View allAll Photos Tagged immutable
BLOCKCHAIN ECOSYSTEM - CHECK IT OUT
WHERE YOUR EVERYDAY TRANSACTIONS HAVE IMMUTABLE PROTECTION -
YOUR 'FIELD' OF EXPERTISE IS FOUND WITHIN ONE OF THE 11 EXCHANGE SECTORS....THIS IS THE PLATFORM WE HAVE ALL WAITED FOR....CHECK IT OUT!!!!
Blockchain Ecosystem = BE
Energy = ES
Materials = MS
Industrials = IS
Consumer Discretionary = CD
Consumer Staples = CS
Health Care = HS
Financials = FS
Information Technology = IT
Communication Services = CV
Utilities = US
Real Estate = RE
#BlockchainEcosystem #Energy #Materials #Industrials #ConsumerDiscretionary #ConsumerStaples #Healthcare #Financials #InformationTechnology #CommunicationServices #Utilities #RealEstate
Ellipsis - Welcome: lnkd.in/e7gibv7f
Niki's Oasis Restaurant & Jazz Bar 138 Bree Street Newtown Cultural Precinct Johannesburg South Africa with Simnikiwe Sondlo and Bushy Dubazana Jazz Band with the Immutable Themba Fassie
Το κάστρο της Μονεμβασιάς
Το 375 μ.Χ. μία σεισμική δόνηση απέκοψε τη χερσόνησο δημιουργώντας ένα βράχο που έμελλε να μείνει στη θάλασσα αγέρωχος και αναλλοίωτος στην αιωνιότητα, φυσικό φρούριο, προστάτης ψυχών, διακηρυγμένος πόθος των μεγαλύτερων αυτοκρατοριών που γνώρισε ο πλανήτης. Αυτός ο βράχος, κάποτε μονοπάτι του Μυκηναϊκού και του Μινωικού πολιτισμού, χάρη στη μία και μοναδική πρόσβαση (μόνη έμβαση) που τον ενώνει με την Πελοπόννησο ονομάστηκε Μονεμβάσια.
The castle of Monemvasia
In 375 AD an earthquake cut off the peninsula, creating a rock that was to remain at sea cocky and immutable in eternity, a natural fortress, professed desire of the largest empires the world has known. This rock, sometimes the path of the Mycenaean and Minoan culture, through a single access who joins the Peloponnesus, called Monemvasia.
From Instagram "Sex, like race, is a visible, immutable characteristic bearing no necessary relationship relationship to ability" reading about the #notoriousRBG #law #feminism #equality #usa
The rain
How it rings
the chopped streets
the umbrellad bicycles
the tires of cars
And the trees
How they terrace it
and the roofs
How they avalanche it
So dark and so sog!
yet how lovely
the feel of it
and the sound!: Peet
please pit peet please pit
Art at Parker Center
Sook Jin Jo, 2009. Parker Center, 150 N. Los Angeles Street near Parker Center.
Text from the plaque: There are three primary elements in this public art project: columns, bells, and ribbons. The numbers associated with these elements carry a unique meaning, from the nine columns (consisting of five larger and four smaller columns) to the 108 bells and ribbons suspended from the central trellis system. The number 5 references the five-member Board of Police Commissioners, and the number 4 references the four-star insignia of the Chief of Police. When added together, the numbers 5 and 4 create the number 9. Across various cultures, the number 9, as the highest single digit number, suggests perfection, immutable truth, and a triumph of stability and balance over volatility and disparity. The bells symbolize elements of renewal, peace, harmony, freedom, protection and spirituality. Each ribbon hanging from the bells is etched with text contributed by the community. As part of the Japanese-Buddhist culture, beginning on New Year's Eve and continuing into New Year's Day, it is tradition to ring bells 108 times to commemorate the passing of the old year and the coming of the new year, and of the 108 human desires that are thought to be the cause of human suffering, one desire is dispelled with each tolling of the bells.
By Haroon Mirza
A Chamber for Horwitz,
Sonakinatography Transcriptions in Surround Sound, 2015
Wall work: Channa Horwitz
Sonakinatography Composition III, 1996
Haroon Mirza (born 1977, UK) has won international acclaim for installations that test the interplay and friction between sound and light waves and electric current. Transcribing a complex working drawing by LA-based artist Channa Horwitz (1932–2013), Mirza turns her notational sequences and matrices into a multi-coloured, sonic score. The electric noise of the currents that light the LEDs in one of the eight possible configurations and colour combinations, as marked by Horwitz, is simul-taneously translated via speakers to audible noise pulses in different octaves. Together, these acoustic, visual interpretations of the Horwitz data result in a choreographed, compositional concert, which is at once computer-programmed and man-made – both ‘live’ and historic.
A Chamber for Horwitz; Sonakinatography Transcriptions in Surround Sound is a conceptual development of an earlier piece by Mirza, titled Adam, Eve, Others and a UFO (2013).
[everythingatonce.com]
Part of Everything at Once
Presented by Lisson Gallery and The Vinyl Factory at the Store Studios, 180 The Strand
October-December 2017
Lisson Gallery opened on Bell Street in 1967, a year after John Cage’s pronouncement on the changing conditions of contemporary existence. In celebration of this anniversary, the gallery is partnering with The Vinyl Factory to stage ‘EVERYTHING AT ONCE’, an ambitious group exhibition inspired by these words, which could very well apply to our current anxiety-ridden age of ceaseless communication. Through new and historical works by 24 of the artists currently shown by Lisson Gallery (out of more than 150 to have had solo shows over the past 50 years), this extensive presentation aims to collapse half a century of artistic endeavour under one roof, while telescoping its original aims into an unknowable future.
As Cage predicted, we increasingly live in an all-at-once age, in which time and space are no longer rational or linear concepts and great distances can be traversed with an instantaneous click. More than ever before, contemporary art, like life, assaults us simultaneously from all angles and from anywhere on the globe, existing also as multisensory visions of an accelerated world.
In response, ‘EVERYTHING AT ONCE’ is neither a chronological exhibition nor an encyclopaedic history of the gallery’s activities since 1967, rather it is an interconnected journey incorporating 45 works exploring experience, effect and event, invoking immediacy and immutability. Ranging from text to installation, painting, sculpture, performance and sound, the selection presents some of Lisson’s leading artists, of both the past and present...
[Lisson Gallery]
Three of my co-workers unknowingly portraying the three fates......
The Moirae, Moerae or Moirai (in Greek Μοῖραι – the "apportioners", often called The Fates), in Greek mythology, were the white-robed incarnations of destiny (Roman equivalent: Parcae, euphemistically the "sparing ones", or Fata; also equivalent to the Germanic Norns). Their number became fixed at three.
The Greek word moira (μοῖρα) literally means a part or portion, and by extension one's portion in life or destiny. They controlled the metaphorical thread of life of every mortal from birth to death.
Zeus and the Moirae
Even the gods feared the Moirae. Zeus also was subject to their power, the Pythian priestess at Delphi once admitted. Hesiod referred to "the Moirai to whom wise Zeus gave the greatest honor",[1] though no classic writing clarifies as to what exact extent the lives of immortals were affected by the whims of the Fates themselves, and it is to be expected that the relationship of Zeus and the Moirae was not immutable over the centuries.
A supposed epithet of the greek is legit Zeus Moiragetes, meaning "Zeus Leader of the Moirae" was inferred by Pausanias from an inscription he saw in the 2nd century AD at Olympia: "As you go to the starting-point for the chariot-race there is an altar with an inscription to the Bringer of Fate.[2] This is plainly a surname of Zeus, who knows the affairs of men, all that the Fates give them, and all that is not destined for them."[3] At the Temple of Zeus at Megara, Pausanias inferred from the relief sculptures he saw "Above the head of Zeus are the Horai and Moirae, and all may see that he is the only god obeyed by Moira." Pausanias' inferred assertion is unsupported in cult practice, though he noted a sanctuary of the Moirae there at Olympia (v.15.4), and also at Corinth (ii.4.7) and Sparta (iii.11.8), and adjoining the sanctuary of Themis outside a city gate of Thebes[4]
H. J. Rose writes that Nyx ("Night") was also the mother of the Moirae[5] as she was of the Erinyes, in the Orphic tradition.
When they were three,[6] the three Moirae were:
Clotho ( /ˈkloʊθoʊ/, Greek Κλωθώ [klɔːˈtʰɔː] – "spinner") spun the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle. Her Roman equivalent was Nona, (the 'Ninth'), who was originally a goddess called upon in the ninth month of pregnancy.
Lachesis ( /ˈlækɪsɪs/, Greek Λάχεσις [ˈlakʰesis] – "allotter" or drawer of lots) measured the thread of life allotted to each person with her measuring rod. Her Roman equivalent was Decima (the 'Tenth').
Atropos ( /ˈætrəpɒs/, Greek Ἄτροπος [ˈatropos] – "inexorable" or "inevitable", literally "unturning",[7] sometimes called Aisa) was the cutter of the thread of life. She chose the manner of each person's death; and when their time was come, she cut their life-thread with "her abhorred shears".[8] Her Roman equivalent was Morta ('Death').
References
1.^ Hesiod, Theogony, 901.
2.^ The Greek is Moiragetes (Pausanias, 5.15.5).
3.^ Pausanias, v.15.5.
4.^ "There is a sanctuary of Themis, with an image of white marble; adjoining it is a sanctuary of the Fates, while the third is of Zeus of the Market. Zeus is made of stone; the Fates have no images." Not very promising in these days. (Pausanias, ix.25.4).
5.^ H.J. Rose, Handbook of Greek Mythology, p.24
6.^ The expectation that there would be three was strong by the second century CE: when Pausanias visited the temple of Apollo at Delphi, with Apollo and Zeus each accompanied by a Fate, he remarked "There are also images of two Moirai; but in place of the third Moira there stand by their side Zeus Moiragetes and Apollon Moiragetes."
7.^ Compare the ancient goddess Adrasteia, the "inescapable".
8.^ "Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears, / And slits the thin spun life." John Milton, Lycidas, l. 75.
“We don’t want to be seen as human. We’re terrified of being seen as human, because if someone sees our humanity they might reject us. If someone sees our faults, if they see our shortcomings, if they see that we’re not all together, then they might distance themselves from us because they see our humanity. This is why you are on your best behavior when other people are around and you’re not, necessarily, if you’re just at your house or in your car…….. You want to protect people from being able to see your humanity, but here’s what’s beautiful: God in his immutability has seen all of your humanity and has not distanced himself. He has drawn near, and that’s where we get our confidence to keep getting back up, to keep leaning into the gospel, to keep following him with all of our hearts, because he’s not going to change his mind concerning us, despite us.”
I’m so grateful that the transcript for this sermon is finally up on the web. These very words have been replaying in my head for a few weeks. I have even been tempted to revisit the sermon to hear them again. I have been rather quiet lately here on IG. I had intended to write a New Year/End of the Year wrap up post and never got to it. When I heard this sermon I was overwhelmed by the idea of perfection. At one point Pastor Matt says (and I’m paraphrasing because I couldn’t find it) we should be spend less time on the idea/image of perfection because imagine what else we could accomplish. Wow! I know I am weighed down continuously by perfection, by not being this or that because of this or that, or that the truths I am feeling will not measure up to an invisible standard. I recently became convinced the burden that is perfectionism could most certainly be interpreted as a mental illness. Great, I thought as if Anxiety and Depression and the other “little” accompaniments to those are not enough. I have to contend with this idea of perfection too. Don’t be judgmental Maddie. Don’t be too loud or intimidating. Don’t bring up the past. Don’t communicate. Don’t be vulnerable. Don’t try because you know already it won’t be perfect or better yet your effort will go unnoticed. I am powerless to control my own life, let alone what others will feel about my humanity.
I love this idea that I can “lean into the gospel”. I am not entirely sure what it can look like, but as someone who struggles to look for help from anyone because trust, because of bone deep doubt you will not give me the help needed, or any number of history filled reasons…this notion of leaning on words gives me goosebumps. Leaning on God’s words? How hard do you think we are allowed to lean? Because I’m thinking about a suffocation level of leaning.
We are three weeks into the New Year. I’m going to polish the penny of my perfection with some grimy truth. It has been a rough three weeks. Nightmares, physical strife (thank you Depression/Stress/Stubbornness), DOUBT, and listening to the exercises of a poisonous mind. To say I’m wide awake, perked up with hope for the New Year, and ready to tackle 2018 would be a lie. I know me. I second guess myself about telling anyone things like this because I’m wondering; am I being a “Debbie Downer” by ‘never’ having anything good to say? Am I checking out from being a preacher of hope? Am I making people what to pass by my posts because here goes Maddie again about that ugly word, struggle?
In my devotions, this came up from Papa Lewis:
“Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.”
And then in the wake of pondering a 2018 photography theme for my Flickr album I came across this Brené Brown quote:
"You're imperfect, and you're wired for struggle, but You Are Worthy of love and belonging."
I knew then that my album for the year would surround imperfection. 2017 I said let’s “exist” and in 2018 I want to embrace my imperfection. I want to hurdle towards my humanity knowing I have the ultimate “back-up team”, God. Hiding our humanity and perpetuating the idea of perfection is exhausting. I’m already exhausted, I don’t know about you, but I don’t need any help in that department. Your struggle is always reshaping you and standing by to use you, grow you, and change you. God never changes.
Here’s more words from the Sermon that have continued to follow me around:
“…the right play is not to RAIL against heaven but to WONDER what God is up to.”
Don’t Rail. Wonder.
And how does my picture coincide with these thoughts? I took it January 1st and stewed over it that it isn’t “special” or “perfect photography genius”. It is simply an example of how I try to see art in my “small” world and I decided I’m posting it. Imperfect 😉.
She simpy would not get off my shoulder that morning. We had a great time, but I did feel like a variation on the frog on the guys head joke.
(A guy walks into a bar with a frog on his head. The bar tender says "Hey what's that?" The frog says. I'm not sure, it started as bump on my ass.)
Niki's Oasis Restaurant & Jazz Bar 138 Bree Street Newtown Cultural Precinct Johannesburg South Africa with Simnikiwe Sondlo and Bushy Dubazana Jazz Band with the Immutable Themba Fassie
Niki's Oasis Restaurant & Jazz Bar 138 Bree Street Newtown Cultural Precinct Johannesburg South Africa with Simnikiwe Sondlo and Bushy Dubazana Jazz Band with the Immutable Themba Fassie
Great Food and Music Highly Recommended
Το κάστρο της Μονεμβασιάς
Το 375 μ.Χ. μία σεισμική δόνηση απέκοψε τη χερσόνησο δημιουργώντας ένα βράχο που έμελλε να μείνει στη θάλασσα αγέρωχος και αναλλοίωτος στην αιωνιότητα, φυσικό φρούριο, προστάτης ψυχών, διακηρυγμένος πόθος των μεγαλύτερων αυτοκρατοριών που γνώρισε ο πλανήτης. Αυτός ο βράχος, κάποτε μονοπάτι του Μυκηναϊκού και του Μινωικού πολιτισμού, χάρη στη μία και μοναδική πρόσβαση (μόνη έμβαση) που τον ενώνει με την Πελοπόννησο ονομάστηκε Μονεμβάσια.
The castle of Monemvasia
In 375 AD an earthquake cut off the peninsula, creating a rock that was to remain at sea cocky and immutable in eternity, a natural fortress, professed desire of the largest empires the world has known. This rock, sometimes the path of the Mycenaean and Minoan culture, through a single access who joins the Peloponnesus, called Monemvasia.
James Lee Byars was intensely occupied with raising philosophical questions and addressing them in his work, but without ever providing any pat answers. In works such as Extra Terrestrial, also known as The Antwerp Giant, he does however provide viewers with a few suggestions. This piece is inspired by the Antwerp folk-legend, the giant called Lange Wapper. Byars represents him as an endlessly long, primitive human figure in black tulle. In something of a ritual during the opening of his 1976 exhibition at Antwerp’s Internationaal Cultureel Centrum, he had those present help unfurl the transparent dark figure on the Meir (the adjacent thoroughfare). W. Van Mulders described this act as a procession where the participating public warily unfolded the black tulle like an immense reliquary. Afterwards, the giant was included in the ‘inside’ exhibition as an airy black mass.
The act of unfolding, in the presence of the public, was essential for Byars. It was only during this act that the ‘Antwerp Giant’ really became present again. Once back in the exhibition, the viewer is again consigned to a certain distance, and what remains is a pile of black tulle. Byars was fascinated by paradoxes: the giant versus a mass of black cloth, the material quality of the tulle versus the immateriality of the Lange Wapper folk-figure. The artist admired enduring continuity and immutability, but his works tended to go ‘lost’ (among other reasons, due to the fragility of materials used) or remain to us only as fragments of their former selves.
Jean-François Millet (1814-1875)
The Angelus
Between 1857 and 1859
L'Angélus [The Angelus]
A man and a woman are reciting the Angelus, a prayer which commemorates the annunciation made to Mary by the angel Gabriel. They have stopped digging potatoes and all the tools used for this task – the potato fork, the basket, the sacks and the wheelbarrow – are strewn around them. In 1865, Millet said: "The idea for The Angelus came to me because I remembered that my grandmother, hearing the church bell ringing while we were working in the fields, always made us stop work to say the Angelus prayer for the poor departed". So it was a childhood memory which was behind the painting and not the desire to glorify some religious feeling; besides Millet was not a church-goer. He wanted to catch the immutable rhythms of peasant life in a simple scene. Here he has focused on a short break, a moment of respite.
Alone in the foreground in a huge empty plain, the two peasants take on a monumental quality, despite the small size of the canvas. Their faces are left in shadow, while the light underlines their gestures and posture. The canvas expresses a deep feeling of meditation and Millet goes beyond the anecdote to the archetype.
Perhaps that explains the extraordinary destiny of The Angelus: it triggered an unbelievable rush of patriotic fervour when the Louvre tried to buy it in 1889, was venerated by Salvador Dali, lacerated by a madman in 1932 and became a world-famous icon in the 20th century.
_________________________________________________
When we visited the Musee D'Orsay in September, 2016, we had less than 90 minutes to actually view the collection, so I concentrated on the Impressionist works on the top floor:
www.flickr.com/photos/ugardener/albums/72157673375527190
When we returned to Paris in May, 2017, I made sure to cover the floors and areas of the Museum that I had missed on my first trip.
Since the D'Orsay owns many more top flight paintings and sculptures than it has room to show at any one time, and lends many works to other institutions, there were many works of art on display in May that had not been there the previous September, so there is little overlap between the two albums.
I also have a separate album about the special exhibition - "Beyond the Stars -The Mystical Landscape from Monet to Kandinsky (Au-dela des Etoiles - Le Paysage Mystique de Monet a Kandinsky)":
www.flickr.com/photos/ugardener/albums/72157681909848733
.......
Parmelee Estate in Bloom - c. 1920
Dora Louise Murdoch
Artist, American, 1857 - 1933
Dora Louise Murdoch’s “Parmelee Garden” drips with glossy pinks and lilacs, centering on the wistful grounds of the Northwest Washington estate designed by landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman. A lover of overgrown gardens, Shipman approached her work as if “painting pictures” with her plants, she said, “as an artist would.”
___________________________________________
American Landscapes in Watercolor from the Corcoran Collection
August 2, 2025 - February 1, 2026
Locations West Building, Ground Floor, Gallery 22
Two centuries of watercolors capture the nation’s beauty from sea to shining sea.
In the nation’s early years, artists and explorers used watercolor for mapping and documenting the landscape. By the 19th century, American painters began capturing their country in larger, more finished works that were considered fine art.
See how artists with different backgrounds and styles painted iconic American places in watercolor over two centuries. You’ll travel from the Washington Monument to the choppy ocean waters of New England, from the Grand Canyon to Yosemite National Park, from the Hudson River Valley to local gardens.
American Landscapes features 30 works, most drawn from the National Gallery’s Corcoran Collection.
www.nga.gov/exhibitions/american-landscapes-watercolor-co...
A new show of landscapes feels like a series of establishing shots. The characters, if any, are minor, deflecting attention. The focus, instead, is on scene setting, on the spiky needles of a pine, the blazing crimsons of dusk. The world here is still, waiting quietly, expectantly, for something to happen.
Staged in two small rooms, the 30 watercolors on show at the National Gallery of Art are dreamlike. Drawn from the Corcoran Collection and dating from the early 19th to the late 20th century, the pictures trace the history of the nation’s landscapes in watercolor, a medium long dismissed as sentimental or, as Harper’s Weekly put it at the time, work “better fitted for girls than for men.” It wasn’t until the establishment of the American Watercolor Society in 1866 and the work of Winslow Homer, William Trost Richards and others that the art form rocketed to new heights.
Particularly monumental is Richards’s view of Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island. “It has the feel of a grand oil painting,” says curator Amy Johnston. Mounted on its own wall in the show, the work swells with blue-green waves crashing against the jagged rock, the tide breaking in cobweb-white flourishes. Seagulls cut across the shadowed sky, like fingernails strewn about. An accomplished oil painter, Richards here revels in rich passages of teal, churning ravenously on textured brown paper. Like his contemporaries, he’s “trying to elevate the status of watercolor,” Johnston notes, imbuing it with a rare sublimity.
That splendor runs through the show. It comes through in the delicate pictures of Seth Eastman, a West Point cadet turned painter. His sketches, like one of the Hudson River from 1837, were dashed off out of doors, where he could linger on the deep greens shading into sage, the cascading hills of silvery blue-grays. Unlike oils, watercolors were affordable and lightweight, allowing for a kind of immediacy.
Consider William Russell Birch’s circa 1808 “View From the Springhouse at Echo,” an enigmatic sketch of a densely wooded forest, light filtering through a canopy of leaves, each tendril scrawled in black ink. There’s a harmony to the picture, a taupe ground tinged with gold, tree trunks striped with delicate crosshatches. It’s not so much a study of nature as a delight in it, the eye snaking between branches.
Homer took up the same theme in 1891. There, bands of ultramarine are broken by spindly logs of rich brown and cadmium white, the hills a wash of olive green, the two central figures nearly eclipsed in a sea of cascading sapphires. Homer left slivers of the paper exposed, never overextending himself. The result is impossibly deft: a moment in time seared, immutably, in memory.
By the 20th century, that sense of nostalgia sharpens, before giving way to bolder modernism. Dora Louise Murdoch’s “Parmelee Garden” drips with glossy pinks and lilacs, centering on the wistful grounds of the Northwest Washington estate designed by landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman. A lover of overgrown gardens, Shipman approached her work as if “painting pictures” with her plants, she said, “as an artist would.”
That artistry explodes with Alma Thomas’s circa 1960 “Winter Shadows.” Probably a view of a holly tree outside her 15th Street window in Washington, D.C., the work is a symphony of ultramarines and jades daubed with lavenders and blush pinks. Rhythm permeates the picture, rising and falling in time.
Many of these artists seem to be looking for something outside themselves.
️
Follow Art
Follow
Richards wandered along the shore of Narragansett Bay. He spent hours there studying the jutting edge of bluff, the thrill of the current. “I watch and try to disentangle its push and leap and recoil,” he told his friend, the art collector George Whitney, but “[I] am always startled out of my self-possession by the thunder and the rush.” He relished nature, surrendering to its pull. That practice, a kind of grace, informed his work. As he once advised his student Fidelia Bridges: “It is not so much what you accomplish as what you learn by the work. If it teaches you humility, patience and steadfastness, your life is well spent.”
www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/09/17/american-lands...
________________________________
For earlier visit in 2024 see:
www.flickr.com/photos/ugardener/albums/72177720320689747/
The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC is a world-class art museum that displays one of the largest collections of masterpieces in the world including paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, and decorative arts from the 13th century to the present. The National Gallery of Art collection includes an extensive survey of works of American, British, Italian, Flemish, Spanish, Dutch, French and German art. With its prime location on the National Mall, surrounded by the Smithsonian Institution, visitors often think that the museum is a part of the Smithsonian. It is a separate entity and is supported by a combination of private and public funds. Admission is free. The museum offers a wide range of educational programs, lectures, guided tours, films, and concerts.
The original neoclassical building, the West Building includes European (13th-early 20th century) and American (18th-early 20th century) paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, and temporary exhibitions. The National Gallery of Art was opened to the public in 1941 with funds provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The original collection of masterpieces was provided by Mellon, who was the U. S. Secretary of the Treasury and ambassador to Britain in the 1930s. Mellon collected European masterpieces and many of the Gallery’s original works were once owned by Catherine II of Russia and purchased in the early 1930s by Mellon from the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad.
The core collection includes major works of art donated by Paul Mellon, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Lessing J. Rosenwald, Samuel Henry Kress, Rush Harrison Kress, Peter Arrell Browne Widener, Joseph E. Widener, and Chester Dale. The Gallery's collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, medals, and decorative arts traces the development of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present, including the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas and the largest mobile created by Alexander Calder.
The NGA's collection galleries and Sculpture Garden display European and American paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, and decorative arts. Paintings in the permanent collection date from the Middle Ages to the present. The Italian Renaissance collection includes two panels from Duccio's Maesta, the tondo of the Adoration of the Magi by Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi, a Botticelli work on the same subject, Giorgione's Allendale Nativity, Giovanni Bellini's The Feast of the Gods, Ginevra de' Benci (the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas) and groups of works by Titian and Raphael.
The collections include paintings by many European masters, including a version of Saint Martin and the Beggar, by El Greco, and works by Matthias Grünewald, Cranach the Elder, Rogier van der Weyden, Albrecht Dürer, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, Francisco Goya, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, and Eugène Delacroix, among others. The collection of sculpture and decorative arts includes such works as the Chalice of Abbot Suger of St-Denis and a collection of work by Auguste Rodin and Edgar Degas. Other highlights of the permanent collection include the second of the two original sets of Thomas Cole's series of paintings titled The Voyage of Life, (the first set is at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York) and the original version of Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley (two other versions are in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Detroit Institute of Arts).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Gallery_of_Art
Andrew W. Mellon, who pledged both the resources to construct the National Gallery of Art as well as his high-quality art collection, is rightly known as the founder of the gallery. But his bequest numbered less than two hundred paintings and sculptures—not nearly enough to fill the gallery’s massive rooms. This, however, was a feature, not a failure of Mellon’s vision; he anticipated that the gallery eventually would be filled not only by his own collection, but also by additional donations from other private collectors. By design, then, it was both Andrew Mellon and those who followed his lead—among them, eight men and women known as the Founding Benefactors—to whom the gallery owes its premier reputation as a national art museum. At the gallery’s opening in 1941, President Roosevelt stated, “the dedication of this Gallery to a living past, and to a greater and more richly living future, is the measure of the earnestness of our intention that the freedom of the human spirit shall go on.”
www.doaks.org/resources/cultural-philanthropy/national-ga...
.
The Bible contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers. Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you.
It is the traveler's map, the pilgrim's staff, the pilot's compass, the soldier's sword, and the Christian's charter. Here Paradise is restored, Heaven is opened, and the gates of hell disclosed.
Christ is its grand subject, our good the design, and the glory of God its end.
It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet. Read it slowly, frequently, and prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, and a river of pleasure. It is given you in life, will be opened at the judgement, and be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility, will reward the greatest labor, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents.
Great Floridian:
May Vinzant Perkins was born in 1879 and lived her adult life in Lake City. She was a member of the Lake City Garden Club and the Lake City Woman’s Club, and was society editor of the Lake City Reporter. She wrote an account of Aunt Aggie’s Bone Yard, a historic Lake City garden. Her verse was frequently published in the Florida Times Union. One of her works, The Immutable Bond, won the 1943 award as the best Florida Women’s Club Poem of the Year. Another poem, Renaissance, was published in The Raven, a quarterly publication of the Avalon National Poetry Shrine. May Vinzant Perkins died in 1981.
Her Great Floridian plaque is located at the Columbia County Historical Museum, 105 South Hernando Street, Lake City.
Energy = ES
energysector.exchange/?afmc=SNiB980NX5If0cRQAZkU3
1 of 11
The Energy Sector in the CrowdPoint Buttonwood Ecosystem!
The Global Industry Classification Standard used by Morgan Stanley define the energy industry as comprising companies primarily working with oil, gas, coal and consumable fuels, excluding companies working with certain industrial gases.[6] Using CrowdPoint’s next generation Blockchain all members of the ecosystem benefit from the transparency, speed and immutable transactions associated with Energy Equipment & Services, Oil & Gas Drilling, Equipment and Services. To include Gas, Consumable Fuels and Integrated Oil. Our Blockchain accounts for sub-industry horizontal and vertical integration of Oil & Gas Exploration, Production, Refining, Marketing, Gas Storage and Transportation.
"The #Mission is to horizontally and vertically unite Energy Equipment, Supplied, Services and Technology for Oil, Gas and Consumable Fuels on our NexGen Blockchain in order to #DEMOCRATIZE the Energy Experience for your HUMAN IDENTITY!!"
Blockchain Ecosystem = BE
blockchainecosystem.exchange/?afmc=SNiB980NX5If0cRQAZkU3
Ellipsis - portal.theellipsis.exchange/welcome/?afmc=SNiB98ONX5lf0cR...
#BlockchainEcosystem #Energy #Materials #Industrials #ConsumerDiscretionary #ConsumerStaples #Healthcare #Financials #InfomationTechnology #CommunicationServices #Utilities #RealEstate #SeanBrehm #MarleneBrehm #ValindaLWood
I am found in everyone
Recently Mustapha asked Kali, "O Kali, what is the first tenet
of your new religion?".
To which Kali replied: "I am found in all men, I am the root, the
source of their existence."
"I am found in everyone. All conscious beings have me at the root
of their consciousness. They have no choice but to obey the laws I instilled
in the universe at the time of Creation and they serve my Will to a lesser or
greater extent.
Most follow these laws unconsciously. A tiny percentage follow
these laws consciously. They understand that immutable laws apply to the
interaction of matter and to the behaviour of men, angels and other beings of
the universe. I created these laws at the time of Creation and maintain the
growth, evolution and dissolution of the universe through these laws.
A small percentage of those who consciously appreciate the laws
that I instilled in creation also consciously appreciate my Will and my Divine
purpose. They understand that in addition to maintaining a rigid structure of
immutable laws governing the operation of the universe, I also have available
higher laws, which allow me to influence the direction of the evolution of the
worlds.
When life moves outside the parameters and limits I wish to set,
then I intervene to reset the course of affairs of men utilising these higher
laws of Divine Will.
It is to those few followers who have consciously understood the
nature of my Will and have reconciled the infinite diversity I have placed in
creation with the unity of my Being, that I reveal the secret of alignment
with these higher laws which constitute my Divine Will. This is my truth. This
is my truth.
Meditate on this and through this, serve my Will."
Niki's Oasis Restaurant & Jazz Bar 138 Bree Street Newtown Cultural Precinct Johannesburg South Africa with Simnikiwe Sondlo and Bushy Dubazana Jazz Band with the Immutable Themba Fassie
Great Food and Music Highly Recommended
60 Years of New China --
the green is always seirous and the red, is just eternally immutable.
I hate the political metaphor in this photo,
but love how perfectly they match with each other, after all.
Niki's Oasis Restaurant & Jazz Bar 138 Bree Street Newtown Cultural Precinct Johannesburg South Africa with Simnikiwe Sondlo and Bushy Dubazana Jazz Band with the Immutable Themba Fassie
Great Food and Music Highly Recommended
Decentralized Platform For E-commerce Payments
Have you asked this question yourself why organizations and industries are moving their businesses into blockchain technology? And running away from the obsolete way of fiat transactions? The answer is quite simple. The Blockchain has the main feature that enables Decentralization, i.e. not relying on a central authority to transact with other users, as well as immutability, security, transparency, etc. A large percentage of the global economy is already adopting the concept.
Blockchain Technology
Nowadays in this digital world, every sector of the global economy is accepted blockchain technology. Some of which are in the finance sector, electronics sector, Health, Agriculture, Insurance, entertainment, sports. Etc.
E-commerce
Today for most of the businesses, cryptocurrency is becoming a preferred mode of transaction. Centureum team built the decentralized payment platform using the ethereum blockchain technology.
The goal of introducing e-commerce payment solution is to facilitate business transactions between companies and consumers as well as individual consumers with the use of internet facilities.
Centureum Platform
Centureum is cutting-edge technology that supports the e-commerce & payment ecosystem which include
- Peer to peer transaction, no central authority involved.
- Touch & Pay Card allows customers to earn centureum tokens with their daily purchases. It will be used for all reward programmes.
- A Reward System focus on rewarding each user with cryptocurrency market access as well as a form of investment.
- Mobile Wallet consists of all activities on the centureum platform like buying and selling of centureum tokens. A user can also exchange their centureum tokens into another cryptocurrency through centureum mobile wallet which act as cryptocurrency exchange.
- The centureum token can be adopted in any location. This decentralized global adoption will lead to a growth of the token.
Centureum e-commerce payment platform connects goods and services providers to consumers. We invite you to join this community in promoting this outstanding platform.
our Website- centureum.io
Niki's Oasis Restaurant & Jazz Bar 138 Bree Street Newtown Cultural Precinct Johannesburg South Africa with Simnikiwe Sondlo and Bushy Dubazana Jazz Band with the Immutable Themba Fassie
Great Food and Music Highly Recommended
Even death cannot destroy you. You are the self – Immortal Immutable ओम्
Leica M6 Re-Issue / Leica 21mm f 3.4 Super Elmar ASPH
Kodak Ektar 100 / Plustek 8300AI Scanner / Negative Lab Pro
Nkosi.artiste@gmail.com
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Chance Nkosi Gomez known as Sri Govindaji (29 years of age) initiated by H.H Swami Jyotirmayanda as Sri Govinda walks an integral yogic path in which photography is the primary creative field of expression. The medium was introduced during sophomore year of high school by educator Dr. Devin Marsh of Robert Morgan Educational Center. Coming into alignment with light, its nature and articulating the camera was the focus during that time. Thereafter while completing a Photographic Technology Degree, the realization of what made an image “striking” came to the foreground of the inner dialogue. These college years brought forth major absorption and reflection as an apprentice to photographer and educator Tony A. Chirinos of Miami Dade College. The process of working towards a singular idea of interest and thus building a series became the heading from here on while the camera aided in cultivating an adherence to the present moment. The viewfinder resembles a doorway to the unified field of consciousness in which line, shape, form, color, value, texture all dissolve. It is here that the yogi is reminded of sat-chit-ananda (the supreme reality as all-pervading; pure consciousness). As of May 2024 Govinda has completed his 300hr yoga teacher training program at Sattva Yoga Academy studying from Master Yogi Anand Mehrotra in Rishikesh, India, Himalayas. This has strengthened his personal Sadhana and allows one to carry and share ancient Vedic Technology leading others in ultimately directing their intellect to bloom into intuition. As awareness and self-realization grows so does the imagery that is all at once divine in the mastery of capturing and controlling light. Over the last seven years he has self-published six photographic books, Follow me i’ll be right behind you (2017), Sonata - Minimal Study (2018), Birds Singing Lies (2018), Rwanda (2019), Where does the body begin? (2019) & Swayam Jyotis (2023). Currently, Govinda is employed at the Leica Store Miami as a camera specialist and starting his journey as a practitioner of yoga ॐ
That's how it happens: one comes, other goes; while one is born, the other dies; a friend moves away, another friend comes; a teacher comes, the other goes away; a student comes, the other goes away. They are just experiences in that only immutable experience, which is pure consciousness, pure Presence, which is you, and that never loses or wins; It does not increase, when more things come, or decrease when things disappear. This is so simple!~ Master Gualberto ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Todos os relacionamentos são baseados no pressuposto de "alguém com alguém", porém eles aparecem nesse ilimitado espaço que é você, dentro desse Ser indescritível. Tudo está aparecendo, como os parentes, amigos, outras pessoas, coisas e lugares, mas, enquanto tudo isso muda, você não muda." ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ É assim: um chega, o outro vai; enquanto um nasce, o outro morre; um amigo se afasta, o outro chega; um professor chega, o outro vai embora; um aluno vem, o outro vai. São somente experiências nessa única experiência imutável, que é pura Consciência, que é pura Presença, que é você, e que nunca perde ou ganha; não aumenta, quando chega mais, nem diminui, quando coisas desaparecem. É tão simples isso! ~ Mestre Gualberto ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #ramanashramgualberto #mestregualberto #satsang #ramana #ramanamaharshi #quoteoftheday #guru #pranayama #buda #goodvibes #sadhana #whoami #zen #meditation #awareness #fé #selfinquiry #knowledge #quote #ego #krishna #yogainspiration #nisargadattamaharaj #om #maya #meditação #whoareyou #mind #bliss #spirituality
This is from the garden at Ottawa's Experimental Farms. An absolutely amazing array of hundreds of peonies blossom here between mid-May and mid-June each year.
Niki's Oasis Restaurant & Jazz Bar 138 Bree Street Newtown Cultural Precinct Johannesburg South Africa with Simnikiwe Sondlo and Bushy Dubazana Jazz Band with the Immutable Themba Fassie
Great Food and Music Highly Recommended
Niki's Oasis Restaurant & Jazz Bar 138 Bree Street Newtown Cultural Precinct Johannesburg South Africa with Simnikiwe Sondlo and Bushy Dubazana Jazz Band with the Immutable Themba Fassie
Great Food and Music Highly Recommended
Notice that sensations come and go, thoughts come and go, ideas come and go, comparisons, judgments, thesenotions of right and wrong. Ideas suchas; “this should be, this should be not, this can be, this can be not, this can happen, this can not happen, that is right, that is wrong”. All these come and go, and life remains immutable Consciousness within itself, witnessing all this change, without a destination, without a future, without a project. ~Master Gualberto⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Aqui nós recomendamos a você que apenas aprecie o que vem e vai, não se confunda com o que vem e vai." ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Reparem que sensações vem e vão, pensamentos vem e vão, ideias, elas veem e vão, comparações, julgamentos, essas noções de certo e errado, ideias como: deve ser, não deve ser, pode ser, não pode ser, seria assim ou deveria ser assado, isso pode, isso não pode, isso está certo, isso está errado, isso vem e vai, e a vida permanece como Consciência Imutável nela mesma, presenciando toda essa mudança, sem um destino, sem um futuro, sem um programa. ~ Mestre Gualberto ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #ramanashramgualberto #mestregualberto #satsang #ramana #ramanamaharshi #quoteoftheday #guru #pranayama #buda #goodvibes #sadhana #whoami #zen #meditation #awareness #fé #selfinquiry #knowledge #quote #ego #krishna #yogainspiration #nisargadattamaharaj #om #maya #meditação #whoareyou #mind #bliss #spirituality ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Mondrian was a member of the Dutch De Stijl movement from its inception in 1917. By the early 1920s, in line with De Stijl practice, he restricted his compositions to predominantly off-white grounds divided by black horizontal and vertical lines that often framed subsidiary blocks of individual primary colors. Tableau 2 (1922), a representative example of this period, demonstrates the artist’s rejection of mimesis, which he considered a reprehensibly deceptive imitation of reality.
In 1918 Mondrian created his first “losangique” paintings by tilting a square canvas 45 degrees. Most of these diamond-shaped works were created in 1925 and 1926 following his break with the De Stijl group over Theo van Doesburg’s introduction of the diagonal. Mondrian felt that in so doing van Doesburg had betrayed the movement’s fundamental principles, thus forfeiting the static immutability achieved through stable verticals and horizontals.
Το κάστρο της Μονεμβασιάς
Το 375 μ.Χ. μία σεισμική δόνηση απέκοψε τη χερσόνησο δημιουργώντας ένα βράχο που έμελλε να μείνει στη θάλασσα αγέρωχος και αναλλοίωτος στην αιωνιότητα, φυσικό φρούριο, προστάτης ψυχών, διακηρυγμένος πόθος των μεγαλύτερων αυτοκρατοριών που γνώρισε ο πλανήτης. Αυτός ο βράχος, κάποτε μονοπάτι του Μυκηναϊκού και του Μινωικού πολιτισμού, χάρη στη μία και μοναδική πρόσβαση (μόνη έμβαση) που τον ενώνει με την Πελοπόννησο ονομάστηκε Μονεμβάσια.
The castle of Monemvasia
In 375 AD an earthquake cut off the peninsula, creating a rock that was to remain at sea cocky and immutable in eternity, a natural fortress, professed desire of the largest empires the world has known. This rock, sometimes the path of the Mycenaean and Minoan culture, through a single access who joins the Peloponnesus, called Monemvasia.
MARKHEIM www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HefT-4FhwM
‘Yes,’ said the dealer, ‘our windfalls are of various kinds. Some customers are ignorant, and then I touch a dividend on my superior knowledge. Some are dishonest,’ and here he held up the candle, so that the light fell strongly on his visitor, ‘and in that case,’ he continued, ‘I profit by my virtue.’
Markheim had but just entered from the daylight streets, and his eyes had not yet grown familiar with the mingled shine and darkness in the shop. At these pointed words, and before the near presence of the flame, he blinked painfully and looked aside.
The dealer chuckled. ‘You come to me on Christmas Day,’ he resumed, ‘when you know that I am alone in my house, put up my shutters, and make a point of refusing business. Well, you will have to pay for that; you will have to pay for my loss of time, when I should be balancing my books; you will have to pay, besides, for a kind of manner that I remark in you to-day very strongly. I am the essence of discretion, and ask no awkward questions; but when a customer cannot look me in the eye, he has to pay for it.’ The dealer once more chuckled; and then, changing to his usual business voice, though still with a note of irony, ‘You can give, as usual, a clear account of how you came into the possession of the object?’ he continued. ‘Still your uncle’s cabinet? A remarkable collector, sir!’
And the little pale, round-shouldered dealer stood almost on tip-toe, looking over the top of his gold spectacles, and nodding his head with every mark of disbelief. Markheim returned his gaze with one of infinite pity, and a touch of horror.
‘This time,’ said he, ‘you are in error. I have not come to sell, but to buy. I have no curios to dispose of; my uncle’s cabinet is bare to the wainscot; even were it still intact, I have done well on the Stock Exchange, and should more likely add to it than otherwise, and my errand to-day is simplicity itself. I seek a Christmas present for a lady,’ he continued, waxing more fluent as he struck into the speech he had prepared; ‘and certainly I owe you every excuse for thus disturbing you upon so small a matter. But the thing was neglected yesterday; I must produce my little compliment at dinner; and, as you very well know, a rich marriage is not a thing to be neglected.’
There followed a pause, during which the dealer seemed to weigh this statement incredulously. The ticking of many clocks among the curious lumber of the shop, and the faint rushing of the cabs in a near thoroughfare, filled up the interval of silence.
‘Well, sir,’ said the dealer, ‘be it so. You are an old customer after all; and if, as you say, you have the chance of a good marriage, far be it from me to be an obstacle. Here is a nice thing for a lady now,’ he went on, ‘this hand glass—fifteenth century, warranted; comes from a good collection, too; but I reserve the name, in the interests of my customer, who was just like yourself, my dear sir, the nephew and sole heir of a remarkable collector.’
The dealer, while he thus ran on in his dry and biting voice, had stooped to take the object from its place; and, as he had done so, a shock had passed through Markheim, a start both of hand and foot, a sudden leap of many tumultuous passions to the face. It passed as swiftly as it came, and left no trace beyond a certain trembling of the hand that now received the glass.
‘A glass,’ he said hoarsely, and then paused, and repeated it more clearly. ‘A glass? For Christmas? Surely not?’
‘And why not?’ cried the dealer. ‘Why not a glass?’
Markheim was looking upon him with an indefinable expression. ‘You ask me why not?’ he said. ‘Why, look here—look in it—look at yourself! Do you like to see it? No! nor I—nor any man.’
The little man had jumped back when Markheim had so suddenly confronted him with the mirror; but now, perceiving there was nothing worse on hand, he chuckled. ‘Your future lady, sir, must be pretty hard favoured,’ said he.
‘I ask you,’ said Markheim, ‘for a Christmas present, and you give me this—this damned reminder of years, and sins and follies—this hand-conscience! Did you mean it? Had you a thought in your mind? Tell me. It will be better for you if you do. Come, tell me about yourself. I hazard a guess now, that you are in secret a very charitable man?’
The dealer looked closely at his companion. It was very odd, Markheim did not appear to be laughing; there was something in his face like an eager sparkle of hope, but nothing of mirth.
‘What are you driving at?’ the dealer asked.
‘Not charitable?’ returned the other, gloomily. Not charitable; not pious; not scrupulous; unloving, unbeloved; a hand to get money, a safe to keep it. Is that all? Dear God, man, is that all?’
‘I will tell you what it is,’ began the dealer, with some sharpness, and then broke off again into a chuckle. ‘But I see this is a love match of yours, and you have been drinking the lady’s health.’
‘Ah!’ cried Markheim, with a strange curiosity. ‘Ah, have you been in love? Tell me about that.’
‘I,’ cried the dealer. ‘I in love! I never had the time, nor have I the time to-day for all this nonsense. Will you take the glass?’
‘Where is the hurry?’ returned Markheim. ‘It is very pleasant to stand here talking; and life is so short and insecure that I would not hurry away from any pleasure—no, not even from so mild a one as this. We should rather cling, cling to what little we can get, like a man at a cliff’s edge. Every second is a cliff, if you think upon it—a cliff a mile high—high enough, if we fall, to dash us out of every feature of humanity. Hence it is best to talk pleasantly. Let us talk of each other: why should we wear this mask? Let us be confidential. Who knows, we might become friends?’
‘I have just one word to say to you,’ said the dealer. ‘Either make your purchase, or walk out of my shop!’
‘True true,’ said Markheim. ‘Enough, fooling. To business. Show me something else.’
The dealer stooped once more, this time to replace the glass upon the shelf, his thin blond hair falling over his eyes as he did so. Markheim moved a little nearer, with one hand in the pocket of his greatcoat; he drew himself up and filled his lungs; at the same time many different emotions were depicted together on his face—terror, horror, and resolve, fascination and a physical repulsion; and through a haggard lift of his upper lip, his teeth looked out.
‘This, perhaps, may suit,’ observed the dealer: and then, as he began to re-arise, Markheim bounded from behind upon his victim. The long, skewerlike dagger flashed and fell. The dealer struggled like a hen, striking his temple on the shelf, and then tumbled on the floor in a heap.
Time had some score of small voices in that shop, some stately and slow as was becoming to their great age; others garrulous and hurried. All these told out the seconds in an intricate, chorus of tickings. Then the passage of a lad’s feet, heavily running on the pavement, broke in upon these smaller voices and startled Markheim into the consciousness of his surroundings. He looked about him awfully. The candle stood on the counter, its flame solemnly wagging in a draught; and by that inconsiderable movement, the whole room was filled with noiseless bustle and kept heaving like a sea: the tall shadows nodding, the gross blots of darkness swelling and dwindling as with respiration, the faces of the portraits and the china gods changing and wavering like images in water. The inner door stood ajar, and peered into that leaguer of shadows with a long slit of daylight like a pointing finger.
From these fear-stricken rovings, Markheim’s eyes returned to the body of his victim, where it lay both humped and sprawling, incredibly small and strangely meaner than in life. In these poor, miserly clothes, in that ungainly attitude, the dealer lay like so much sawdust. Markheim had feared to see it, and, lo! it was nothing. And yet, as he gazed, this bundle of old clothes and pool of blood began to find eloquent voices. There it must lie; there was none to work the cunning hinges or direct the miracle of locomotion—there it must lie till it was found. Found! ay, and then? Then would this dead flesh lift up a cry that would ring over England, and fill the world with the echoes of pursuit. Ay, dead or not, this was still the enemy. ‘Time was that when the brains were out,’ he thought; and the first word struck into his mind. Time, now that the deed was accomplished—time, which had closed for the victim, had become instant and momentous for the slayer.
The thought was yet in his mind, when, first one and then another, with every variety of pace and voice—one deep as the bell from a cathedral turret, another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of a waltz-the clocks began to strike the hour of three in the afternoon.
The sudden outbreak of so many tongues in that dumb chamber staggered him. He began to bestir himself, going to and fro with the candle, beleaguered by moving shadows, and startled to the soul by chance reflections. In many rich mirrors, some of home design, some from Venice or Amsterdam, he saw his face repeated and repeated, as it were an army of spies; his own eyes met and detected him; and the sound of his own steps, lightly as they fell, vexed the surrounding quiet. And still, as he continued to fill his pockets, his mind accused him with a sickening iteration, of the thousand faults of his design. He should have chosen a more quiet hour; he should have prepared an alibi; he should not have used a knife; he should have been more cautious, and only bound and gagged the dealer, and not killed him; he should have been more bold, and killed the servant also; he should have done all things otherwise: poignant regrets, weary, incessant toiling of the mind to change what was unchangeable, to plan what was now useless, to be the architect of the irrevocable past. Meanwhile, and behind all this activity, brute terrors, like the scurrying of rats in a deserted attic, filled the more remote chambers of his brain with riot; the hand of the constable would fall heavy on his shoulder, and his nerves would jerk like a hooked fish; or he beheld, in galloping defile, the dock, the prison, the gallows, and the black coffin.
Terror of the people in the street sat down before his mind like a besieging army. It was impossible, he thought, but that some rumour of the struggle must have reached their ears and set on edge their curiosity; and now, in all the neighbouring houses, he divined them sitting motionless and with uplifted ear—solitary people, condemned to spend Christmas dwelling alone on memories of the past, and now startingly recalled from that tender exercise; happy family parties struck into silence round the table, the mother still with raised finger: every degree and age and humour, but all, by their own hearths, prying and hearkening and weaving the rope that was to hang him. Sometimes it seemed to him he could not move too softly; the clink of the tall Bohemian goblets rang out loudly like a bell; and alarmed by the bigness of the ticking, he was tempted to stop the clocks. And then, again, with a swift transition of his terrors, the very silence of the place appeared a source of peril, and a thing to strike and freeze the passer-by; and he would step more boldly, and bustle aloud among the contents of the shop, and imitate, with elaborate bravado, the movements of a busy man at ease in his own house.
But he was now so pulled about by different alarms that, while one portion of his mind was still alert and cunning, another trembled on the brink of lunacy. One hallucination in particular took a strong hold on his credulity. The neighbour hearkening with white face beside his window, the passer-by arrested by a horrible surmise on the pavement—these could at worst suspect, they could not know; through the brick walls and shuttered windows only sounds could penetrate. But here, within the house, was he alone? He knew he was; he had watched the servant set forth sweet-hearting, in her poor best, ‘out for the day’ written in every ribbon and smile. Yes, he was alone, of course; and yet, in the bulk of empty house above him, he could surely hear a stir of delicate footing—he was surely conscious, inexplicably conscious of some presence. Ay, surely; to every room and corner of the house his imagination followed it; and now it was a faceless thing, and yet had eyes to see with; and again it was a shadow of himself; and yet again behold the image of the dead dealer, reinspired with cunning and hatred.
At times, with a strong effort, he would glance at the open door which still seemed to repel his eyes. The house was tall, the skylight small and dirty, the day blind with fog; and the light that filtered down to the ground story was exceedingly faint, and showed dimly on the threshold of the shop. And yet, in that strip of doubtful brightness, did there not hang wavering a shadow?
Suddenly, from the street outside, a very jovial gentleman began to beat with a staff on the shop-door, accompanying his blows with shouts and railleries in which the dealer was continually called upon by name. Markheim, smitten into ice, glanced at the dead man. But no! he lay quite still; he was fled away far beyond earshot of these blows and shoutings; he was sunk beneath seas of silence; and his name, which would once have caught his notice above the howling of a storm, had become an empty sound. And presently the jovial gentleman desisted from his knocking, and departed.
Here was a broad hint to hurry what remained to be done, to get forth from this accusing neighbourhood, to plunge into a bath of London multitudes, and to reach, on the other side of day, that haven of safety and apparent innocence—his bed. One visitor had come: at any moment another might follow and be more obstinate. To have done the deed, and yet not to reap the profit, would be too abhorrent a failure. The money, that was now Markheim’s concern; and as a means to that, the keys.
He glanced over his shoulder at the open door, where the shadow was still lingering and shivering; and with no conscious repugnance of the mind, yet with a tremor of the belly, he drew near the body of his victim. The human character had quite departed. Like a suit half-stuffed with bran, the limbs lay scattered, the trunk doubled, on the floor; and yet the thing repelled him. Although so dingy and inconsiderable to the eye, he feared it might have more significance to the touch. He took the body by the shoulders, and turned it on its back. It was strangely light and supple, and the limbs, as if they had been broken, fell into the oddest postures. The face was robbed of all expression; but it was as pale as wax, and shockingly smeared with blood about one temple. That was, for Markheim, the one displeasing circumstance. It carried him back, upon the instant, to a certain fair-day in a fishers’ village: a gray day, a piping wind, a crowd upon the street, the blare of brasses, the booming of drums, the nasal voice of a ballad singer; and a boy going to and fro, buried over head in the crowd and divided between interest and fear, until, coming out upon the chief place of concourse, he beheld a booth and a great screen with pictures, dismally designed, garishly coloured: Brown-rigg with her apprentice; the Mannings with their murdered guest; Weare in the death-grip of Thurtell; and a score besides of famous crimes. The thing was as clear as an illusion; he was once again that little boy; he was looking once again, and with the same sense of physical revolt, at these vile pictures; he was still stunned by the thumping of the drums. A bar of that day’s music returned upon his memory; and at that, for the first time, a qualm came over him, a breath of nausea, a sudden weakness of the joints, which he must instantly resist and conquer.
He judged it more prudent to confront than to flee from these considerations; looking the more hardily in the dead face, bending his mind to realise the nature and greatness of his crime. So little a while ago that face had moved with every change of sentiment, that pale mouth had spoken, that body had been all on fire with governable energies; and now, and by his act, that piece of life had been arrested, as the horologist, with interjected finger, arrests the beating of the clock. So he reasoned in vain; he could rise to no more remorseful consciousness; the same heart which had shuddered before the painted effigies of crime, looked on its reality unmoved. At best, he felt a gleam of pity for one who had been endowed in vain with all those faculties that can make the world a garden of enchantment, one who had never lived and who was now dead. But of penitence, no, not a tremor.
With that, shaking himself clear of these considerations, he found the keys and advanced towards the open door of the shop. Outside, it had begun to rain smartly; and the sound of the shower upon the roof had banished silence. Like some dripping cavern, the chambers of the house were haunted by an incessant echoing, which filled the ear and mingled with the ticking of the clocks. And, as Markheim approached the door, he seemed to hear, in answer to his own cautious tread, the steps of another foot withdrawing up the stair. The shadow still palpitated loosely on the threshold. He threw a ton’s weight of resolve upon his muscles, and drew back the door.
The faint, foggy daylight glimmered dimly on the bare floor and stairs; on the bright suit of armour posted, halbert in hand, upon the landing; and on the dark wood-carvings, and framed pictures that hung against the yellow panels of the wainscot. So loud was the beating of the rain through all the house that, in Markheim’s ears, it began to be distinguished into many different sounds. Footsteps and sighs, the tread of regiments marching in the distance, the chink of money in the counting, and the creaking of doors held stealthily ajar, appeared to mingle with the patter of the drops upon the cupola and the gushing of the water in the pipes. The sense that he was not alone grew upon him to the verge of madness. On every side he was haunted and begirt by presences. He heard them moving in the upper chambers; from the shop, he heard the dead man getting to his legs; and as he began with a great effort to mount the stairs, feet fled quietly before him and followed stealthily behind. If he were but deaf, he thought, how tranquilly he would possess his soul! And then again, and hearkening with ever fresh attention, he blessed himself for that unresting sense which held the outposts and stood a trusty sentinel upon his life. His head turned continually on his neck; his eyes, which seemed starting from their orbits, scouted on every side, and on every side were half-rewarded as with the tail of something nameless vanishing. The four-and-twenty steps to the first floor were four-and-twenty agonies.
On that first storey, the doors stood ajar, three of them like three ambushes, shaking his nerves like the throats of cannon. He could never again, he felt, be sufficiently immured and fortified from men’s observing eyes, he longed to be home, girt in by walls, buried among bedclothes, and invisible to all but God. And at that thought he wondered a little, recollecting tales of other murderers and the fear they were said to entertain of heavenly avengers. It was not so, at least, with him. He feared the laws of nature, lest, in their callous and immutable procedure, they should preserve some damning evidence of his crime. He feared tenfold more, with a slavish, superstitions terror, some scission in the continuity of man’s experience, some wilful illegality of nature. He played a game of skill, depending on the rules, calculating consequence from cause; and what if nature, as the defeated tyrant overthrew the chess-board, should break the mould of their succession? The like had befallen Napoleon (so writers said) when the winter changed the time of its appearance. The like might befall Markheim: the solid walls might become transparent and reveal his doings like those of bees in a glass hive; the stout planks might yield under his foot like quicksands and detain him in their clutch; ay, and there were soberer accidents that might destroy him: if, for instance, the house should fall and imprison him beside the body of his victim; or the house next door should fly on fire, and the firemen invade him from all sides. These things he feared; and, in a sense, these things might be called the hands of God reached forth against sin. But about God himself he was at ease; his act was doubtless exceptional, but so were his excuses, which God knew; it was there, and not among men, that he felt sure of justice.
When he had got safe into the drawing-room, and shut the door behind him, he was aware of a respite from alarms. The room was quite dismantled, uncarpeted besides, and strewn with packing cases and incongruous furniture; several great pier-glasses, in which he beheld himself at various angles, like an actor on a stage; many pictures, framed and unframed, standing, with their faces to the wall; a fine Sheraton sideboard, a cabinet of marquetry, and a great old bed, with tapestry hangings. The windows opened to the floor; but by great good fortune the lower part of the shutters had been closed, and this concealed him from the neighbours. Here, then, Markheim drew in a packing case before the cabinet, and began to search among the keys. It was a long business, for there were many; and it was irksome, besides; for, after all, there might be nothing in the cabinet, and time was on the wing. But the closeness of the occupation sobered him. With the tail of his eye he saw the door—even glanced at it from time to time directly, like a besieged commander pleased to verify the good estate of his defences. But in truth he was at peace. The rain falling in the street sounded natural and pleasant. Presently, on the other side, the notes of a piano were wakened to the music of a hymn, and the voices of many children took up the air and words. How stately, how comfortable was the melody! How fresh the youthful voices! Markheim gave ear to it smilingly, as he sorted out the keys; and his mind was thronged with answerable ideas and images; church-going children and the pealing of the high organ; children afield, bathers by the brookside, ramblers on the brambly common, kite-flyers in the windy and cloud-navigated sky; and then, at another cadence of the hymn, back again to church, and the somnolence of summer Sundays, and the high genteel voice of the parson (which he smiled a little to recall) and the painted Jacobean tombs, and the dim lettering of the Ten Commandments in the chancel.
And as he sat thus, at once busy and absent, he was startled to his feet. A flash of ice, a flash of fire, a bursting gush of blood, went over him, and then he stood transfixed and thrilling. A step mounted the stair slowly and steadily, and presently a hand was laid upon the knob, and the lock clicked, and the door opened.
Fear held Markheim in a vice. What to expect he knew not, whether the dead man walking, or the official ministers of human justice, or some chance witness blindly stumbling in to consign him to the gallows. But when a face was thrust into the aperture, glanced round the room, looked at him, nodded and smiled as if in friendly recognition, and then withdrew again, and the door closed behind it, his fear broke loose from his control in a hoarse cry. At the sound of this the visitant returned.
‘Did you call me?’ he asked, pleasantly, and with that he entered the room and closed the door behind him.
Markheim stood and gazed at him with all his eyes. Perhaps there was a film upon his sight, but the outlines of the new comer seemed to change and waver like those of the idols in the wavering candle-light of the shop; and at times he thought he knew him; and at times he thought he bore a likeness to himself; and always, like a lump of living terror, there lay in his bosom the conviction that this thing was not of the earth and not of God.
And yet the creature had a strange air of the commonplace, as he stood looking on Markheim with a smile; and when he added: ‘You are looking for the money, I believe?’ it was in the tones of everyday politeness.
Markheim made no answer.
‘I should warn you,’ resumed the other, ‘that the maid has left her sweetheart earlier than usual and will soon be here. If Mr. Markheim be found in this house, I need not describe to him the consequences.’
‘You know me?’ cried the murderer.
The visitor smiled. ‘You have long been a favourite of mine,’ he said; ‘and I have long observed and often sought to help you.’
‘What are you?’ cried Markheim: ‘the devil?’
‘What I may be,’ returned the other, ‘cannot affect the service I propose to render you.’
‘It can,’ cried Markheim; ‘it does! Be helped by you? No, never; not by you! You do not know me yet; thank God, you do not know me!’
‘I know you,’ replied the visitant, with a sort of kind severity or rather firmness. ‘I know you to the soul.’
‘Know me!’ cried Markheim. ‘Who can do so? My life is but a travesty and slander on myself. I have lived to belie my nature. All men do; all men are better than this disguise that grows about and stifles them. You see each dragged away by life, like one whom bravos have seized and muffled in a cloak. If they had their own control—if you could see their faces, they would be altogether different, they would shine out for heroes and saints! I am worse than most; myself is more overlaid; my excuse is known to me and God. But, had I the time, I could disclose myself.’
‘To me?’ inquired the visitant.
‘To you before all,’ returned the murderer. ‘I supposed you were intelligent. I thought—since you exist—you would prove a reader of the heart. And yet you would propose to judge me by my acts! Think of it; my acts! I was born and I have lived in a land of giants; giants have dragged me by the wrists since I was born out of my mother—the giants of circumstance. And you would judge me by my acts! But can you not look within? Can you not understand that evil is hateful to me? Can you not see within me the clear writing of conscience, never blurred by any wilful sophistry, although too often disregarded? Can you not read me for a thing that surely must be common as humanity—the unwilling sinner?’
‘All this is very feelingly expressed,’ was the reply, ‘but it regards me not. These points of consistency are beyond my province, and I care not in the least by what compulsion you may have been dragged away, so as you are but carried in the right direction. But time flies; the servant delays, looking in the faces of the crowd and at the pictures on the hoardings, but still she keeps moving nearer; and remember, it is as if the gallows itself was striding towards you through the Christmas streets! Shall I help you; I, who know all? Shall I tell you where to find the money?’
‘For what price?’ asked Markheim.
‘I offer you the service for a Christmas gift,’ returned the other.
Markheim could not refrain from smiling with a kind of bitter triumph. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I will take nothing at your hands; if I were dying of thirst, and it was your hand that put the pitcher to my lips, I should find the courage to refuse. It may be credulous, but I will do nothing to commit myself to evil.’
‘I have no objection to a death-bed repentance,’ observed the visitant.
‘Because you disbelieve their efficacy!’ Markheim cried.
‘I do not say so,’ returned the other; ‘but I look on these things from a different side, and when the life is done my interest falls. The man has lived to serve me, to spread black looks under colour of religion, or to sow tares in the wheat-field, as you do, in a course of weak compliance with desire. Now that he draws so near to his deliverance, he can add but one act of service—to repent, to die smiling, and thus to build up in confidence and hope the more timorous of my surviving followers. I am not so hard a master. Try me. Accept my help. Please yourself in life as you have done hitherto; please yourself more amply, spread your elbows at the board; and when the night begins to fall and the curtains to be drawn, I tell you, for your greater comfort, that you will find it even easy to compound your quarrel with your conscience, and to make a truckling peace with God. I came but now from such a deathbed, and the room was full of sincere mourners, listening to the man’s last words: and when I looked into that face, which had been set as a flint against mercy, I found it smiling with hope.’
‘And do you, then, suppose me such a creature?’ asked Markheim. ‘Do you think I have no more generous aspirations than to sin, and sin, and sin, and, at the last, sneak into heaven? My heart rises at the thought. Is this, then, your experience of mankind? or is it because you find me with red hands that you presume such baseness? and is this crime of murder indeed so impious as to dry up the very springs of good?’
‘Murder is to me no special category,’ replied the other. ‘All sins are murder, even as all life is war. I behold your race, like starving mariners on a raft, plucking crusts out of the hands of famine and feeding on each other’s lives. I follow sins beyond the moment of their acting; I find in all that the last consequence is death; and to my eyes, the pretty maid who thwarts her mother with such taking graces on a question of a ball, drips no less visibly with human gore than such a murderer as yourself. Do I say that I follow sins? I follow virtues also; they differ not by the thickness of a nail, they are both scythes for the reaping angel of Death. Evil, for which I live, consists not in action but in character. The bad man is dear to me; not the bad act, whose fruits, if we could follow them far enough down the hurtling cataract of the ages, might yet be found more blessed than those of the rarest virtues. And it is not because you have killed a dealer, but because you are Markheim, that I offer to forward your escape.’
‘I will lay my heart open to you,’ answered Markheim. ‘This crime on which you find me is my last. On my way to it I have learned many lessons; itself is a lesson, a momentous lesson. Hitherto I have been driven with revolt to what I would not; I was a bond-slave to poverty, driven and scourged. There are robust virtues that can stand in these temptations; mine was not so: I had a thirst of pleasure. But to-day, and out of this deed, I pluck both warning and riches—both the power and a fresh resolve to be myself. I become in all things a free actor in the world; I begin to see myself all changed, these hands the agents of good, this heart at peace. Something comes over me out of the past; something of what I have dreamed on Sabbath evenings to the sound of the church organ, of what I forecast when I shed tears over noble books, or talked, an innocent child, with my mother. There lies my life; I have wandered a few years, but now I see once more my city of destination.’
‘You are to use this money on the Stock Exchange, I think?’ remarked the visitor; ‘and there, if I mistake not, you have already lost some thousands?’
‘Ah,’ said Markheim, ‘but this time I have a sure thing.’
‘This time, again, you will lose,’ replied the visitor quietly.
‘Ah, but I keep back the half!’ cried Markheim.
‘That also you will lose,’ said the other.
The sweat started upon Markheim’s brow. ‘Well, then, what matter?’ he exclaimed. ‘Say it be lost, say I am plunged again in poverty, shall one part of me, and that the worse, continue until the end to override the better? Evil and good run strong in me, haling me both ways. I do not love the one thing, I love all. I can conceive great deeds, renunciations, martyrdoms; and though I be fallen to such a crime as murder, pity is no stranger to my thoughts. I pity the poor; who knows their trials better than myself? I pity and help them; I prize love, I love honest laughter; there is no good thing nor true thing on earth but I love it from my heart. And are my vices only to direct my life, and my virtues to lie without effect, like some passive lumber of the mind? Not so; good, also, is a spring of acts.’
But the visitant raised his finger. ‘For six-and-thirty years that you have been in this world,’ said be, ‘through many changes of fortune and varieties of humour, I have watched you steadily fall. Fifteen years ago you would have started at a theft. Three years back you would have blenched at the name of murder. Is there any crime, is there any cruelty or meanness, from which you still recoil?—five years from now I shall detect you in the fact! Downward, downward, lies your way; nor can anything but death avail to stop you.’
‘It is true,’ Markheim said huskily, ‘I have in some degree complied with evil. But it is so with all: the very saints, in the mere exercise of living, grow less dainty, and take on the tone of their surroundings.’
‘I will propound to you one simple question,’ said the other; ‘and as you answer, I shall read to you your moral horoscope. You have grown in many things more lax; possibly you do right to be so—and at any account, it is the same with all men. But granting that, are you in any one particular, however trifling, more difficult to please with your own conduct, or do you go in all things with a looser rein?’
‘In any one?’ repeated Markheim, with an anguish of consideration. ‘No,’ he added, with despair, ‘in none! I have gone down in all.’
‘Then,’ said the visitor, ‘content yourself with what you are, for you will never change; and the words of your part on this stage are irrevocably written down.’
Markheim stood for a long while silent, and indeed it was the visitor who first broke the silence. ‘That being so,’ he said, ‘shall I show you the money?’
‘And grace?’ cried Markheim.
‘Have you not tried it?’ returned the other. ‘Two or three years ago, did I not see you on the platform of revival meetings, and was not your voice the loudest in the hymn?’
‘It is true,’ said Markheim; ‘and I see clearly what remains for me by way of duty. I thank you for these lessons from my soul; my eyes are opened, and I behold myself at last for what I am.’
At this moment, the sharp note of the door-bell rang through the house; and the visitant, as though this were some concerted signal for which he had been waiting, changed at once in his demeanour.
‘The maid!’ he cried. ‘She has returned, as I forewarned you, and there is now before you one more difficult passage. Her master, you must say, is ill; you must let her in, with an assured but rather serious countenance—no smiles, no overacting, and I promise you success! Once the girl within, and the door closed, the same dexterity that has already rid you of the dealer will relieve you of this last danger in your path. Thenceforward you have the whole evening—the whole night, if needful—to ransack the treasures of the house and to make good your safety. This is help that comes to you with the mask of danger. Up!’ he cried; ‘up, friend; your life hangs trembling in the scales: up, and act!’
Markheim steadily regarded his counsellor. ‘If I be condemned to evil acts,’ he said, ‘there is still one door of freedom open—I can cease from action. If my life be an ill thing, I can lay it down. Though I be, as you say truly, at the beck of every small temptation, I can yet, by one decisive gesture, place myself beyond the reach of all. My love of good is damned to barrenness; it may, and let it be! But I have still my hatred of evil; and from that, to your galling disappointment, you shall see that I can draw both energy and courage.’
The features of the visitor began to undergo a wonderful and lovely change: they brightened and softened with a tender triumph, and, even as they brightened, faded and dislimned. But Markheim did not pause to watch or understand the transformation. He opened the door and went downstairs very slowly, thinking to himself. His past went soberly before him; he beheld it as it was, ugly and strenuous like a dream, random as chance-medley—a scene of defeat. Life, as he thus reviewed it, tempted him no longer; but on the further side he perceived a quiet haven for his bark. He paused in the passage, and looked into the shop, where the candle still burned by the dead body. It was strangely silent. Thoughts of the dealer swarmed into his mind, as he stood gazing. And then the bell once more broke out into impatient clamour.
He confronted the maid upon the threshold with something like a smile.
‘You had better go for the police,’ said he: ‘I have killed your master.’
Who thought that a mendacious campaign years ago, producing the slenderest Brexit margin on the basis of illegal campaign spending and outrageous lies (anyone still think Turkey and Albania are joining the EU or the NHS will get a Brexit boost?) would be held up as the immutable will of the people? Get real, politicians - only fools cannot change their minds when the facts change so dramatically. Democracy is a process, not an old vote obtained by blatant dishonesty.
Niki's Oasis Restaurant & Jazz Bar 138 Bree Street Newtown Cultural Precinct Johannesburg South Africa with Simnikiwe Sondlo and Bushy Dubazana Jazz Band with the Immutable Themba Fassie
"Byzantium" or "Byzantine Empire" was the name given in the 16th c. to describe the Roman Empire from the fourth century onwards. It was a multinational and, at least at the beginning, a multireligious state, which had a decisive effect on the fortunes of the Ancient and Medieval world from the 4th century until 1453, when it was abolished by the Ottoman Turks. From the 3rd century but mainly after the capital was transferred from Rome to Constantinople, in 330, the Empire began progressively to change territorially and administratively and to mutate. The new capital, characterized as the New Rome, "the Queen of all the cities", was actually the city named Byzantium, the ancient colony of the Greek city of Megara at the coast of Bosporos. This city was renovated, adorned and renamed by the Emperor Constantine the Great. Constantinople was to become the main centre of culture for all the Medieval world.
Until the fifth century the Empire extended in the three continents round Mediterranean Sea, in Europe, Asia and Africa. In late fifth century however, when Rome and Empires Western part were occupied by German tribes, it was limited in the Eastern lands of its old territory. Since then, its borders continuously changed. In the sixth century it was a vast, multinational and still multireligious state. In eleventh and twelfth centuries, still multinational, it extended over the Hellenic, Aegean and Asia Minor territories. In the thirteenth century, in 1204, its ceased to exist, after being abolished by the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade, and was substituted by small states, in Bithynia (Nicaea), Epiros and Pontos (Trebizond). After its reconstitution, in August 1261, and mainly during the next two centuries, fourteenth and fifteenth, it extended only over some Greek lands round Constantinople.
Byzantium was by no means immutable; it was characterized by endless changes in its structures, its function, its character. The barbaric raids (2nd-6th c.), the expansion of the Arabs (7th c.), the epidemic plague, the climatic changes and other factors were leaving their traces on its citizens, its administration, its culture.
From the fourth to the sixth century Byzantium was Roman, mainly pagan, using the Latin language. As a result of the progressive changes after the establishment of Christianity (381), the loss of the lands (5th-7th c.) and the Iconoclasm (8th-9th c.), only few Roman characteristics survived in the 9th century. At the time the State was land-limited and multinational but Christian, and it had its own original culture; the language in use was Greek. The administrative structure and the economy changed. The enormous provinces of the fourth century disappeared, the urban framework collapsed and was substituted by fortified settlements. Byzantium was ruralized and remained mainly rural in the years of prosperity (10th, 12th c.) and up to 1204. Only the emperorship remained immutable in time. It was shaped in the early centuries by incorporating the spirit of Christianity into the Hellenistic and Roman political ideas about kingship. The emperor, surrounded by a strictly structured government and ecclesiastical hierarchy, acted as an oecumenical leader of the unique oecumenical Empire, as the representative of God in earth, who looks after the citizens of the whole world and leads them to the real faith.
(text from museum)
"1HWork" asks: what does fair social and technological knowledge transfer look like, and how can it be attractively linked to the value of work? Creative collaborative production needs a fair model of synchronisation, hierarchy and remuneration, and it should be cool. We give the production operating system an update, inscribe work with an immutable value and thus open diverse possibility spaces for value creation. The 1HWork Index ΚΔ is blockchain-based, feeds from numerous databases and aims to promote a fairer remuneration of work. With the CO฿IE in one’s wallet, one can then redeem rapid prototyping-machine hours, workshop time-expert hours and/or re-use components. The prototypes for this: arteQ as an art NFT community, and a new recruiting platform developed in the social design process that matches the strengths of workers with the needs of companies in the job search.
Credits: NANK Co:llaboratory - Felix Zabel
By Haroon Mirza
A Chamber for Horwitz,
Sonakinatography Transcriptions in Surround Sound, 2015
Wall work: Channa Horwitz
Sonakinatography Composition III, 1996
Haroon Mirza (born 1977, UK) has won international acclaim for installations that test the interplay and friction between sound and light waves and electric current. Transcribing a complex working drawing by LA-based artist Channa Horwitz (1932–2013), Mirza turns her notational sequences and matrices into a multi-coloured, sonic score. The electric noise of the currents that light the LEDs in one of the eight possible configurations and colour combinations, as marked by Horwitz, is simul-taneously translated via speakers to audible noise pulses in different octaves. Together, these acoustic, visual interpretations of the Horwitz data result in a choreographed, compositional concert, which is at once computer-programmed and man-made – both ‘live’ and historic.
A Chamber for Horwitz; Sonakinatography Transcriptions in Surround Sound is a conceptual development of an earlier piece by Mirza, titled Adam, Eve, Others and a UFO (2013).
[everythingatonce.com]
Part of Everything at Once
Presented by Lisson Gallery and The Vinyl Factory at the Store Studios, 180 The Strand
October-December 2017
Lisson Gallery opened on Bell Street in 1967, a year after John Cage’s pronouncement on the changing conditions of contemporary existence. In celebration of this anniversary, the gallery is partnering with The Vinyl Factory to stage ‘EVERYTHING AT ONCE’, an ambitious group exhibition inspired by these words, which could very well apply to our current anxiety-ridden age of ceaseless communication. Through new and historical works by 24 of the artists currently shown by Lisson Gallery (out of more than 150 to have had solo shows over the past 50 years), this extensive presentation aims to collapse half a century of artistic endeavour under one roof, while telescoping its original aims into an unknowable future.
As Cage predicted, we increasingly live in an all-at-once age, in which time and space are no longer rational or linear concepts and great distances can be traversed with an instantaneous click. More than ever before, contemporary art, like life, assaults us simultaneously from all angles and from anywhere on the globe, existing also as multisensory visions of an accelerated world.
In response, ‘EVERYTHING AT ONCE’ is neither a chronological exhibition nor an encyclopaedic history of the gallery’s activities since 1967, rather it is an interconnected journey incorporating 45 works exploring experience, effect and event, invoking immediacy and immutability. Ranging from text to installation, painting, sculpture, performance and sound, the selection presents some of Lisson’s leading artists, of both the past and present...
[Lisson Gallery]
There is only one immutable law in life - in a gentleman’s toilet, incoming traffic has right of way - Hugh Leonard
Passing in Wallembergs torg after sunset, at dusk, people starts to sit down on the stairs facing the marina, with a beer or a drink in the hand and a lot of time ahead to chit-chat. The traffic behind flows as usual, seagulls keep on screeching in their neverending search for food; the lights' reflections render the scene immutable and at the same time ever changing.
HDR from a single raw file.
Niki's Oasis Restaurant & Jazz Bar 138 Bree Street Newtown Cultural Precinct Johannesburg South Africa with Simnikiwe Sondlo and Bushy Dubazana Jazz Band with the Immutable Themba Fassie
Great Food and Music Highly Recommended
Niki's Oasis Restaurant & Jazz Bar 138 Bree Street Newtown Cultural Precinct Johannesburg South Africa with Simnikiwe Sondlo and Bushy Dubazana Jazz Band with the Immutable Themba Fassie
Social activist and leader of the American civil rights movement, Julian Bond has been Chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the USA's oldest and largest civil rights organization, since 1998, and was a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Bond has been elected to both houses of the Georgia Legislature, where he served for twenty years.
In a 2006 speech at the University of Virginia, Bond noted, "Marriage is a civil right. If you don’t want gay people to marry in your church, good for you. But you can’t say they can’t marry in your city."
He said, "Like race, our sexuality is not a preference -- it is immutable, unchangeable, and the Constitution protects us all against prejudices and discrimination based on immutable characteristics."
Under Bond, the NAACP released a statement in February 2009 supporting the effort to overturn Proposition 8. "The NAACP has long opposed any proposal that would alter the federal or state constitutions for the purpose of excluding any groups or individuals from guarantees of equal protections," Bond wrote in a press release.
Niki's Oasis Restaurant & Jazz Bar 138 Bree Street Newtown Cultural Precinct Johannesburg South Africa with Simnikiwe Sondlo and Bushy Dubazana Jazz Band with the Immutable Themba Fassie
Great Food and Music Highly Recommended
Common Courtesies in Dixie
Say "please" without fail. Please, always say "please" when you make a request, no matter how trivial or important.
Always ask, never tell. The only way to make a request is to ask for it, directives are much too surly. "Would you please carry me up the road a piece?" is correct. "Give me a ride to the market" is most assuredly not.
Say "Thank you" without fail. Upon being granted your request--be it a personal favor or impersonal transaction--always look the other party in the eye, give them a pleasing smile, and cheerily say, "Thank you". To show them you're really grateful, dress it up with "Thank you kindly," "Thanks a whole lot," "Preciate it". If your request is denied, say "Well, thank you anyway." Using your best turn-the-other-cheek manner.
Say "ma'am" and "sir" without fail. If any adult your senior addresses you (or vice versa), automatically attach the appropriate title to your response ("Yes ma'am, "I reckon so, Sir", "Pardon me ma'am"). Neglecting this rule is apt to be interpreted as arrogance or insolence or just plain bad upbringing.
Always refer to those of the female gender as Ladies. The descriptive woman is usually reserved in Dixie for females of questionable respect. If you are a gentleman, then treat all ladies with courtness, deference, and respect you'd accord members of the royal family since, in the South, ladies occupy such status. This is an immutable rule of order in Dixie, no matter what may be happening elsewhere on this planet.
-Thomas Caldwell