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The fast rollicking song of the Warbling Vireo is a common sound in many parts of central and northern North America during summer. They are fairly plain birds with gray-olive upperparts and white underparts washed with faint yellow. They have a mild face pattern with a whitish stripe over the eye. They stay high in deciduous treetops, where they move methodically among the leaves hunting for caterpillars.
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'Taking a moment'. One of our most intelligent birds, a solitary Jackdaw on the rocks above the North sea, taking a moment to tidy up...Northumberland.
Many thanks for visiting my Flickr pages ...Your visits, interest, comments and kindness to 'fave' my photos is very much appreciated, Steve.
Jackdaw Notes
Jackdaws are pleasing to watch. Solemnly and methodically, they stalk the lawn, unhurried in their search patterns, neat and tidy and dignified in their bearing. Unlike the larger and clamorous cousins with which they often flock, their phrases are clipped, their conversations brief.
They pair for life, share food and, when the male barks his arrival at the nest, the female responds with a softer, longer reply. They like manmade structures. Formerly a nuisance as they favoured chimneys for their twiggy bundles, they’re less troublesome in the era of central heating and their liking for church steeples has long been indulged. As the 18th-century poet William Cowper put it, ‘A great frequenter of the church, Where bishop-like, he finds a perch And dormitory too.’ For this habit, the bird was deemed sacred in parts of Wales.
Jackdaws love people, and probably because they love eye contact
People and jackdaws get on – there’s a certain empathy between them. Many are the stories told by individuals who scooped up stranded fledglings in need and were rewarded with a bemusing trust and friendship. Jackdaws recognise human faces and studies by Cambridge zoologist Auguste von Bayern concluded that they respond to human expressions.
These corvids communicate via their eyes, just as human eye contact plays a major role, and a bird confident with its mentor can ‘read’ that person’s eye motions and will follow them to find hidden food. This interplay has encouraged and enabled research.
They can ‘marry’ to boost their status in society
From the 1930s, the Austrian ornithologist Konrad Lorenz, founder of modern ethology, determined a strict social hierarchy within jackdaw groups (collectively called trains or clatterings). Unpaired females rank lowest in the hierarchy: they’re the last to have access to food and shelter in times of scarcity, and are liable to be pecked at by others without being permitted to retaliate.
However, when a female is selected as a mate, she assumes the same rank as her partner and is accepted as such by all others in the group, upon whom she may impose her status by pecking.
They regularly make same-sex love matches – particularly in captivity
Dr Lorenz also discovered that, although the birds normally pair for life, jackdaws in captivity tend to form same-sex pairs. Research in the Netherlands in the 1970s went a step further by concluding that such pairings occur in the wild and that among females that have lost their mates, 10% bond with other females and 5% form a same-sex ménage a trois.
This aspect was pursued in detail by Canadian biologist Bruce Bagemihl in his 1999 book Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity, in which he described widespread ‘non-procreative sexuality’ in the natural world. Jackdaws are among many species that may form same-sex pairs, he declared.
Their numbers are strong, and growing
The apparent lackadaisical attitude of jackdaws on procreation seems to have had no bearing on population. After significant reduction of British numbers in the 1970s, Corvus monedula is flourishing, with 1.4 million breeding pairs here and some 30 million across Europe. In four sub-species, the bird is found from Scandinavia to North Africa and as far east as central Asia.
Like magpies, they love shiny objects
Our jackdaw was classified in the 18th century by Carl Linnaeus for its habit of picking up bright objects, particularly coins (monedula being from the same Latin stem, moneta, as money).
Indeed, after Adolf Hitler embarked on an art-theft campaign in the 1930s he was derided as ‘the Jackdaw of Linz’, reflecting an appetite for bright objects.
A jackdaw became a saint – at least in a story
The best-known literary jackdaw is found in the Ingoldsby Legends of R. H. Barham, the Jackdaw of Rheims which stole the cardinal’s ring, but returned it and became a local saint.
He long liv’d the pride
Of that country side,
And at last in the odor of sanctity died;
When, as words were too faint
His merits to paint,
The Conclave determin’d to make him a Saint;
And on newly-made Saints and Popes, as you know,
It ’s the custom, at Rome, new names to bestow,
So they canoniz’d him by the name of Jem Crow!
R. H. Barham, the Jackdaw of Rheims
Jackdaws were once shot as vermin
We didn’t always warm to jackdaws. After poor grain harvests, they were proscribed with rooks and crows by Henry VIII in a Vermin Act of 1532, and Elizabeth I ratified this in 1566 with another act ‘for the preservation of grayne’.
Countryside attitudes softened after Victorian game-shooting luminaries Lord Walsingham and Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, writing in the 1886 Badminton Library, put them in the second rank of offenders alongside jays, kestrels and hedgehogs as creatures ‘which do some little harm but also some good’.
Jackdaws were ‘as a rule not very mischievous’ and were to be thinned in the woods only to keep their numbers under control. As for the primary raiders – crows, magpies, sparrowhawks, stoats, weasels, polecats, cats and rats – ‘not one bird or beast should be allowed to draw the breath of life on any manor where game preserving is carried on’.
They’re wrongly-blamed for killing small birds
Jackdaw numbers are thinned on some shoots, but, in the wider world they represent little threat. Corvids are blamed en masse for small-bird losses, yet magpies, grey squirrels, cats, changes in land use and habitat destruction are the major culprits.
Indeed, its diet confirms this. Forensic scrutiny by Walter Collinge, described in The Food of Some British Wild Birds of 1913, divided jackdaw crop contents into 42% insects, 29.5% animal matter and 28.5% vegetable matter. Insect and animal constituents spanned earthworms, woodlice, spiders, mice, frogs, snails, slugs, eggs and young birds. Vegetable matter included cereals, potatoes, cherries, berries, walnuts and poultry and game feed. All of this identifies the jackdaw as a useful ally in pest control and only an occasional opportunist feeder on other species.
The ‘chimney bird’ has several other names
The origin of ‘jack’ offers a choice between their brief squawk and the traditional signifier of a small species, with ‘daw’ an English word first recorded in the 15th century, the two halves conjoining in the 16th century. Dialect variants included ka, kae, caddow, caddesse, chauk, college bird, jackerdaw, jacko, ka-wattie, chimney-sweep bird and sea-crow.
They were once thought to be portents of death
These enigmatic birds have a place in folklore, too. A jackdaw on the roof was said to proclaim a new arrival, but might also be a portent of early death. In the Fens, a jackdaw encountered on the way to a wedding was a good omen.
The bird was well known in the Classical world, but its reputation wavered. Ovid declared that the jackdaw brought rain. Aesop used it derisively in his Fables as a stupid bird that starved waiting for figs to ripen: living on hope, which the Fox says ‘feeds illusions, not the stomach’. Pliny admired it as a destroyer of grasshopper eggs.
Jackdaws were once believed to have originally been white
The Greeks declared that ‘the swans will sing when the jackdaws are silent’, meaning that the wise will speak after the foolish have shut up. This reflected, to a point, their mythology that all corvids were white until one of their number told Apollo about his wife’s infidelity, at which point he turned the messenger’s feathers black.
A legend among early Christians declared that corvids were indeed white and took black plumage in mourning after the Crucifixion – except magpies, which were too busy pilfering to grieve properly, so turned only partially black. 11 things you never knew about the jackdaw, the bird that just loves people, Country Life May 20, 2018.
This little cutie must have made dozens of trips back and forth, methodically emptying out the contents of this jack-o-lantern Goodie Bowl. Said contents being a variety of mixed nuts, both whole and shelled - both ready for immediate consumption and/or immediate burial for later consumption.
Our Backyard Harvest Fest, for or backyard visitors, hopefully met its goal this year in helping out our furry and feathered friends in fueling up for winter, which is just the corner.
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L'asymétrie vous déplaît ? Est-ce que cela vous dérange ou même vous fait peur ?
La réalité de la vie devrait-elle toujours être symétrique, prévisible et sûre ?
Lorsque vous êtes très anxieux, avez-vous tendance à devenir contrôlant, plus rigide et répétitif envers vous-même et envers les personnes avec qui vous vivez ?
Peut-être que certains réseaux neuronaux de votre système cérébral fonctionnent avec des capteurs d’alerte hyperactivés, provoquant des alarmes plus fréquentes et plus précoces. Êtes-vous très inquiet et sur la défensive ?
Vous sentez-vous mal et sous pression lorsque vous êtes anxieux ou craintif ? Cet état mental vous rend-il encore plus méthodique ?
Est-ce que le moment suivant, l'incertitude d'un avenir très proche, l'imprévisible ou ce qui n'est pas contrôlable, devient pour vous quelque chose de redoutable et qui pourrait avoir de mauvaises conséquences pour vous ou les personnes qui vous sont chères ? Vous rendez-vous compte si vous le percevez de cette façon ?
Et est-ce que cela vous gêne ou vous fait souffrir ? Si la réponse est oui, votre anxiété est devenue dysfonctionnelle voire pathologique.
Vous connaissez peut-être déjà le Syndrome du Trouble Colpulsif Obsessionnel. Peut-être.
Parlez à un professionnel de la santé mentale et demandez de l’aide. Parlez, faites confiance et informez-vous.
La vie en général est paisible et simple, même si pour certains, cela ne semble jamais l’être.
Ivan
* Ce dessin que ma fille a dessiné montre le visage asymétrique mais célèbre de l'actrice Greta Garbo
-----------------------------
And do you dislike asymmetry ? Does this bother you or even scare you ?
And should the reality of life always be symmetrical, predictable and safe ?
When you are very anxious, do you tend to become controlling, more rigid and repetitive towards yourself and the people you live with ?
Perhaps certain neural networks in your brain system are operating with overactivated warning sensors, causing alarms to occur more frequently and earlier. Are you very worried and defensive ?
Do you feel down and under pressure when you are anxious or fearful ? Does this mental state make you even more methodical ?
Does the next moment, the uncertainty of the very near future, the unpredictable or that which is not controllable, become something feared for you that could bring bad consequences to you or the people you care about ? Do you realize if you perceive it this way ?
And does this bother you or make you suffer ? If the answer is yes, your anxiety has become dysfunctional or even pathological.
You may already be familiar with Obsessive Colpulsive Disorder Syndrome. Maybe.
Talk to a mental health professional and get help. Speak, trust and inform yourself.
The life in general is peaceful and simple, although for some people it never seems like it.
Ivan
*This drawing that my daughter drew shows the asymmetrical but famous face of actress Greta Garbo
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This little goldfinch was fun to watch. Swaying back and forth in the wind, he dangled from this thistle stalk, methodically picking bits of thistle down which clumped together eventually creating this little white "waterfall" beneath him.
This Bug (butterfly or moth? daturamarichild will activate her Bug ID power ring shortly) danced in a circle on this bloom, rotating around counter clockwise! I just loved watching her as she harvested this flower methodically. I also thought, she looked like half of a fading bloom going brown as she rotated around with the sun full on her! Thanks for viewing! =o) ***All rights to my images are reserved. Please contact me if you interested in purchasing my images or if you are and educator or non-profit interested in use.***
Outside of my comfort zone. Photographing people and events isn't my forte'. I am mainly into the slow and methodical landscape photos. Living close to DC my wife and I sometimes like to go downtown and witness history. We wanted to see the happenings around the White House. This is the day after the media announced Biden the winner. This isn't meant to be a political statement, just a moment in time.
A Tea for the Tillerman
Acte 4
A Most Curious Conclusion
A slow sinking feeling came over me as I saw the distraughtly gutted look in Ginny’s eyes as she realized the fancy necklace she had been wearing had somehow fallen away and had been lost.
We both immediately began to look down around her feet.
Finding nothing Ginny looks up at me with worried eyes, her fingers still stroking her sheath dress’s high neckline. I tell her soothingly…
“Need to retrace your steps luv, since the last time you knew it was still there. That’s probably the best course of action.”
“I don’t remember…” she said panic-stricken.
I thought hard, not an easy thing to do with the after-effects of a bit too much alcoholic drink. Then my eyes lit up as I hit upon it.
You still had it on when I left you at the pagoda to visit the loo.
“I left there when I started looking for you, Cade. Cor Blimey, been back to the house, and everywhere in between since haven’t I?” She told me this with a miserably unhappy sigh. “I would really hate to have lost that .”
Taking her arm we then began retracing her steps in backorder, searching the ground in vain until we finally, now quite dejected, made it back to the still deserted pagoda.
We began to search the area in a now desperate manner. But nothing sparkled that would have given away the lost
necklaces hiding spot.
Ginny came over to me.
I watched, her black satin Qipao sheath dress with the green lining flowing elegantly along her figure, the rhinestone dragon with the emerald eyes shimmering. It was a shame that someone looking that pretty should be so sad I thought with pity.
“Would Cleo have gone off with it?” I pondered aloud as I squatted, peering under the steps.
“That Estella scared him off,” Ginny said from the other side of the pagoda.
“Estella?” I asked
“ She was with Claire, and that odd lady who I told you was taking to Cassie.”
“Estella had intentionally scared away poor Cleo and then went chasing after the poor thing.
What about” Wood Bead Lady? I asked
Ginny half-heartedly snickered. “ I like that name.”
Then went on…
“She sat down, literally right next to me. Claire reached over wanting me to hold her. Which I did. We chatted for a bit. Estella came back alone, and stood behind me teasing Claire.”
“It was then I decided to head off to find you. Leaving your “Wood Bead Lady, whom I handed Claire back to, and Estella there.
“That lady sure is an odd one, Dontcha think?” Ginny commented.
I arose, agreeing with her, my mind racing. Something was nagging at it, but for the life of me, I couldn’t think of what it was. All I could focus on really was trying to help my friend find that errant necklace of hers.
“It’s not here, is it?” Ginny said with a miserable tone of voice.
I went over and reassuringly hugged her.
“ Let’s go find my mum. Maybe someone found it and turned it over to her. Wouldn’t it be funny if we spent all this time looking and she had it all the while?”
This cheered her up, and we began to walk back, a bit more happy and hopeful.
==========================
We passed the lady in purple silk who was drinking wine as she chatted away with several other ladies.
Gone was the “Wood Bead Lady” and her gang of followers.
The ladies turned to us as we passed.
I stared with an open mouth…
Gone also was the lady in purple silk’s diamond and sapphire necklace!
The other two were surprisingly not wearing necklaces either, and one, wearing an old satin and lace wedding dress, I could have sworn had been wearing a rather handsome pearl choker!?
“Cheers, “ they said to us
“Cheers” Ginny answered back half-heartedly
But I didn't answer. My attention had been pulled away, as the several things I had observed recently tried to click together in my mind, but it was like trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces.
We were almost at the table when Cassie caught up with us and greeted Ginny. I was looking away, watching mum straighten a few things at the tables. Her necklace sparkled as she bent over.
Then I spotted Estella carrying Claire over to mum.
Claire reached out her arms to be picked up. Mum stopped what she was doing, reached down, and lifted her. Then she was hugged and patted by my mum as she spoke to the caterer. While sneaky Estella watched from alongside them.
Claire’s mother Clarice had just then come up to join them.
I gasped upon seeing that little Clair had that quickly unclasped and was now holding the ends of mum’s diamond necklace in one hand.
As her mother pulled her away, Claire let go and I saw the necklace fall inside the front of my Mum’s dress. She was wearing a full silk slip which must have prevented her from feeling it siding down.
I saw it plop out and fall to the ground between her shimmery silver sandals.
With relief, I saw Estella bend down to the ground behind mum to retrieve it.
Relief turned to horror as I then saw Estella, instead of handing the diamond necklace over, quickly walking off with it, unnoticed by the others.
I gasped, hand to my throat, too frozen in disbelief to act.
Estella disappeared behind a tall hedge that blocked the portable toilets the guests were using, from sight.
It was then I saw the “Wood Bead Lady” coming from around the side corner of our house. And also disappeared behind the same hedge.
Then, that quickly the Wood Bead Lady appeared from the hedge on the side Estella had entered.
Remembering the game, I assumed that Estella had handed the diamond necklace off to her. The lady’s actions appeared to confirm that.
She had stopped, and I could see her looking at Mum, who was still chatting away, clueless as to what was going on.
Then the “Wood Bead Lady” saw me gaping at her.
With a start, she held up her skirt turned, and moved off across the green towards the gardens. I knew then she was heading for the thicker ring of woods that borders our property on the other side.
No one except me has been paying any attention to what was happening.
Wood Bead Lady” had almost entered the gardens before I finally was able to give a warning voice to Ginny over the situation.
“Hurry, she may be getting away with them” I snapped, grabbing a puzzled Ginny by the arm.
I started to apologize to Cassie that we had to go when suddenly I was gobsmacked. Cassie no longer was wearing a necklace either!
From behind me, I heard a bewildered Ginny ask...
“Who is getting away with what?”
I turned and nodded in the direction of the fleeing lady.
“Wood Bead Lady, No time to explain” I yelled behind me as I pulled Ginny away.
We began weaving in and out of quests, leaving bewildered ladies in our wake.
I saw Mrs. Shannon directly ahead and gently moved her away.
“Hello Cade, what's up?”
“Explain later” I called out over my shoulder
I looked back at her and gulped, Mrs. Shannon was no longer wearing what had been her rather expensive ruby necklace. Nor was Gabriella wearing hers…
I swore under my breath as I remembered what I had seen by the wrought iron bench in my secret garden. I pictured the lady we were pursuing, Estella, and little Claire playing what I had thought was a game of keep away using their necklaces...
“Bloody hell am I a twit, it had not been a game played merely to amuse a young child.” Claire had been a pawn, groomed to be the necklace-lifting “Finger Smith” to use an old pickpocketing term. I was now swearing to myself not to have caught on sooner.
“Perfect gambit. If wee Claire was caught removing your necklace, the assumption was merely a young child playing and accidentally undoing my necklace. . The victim would twitter to the tyke teasing her as you silly dickens, while the necklace was retrieved and the young miss Claire would be hugged for being so precious.
Buggers, if I haven’t seen them play acting in the secret garden, I’d have thought the same if it had been me. But I probably would not have been one to catch on, and have lost my necklace as a result, as Ginny had.“
I thought all this as Ginny and I was scurrying our way through the garden as fast as our heels would let us.
We reached the outer edge of the garden, a green space of about 28 meters, only to see the thief had run into the woods ahead. I caught a glimpse of her using the well-worn dirt path that led through them. The path would eventually be ending up in an old cemetery with the road(Abbots Chase Lane)on its outskirts.
When we finally reached that path and entered the cool woods, all was quiet. No sound or sign of the lady thief. We removed our heels and slowed to an uncomfortable walk...
I warned Ginny as she walked beside me.
“Keep your eyes open”
“So could you at least tell me now what's going on? She asked
“I think that Wood Bead Lady has mum's necklace, and I strongly suspect she has yours also. Along with the Shannons and who knows how many other necklaces she got that Mum’s guests were wearing. I told her in between gasps of now quite labored breaths.
Ginny stopped me with a gasp, a hand to her breast...asking...
“Cadence, are you saying my necklace was not lost but nicked?”
I nodded, “ By the Wood Bead Lady I repeated.”
“ How did she manage all that?” Ginny asked, her turn to be gobsmacked.
“She had a helper. “
I moved Ginny on, continuing the pursuit, slow as it was. I explained in a hushed voice what all I had observed, as we walked on.
================
After what felt like an hour, but only had really been ten minutes, we finally reach the cemetery. Looking around we see nothing moving. All is eerily still and silent.
We had just begun moving in along the path when suddenly Ginny swore very loudly and grabbed my shoulder. “Bloody well twisted an ankle!” She wailed quite loudly.
I led her off to the side of the path. “Here sit on this bench,” I instructed her as I helped her down.
“Go on..” she screeched aloud, wincing In pain massaging her ankle.
I went on alone, cautiously, leaving my whimpering friend behind.
I felt a bit more vulnerable now that some of the excitement of the chase appeared gone, and I was now alone. Though my adrenaline was still making my heart beat fast.
I passed by a mausoleum, catching my reflection in the mirror.
“All dressed up and alone.” I thought fearfully to myself. “What a wicked turn of events.”
Reaching an open gate on the other side I go out onto a small parking lot.
Which lets out on the paved road that intersects the road our house is on. I hear a car's tyres screech off in the distance.
Miserably I admit to myself
“I think we lost her”
And with her had gone mums diamonds Ginny's pendent, Mrs. Shannon's and her daughter rubies, that innocent lady's sapphire necklace, Cassie’s diamond garnet necklace, and who knew what other guests had lost their expensive necklaces to Claire's seemingly innocent hugs...
If only I had been quicker on the uptake I sighed as with my mind's eye I pictured little Claire hugging mum and the terribly unsettling aftermath.
Now totally feeling both dejected and depressed, I turn and make out way back to Ginny waiting alone in the cemetery.
>>>>>>>>
I made it back to the stone bench, only to find it empty
I hear a familiar voice whimper close by…
It was Ginny!
I move off and from behind a tree saw down into a small gully
There I see the “Wood Bead lady” holding a knife to Ginny's chest as her free hand was eagerly removing my friend's remaining emeralds.
She had already taken Ginny's emerald earrings and was now gleefully stuffing her emerald bracelet, down inside her purse. As I saw them. She then began working off Ginny's pretty ring, saying wickedly to her victim in the process.
“ Find the catered private parties, I always say, they have nice stuff with easy pickings, like this one, wouldn't you agree dearie?
Heard about this one from two school girls flapping their whiney lips on a city double-decker about having to work here as caterers.
Then I found that simply precious little one and her gullible sneaky friend, who I was able to use in acquiring several of these rich twits necklaces. Yours was the first my sweet. Didn’t feel a thing did you? Well, none of ‘em did, so engrossed in playing with the young ‘un weren’t they now. When I finished that game by playing it on that Shannon broad, I left the tyke in the hands of Estella. Then I paid a “visit” inside the house to find the ladies' bedrooms. That’s where the good stuff usually can be found. Pity the Hostess was wearing the good diamonds, but I found enough in her jewel case to compensate, and in her cheeky daughters also. Cleaned them both out., did it I ” she cackled with delight.
I gasped inwardly, heart sinking, remembering I had left my case open. All my jewellery, including the rings and bracelet I had taken off, had been stolen. And all of my mum’s pretties also….
The “Wood Bead Lady“ continues as she finished working off the emerald ring from Ginny’s finger and plopped it into her purse. She began to methodically paw a shaking Ginny over checking that nothing had been missed as she happily smirked to herself…
“Was quite hard to pass up the opportunity of acquiring that far too lovely diamond necklace the Hostess was so alluringly wearing, just begging to be plucked off. Funny, when I was going through her bedroom, I was fantasizing that she would have to come into the house for something so I could…but she didn’t. So I had to have one more look at the pretty things before leaving…Didn’t I?… Wait now….What was that?”
As I listened in, with a deep sinking feeling, I move back, my expression shows that I’m desperately thinking of a way out of this.
I end up stepping on a twig in the process, the sharp crack it makes giving me away.
The Wood Bead Lady” stopped talking and immediately looked towards the source of the sound she had heard.
Seeing me, “Wood Bead Lady” grabs Ginny. Pulling my struggling friend tightly up against her, now holding the knife to Ginny’s throat.
“Wood Bead Lady” snarls at me, her lip raising like a bulldog. Her words dripping with a coveting wickedness
“Welcome here my pretty one. Should have let me go. Come down now and join your friend my sweet and let me have
another close peek of your pretty party dress.”
She beckons me to come down with the knife.
“Then I'll make you a bit more comfortable. It must be hot walking around weighed down with all those lovely jewels your a wearin! “
I took a step back, Ginny smirks, giving me a wink as the “Wood Bead Lady” continues.
“Don't run away love. I have your friend, and if you don’t want any harm to befall her…”
She left her sentence dangling, her focus now entirely on me, and off from her now still captive.
A bit encumbered by the tight-fitting Qipao dress, Ginny had slowly positioned her legs. I saw her take a deep breath, and in a fluid motion grabbed the lady's arm and with a yell that resounded loudly through the cemetery, neatly backflipped her, In a perfectly executed jit Jitsu move.
The knife had flown from the thief's hand clattering against the side of a gravestone.
Not at all surprised, I had kept my wits, As I quickly moved down into the gully and quickly snatched it up.
Walking over to her prone, dazed figure, I spit out my words with a great deal of relief and satisfaction as I pick up her weighty purse...
“Wood Bead Lady’s” eyes were opened wide, watching me while she lay sprawled out on the ground. as I spoke.
“If you hadn't been such a greedy bitch, luv, you would have gotten clean away with your little scheme. You went “a bridge too far” as the saying goes by having Estella going for me Mum’s diamonds. That’s when My cheeky ass finally caught on, otherwise, you would have got away scot-free with the jewels!”
Ginny comes over and hugs me. I opened the “Wood Bead Lady’s” purse and hearing the lady thief moan, I continued…
And really ‘DEARIE’ was it worth it being unscrupulous enough to take the jewellery from innocent children like Claire and Gabriella! Ginny figured you would hide like the coward you are, and came up with the idea to fake the hurt ankle. Figuring she would present an easy-looking victim, the kind you obviously prefer, whose shiny emeralds would be a far too tempting lure to bring you out of hiding. Ginny is a pretty damn good actress wouldn't you say!?”
The lady just moans more. I open the purse so Ginny and I can have a look.
Our eyes bulged as we take in the not small pile of expensively glistening jewelry inside.
At that moment We all hear the tyres of a car crunching in the parking lot. Soon I hear the welcome voices of papa and my brother calling out.
It must have been his car I head heard the screeching of it’s tyres off in the distance.
It was a happy reunion, and a relief to see the “Wood Bead Lady” being led off wearing papa’s cuffs.
As an addendum, I have to admit I had it wrong.
It was discovered that the weaselly Estella, had indeed been helping the “Wood Bead Lady” with her scheme by standing behind a lady holding Claire, waiting to snatch up the dropped necklace.
But, when the “Wood Bead Lady” had disappeared after taking Mrs. Shannon’s rubies ( to break in and pilfer our bedrooms) Estella then started to use Claire’s game to her own advantage. First to acquire Gabrielle’s ruby necklace, then apparently boldly upping her game by going for Mum’s diamonds.
This became clear after it was discovered that Mum’s Diamond necklace was not inside the “Wood Bead Lady’s “ handbag.
Estella was questioned, caught in a lie, and eventually admitted she had sold both necklaces in a pawn shop for £25. They were both recovered.
So it was just a coincidence that the two passed by each other behind the Hedge.
A coincidence that I happened to have seen, and was probably the only reason the “Wood Bead Lady” was caught red-handed with the jewels.
Fini
Enough of this DC rubbish.
When I was younger, long before I ever considered joining Flickr, and before I was even into comics, I still would pop on here every so often and look at the creations by builders like Legohaulic, Bart De Dobbelaer, SlyOwl, Sir Nadroj, and a host of others.
Maybe most importantly though, was Alex Eylar. I can't begin to describe how excellent, elegant, atmospheric, and just utterly creative his work is, and how deeply it effected my own building growing up.
And nothing exemplifies that more than The Irregulars , a group of colorful hitmen, thugs, and assassins he created and displayed in charming little vignettes way back in 2008.
The original conceit was to recreate the original Irregulars piece for piece, but I rapidly realized I didn't have the parts to do so, so instead I decided to do a shot-for-shot recreation of each of them with newer parts. Sort of an Irregulars for the modern day.
The Irregulars are,
The Cheshire Cat, The White Rabbit, The Lory, The March Hare, The Dormouse, The Mad Hatter, The Mock Turtle, and The Gryphon. On the image itself I'll put Mister Eylar's original bios over each of them, so you can get to know them a little better.
There's a theme there if you can catch it. Heh.
Anyways, I've been thinking over this weird little tribute for a while now, figured I'd get it out there.
Cheers, all!
Turning another silent into a violent night. A methodical violence that is: disturbing the dead and the dead-asleep alike. Hootin’, rootin’ and a tootin’ – Cowboys and their metal mares – as if nightmarish apparitions ridin’ into some souled high plains town on steel horses to wrangle then, just as quickly as they appear, steal away with the community’s bounty like booty. No, not like that nefarious ’69 cinematic Wild Bunch, but professionals. A Band of Brothers. Eastern Washington Gateway Railroaders. Die-hards. In fact. Present day grunts armed with orders to take; comms to coordinate the taking; the skill to execute the taking near effortlessly; the precision to take as efficiently as possible. Boots-on-the-ground, got each other's six operators operating on the cusp of railroading past. High above, the recently retired CWGG wheat laurels logo still and still will herald the arrival and departure of this timeless cacophony as it will the corrugated crib elevator with its bearing friction 40’ cars box platform permanently chained, rusted in the upright position. A scene, but for the crew van, anachronistic: may as well be unfolding in 1968 instead of a half-century later. Whatever century it may be, or what wristed analog standard railroad time, or obstacle, the objective is accomplished. Always. (© 08Jun18)
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#bootsontheground #diehard #sonyalpha6000 #sonyalpha #manfrotto #nightmoves #nighttrain #cowboys #apparition #pnwphotographer #pnw_rrshots #dead #trains #ipulledoverforthis #gruntstyle #nightmare #bandofbrothers #professional #murica #theobstacleistheway #wildbunch
This cracks me up. This Least Tern (known as Tommy the Tern) is so used to me now he stands on my towel that I lay on to photograph during my belly shots! He was so close that I do not think even my 18 - 55mm could get him! He was inches from my face! He loves being sung to (I know -- really weird but he likes my singing voice). When I start to sing, he walks up to me in a slow methodical pace, mesmerized and stands there waiting for me to repeat the song over and over.
This evening I posted shots of two Sandpipers that are often confused especially in the juvenile phase - Solitary Sandpiper and Spotted Sandpiper.. This is a juvenile Solitary Sandpiper.
Solitary Sandpipers never have spots on the breast and flanks in any phase, Adult Spotted Sandpipers have spots there, but the juveniles do not. the juveniles of both species have a bold white eye ring. This eye ring on the adult Solitary extends to the base of the bill creating a spectacle look.
The bill of the Solitary is shorter and more slender than that of the Spotted Sandpiper and darker overall through adulthood, The bill of the adult Spotted Sandpiper turns a bright orange with a dark tip.
The Solitary Sandpiper is spotted on the mantle, scapulars and wing coverts. As it matures, those areas grow darker, and the spots become whiter and more obvious. Spotted Sandpipers are more uniformly plain and dark in those feather regions.
The juvenile Solitary Sandpiper is dark on the throat and breast with clean white flanks. The Spotted Sandpiper is white on the throat with a thick brown line extending from the mantle below the breast and then clean white flanks.
The legs of the Solitary are a dull greenish colour compared to the brighter yellow of the Spotted Sandpiper.
I think the best way to differentiate these species is by observing behavior. The Solitary Sandpiper forages by walking methodically along the shore line lifting its longer legs up and down while peering around.
The Spotted Sandpiper moves more quickly on shorter legs often pausing and moving its rump up and down it a "teeter-totter" motion.
Cooking Lake. .Strathcona County, Alberta.
'Looking for a Clattering'. One of our most intelligent birds, a solitary Jackdaw flying high above a stormy North Sea...in a hurry to get somewhere! RSPB Bempton Cliffs, East Yorkshire.
Many thanks for visiting my Flickr pages ...Your visits, interest, comments and kindness to 'fave' my photos is very much appreciated, Steve.
Jackdaw Notes
Jackdaws are pleasing to watch. Solemnly and methodically, they stalk the lawn, unhurried in their search patterns, neat and tidy and dignified in their bearing. Unlike the larger and clamorous cousins with which they often flock, their phrases are clipped, their conversations brief.
They pair for life, share food and, when the male barks his arrival at the nest, the female responds with a softer, longer reply. They like manmade structures. Formerly a nuisance as they favoured chimneys for their twiggy bundles, they’re less troublesome in the era of central heating and their liking for church steeples has long been indulged. As the 18th-century poet William Cowper put it, ‘A great frequenter of the church, Where bishop-like, he finds a perch And dormitory too.’ For this habit, the bird was deemed sacred in parts of Wales.
Jackdaws love people, and probably because they love eye contact
People and jackdaws get on – there’s a certain empathy between them. Many are the stories told by individuals who scooped up stranded fledglings in need and were rewarded with a bemusing trust and friendship. Jackdaws recognise human faces and studies by Cambridge zoologist Auguste von Bayern concluded that they respond to human expressions.
These corvids communicate via their eyes, just as human eye contact plays a major role, and a bird confident with its mentor can ‘read’ that person’s eye motions and will follow them to find hidden food. This interplay has encouraged and enabled research.
They can ‘marry’ to boost their status in society
From the 1930s, the Austrian ornithologist Konrad Lorenz, founder of modern ethology, determined a strict social hierarchy within jackdaw groups (collectively called trains or clatterings). Unpaired females rank lowest in the hierarchy: they’re the last to have access to food and shelter in times of scarcity, and are liable to be pecked at by others without being permitted to retaliate.
However, when a female is selected as a mate, she assumes the same rank as her partner and is accepted as such by all others in the group, upon whom she may impose her status by pecking.
They regularly make same-sex love matches – particularly in captivity
Dr Lorenz also discovered that, although the birds normally pair for life, jackdaws in captivity tend to form same-sex pairs. Research in the Netherlands in the 1970s went a step further by concluding that such pairings occur in the wild and that among females that have lost their mates, 10% bond with other females and 5% form a same-sex ménage a trois.
This aspect was pursued in detail by Canadian biologist Bruce Bagemihl in his 1999 book Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity, in which he described widespread ‘non-procreative sexuality’ in the natural world. Jackdaws are among many species that may form same-sex pairs, he declared.
Their numbers are strong, and growing
The apparent lackadaisical attitude of jackdaws on procreation seems to have had no bearing on population. After significant reduction of British numbers in the 1970s, Corvus monedula is flourishing, with 1.4 million breeding pairs here and some 30 million across Europe. In four sub-species, the bird is found from Scandinavia to North Africa and as far east as central Asia.
Like magpies, they love shiny objects
Our jackdaw was classified in the 18th century by Carl Linnaeus for its habit of picking up bright objects, particularly coins (monedula being from the same Latin stem, moneta, as money).
Indeed, after Adolf Hitler embarked on an art-theft campaign in the 1930s he was derided as ‘the Jackdaw of Linz’, reflecting an appetite for bright objects.
A jackdaw became a saint – at least in a story
The best-known literary jackdaw is found in the Ingoldsby Legends of R. H. Barham, the Jackdaw of Rheims which stole the cardinal’s ring, but returned it and became a local saint.
He long liv’d the pride
Of that country side,
And at last in the odor of sanctity died;
When, as words were too faint
His merits to paint,
The Conclave determin’d to make him a Saint;
And on newly-made Saints and Popes, as you know,
It ’s the custom, at Rome, new names to bestow,
So they canoniz’d him by the name of Jem Crow!
R. H. Barham, the Jackdaw of Rheims
Jackdaws were once shot as vermin
We didn’t always warm to jackdaws. After poor grain harvests, they were proscribed with rooks and crows by Henry VIII in a Vermin Act of 1532, and Elizabeth I ratified this in 1566 with another act ‘for the preservation of grayne’.
Countryside attitudes softened after Victorian game-shooting luminaries Lord Walsingham and Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, writing in the 1886 Badminton Library, put them in the second rank of offenders alongside jays, kestrels and hedgehogs as creatures ‘which do some little harm but also some good’.
Jackdaws were ‘as a rule not very mischievous’ and were to be thinned in the woods only to keep their numbers under control. As for the primary raiders – crows, magpies, sparrowhawks, stoats, weasels, polecats, cats and rats – ‘not one bird or beast should be allowed to draw the breath of life on any manor where game preserving is carried on’.
They’re wrongly-blamed for killing small birds
Jackdaw numbers are thinned on some shoots, but, in the wider world they represent little threat. Corvids are blamed en masse for small-bird losses, yet magpies, grey squirrels, cats, changes in land use and habitat destruction are the major culprits.
Indeed, its diet confirms this. Forensic scrutiny by Walter Collinge, described in The Food of Some British Wild Birds of 1913, divided jackdaw crop contents into 42% insects, 29.5% animal matter and 28.5% vegetable matter. Insect and animal constituents spanned earthworms, woodlice, spiders, mice, frogs, snails, slugs, eggs and young birds. Vegetable matter included cereals, potatoes, cherries, berries, walnuts and poultry and game feed. All of this identifies the jackdaw as a useful ally in pest control and only an occasional opportunist feeder on other species.
The ‘chimney bird’ has several other names
The origin of ‘jack’ offers a choice between their brief squawk and the traditional signifier of a small species, with ‘daw’ an English word first recorded in the 15th century, the two halves conjoining in the 16th century. Dialect variants included ka, kae, caddow, caddesse, chauk, college bird, jackerdaw, jacko, ka-wattie, chimney-sweep bird and sea-crow.
They were once thought to be portents of death
These enigmatic birds have a place in folklore, too. A jackdaw on the roof was said to proclaim a new arrival, but might also be a portent of early death. In the Fens, a jackdaw encountered on the way to a wedding was a good omen.
The bird was well known in the Classical world, but its reputation wavered. Ovid declared that the jackdaw brought rain. Aesop used it derisively in his Fables as a stupid bird that starved waiting for figs to ripen: living on hope, which the Fox says ‘feeds illusions, not the stomach’. Pliny admired it as a destroyer of grasshopper eggs.
Jackdaws were once believed to have originally been white
The Greeks declared that ‘the swans will sing when the jackdaws are silent’, meaning that the wise will speak after the foolish have shut up. This reflected, to a point, their mythology that all corvids were white until one of their number told Apollo about his wife’s infidelity, at which point he turned the messenger’s feathers black.
A legend among early Christians declared that corvids were indeed white and took black plumage in mourning after the Crucifixion – except magpies, which were too busy pilfering to grieve properly, so turned only partially black. 11 things you never knew about the jackdaw, the bird that just loves people, Country Life May 20, 2018.
The monument to William Smith, erected ‘by his friends and fellow labourers in the field of British Geology’. Born in 1769, he was a civil engineer and while working on canals in the Bath area noticed how varied rock strata were. Clearly methodical, by 1815 he was able to publish a geological map of England and Wales and can be considered the father of English geology. Around 350 copies of his geological map were produced but it had cost him dear, along with purchasing a quarry that turned out to be worthless, As a result, he was declared bankrupt and spent 11 weeks in a debtors’ prison. Fortunately his achievements were recognised in his lifetime, and he was awarded a medal by the Geological Society in 1831 and given a pension of £100 a year. He was on his way to a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Birmingham in 1839 when he collapsed and died in Northampton, hence the memorial at St Peter’s. The marble bust was the work of Matthew Noble.
This story actually happened a very long time ago.
Claire is not, or ever was, the girl in this story’s name. Other than that, the skeleton of the tale is accurately depicted as it occurred.
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Now, to start off, let us talk cemeteries.
To me, a proper cemetery has been around for several hundred years. With long, looming old headstones with eroded lettering that have been there so long, they appear to be part of the landscape. We grew up within walking distance to one like that. Full of history, stories, and suspected hauntings.
Like the witches' circle located in a secluded corner of what we at the time called the forgotten Cemetery...
The witches' circle was a circle of old tall slabs that contained the remains of a suspected dark magic practitioner and his followers. Their remains were laid to rest inside the circle.
My brother’s wife Ginny as a young girl had visited this area. With her was a young mother with her infant. The infant was sleeping peacefully in her mother’s arms until they passed through the circle. While inside the baby started fussing. Once out of the circle the baby was fine. Out of curiosity, the circle was entered again. This time the infant started crying until the outside was reached. Figuring that was quite enough, the group left the cemetery.
This particular evening We had been sitting (drinking) and telling ghost stories behind the forgotten cemetery that was located off of the wooded part of Abbot’s chase lane. We were within sight of the witches' circle, which that evening behaved.
Now Abbot’s Chase lane ends in town, stopping at a T in the road where our local pub, the Poet and Peasant is. The pub itself, with the skull of a 14th-century poet named Erik, sits upon a balustrade. So the pub can be a pretty spooky place in its own right...
But I transgress...
Claire’s story was told to a group of us that October evening by my twin Brother as his contribution to the evenings' ghost telling.
After he told it, we challenged him over it not being a proper ghost tale, more like Twilight Zone fodder actually.
But whether it is a spooky ghost story or not, I will leave it up to you, the readers to decide…
Enjoy
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Claire, an only child, received an antique ring from her Grandmother on her sixteenth birthday. It was a pretty thing, a large square sapphire stone surrounded by twinkling diamonds.
Claire truly felt blessed by this, for even though she loved her Grandmother, the old lady could be a mean and vindictive soul, who only did nice things in a begrudgingly way.
Her neighbors referred to her as ‘the witch’ for that reason. And for all Claire knew, so did her parents!
Claire knew about the witch label from a girlfriend whose family lived in that neighborhood. She also knew that her Grandmother’s favorite horse, Flitchrune was, when gossiping, referred to as witchbroom.
Just two months after receiving the gift, Claire’s 85-year-old Grandmother passed away unexpectedly.
After taking Flitchrune out for a bit of exercise, the 85-year-old lady had felt faint and went far a ly down. There they found her in bed, where she had died peacefully in her sleep of a heart attack.
Claire was out of the country at the time studying. Her parents, not wishing for her to cut her studies short, did not inform their daughter of her grandmother’s passing until she came back, two weeks after the funeral.
Claire understood completely, but she felt down deep that she had let her Grandmother down by not being at the service. So much so that she could not bring herself to visit her grave.
From the Grandmother’s estate, her parents gave Claire a small end cabinet that her Great, Great Uncle, a warden level Free Mason, a carpenter by trade, had made. On the backside of the cabinet(where it would be against the wall) was a secret drawer.
The drawer was empty, but Claire liked to imagine the secrets it once held.
It was inside here that Clair kept her case of good pearls, and the antique ring when not being worn for Church or some formal dress occasion.
One such formal dress occasion was the gala held for student’s graduation from university. This was event was coincidently held on the 1st month anniversary of her Grandmother’s passing.
For the occasion, she wore a long blue taffeta dress with a plunging neckline. She borrowed her Mum’s expensive diamond rhinestone necklace with matching earrings. She also was wearing her Grandmother’s ring.
Claire had a brilliant time there. Dancing and drinking the evening away. So much fun in fact that when the time came to be put out, a group of her friends decided to party on and Claire followed in their wake.
They started dancing at a dockside pub, the Poet and Peasant, where the ladies in Claire’s circle found themselves the centre of attention. Helped by the pretty way they were all attired.
in fact, Clare had such a good time, that she did not remember how she got home or putting herself to bed even.
That night she had some very strange dreams.
A riderless horse appearing in front of her as she walked through the heather by her Grandmother’s manor. She followed the horse as it led her through a ballroom, crowded with dancers. From there she found herself outside again, with the horse standing on the far bank of a river. She tried to find a way across but got lost in a cemetery. Off to one side was a building lit up by candles. Going inside she found herself in a room filled with men wearing bloomers, ruffled shirts, and sashes with strange metal symbols attached. They were not paying her any head, instead Looking at something in the centre of the room. She moved up close and saw it was her Great, Great Uncle’s cabinet, the secret door open.
Claire found herself being jostled over to it. Curiously she looked inside. Seeing something glittering she tried reaching in, only to be pulled back as the object was grabbed by a male hand. The drawer then slammed shut. The masons were angry with her. Yelling as she tried to free herself
From their grasp. She felt hands pulling and clawing at her. She felt her mum’s necklace being twisted around her throat as….
She awoke, realizing she was in her bed, still dressed, and wrapped in her comforter. It was 5:00 in the morning.
Strange, though, she never usually used the comforter like a blanket.
She, unsteadily, got up to survey the damage in the bathroom mirror. Deciding as she did that a cold shower was in order. She began by removing her Mum’s rhinestones.
She then gasped in real horror.
Her mothers’ jewelry was still all there, but not her Grandmother’s ring. It was gone from her finger.
She began a frantic search in and around the bed. Not finding the ring.
Sitting on the bed she tried to calm herself and think rationally.
She then began to methodically search the room, several times. Including the secret cabinet drawer, which she looked inside at least 3 different times. But to no avail.
She called her twin brother and he came over to help in the search.
He also searched the ancient cabinet, removing the secret drawer, and explored all its nooks and crannies, finding nothing but cobwebs and an old farthing.
They retraced her steps that evening, going to the dance hall and then to the pub. But again. To no avail. The ring simply had vanished.
A lost ad was even placed in the local paper. With no response.
A man had come forward at the pub and said he had run into her and her friends there last night. He admitted he had seen her home, along with a friend, walking both to the door from the cab.
She admitted to not remembering him at all. He chuckled, teasingly saying he remembered her very well. Then added. and Luv, you were still wearing the pretty ring as you so abruptly left me standing at the closed door.
She liked his manner of speaking, and apologized for not remembering much of last evening, then daringly gave him a peck on the cheek for seeing her home.
But sadly, No word or trace of the ring could be found, nor its disappearance explained.
A week later, still feeling tearful over the loss of the ring, she finally went to visit her grandmother’s grave. Apologizing profusely for not being there for her.
Someone had placed a stuffed small animal of a horse, and she petted it as she wept real tears, glad she was alone there.
But Claire felt no comfort, and the dead silence surrounding her was a bit disconcerting like she was being chastised and scolded by someone or something.
She looked down at the stuffed toy horse and thought….’Witchbroom?’
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Now for the ‘spooky’ bit
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Two months later
Taking a job in a city off the coast, Claire moved from her apartment and took a flat overlooking the ocean. With her went the antique cabinet with its secret drawer
Nine months later an invite came for the university alumni to attend the annual graduation gala. She contacted several of her classmates and they agreed to meet up and have a reunion there.
On a lark, Claire decided to wear the same blue taffeta gown she had worn to last year's Gala for her graduating class.
When the day before the evening dance came, she stopped at her parents to again borrowed her Mother’s rhinestones.
But sadly, there would be no lovely antique ring to wear.
With this thought in mind, Claire felt compelled to stop by her Grandmother’s gravesite.
Nothing had changed there, including the lack of fellow visitors. She hated being alone in a cemetery!
Still, she made her way to the grave and after laying down a single lily, sat on a nearby bench in silent prayer. She apologized in her mind, to her grandmother for carelessly losing the ring. And again for not being there when she passed on.
A crisp breeze came across the graveyard, chilling Claire who was not wearing a wrap. She rose and left the eerily silent cemetery.
That evening Claire partied deep into the night, with her group, again ending up at the Poet & Peasant Pub for nightcaps.
There she ran into the same charming lad who had seen her home after last year's gala evening.
This time she remembered him and was sober enough to actually quite enjoy his company.
After the last call, he again saw her back to her hotel. And this time Claire boldly gave him a proper hug and kiss goodnight.
She finally collapsed onto her bed and soon fell into a deep sleep, and into another nightmare.
Claire dreamed of her being back at the cemetery. It was a moonless night, yet shadows crept in towards her from every angle as she walked in and out of the ancient moss-covered tombstones,
She abruptly stopped and saw her Lilly laying upon a heap of black earth. But no tombstone. Instead, the ancient cabinet her Ancestor had built stood silent guard. She went over to it and searching, found the secret drawer. She began to pull it open, seeing something glittery in its dark depths.
But before she can properly reach inside, Claire was pulled away from behind. She is turned around and comes to face a looming stranger, his features hidden in shadows.
He begins to dance with her, briskly, powerfully.
Claire finds herself overwhelmed, struggling to get free from the towering terror.
She felt he wanted something from her.
She became aware of wearing her Mother’s rhinestones and tearfully hoped they would not disappear as her ring had.
Then, from behind she hears the stern voice of her Grandmother crystal clear.
“It’s ok dear..,”
Claire struggles to look back as her Grandmother continues ..,
“….let my Granddaughter go, I’ve forgiven the wretch and so leave us now, and make it right.”
Claire suddenly startled herself awake… panting and sweating. But she is alone. No one or no thing is in the room with her.
Suddenly a creeping chill ran up along her spine, freezing her on the spot.
“Make what right?”
She pondered this last bit from her nightmare.
Claire feels an overwhelming urge to go back to her flat right then and there. To again have a proper look inside the cabinets’ secret door.
But she decided to complete her visit home. For surely it was mere whimsey to think the lost ring would be there after all this time.
The rest of the weekend seemed to move slowly for Claire. Though she did enjoy her time with her brother and parents.
But when Sunday evening came and she found herself on the road, Claire lost no time in dashing back her ocean side flat.
When she got in the door Claire dropped her bags just inside the door and bolted to her bedroom.
Pulling the cabinet from the wall she opened the secret drawer and looked inside, heart pounding.
She froze in shock...
There, inside, was the antique ring belonging to her grandmother that had disappeared mysteriously 11 months prior. Sitting right next to her black satin pearl case as it had never left.
Claire picked up the sparkling ring and examined it, her hands shaking so bad she nearly dropped it. It was her Grandmothers ring, no doubt of that.
As Claire put it on her finger, once again mesmerized by its glitter, she could offer no credible explanation for the reappearance of the ring!
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Over ten years have since passed. The ring, when not worn by Claire on special occasions, still spends its time inside the secret drawer, next to the satin pearl case that holds her good pearls.
It has never shown any sign of going back to wherever it had disappeared to...
After the disaster of Thursday with my very poor photography of the Small Copper i returned yesterday to Merry's Meadows near Greetham in Rutland to rectify some of my errors.
It was very sunny with a breeze to make life interesting in capturing this stunning little butterfly but i quickly found one quickly flitting around either side of the the well trodden path i was on and resting only briefly on various flowers including buttercups, plantains and sorrel.
I think the image of the Small Copper on the sorrel is of a female possibly laying eggs as she dragged herself over the top slowly but methodically down the flower. It is one of their favoured plants for their larva along with other docks!
This is the road we were on and this is where the boats were crossing the roads in the uniqueness that is India.
The boat is on the road and rolling towards the other side. The movement of the boat on the land is swift and methodical. They use freshly cut soft wood rollers/sliders on which the boat glides effortlessly .
An auto rickshaw waits for the boat crossing. A car remains stationery on the other side and its owner remains busy shooting a sunset over the water. Another photographer looks on thinking about angles ;-))
Kumbalangi is an island off Cochin and is a well advertised model tourism kind of place albeit with rather low actual footfalls in that field.
Last weekend, on a day of mellow light and no rain, Louis of the Beatles icon and nick, Patrick and I took a trip to explore the area around Kumbalangi.
A super introduction to this hidden gem of Cochin. The vast flat lands of water and narrow strips of lands on which run some roads give you a vision of emptiness that is hard to obtain in India,
DSC_4069 nero std edit PS sel br tfm sh Gr orange
Meenakshi Mukerji is very creative, passionate and sensitive in her approach to origami. Simultaneously she’s also very rational, analytic, methodical... This wonderful variation of the so well known Fujimoto hydrangea is one of the many products of this beautiful mix of features Meenakshi has.
Video tutorial by Sara Adams: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR-yYDvHxVE
Thank you so much for sharing, Meenakshi! :)
.........
Diagram: In Meenakshi Mukerji book “Origami All Kinds”.
With so few flowers in bloom at this time, I had to really be on the lookout for Hummers. The foraging Hummers also have to be on the lookout for any blooming plant.This lady was methodically sampling all of these red blooms on an ornamental shrub in my daughter's back yard. I saw only a few flying Hummers species (mostly female Anna's and Costa's). These ladies are segregated from each other for IDs mainly on their bill shapes. This bill is said to be more curved... but there is overlap. The underparts of this lady also seem to be clearer and whiter. (I have other shots.)
IMG_9886; Costa's Hummingbird
Drents Museum, Assen.
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Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While he was most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. Both in his urban and rural scenes, his spare and finely calculated renderings reflected his personal vision of modern American life.
Hopper was born in 1882 in Upper Nyack, New York, a yacht-building center on the Hudson River north of New York City. He was one of two children of a comfortably well-to-do family. His parents, of mostly Dutch ancestry, were Elizabeth Griffiths Smith and Garret Henry Hopper, a dry-goods merchant. Although not so successful as his forebears, Garrett provided well for his two children with considerable help from his wife's inheritance. He retired at age forty-nine. Edward and his only sister Marion attended both private and public schools. They were raised in a strict Baptist home. His father had a mild nature, and the household was dominated by women: Hopper's mother, grandmother, sister, and maid.
His birthplace and boyhood home was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000. It is now operated as the Edward Hopper House Art Center. It serves as a nonprofit community cultural center featuring exhibitions, workshops, lectures, performances, and special events.
Hopper was a good student in grade school and showed talent in drawing at age five. He readily absorbed his father's intellectual tendencies and love of French and Russian cultures. He also demonstrated his mother's artistic heritage. Hopper's parents encouraged his art and kept him amply supplied with materials, instructional magazines, and illustrated books. By his teens, he was working in pen-and-ink, charcoal, watercolor, and oil—drawing from nature as well as making political cartoons. In 1895, he created his first signed oil painting, Rowboat in Rocky Cove. It shows his early interest in nautical subjects.
In his early self-portraits, Hopper tended to represent himself as skinny, ungraceful, and homely. Though a tall and quiet teenager, his prankish sense of humor found outlet in his art, sometimes in depictions of immigrants or of women dominating men in comic situations. Later in life, he mostly depicted women as the figures in his paintings. In high school, he dreamed of being a naval architect, but after graduation he declared his intention to follow an art career. Hopper's parents insisted that he study commercial art to have a reliable means of income. In developing his self-image and individualistic philosophy of life, Hopper was influenced by the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He later said, "I admire him greatly...I read him over and over again."
Hopper began art studies with a correspondence course in 1899. Soon he transferred to the New York School of Art and Design, the forerunner of Parsons The New School for Design. There he studied for six years, with teachers including William Merritt Chase, who instructed him in oil painting. Early on, Hopper modeled his style after Chase and French Impressionist masters Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas. Sketching from live models proved a challenge and a shock for the conservatively raised Hopper.
Another of his teachers, artist Robert Henri, taught life class. Henri encouraged his students to use their art to "make a stir in the world". He also advised his students, "It isn't the subject that counts but what you feel about it" and "Forget about art and paint pictures of what interests you in life." In this manner, Henri influenced Hopper, as well as notable future artists George Bellows and Rockwell Kent. He encouraged them to imbue a modern spirit in their work. Some artists in Henri's circle, including John Sloan, became members of "The Eight", also known as the Ashcan School of American Art. Hopper's first existing oil painting to hint at his famous interiors was Solitary Figure in a Theater (c. 1904). During his student years, he also painted dozens of nudes, still life studies, landscapes, and portraits, including his self-portraits.
In 1905, Hopper landed a part-time job with an advertising agency, where he created cover designs for trade magazines. Hopper came to detest illustration. He was bound to it by economic necessity until the mid-1920s. He temporarily escaped by making three trips to Europe, each centered in Paris, ostensibly to study the emerging art scene there. In fact, however, he studied alone and seemed mostly unaffected by the new currents in art. Later he said that he "didn't remember having heard of Picasso at all." He was highly impressed by Rembrandt, particularly his Night Watch, which he said was "the most wonderful thing of his I have seen; it's past belief in its reality."
Hopper began painting urban and architectural scenes in a dark palette. Then he shifted to the lighter palette of the Impressionists before returning to the darker palette with which he was comfortable. Hopper later said, "I got over that and later things done in Paris were more the kind of things I do now." Hopper spent much of his time drawing street and café scenes, and going to the theater and opera. Unlike many of his contemporaries who imitated the abstract cubist experiments, Hopper was attracted to realist art. Later, he admitted to no European influences other than French engraver Charles Méryon, whose moody Paris scenes Hopper imitated.
After returning from his last European trip, Hopper rented a studio in New York City, where he struggled to define his own style. Reluctantly, he returned to illustration to support himself. Being a freelancer, Hopper was forced to solicit for projects, and had to knock on the doors of magazine and agency offices to find business. His painting languished: "it's hard for me to decide what I want to paint. I go for months without finding it sometimes. It comes slowly." His fellow illustrator, Walter Tittle, described Hopper's depressed emotional state in sharper terms, seeing his friend "suffering...from long periods of unconquerable inertia, sitting for days at a time before his easel in helpless unhappiness, unable to raise a hand to break the spell."
In 1912, Hopper traveled to Gloucester, Massachusetts, to seek some inspiration and made his first outdoor paintings in America. He painted Squam Light, the first of many lighthouse paintings to come.
In 1913, at the famous Armory Show, Hopper earned $250 when he sold his first painting, Sailing (1911), which he had painted over an earlier self-portrait. Hopper was thirty-one, and although he hoped his first sale would lead to others in short order, his career would not catch on for many more years. He continued to participate in group exhibitions at smaller venues, such as the MacDowell Club of New York. Shortly after his father's death that same year, Hopper moved to the 3 Washington Square North apartment in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan, where he would live for the rest of his life.
The following year he received a commission to make some movie posters and handle publicity for a movie company. Although he did not like the illustration work, Hopper was a lifelong devotee of the cinema and the theatre, both of which he treated as subjects for his paintings. Each form influenced his compositional methods.
At an impasse over his oil paintings, in 1915 Hopper turned to etching. By 1923 he had produced most of his approximately 70 works in this medium, many of urban scenes of both Paris and New York. He also produced some posters for the war effort, as well as continuing with occasional commercial projects. When he could, Hopper did some outdoor watercolors on visits to New England, especially at the art colonies at Ogunquit, and Monhegan Island.
During the early 1920s his etchings began to receive public recognition. They expressed some of his later themes, as in Night on the El Train (couples in silence), Evening Wind (solitary female), and The Catboat (simple nautical scene). Two notable oil paintings of this time were New York Interior (1921) and New York Restaurant (1922). He also painted two of his many "window" paintings to come: Girl at Sewing Machine and Moonlight Interior, both of which show a figure (clothed or nude) near a window of an apartment viewed as gazing out or from the point of view from the outside looking in.
Although these were frustrating years, Hopper gained some recognition. In 1918, Hopper was awarded the U.S. Shipping Board Prize for his war poster, "Smash the Hun." He participated in three exhibitions: in 1917 with the Society of Independent Artists, in January 1920 (a one-man exhibition at the Whitney Studio Club, which was the precursor to the Whitney Museum), and in 1922 (again with the Whitney Studio Club). In 1923, Hopper received two awards for his etchings: the Logan Prize from the Chicago Society of Etchers, and the W. A. Bryan Prize.
By 1923, Hopper's slow climb finally produced a breakthrough. He re-encountered Josephine Nivison, an artist and former student of Robert Henri, during a summer painting trip in Gloucester, Massachusetts. They were opposites: she was short, open, gregarious, sociable, and liberal, while he was tall, secretive, shy, quiet, introspective, and conservative. They married a year later. She remarked famously, "Sometimes talking to Eddie is just like dropping a stone in a well, except that it doesn't thump when it hits bottom." She subordinated her career to his and shared his reclusive life style. The rest of their lives revolved around their spare walk-up apartment in the city and their summers in South Truro on Cape Cod. She managed his career and his interviews, was his primary model, and was his life companion.
With Nivison's help, six of Hopper's Gloucester watercolors were admitted to an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum in 1923. One of them, The Mansard Roof, was purchased by the museum for its permanent collection for the sum of $100. The critics generally raved about his work; one stated, "What vitality, force and directness! Observe what can be done with the homeliest subject." Hopper sold all his watercolors at a one-man show the following year and finally decided to put illustration behind him.
The artist had demonstrated his ability to transfer his attraction to Parisian architecture to American urban and rural architecture. According to Boston Museum of Fine Arts curator Carol Troyen, "Hopper really liked the way these houses, with their turrets and towers and porches and mansard roofs and ornament cast wonderful shadows. He always said that his favorite thing was painting sunlight on the side of a house."
At forty-one, Hopper received further recognition for his work. He continued to harbor bitterness about his career, later turning down appearances and awards. With his financial stability secured by steady sales, Hopper would live a simple, stable life and continue creating art in his distinctive style for four more decades.
His Two on the Aisle (1927) sold for a personal record $1,500, enabling Hopper to purchase an automobile, which he used to make field trips to remote areas of New England. In 1929, he produced Chop Suey and Railroad Sunset. The following year, art patron Stephen Clark donated House by the Railroad (1925) to the Museum of Modern Art, the first oil painting that it acquired for its collection. Hopper painted his last self-portrait in oil around 1930. Although Josephine posed for many of his paintings, she sat for only one formal oil portrait by her husband, Jo Painting (1936).
Hopper fared better than many other artists during the Great Depression. His stature took a sharp rise in 1931 when major museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, paid thousands of dollars for his works. He sold 30 paintings that year, including 13 watercolors. The following year he participated in the first Whitney Annual, and he continued to exhibit in every annual at the museum for the rest of his life. In 1933, the Museum of Modern Art gave Hopper his first large-scale retrospective.
In 1930, the Hoppers rented a cottage on Cape Cod in South Truro, Massachusetts. They returned to South Truro every summer for the rest of their lives, building a summer house there in 1934. From there, they would take driving trips into other areas when Edward needed to search for fresh material to paint. In the summers of 1937 and '38, the Hoppers spent extended sojourns on Wagon Wheels Farm in South Royalton, Vermont, where Edward painted a series of watercolors along the White River. These scenes are atypical among Hopper's mature works, as most are "pure" landscapes, devoid of architecture or human figures. First Branch of the White River (1938), now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is the most well-known of Hopper's Vermont landscapes.
Hopper was very productive through the 1930s and early 1940s, producing among many important works New York Movie (1939), Girlie Show (1941), Nighthawks (1942), Hotel Lobby (1943), and Morning in a City (1944). During the late 1940s, however, he suffered a period of relative inactivity. He admitted, "I wish I could paint more. I get sick of reading and going to the movies." During the next two decades, his health faltered, and he had several prostate surgeries and other medical problems. But, in the 1950s and early 1960s, he created several more major works, including First Row Orchestra (1951); as well as Morning Sun and Hotel by a Railroad, both in 1952; and Intermission in 1963.
Hopper died in his studio near Washington Square in New York City on May 15, 1967. He was buried two days later in the family's grave at Oak Hill Cemetery in Nyack, New York, his place of birth. His wife died ten months later.
His wife bequeathed their joint collection of more than three thousand works to the Whitney Museum of American Art. Other significant paintings by Hopper are held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Des Moines Art Center, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Always reluctant to discuss himself and his art, Hopper simply said, "The whole answer is there on the canvas." Hopper was stoic and fatalistic—a quiet introverted man with a gentle sense of humor and a frank manner. Hopper was someone drawn to an emblematic, anti-narrative symbolism, who "painted short isolated moments of configuration, saturated with suggestion". His silent spaces and uneasy encounters "touch us where we are most vulnerable",[ and have "a suggestion of melancholy, that melancholy being enacted". His sense of color revealed him as a pure painter as he "turned the Puritan into the purist, in his quiet canvasses where blemishes and blessings balance". According to critic Lloyd Goodrich, he was "an eminently native painter, who more than any other was getting more of the quality of America into his canvases".
Conservative in politics and social matters (Hopper asserted for example that "artists' lives should be written by people very close to them"), he accepted things as they were and displayed a lack of idealism. Cultured and sophisticated, he was well-read, and many of his paintings show figures reading. He was generally good company and unperturbed by silences, though sometimes taciturn, grumpy, or detached. He was always serious about his art and the art of others, and when asked would return frank opinions.
Hopper's most systematic declaration of his philosophy as an artist was given in a handwritten note, entitled "Statement", submitted in 1953 to the journal, Reality:
Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world. No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination. One of the weaknesses of much abstract painting is the attempt to substitute the inventions of the human intellect for a private imaginative conception.
The inner life of a human being is a vast and varied realm and does not concern itself alone with stimulating arrangements of color, form and design.
The term life used in art is something not to be held in contempt, for it implies all of existence and the province of art is to react to it and not to shun it.
Painting will have to deal more fully and less obliquely with life and nature's phenomena before it can again become great.
Though Hopper claimed that he didn't consciously embed psychological meaning in his paintings, he was deeply interested in Freud and the power of the subconscious mind. He wrote in 1939, "So much of every art is an expression of the subconscious that it seems to me most of all the important qualities are put there unconsciously, and little of importance by the conscious intellect."
Although he is best known for his oil paintings, Hopper initially achieved recognition for his watercolors and he also produced some commercially successful etchings. Additionally, his notebooks contain high-quality pen and pencil sketches, which were never meant for public viewing.
Hopper paid particular attention to geometrical design and the careful placement of human figures in proper balance with their environment. He was a slow and methodical artist; as he wrote, "It takes a long time for an idea to strike. Then I have to think about it for a long time. I don't start painting until I have it all worked out in my mind. I'm all right when I get to the easel". He often made preparatory sketches to work out his carefully calculated compositions. He and his wife kept a detailed ledger of their works noting such items as "sad face of woman unlit", "electric light from ceiling", and "thighs cooler".
For New York Movie (1939), Hopper demonstrates his thorough preparation with more than 53 sketches of the theater interior and the figure of the pensive usherette.
The effective use of light and shadow to create mood also is central to Hopper's methods. Bright sunlight (as an emblem of insight or revelation), and the shadows it casts, also play symbolically powerful roles in Hopper paintings such as Early Sunday Morning (1930), Summertime (1943), Seven A.M. (1948), and Sun in an Empty Room (1963). His use of light and shadow effects have been compared to the cinematography of film noir.
Although a realist painter, Hopper's "soft" realism simplified shapes and details. He used saturated color to heighten contrast and create mood.
Hopper derived his subject matter from two primary sources: one, the common features of American life (gas stations, motels, restaurants, theaters, railroads, and street scenes) and its inhabitants; and two, seascapes and rural landscapes. Regarding his style, Hopper defined himself as "an amalgam of many races" and not a member of any school, particularly the "Ashcan School".[69] Once Hopper achieved his mature style, his art remained consistent and self-contained, in spite of the numerous art trends that came and went during his long career.
Hopper's seascapes fall into three main groups: pure landscapes of rocks, sea, and beach grass; lighthouses and farmhouses; and sailboats. Sometimes he combined these elements. Most of these paintings depict strong light and fair weather; he showed little interest in snow or rain scenes, or in seasonal color changes. He painted the majority of the pure seascapes in the period between 1916 and 1919 on Monhegan Island. Hopper's The Long Leg (1935) is a nearly all-blue sailing picture with the simplest of elements, while his Ground Swell (1939) is more complex and depicts a group of youngsters out for a sail, a theme reminiscent of Winslow Homer's iconic Breezing Up (1876).
Urban architecture and cityscapes also were major subjects for Hopper. He was fascinated with the American urban scene, "our native architecture with its hideous beauty, its fantastic roofs, pseudo-gothic, French Mansard, Colonial, mongrel or what not, with eye-searing color or delicate harmonies of faded paint, shouldering one another along interminable streets that taper off into swamps or dump heaps."
In 1925, he produced House by the Railroad. This classic work depicts an isolated Victorian wood mansion, partly obscured by the raised embankment of a railroad. It marked Hopper's artistic maturity. Lloyd Goodrich praised the work as "one of the most poignant and desolating pieces of realism." The work is the first of a series of stark rural and urban scenes that uses sharp lines and large shapes, played upon by unusual lighting to capture the lonely mood of his subjects. Although critics and viewers interpret meaning and mood in these cityscapes, Hopper insisted "I was more interested in the sunlight on the buildings and on the figures than any symbolism." As if to prove the point, his late painting Sun in an Empty Room (1963) is a pure study of sunlight.
Most of Hopper's figure paintings focus on the subtle interaction of human beings with their environment—carried out with solo figures, couples, or groups. His primary emotional themes are solitude, loneliness, regret, boredom, and resignation. He expresses the emotions in various environments, including the office, in public places, in apartments, on the road, or on vacation. As if he were creating stills for a movie or tableaux in a play, Hopper positioned his characters as if they were captured just before or just after the climax of a scene.
Hopper's solitary figures are mostly women—dressed, semi-clad, and nude—often reading or looking out a window, or in the workplace. In the early 1920s, Hopper painted his first such images Girl at Sewing Machine (1921), New York Interior (another woman sewing) (1921), and Moonlight Interior (a nude getting into bed) (1923). Automat (1927) and Hotel Room (1931), however, are more representative of his mature style, emphasizing the solitude more overtly.
As Hopper scholar, Gail Levin, wrote of Hotel Room:
The spare vertical and diagonal bands of color and sharp electric shadows create a concise and intense drama in the night...Combining poignant subject matter with such a powerful formal arrangement, Hopper's composition is pure enough to approach an almost abstract sensibility, yet layered with a poetic meaning for the observer.
Hopper's Room in New York (1932) and Cape Cod Evening (1939) are prime examples of his "couple" paintings. In the first, a young couple appear alienated and uncommunicative—he reading the newspaper while she idles by the piano. The viewer takes on the role of a voyeur, as if looking with a telescope through the window of the apartment to spy on the couple's lack of intimacy. In the latter painting, an older couple with little to say to each other, are playing with their dog, whose own attention is drawn away from his masters.[80] Hopper takes the couple theme to a more ambitious level with Excursion into Philosophy (1959). A middle-aged man sits dejectedly on the edge of a bed. Beside him lies an open book and a partially clad woman. A shaft of light illuminates the floor in front of him. Jo Hopper noted in their log book, "[T]he open book is Plato, reread too late".
Levin interprets the painting:
Plato's philosopher, in search of the real and the true, must turn away from this transitory realm and contemplate the eternal Forms and Ideas. The pensive man in Hopper's painting is positioned between the lure of the earthly domain, figured by the woman, and the call of the higher spiritual domain, represented by the ethereal lightfall. The pain of thinking about this choice and its consequences, after reading Plato all night, is evident. He is paralysed by the fervent inner labour of the melancholic.
In Office at Night (1940), another "couple" painting, Hopper creates a psychological puzzle. The painting shows a man focusing on his work papers, while nearby his attractive female secretary pulls a file. Several studies for the painting show how Hopper experimented with the positioning of the two figures, perhaps to heighten the eroticism and the tension. Hopper presents the viewer with the possibilities that the man is either truly uninterested in the woman's appeal or that he is working hard to ignore her. Another interesting aspect of the painting is how Hopper employs three light sources, from a desk lamp, through a window and indirect light from above. Hopper went on to make several "office" pictures, but none with a sensual undercurrent.
The best-known of Hopper's paintings, Nighthawks (1942), is one of his paintings of groups. It shows customers sitting at the counter of an all-night diner. The shapes and diagonals are carefully constructed. The viewpoint is cinematic—from the sidewalk, as if the viewer were approaching the restaurant. The diner's harsh electric light sets it apart from the dark night outside, enhancing the mood and subtle emotion.[82] As in many Hopper paintings, the interaction is minimal. The restaurant depicted was inspired by one in Greenwich Village. Both Hopper and his wife posed for the figures, and Jo Hopper gave the painting its title. The inspiration for the picture may have come from Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Killers", which Hopper greatly admired, or from the more philosophical "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place".[83] In keeping with the title of his painting, Hopper later said, Nighthawks has more to do with the possibility of predators in the night than with loneliness.
His second most recognizable painting after Nighthawks is another urban painting, Early Sunday Morning (originally called Seventh Avenue Shops), which shows an empty street scene in sharp side light, with a fire hydrant and a barber pole as stand-ins for human figures. Originally Hopper intended to put figures in the upstairs windows but left them empty to heighten the feeling of desolation.
Hopper's rural New England scenes, such as Gas (1940), are no less meaningful. Gas represents "a different, equally clean, well-lighted refuge ... ke[pt] open for those in need as they navigate the night, traveling their own miles to go before they sleep." The work presents a fusion of several Hopper themes: the solitary figure, the melancholy of dusk, and the lonely road.
Hopper approaches Surrealism with Rooms by the Sea (1951), where an open door gives a view of the ocean, without an apparent ladder or steps and no indication of a beach.
After his student years, Hopper's nudes were all women. Unlike past artists who painted the female nude to glorify the female form and to highlight female eroticism, Hopper's nudes are solitary women who are psychologically exposed. One audacious exception is Girlie Show (1941), where a red-headed strip-tease queen strides confidently across a stage to the accompaniment of the musicians in the pit. Girlie Show was inspired by Hopper's visit to a burlesque show a few days earlier. Hopper's wife, as usual, posed for him for the painting, and noted in her diary, "Ed beginning a new canvas—a burlesque queen doing a strip tease—and I posing without a stitch on in front of the stove—nothing but high heels in a lottery dance pose."
Hopper's portraits and self-portraits were relatively few after his student years.[91] Hopper did produce a commissioned "portrait" of a house, The MacArthurs' Home (1939), where he faithfully details the Victorian architecture of the home of actress Helen Hayes. She reported later, "I guess I never met a more misanthropic, grumpy individual in my life." Hopper grumbled throughout the project and never again accepted a commission.[92] Hopper also painted Portrait of Orleans (1950), a "portrait" of the Cape Cod town from its main street.
Though very interested in the American Civil War and Mathew Brady's battlefield photographs, Hopper made only two historical paintings. Both depicted soldiers on their way to Gettysburg. Also rare among his themes are paintings showing action. The best example of an action painting is Bridle Path (1939), but Hopper's struggle with the proper anatomy of the horses may have discouraged him from similar attempts.
Hopper's final oil painting, Two Comedians (1966), painted one year before his death, focuses on his love of the theater. Two French pantomime actors, one male and one female, both dressed in bright white costumes, take their bow in front of a darkened stage. Jo Hopper confirmed that her husband intended the figures to suggest their taking their life's last bows together as husband and wife.
Hopper's paintings have often been seen by others as having a narrative or thematic content that the artist may not have intended. Much meaning can be added to a painting by its title, but the titles of Hopper's paintings were sometimes chosen by others, or were selected by Hopper and his wife in a way that makes it unclear whether they have any real connection with the artist's meaning. For example, Hopper once told an interviewer that he was "fond of Early Sunday Morning... but it wasn't necessarily Sunday. That word was tacked on later by someone else."
The tendency to read thematic or narrative content into Hopper's paintings, that Hopper had not intended, extended even to his wife. When Jo Hopper commented on the figure in Cape Cod Morning "It's a woman looking out to see if the weather's good enough to hang out her wash," Hopper retorted, "Did I say that? You're making it Norman Rockwell. From my point of view she's just looking out the window." Another example of the same phenomenon is recorded in a 1948 article in Time:
Hopper's Summer Evening, a young couple talking in the harsh light of a cottage porch, is inescapably romantic, but Hopper was hurt by one critic's suggestion that it would do for an illustration in "any woman's magazine." Hopper had the painting in the back of his head "for 20 years and I never thought of putting the figures in until I actually started last summer. Why any art director would tear the picture apart. The figures were not what interested me; it was the light streaming down, and the night all around."
Place in American art
In focusing primarily on quiet moments, very rarely showing action, Hopper employed a form of realism adopted by another leading American realist, Andrew Wyeth, but Hopper's technique was completely different from Wyeth's hyper-detailed style.[46] In league with some of his contemporaries, Hopper shared his urban sensibility with John Sloan and George Bellows, but avoided their overt action and violence. Where Joseph Stella and Georgia O'Keeffe glamorized the monumental structures of the city, Hopper reduced them to everyday geometrics and he depicted the pulse of the city as desolate and dangerous rather than "elegant or seductive".
Charles Burchfield, whom Hopper admired and to whom he was compared, said of Hopper, "he achieves such a complete verity that you can read into his interpretations of houses and conceptions of New York life any human implications you wish." He also attributed Hopper's success to his "bold individualism. ... In him we have regained that sturdy American independence which Thomas Eakins gave us, but which for a time was lost." Hopper considered this a high compliment since he considered Eakins the greatest American painter.
Hopper scholar, Deborah Lyons, writes, "Our own moments of revelation are often mirrored, transcendent, in his work. Once seen, Hopper's interpretations exist in our consciousness in tandem with our own experience. We forever see a certain type of house as a Hopper house, invested perhaps with a mystery that Hopper implanted in our own vision." Hopper's paintings highlight the seemingly mundane and typical scenes in our everyday life and give them cause for epiphany. In this way Hopper's art takes the gritty American landscape and lonely gas stations and creates within them a sense of beautiful anticipation.
Although compared to his contemporary Norman Rockwell in terms of subject matter, Hopper did not like the comparison. Hopper considered himself more subtle, less illustrative, and certainly not sentimental. Hopper also rejected comparisons with Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton stating "I think the American Scene painters caricatured America. I always wanted to do myself."
Hopper's influence on the art world and pop culture is undeniable. Though he had no formal students, many artists have cited him as an influence, including Willem de Kooning, Jim Dine, and Mark Rothko.[69] An illustration of Hopper's influence is Rothko's early work Composition I (c. 1931), which is a direct paraphrase of Hopper's Chop Suey.
Hopper's cinematic compositions and dramatic use of light and dark has made him a favorite among filmmakers. For example, House by the Railroad is reported to have heavily influenced the iconic house in the Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho.[108] The same painting has also been cited as being an influence on the home in the Terrence Malick film Days of Heaven. The 1981 film Pennies from Heaven includes a tableau vivant of Nighthawks, with the lead actors in the places of the diners. German director Wim Wenders also cites Hopper influence. His 1997 film The End of Violence also incorporates a tableau vivant of Nighthawks, recreated by actors. Noted surrealist horror film director Dario Argento went so far as to recreate the diner and the patrons in Nighthawks as part of a set for his 1976 film Deep Red (aka Profondo Rosso). Ridley Scott has cited the same painting as a visual inspiration for Blade Runner. To establish the lighting of scenes in the 2002 film Road to Perdition, director Sam Mendes drew from the paintings of Hopper as a source of inspiration, particularly New York Movie.
Homages to Nighthawks featuring cartoon characters or famous pop culture icons such as James Dean and Marilyn Monroe are often found in poster stores and gift shops. The cable television channel Turner Classic Movies sometimes runs animated clips based on Hopper paintings prior to airing its films. Hopper's painting New York Movie was featured in the television show Dead Like Me; the girl standing in the corner resembles Daisy Adair. In a 1998 episode of That '70s Show titled "Drive In," Red and Kitty settle in at a diner and create a reproduction of Nighthawks.
Musical influences include singer/songwriter Tom Waits's 1975 live-in-the-studio album titled Nighthawks at the Diner, after the painting. In 1993, Madonna was inspired sufficiently by Hopper's 1941 painting Girlie Show that she named her world tour after it and incorporated many of the theatrical elements and mood of the painting into the show. In 2004, British guitarist John Squire (formerly of The Stone Roses) released a concept album based on Hopper's work entitled Marshall's House. Each song on the album is inspired by, and shares its title with, a painting by Hopper. Canadian rock group The Weakerthans released their album Reunion Tour in 2007 featuring two songs inspired by and named after Hopper paintings, "Sun in an Empty Room", and "Night Windows", and have also referenced him in songs such as "Hospital Vespers". Hopper's Compartment C, Car 293 inspired Polish composer Paweł Szymański's Compartment 2, Car 7 for violin, viola, cello and vibraphone (2003), as well as Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine's song Compartiment C Voiture 293 Edward Hopper 1938 (2011). Hopper's work has influenced multiple recordings by British band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Early Sunday Morning was the inspiration for the sleeve of Crush (1985). The same band's 2013 single "Night Café" was influenced by Nighthawks and mentions Hopper by name. Seven of his paintings are referenced in the lyrics.[110]
Each of the twelve chapters in New Zealander Chris Bell's 2004 novel Liquidambar (UKA Press/PABD) interprets one of Hopper's paintings to create a surreal detective story.
Hopper's influence reached the Japanese animation world in the dark cyberpunk thriller Texhnolyze. His artwork was used as the basis for the surface world in Texhnolyze as well as for much of the 2008 animated film Bolt (Wikipedia).
'Old Blue Eyes'. -Double Click To Zoom- Jackdaw, Corvus monedula, one of our most intelligent birds and full of character, perched here in its classic alert listening stance. Northumberland.
Jackdaws can identify individual humans, although we’re not entirely sure how they do it. Only a few animals are capable of this, with the others including other corvids like magpies, as well as chimpanzees and pigeons.
Many thanks for visiting my Flickr pages ...Your visits, interest, comments and kindness to 'fave' my photos is very much appreciated, Steve.
More Jackdaw Notes
Jackdaws are pleasing to watch. Solemnly and methodically, they stalk the lawn, unhurried in their search patterns, neat and tidy and dignified in their bearing. Unlike the larger and clamorous cousins with which they often flock, their phrases are clipped, their conversations brief.
They pair for life, share food and, when the male barks his arrival at the nest, the female responds with a softer, longer reply. They like manmade structures. Formerly a nuisance as they favoured chimneys for their twiggy bundles, they’re less troublesome in the era of central heating and their liking for church steeples has long been indulged. As the 18th-century poet William Cowper put it, ‘A great frequenter of the church, Where bishop-like, he finds a perch And dormitory too.’ For this habit, the bird was deemed sacred in parts of Wales.
Jackdaws love people, and probably because they love eye contact
People and jackdaws get on – there’s a certain empathy between them. Many are the stories told by individuals who scooped up stranded fledglings in need and were rewarded with a bemusing trust and friendship. Jackdaws recognise human faces and studies by Cambridge zoologist Auguste von Bayern concluded that they respond to human expressions.
These corvids communicate via their eyes, just as human eye contact plays a major role, and a bird confident with its mentor can ‘read’ that person’s eye motions and will follow them to find hidden food. This interplay has encouraged and enabled research.
They can ‘marry’ to boost their status in society
From the 1930s, the Austrian ornithologist Konrad Lorenz, founder of modern ethology, determined a strict social hierarchy within jackdaw groups (collectively called trains or clatterings). Unpaired females rank lowest in the hierarchy: they’re the last to have access to food and shelter in times of scarcity, and are liable to be pecked at by others without being permitted to retaliate.
However, when a female is selected as a mate, she assumes the same rank as her partner and is accepted as such by all others in the group, upon whom she may impose her status by pecking.
They regularly make same-sex love matches – particularly in captivity
Dr Lorenz also discovered that, although the birds normally pair for life, jackdaws in captivity tend to form same-sex pairs. Research in the Netherlands in the 1970s went a step further by concluding that such pairings occur in the wild and that among females that have lost their mates, 10% bond with other females and 5% form a same-sex ménage a trois.
This aspect was pursued in detail by Canadian biologist Bruce Bagemihl in his 1999 book Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity, in which he described widespread ‘non-procreative sexuality’ in the natural world. Jackdaws are among many species that may form same-sex pairs, he declared.
Their numbers are strong, and growing
The apparent lackadaisical attitude of jackdaws on procreation seems to have had no bearing on population. After significant reduction of British numbers in the 1970s, Corvus monedula is flourishing, with 1.4 million breeding pairs here and some 30 million across Europe. In four sub-species, the bird is found from Scandinavia to North Africa and as far east as central Asia.
Like magpies, they love shiny objects
Our jackdaw was classified in the 18th century by Carl Linnaeus for its habit of picking up bright objects, particularly coins (monedula being from the same Latin stem, moneta, as money).
Indeed, after Adolf Hitler embarked on an art-theft campaign in the 1930s he was derided as ‘the Jackdaw of Linz’, reflecting an appetite for bright objects.
A jackdaw became a saint – at least in a story
The best-known literary jackdaw is found in the Ingoldsby Legends of R. H. Barham, the Jackdaw of Rheims which stole the cardinal’s ring, but returned it and became a local saint.
He long liv’d the pride
Of that country side,
And at last in the odor of sanctity died;
When, as words were too faint
His merits to paint,
The Conclave determin’d to make him a Saint;
And on newly-made Saints and Popes, as you know,
It ’s the custom, at Rome, new names to bestow,
So they canoniz’d him by the name of Jem Crow!
R. H. Barham, the Jackdaw of Rheims
Jackdaws were once shot as vermin
We didn’t always warm to jackdaws. After poor grain harvests, they were proscribed with rooks and crows by Henry VIII in a Vermin Act of 1532, and Elizabeth I ratified this in 1566 with another act ‘for the preservation of grayne’.
Countryside attitudes softened after Victorian game-shooting luminaries Lord Walsingham and Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, writing in the 1886 Badminton Library, put them in the second rank of offenders alongside jays, kestrels and hedgehogs as creatures ‘which do some little harm but also some good’.
Jackdaws were ‘as a rule not very mischievous’ and were to be thinned in the woods only to keep their numbers under control. As for the primary raiders – crows, magpies, sparrowhawks, stoats, weasels, polecats, cats and rats – ‘not one bird or beast should be allowed to draw the breath of life on any manor where game preserving is carried on’.
They’re wrongly-blamed for killing small birds
Jackdaw numbers are thinned on some shoots, but, in the wider world they represent little threat. Corvids are blamed en masse for small-bird losses, yet magpies, grey squirrels, cats, changes in land use and habitat destruction are the major culprits.
Indeed, its diet confirms this. Forensic scrutiny by Walter Collinge, described in The Food of Some British Wild Birds of 1913, divided jackdaw crop contents into 42% insects, 29.5% animal matter and 28.5% vegetable matter. Insect and animal constituents spanned earthworms, woodlice, spiders, mice, frogs, snails, slugs, eggs and young birds. Vegetable matter included cereals, potatoes, cherries, berries, walnuts and poultry and game feed. All of this identifies the jackdaw as a useful ally in pest control and only an occasional opportunist feeder on other species.
The ‘chimney bird’ has several other names
The origin of ‘jack’ offers a choice between their brief squawk and the traditional signifier of a small species, with ‘daw’ an English word first recorded in the 15th century, the two halves conjoining in the 16th century. Dialect variants included ka, kae, caddow, caddesse, chauk, college bird, jackerdaw, jacko, ka-wattie, chimney-sweep bird and sea-crow.
They were once thought to be portents of death
These enigmatic birds have a place in folklore, too. A jackdaw on the roof was said to proclaim a new arrival, but might also be a portent of early death. In the Fens, a jackdaw encountered on the way to a wedding was a good omen.
The bird was well known in the Classical world, but its reputation wavered. Ovid declared that the jackdaw brought rain. Aesop used it derisively in his Fables as a stupid bird that starved waiting for figs to ripen: living on hope, which the Fox says ‘feeds illusions, not the stomach’. Pliny admired it as a destroyer of grasshopper eggs.
Jackdaws were once believed to have originally been white
The Greeks declared that ‘the swans will sing when the jackdaws are silent’, meaning that the wise will speak after the foolish have shut up. This reflected, to a point, their mythology that all corvids were white until one of their number told Apollo about his wife’s infidelity, at which point he turned the messenger’s feathers black.
A legend among early Christians declared that corvids were indeed white and took black plumage in mourning after the Crucifixion – except magpies, which were too busy pilfering to grieve properly, so turned only partially black. 11 things you never knew about the jackdaw, the bird that just loves people, Country Life May 20, 2018.
The Resurrection is a fresco painting by the Italian Renaissance master Piero della Francesca, painted in the 1460s in the Palazzo della Residenza in the town of Sansepolcro, Tuscany, Italy.
Piero was commissioned to paint the fresco for the Gothic-style Residenza, the communal meeting hall which was used solely by Conservatori, the chief magistrates and governors, who, before starting their councils, would pray before the image. "The secular and spiritual meanings of the painting were always intimately intertwined." Placed high on the interior wall facing the entrance, the fresco has for its subject an allusion to the name of the city (meaning "Holy Sepulchre"), derived from the presence of two relics of the Holy Sepulchre carried by two pilgrims in the 9th century. Piero's Christ is also present on the town's coat of arms.
Jesus is in the centre of the composition, portrayed in the moment of his resurrection, as suggested by the position of the leg on the parapet of his tomb, which Piero renders as a classical sarcophagus. His stern, impassive figure, depicted in an iconic and abstract fixity (and described by Aldous Huxley as "athletic"), rises over four sleeping soldiers, representing the difference between the human and the divine spheres (or the death, defeated by Christ's light). His figure in the commune's council hall "both protects the judge and purifies the judged" according to Marilyn Aronberg Lavin. The landscape, immersed in the dawn light, has also a symbolic value: the contrast between the flourishing young trees on the right and the bare mature ones on the left alludes to the renovation of men through the Resurrection's light.
Andrew Graham-Dixon notes that apart from the wound, Christ's "body is as perfectly sculpted and as blemish-free as that of an antique statue. But there are touches of intense humanity about him too: the unidealised, almost coarse-featured face; and those three folds of skin that wrinkle at his belly as he raises his left leg. Piero emphasises his twofold nature, as both man and God."
The guard holding the lance is depicted sitting in an anatomically impossible pose, and appears to have no legs. Piero probably left them out so as not to break the balance of the composition.
According to tradition and by comparison with the woodcut illustrating Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Painters, the sleeping soldier in brown armor on Christ's right is a self-portrait of Piero. The contact between the soldier's head and the pole of the banner carried by Christ is supposed to represent his contact with the divinity.
The composition is unusual in that it contains two vanishing points. One is in the center of the sarcophagus, because the faces of the guards are seen from below, and the other is in Jesus's face. The top of the sarcophagus forms a boundary between the two points of view, and the steepness of the hills prevents the transition between the two points of view from being too jarring.
Sansepolcro was spared much damage during World War 2 when British artillery officer Anthony ('Tony') Clarke defied orders and held back from using his troop's guns to shell the town. Although Clarke had never seen the fresco, his diary records his shock at the destruction in Monte Cassino and, apparently remembering where he had read of Sansepolcro, ordered his men to hold fire just as methodical shelling had begun. A lover of art, Clarke had read Huxley's 1925 essay describing the Resurrection, which states: "It stands there before us in entire and actual splendour, the greatest picture in the world." It was later ascertained that the Germans were in retreat from the area – the bombardment had not been necessary, though Clarke had not known this when he ordered the shelling stopped. The town, along with its famous painting, survived. When the events of the episode eventually became clear, Clarke was lauded as a local hero and to this day a street in Sansepolcro bears his name.
THE DRUNKEN MUSE
The story "Drunken Muse" was audio recorded on a hidden voice recorder during the conversations about two decades ago. The story-teller didn't know or consent to the recording.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tape_recorder
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8-track_tape
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Cassette
The audio tapes on compact cassettes were never used. The records were partially damaged and lost.
Herewith the unedited transcript version.
medium.com/paul-jaisini-paints-invisible-paintings/paul-j...
I am so pumped to get back to painting as I return to the second year of the art school after a full year suspension. As always it is like time-travel culturally speaking, like walking right into the middle ages going through the antique building’s portal.
Art studios are the huge L-shaped lofts with super tall ceilings 20 feet no less with the wall to wall windows so that sunlight illuminates the space from south and east side designed for the purpose so that one could paint there from morning till sunset.
In a studio there are classical gypsum sculptures, expensive copies of Venus de Milo, David, Laocoön and the others. In the art studio there stood the noses, eyes, lips, feet, and palms on the wood shelves.
Sketching the gypsum body parts helps you to build the classic academic base on which stands the whole modern and contempo art. This sort of teaching is specific for the art schools that preserve the traditions they had been founded on. There is only few art schools like this and of this caliber left now. Could be that this is the only legendary school that continues to function as if nothing had changed in the world. In the rest of the world with billions of some art classes nobody knows what does the old tradition of art school is for, its totally unfashionable.
Studying classic art (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_art) here is the foundation for creativity in any of the art styles.
The smell of art is what defines the studio but not from human presence, something like an aroma reminiscent of the eastern market where smoke from hookaahs mix with the oil vapors, exotic fragrance from candles and spices. The Art Studios were never renovated since the times they were built over 150 years ago. The wood floors are saturated with art oils as if the floor is waxed with the organic oils from nuts, linen ( linseed oil, poppy seed oil, and so forth.) Adding to the mix the varnishes used by painters (pine wood varnish, Dammar varnish and others) It makes this ART SMELL to be the most intoxicating and ever-lasting musk.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_painting
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_painting - Ingredients
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio - Art_studio
The instance you enter the studio space you feel the belonging to a knighthood and the whole art history. You are the undivided part of those people who left their creation imprints.
Super pumped up after the long break up with the arts after my full year of non-stop party marathons I had returned to the bohemian life style.
Actually my other life style wasn't any different from the bohemian.
The only difference is that there is some meaning in the bohemian life style, something to create, to shape. Not just spend time doing sports and girls but something on a whole 'nother level only with the same sub text and by far more emotionally connected.
The bohemian I think is much more my thing, that fits me as a person. Maybe because my old man is the greatest sculptor.
He is color blind so apparently I took up the torch, I have a very special sense for color.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sculpture
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemianism
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness
There could be an inborn human predicament or inborn genius.
I returned into the world to kiss its ground. I like everything about it, the babeville and its fashion circus.
The art students are known to come up with endless varieties of how to be stylish.
Take me for example, I am chilling in a suit jacket. It was professionally hand-tailored out of a denim Pajamas with stripes and starry silk underlining.
This “look” is completed by my python leather jeans. And over that an authentic LONG military Germany Waffen Elite Officer black Leather Coat from the WWII, only it is without a Swastika.
I never part with my large portfolio and a Field Easel.
EASEL
About 700 students attend the studies. The art school accepts only the best of best with few exception such as the kids of celebrity artists, writers and musicians and people who had real power in the city.
I wasn't enrolled for money or the A-lister parents, but for my talents. The Art specialty (painting, drawing, sculpture) teachers here are the world-wide recognized contemporary artists.
In a matter of my working ethics these important artists would point at me as the example of how fast I work, how well I sketch in color, how I always choose the most unexpected and unusual angle for my composition and so on...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_(visual_arts)
name banner gif
Optical illusion geometric gif
(portraiture, still-life, and landscape)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Still_life
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_painting
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_drawing
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_painting
I never work on an académie (live drawing of a model, live painting of a model) the given eighty -- ninety hours. My whole process is about six -- nine hours to fully complete the work so I get out of the studio for some action and fun.
I’m probably the strongest in the class. My art professors know I don’t need to be there to distract the others.
When I’ve got nothing to do I start banging the head against the wall. Still I am criticized SUPER harshly for cutting the classes.
At this point I am not aware of the inner workings of “THE SYSTEM”.
I call suitcase with a secret compartment.
At the grade shows I only see the bad grades on my best artworks.
There is another side of the coin. It revealed in the future when I got to befriend a secretary at the Dean’s office. It was about the time of my graduating year.
The art teachers actually always considered me to be the leading artist among all students. They would grade all my artworks high on my personal record I knew nothing about.
That was how the art school’s system pushed the talented students to go further to open up their potential. Pushing to the limits of impossible.
I am harshly criticized for cutting a lot of classes.
There is another side of the coin. It will be revealed in the future when I got to befriend a secretary at the Dean's office. It was about the time of my graduating year.
The art teachers actually always considered me to be the leading artist among all students. They would grade all my artworks high on my personal record I knew nothing about.
That was how the art school's system pushed the talented students to go further to open up their potential. Pushing to the limits of impossible.
Willing or not but the doubts get in my head. I was thinking (rather frantically) that maybe I’m all just misguided. I will work to beef up my skills unable to accept that I am not really a “genius” artist. The bad grades were corrupting my vision.
Totally clueless that these bad grades in my case were used as "disciplinary measures" for my behavior of anarchy. These grades had nothing to do with my artworks.
And yet my best drawings and paintings are graded the lowest. At the same time the art professors are taking my works home. I always find empty walls where my works were displayed for the semester shows.
Sooner or later the missing artworks got me enraged. My classmates tell me the back story on what REALLY had happened.
All the art professors usually go the painting major's finals. So they just took my artworks right off the wall.
Ever since I heard this back story I flaunt how IDGAF to even pick up my works with the bad grades after the finals end.
Like a bunch of some doomsday looters in sight of an electronic store the art students same as the teachers vultured my artworks. Later some of my paintings and drawings were seen at the school's museum, especially the paintings.
The story of the artworks snatched off my exhibit wall developed further.
In the art school the art teachers are the privileged kind who exhibit regularly. All are the accomplished artists with big names.
Another thing about my artworks (no longer mine and in someone else's possession) is the story that involves someone with the top art rep being the art dynasty. Even so it happed that the leading art professor nicknamed Molly (for her annoying facial mole) used my art stuff to have her son who studied same years as me, just never expelled, to apply to an art academy with the highest qualification requirements. Molly's son portfolio sucked. To get him qualified to apply she gave her son all of my artworks she collected.
The juice was given to me by the reliable sources. The story was concurred by the eye--witnesses the students who were applying to the same academy together with Molly's son. Some of these students knew my work by the style, special color palette and the brushwork.
They all knew that Molly's son was using my artworks. He only had to forge his signature and remove mine.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Study_(art)
My drawings, sketches, paintings, watercolors are in "wide" use by others.
I tell that to describe the routine of my life.
It could explain why I was expelled three times for the chronic absence, for sabotaging the lectures -- getting my classmates to leave the studio and go to the movies or to the beach.
Fast forward to that event of the breaking point when I started to work systematically.
I was sucked into work as if a drug addiction. I was penetrating deeper to the very core of creativity. Reading books, going to the museums, working in the field, working in the museums to copy masters. I completely forgot all about life around me.
Practically I was devoured and digested with my nails and hair by that devil called the academic art. It sucked out the leftovers of my soul.
I stayed in the studio after the classes to work. There were only few students like this, spiritually close to me. To them it was their life style since the day they had entered the art school unlike me. Whenever I'd get bored with art I'd quit working and just leave without asking permission.
Now as if something had hit me hard and I started to really work. Most art students here typically come from such backgrounds when they did their baby steps and studied in the children's (secondary) art school from an early age and tutored by art teachers at home
I had a tendency to take on a higher complexity unprepared without the experience of any art school training (the eight years on a daily basic with teachers and methodical practice.)
As long as I remember myself I was drawing, during my school years, on the notebooks, with chalk on the asphalt, with stick on the sand. I did it subconsciously, not knowing what I was doing.
IDK, could be due to the several bad bike accidents when my head ended up hitting the brick...
Why did my brain moved into the direction of noticing those things that normal people should not be noticing? That the leaves on the trees are not at all green, but violet.
The falling shadows from the street lights are not at all outlined by black, the contours are the absolute blue.
The trees look like people.
There are so much more shades of colors that language could articulate.
Stuff like this filled up my head so that there was no place left for just a thought about girls, more so even the thoughts to manipulate my body functions. For instance using the
bathroom. I almost peed my pants. Truthfully I was on the edge of madness.
I remember how I hallucinated during my work imagining that someone had come into my studio and I spoke to "the guest." My brain was ill, there was no escape from that hell.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_(color)
Once I was walking on a street without any awareness. My mind was no longer in command of anything accept the obsession with my painting. As I was pushing the limits of what was humanly possible in a matter of progress from the previous stage when I could draw and paint with intuitive results now I considered as totally armature waste of art materials. My condition would be hard to describe since I could hardly remember what was it like during that madly intense period. I know that I was working non--stop and did make some major break through. It worked but at the same time the progress turned its evil side, I wasn't able to stop even for a brief moment. Something happened to my otherwise incorruptible memory that I could only remember few things from that period. And one of those things was my death walk through the city streets on a day I was supposed to disappear.
When I realized that I was walking automatically, blind and incredibly
avoiding the cars, for the first time I felt the fear of madness that can easily take my life. It wasn't something I would fear if I was in my other life when loosing it would be quite an ordinary thing and not due to my lost mind.
Whatever it was I survived with no chances to stay alive that day. I had more chances to live on when I was shot at execution style, when I was drowning in bad storm, climbing on a building like a cat, and on many others such occasions.
Some guardian angel was looking over me as I came to the final moment of certain death, blind, deaf, disoriented and delusional.
As we finished with draperies, still life, gypsum figures we moved on to the nude. To draw and paint from the live sitter, male or female model.
There comes an old fat hag to be posed before the artists. She will be POSING even during the breaks. She sits professionally without a slight move of her flab folds for us to draw her “forms”. ‘assume it was done for the boys not to get distracted with the female anatomy.
The models with “rounded” forms were chosen so we would study the reflects and double reflects on a “sphere-like” and “cylinder-like” forms.
There would be plenty of the cast shadow (a type of shadow that is created on a form), and a drop shadow ( below the image).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_positions
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_study
The working objective was to concentrate on the drawing’s construction.
When we’d get a young female model, she’d be so skeletal that we studied the skeleton. This type of models was as unattractive as the fat ones.
The art students without an eye for a drawing and technique produced their works of caricature quality. With the lost proportions the models looked like animals, skinny chickens or fat frogs.
For me it was a serious job, body didn’t exist. I x-rayed the flubs of fat to see the bones to connect them to muscles, to build a form.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caricature
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeleton
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skeleton
The illness I call the overdose had progressed and my end was near.
Homies who knew me used to say that I was cracked.
When I moved from the classicism to modern (I refused to see any modern or contemporary art, never wanted to see it, or ever saw it) I entered the Modern art on my own, as my foot stepped into the forth dimension.
I entered the world of mad pressure. Good I stepped in it one foot yet.
I was sleeping in the studio right on the floor near my work and placed an electric heater near by.
It was impossible to heat up whole place where fifty heavy-duty easels only took a quarter of the studio space.
In the center there was a huge round stage made from a special hard wood to hold any number of models when needed for the multiple human-figure compositions.
The place was full of easels, portable and the large for the field. The chairs, tables, palettes, boxes with paint, cases with paper and lots of other art stuff piled up into mountains.
The parquet floor was always covered in fresh oil paints even though the teachers tried in vein to prove a fact that working neatly was by far more productive.
We had a dormitory built same year as the art school which was 150 something years ago.
If you stayed late in the studio that was forbidden, you couldn't get to the dorm.
A guard at the main door was a real watch dog, he faithfully guarded the pathway knowing every student's face.
The dorm was occupied by those who couldn't pay for a room or the apartment in the city.
Ten beds were squeezed in a dorm room.
This part of the antique building was never renovated probably b/c it was planned to be turned into more art studios.
But since there were out of town students who had no place to live they were given a place in this dorm.
The beds were of a good prison-like quality so the survival was possible. Another thing is what was happening in the dorm.
On a typical day nobody there had any money left after the expensive art materials. Not a penny to get high. Alcoholic liquid (40-60%) was soaked into the bread.
From one bite of that bread you could instantly drop dead as if your legs got cut off by a train.
The receptors inside the nose absorb the fumes to hit right into the brain, this way the booze doesn't ever enter the digestive system and blood.
It kills or makes one go bonkers.
Some pissheads in desperation poured vodka into a wine bottle cap to inhale it like coke. After one cap screw it was a total alchoholocaust.
There were many ways of economizing: to use a medical thin rubber tube to suck the drink very slowly, one bottle would
serve four alkies.
It was the usual schizophrenic day for me. I had my dose of coffee and ate on a way to the studio.
Those days I didn't miss a class afraid to get expelled for the last and final time.
I couldn't understand this thing about my artworks. Why did my classmates literally begged on their knees to have the C-graded artworks I was never satisfied with.
It became my trade mark to give away all of my stuff left and right. I didn't know why I let go of my drawings and paintings so easy. Now I regret that. It would be interesting to see the growth.
Once I happened to tell a guy from my class who worked very hard on his drawing (he wasn't a good draftsman): "Oh Wow! you are doing a lot of progress, buddy, congrats!" I looked at his portfolio and pointed at a piece: "This drawing here is really mature and quite interesting, you achieved volume and air in just a linear drawing."
The guy suddenly goes red, stares at me wide-eyed with anger or confusion I couldn't quite understand...
"Am I saying something wrong?" I asked.
"You're fucking dissing me!" He answered.
"Why?" I wondered.
"This is YOUR drawing," Was the answer: "I took it, that is when I asked you and you gave it to me, don't you remember?"
I didn't recognize, didn't see my signature, as it was overlapping the drawing.
The guy was holding a grudge for this but it didn't turn him into one of my enemies.
At some point I am thankful to the teachers for their sneaky methods and experience on how to tame the most unruly and bring them into the art's stable. On the other hand these people were like sadistic fascists who used their special gases on me experimenting, would I survive it and live on.
The bohemian hyped up life only started after the classes at about seven in the evening. This part of the artist's life was full of sex, booze, and drugs, more sex booze drugs and orgies. The art youth was progressive, the sex - communal with the conveniently shared girlfriends and boyfriends.
Strangely the good times didn't concern me anymore now.
There was a small group of idiots who followed their criteria of achievement: to draw and paint a vase with flowers so that it comes to life, right out of the canvas to the carrying hands of the one who painted it. The flowers turned alive would be given to the girl/boyfriend.
The madness of the 4th dimension.
The art group was lead by me and another guy soon (one month later) to disappear forever for the reasons unknown.
After the classes me and few others searched for a studio. Found it. Not my studio. Any studio with the door unlocked.
As usual I would set a still life. Take off my nazi coat.
Set my next canvas on the easel to start quick sketching.
Out of nowhere shows up some dude who was a new student, he was much older, about twenty three, somewhere from Texas and just plain untalented.
He wanted to hang around with "the power-group" to learn.
There were few girls with the ambition to reach the level of a manly hand in creation.
We all usually worked in grave silence and even a slight noise would be extremely annoying.
If a brush would fall it seemed the atomic bomb had exploded somewhere near. We would exchange vicious cursing at the jittery creaking sneezing noise maker.
When you are focusing intensely and can't quite catch the brush stroke to complete the shaping of a form so that the image would turn real and come out of the flat surface the nerves are high strung to the limit.
The last months I just never left the studio, didn't even come outside. Slept on my German coat in the corner. It was veiled with the drapery. I'd wake up in the morning. The doorman was already used to give me the keys knowing that I sleep and work there. It came with a warning that if I am discovered I must tell any story and solemnly kept the secret.
The memories from those years distract me from telling what I want. It's about the event that had closed for me the entry into the forth dimension.
That day I was getting upset over some stupid teases: "What had happened to you!"
Whether the bros wanted to elevate my mental state, or they needed to get my works it had really caused me distraction. I was focusing on my work. Suddenly I hear the sounds of music in the studio. It jumped me: “Are you out of your fucking minds? That asshole doorman will come here."
"No he ain’t gonna."
"Why?"
"He is passed out, we had to carry him away." Was the answer.
"What is going down?" I worried.
"Not much, nothing is going down, we just want some fun. The way it is on here is so buzz-killing."
Was it some holiday, I didn’t know. Holidays passed by me, I didn’t smoke or drink and only worked. What they were saying didn’t reach me.
“Shut down the music. You’re gone but I must sleep here."
"Why must you sleep here?" Asked Lorenzo (nick-named after his personal preferences of the Benzos)
"Hmm, I guess there will be no way of working today?" I asked.
"Working, way working, you gonna make me some home works," Assured me the dude nicknamed Kuz. "For that I will make your sculpture complete."
As interesting as it was to play with the real forms in sculpting I disliked dealing with the clay. Those times I believed the painting to be so much more in gradations, possibilities and complexity. Now I changed my mind to consider any art media possess the unlimited possibilities.
I agreed. Suddenly the guys were fixing to leave and I had to ask: "So? Who will finish building up the sculpture if you're leaving?"
"No worries, will build it up, brb just a quick run for some booze before the stores closed up."
"What booze? Get out of here go to another studio. I work, don’t mess me up."
"No biggie, son, you can rest for once."
It was pointless to argue, they'd already been drunk and I was only getting nervous. My work wasn’t going good at all. I have changed the lighting set up many ways in vein.
Suddenly, out of nowhere Muse appears. A young, very-very attractive girl about eighteen. The returned gang introduced her to me:
"J-Sin, meet her... lets say Nicky."
"Eh, hello Nicky, who and what are you?" were my greetings.
She smiled to everyone and answered: "I will be posing for you today."
"We agreed about everything, will pay the price,” –explained Lorenzo barely moving his tongue, "She is gonna be happy!"
His bag full of bottles made loud clanking noise.
When the drunks got them out I counted six.
“Yes, this is going to be a wild night.” I was thinking what to do now. I approached the model, took off her coat and hanged it, removed her blouse and explained that she can go behind the curtain.
"Hey, hey! What curtain son, what’s with you? She is from the med school, our people!"
I heard the Kuz's inebriated voice. "She is THE model!"
"What -- nude?" I wondered.
"And what did you think, she'd sit covered up in here?" They burst into laughter.
Suddenly I feel elated with the anticipation of the new and amazing subject for the work. I was fed up with the poor set up and the struggle to "find" the good lighting for the gypsum head. How wonderful it turned out that I could make some picturesque oil sketches.
When the model took off her bra, her young breasts, her nipples instantly distract my attention from work.
Shit, I couldn’t focus. Since we hadn’t a glimpse at such models it was too interesting. Could be that something about this evening or the environment was different. First time in a long while the music was playing, the glasses jingled and filled up with wine.
As she posed we were all doing the quick sketching. She removed everything except her panties.
The drunken assholes wouldn’t let me focus.
"Let me finally have a chance to work." I yelled getting distracted.
They seemed to try bargaining: "We brought you the model, hey girl turn around!" Kuz pulled up her skirt and slapped her buddy. "Look at these buns, you've got to do another
drawing for the semester show."
"Boys, you are so bad!" She giggled to Kuz. "I will spank you for being soooo bad!" And she was laughing in most contagious sexy trills of her childish capricious voice.
I didn’t understand what these die--hard drunks were doing at the art school, without any talent or interest in art. My former palls in another life that was long forgotten. Today the serious artists who always worked together with me had left the moment this bad company swam by.
Now I was looking at their watery eyes winking at the model. They caressed her things as she reclined on the wooden stage to rest. I wanted to figure out why did they distract me even more now?
I was the same age as the model. I didn’t see her body, to me now it was the model for painting.
It was getting late when the cold winds penetrate the place from the drafty wall size windows. I put on my sweater in the starting freezer. The one meter or the three feet and 33/8 inch walls are like the thermos to absorb and hold the cool temperature. I looked at the laughing bunch who labored on my sculpture.
One was drawing a huge flying dick with wings with a charcoal right on a white wall.
I had finished sketching the figure. I came up to the stage to set up the heater. I asked the model if she could sit some more taking breaks whenever she needs to move.
When she looked at me she was constantly smiling.
"Sure she’ll sit! And she'll lay, right, sweet buns?"
I held my breath working imagining how awesome would be to have such a model every day. With a shaky hand I was working fast as a machine expecting any minute now she would say that she is too cold to sit another minute and she leaves, its all over. I will have to kill her and sit her lifeless body on a chair to complete my work.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!"
The heater I placed caused the red reflexes on the body. I was painting and had to get the color right. So I removed the heater. The model immediately complained about the cold. Kuz brought her a glass of wine asking me why did I remove the heater.
From wine her face flushed red. I tried to adjust the color scale, laying brushstrokes over the whole figure.
Meanwhile the music turned up it was getting real loud.
The model took her break.
I walked after her studying her forms.
"Is something wrong?" She asked.
"Its all right, could you turn this way."
"Oh, I see. Same in our med school, the nut cases," She openly declared to the others when I was on a floor looking from a lower viewpoint.
"Who is this?" She asked: "What kind of a mental is he?"
"Its a disease, but it will pass" – was the answer for her. "Sometimes it is terminal. Not his tho, his will pass, he loves the young girls very much…"
Something from the stupid jokes had reached me.
"Hon, now he needs the medical attention. You are the medic? We are forever in debt to yous for allowing us come to the mortuary and for helping with the dead bodies... What we have here is a zombie. You are the goddess who saves the body as your calling."
What I heard was polluting my pure artistic brain with that life I refused. Now I was paying attention not to the mammary glands but to her breasts. Her back muscles are slightly weak. As I looked over the skeleton the muscles slowly disappeared. No matter how hard I tried to focus my x-rays were weakened. Maybe the electricity turned off inside my head.
"Pour me some," I asked.
Six months of my immaculate virginity and celibacy was broken by a wine glass. The red wine like the blood of innocents was running in my throat filling up the brain that shortly was boiling with vigor. So I said:
"Could you please remove your panties?"
"It wasn’t the deal," protested the model with her eyes glowing like honey.
Lorenzo interrupted her:
"For god’s sake, take of your panties, what is it to you, aren't you a medic?"
"I thought someone here was shy, as for me" She lustfully licked her lips. "Well, of course its nothing."
"Who is shy?" Asked someone.
"Him the weirdo!" She giggled in a very cute bubbly little voice.
"Are you shy?"
"It seems it was me who asked her to remove the panties." I explained.
She just jumped right out of her panties not without pleasure it seemed.
I imagined how to position her, what pose should she take.
"Hey!" I asked Kuz to pour me another glass. He was cheering me on yet reminding that I should first finish the drawing.
"Later," I mumbled turning to the model: "Would you please sit on a chair and spread your pretty legs a little, as much as you wish."
"Hey, Alex, so he is normal?" She asked.
I was far away from normality. A actual girl weaved from the reality. But the process was a transformation with splitting dimensions.
She was turning more real when I touched her to show how to position her legs.
I glimpsed at the red pubic hair seeing the pink flesh of her vaginal lips.
I couldn't focus on my work. Could the “female anatomy” destroy the temple of magic I was erecting for the eight months?
I returned to my easel and continued working. She was fidgeting changing poses uncomfortable this something hurting that... But it was only natural, she was sitting naked on a plain hard wooden chair. She was sliding from one side of the chair to another. I was buzzed from wine and couldn’t work, but I tried to complete my work just to annoy these assholes who screwed up my day. First work was washed off with turpentine and I wiped up the canvas dry with a rag.
I was sketching now not with a charcoal but brushing in umber. It resulted in an interesting tonality and I was captured again. The model squirming on her hard chair complained.
"Yo, why don’t you lay her down, what is she suffering for?" Asked Alex, "Lay her the fuck down, why not."
Right! I thought a little and told her to lay on the stage. Underneath her I spread some drapery.
After few wine glasses I took off my sweater, my cheeks were on fire. Hers too. I unbuttoned my shirt, my blood was boiling, the body was washed with the warmth.
The heater was moved away.
"So true that wine warms you up," she said to Alex.
"Jay, so tell me how to lay her down there. Sit, sit, you poor thingy, I'll assist you" And he jumped on the stage. "Do you want her legs spread this way?" he asked opening
up her legs so that her whole anatomy was showing.
"Is this ok for you?" He winked at me: "Is it good?"
"Oh no, can’t show it like this at the mid-semester show." Thinking some I added: " Let it be, lift her leg a little higher, like this. Turn her head down."
"Like this?" He kissed her on the lips.
"Alex, the fuck you're doing, I don’t have any time."
"Work, keep drawing, go on!" he said. "We won’t disturb you."
I was outraged after I just washed everything off my canvas ready to work, but this wasn't going anywhere. I kept asking Alex what did he mean by not disturbing me when he messed everything up. I heard the girls laughing trills. "For real, he is ill!"
"The sick can be cured." Insisted Alex. "Will hill him." He slurred.
Of course, I own them my very life. If it weren't for them –- that’s it, finito.
Kissing her on the lips and winking at me Alex continued bugging me: “Is this right?”
For like ten minutes I was staring in the infinity in the emptiness… Then I yelled: "Why are you sucking her? Get away from her, let her lay there quietly."
Only to hear some nonsensical mumbling.
"But I want you to work on the position, is this position right?"
"Right, just fuck off of her."
Meanwhile Kuz, I noticed, was taking off his pants. He said: “Let him go fuck himself. Motherfucker is gonna fuck us up today, if he doesn’t want it, so fuck it.”
Now I thought I knew what they wanted from me.
I saw Alex’s naked butt as he laid on the stage, banging the girl and his ass wiggled.
I started sketching their nude asses.
My consciousness was still in the process of transforming.
I thought of how interesting were their poses.
Lorenzo came up to me and took the brushes from my hands placing all in my field easel he closed up.
"Listen, J-man, you’re being a fucking buzzkill. Go draw some vases, fuck off to another studio. You don’t want it. For free?"
I didn't understand him what did he mean. He explained:
"What do you see Alex is doing right now?"
"He is fucking his girlfriend." I said.
Lorenzo continued:
"Whose girlfriend? What we have here is a
scientist, from the med school who is helping us in our artistic quests, to understand the core of anatomy not only from the outside but from the inside. I recommend you, in order to comprehend, as you must know, you can only know the truth from the inside, experiencing the inside, to understand the outside. That’s why I seize the brushes. Here is another glass of wine. Drink!"
I looked at him as a doctor listening to his drunken bullshit.
"The most important thing for you is to understand from the inside. See, you can’t understand it from the outside, it’s not how things are done."
"Yes knowing the internal anatomy helps, take a muscle, body doesn’t exist without muscles." I agreed.
"Hell yeah, yeah… ha ha…that’s what I am going about. Look how Alex is working how he is learning."
I looked at the bare ass's motions back and forth, at the girl who was lifting her legs and actively moving her hips. Alex jumped off, wiped up his cock with the drapery, he also wiped out the girl. “Who is next?”
Kuz was kissing her from one side, when Lorenzo said:
"He worked very hard today, he must learn from the inside. You see, because he just can’t break through the inside."
When Kuz was mounting her, Lorenzo spanked him loudly:
"You can wait, the man needs the muse, get it? Understanding the Muse comes only from the inside.." They all bust into laughter.
Lorenzo nearly helped my cock inside the girl cheering on: "Just do it, little one, everything is gonna be great. Honey, turn him back into a soldier that we've lost."
"The man is gone, the man known yesterday is not the man you meet, forever, around the corner, in London or in the street..." chanted Nick appearing from nowhere. He continued slurring his poems.
Hearing the noise I didn’t know what’s going on as I kissed her breasts.
"Feel the forms." I heard the racket near by as I was buzzing off the wine and licking the girl's body. On the other side Lorenzo had joined in groping her breasts. To be more at ease I moved her body closer to the stage’s edge. I was on top.
I didn't hear any sounds of music, the entry door was covered with the draperies as the orgy just steamed up for the whole night.
I woke up on the stage from loud knocking.
The art students asked me what happened to the busted still life set.
I exhaled my dragon breath to hear no more questions. Took my coat and left the building. Walking the street I met Alex.
"Your face is not yet blushed, your eyes are a bit foggy, can’t say anything after the sleepless night. Like Cures Like."
He grinned getting money out of his pocket. "Let us get some treatment."
We walked to the known spot for aching heads gathering.
It was a few nights ago that I came across this Red-tailed Hawk. While driving through town, I saw him perched atop a heavily manicured shrub with a kill. Not the most pleasing setting for a photograph. He didn't stick around for long, quickly vanishing into a dense tree nearby. This encapsulates most of my encounters with birds of prey. One moment they're right in front of you, the next, gone. Oh well, there's always next time, I thought. Well, the very next day, I returned to the scene. I wasn't expecting to see anything significant. Maybe I'd come across an egret or a few deer. As I was walking, I noticed a light colored object protruding from atop a different shrub. It took me a minute, but I soon realized what I was looking at. The very same hawk, perched a few hundred feet from where I had seen seen him just days prior. I began sauntering in his general direction, without looking directly at him. This, I find, is the best way to approach wildlife. The key is to not look like you are hunting. I see people do this all too often. They crouch down and move like a dog on a rabbit, making slow, methodical advances, pausing when the subject looks at them. Had I creeped directly up to the hawk while making eye contact, he would've certainly flown away. By acting distracted, I managed to get within a workable range. Over the next hour, he made his way around, landing on an assortment of perches. In this particular shot, he had landed on a less than ideal perch, so I did what I could to produce a natural looking scene. Using some bushes, I covered the distracting element. All in all, I think it worked out nicely.
EXT. SWISS ALPS - MORNING
Jack Dexter raises his M-16 rifle and methodically takes aim. We hear snow crunching as he shifts his weight. Someone OFF CAMERA to our RIGHT is breathing is ragged gasps.
The CAMERA stays on Jack. He is very tense, talking as if he had a toothpick in his mouth, teeth clenched, jaw tight. Think of a disillusioned Franco Nero. We're not allowed to see what is about to happen.
JACK
Welcome to Switzerland, Jules. I got married here once, remember?
JULES
I swear to you, it was an accident! She wasn't supposed to die... I'll do anything. Just don't kill me, not like this.
JACK
You were my best man. My best friend. And now you'll be dead!
JULES
Not my face! Not my face!
Jack fires his M-16, body jerking, as Jules emits a scream that is abruptly cut off.
Furnas, São Miguel, Azores, Portugal.
On the banks of Furnas Lake, in the island of São Miguel in the Azores archipelago, a recent intervention of re-qualification, introduced several events in the landscape with a touch of surrealism and fantasy. In the middle of the woods, this installation made me remember the tale of Hansel and Gretel as the huge basalt cubes methodically aligned could be the bread crumbs left by the kids to remember the way back. Contrary to what happened in the original history published in 1812 by the Grimm brothers, certainly these wouldn't be eaten by the birds.
Furnas, São Miguel, Azores, Portugal.
Nas margens da Lagoa das Furnas, na ilha de São Miguel do arquipélago dos Açores, uma intervenção paisagística de requalificação, introduziu uns quantos acontecimentos na paisagem com um toque de surrealismo e fantasia. No meio da mata, esta instalação, fez-me recordar a tradicional conto do João e da Maria e os telúricos cubos de basalto metodicamente alinhados as migalhas de pão deixadas pelas crianças para recordar o caminho de volta. Ao contrário do que reza a história, recuperada e publicada em 1812 pelos irmãos Grimm, estes não seriam certamente comidos pelos pássaros.
...and best viewed large.
Good morning and Happy Hug a Bug Day to everyone. I thought I would post a second series on a Snowberry Clearwing Moth (Hemaris diffinis) that I was fortunate enough to photograph in late August feeding on thistle. The thistle was growing on the edge of a pond, which provided a much cleaner background than the last shots of a Snowberry I posted. The Snowberry was very methodical about feeding on the thistle as it made several circular trips around each flower a number of times before moving on to the next one. This allowed me ample time to take numerous shots and the opportunity to fiddle with camera settings to get the best possible results. A very accommodating little moth so I'm assuming it's a female :-)
The only problem I had was dealing with butterflies, of which there were many and quite often they would get enter into the field of view and ruin the shot. But in the end the butterflies won out and I decided to include a couple of pics with some in the comment section.
Thank you for stopping by...and I hope you have a truly nice day.
Lacey
ISO800, aperture f/8, exposure .001 seconds (1/1000) focal length 210mm
Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron (17 January 1612 – 12 November 1671) was a general and parliamentary commander-in-chief during the English Civil War.
Born at Denton Hall, near Otley, Yorkshire, on the 17 January 1612, Fairfax was the eldest son of Ferdinando Fairfax, 2nd Lord Fairfax of Cameron. He studied at St John's College, Cambridge (1626–29),[1] and then proceeded to the Netherlands to serve as a volunteer with the English army in the Low Countries under Sir Horace (Lord) Vere. This connection led to one still closer; in the summer of 1637 Fairfax married Anne Vere, the daughter of the general.
The Fairfaxes, father and son, though serving at first under King Charles I (Thomas commanded a troop of horse, and was knighted by the king in 1640), were opposed to the arbitrary prerogative of the Crown, and Sir Thomas declared that "his judgment was for the Parliament as the king and kingdom's great and safest council". When Charles endeavoured to raise a guard for his own person at York, intending it, as the event afterwards proved, to form the nucleus of an army, Fairfax was employed to present a petition to his sovereign, entreating him to hearken to the voice of his parliament, and to discontinue the raising of troops. This was at a great meeting of the freeholders and farmers of Yorkshire convened by the king on Heworth Moor near York. Charles evaded receiving the petition, pressing his horse forward, but Fairfax followed him and placed the petition on the pommel of the king's saddle.
As a soldier he was exact and methodical in planning, in the heat of battle "so highly transported that scarce any one durst speak a word to him" (Whitelocke), chivalrous and punctilious in his dealings with his own men and the enemy. Honour and conscientiousness were equally the characteristics of his private and public character. But his modesty and distrust of his powers made him less effectual as a statesman than as a soldier, and above all he is placed at a disadvantage by being both in war and peace overshadowed by his associate Cromwell.
Fairfax had a taste for literature. He translated some of the Psalms, and wrote poems on solitude, the Christian warfare, the shortness of life, etc. During the last year or two of his life he wrote two Memorials which have been published – one on the northern actions in which he was engaged in 1642-1644, and the other on some events in his tenure of the chief command. At York and at Oxford he endeavoured to save the libraries from pillage, and he enriched the Bodleian with some valuable manuscripts.
The metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell authored "Upon Appleton House, To My Lord Fairfax", nominally about Fairfax's home, but also his character as well as England during his era.
Lord Fairfax of Cameron's only daughter, Mary Fairfax, was married to George Villiers, the profligate duke of Buckingham of Charles II's court.
LCF223139 Thomas (1612-71) 3rd Lord Fairfax (oil on canvas) by Walker, Robert (1607-60) (circle of)
oil on canvas
59.7x49.5
© Trustees of Leeds Castle Foundation, Maidstone, Kent, UK
English, out of copyright
By way of immediate action, a stand must first be made against thought, against mental processes. "I do not know" - it is said - "anything which, when unbridled, uncontrolled, unwatched, untamed, brings such ruin as thought, and I do not know anything which, when bridled, controlled, watched, tamed, brings such benefits as thought."
Thought, which everyone lightly says is "mine," is, in reality, only to a very small degree in our power. In the majority of cases, instead of "to think" it would be correct to say "we are thought" or "thought takes place in me." In the normal way, the characteristic of thought is its instability. "Incorporeal" - it is said - "it walks by itself": it "runs hither and thither like an untamed bull." Hard to check, unstable, it runs where it pleases. In general, it is said that, while this body may persist one year, two years, three years or even up to a hundred years and more in its present form, "what we call thought, what we call mind, what we call consciousness arises in one manner, ceases in another; incessantly, night and day"; "it is like a monkey who goes through the forest, and who progresses by seizing one branch, letting go of it, taking hold of another, and so on."
The task is to "arrest" thought: to master it and to strengthen the attention; to be able then to say: "Once this thought wandered at its fancy, at its pleasure, as it liked: I today shall hold it completely bridled, as a mahout holds a rut-elephant with his goad."
A few explanations.
If one day normal conditions were to return, few civilizations would seem as odd as the present one, in which every form of power and dominion over material things is sought, while mastery over one's own mind, one's own emotions and psychic life in general is entirely overlooked. For this reason, many of our contemporaries - particularly our so-called "men of action" - really resemble those crustaceans that are as hard-shelled outside with scabrous incrustations as they are soft and spineless within. It is true that many achievements of modern civilization have been made possible by methodically applied and rigorously controlled thought. This, however, does not alter the fact that most of the "private" mental life of every average and more-than-average man develops today in that passive manner of thought that, as the Buddhist text we have just quoted strikingly puts it, "walks by itself," while, half-unconscious, we look on. Anyone can convince himself of this by trying to observe what goes on in his mind, for example, when leaving his house: he thinks of why he is going out but, at the door, his thoughts turn to the postman and thence to a certain friend from whom news is awaited, to the news itself, to the foreign country where his friend lives and which, in turn, makes him remember that he must do something about his own passport: but his eye notices a passing woman and starts a fresh train of thought, which again changes when he sees an advertisement, and these thoughts are replaced by the various feelings and associations that chase each other during a ride through the town. His thought has moved exactly like a monkey that jumps from branch to branch, without even keep-ing a fixed direction. Let us try, after a quarter of an hour, to remember what we have thought - or, rather, what has been thought in us - and we shall see how diffi¬cult it is. This means that in all these processes and disordered associations our consciousness has been dazed or "absent." Having seen this, let us undertake to follow, without disturbing them, the various mental associations. After only a minute or two we shall find ourselves distracted by a flood of thoughts that have invaded us and that are quite out of control. Thought does not like being watched, does not like being seen. Now this irrational and parasitical development of thought takes up a large part of our normal psychic life, and produces corresponding areas of reduced activity and of reduced self-presence. The state of passivity is accentuated when our thought is no longer merely "spontaneous" and when the mind is agitated by some emotion, some worry, hope, or fear. The degree of consciousness is certainly greater in these cases - but so, at the same time, is that of our passivity.
These considerations may throw some light on the task that is set when one "ceases to go"; one reacts, one aims at being the master in the world of one's own mind. It now seems quite incomprehensible that nearly all men have long since been accustomed to consider as normal and natural this state of irrationality and passivity, where thought goes where it will - instead of being an instrument that enters into action only when necessary and in the required direction, just as we can speak when we wish to, and with a purpose, and otherwise remain silent. In comprehending this "according to reality," we must each decide whether we will continue to put up with this state of affairs.
In its fluid, changeable and inconsistent character, normal thought reflects, moreover, the general law of samsāric consciousness. This is why mental control is consid¬ered as the first urgent measure to be taken by one who opposes the "current." In un¬dertaking this task, however, we must not be under any illusions. The dynamis, the subtle force that determines and carries our trains of thought, works from the subconscious. For this reason, to attempt to dominate the thought completely by means of the will, which is bound to thought itself, would almost be like trying to cut air with a sword or to drown an echo by raising the voice. The doctrine, which declares that thought is located in the "cavern of the heart," refers, among other things, to thought considered "organically" and not to its mental and psychological offshoots. Mastery of thought cannot, therefore, be merely the object of a form of mental gymnastics: rather, one must, simultaneously, proceed to an act of conversion of the will and of the spirit; inte¬rior calm must be created, and one must be pervaded by intimate, sincere earnestness.
The "fluttering" of thought mentioned in our text is more than a mere simile: it is related to the primordial anguish, to the dark substratum of samsāric life that comes out and reacts since, as soon as it feels that it is seen, it becomes aware of the danger; the condition of passivity and unconsciousness is essential for the development of samsāric being and for the establishment of its existence. This simile illustrates an experience that, in one form or another, is even encountered on the ascetic path.
The discipline of constant control of the thought, with the elimination of its automatic forms, gradually achieves what in the texts is called appamada, a term variously translated as "attention," "earnestness," "vigilance," "diligence," or "reflection." It is, in point of fact, the opposite state to that of "letting oneself think," it is the first form of entry into oneself, of an earnestness and of a fervid, austere concentration. When it is understood in this sense, appamāda constitutes the base of every virtue. It is also said: "This intensive earnestness is the path that leads toward the deathless, in the same way that unreflective thought leads, instead, to death. He who possesses that earnestness does not die, while those who have unstable thought are as if already dead." An ascetic "who delights in appamāda - in this austere concentration - and who guards against mental laxity, will advance like a fire, burning every bond, both great and small." He "cannot err." And when, thanks to this energy, all negligence is gone and he is calm, from his heights of wisdom he will look down on vain and agitated beings, "as one who lives on a mountaintop looks down on those who live in the plains."
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excerpt from The Doctrine of Awakening by Julius Evola
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painting by Blake
;//w//; My babies <3
TwT Ah this is kind of random but I spent my Christmas working and playing with dollies and decided to take some pictures of Faustus and Euclid together since its been a while. xD Oh, also to show off Faustus' new wig and eyes a bit more I guess haha.
Euclid in rare form not wearing a long dress for once haha. Need to build up the more androgynous/"masculine" side of their wardrobe since I've tended to favor dressing them more femininely since I don't have any super femme dolls (aside from Rift but can't have her out at the same time as Euclid so xD)
;//w//; Anyways, love these two. They are special not just to each other but also to me as Euclid is my favorite doll and Faustus is my most special/significant doll. xD Canonically in their story just before Euclid gets their hair mended is when Faustus is finally cured of his affliction of burning (basically) everything he touches so whenever Eui wears this wig its totally a-ok in my mind to have them touching. Even though they are just dolls and it doesn't actually matter, I almost never had them touch prior as it would have seemed canonically inaccurate and I CAN'T COMPROMISE MY INTEGRITY ...I mean because i'm a huge nerd xDDD
So yeah, ever since I made this wig for Eui these two have been inseparable ;w;
~
//RANT UPDATE FEELS BLAH
But anyways, these two kind of tie into my current state of thoughts/feelings in the hobby so I might as well give some updates on that while i'm here. To be honest, I thought that I was done with reflections and changes for myself in the hobby for a while as I feel like that's all that's been going on with me lately but I still have the deep yearning to change things, set goals and refocus so I suppose i'm not done yet as annoying is that is for me and probably for you guys to bare witness to as well. To start, a lot of my feelings/goals in the hobby are changing still but the one that hasn't budged is that my ultimate main goal in the doll hobby is to get my little conflicted quartet of Faustus, Euclid, Hyacinth and Petra "complete" and as perfect as possible. Thankfully they are pretty close to getting there as I'm so happy and content with all of their head sculpts and Faustus is the only one who I feel needs a body upgrade. Its been WAY too long for them to still be so unfinished and there are so many fun projects I want to do for them so they are definitely priority number one.
I also decided a while back that I wouldn't be starting my reshelling process of Shu/Calliope/Etzel until these four are at an acceptable level of "completeness" to where it feels warranted to begin a new big project. The prospect of not having Shu as a doll for some time definitely pains me as he's so special to me, but I think it'll ultimately frustrate and confuse me a lot less if I focus on a smaller amount of dolls at a time. They will 100% be coming back in the future of course but i'm not putting any set dates to start on that anytime soon.
But really, my Unicorn character's story and these characters have been my greatest love in the hobby since the beginning and continue to be to this day and the longer i'm in the hobby the more I feel like i'd be happiest if this was the only one of my really complex pre-existing stories that I focused on as dolls. I can imagine just focusing on them exclusively and building up their world and the most important characters in it, constantly improving them and making them more clothes, dioramas, etc. and being completely content. Putting forth all my effort and passion into really fleshing them out, you know? The more time goes by the more that notion comes to the forefront of my thoughts and I think all of my confusion and indecisiveness in the hobby has been culminating to this seemingly inevitable conclusion. I've even been annoying myself with how fickle i've become with my dolls lately and I know that isn't the type of person I am and don't want to continue being. I think back on myself when I first joined the hobby when in the beginning I only focused on my Unicorn characters and I think that was when I felt the most happy and when everything made the most sense to me, you know? And ever since I decided to pursue lots of different characters of mine from lots of different stories it made everything so much more difficult, frustrating and I overall just less fun. That isn't to say I have been devoid of enjoyment in the hobby ever since then because that's absolutely not the case, but I just feel that i'd get even more enjoyment out of it while feeling more productive and fulfilled if I focused more heavily on the one thing i've been inspired by the most from the beginning up to now.
That also being said, because i'd so adamantly chosen the path of shelling characters from so many of my very detailed pre-existing stories I kind of cut myself off from having the ability to just get dolls that inspire me and letting my creativity run wild. My Minifee FLAM, Rift, (and to a lesser extend Rumor before her) really opened my eyes to just how much I love the process of creating something new with a doll and just going where the creativity takes me and prior to her I never allowed myself to do that. I adore Rift so much because she gave me something that I had been hungry for ever since I joined the hobby but was to wrapped up in my own ideas to realize; freedom. I've come to understand that there are two main paths one can go down in the hobby; very methodically shelling your own pre-existing characters as dolls or making completely new characters/concepts for dolls that you want and inspire you. I've always known that sticking exclusively to the later path could lead to having too many dolls you don't know what to do with but I don't think I realized that sticking so exclusively to the first path could become limiting and take away the feeling of freedom. I guess what i'm trying to say is that i've been leaning too heavily to one side for too long and I think what I really want is balance and allow myself to walk down both paths rather than restricting myself to just one. I've noticed lots of people tend to do the same thing, like for example some shell important well-developed characters from their story all in SD but then have a bunch of YoSDs or MSDs as their random "fun" dolls, you know? I think a similar approach is what would work best for me in the long run as well. Shelling my most beloved characters from my most beloved story and having the feeling of accomplishment that comes with bring them to life as accurately as possible, but also having a series of dolls that is nothing but pure art and creativity that has no restrictions. Hopefully that makes sense.
T__T Anyway, as much as I think this is ultimately the best course of action for me and what all of the frustration/confusion i've been having these days have been working toward, but this whole thing feels so much more difficult to overcome considering the dolls I currently have on order. Two of them were originally intended to be a part of my Egyptian character's story which if I do commit to pursuing only my Unicorn character's story it just makes it all the more difficult to say goodbye to. (I am thinking that the two who haven't arrived yet I could transition into characters that would fit in with my Unicorn character's story/other plans but we'll see.) I think the biggest thing that has prevented me from really just fully committing to this plan is because I love my Egyptian characters and their story so much as well and I legitimately hate the idea of parting with them as I love both the dolls and characters that they represent. River in particular is a very special doll to me and has always been a huge favorite of mine so the idea of parting with him especially kind of kills me. Like, I consider him my very first real "grail" doll, one that i'd never thought that i'd actually own, so considering parting with him in particular is honestly the hardest decision i've yet had to make and I really don't know yet if I can do it. I desperately want to somehow work him into my Unicorn character's story just so I can justify keeping him. I absolutely refuse to force random new characters into my Unitrios story as I care to much about its integrity for that, but perhaps there may be an existing character in the story that he could suit with minor alterations. I've never successfully been able to give a new character to a doll that previously had one but i'm willing to try again for him~
But as much as I do love River and his story I still feel so much more passionately about my Unicorn characters and could still so easily imagine myself giving my Egyptian characters up in favor of them and not regretting it. No sacrifice i've made for the sake of improving my Unicorn characters i've ever regretted so far since they really do mean that much to me, but still, even knowing that doesn't make committing to this any easier. Again, i'm going to do everything in my power to justify keeping River only as a different character but Raum and the other two dolls I have on order I originally planned for their story I very well may not end up keeping.
Then there is the matter of the other doll I have on order, my F60 Cygne. I think she is really what pushed me over the edge to really understanding just how much I wanted freedom in the hobby and my desire to finally just commit to getting a doll because I love and am inspired by it. It kind of goes against my new course of action if I end up making her my character IbbI as she is also from one of my really complex and pre-existing stories and I really do not want to branch out beyond the one, but really, I find this particular doll to be so inspiring that I could imagine her as a dozen different things and be just as in love with all of them. That kind of leads me into what i'm possibly thinking of for my "fun" group of dolls in the future. I mentioned before that the vast majority of dolls i've been intensely captivated by and consider "grails" in some form or another are SDs. I think logically it just makes the most sense that a size that i've always found so intriguing and inspiring is the size I should devote to my purely creative endeavors. Even before Cygne was a thing I had been thinking for a long time about making a series of dolls that tie together but don't have a super specific story or have really developed characters but are at their core each meant to be a beautiful work of art centered around a theme. They'd all be really intricate and unique projects most involving mods and dyeing and would be the perfect way to own dolls i've always loved but otherwise couldn't justify owning, realize ideas I couldn't do with my specific characters dolls because it wouldn't be canonically accurate, and really challenge my skills and creativity in a way that only having no limits could be possible. Of course, whether or not I actually enjoy SDs in real life is still up in the air as I haven't got to hold a complete one in my hands yet so whether or not I actually pursue this is dependent on how I feel about them when my Cygne arrives, but I am really hoping I end up liking the size as i'm ridiculously inspired by this project. I'll of course share more about it if/when it ends up working out, but yeah, just know that they would be the most unique and captivating dolls ever and i'm sure you guys would absolutely adore them ;w;
If it does end up working it kind of creates another problem with Rift and her little "fun" side project if I wanted to remain size-specific, but I suppose i'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
And as far who Cygne will end up being i'm not entirely sure at this point but i'm alright with waiting until she arrives to figure it out exactly. I'll probably make more mockups and such for some other ideas I have for her but idk if you guys would want to see even more of those at this point haha xD
Ack, anyways rambling as usual, sorry, but hopefully that kind of explains where i'm coming from and how i'm feeling. I swear this is going to be the last reflective/somber update i'm going to have in a LONG time because at this point I know what has been plaguing me and now feel confident in building things up even stronger once things have been sorted out for good. Not certain as to what will happen with River, Raum, my DIM Annabeth or Sio2 Ragdoll yet but hopefully I can work River and Annabeth into my Unicorn character's story and Ragdoll perhaps can be some sort of companion to my Cygne, we'll see.
Despite the idea of possibly having to say goodbye to more dolls/stories i'm actually not sad at all, instead relieved. It feels like a weight has been lifted and I feel more inspired than ever to make the dolls I have something truly special and press forward with both clear goals but also the freedom to go where the creativity lies. This year has been difficult for me both with dolls and with life but I've learned a lot about myself and what I truly want out of my dolls. 2016 was a year of darkness and sad goodbyes for both me and in the perspective of most people in general, but i'm keeping positive that 2017 will be full of creativity, progress and and wonderful new things.
I really appreciate everyone who has stuck with me through this whole process and encouraged me to follow my heart no matter how difficult that can be at times.
*hugs*
---
Faustus (right, boy) is a Soom R. Shale in Cream White skin. Faceup, horn and wig by me.
Euclid (left, gender fluid) is a modded Fairyland Minifee Luka in Beautiful White skin. Faceup, mods, horn, wig and harness by me.
“We were telling stories, trying to guess if the tale told was fact or fiction. M… came up with this story, chilling in the way it was so wretchedly confessed to us. Most of us thought it was fact, but didn’t really want to believe it.
(read fact or fiction? At the end of the background section)
BACKGROUND
“Algonquin Round Table writers, a group of town wits who had converged on New York in the late 1910s. From their positions as columnists, essayists, and drama critics, this "all-star literary vaudeville," as Edmund Wilson called them, nourished a light, sharp, mocking tone aimed at well-known personalities, among whom they counted themselves. Wartime friends Franklin P. Adams, Harold Ross, Heywood Broun, and Alexander Woollcott were among the bantering quipsters who began meeting for daily lunches at the Algonquin Hotel. With so many clever wordsmiths, this self-named "vicious circle" soon became famous for its ingenious puns, quips, and insults appearing immediately in print in someone's column.”
The Algonquin Round Table was a celebrated group of New York City writers, critics, actors and wits. Gathering initially as part of a practical joke, members of "The Vicious Circle", as they dubbed themselves, met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel from 1919 until roughly 1929. At these luncheons they engaged in wisecracks, wordplay and witticisms that, through the newspaper columns of Round Table members, were disseminated across the country.
"Their form of social media was just that: social. Imagine having the time every day to break for a couple hours to have lunch with your funny, intelligent friends? They didn’t post witty replies on Facebook. They said them face-to-face, such as the time Dorothy Parker was asked to use the word “horticulture” in a sentence: “You can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think.” Was her quick response.
Daily association with each other, both at the luncheons and outside of them, inspired members of the Circle to collaborate creatively. The entire group worked together successfully only once, however, to create a revue called No Sirree! which helped launch a Hollywood career for Round Tabler Robert Benchley.
In its ten years of association, the Round Table and a number of its members acquired national reputations both for their contributions to literature and for their sparkling wit. Although some of their contemporaries, and later in life even some of its members, disparaged the group, its reputation has endured long after its dissolution.
**************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
An elderly lady known to one of us was from the States, was visited with quite often before she passed on. She was a school chum of Tallulah and related this Roundtable tale told to her.
We would be quite interested to learn more of the story and possibly about the incident retold below. If anyone is aware of an occurrence similar to this one in or even outside of Pennsylvania please feel free to tell us about it.
Fact or Fiction?
As Related to Emily over afternoon Tea one spring day……..
“We were playing a game, telling each other stories, and then trying to guess if the story was fact or fiction. Darling Harpo had suggested playing it after the reaction he had received for mischievously calling out a distraught Bea on the facts for a bit of society gossip she had been relating….”
“ We gone midway round the circle, and When challenged, M… came up with this story, chilling in the way it was so wretchedly confessed to us. Most of us thought it was fact, but didn’t really want to believe it had occurred. “
“I give the story as best I can through memory, only ever hearing it the one time years ago now. I believe I have captured its’ essence, but I could never in words captured the tortured look, or trembling manner that was shown when it was told before the group. All I can say is, either way; it was a masterful performance….”
The Confession ( story):
M lit a cigarette, and after sending a few wisps of smoke up to dance upon the ceiling, began the tale…
“I have done may things in my life I have later regretted, but this one, in particular, I have never told a living soul until now….” Drawing a deep breath, the story was continued.
“I have always had a curious streak to observe people’s reactions when in various situations. To get a better grasp of how my characters should act. It greatly piqued me to watch, without being seen, a person’s true emotions coming into play. Ralph Waldo Emerson once famously quoted that “ People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character” ... and that intriguing thought was what originally sent me on my quest..
Sometimes I was the protagonist behind the scenes whom, unbeknownst to the victims, had set them up. Sometimes I just followed and watched their behavior. I never intended for anyone to get hurt, emotionally or physically. But sometimes they did! Then I would solace my conscience by telling it that I was only doing it to improve upon my craft. But, then this one time, I probably did go a little bit too far….”
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sends a few more puffs of his cigarette wafting in smoky curls upwards as if in thought on how to actually begin…
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
“As a young man I would attend all different sorts of functions from all different levels of society to come up with ideas. I ran the gauntlet, from cock fights, hobo’s gathering around a campfire, to a wedding reception worthy of the Rockefellers. I noticed that I felt more at home with the hobos, than the fat cats. A condition, I am sure, caused by some flaw in my character. “
“But this instance, the function I encountered definitely belonged to the latter, Rockefeller fat cat , set.
The event, I soon learned, was the Homecoming of a small private College in a wealthy Pennsylvania community. Not my Alma Mater, but just a place I happened to be passing through which I had stopped whilst traveling home. “
“That there was a function going on in that little place was not hard to miss; the attendees were pouring out onto the streets from all sorts of establishments, and into others, including the bar I was holed up in. After a while I noticed a change in dress of the revelers costumes. School blazers and sensible dresses began to be replaced by tuxes and swishing satin gowns and colourful frocks. Their adornments also changed, from school ties to bow ties, Boaters (straw hats) to top hats for the men: Gold jewelry was replaced by sparkling necklaces and rings upon gloved hands for the ladies.”
“Another change was, that by then, the lot of them was pretty much plastered, but then, so was I!”
“ Finally I was flushed out of my hiding spot , and went for a walk outside to escape the noisy crowd.
I started to circle the upper portion of a large rural park that ran next to my late hiding spot. As I strolled, I noticed a man with a heavy coat and cap, rather sinisterly watching the crowd, standing against a tree just up ahead of me. When he saw me coming towards him, he turned down a path leading into the shadowy depths of the woods. I watched him go down for a minute, and observed that it led down to a small valley, where in the middle, surrounded by trees, stood a quite deserted football field. The path less traveled tonight, I thought to myself.
I kept to the path well-travelled however, and soon after turning a corner, came upon a young couple snogging on a bench. I stopped to watch, my mind racing with a mixture of drink inspired contemplations upon the little scene before me! “
“She was dolled up like a picture actress. Wearing a slithery glossy red gown that shined in the gas lamps pooling light, with matching gloves and a shimmering gold purse, she was a breathing Pygmalion . The jewels she was adorned with, rhinestones, I assumed, glittered happily as she moved. He was in a tux, an Errol Flynn moustache and gold watch chain and fob at his waist. They had no idea anyone was near them! Of course, Then, my cursed foot gave me away all too soon, as it stepped upon a twig, snapping it loudly, calling the couples attention to my peeping. Seeing me they got up and walked past me, snooty noses up in the air. She made a rude noise that would have better fitted an old mare in a barn. Well pardon my eyes I though, stinging from the obvious smite upon my character, which I always had held in high regard. Why dress in that manner and think no one deserves to take notice unless they meet with your approval? The princess was obviously not amused…”
“ I watched with disdain, and then , still transfixed, followed at a discreet distance as they walked back the way I had come. For some reason I was mesmerized by the pair of snobs, watching as they moved, her red gown swishing and swirling like a red waterfall upon the paved stones. They were holding closely onto one another, once again totally oblivious to their surroundings. There was a story there, if only…. “
“They stopped, and I went into the shadow of a tree. Looking back up the path they had come, I thought they may have seen my shadow. For they then looking again to each other, she murmured something and they turned down the very path, the path less travelled, that the heavy coated man had slinked away down. I felt maybe I should have run up and cautioned them against taking that path, but I was still stung by their rude reaction… Besides, I was rather curious to see if anything would happen.
In for pence, in for a pound I remember repeating to myself, as I discreetly continued my stalk.”
“I went into the shadows, seeing a large set of rocks beside the path I climbed up, getting a view of the path winding down into the small valley. I was just above a gas lamp that lit the path as it reached the valley floor below. The lamps lite effectively shadowed the rock whence I was perched. I could see the pair walking in and out of the shadows of the trees. Just as they reached the circle of light below me they stopped and embraced. I watched, totally unabashed.
Then, as I grew bored, or maybe my drink induced fog was started to clear my mind back to reality, I slowly started to make an exit stage right , when a shadow detached itself from a tree directly below me. I stayed mute and froze in my tracks, watching the event I knew was going to occur, began to unfold. The man’s shadowy figure approached the oblivious couple carefully, I could see his head jerking about making sure that the couple was alone, and unprotected. Picking up a chunk of wood he entered the circle of light, which now formed a small stage where a tragedy worthy of Shakespeare was most likely about to unfold!”
“I watched as the startled lovers became aware and tried to stare down the newcomer.
Now in the light, I could see He had shed his coat and gained a mask, but it was definitely the same sinister man I had seen earlier, obviously up to no good. The Errol Flynn wannabe put the girl behind him in defense, the masked man merely raised branch and whacked him on the side of his head, it broke with a sickening crunch, and her gallant defender went down like a sack of cement.
The sinister figure then turned his attention to the now helpless damsel in distress. Raising a cupped hand up he said something in a raspy voice that startled her. Apparently he was asking for her jewels, and the horror struck damsel had arrogantly not yet realized she was being mugged. The ladies long earrings shimmering as she shook her head no in response. The rings on her gloved fingers flashed as her hand went to her throat as she clearly cried out,” not my necklace”, in a hapless act of defiance. In my mind came a picture of a small kitten trying to defy a snarling wolf. She threw the gold purse at him, but he merely caught it, and placed it in his pocket. I remember feeling strangely detached, It may have been shock, but I found myself watching without one ounce of regret. The only thought I could remember was her glittering necklace, maybe they had not been rhinestones, which meant that she actually was wealthy and probably had been looking down her snooty nose upon me, like she probably did her own servants !!.
Well than she obviously did not desire my help, I decided, like she had quite rudely not desired my looking at her earlier… and after all , in her world, servants should be standing quietly in the background, seen but not heard. So, I decided that I wasn’t going to help unless absolutely life or death. Let the little lamb be trimmed of her rich wool I said to myself. She did show spunk, I will admit, but that’s all it was, a show. She went limp as he reached up, grabbing her hand away, than began pulling of the rings as she stood mute with disbelief. The diamond bracelet was wrenched unceremoniously from her wrist. Dropping her hand, he pocketed her rings and bracelet. Than he once again went for her necklace, and she backed up, shaking her head, earrings again shimmering as the pair innocently bounced away from her long hair. Then I saw a flash of silver in his hand, and she fainted dead away at the sight of his ugly blade…”.
“The masked man knelt over to her fallen body. The shiny red gown had spilled around her on the ground, Laying about her inert svelte figure like a pool of red lava. Reaching down and in he claimed her necklace, grasping it up and away from her throat. He looked at it for a few seconds, letting it sparkle in the moon’s light like slivery falling rain.
Then squatting beside her, he pulled away her hair, and yanked her taunting earrings free. He methodically felt along her figure, missing nothing. Then he again produced the knife, slicing off the brooch from her gown’s sash.
He pulled off her red high heels and threw tem deep into the woods.
Then he left her and went over to the unconscious escort, the bloody limb next to him” in quick, precise fashion, ‘Errol’s’, watch chain and fob were pulled free and pocketed. Then he reached in and pulled out the unlucky devils pocket book. Then pulling off ‘Errol’s’ shoes they soon joined the ladies high heels.
Arising calmly, he slowly looked around as he stowed the stolen articles and his knife away. He spent a split second longer on the area I was hidden, causing a shiver to make itself felt! Then, removing the mask he walked to where his long coat lay, and reclaiming it, he continued serenely on his way down the path. I watched in heavy silence as he disappeared in the woods, only to reappear by the football field. It was then that I stole away back up the path, careful not to be seen.”
“And no, I did not give any cry of alarm, did not involve myself by seeking or giving the hapless couple aid. I simply turned and left. I came away with nothing, no ideas, no new feelings for a character, just a sour taste in my mouth and an upset stomach, which I soon tried to relieve by stopping in at the next drinking establishment I came across. Beer didn’t help, so I switched to Scotch…!”
“ About an hour later I heard a siren and sensed commotion outside the confides of my prison. I did not go out to investigate.”
“After a fit less night of unrestful sleep, I left the next morning, daring not to read a paper, or stop there for breakfast ( having a late tea later a few hours away , I put the place and its memories to my back. “
“Ashamedly I did not render any assistance those poor souls, and I admit what I what I did was criminal.. But then in my defense , they ………………….., ”
“Yes?”
“It was at this point that the confession was interrupted by the appearance of a messenger boy sent for M….. Who took his leave, with a wicked smile that seemed to convey relief that an outcome of the story would not have to be faced?
Obliviously loving the mystery it created by the timely appearance of the messenger.” He never could be persuaded to return to his story only smiling that wicked little smile.
So, the worse of it was we never knew… because of the messenger boy’s interruption, never to learn to our satisfaction if the story was true or not..”
“How we all did hate that!”
****************************************************
There is some question as to the identity of M…. There are six members with M in their initial. It could have been a non-regular or even a nickname. If anyone else has heard of this tale, or could place a finger for us as to who M… may have been, we would welcome the enlightenment.
Charter members of the Round Table included:
Franklin Pierce Adams, columnist
Robert Benchley, humorist and actor
Heywood Broun, columnist and sportswriter (married to Ruth Hale)
Marc Connelly, playwright
Ruth Hale, freelance writer who worked for women's rights
George S. Kaufman, playwright and director
Dorothy Parker
“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”
“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”
“What fresh hell is this?”
Robert E. Sherwood, author and playwright
John Peter Toohey, publicist
Alexander Woollcott, critic and journalist
"The English have an extraordinary ability for flying into a great calm."
Membership was not official or fixed for so many others who moved in and out of the Circle. Some of these included:
Tallulah Bankhead, actress
Edna Ferber, author and playwright
Margalo Gillmore, actress
Jane Grant, journalist and feminist (married to Ross)
Beatrice Kaufman, editor and playwright (married to George S. Kaufman)
Margaret Leech, writer and historian
Neysa McMein, magazine illustrator
Harpo Marx, comedian and film star
Alice Duer Miller, writer
Donald Ogden Stewart, playwright and screenwriter
Frank Sullivan, journalist and humorist
Deems Taylor, composer
Estelle Winwood, actress
Peggy Wood, actress
Courtesy of Chatwick University Archives
Auto Focus, Case 3.
Still working with the Auto Focus cases. Case 3 says, "Instantly focus on subjects suddenly entering AF points." I'm not sure that I have the right method for testing these out. I still can't really tell the difference between how the camera is focusing for each case. I think I need to set up a repeatable test and methodically photograph each case. In other news, my daughter can finally get the ball up to the goal on a regular basis when she shoots now! Clearly, she puts her whole body into it.
Canon AE-1
FD 50mm f/1.8
Kodak Ektar
Hong Kong // Lantau Peak
The right side of this image is a result of an imperfect double exposure; I accidentally moved the rewind crank slightly. I kind of like it however, I think it adds some spice to an otherwise boring shot. I recently bought a bright yellow Holga 135! The little thing is so fun to shoot. I have no idea how anything will turn out, so I'm free to shoot carelessly which is quite a relief from my normal, methodical pattern. To keep the lomo trend going, I just loaded my AE-1 with some lomochrome purple, after saving it for around a month. Intensely excited to see how everything turns out
This massive buck is the largest one I've seen at the Palmyra Cove Nature Park over the three years I've now been visiting. I've spotted him several years in a row, as have some of my friends who also visit here. He is built like an NFL linebacker; a thick neck and a wide and impressive rack. I came across him by chance as I was leaving the park. A doe was by the roadside, so I eased the car to a stop near the doe. As I scanned the nearby woods, I noticed this monster buck about 25 feet behind the doe. He slowly and methodically moved closer to the doe and where I was positioned. As he got closer, I must admit that I did get a bit nervous as the doe began stomping her foot very purposefully which is an alert sign to the other deer. The last thing that I wanted was to be charged by this testosterone loaded giant. Thankfully, that did not happen. Best viewed large (L).
It's Monday and the week begins. Enjoy the day!
Methodically patrolling the strip between land and sea.
Brahminy Kite, Port Macquarie, N.S.W. North Coast
A couple of days ago I met this young man walking his baby dog..They seemed to have a great friendship,which I'm sure will be lifelong :) After reading the moving story Jacii posted below his awesome shot,I thought it could symbolize that friendship... Unfortunately ,if there's nobody at home to help me ,I cannot do even the simplest things such as posting the link of my contacts ..I expect Jacii will help me with that ..or by showing his presence with that beautiful yet sad story he'll make his address known..
Sevgili arkadaşlar,
Bir iki gün önce bu ikilinin arasında ,belli ki hayat boyu sürecek bir dostluğa şahit oldum
Jacii'nin resmi altındaki etkileyici öyküyü okuduktan sonra o dostluğu sembolize edeceğini düşünerek bu kareyi yüklemeye karar verdim...ne yazık ki link yüklemeyi beceremiyorum...jacii'nin bana bu konuda yardımcı olmasını bekliyorum...Ancak öyküyü buraya eklerse de Türkçe'sini bulmam mümkün değil..Çok özür dilerim !
The Old Man and the Dog
by
Catherine Moore
"Watch out! You nearly broad sided that car!" My father yelled at me.
"Can't you do anything right?"
Those words hurt worse than blows. I turned my head toward the elderly man in the seat beside me, daring me to challenge him. A lump rose in my throat as I averted my eyes. I wasn't prepared for another battle.
"I saw the car, Dad. Please don't yell at me when I'm driving." My voice was measured and steady, sounding far calmer than I really felt.
Dad glared at me, then turned away and settled back. At home I left Dad in front of the television and went outside to collect my thoughts. Dark, heavy clouds hung in the air with a promise of rain. The rumble of distant thunder seemed to echo my inner turmoil.
What could I do about him?
Dad had been a lumberjack in Washington and Oregon. He had enjoyed being outdoors and had reveled in pitting his strength against the forces of nature. He had entered grueling lumberjack
competitions, and had placed often. The shelves in his house were filled with trophies that attested to his prowess.
The years marched on relentlessly. The first time he couldn't lift a heavy log, he joked about it;
but later that same day I saw him outside alone, straining to lift it. He became irritable whenever anyone teased him about his advancing age, or when he couldn't do something he had done as a younger man.
Four days after his sixty-seventh birthday, he had a heart attack. An ambulance sped him to
the hospital while a paramedic administered CPR to keep blood and oxygen flowing. At the hospital, Dad was rushed into an operating room. He was lucky; he survived.
But something inside Dad died. His zest for life was gone. He obstinately refused to follow doctor's orders. Suggestions and offers of help were turned aside with sarcasm and insults. The number of visitors thinned, then finally stopped altogether. Dad was left alone.
My husband, Dick, and I asked Dad to come live with us on our small farm. We
hoped the fresh air and rustic atmosphere would help him adjust. Within a week
after he moved in, I regretted the invitation. It seemed nothing was
satisfactory. He criticized everything I did. I became frustrated and moody.
Soon I was taking my pent-up anger out on Dick. We began to bicker and argue.
Alarmed, Dick sought out our pastor and explained the situation. The clergyman
set up weekly counseling appointments for us. At the close of each session he
prayed, asking God to soothe Dad's troubled mind. But the months wore on and
God was silent. Something had to be done and it was up to me to do it
The next day I sat down with the phone book and methodically called
each of the mental health clinics listed in the Yellow Pages. I explained my
problem to each of the sympathetic voices that answered. In vain. Just when I
was giving up hope, one of the voices suddenly exclaimed, "I just read
something that might help you! Let me go get the article." I listened as she
read. The article described a remarkable study done at a nursing home All of
the patients were under treatment for chronic depression. Yet their attitudes
had improved dramatically when they were given responsibility for a dog.
I drove to the animal shelter that afternoon. After I filled out a
questionnaire, a uniformed officer led me to the kennels. The odor of
disinfectant stung my nostrils as I moved down the row of pens. Each contained
five to seven dogs. Long-haired dogs, curly-haired dogs, black dogs, spotted
dogs all jumped up, trying to reach me. I studied each one but rejected one
after the other for various reasons too big, too small, too much hair. As I
neared the last pen a dog in the shadows of the far corner struggled to his
feet, walked to the front of the run and sat down. It was a pointer, one of
the dog world's aristocrats. But this was a caricature of the breed. Years had
etched his face and muzzle with shades of gray. His hipbones jutted out in
lopsided triangles. But it was his eyes that caught and held my attention.
Calm and clear, they beheld me unwaveringly. I pointed to the dog. "Can
you tell me about him?" The officer looked, then shook his head in puzzlement.
"He's a funny one. Appeared out of nowhere and sat in front of the gate. We brought him in, figuring someone would be right down to claim him. That was two weeks ago and we've heard nothing. His time is up tomorrow." He gestured helplessly.
As the words sank in I turned to the man in horror. "You mean you're going to kill him?"
"Ma'am," he said gently, "that's our policy. We don't have room for every unclaimed dog."
I looked at the pointer again. The calm brown eyes awaited my decision. "I'll take him," I said.
I drove home with the dog on the front seat beside me. When I reached the house I honked the horn twice. I was helping my prize out of the car when Dad shuffled onto the front porch.
"Ta-da! Look what I got for you, Dad!" I said excitedly.
Dad looked, then wrinkled his face in disgust. "If I had wanted a dog I would have gotten one. And I would have picked out a better specimen than that bag of bones. Keep it! I
don't want it" Dad waved his arm scornfully and turned back toward the house.
Anger rose inside me. It squeezed together my throat muscles and pounded into my temples.
"You'd better get used to him, Dad. He's staying!" Dad ignored me. "Did you hear me, Dad?" I screamed. At those words Dad whirled angrily, his hands clenched at his sides, his eyes narrowed and blazing with hate.
We stood glaring at each other like duelists, when suddenly the pointer pulled free from my grasp. He wobbled toward my dad and sat down in front of him. Then slowly, carefully, he raised his paw.
Dad's lower jaw trembled as he stared at the uplifted paw. Confusion replaced the anger in his eyes. The pointer waited patiently. Then Dad was on his knees hugging the animal.
It was the beginning of a warm and intimate friendship. Dad named the pointer Cheyenne. Together he and Cheyenne explored the community. They spent long hours walking down dusty
lanes. They spent reflective moments on the banks of streams, angling for
tasty trout. They even started to attend Sunday services together, Dad sitting
in a pew and Cheyenne lying quietly at his feet.
Dad and Cheyenne were inseparable throughout the next three years. Dad's bitterness faded, and he and Cheyenne made many friends. Then late one night I was startled to feel Cheyenne's cold nose burrowing through our bed covers. He had never before come into our bedroom at night. I woke Dick, put on my robe and ran into my father's room. Dad lay in his bed, his face serene. But his spirit had left quietly sometime during the night.
Two days later my shock and grief deepened when I discovered Cheyenne lying dead beside Dad's bed. I wrapped his still form in the rag rug he had slept on. As Dick and I buried him near a
favorite fishing hole, I silently thanked the dog for the help he had given me in restoring Dad's peace of mind.
The morning of Dad's funeral dawned overcast and dreary. This day looks like the way I feel, I thought, as I walked down the aisle to the pews reserved for family. I was surprised to see
the many friends Dad and Cheyenne had made filling the church. The pastor began his eulogy. It was a tribute to both Dad and the dog who had changed his life. And then the pastor turned to Hebrews 13:2. "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers."
"I've often thanked God for sending that angel," he said.
For me, the past dropped into place, completing a puzzle that I had not seen before: the sympathetic voice that had just read the right article...
Cheyenne's unexpected appearance at the animal shelter... his calm acceptance and complete devotion to my father...and the proximity of their deaths. And suddenly I understood.
I knew that God had answered my prayers after all.
Life is too short for drama & petty things, so laugh hard, love truly and forgive quickly.
Live While You Are Alive.
Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.
Forgive now those who made you cry. You might not get a second time.
And if you don't send this to at least 4 people - who cares? But do share this with someone.
Lost time can never be found .
#278 July 22,2008 Thank you all :)
Excerpt from battlefieldhouse.ca:
Samuel Nash immigrated to Upper Canada from Connecticut in 1800 and married Susannah Gage ten years later. The newly married couple was deeded land from Susannah's father, William Gage. On this land, a house would be built that witnessed two centuries of local history. In fact, the homestead was used as a hospital during the Battle of Stoney Creek in 1813. Moreover, the house is truly unique because five successive generations of the same family inhabited it.
A log cabin was built first on the property, as was typical of most settlers in the area. By 1810, a two-storey Georgian-style dwelling was complete, and Samuel and Susannah Nash's farm prospered.
Throughout the years, the Grandview (Nash-Jackson House) would be remodeled mostly due to the growing needs of the family. For instance, Anna Catherine Nash, who lived in the home with her husband Samuel Nash II, built the side addition between 1870 and 1880 (as shown in the picture above) because she wanted a little more room.
In subsequent years, the gingerbread porch was also replaced, and a second bathroom was constructed adjacent to the master bedroom.
Leone (Nash) Jackson and her husband Angus Jackson, were the fourth generation to live in the house, and together they had three children. Mrs. Leone Jackson died in 1996, and through the generosity of her family, the home was donated to the City of Stoney Creek. The house will be used as a gift shop and tearoom to complement the site, and will stand as a permanent dedication to the family that once lived in it.
On November 7, 1999, the Grandview (Nash-Jackson House) was moved to Battlefield Park, and with the house came two centuries of a family's heritage which intertwines with Stoney Creek's social history. This is not a separate realm of social accounts, but one that is historically linked to Battlefield House and Stoney Creek. Family surnames such as Gage, Quigley, Burkholder, Munn, Nash, MacDonald, Jackson, Potruff, Jones and Spera all contribute to a rich history which involves thousands of descendants.
The Grandview (Nash-Jackson House) is a Georgian-style dwelling completed in 1810. It is accompanied by a unique collection of antique furniture and decor. In the future, the historic home will complement Battlefield Park by providing a tea room, gift shop and social function facility. Of course, the house will always stand as a living commemoration to the family that once lived there.
In writing about her family's background, Leone (Nash) Jackson remarked, "I find now that my ancestors were not sufficiently methodical to keep family records... but I do think it is interesting to [do so]." When your family history includes stories of joy, tragedy, prosperity and success, keeping family records becomes increasingly appealing. The Grandview (Nash-Jackson House) was on a Crown grant of land, which five successive generations of the Nash family inhabited. Moreover, the house was used as a hospital for the wounded during the Battle of Stoney Creek.
Around 1800, Samuel Nash came to Upper Canada from Connecticut. He married Susannah Gage and the family tree took root on the corner of Nash Road and King Street. Together, Samuel and Susannah had six children. Unfortunately, Susannah died in 1823, and Samuel subsequently remarried "the widow" Barbara Spera. Spera had eight children from her previous marriage. Samuel had such a large number of children enrolled in school from both marriages, the school board would not accept them without payment of an additional tax. Samuel asserted that he only paid taxes on land, and not on children. Around this time, a young teacher was visiting the area and stopped near the Nash House to retrieve water for his horse. Samuel was so delighted that he promptly hired the young traveller for f50 a year. To accommodate a school setting, Mr. Nash built a schoolroom on his property. These decisions regarding his children's education likely cost more than the tax addition initially requested, but they show Samuel's determination.
This story had a rather romantic ending because the teacher, Mr. Dunning, married Hannah, the oldest daughter of Samuel and Susannah Nash. They moved to Chicago, but visited Stoney Creek periodically.
Indian Cuckoo (Cuculus micropterus)
The generic name derives from the onomatopoeic name for a cuckoo, based on the bird's call, in Old English = coccou or cukkow, in French = coucou and in Greek = kokkux or kokkyx. The specific name results from a combination of two Greek words: micro = little or very small and ptero = wing. Together, the name literally means "small winged cuckoo" which is reflected in an early common name.
Other common names: Short-winged Cuckoo, Indian Hawk-Cuckoo.
Taxonomy: Cuculus micropterus Gould 1837, Himalayas.
Sub-species & Distribution: Two races are recognised, both of which are found in this region:
micropterus Gould 1837, Himalayas. Ranges from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand, east to E China, Mongolia, Korea and E Russia. It winters south to the Andamans and Nicobars, West Malaysia, Singapore, Sumatra, Java, Borneo and the Philippines.
concretus S. Müller 1845, Borneo. This smaller resident form is found in Borneo, Sumatra and Java. It is also found from Phattalung, in S Thailand, south to Johore (Medway & Wells 1976).
Similar species: It is very similar to two other Cuculus species. The Common Cuckoo C. canorus does not occur in this region. The Oriental Cuckoo C. saturatus is a rare winter visitor and passage migrant. Both these birds do not have a broad black sub-terminal band, tipped with white, on the tail.
Size: 12½ to 13" (31 to 33 cm). Sexes differ slightly.
Description: Male: Head and neck dark ashy-grey tinged with brown, paler on the lores, chin, throat and upper breast. Remaining upperparts, scapulars and wing coverts dark ashy-brown, the primaries and secondaries similar but barred with white along the inner webs. Tail dark ashy-brown with a broad black sub-terminal band and tipped with white. Basally, the tail feathers have a series of alternating white and black bands, more on the outer feathers than the inner ones, often with white or rufous notches along both edges. Lower breast and abdomen creamy-white, boldly barred with dark blackish-brown bars, the vent, axillaries, undertail and underwing coverts more narrowly barred with blackish-brown.
Female: Very like the male, with the throat and breast tinged with rufous.
Immature birds: Juvenile birds appear largely white to rufous-white with dark brown bars on the head, nape, upper back, chin, throat, sides of neck and breast, the face and ear coverts less heavily marked. Remaining upperparts, including wing coverts more rufous, the feathers broadly edged with rufous-buff and tipped with white. Lower breast, belly and vent pale buffy-white, broadly barred with blackish-brown, more so on the flanks. The tail appears largely to be barred with rufous and black, with more numerous bars than adult have. They, too, like the adults, have a broad black sub-terminal tail band.
Gradually, the white and rufous edges on the upperparts disappear, the throat and upper breast turn ashy, and the bars on the underparts become more defined. Within five months of leaving the nest, the young are almost in adult plumage, the rufous band across the upper breast being ultimately lost except in females. However, they often have rufous or whitish tips to the flight feathers and upperwing coverts (Oates & Blanford 1895).
Soft parts: Iris dark yellowish-brown, orbital ring orange-yellow. Upper mandible black, lower mandible greenish-horn tipped with black, gape orange-yellow. Legs and feet orange-yellow, claws black.
Status, Habitat & Behaviour: A common winter visitor and passage migrant, is found throughout Singapore, the earliest date being 14th September, the latest date 19th May (Wang & Hails 2007). Between these two dates, this bird has not been recorded in Singapore, which suggests that C. m. concretus, the resident form found south to Johore in west Malaysia, does not occur in Singapore.
The nominate form is a vagrant to Borneo where C. m. concretus, a smaller and darker form, is also the resident race (Smythies & Davison 1999), up to 1100 m (3300 feet) in the Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak. In Sabah, it is found in primary, peatswamp and logged forests (Sheldon et. al. 2001).
In Singapore, it is more usually found in forests, along forest edges, in mangroves, secondary scrub and, occasionally, in gardens and parks (Wang & Hails 2007). In West Malaysia, both resident and migrant forms are found to 760 m (2500 feet), in the canopy of lowland and hill forests, as well as on offshore islands (Medway & Wells 1976). In India and Nepal, where it is very common in summer, it can be found in fairly wooded country to 2300 m, even up to 3700 m (Baker 1927).
A solitary and shy bird, it is generally found singly and easily overlooked, keeping to the treetops or flying hawk-like over the forest canopy. During the breeding season, however, it becomes very vocal, calling incessantly during the early hours of dawn and again at dusk, far into the night, especially on moonlit nights, even calling on the wing during courtship chases (Ali & Ripley 1969).
Food: It mainly eats caterpillars, ants, locustids, fruit, butterflies and grasshoppers (Smythies 1968), sometimes coming down to the ground, hopping about awkwardly to pick up insects from within the leaf litter (Ali & Ripley 1969). In Singapore, it was found feeding at a termite hatch (Subaraj 2008).
Voice and Calls: In India, its most common four-note call is a fine melodious pleasing whistle from which evolved some of its popular local names, Bo-kota-ko in Bengali (Jerdon 1862), Kyphulpakka (Oates & Blanford 1895), and the "Broken Pekoe" bird in English (Baker & Inglis 1930). The call has also been variously annotated by several other authors: as "crossword puzzle" (Ali & Ripley 1969), a far-carrying wa-wa-wa-wu (Medway & Wells 1976), a flute-like ko-ko-ta-ko (King, Woodcock & Dickinson 1975), as reminiscent of the beginning of Beethoven's 5th symphony (Sheldon et. al. 2001). There are several other interpretations of its call (Tsang 2010).
In the Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak, its call was continuously heard in late February over sub-montane forest at 900 m (3000 feet). The loud four-note call was fairly musical, koh-koh-koh-kok, the first three syllables on the same pitch, the third sometimes higher, the last note always lower. It was persistently uttered for several minutes at a time, each burst of four-note lasting slightly over one second with about two seconds between each burst, occasional with a fifteen to thirty seconds break between each set of notes. Once or twice, it made a more rounded fluting and musical variation of the same four notes. Most of the time, the call was echoed, almost synchronously, by a four-note squeaking call, much more shrill and softer, sometimes in a lower key (Sreedharan 2005).
It usually calls from the tops of tall trees or when flying from tree to tree (Jerdon 1862), and much more persistently during breeding season, often calling all night long (Smythies 1968). The call is uttered intermittently for hours on end, for more than five minutes at a stretch, at about 23 calls per minute, and, while courting a nearby female, the wings are dropped, the tail spread wide and erected, the bird pivoting from side to side (Ali & Ripley 1969).
Breeding: Very little is known of the breeding of this Cuckoo. It is brood parasitic and, instead of building its own nest, it surreptitiously lays eggs in the nests of several host species, its choice of victim varying from location to location. The nominate form, C. m. micropterus, does not breed in our area. The local form, C. m. concretus breeds in peninsular Malaysia.
The breeding season varies from May to July in northern China, March to August in India, January to June in Burma and January to August in the Malay Peninsula.
In India, the host species are said to be Streaked Laughing-Thrush Garrulax lineatus, White-bellied Redstart Hodgsonius phoenicuroides, Indian Bush-Chat Saxicola torquata and Indian Blue Robin Luscinia brunnea, all of which lay blue or bluish eggs, similar to those of this Cuckoo (Baker 1927).
Additionally, it is said to victimise species such as Fork-tailed Drongo Dicrurus adsimilis, Ashy Drongo Dicrurus leucophaeus but other species, "in whose nests putative eggs of this cuckoo are claimed to have been found, or have been observed feeding its young", include the Asian Paradise-flycatcher Terpsiphone paradisi, the Streaked Spiderhunter Arachnothera magna and, in Sri Lanka, the Black-hooded Oriole Oriolus xanthornus (Ali & Ripley 1969).
Given the difficulty in determining the identity of young cuckoos, it is hardly surprising that these two authors have included a caveat, stating that the available data on the breeding biology of this bird, indeed, of all parasitic cuckoos are, "by and large, meagre, and of dubious authenticity. Most accounts are vague, largely conjectural and often contradictory. The whole subject calls for a more methodical de novo re-investigation".
Currently, this picture (Ong 2008), of a juvenile Indian Cuckoo fostered by a Black-and-yellow Broadbill Eurylaimus ochromalus provides the only incontrovertible evidence of a confirmed host in Malaysia. In Amurland, Siberia, its main host is the Brown Shrike Lanius cristatus, the cuckoo's eggs hatching in about 12 days, two to three days sooner than that of the shrike (Ali & Ripley 1969).
Oviduct eggs from females are said to be of two types: whitish with small reddish-brown dots, closely matching drongo eggs, or pale greyish-blue, like those of the Turdinae, the eggs c. 25 x 19 mm in size (Ali & Ripley 1969).
Migration: Seventeen night-flying migrants, attributed to C. m. micropterus, were caught at Fraser's Hill from 10th October to 27th November and 7th to 14th April between 1966 and 1969. Birds on passage were also collected in November at One Fathom Bank Lighthouse and on Rembia and Pisang islands. None of these belonged to the resident races have been handled (Medway & Wells 1976).
Moult: In the Family Cuculidae, moult strategy is quite complex, occasionally suspended. The primaries moult from two centres, P1 to P4 descendantly, P5 to P10 ascendantly. The secondaries, too, have two centres, S1 to S5 centripetally, S6 to S9 ascendant and alternate. Tail moult is irregular. They moult twice annually, undergoing a partial summer moult and a complete winter moult which finishes in early spring (Baker 1993).
None of the migrant birds from the off-shore sources were in moult. The migrants caught at Fraser's Hill in autumn were all in post-juvenile or adult plumage, indicating that the annual moult is completed in the breeding grounds, before they reach winter quarters (Medway & Wells 1976).
Been settlin’ in here pretty well. Got all my old books, Amanda gave me all the patient files we’ve accumulated so far, and Pammy even sent me a plant! I hope she doesn’t expect it to survive though, I just haven’t got the green thumbs she’s got. But hey! Who does! Anyways, I’m not gonna lie, it’s pretty wild seein Belle Reve change so much. This place used to be a white-walled hell. Now it’s almost an actual functioning mental hospital. I wonder if Arkham could ever reach even this point. Even Amanda’s different. Sure she’s still hard-ass, made-of-stone Waller, but now there’s somethin’ different, even in just the way she talks. I mean she gave me this position for gosh sake’s! I never expected to go from bein holed up in one of the cells downstairs to havin’ my own office, but here I am, and I got her to thank for it of all people.
June Moone on the other hand, feels different. Turns out, when Floyd and the boys went to nail that Pentagram cult, they got sucked into the same dimension Juney was sucked into a while back and came back with not only her, but two of the Pentagram creeps, and of all people, Prometheus. How he got there I have no clue, Waller hasn’t let anyone talk to him. Instantly, ole purple-pants got locked away in the basement somewhere.
Anyways, June. To her, most of the last year of being trapped in The Enchantress was partially Waller’s fault. Not only that, but June’s only used to being exploited by Waller, despite the initial offer to help June get more control over her headmate, that never really happened, and now I can’t blame June for wantin’ to get as far away from here as possible now that her headmate’s moved out. I’m sure it was a genuine surprise to her when Amanda offered to let her go. Amanda didn’t even consider keepin’ the kid. Makes me wonder how she makes decisions. Maybe some time she’ll let me dig into that brain of hers (that’s a pipe-dream Harls, face it now). Either way, It’s a stroke of pure coincidence that the people to get her back out were Digger and Floyd of all people (also note to self, Angelo Bend’s gonna need a metric ton of therapy. Bito Wladon seems to be as smug as ever.)
As for June herself, I got to catch up with her a little bit. For someone that’s been locked in the portal from Event Horizon for a year, she’s takin’ the trauma real well. But I suppose when you transmogrify into an eldritch witch on a daily basis, you get kind of used to living in a horror movie. Not to toot my own kazoo, but I know firsthand how much trauma a girl can take. Turns out when she turned into Enchantress, she didn’t lose her memories completely, but it plays out like a bad nightmare. She just comes back with fragments. A couple horrifying visions, a few lasting scars (a real big one on her side now thanks to Floyd), and some severe nausea. She’s learned to take in stride though. For everything she’s been through, June Moone seems surprisingly well adjusted.
But boy howdy does she miss that crocodile.
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Amanda Waller’s office has never been what’s considered “inviting”, but then again, neither has she. Over years, she has cultivated its atmosphere to be as spartan as possible. One chair rests behind a long, plain desk. One lamp, sits upon that desk, and another light, bare and sparse, hangs from the ceiling. There are no other pieces of furniture, merely dozens of filing cabinets, lining the walls like steadfast tin soldiers, stuffed with decades of paperwork. It is a place of business, for a woman of business.
To Doctor Quinzel, it’s another prison cell, as cold and gray as the hollow rooms she herself has spent many a month in. If she were on duty, she’d describe Amanda Waller as in a prison of her own making, surrounding herself with this sort of atmosphere on purpose, because deep down, she knows she’s just a prisoner herself, with no chance of escape.
But Harleen isn’t here for Amanda.
Waller taps her fingers together dramatically. Methodically. Weighing her options.
Waller: So Enchantress is gone.
June: Yes, Miss Waller.
Waller: . . . prove it.
June, casually: Enchantress.
There is a crackle in the air, but it’s of anticipation. Nothing happens.
Waller: I see. Well, Miss Moone, we’re going to have to come to some kind of arrangement. Doctor Quinzel, is it advisable that Miss Moone here be allowed on the street?
Harley: Clean bill of health, boss.
June: Wait, you’re letting me go?
Waller: Frankly, girl, there’s no reason to keep you. I assume you’ve still got that little firecracker in your head, we’ll have that removed tomorrow morning. All we ask is for you to sign these contracts of utter and complete secrecy.
June, reaching for a pen: The Squad has changed a lot, hasn’t it?
Waller: Less than you think. Say word one to anyone that the Squad still exists, and you know who’ll come to collect. Read it all there in the fine print.
There is an unnecessarily tense moment as June scrawls her name deftly over the blank line. Once, twice, in triplicate, and sets the pen on the desk.
Waller: Thank you. You’ll be free in the morning, Miss Moone. Now if you two will excuse me.
Amanda Waller moves to file hours’ worth of paperwork. It’s the most dreary part of the job, but also the part that she knows can’t go wrong. Unlike with people, who oftentimes refuse to do as they’re told. June Moone, for instance, hasn’t left her seat yet.
Waller, flatly: Can I help you, child?
June: Do you have Waylon here?
Waller looks at June over her glasses, looks at Harley, then back at June. Her expression is unreadable.
Waller: No.
June: Is that a truthful no, or an Amanda Waller no?
At that, Waller smiles.
Harley: We don’t have him, Juney. No one’s seen him since the whole Cloudburst thing.
Waller: Well, that’s not entirely true.
June, accusingly: You do have him!
Waller: Simmer down, girl, we don’t. He’s in Arkham’s basement where, no offense to your little romance, most people would say he belongs. Now before you say another word, if it ensures your silence, I’ll make a few calls and get you in to see him. Now. Can I help you with anything else?
June smiles, it’s faint, but it’s cheerful, and shakes her head gently.
June: Thank you, Miss Waller.
Waller: Don’t mention it, girl. Now please, I’ve got stacks of transfer sheets to go through. Report to John, the ‘official’ warden tomorrow at seven. He’ll see you out.
June: Of course, of course. Thank you again.
Doctor Harleen Quinzel watches June Moone go. Amanda Waller, already nose-deep in paper, does not.
Harley: If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re getting soft, ‘Miss Waller’.
Waller: You don’t know better, doc, now do me a favor and leave me in peace.
Harley smiles: Sure, boss;
And shuts the door behind her.
A recent acquaintance loves to photograph architecture when she travels. She is so methodical about it that she keeps a log with the address of each building she photographs.
I do something similar in museums, where I photograph the label as well as the object on display.
The advantage of recording the addresses of architectural subjects is one can research the building later.
The disadvantage is that walking tours would take even longer because of the need to maintain the address log. Also, the time spent researching the structure and writing up the results would greatly delay posting the photos to Flickr. Had I done that, I estimate I'd be posting my photos from the end of this tour in Vilnius, Lithuania some time in 2020.
Oddity.
I was trawling through my old 365s earlier looking for inspiration and found an iteration of this and decided to give it a redo.
I managed to get the bedroom dark enough then got set up. Tripod 1 facing the only bit of bare wall big enough to fit me in and framed myself. I tucked 1 x Yongnuo 560iv in the back of my shorts with an old orange water pistol tank over the end, then once happy I added the blue fiber optics from lp brushes. Once happy with that I set up tripod two facing a piece of black card covered in pin pricks and worked on placement of the main flares and their formation. I boxed that off and returned to tripod 1.
I fired the shutter which fired the flash then reached for the blue fibers gripped between my thighs. I worked on my left hand first and my torso then my head before swapping hands and lighting my right hand. I replaced the lens cap, swapped tripods and lenses from 20mm to 50mm. I removed that lens cap and methodically created the stars back lighting the card until happy. Job done.
Originally inspired by the sublime work of R Digi.
All shot in a single long exposure with some light tinkering in Lightroom for mobile.
Happy days.
Dengar could tell by the desolation above the the bounty was gone and by the look of things he didn't leave willingly. Not wanting to leave empty handed he searches through the clutter bits of junk for something of value while trying to decipher who beat him to the mark. Could it have been Fett? No. The Mandalorian wouldn't have left such a disaray. He's far too methodical. One of he IG series? No...Not enough blood. Assassin droids tend to be messy. Only one Bounty Hunter was ruthless and savage enough...The Transdoshan: Bossk.
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I'm hooked again and can't wait to have the ESB six in super poseable form. Thanks to Scar for this one! 5 to go!
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can”.
"Ogniqualvolta mi accorgo che la ruga attorno alla mia bocca si fa più profonda; ogniqualvolta c'è un umido tedioso novembre nella mia anima; ogniqualvolta mi sorprendo fermo, senza volerlo, davanti a depositi di bare o in cammino dietro a tutti i funerali che incontro; e, specialmente, ogniqualvolta l'insofferenza mi possiede a tal punto che devo far appello a un saldo principio morale per trattenermi di discendere in strada e buttar giù metodicamente il cappello di testa ai passanti, giudico allora che sia venuto il momento di prendere il mare al più presto possibile".
Hermann Melville, Moby Dick.
Salone del Mobile 2010.
Milan Design Week.
ABSOLUTE ENTERTAINMENT
October 19, 2021
Track List
01. BILY - Transition (Original Mix)
02. Translate - Logic Dispatch (Original Mix)
03. djseanEboy - Methodical (Original Mix)
04. Samot - Raice Your Voice (Original Mix)
05. Goncalo M - Dangerous Delirium (Original Mix)
06. Jam El Mar - Dont Do It - The Hype! (Original Mix)
07. Sopik - I Wanna Feel You (Algia Remix)
08. Cvrdwell - Ghola (Kashpitzky Remix)
09. ShhGrr - sub 8 (Original Mix)
10. Elijah Tarkhanov - Perfomance (Original Mix)
11. Klanglos, Dominik Saltevski - Time Flies (Original Mix)
12. Luigi Conte - Angel With Filthy Soul (Original Mix)
13. Arnaud Rebotini - Clean and Neat (Djedjotronic Remix)
14. Hektor Legion - Terrormonger (Original Mix)
15. Patrick Scuro, Philipp Lewinski - Below My Energy (Original Mix)
16. Dawn Razor, Hatewax - Bathyscaphe (Original Mix)
I’m really honoured that my debut book "Collected memories" has been shortlisted as a finalist for the Australian & NZ Photobook award. It is one of only 29 books that are in the running.
Working towards this book has been a labour of love for the past 5 years and I'm incredibly proud of the result.
The debut monograph by Australian photographer Mark Forbes: Collected memories presents a cohesive blend of carefully composed scenes, from faded interiors and common, relatable spaces, to the romance of our environment being reclaimed by nature. Turning the pages there is a stirring sense of both subtle ordinary beauty and inherent personality sprinkled across each plate. Forbes’ photographic preference, using medium format film, is slow and methodical - and this approach can be felt throughout the quiet pages.
Hardcover book, 300 x 250 mm
112 pages, 57 colour plates
Published by Hatje Cantz
Printed in Berlin, Germany
Editor: Nadine Barth
Book design: Julia Wagner
Cover illustration: Seth J Lally
Alongside the regular edition, there is also a special signed and numbered (/50) artist limited edition of the book with one of two signed and numbered archival giclee prints.
Link to purchase "Collected memories" and the special artist limited edition:
Primer testimonio de Teotihuacán cuando ya estaba abandonado:
Cuando aún era de noche,
cuando aún no había día,
cuando aún no había luz,
se reunieron,
se convocaron los dioses
allá en Teotihuacán.
Dijeron,
hablaron entre sí:
― «¡Venid acá, oh, dioses!
«¿Quién tomará sobre sí,
«quién se hará cargo
«de que haya día,
«de que haya luz?»
HISTORY AS A MANIFESTO
While Olmec civilization was headed for extinction, in central Mexico Teotihuacan was growing. It's power was trade. It had access to obsidian, a dark green volcanic glass found on mountains – a material that could be cut and pierced. And Teotihuacan produced and traded highly polished ceramic figures. With no horses or wheeled transport, it took traders months of walking to cross Teotihuacan's area of influence. It tied together its trading region with relay points and regional distributors, and these settlements became cities. Teotihuacan's culture spread with its goods, north into what is now the United States and south into what today is Guatemala.
In becoming a state power, Teotihuacan formalized its religion. It had numerous temples, and two pyramids faced with stone dedicated to the sun and moon. Its main god was Quetzalcoatl, a feathered snake god of fertility. Amid its religious monuments it had stone carvings depicting people in song and at play amid gardens, streams and fountains.
(Source: www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch29am.htm)
It is clear then that Teotihuacan was great culture and though it has been said that it disappeared because an invasion “it is now known that the destruction was centered on major civic structures along the Avenue of the Dead. Some statues seem to have been destroyed in a methodical way, with their fragments dispersed.” (Source: Wikipedia)
Therefore the duty of historians is to know what was the real cause because this is the only way to understand human nature and if we are to work for a better world this implies to reach a full and deep knowledge of how mankind adapts to every new human phase. Today we do not grasp what is coming in any facet, say, technology, religion, water nd so on, so to make a better world for all is a must.
Give peace a chance