. However, due to the expense of the King's continental wars, the project was put aside. The idea was revived by Louis XV with a new design by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1748, but this was also temporarily put aside. The project was revived and rushed ahead for the planned celebration of the marriage of the Dauphin, the future Louis XVI, and Marie-Antoinette. For economy and speed, the new opera was built almost entirely of wood, which also gave it very high quality acoustics. The wood was painted to resemble marble, and the ceiling was decorated with a painting of the Apollo, the god of the arts, preparing crowns for illustrious artists, by Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau. The sculptor Augustin Pajou added statuary and reliefs to complete the decoration. The new Opera was inaugurated on 16 May 1770, as part of the celebration of the royal wedding.

 

In October 1789, early in the French Revolution, the last banquet for the royal guardsmen was hosted by the King in the opera, before he departed for Paris. Following the Franco-German War in 1871 and then the Paris Commune until 1875, the French National Assembly met in the opera, until the proclamation of the Third French Republic and the return of the government to Paris.

 

Museum of the History of France

Shortly after becoming King in 1830, Louis Philippe I decided to transform the palace into a museum devoted to "All the Glories of France," with paintings and sculpture depicting famous French victories and heroes. Most of the apartments of the palace were entirely demolished (in the main building, practically all of the apartments were annihilated, with only the apartments of the king and queen remaining almost intact), and turned into a series of several large rooms and galleries: the Coronation Room (whose original volume was left untouched by Louis-Philippe), which displays the celebrated painting of the coronation of Napoleon I by Jacques-Louis David; the Hall of Battles; commemorating French victories with large-scale paintings; and the 1830 room, which celebrated Louis-Philippe's own coming to power in the French Revolution of 1830. Some paintings were brought from the Louvre, including works depicting events in French history by Philippe de Champaigne, Pierre Mignard, Laurent de La Hyre, Charles Le Brun, Adam Frans van der Meulen, Nicolas de Largillière, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Jean-Antoine Houdon, Jean-Marc Nattier, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Hubert Robert, Thomas Lawrence, Jacques-Louis David, and Antoine-Jean Gros. Others were commissioned especially for the museum by prominent artists of the early 19th century, including Eugène Delacroix, who painted Saint Louis at the French victory over the British in the Battle of Taillebourg in 1242. Other painters featured include Horace Vernet and François Gérard. A monumental painting by Vernet features Louis Philippe himself, with his sons, posing in front of the gates of the palace.

 

The overthrow of Louis Philippe in 1848 put an end to his grand plans for the museum, but the Gallery of Battles is still as it was, and is passed through by many visitors to the royal apartments and grand salons. Another set of rooms on the first floor has been made into galleries on Louis XIV and his court, displaying furniture, paintings, and sculptures. In recent years, eleven rooms on the ground floor between the Chapel and the Opera have been turned into a history of the palace, with audiovisual displays and models.

 

Estate of Versailles

The estate of Versailles consists of the palace, the subsidiary buildings around it, and its park and gardens. As of June 2021, the estate altogether covers an area of 800 hectares (8.0 km2; 2,000 acres), with the park and gardens laid out to the south, west, and north of the palace. The palace is approached from the east by the Avenue de Paris, measuring 17 miles (27 km) from Paris to a gate between the Grande and Petite Écuries. Beyond these stables is the Place d'Armes, where the Avenue de Paris meets the Avenue de Sceaux and Avenue de Saint-Cloud (see map), the three roads that formed the main arteries of the city of Versailles. Exactly where the three roads meet is a gate leading into the cour d'honneur. hemmed in by the Ministers' Wings. Beyond is the Royal Gate and the main palace, which wraps around the Royal and finally Marble Courts

 

The estate was established by Louis XIII as a hunting retreat, with a park just to the west of his château. From 1661, Louis XIV expanded the estate until, at its greatest extent, the estate was made up by the Grand Parc , a hunting ground of 15,000 hectares (150 km2; 37,000 acres), and the gardens, called the Petit Parc, which covered 1,700 hectares (17 km2; 4,200 acres). A 25-mile (40 km) long, 10-foot (3.0 m) high wall with 24 gateways enclosed the estate.

 

The landscape of the estate had to be created from the bog that surrounded Louis XIII's château using landscape architecture usually employed in fortress building. The approach to the palace and the gardens were carefully laid out via the moving of earth and construction of terraces. The water from the marsh was marshalled into a series of lakes and ponds around Versailles, but these reservoirs were not sufficient for the palace, city, or gardens. Great lengths were taken to supply Versailles with water, such as the damming of the river Bièvre to create an inflow in the 1660s, the construction of an enormous pumping station at the river Seine near Marly-le-Roi in 1681, and an attempt to divert water from the river Eure with a canal in the later 1680s.

 

Gardens

The gardens of Versailles, as they have existed since the reign of Louis XIV, are the work of André Le Nôtre. Le Nôtre's gardens were preceded by a simple garden laid out in the 1630s by landscape architects Jacques Boyceau and Jacques de Nemours, which he rearranged along an east–west axis that, because of Louis XIV's land purchases and the clearing of woodland, were expanded literally as far as could be seen. The resulting gardens were a collaboration between Le Nôtre, Le Brun, Colbert, and Louis XIV, marked by rigid order, discipline, and open space, with axial paths, flowerbeds, hedges, and ponds and lakes as motifs. They became the epitome of the French formal garden style, and have been very influential and widely imitated or reproduced.

 

Subsidiary structures

The first of the subsidiary structures of the Palace of Versailles was the Versailles Menagerie [fr],[199][200] built by Le Vau between the years 1662 and 1664, at the southern end of the Grand Canal. The apartments, overlooking the pens, were renovated by Mansart from 1698 to 1700, but the Menagerie fell into disuse in 1712. After a long period of decay, it was demolished in 1801. The Versailles Orangery, just to the south of the palace, was first built by Le Vau in 1663, originally as part of the general moving of earth to create the Estate.[191] It was also modified by Mansart, who, from 1681 to 1685, totally rebuilt it and doubled its size.

 

In late 1679, Louis XIV commissioned Mansart to build the Château de Marly, a retreat at the edge of Versailles's estate, about 5 miles (8.0 km) from the palace. The château consisted of a primary residential building and twelve pavilions, in Palladian style placed in two rows on either side of the main building. Construction was completed in 1686, when Louis XIV spent his first night there. The château was nationalized and sold in 1799, and subsequently demolished and replaced with industrial buildings. These were themselves demolished in 1805, and then in 1811 the estate was purchased by Napoleon. On 1 June 2009, the grounds of the Château de Marly were ceded to the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles.

 

La Lanterne, is a hunting lodge named after the lantern that topped the nearby Menagerie that was built in 1787 by Philippe Louis de Noailles, then the palace governor. It has since 1960 been a state residence.

 

Petit Trianon

The Petit Trianon, whose construction from 1762 to 1768 led to the advent of the names "Grand" and "Petit Trianon", was constructed for Louis XV and the Madame du Barry in the Neoclassical style by Gabriel. The building has a piano nobile, basement, and attic, with five windows on each floor. On becoming king, Louis XVI gave the Petit Trianon to Marie Antoinette, who remodeled it, relaid its gardens in the then-current English and Oriental styles, and formed her own court there.

 

In 1668, Louis XIV purchased and demolished the hamlet of Trianon, near the northern tip of the Grand Canal, and in its place, he commissioned Le Vau to construct a retreat from court, remembered as the Porcelain Trianon. Designed and built by Le Vau in 1670, it was the first example of Chinoiserie (faux Chinese) architecture in Europe, though it was largely designed in French style. The roof was clad not with porcelain but with delftware, and was thus prone to leaks, so in 1687 Louis XIV ordered it demolished. Nevertheless, the Porcelain Trianon was itself influential and copycats were built across Europe.

 

The Grand Trianon

The Grand Trianon with courtyard and gardens. The wing at left is a residence of the President of France.

The Grand Trianon with courtyard and gardens. The wing at left is a residence of the President of France.

 

To replace the Porcelain Trianon, Louis XIV tasked Mansart with the construction in 1687 of the Grand Trianon, built from marble in three months. The Grand Trianon has a single story, except for its attached service wing, which was modified by Mansart in 1705–06. The east façade has a courtyard while the west faces the gardens of the Grand Trianon, and between them a peristyle. The interiors are mostly original,[214] and housed Louis XIV, the Madame de Maintenon, Marie Leszczynska, and Napoleon, who ordered restorations to the building. Under de Gaulle, the north wing of the Grand Trianon became a residence of the President of France.

 

The Queen's hamlet and Theater

Near the Trianons are the French pavilion, built by Gabriel in 1750 between the two residences, and the Queen's Theater and Queen's Hamlet, built by architect Richard Mique in 1780 and from 1783 to 1785 respectively. These were both built at the behest of Marie Antoinette; the theater, hidden in the gardens, indulged her appreciation of opera and is absolutely original, and the hamlet to extend her gardens with rustic amenities. The building scheme of the Queen's Hamlet includes a farmhouse (the farm was to produce milk and eggs for the queen), a dairy, a dovecote, a boudoir, a barn that burned down during the French Revolution, a mill and a tower in the form of a lighthouse.

 

Modern political and ceremonial functions

The palace still serves political functions. Heads of state are regaled in the Hall of Mirrors; the bicameral French Parliament—consisting of the Senate (Sénat) and the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale)—meet in joint session (a congress of the French Parliament) in Versailles to revise or otherwise amend the French Constitution, a tradition that came into effect with the promulgation of the 1875 Constitution. For example, the Parliament met in joint session at Versailles to pass constitutional amendments in June 1999 (for domestic applicability of International Criminal Court decisions and for gender equality in candidate lists), in January 2000 (ratifying the Treaty of Amsterdam), and in March 2003 (specifying the "decentralized organization" of the French Republic).

 

In 2009, President Nicolas Sarkozy addressed the global financial crisis before a congress in Versailles, the first time that this had been done since 1848, when Charles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte gave an address before the French Second Republic. Following the November 2015 Paris attacks, President François Hollande gave a speech before a rare joint session of parliament at the Palace of Versailles. This was the third time since 1848 that a French president addressed a joint session of the French Parliament at Versailles. The president of the National Assembly has an official apartment at the Palace of Versailles. In 2023 a state visit by Charles III to France included a state banquet at the Palace.

I am looking for a recipe to prepare the tortilla for enchiladas, assuming I cannot find any ready-to-make crust. I would like to use basic ingredients only, e.g. flour, etc.

I wish it were as simple as giving you a recipe. The tortilla takes some serious work and time to manufacture. Maybe the least heart- breaking recommendation I can pass along is for you to hunt in your basic "ethnic food store" for a bag of processed corn meal by either of the labels "Masaharina"(TM) or "Maseca" (TM) (actually, if there is any sort of Mexican population where you live, you may not need to look beyond the Mexican foods section of your regular grocery store), then follow the instructions on the bag. However, I can almost guarantee that the first few times you go through the procedure your tortillas will be less than satisfactory. Mexican women who make their own tortillas (these days, this is mostly in rural areas) go through an apprenticeship that lasts for years, beginning as little girls, to learn how to make a truly fine tortilla. For what it's worth though, we've found that Maseca flour usually gives the best results in terms of consistence and flavor (products made with Masaharina tend to go stale and rancid sooner, indicating that the oil content of this flour must be higher than Maseca's).

  

What to do if you really want to make tortillas from scratch

If you were truly to begin from scratch, you'd get some white corn grain and set it to low boil in a covered pot with some slaked lime or wood ashes. You can get this in Mexican open-air markets by asking for "cal," or "tequisquite." Much of the language employed to talk about corn, tortillas, and the process of making tortillas, is based on the Aztec language, Nahuatl, and I'll mention these terms as we go along. The process described above will loosen the "skins" (pericarp) of the kernels, and you'd find most of these skins floating at the top of the steep liquor next morning. This alkaline solution has the side effect of making bound niacin in the corn endosperm soluble, and therefore available as a nutrient (this is important to folks who depend on corn as their staple source of nutrients; in Mexico annual per capita consumption of tortillas is about 410 lb., or as you can see, a little over 1 lb. per day, and in rural areas it is estimated that tortillas provide about 70% of the caloric intake). You would discard the supernate and the steep liquor itself (called "nejayote"), then wash the remaining "naked" kernels (consisting mostly of pure starch) and embryos ("germs," where most of the oil is concentrated). However, if you wanted to avoid this whole process and start from this point on, you could look for 'hominy' in your local grocery store, since this is precisely what hominy is.

 

Next, you'd get hold of a grinding stone utensil (known in Mexico as 'metate,') and you'd begin slaving over the corn grain with a pestle and a jug of water by your side. In the course of grinding the grain you're homogenizing and gelatinizing the starch, protein and germ, and also somewhat dehydrating it; however, you must add water continuously to make the resulting mixture pliable. When you are done, you'll have a dough that you will work into small balls from which you'll shape your tortillas. These spheres are known as "testales." This step takes between half an hour to an hour, depending on how many tortillas you are making. If you would want to dispense with this step, then use the Maseca flour mentioned above. This is essentially the dough in dehydrated state, ready for you to rehydrate and shape your tortillas.

 

Shaping and cooking the tortilla is a key step, and the one where the greatest skill is involved. What you are trying to do is create as thin and round a patty of the dough as possible. As you work it, you will be further dehydrating the mixture. The trick is to lose only so much water in this step and in the next, which involves baking both sides of the tortilla for 30 to 60 seconds on a hot griddle, so that the resulting product has a specific water content when done (about 40% moisture, which is crucial), making it soft and pliable. The tortilla should puff as you bake it, but if air bubbles form in the dough as it bakes, or if is too wet and pasty, or too dry and burns, or is toasted as it bakes, then the resulting tortilla is ruined. As you can imagine, Indian women who mass-produce tortillas three times a day don't stop to think about baking time or moisture content, they have simply developed the knack to know when the dough is ready and how much baking to allow. Also, it is no easy matter to form a round tortilla in the limited amount of time you have between grinding/kneading the dough, patting it out, and having to lay it on the griddle before it dries excessively. Experienced Indian women in Mexico are a wonder to watch as they do this using nothing but their hands (no flat surface) as they pat out perfect circles between their palms. If you wanted to avoid this step, then you'd go buy a "tortilla press," which is a couple of round metal or wooden sheets that you press by means of a lever. You place a doughball on one of the sheets, press, then cut off the dough extruded from the press, leaving a round sheet of dough inside the press; OR you could go buy 'industrial tortillas' in the frozen foods section of your grocery store.

 

There is no industrial tortilla that can compare with the freshly baked and ready-to-eat article, as you might expect. To facilitate the mechanization of the process, a number of compromises are made. Most industrial processes begin with a flower base such as Maseca, create large batches of the dough, pass it through rollers to create the flattened cake, then actually cut out a perfectly round tortilla, which is then paraded through several series of conveyor belts, passing through an oven, and then open ventilated space to allow for cooling and water loss, before packing in plastic bags which are then frozen and shipped. The weak link in the whole process is that tortillas don't last in storage and lose their flavor in a hurry when aged/frozen. The main reason is that their oil content leads to them becoming sour, and the freezing process used in the US leads to water condensation on the tortillas themselves, which always makes them pasty and mushy when you try to use them again at room temperature. A recent report in the Wall Street Journal (May 10, 1996) indicated that the world market for tortillas is worth about $5 billion U. S. According to this article, even though Mexicans consume about 10 times as many tortillas per capita as U. S. consumers, the Mexican tortilla market is still dominated by small "tortillerias." In Mexico, packaged tortillas account for only 5 percent of sales. However, large flour-producing industries, such as Maseca and Bimbo, are predicting that "the end of tortilla subsidies in Mexico will transform the Mexican market, giving an advantage to U.S.-style marketing of plastic-bagged tortillas in supermarkets."

 

Now then, let's say that you've either made or purchased your tortillas and are ready to make your enchiladas. This is a dish whose name means that you've "chilified" some tortillas. "Chili" is derived from the Aztec name for what you call a "chile pepper," the fruit of various species of plants of the genus Capsicum. Following is a recipe for enchiladas that I give with some hesitation. It was collected from rural Indian women near the vicinity of Puebla, Mexico, and the instructions are sparce and most useful for cooks of whom great familiarity with Mexican cooking can be assumed (Recetario de Maiz, Colegio de Postgraduados, CEICADAR, 1990. Translation and all errors of same are my fault!)

 

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

A mini container of ice cream gets homogenized.

 

I would do pint size containers bu they are too expensive. At about a buck twenty, these are more in my price range.

 

Cheers.

We are Vacancy.

 

© Arace Photographic

 

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LA recette de

PAILLES AU FROMAGE

LES INGREDIENTS :

(désolé mais ma vieille tante Catherine ne cuisinait pas métrique)

2 tasses de farine

2 c. à thé de poudre à pâte

1 c. à thé de sel (je ne la met plus)

2 c. à table de beurre

2 c. à table de Crisco (Saindoux) (ne pas confondre avec l'huile de la même marque…)

1 tasse d'eau froide (on n'utilise pas toute cette quantité)

1 lb de fromage râpé (utiliser de préférence du fromage cheddar extra vieux, disponible dans certains commerces spécialisés.).

LES ÉTAPES

•Préchauffer le four à 350° F (mettre deux grilles, une au tiers inférieur et l'autre au tiers supérieur).

•Râper finement le fromage et l’étendre sur un papier ciré pour qu’il perde un peu de son humidité.

•Mélanger la farine, le sel et la poudre à pâte.

•Ajouter le Crisco et le beurre et couper avec deux couteaux.

(Les modernes pourront faire cette étape au mélangeur à pâtisserie et zut pour la poésie... mais il n'est pas nécessaire de trop homogénéiser à cette étape).

•Ajouter progressivement juste assez d'eau pour obtenir une pâte peu collante en pétrissant avec les mains

(on n'utilise donc pas toute l'eau).

•Incorporer progressivement le fromage râpé. Pétrir modérément à chaque ajout jusqu'à ce que le fromage soit incorporé complètement.

•Séparer la pâte en quatre boules égales.

•À l’aide d’un rouleau légèrement enfariné, étendre une boule de pâte en une couche d'environ 1/4"-1/8" d'épais.

•À l’aide d’une roulette dentelée, couper en bâtons (pailles) de 1/4" de large.

•Étendre les pailles sur une tôle protégée par un papier parchemin à cuisson. (Il est plus facile de couper et de mettre sur la tôle, les pailles une à une)

•Cuire 6 minutes sur la grille du haut, ensuite TOURNEZ la tôle ET mettre 6 minutes sur la grille du bas.

•Considérer la cuisson terminée lorsque les bouts des pailles brunissent. Les pailles devraient être légèrement jaunâtres.

(Selon toute vraisemblance, votre four se comporte légèrement différemment du mien. Surveillez votre première fournée et ajustez le temps de cuisson en conséquence).

•Laisser glisser les pailles hors du papier parchemin sur une grille à l'air libre pour les laisser refroidir.

•Entreposer les pailles dans une boîte métallique hermétique.

 

LES TRUCS:

Cette recette est plus facile à réussir avec du fromage extra vieux car il est plus sec et nettement plus « goûteux ».

 

Il est plus difficile de réussir cette recette l'été, car l'humidité ambiante tend à rend les pailles un peu molles. Mais cet inconvénient pour certains est apprécié par d'autres (les goûts et les couleurs...)

 

Pour éviter d'avoir des pailles trop humides, on peut étendre sur un papier ciré le fromage fraîchement râpé pour le laisser sécher quelque peu.

 

Pour incorporer le fromage, aplatir la pâte dans un bol. Ajouter une bonne couche de fromage. Plier la pâte en deux. Aplatir le tout avec votre poing. Rajouter du fromage. Répéter jusqu’à ce que tout le fromage ait été utilisé. Pétrir en utilisant vos pouces pour incorporer le fromage à la pâte.

 

Une des étapes les plus difficiles est d’étendre la pâte au rouleau. Pour éviter que la pâte ne se brise, rouler par petits coups de rouleau. Faites pivoter la pâte fréquemment. Vous pourrez ainsi aplatir la pâte progressivement tout en contrôlant sa cohésion. (La forte quantité de fromage rend celle-ci un peu friable).

 

Couper les pailles légèrement plus large qu'elles ne sont épaisses. Sinon, elles ont tendance à s'affaisser après avoir monté à la cuisson. Ces pailles sont relativement fragiles donc une longueur de huit pouces environ vous évitera bien des bris et ennuis.

 

Pour couper les pailles, on peut utiliser une roulette dentelée, pour l'esthétique...

Rédaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

Mes remerciements à Catherine Morrissette.

Texte modifié en décembre 2019

  

Ze Cheese Straws recipe

ZE INGREDIENTS :

(sorry but my old aunt Catherine didn’t cook metric)

2 cups flour

2 tea spoons baking soda

1 tea spoons salt (I don't add salt anymore)

2 table spoons butter

2 table spoons Crisco (Shortening)

1 cup cold water (we do NOT use all this quantity)

1 pound grated (shredded) cheese cheddar (preferably extra-old cheddar, available in specialized stores.).

Ze steps

•Preheat oven to 350° F (use two grills, one at the bottom third, the other one on the top third).

•Finely shred the cheese and spread it on wax paper so it can loose some humidity.

•Mix the flour, salt and baking soda.

•Add the Crisco and butter and cut with two knives.

(If you prefer a more modern approach, you could do this step with a pastry blender and forget being poetic... but it really isn’t necessary to homogenize too much at this moment).

•Progressively add just enough water to get a non sticky dough while kneading with your hands

(thus we do NOT use all the water).

•Progressively incorporate the grated cheddar. Moderately knead each time you add cheddar until all the cheese is incorporated.

•Separate the dough into four « equal » balls.

•Use a rolling pin (slightly coated with flour), to spread the dough down to approximatively 1/4"-1/8" thin.

•Use a pastry wheel crimper to cut the dough in straws (sticks) about ¼ inch wide.

•Deposit the straws one by one on a flat pastry baking tray protected by parchment paper.

•Bake 6 minutes on the upper grill, then TURN the tray AND bake 6 minutes on the bottom grill.

•When the tips of the straws turn brownish, baking is done. Straws should be slightly yellowish.

(In all likelyhood, your oven will will react slightly differently from mine. Consequently do keep an eye on your first batch and reajust cooking time accordingly).

•Slide straws from the parchment paper then place them on a grill to let them cool down.

•Keep the straws in an hermetic metal box

 

ZE TRICKS:

This recipe will be at its best with extra-old cheddar as it is dryer and more flavourful.

 

It is harder to make this recipe in summer as the ambiant humidity tends to make the straws somewhat less crunchy. But what is an inconvenience for some is appreciated by others (colors and taste…)

 

To avoid having humid straws, you can spread the grated cheese on a wax paper sheet and let it dry for some time prior to incorporating it to the dough.

 

To incorporate the chesse, flaten the dough in a bowl. Add a « good » layer of grated cheese. Fold the dough over in two. Again flaten the dough with your fist. Add some cheese. Repeat until all the cheese has been used. Knead using your thumbs to mix the cheese with the dough.

 

One of the most difficult step is to spread the dough with the rolling pin. To prevent the dough from « breaking » At the edges, roll with small moves. Rotate the dough frequently. You will thus be able to control the dough and avoid large cracks. (The large amount of cheddar makes the dough crumbly).

 

Cut the straws slightly larger than their thickness. Otherwise they will tend to collapse on the side while baking. The straws are fragile and you should cut them at a maximum length of 8 inches (before baking of course…).

 

Use a pastry wheel crimper is for aesthetics...

Redaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

My thanks to Catherine Morrissette.

Modified on December 20th 2019

Biennale di Venezia 2014 - 14th International Architecture Exhibition - Fundamentals.

Fundamentals consists of three interlocking exhibitions:

1.Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014 is an invitation to the national pavilions to show the process of the erasure of national characteristics.

2.Elements of Architecture, in the Central Pavilion, pays close attention to the fundamentals of our buildings used by any architect, anywhere, anytime.

3.Monditalia dedicates the Arsenale to a single theme – Italy – with exhibitions, events, and theatrical productions.

 

The 14th International Architecture Exhibition, titled Fundamentals, directed by Rem Koolhaas and organized by la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, was open to the public from June 7 through November 23, 2014, in Venica Italy. 65 National Participations were exhibiting in the historic pavilions in the Giardini, in the Arsenale, and in the city of Venice. They examine key moments from a century of modernization. Together, the presentations start to reveal how diverse material cultures and political environments transformed a generic modernity into a specific one. Participating countries show, each in their own way, a radical splintering of modernity's in a century where the homogenizing process of globalization appeared to be the master narrative

 

Absorbing Modernity 1914–2014 has been proposed for the contribution of all the pavilions, and they too are involved in a substantial part of the overall research project, whose title is Fundamentals. The history of the past one hundred years prelude to the Elements of Architecture section hosted in the Central Pavilion, where the curator offers the contemporary world those elements that should represent the reference points for the discipline: for the architects but also for its dialogue with clients and society. Monditalia section in the Corderie with 41 research projects, reminds us of the complexity of this reality without complacency or prejudice, which is paradigmatic of what happens elsewhere in the world; complexities that must be deliberately experienced as sources of regeneration. Dance, Music, Theatre and Cinema with the programmes of the directors will participate in the life of the section, with debates and seminars along the six-month duration of the exhibition.

 

Elements of Architecture / Central Pavilions

This exhibition is the result of a two-year research studio with the Harvard Graduate School of Design and collaborations with a host of experts from industry and academia. Elements of Architecture looks under a microscope at the fundamentals of our buildings, used by any architect, anywhere, anytime: the floor, the wall, the ceiling, the roof, the door, the window, the façade, the balcony, the corridor, the fireplace, the toilet, the stair, the escalator, the elevator, the ramp. The exhibition is a selection of the most revealing, surprising, and unknown moments from a new book, Elements of Architecture, that reconstructs the global history of each element. It brings together ancient, past, current, and future versions of the elements in rooms that are each dedicated to a single element. To create diverse experiences, we have recreated a number of very different environments – archive, museum, factory, laboratory, mock-up, simulation.

 

LA recette de

PAILLES AU FROMAGE

LES INGREDIENTS :

(désolé mais ma vieille tante Catherine ne cuisinait pas métrique)

2 tasses de farine

2 c. à thé de poudre à pâte

1 c. à thé de sel (je ne la met plus)

2 c. à table de beurre

2 c. à table de Crisco (Saindoux) (ne pas confondre avec l'huile de la même marque…)

1 tasse d'eau froide (on n'utilise pas toute cette quantité)

1 lb de fromage râpé (utiliser de préférence du fromage cheddar extra vieux, disponible dans certains commerces spécialisés.).

LES ÉTAPES

•Préchauffer le four à 350° F (mettre deux grilles, une au tiers inférieur et l'autre au tiers supérieur).

•Râper finement le fromage et l’étendre sur un papier ciré pour qu’il perde un peu de son humidité.

•Mélanger la farine, le sel et la poudre à pâte.

•Ajouter le Crisco et le beurre et couper avec deux couteaux.

(Les modernes pourront faire cette étape au mélangeur à pâtisserie et zut pour la poésie... mais il n'est pas nécessaire de trop homogénéiser à cette étape).

•Ajouter progressivement juste assez d'eau pour obtenir une pâte peu collante en pétrissant avec les mains

(on n'utilise donc pas toute l'eau).

•Incorporer progressivement le fromage râpé. Pétrir modérément à chaque ajout jusqu'à ce que le fromage soit incorporé complètement.

•Séparer la pâte en quatre boules égales.

•À l’aide d’un rouleau légèrement enfariné, étendre une boule de pâte en une couche d'environ 1/4"-1/8" d'épais.

•À l’aide d’une roulette dentelée, couper en bâtons (pailles) de 1/4" de large.

•Étendre les pailles sur une tôle protégée par un papier parchemin à cuisson. (Il est plus facile de couper et de mettre sur la tôle, les pailles une à une)

•Cuire 6 minutes sur la grille du haut, ensuite TOURNEZ la tôle ET mettre 6 minutes sur la grille du bas.

•Considérer la cuisson terminée lorsque les bouts des pailles brunissent. Les pailles devraient être légèrement jaunâtres.

(Selon toute vraisemblance, votre four se comporte légèrement différemment du mien. Surveillez votre première fournée et ajustez le temps de cuisson en conséquence).

•Laisser glisser les pailles hors du papier parchemin sur une grille à l'air libre pour les laisser refroidir.

•Entreposer les pailles dans une boîte métallique hermétique.

 

LES TRUCS:

Cette recette est plus facile à réussir avec du fromage extra vieux car il est plus sec et nettement plus « goûteux ».

 

Il est plus difficile de réussir cette recette l'été, car l'humidité ambiante tend à rend les pailles un peu molles. Mais cet inconvénient pour certains est apprécié par d'autres (les goûts et les couleurs...)

 

Pour éviter d'avoir des pailles trop humides, on peut étendre sur un papier ciré le fromage fraîchement râpé pour le laisser sécher quelque peu.

 

Pour incorporer le fromage, aplatir la pâte dans un bol. Ajouter une bonne couche de fromage. Plier la pâte en deux. Aplatir le tout avec votre poing. Rajouter du fromage. Répéter jusqu’à ce que tout le fromage ait été utilisé. Pétrir en utilisant vos pouces pour incorporer le fromage à la pâte.

 

Une des étapes les plus difficiles est d’étendre la pâte au rouleau. Pour éviter que la pâte ne se brise, rouler par petits coups de rouleau. Faites pivoter la pâte fréquemment. Vous pourrez ainsi aplatir la pâte progressivement tout en contrôlant sa cohésion. (La forte quantité de fromage rend celle-ci un peu friable).

 

Couper les pailles légèrement plus large qu'elles ne sont épaisses. Sinon, elles ont tendance à s'affaisser après avoir monté à la cuisson. Ces pailles sont relativement fragiles donc une longueur de huit pouces environ vous évitera bien des bris et ennuis.

 

Pour couper les pailles, on peut utiliser une roulette dentelée, pour l'esthétique...

Rédaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

Mes remerciements à Catherine Morrissette.

Texte modifié en décembre 2019

  

Ze Cheese Straws recipe

ZE INGREDIENTS :

(sorry but my old aunt Catherine didn’t cook metric)

2 cups flour

2 tea spoons baking soda

1 tea spoons salt (I don't add salt anymore)

2 table spoons butter

2 table spoons Crisco (Shortening)

1 cup cold water (we do NOT use all this quantity)

1 pound grated (shredded) cheese cheddar (preferably extra-old cheddar, available in specialized stores.).

Ze steps

•Preheat oven to 350° F (use two grills, one at the bottom third, the other one on the top third).

•Finely shred the cheese and spread it on wax paper so it can loose some humidity.

•Mix the flour, salt and baking soda.

•Add the Crisco and butter and cut with two knives.

(If you prefer a more modern approach, you could do this step with a pastry blender and forget being poetic... but it really isn’t necessary to homogenize too much at this moment).

•Progressively add just enough water to get a non sticky dough while kneading with your hands

(thus we do NOT use all the water).

•Progressively incorporate the grated cheddar. Moderately knead each time you add cheddar until all the cheese is incorporated.

•Separate the dough into four « equal » balls.

•Use a rolling pin (slightly coated with flour), to spread the dough down to approximatively 1/4"-1/8" thin.

•Use a pastry wheel crimper to cut the dough in straws (sticks) about ¼ inch wide.

•Deposit the straws one by one on a flat pastry baking tray protected by parchment paper.

•Bake 6 minutes on the upper grill, then TURN the tray AND bake 6 minutes on the bottom grill.

•When the tips of the straws turn brownish, baking is done. Straws should be slightly yellowish.

(In all likelyhood, your oven will will react slightly differently from mine. Consequently do keep an eye on your first batch and reajust cooking time accordingly).

•Slide straws from the parchment paper then place them on a grill to let them cool down.

•Keep the straws in an hermetic metal box

 

ZE TRICKS:

This recipe will be at its best with extra-old cheddar as it is dryer and more flavourful.

 

It is harder to make this recipe in summer as the ambiant humidity tends to make the straws somewhat less crunchy. But what is an inconvenience for some is appreciated by others (colors and taste…)

 

To avoid having humid straws, you can spread the grated cheese on a wax paper sheet and let it dry for some time prior to incorporating it to the dough.

 

To incorporate the chesse, flaten the dough in a bowl. Add a « good » layer of grated cheese. Fold the dough over in two. Again flaten the dough with your fist. Add some cheese. Repeat until all the cheese has been used. Knead using your thumbs to mix the cheese with the dough.

 

One of the most difficult step is to spread the dough with the rolling pin. To prevent the dough from « breaking » At the edges, roll with small moves. Rotate the dough frequently. You will thus be able to control the dough and avoid large cracks. (The large amount of cheddar makes the dough crumbly).

 

Cut the straws slightly larger than their thickness. Otherwise they will tend to collapse on the side while baking. The straws are fragile and you should cut them at a maximum length of 8 inches (before baking of course…).

 

Use a pastry wheel crimper is for aesthetics...

Redaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

My thanks to Catherine Morrissette.

Modified on December 20th 2019

Biennale di Venezia 2014 - 14th International Architecture Exhibition - Fundamentals.

Fundamentals consists of three interlocking exhibitions:

1.Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014 is an invitation to the national pavilions to show the process of the erasure of national characteristics.

2.Elements of Architecture, in the Central Pavilion, pays close attention to the fundamentals of our buildings used by any architect, anywhere, anytime.

3.Monditalia dedicates the Arsenale to a single theme – Italy – with exhibitions, events, and theatrical productions.

 

The 14th International Architecture Exhibition, titled Fundamentals, directed by Rem Koolhaas and organized by la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, was open to the public from June 7 through November 23, 2014, in Venica Italy. 65 National Participations were exhibiting in the historic pavilions in the Giardini, in the Arsenale, and in the city of Venice. They examine key moments from a century of modernization. Together, the presentations start to reveal how diverse material cultures and political environments transformed a generic modernity into a specific one. Participating countries show, each in their own way, a radical splintering of modernity's in a century where the homogenizing process of globalization appeared to be the master narrative

 

Absorbing Modernity 1914–2014 has been proposed for the contribution of all the pavilions, and they too are involved in a substantial part of the overall research project, whose title is Fundamentals. The history of the past one hundred years prelude to the Elements of Architecture section hosted in the Central Pavilion, where the curator offers the contemporary world those elements that should represent the reference points for the discipline: for the architects but also for its dialogue with clients and society. Monditalia section in the Corderie with 41 research projects, reminds us of the complexity of this reality without complacency or prejudice, which is paradigmatic of what happens elsewhere in the world; complexities that must be deliberately experienced as sources of regeneration. Dance, Music, Theatre and Cinema with the programmes of the directors will participate in the life of the section, with debates and seminars along the six-month duration of the exhibition.

 

Elements of Architecture / Central Pavilions

This exhibition is the result of a two-year research studio with the Harvard Graduate School of Design and collaborations with a host of experts from industry and academia. Elements of Architecture looks under a microscope at the fundamentals of our buildings, used by any architect, anywhere, anytime: the floor, the wall, the ceiling, the roof, the door, the window, the façade, the balcony, the corridor, the fireplace, the toilet, the stair, the escalator, the elevator, the ramp. The exhibition is a selection of the most revealing, surprising, and unknown moments from a new book, Elements of Architecture, that reconstructs the global history of each element. It brings together ancient, past, current, and future versions of the elements in rooms that are each dedicated to a single element. To create diverse experiences, we have recreated a number of very different environments – archive, museum, factory, laboratory, mock-up, simulation.