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Sample image taken with a Fujinon XF 56mm f1.2 R mounted on a Fujifilm XT1 body; each of these images is an out-of-camera JPEG with Lens Modulation Optimisation enabled. These samples and comparisons are part of my Fujinon XF 56mm f1.2 R review at:
cameralabs.com/reviews/Fujifilm_Fujinon_XF_56mm_f1-2_R/
Feel free to download the original image for evaluation on your own computer or printer, but please don't use it on another website or publication without permission from www.cameralabs.com/
The loss of communications during a nuclear war was a very real threat and United States’ National Command Authority needed to be able to maintain communications with the triad of strategic nuclear weapon delivery systems during such an event. Their solution was a series of survivable airborne communication links whose primary mission was to relay signals from a command plane to the strategic forces. The system, named TACAMO (“Take Charge and Move Out”), uses verification, modulations, and encryption techniques across virtually every radio frequency from very-low frequency (VLF) up through super-high frequency (SHF)
In this image, an EC-130G (a modified C-130E) of the Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron 4 (VQ-4 “Shadows”) at Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River, Maryland, performs tests over along the Barrier Islands on east coast of the United States. It is designed as an Airborne Battlefield Command and Control Center (ABCCC) for the United States Air Force and Navy. The Navy’s TACAMO variant was fitted with VLF transmitters to provide communications with ballistic missile submarines.
Pasting from Copley Motorcars:
1966, Ford Mustang GT 350
Exterior color
Acapulco Blue
Interior color
white
Mileage
8,100
Price
$54,800.00
Shelby GT350 re-creation superbly restored and created in 2004, new Ford 302ci V8 with 347ci stroker kit from HP/Probe Industries with Coach Hi-Po Street Fighter forged pistons, Edelbrock aluminum heads, competition cam shaft and lifter kit, Edelbrock dual aluminum quad intake with 2 Holley 600 carburetors, Mallory Unilite ignition, modern Ford heavy duty T5 transmission with Ford Motorsports HP clutch and pressure plate, 4 wheel disc brakes, rebuilt suspension, Vintage Air heating and air conditioning, power convertible top with plexi-glass rear window, fresh major servicing by Tony Calise’s Thunder Road Performance.
• • • • •
Pasting from Wikipedia: Ford Mustang (first generation):
The first-generation Ford Mustang was the original pony car, manufactured by Ford Motor Company from 1964 until 1973.
Contents
Conception and Styling
As Lee Iacocca's assistant general manager and chief engineer, Donald N. Frey, was the head engineer for the Mustang project — supervising the development of the Mustang in a record 18 months[3][4] — while Iacocca himself championed the project as Ford Division general manager. The Mustang prototype was a two-seat, mid-mounted engine roadster, styled in part by Phil Clark. Stylist John Najjar, in a 1984 interview with David R. Crippen, archivist of the Henry Ford Museum spoke about the genesis of the two-seat prototype:
We had a studio under Bob Maguire,and in it were Jim Darden, Ray Smith, plus an artist, Phil Clark, several modelers, and me. We drew up a 2-seater sports car in competition with the other studios, and when they saw ours - saw the blackboard with a full-sized layout and sketches- they said, 'That's it! Let's build it.' So we made a clay model, designed the details, and then built a fiberglass prototype." This car was simply a concept study rather than the final configuration, but it included a lot of the sporty, rakish flair the later showcar embodied.[5]
The Mustang I was later remodeled as a four-seat car styled under the direction of Project Design Chief Joe Oros and his team of L. David Ash, Gale Halderman, and John Foster[6][7] — in Ford's Lincoln–Mercury Division design studios, which produced the winning design in an intramural design contest instigated by Iacocca.
The design team had been given five goals[8] for the design of the Mustang: it would seat four, have bucket seats and a floor mounted shifter, weigh no more than 2500 pounds and be no more than 180 inches in length, sell for less than $2500, and have multiple power, comfort and luxury options.
Having set the design standards for the Mustang[9], Oros said:
I told the team that I wanted the car to appeal to women, but I wanted men to desire it, too. I wanted a Ferrari-like front end, the motif centered on the front – something heavy-looking like a Maseratti, but, please, not a trident – and I wanted air intakes on the side to cool the rear brakes. I said it should be as sporty as possible and look like it was related to European design.[9]
Oros added:
I then called a meeting with all the Ford studio designers. We talked about the sporty car for most of that afternoon, setting parameters for what it should look like -- and what it should not look like -- by making lists on a large pad, a technique I adapted from the management seminar. We taped the lists up all around the studio to keep ourselves on track. We also had photographs of all the previous sporty cars that had been done in the Corporate Advanced studio as a guide to themes or ideas that were tired or not acceptable to management.
Within a week we had hammered out a new design. We cut templates and fitted them to the clay model that had been started. We cut right into it, adding or deleting clay to accommodate our new theme, so it wasn't like starting all over. But we knew Lincoln-Mercury would have two models. And Advanced would have five, some they had previously shown and modified, plus a couple extras. But we would only have one model because Ford studio had a production schedule for a good many facelifts and other projects. We couldn't afford the manpower, but we made up for lost time by working around the clock so our model would be ready for the management review.[6]
L. David Ash is often credited with the actual styling of the Mustang. Ash, in a 1985 interview speaking of the origin of the Mustang design, when asked the degree of his contribution, said:
I would say substantial. However, anyone that says they designed the car by themselves, is wrong. Iacocca didn't design it. He conceived it. He's called the father of it, and, in that respect, he was. I did not design it in total, nor did Oros. It was designed by a design group. You look at the photograph taken at the award banquet for the Industrial Designers’ Society where the Mustang received the medal; it’s got Damon Woods in it (the group that did the interior), and Charlie Phaneuf (who was with Damon), and it’s got myself and John Foster (who was with me), it’s got (John) Najjar in it.[10]
So nobody actually did the car, as such. Iacocca in his book flat out comes and says I did the car. It's right there in print, "It's Dave Ash's Mustang." Bordinat will tell you I did the car. This book tells you I did the car, but, in actual fact, I had a lot of help, and I don't think anyone ever does a car by himself, not in these times anyway.[10]
To decrease development costs, the Mustang used chassis, suspension, and drivetrain components derived from the Ford Falcon and Fairlane. It used a unitized platform-type frame from the 1964 Falcon, and welded box-section side rails, including welded crossmembers. Although hardtop Mustangs accounted for the highest sales, durability problems with the new frame led to the engineering of a convertible first, which ensured adequate stiffness. Overall length of the Mustang and Falcon was identical, although the Mustang's wheelbase was slightly shorter. With an overall width of 68.2 inches (1,732 mm), it was 2.4 inches (61 mm) narrower, yet the wheel track was nearly identical. Shipping weight, approximately 2,570 pounds (1,170 kg) with the straight six-cylinder engine, was also similar to the Falcon. A fully-equipped V8 model weighed approximately 3,000 pounds (1,400 kg). Although most of the mechanical parts were from the Falcon, the Mustang's body was completely different; sporting a shorter wheelbase, wider track, lower seating position and lower overall height. An industry first, the "torque box" was an innovative structural system that greatly stiffened the Mustang's construction and helped contribute to better handling.
1964–1966
Since it was introduced five months before the normal start of the production year and manufactured among 1964 Ford Falcons and 1964 Mercury Comets, the earliest Mustangs are widely referred to as the 1964½ model.[11] A more accurate description is the "early 1965" model because it underwent significant changes at the beginning of the regular model year. All the early cars, however, were marketed by Ford as 1965 models. The low-end model hardtop used a "V-code" 170 cu in (2.8 L) straight-6 engine and three-speed manual transmission and retailed for US$2,368.
Several changes to the Mustang occurred at the start of the normal 1965 model year production, five months after its introduction. These cars are known as "late 65's," and were built after factory retooling in August 1964. The engine lineup was changed, with a 200 cu in (3.3 L) "T-code" engine that produced 120 hp (89 kW). Production of the "L-code" 260 cu in (4.3 L) engine ceased when the 1964 model year ended. It was replaced with a new 200 hp (150 kW) "C-code" 289 cu in (4.7 L) engine with a two-barrel carburetor as the base V8. An "A-code" 225 hp (168 kW) four-barrel carbureted version was next in line, followed by the unchanged "Hi-Po" "K-code" 271 hp (202 kW) 289. The DC electrical generator was replaced by a new AC alternator on all Fords (the quickest way to distinguish a 1964 from a 1965 is to see if the alternator light on the dash says "GEN" or "ALT"). The now-famous Mustang GT (Gran - Touring) was introduced as the "GT Equipment Package" and included a V8 engine (most often the 225 hp (168 kW) 289), grille-mounted fog lamps, rocker panel stripes, and disc brakes. A four-barrel carbureted engine was now available with any body style. Additionally, reverse lights were an option added to the car in 1965. The Mustang was originally available as either a hardtop or convertible, but during the car's early design phases a fastback model was strongly considered. The Mustang 2+2 fastback made its inaugural debut with its swept-back rear glass and distinctive ventilation louvers.
The standard interior features of the 1965 Mustang included adjustable driver and passenger bucket seats, an AM radio, and a floor mounted shifter in a variety of color options. Ford added additional interior options during the 1965 model year. The Interior Decor Group was popularly known as "Pony Interior" due to the addition of embossed running ponies on the seat fronts, and also included integral armrests, woodgrain appliqué accents, and a round gauge cluster that would replace the standard Falcon instrumentation. Also available were sun visors, a (mechanical) remote-operated mirror, a floor console, and a bench seat. Ford later offered an under-dash air-conditioning unit, and discontinued the vinyl with cloth insert seat option, offered only in early 1965 models.
One option designed strictly for fun was the Rally-Pac. Introduced in 1963 after Ford's success at that year's Monte Carlo Rally and available on other Ford and Mercury compacts and intermediates, the Rally-Pac was a combination clock and tachometer mounted to the steering column. It was available as a factory ordered item for US$69.30. Installed by a dealer, the Rally-Pac cost US$75.95. Reproductions are presently available from any number of Mustang restoration parts sources.
The 1966 Mustang debuted with moderate trim changes including a new grille, side ornamentation, wheel covers and gas cap. An automatic transmission for the "Hi-Po," a large number of new paint and interior color options, an AM/eight-track sound system, and one of the first AM/FM mono automobile radios were also offered. It also removed the Falcon instrument cluster; the previously optional features, including the round gauges and padded sun visors, became standard equipment. The Mustang convertible would be the best-selling in 1966, with 72,119 sold, beating the number two Impala by almost 2:1.[12]
The 1965 and 1966 Mustangs are differentiated by variations in the exterior, despite similar design. These variations include the emblem on the quarter-panels behind the doors. In 1965 the emblem was a single vertical piece of chrome, while in 1966 the emblem was smaller in height and had three horizontal bars extending from the design, resembling an "E". The front intake grilles and ornaments were also different. The 1965 front grille used a "honeycomb" pattern, while the 1966 version was a "slotted" style. While both model years used the "Horse and Corral" emblem on the grille, the 1965 had four bars extending from each side of the corral, while on the 1966, these bars were removed.
When Ford began selling the Mustang in Germany, they discovered a company had already registered the name. The German company offered to sell the rights for US$10,000. Ford refused and removed the Mustang badge, instead naming it T-5 for the German market.
Modular Tessellation Origami.
following an early model of mine (Red Flower Tess), I have noticed the connection this fold creates is very strong, and since I just got a 100 Colord 15 cm Tant Pack from Kim's Crane, this came out.
13 Tant paper Unitess.
French postcard by Collection Chantal, Paris, no. 414. Photo: M.G.M. Luise Rainer in her Oscar-winning role as Anna Held in The Great Ziegfeld (Robert Z. Leonard, 1936).
German-American-British film actress Luise Rainer (1910-2014) was the first to win multiple Academy Awards and the first to win back-to-back for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937). At the time of her death, thirteen days shy of her 105th birthday, she was the longest-lived Oscar recipient, a superlative that had not been exceeded as of 2020.
Luise Rainer was born in 1910 in Düsseldorf, in then the German Empire (now Germany). Her parents were Heinrich and Emilie (née Königsberger) Rainer. Her father was a businessman who settled in Europe after spending most of his childhood in Texas. Rainer's rebellious nature made her appear to be a "tomboy" and happy to be alone. She started her acting career in Berlin at age 16, under the pretext of visiting her mother, she traveled to Düsseldorf for a prearranged audition at the Dumont Theater. In the 1920s the theatre director Louise Dumont separated from her husband. Dumont was attached to a number of young actresses including Fita Benkhoff, Hanni Hoessrich, and Rainer. It has been presumed that Dumont was bisexual. Rainer later began studying acting with the leading stage director at the time, Max Reinhardt. By the time she was 18, several critics felt that she had an unusual talent for a young actress. She became a distinguished Berlin stage actress with Reinhardt's theatre ensemble. She also appeared in several German language films. After years of acting on stage and in films in Austria and Germany, she was discovered by MGM talent scout Phil Berg, who signed her to a three-year contract in Hollywood in 1935. He thought she would appeal to the same audience as Swedish MGM star Greta Garbo. Mayer assigned actress Constance Collier to train her in speech and dramatic modulation, and Rainer's English improved rapidly.
Luise Rainer's first American film role was in the romantic comedy Escapade (Robert Z. Leonard, 1935) with William Powell. It is a remake of the popular Austrian Operetta film Maskerade/Masquerade (Willy Forst, 1934). The film generated immense publicity for Rainer, who was hailed as "Hollywood's next sensation." The following year she was given a supporting part as the real-life character Anna Held in the musical biography The Great Ziegfeld (Robert Z. Leonard, 1936), featuring William Powell. Despite her limited role, her emotion-filled performance so impressed audiences that she was awarded the Oscar for Best Actress. She was later dubbed the "Viennese Teardrop" for her dramatic telephone scene, attempting to congratulate Ziegfeld on his new marriage, in the film. On the evening of the Academy Award ceremonies, Rainer remained at home, not expecting to win. When Mayer learned she had won, he sent MGM publicity head Howard Strickling racing to her home to get her. She was also awarded the New York Film Critics' Award for the performance. For her next role, producer Irving Thalberg was convinced, despite the studio's disagreement, that she would also be able to play the part of a poor, plain Chinese farm wife opposite Paul Muni in The Good Earth (Sidney Franklin, 1937), based on Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl Buck's novel about hardship in China. The humble, subservient, and mostly silent character role was such a dramatic contrast to her previous vivacious character that she again won the Oscar for Best Actress. Rainer and Jodie Foster are the only actresses ever to win two Oscars by the age of thirty.
However, Luise Rainer later stated nothing worse could have happened to her than winning two consecutive Oscars, as audience expectations from then on would be too high to fulfill. A few months before the film was completed, Irving Thalberg died suddenly at the age of 37. Rainer commented years later: "His death was a terrible shock to us. He was young and ever so able. Had it not been that he died, I think I may have stayed much longer in films." After four more, insignificant roles, MGM and Rainer became disappointed, and she was dubbed "Box Office Poison" by the Independent Theatre Owners of America. Adding to her rapid decline, some feel, was the poor career advice she received from her then-husband, playwright Clifford Odets. She ended her brief three-year Hollywood career and returned to Europe where she helped get aid to children who were victims of the Spanish Civil War. Nevertheless, she was not released from her MGM contract and, by 1940, she was still bound to make one more film for the studio. Some film historians consider her the "most extreme case of an Oscar victim in Hollywood mythology". Rainer studied medicine and returned to the stage. In 1939, she made her first appearance at the Palace Theatre, Manchester in Jacques Deval's play 'Behold the Bride', and later played the same part in her London debut at the Shaftesbury Theatre. Returning to America, she played the leading part in George Bernard Shaw's 'Saint Joan' in 1940 at the Belasco Theatre in Washington, D.C. under the direction of German emigrant director Erwin Piscator. In 1943, she made an appearance in the film Hostages (Frank Tuttle, 1943). Rainer abandoned film making in 1944 after marrying publisher Robert Knittel. She made sporadic television and stage appearances, appearing in an episode of the World War II television series Combat! in 1965. She took a dual role in a 1984 episode of The Love Boat. She appeared in the film The Gambler (Károly Makk, 1997), starring Michael Gambon. It marked her film comeback at the age of 86. Luise Rainer passed away in 2014, in Belgravia, London, England. She was 104. Rainer married Clifford Odets in 1937 and they divorced in 1940. Her second husband was publisher Robert Knittel. They were married from 1945 till his death in 1989 and lived in the UK and Switzerland for most of their marriage. The couple had one daughter, Francesca Knittel.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Toronto
"'Bicycle Race' is a single by the English rock band Queen. It was released on their 1978 album Jazz and written by Queen's frontman Freddie Mercury. It was released as a double A-side single together with the song 'Fat Bottomed Girls'. The song is notable for its video featuring a bicycle race with nude women at Wimbledon Stadium, which was edited or even banned in several countries. The song has a very unusual chord progression with numerous modulations, a change of meter (from 4/4 to 3/4) in the bridge, and the multi tracked vocal and guitar harmonies." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_Race
www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5cl97H-YtE
[ Please contact me if you would like to use this image. ]
Preview 01 here
Preview 02 here
Preview 03 here
The Arabic featured here has a fluid beauty to it resonant and respectful to the centuries of character development and handwriting systems developed through the many lifetimes of Master Khattats (calligraphers) around the world.
I am currently in the process of developing a matching Latin with the help of Swiss typographer, Bruno Maag, and his associates at the infamous type house, Dalton Maag, in London.
More will be revealed very soon :)
Sample image taken with a Fujinon XF 56mm f1.2 R mounted on a Fujifilm XT1 body; each of these images is an out-of-camera JPEG with Lens Modulation Optimisation enabled. These samples and comparisons are part of my Fujinon XF 56mm f1.2 R review at:
cameralabs.com/reviews/Fujifilm_Fujinon_XF_56mm_f1-2_R/
Feel free to download the original image for evaluation on your own computer or printer, but please don't use it on another website or publication without permission from www.cameralabs.com/
French postcard by EPC, no. 225. Photo: MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). Luise Rainer in The Great Waltz (Julien Duvivier, 1938)
German-American-British film actress Luise Rainer (1910-2014) was the first to win multiple Academy Awards and the first to win back-to-back for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937). At the time of her death, thirteen days shy of her 105th birthday, she was the longest-lived Oscar recipient, a superlative that had not been exceeded as of 2020.
Luise Rainer was born in 1910 in Düsseldorf, in then the German Empire (now Germany). Her parents were Heinrich and Emilie (née Königsberger) Rainer. Her father was a businessman who settled in Europe after spending most of his childhood in Texas. Rainer's rebellious nature made her appear to be a "tomboy" and happy to be alone. She started her acting career in Berlin at age 16, under the pretext of visiting her mother, she traveled to Düsseldorf for a prearranged audition at the Dumont Theater. In the 1920s the theatre director Louise Dumont separated from her husband. Dumont was attached to a number of young actresses including Fita Benkhoff, Hanni Hoessrich, and Rainer. It has been presumed that Dumont was bisexual. Rainer later began studying acting with the leading stage director at the time, Max Reinhardt. By the time she was 18, several critics felt that she had an unusual talent for a young actress. She became a distinguished Berlin stage actress with Reinhardt's theatre ensemble. She also appeared in several German-language films. After years of acting on stage and in films in Austria and Germany, she was discovered by MGM talent scout Phil Berg, who signed her to a three-year contract in Hollywood in 1935. He thought she would appeal to the same audience as Swedish MGM star Greta Garbo. Mayer assigned actress Constance Collier to train her in speech and dramatic modulation, and Rainer's English improved rapidly.
Luise Rainer's first American film role was in the romantic comedy Escapade (Robert Z. Leonard, 1935) with William Powell. It is a remake of the popular Austrian Operetta film Maskerade/Masquerade (Willy Forst, 1934). The film generated immense publicity for Rainer, who was hailed as "Hollywood's next sensation." The following year she was given a supporting part as the real-life character Anna Held in the musical biography The Great Ziegfeld (Robert Z. Leonard, 1936), featuring William Powell. Despite her limited role, her emotion-filled performance so impressed audiences that she was awarded the Oscar for Best Actress. She was later dubbed the "Viennese Teardrop" for her dramatic telephone scene, attempting to congratulate Ziegfeld on his new marriage, in the film. On the evening of the Academy Award ceremonies, Rainer remained at home, not expecting to win. When Mayer learned she had won, he sent MGM publicity head Howard Strickling racing to her home to get her. She was also awarded the New York Film Critics' Award for the performance. For her next role, producer Irving Thalberg was convinced, despite the studio's disagreement, that she would also be able to play the part of a poor, plain Chinese farm wife opposite Paul Muni in The Good Earth (Sidney Franklin, 1937), based on Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl Buck's novel about hardship in China. The humble, subservient, and mostly silent character role was such a dramatic contrast to her previous vivacious character that she again won the Oscar for Best Actress. Rainer and Jodie Foster are the only actresses ever to win two Oscars by the age of thirty.
However, Luise Rainer later stated nothing worse could have happened to her than winning two consecutive Oscars, as audience expectations from then on would be too high to fulfill. A few months before the film was completed, Irving Thalberg died suddenly at the age of 37. Rainer commented years later: "His death was a terrible shock to us. He was young and ever so able. Had it not been that he died, I think I may have stayed much longer in films." After four more, insignificant roles, MGM and Rainer became disappointed, and she was dubbed "Box Office Poison" by the Independent Theatre Owners of America. Adding to her rapid decline, some feel, was the poor career advice she received from her then-husband, playwright Clifford Odets. She ended her brief three-year Hollywood career and returned to Europe where she helped get aid to children who were victims of the Spanish Civil War. Nevertheless, she was not released from her MGM contract and, by 1940, she was still bound to make one more film for the studio. Some film historians consider her the "most extreme case of an Oscar victim in Hollywood mythology". Rainer studied medicine and returned to the stage. In 1939, she made her first appearance at the Palace Theatre, Manchester in Jacques Deval's play 'Behold the Bride', and later played the same part in her London debut at the Shaftesbury Theatre. Returning to America, she played the leading part in George Bernard Shaw's 'Saint Joan' in 1940 at the Belasco Theatre in Washington, D.C. under the direction of German emigrant director Erwin Piscator. In 1943, she made an appearance in the film Hostages (Frank Tuttle, 1943). Rainer abandoned film making in 1944 after marrying publisher Robert Knittel. She made sporadic television and stage appearances, appearing in an episode of the World War II television series Combat! in 1965. She took a dual role in a 1984 episode of The Love Boat. She appeared in the film The Gambler (Károly Makk, 1997), starring Michael Gambon. It marked her film comeback at the age of 86. Luise Rainer passed away in 2014, in Belgravia, London, England. She was 104. Rainer married Clifford Odets in 1937 and they divorced in 1940. Her second husband was publisher Robert Knittel. They were married from 1945 till his death in 1989 and lived in the UK and Switzerland for most of their marriage. The couple had one daughter, Francesca Knittel.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 2.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com
Hu Zhengyan (c. 1584-1674) was a Chinese traditional painter, calligrapher, seal carver and publisher during the transition of the Ming and Qing dynasties. He produced China’s first printed publication in color, and was famous for his incredible techniques achieving gradation and modulation of shades in woodblock prints.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: rawpixel
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however, Lettice is far from Cavendish Mews, back in Wiltshire where she is staying at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his wife. The current Viscount has summoned his daughter home, along with his bohemian artist younger sister Eglantyne, affectionately known as Aunt Egg by her nieces and nephews.
Through her social connections, Lettice’s Aunt Egg contrived an invitation for Lettice to an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Caxton, who are very well known amongst the smarter bohemian set of London society for their weekend parties at their Scottish country estate, Gossington, and enjoyable literary evenings in their Belgravia townhouse. Lady Gladys is a successful authoress in her own right and writes under the nom de plume of Madeline St John. Over the course of the weekend, Lettice was coerced into accepting Lady Gladys’ request that she redecorate her niece and ward, Phoebe’s, small Bloomsbury flat. Phoebe, upon coming of age inherited the flat, which had belonged to her parents, Reginald and Marjorie Chambers, who died out in India when Phoebe was still a little girl. The flat was held in trust by Lady Gladys until her ward came of age. When Phoebe decided to pursue a career in garden design and was accepted by a school in London closely associated with the Royal Society, she started living part time in the flat. Lady Gladys felt that it was too old fashioned and outdated in its appointment for a young girl like Phoebe. When Lady Gladys arranged for Lettice to inspect the flat, Lettice quickly became aware of Lady Gladys’ ulterior motives as she overrode the rather mousy Pheobe and instructed Lettice to redecorate everything to her own instructions and taste, whist eradicating any traces of Pheobe’s parents. Reluctantly, Lettice commenced on the commission which is nearing its completion. However, when Pheobe came to visit the flat whilst Lettice was there, and with a little coercion, Pheobe shared what she really felt about the redecoration of her parent’s home, things came to a head. Desperately wanting to express herself independently, Pheobe hoped living at the flat she would finally be able to get out from underneath the domineering influence of her aunt. Yet now the flat is simply another extension of Lady Glady’s wishes, and the elements of her parents that Pheobe adored have been appropriated by Lady Gladys. Determined to undo the wrong she has done by Pheobe by agreeing to all of Lady Glady’s wishes, in a moment of energizing anger, Lettice decided to confront Lady Gladys. However unperturbed by Lettice’s appearance, Lady Gladys advised that she was bound by the contract she had signed to complete the work to Gladys’ satisfaction, not Phoebe’s.
Thus, Viscount Wrexham has contrived a war cabinet meeting in the comfortable surrounds of the Glynes library with Lettice and Eglantyne to see if between them they can work out a way to untangle Lettice from Lady Gladys’ contract, or at least undo the damage done to Pheobe by way of Lettice’s redecoration of the flat.
Being early autumn, the library at Glynes is filled with light, yet a fire crackles contentedly in the grate of the great Georgian stone fireplace to keep the cooler temperatures of the season at bay. The space smells comfortingly of old books and woodsmoke. The walls of the long room are lined with floor to ceiling shelves, full thousands of volumes on so many subjects. The sunlight streaming through the tall windows facing out to the front of the house burnishes the polished parquetry floors in a ghostly way. Viscount Wrexham sits at his Chippendale desk, with his daughter sitting opposite him on the other side of it, whilst Eglantyne, a tall, willowy figure and always too restless to sit for too long, stands at her brother’s shoulder as the trio discuss the current state of affairs.
“So is what Gladys says, correct, Lettice?” the Viscount bristles from his seat behind his Chippendale desk as he lifts a gilt edged Art Nouveau decorated cup of hot tea to his lips. “Did you sign a contract?”
“Well yes of course I did, Pappa!” Lettice defends, cradling her own cup in her hands, admiring the beautifully executed stylised blue Art Nouveau flowers on it. “You told me that there should be a formal contract in place ever since I had that spot of unpleasantness with the Duchess of Whitby when she was reluctant to pay her account in full after I had finished decorating her Fitzrovia first-floor reception room.”
“And I take it, our lawyers haven’t perused it?” he asks as he replaces the cup in its saucer on the desk’s surface.
“No Pappa.” Lettice replies, fiddling with the hem of her silk cord French blue cardigan. “Should they have?”
The Viscount sucks in a deep breath audibly, his heckles arcing up.
“Cosmo.” his sister says calmingly, standing at his side, placing one of her heavily bejewelled hands on his shoulder, lightly digging her elegantly long yet gnarled fingers into the fabric of his tweed jacket and pressing hard.
The Viscount releases a gasp. He looks down upon the book he had been pleasurably reading before he summoned both his sister and daughter to his domain of the Glynes library, a copy of Padraic Colum’s* ‘The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles’** illustrated by Willy Pognay, and focuses on it like an anchor to manage the temper roiling within him. Trying very hard to suppress his frustration and keep it out of his steady modulation, the Viscount replies, “Yes my girl,” He sighs again. “Preferably you should have any contracts drawn up by our lawyers, and then signed by a client: not the other way around. And if it does happen to be the other way around, our lawyers should give it a thorough going over before you sign it.”
“But a contract is a contract, Pappa, surely?” Lettice retorts before taking another sip of tea.
The Viscount’s breathing grows more laboured as his face grows as red as the cover of ‘The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles’ on the tooled leather surface of the desk before him.
“Cosmo.” Eglantine says again, before looking up and catching her niece’s eye and tries to warn her of the thunderstorm of frustration and anger that is about to burst from the Viscount by giving her an almost imperceptible shake of her head.
The Viscount continues to breathe in a considered and deliberate way as he tries to continue, his deep voice somewhat strangulated by his effort not to slam his fists on the desktop and yell at his daughter. “A contact varies, Lettice. It depends on who has written it as to what clauses are contained inside, such as Gladys’ condition that she is to be completely satisfied with the outcome of the redecoration, or she may forfeit any unpaid tradesmen’s bills, not to mention your own. You should have read it thoroughly before you signed it.”
“Oh.” Lettice lowers her head and looks down dolefully into her lap.
The Viscount turns sharply in his Chippendale chair, withdrawing his shoulder from beneath his sister’s grounding grasp with an irritable shake and glares at his sister through angry, bloodshot eyes. When she was young, Eglantine had Titian red hair that fell in wavy tresses about her pale face, making her a popular muse amongst the Pre-Raphaelites she mixed with. With the passing years, her red hair has retreated almost entirely behind silver grey, save for the occasional streak of washed out reddish orange, except when she decides the henna it, and she still wears it as she did when it was at its fiery best, sweeping softly about her almond shaped face, tied in a loose chignon at the back of her neck.
“I place the blame for this situation solely at your feet, Eglantyne!” the Viscount barks at his sister.
“Me!” Eglantyne laughs in incredulity. “Me! Don’t be so preposterous, Cosmo.” She grasps at one of the many strings of highly faceted, winking bugle beads that cascade down the front of her usual choice of frock, a Delphos dress***, this one of silver silk painted with stylised orange poppies on long, flowing green stalks. “I call that most unfair!” she complains. “I’m not responsible for Gladys’ lawyers, or their filthy binding contract.”
“No, but you’re responsible for introducing Lettice to that infernal woman!” the Viscount blasts. “Bloody female romance novelist!”
“Language!” Eglantyne quips.
“Oh, fie my language!” the Viscount retorts angrily. “And fie you, Eglantyne!”
Always being her elder brother’s favourite of all his siblings, and therefore usually forgiven of any mistakes and transgressions she has made in the past as a bohemian artist, and very seldom falling into his bad books, Eglantine is struck by the forcefulness of his anger. Even though she is well aware of his bombastic temper, it is easier to deal with when it is directed to someone or something else. This unusual situation with his annoyance being squarely aimed at her leaves her feeling flustered and sick.
“Me? I… I didn’t know that… that Gladys was vying to get Lettice… before her so… so.. so she could ask her to redecorate her ward’s flat, Cosmo!” Eglantyne splutters. “How… how could I know?”
“Coerced is more like it!” Cosmo snaps in retort. “And you must have had some inkling, surely! You were always good at reading people and situations: far better than I ever was!”
“Well, I didn’t, Cosmo!” Eglantine snaps back, determined not to let her brother get the upper hand on her and blame her for something she rightly considers far beyond her control. “I mean, all I was doing was trying my best to get Lettice out of her funk over losing Selwyn.” She turns quickly to Lettice and looks at her with apologetic eyes. “Sorry my dear.” Returning her attention to her brother, she continues, “I didn’t want her wallowing in her own grief, something you were only too happy to indulge her in whilst she was staying here at Glynes with you!” She tuts. “Feeding her butter shortbreads and mollycoddling her. What good was there in doing that?”
“She was staying with Lally.” the Viscount mutters through gritted teeth.
“Same thing really.” Eglantine says breezily. “Like father like daughter. Lettice needed something to restore her spark, and quiet walks in the Buckinghamshire countryside weren’t going do that. I knew that Gladys enjoyed being surrounded by London’s Bright Young Things****, and she had spoken to me about Lettice’s interior designs.”
“Aha!” the Viscount crows. “So, you did know she had designs on Lettice!”
“If you’d kindly let me finish, Cosmo.” Eglantyne continues in an indignant tone.
The Viscount huffs and lets his shoulders lower a little as he gesticulates with a sweeping gesture across his desk towards his sister for Eglantine to continue.
“What I was going to say was that Gladys telephoned me and asked me about Lettice’s interior designs after she read that article by Henry Tipping***** in Country Life******, which you and Sadie, and probably half the country read. How could I know from that innocuous enquiry that Gladys would engage Lettice in this unpleasant commission? She simply telephoned me at just the right time, so I orchestrated with Gladys for Lettice and the Channons to go and stay at Gossington.” She folds her arms akimbo. “Lettice was stagnating, and that is not good for her. As I said before, she needed to have her creativity sparked. I thought it would do Lettice good to be amongst the bright and spirited company of a coterie of young and artistic people, and I wasn’t wrong, was I Lettice?”
Startled to suddenly be introduced into the heated conversation between her father and aunt about her, Lettice stammers, “Well… yes. It was a very gay house party, and I did also receive the commission from Sir John Nettleford-Huges for Mr. and Mrs. Gifford at Arkwright Bury, Pappa.”
“That old lecher.” the Viscount spits.
“Sadie doesn’t think so,” Eglantyne remarks with a superior air, a smug smile curling up the corners of her lips. “She seemed to think he’d be a good match for Lettice two years ago at her ludicrous matchmaking Hunt Ball.”
“Now don’t you start on Sadie, Eglantyne.” the Viscount warns with a wagging finger, the ruby in the signet ring on his little finger winking angrily in the light of the library, reflecting its wearer’s fit of pique. “I’m in no mood for your usual acerbic pokes at Sadie.”
“Sir John is actually quite nice, Pappa.” Lettice pipes up quickly in an effort to defuse the situation between her father and aunt. “Once you get to know him.” she adds rather lamely when her father glares at her with a look that suggests that she may have lost all her senses. She hurriedly adds, “And that’s gone swimmingly, Pappa, and as a result, Henry Tipping has promised me another feature article on my interior designs there in Country Life.”
“There!” Eglantyne says with satisfaction, sweeping her arm out expansively towards her niece, making the mixture of gold, silver, Bakelite******* and bead bracelets and bangles jangle. “See Cosmo, it’s not all bad news. An excellent commission right here in Wiltshire that guarantees positive promotion of Lettice’s interior designs in a prestigious periodical.”
“Well, be that as it may,” the Viscount grumbles. “You are still responsible for dismissing Lettice’s justified concerns about Gladys and her rather Machiavellian plans to redecorate her ward’s flat to her own designs and hold Lettice to account for it. You told me that you aired your concerns with your aunt, Lettice. Isn’t that so?”
Lettice nods, looking guiltily at her favourite aunt, fearing disappointment in the older woman’s eyes as she does.
“Well,” Eglantyne concedes with a sigh. “I cannot deny that Lettice did raise her concerns with me when we had luncheon together, but her concerns did not appear justified at the time.”
Ignoring Eglantyne’s last remark, the Viscount continues, addressing his daughter, “And that was before she commenced on this rather fraught commission wasn’t it?”
“Well Pappa, as I told you, I had already agreed in principle to accept Gladys’ commission at Gossington. Gladys is a little hard to refuse.”
“Bombastic!” the Viscount opines.
“Pot: kettle: black.” Eglantyne pipes up, placing her hands on her silk clad hips.
“Don’t test my patience any more, Eglantyne!” the Viscount snaps. He returns his attentions to his daughter. “But you hadn’t signed any contracts at that stage, had you, Lettice?”
“Well no, Pappa.” Lettice agrees. “But I think that Gladys was having the contracts drawn up by her lawyers at that time.”
“Why didn’t you intervene when Lettice spoke to you, Eglantyne?” the Viscount asks his sister.
“Because I didn’t see any cause for alarm, Cosmo.” she replies in her own defence.
“But Lettice told you that Gladys coerced her into agreeing to redecorate the flat, didn’t she?”
“Well yes,” Eglantyne agrees. “But as I said to Lettice at the time, Gladys wears most people down to her way of thinking in the end. It is a very brave, or stupid, person who challenges Gladys when she has an idea in her head that she is impassioned about.” She pauses for a moment before continuing. “I didn’t think it was a bad thing necessarily, Cosmo. Not only was it not unusual for Gladys to get her way, but at the time, Lettice needed someone to take the lead. Her own initiative was somewhat lacking after all that business with Zinnia shipping Selwyn off to Durban. So, I wasn’t concerned, and I doubt that you would be concerned about it either, were you in my shoes.”
“Well I wasn’t.” he argues. “What about Lettice’s other concerns about taking on the commission?” he softens his voice as he addresses his daughter, “What did you say to your aunt again, my dear?”
“I said I was concerned that Gladys had ulterior motives, Pappa.” Lettice replies.
“Which she did!” the Viscount agrees. “Go on.”
“I illuded to the fact that I thought Gladys saw her dead brother and sister-in-law as some kind of threat to her happy life with Phoebe, and she wanted to whitewash them from Phoebe’s life.”
“And I suggested to Lettice that that was a grave allegation to make without proof, Cosmo.” Eglantyne explains. “And all she had to back her allegations up were some anecdotal stories, which count for nothing.”
“You accused Lettice of overdramatising.” the Viscount says angrily.
“I know I did, Cosmo.” Eglantyne admits. “I did assuage Lettice of the concerns she had that Gladys was going to insist on making changes Phoebe or she didn’t like. I admit, I was wrong about that. I assured Lettice that Gladys adores her niece, and whilst in hindsight I may not now use the word adore, I’m still instant that Gladys only wants what she thinks is best for Phoebe. Phoebe is the daughter Gladys never planned to have, but also the child Gladys didn’t know could bring her so much joy and fulfilment in her life, as a parent. And to be fair, Cosmo, if you’d ever met Phoebe, you’d understand why I said what I did.”
“Go on.” the Viscount says, cocking his eyebrow over his right eye.
“Well Pheobe is such a timid little mouse of a creature. She seldom expresses an opinion.”
“That’s because Gladys has been quashing those opinions, Aunt Egg.” Lettice adds.
“Well, we know that now, but from the outside looking in, you wouldn’t know that without the intimate knowledge that you have now received from Phoebe, Lettice.”
“So what you’re implying Pappa is, that I have to see through the redecoration to Phoebe’s pied-à-terre******** to Gladys’ specifications, even if Pheobe herself doesn’t like them?”
“It does appear that way, my dear.” the Viscount concedes.
“Even if it is plain that Gladys is bullying her and taking advantage of the situation for her own means?” Lettice asks hopefully.
“It’s a sticky situation, my dear.” the Viscount replies consolingly. “I mean, you don’t actually have to go through with it. It isn’t like you need her money. If she doesn’t pay the tradesmen’s bills you’ll be a little out of pocket, but it won’t bankrupt you.”
“But,” Eglantyne says warningly. “You do run the risk of Gladys spreading malicious gossip about your business. Whatever Gladys may or may not be, she’s influential.” She sighs deeply. “It would be such a shame to ruin the career you have spent so long building and making a success.”
“And your mother wouldn’t fancy the trouble and scandals this poisonous woman could create, either.” adds the Viscount as an afterthought. “Especially when it comes to your marriageability.”
“Are you suggesting that Selwyn isn’t going to come back to me, Pappa?” Lettice asks bitterly, unable to keep the hurt out of her voice as colour fills her face and unshed tears threatening to spill fill her eyes.
“No,” the Viscount defends. “You know your happiness and security is of the utmost importance to me, Lettice my dear. No, I’m just being a realist. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Zinnia doesn’t have something nasty up her sleeve to spring upon the pair of you, even when he does come back. If there is even the slightest smear on your character, Lettice, she will use that against you. Zinna hasn’t spoken to you since that night, has she?”
“No, thank goodness!” Lettice replies.
“Well, that may not be such a good thing.” the Viscount goes on. “Zinnia enjoys playing a long game that can inflict more pain.”
“Your father speaks the truth, Lettice, and he is wise to be a pragmatist.” Eglantyne remarks sagely.
The older woman reaches into the small silver mesh reticule********* dangling from her left wrist and unfastens it. She withdraws her gold and amber cigarette holder and a small, embossed silver case containing her choice of cigarettes, her favourite black and gold Sobranie********** Black Russians. She depresses the clasp of the case and withdraws one of the long, slender cigarettes and screws it adeptly into her holder. She then withdraws a match holder and goes to strike a match.
“Must you, Eglantyne?” the Viscount asks. “You know Sadie doesn’t like smoking indoors.”
Eglantyne ignores her brother and strikes a match and lights her Sobranie, sucking the end of her cigarette holder, causing the match flame to dance and gutter whilst the paper and tobacco of the cigarette crackles. Whisps of dark grey smoke curl as they escape the corners of her mouth.
“I’m in your bad books, Cosmo, so I may as well be in hers too.” she says, sending forth tumbling clouds of acrid smoke. “No-one will deny me my little pleasure in life.” She smiles with gratification as she draws on her holder again. “Not even Sadie. And correction: Sadie only dislikes it when a lady smokes.”
“Well, I can’t stop you any more than I seem to be able to stop Gladys from forcing Lettice to decorate this damnable flat the way she wants it, rather than the way Phoebe wants it.” the Viscount replies in a defeated tone.
The three fall silent for a short while, with only the heavy ticking of the clock sitting on the library mantle and the crackle of the fire to break the cloying silence.
“What about Sir John?” the Viscount suddenly says.
“Sir John Nettleford-Hughes?” Eglantyne asks quizzically, blowing forth another cloud of Sobranie smoke.
“No, no!” he clarifies with a shake of his head. “Not that Sir John: Sir John Caxton, Gladys’ husband. Surely, we can appeal to him. He wouldn’t want Pheobe to be unhappy.”
“He’s completely under Gladys’ thumb***********.” Eglantyne opines.
“Aunt Egg is right, Pappa. The day I went to Eaton Square************ to have it out with Gladys, I saw John, and he couldn’t wait to retreat to the safety of his club and leave we two to our own devices. He’s as completely ruled by Gladys as Phoebe is.”
“I suppose you could turn this to your advantage and have Phoebe commission you to undo your own redecoration.” the Viscount suggests hopefully.
“I don’t think that would work very well, Cosmo.” Eglantyne remarks.
“How so?”
“Well, I don’t think Gladys would take too kindly to Lettice and Phoebe going behind her back, and we’ve just discussed the difficulties a scorned woman could cause to Lettice’s reputation, both personally and professionally.”
“Besides,” Lettice adds. “I don’t think the allowance Phoebe inherits from her father’s estate is terribly large, and I don’t imagine it will be easy as a woman to win any garden design commissions to be able to afford my services.”
“There’s Gertude Jekyll*************.” Eglantyne remarks.
“Yes, but she has influential connections like Edward Lutyens**************.” Lettice counters. “And as you have noted, Aunt Egg, Phoebe is rather unassuming. She doesn’t know anyone of influence, and wields none of her own. Besides, I’m sure Gladys won’t pay Phoebe to pay me to undo her prescribed redecorations.”
“You could always redecorate the pied-à-terre without charge,” the Viscount suggests hopefully.
“As recompense for the damage I’ve done redecorating it now, you mean, Pappa?”
“In a sense.”
“The outcomes would be the same unpleasant ones for Lettice as if Phoebe could afford to commission her to do it, Cosmo.” Eglantyne warns.
“Gerald was right.” Lettice mutters.
“About what, my dear?” her father asks.
“Well, Gerald said that Gladys was very good at weaving sticky spiderwebs, and that I had better watch out that I didn’t become caught in one.” She sighs heavily. “But it appears as if I have become enmeshed in one well and truly.”
“Well, however much it displeases me to say this to you Lettice, let this be a lesson to you my girl! In future, make sure that you engage our lawyers to draw up the contracts for you.”
“But I didn’t have this contract drawn up, Pappa,” Lettice defends. “Gladys did.”
“Well, make sure our lawyers review any contracts created by someone else before you undertake to sign one if future.”
Eglantyne stares off into the distance, drawing heavily upon her Sobranie, blowing out plumes of smoke.
“So, I’m stuck then.” Lettice says bitterly. “And its my own stupid fault.”
Eglantyne’s eyes flit in a desultory fashion about the room, drifting from the many gilt decorated spines on the shelves to the armchairs gathered cosily around the library’s great stone fireplace to the chess table set up to play nearby.
“Unless your aunt can come up with something, I’m afraid I don’t see a way out for you, Lettice.” the Viscount says. He then adds kindly, “But I wouldn’t be so hard on yourself, my dear. We all have to learn life’s lessons. Sometimes we just learn them in harder ways.”
Eglantyne continues to contemplate the situation her niece finds herself in.
“Well, I’ve certainly learned my lesson this time, Pappa.”
Eglantyne withdraws the nearly spent Sobranie from her lips, scattering ash upon the dull, worth carpet beneath her mule clad feet. “I may have one idea that might work.”
“Really Aunt Egg?” Lettice gasps, clasping her hands together as she does.
“Perhaps, Lettice my dear.”
“What is it, Eglantyne?” the Viscount asks.
“I don’t want to say anything, just in case I can’t pull it off.” Eglantyne contemplates for a moment before continuing. “Just leave this with me for a few days.”
*Padraic Colum was an Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, biographer, playwright, children's author and collector of folklore. He was one of the leading figures of the Irish Literary Revival.
**“The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles” was a novel written by Padraic Colum, illustrated by Hungarian artist Willy Pognay, published by the Macmillan Company in 1921.
***The Delphos gown is a finely pleated silk dress first created in about 1907 by French designer Henriette Negrin and her husband, Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo. They produced the gowns until about 1950. It was inspired by, and named after, a classical Greek statue, the Charioteer of Delphi. It was championed by more artistic women who did not wish to conform to society’s constraints and wear a tightly fitting corset.
****The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s Londo
*****Henry Tipping (1855 – 1933) was a French-born British writer on country houses and gardens, garden designer in his own right, and Architectural Editor of the British periodical Country Life for seventeen years between 1907 and 1910 and 1916 and 1933. After his appointment to that position in 1907, he became recognised as one of the leading authorities on the history, architecture, furnishings and gardens of country houses in Britain. In 1927, he became a member of the first committee of the Gardens of England and Wales Scheme, later known as the National Gardens Scheme.
******Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is a quintessential English magazine founded in 1897, providing readers with a weekly dose of architecture, gardens and interiors. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when it became based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The frontispiece of each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of society, or, on occasion, a man of society.
*******Bakelite, was the first plastic made from synthetic components. Patented on December 7, 1909, the creation of a synthetic plastic was revolutionary for its electrical nonconductivity and heat-resistant properties in electrical insulators, radio and telephone casings and such diverse products as kitchenware, jewellery, pipe stems, teapot handles, children's toys, and firearms. A plethora of items were manufactured using Bakelite in the 1920s and 1930s.
********A pied-à-terre is a small flat, house, or room kept for occasional use.
*********A reticule is a woman's small handbag, typically having a drawstring and decorated with embroidery or beading. The term “reticule” comes from French and Latin terms meaning “net.” At the time, the word “purse” referred to small leather pouches used for carrying money, whereas these bags were made of net. By the 1920s they were sometimes made of small heavy metal mesh as well as netting or beaded materials.
**********The Balkan Sobranie tobacco business was established in London in 1879 by Albert Weinberg (born in Romania in 1849), whose naturalisation papers dated 1886 confirm his nationality and show that he had emigrated to England in the 1870s at a time when hand-made cigarettes in the eastern European and Russian tradition were becoming fashionable in Europe. Sobranie is one of the oldest cigarette brands in the world. Throughout its existence, Sobranie was marketed as the definition of luxury in the tobacco industry, being adopted as the official provider of many European royal houses and elites around the world including the Imperial Court of Russia and the royal courts of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Spain, Romania, and Greece. Premium brands include the multi-coloured Sobranie Cocktail and the black and gold Sobranie Black Russian.
***********The idiom “to be under the thumb”, comes from the action of a falconer holding the leash of the hawk under their thumb to maintain a tight control of the bird. Today the term under the thumb is generally used in a derogatory manner to describe a partner's overbearing control over the other partner's actions.
************Eaton Square is a rectangular residential garden square in London's Belgravia district. It is the largest square in London. It is one of the three squares built by the landowning Grosvenor family when they developed the main part of Belgravia in the Nineteenth Century that are named after places in Cheshire — in this case Eaton Hall, the Grosvenor country house. It is larger but less grand than the central feature of the district, Belgrave Square, and both larger and grander than Chester Square. The first block was laid out by Thomas Cubitt from 1827. In 2016 it was named as the "Most Expensive Place to Buy Property in Britain", with a full terraced house costing on average seventeen million pounds — many of such town houses have been converted, within the same, protected structures, into upmarket apartments.
*************Gertrude Jekyll was a British horticulturist, garden designer, craftswoman, photographer, writer and artist. She created over four handred gardens in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, and wrote over one thousand articles for magazines such as Country Life and William Robinson's The Garden. Her first commissioned garden was designed in 1881, and she worked very closely wither her long standing friend, architect Sir Edward Lutyens.
**************Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memorials and public buildings in the years before the Second World War. He is probably best known for his creation of the Cenotaph war memorial on Whitehall in London after the Great War. Had he not died of cancer in 1944, he probably would have gone on to design more buildings in the post-war era.
Cluttered with books and art, Viscount Wrexham’s library with its Georgian furnishings is different from what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The majority of the books that you see lining the shelves of the Viscount’s library are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. So too are the postcards and the box for them on the Viscount’s Chippendale desk. Most of the books I own that Ken has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print, as can be seen on The Times Literary Supplement broadsheet on the Viscount’s desk. I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection, but so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. “The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles” by Padraic Colum, illustrated by Willy Pognay, sitting on the Viscount’s desk is such an example. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really do make these miniature artisan pieces. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
On the desk are some 1:12 artisan miniature ink bottles and a blotter on a silver salver all made by the Little Green Workshop in England who specialise in high end, high quality miniatures. The ink bottles are made from tiny faceted crystal beads and have sterling silver bottoms and lids. The ink blotter is sterling silver too and has a blotter made of real black felt, cut meticulously to size to fit snugly inside the frame. The silver double frame on the desk also comes from Mick and Marie’s Miniature Collectables. The bottle of port and the port glasses I acquired from a miniatures stockist on E-Bay. Each glass, the bottle and its faceted stopper are hand blown using real glass.
Also on the desk to the left stands a stuffed white owl on a branch beneath a glass cloche. A vintage miniature piece, the foliage are real dried flowers and grasses, whilst the owl is cut from white soapstone. The base is stained wood and the cloche is real glass. This I acquired along with two others featuring shells (one of which can be seen in the background) from Kathleen Knight’s Dollhouse Shop in the United Kingdom.
The teapot and teacups, featuring stylised Art Nouveau patterns were acquired from an online stockist of dolls’ house miniatures in Australia.
The Chippendale desk itself is made by Bespaq, and it has a mahogany stain and the design is taken from a real Chippendale desk. Its surface is covered in red dioxide red dioxide leather with a gilt trim. Bespaq is a high-end miniature furniture maker with high attention to detail and quality.
The beautiful rotating globe in the background features a British Imperial view of the world, with all of Britain’s colonies in pink (as can be seen from Canada), as it would have been in 1921. The globe sits on metal casters in a mahogany stained frame, and it can be rolled effortlessly. It comes from Mick and Marie’s Miniature Collectables in Lancashire. The silver double frame on the desk also comes from Mick and Marie’s Miniature Collectables.
In the background you can see the book lined shelves of Viscount Wrexham’s as well as a Victorian painting of cattle in a gold frame from Amber’s Miniatures in America, and a hand painted ginger jar from Thailand which stands on a Bespaq plant stand.
The gold flocked Edwardian wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.
Furniture sized radios came with presets for your area. This one was original to the Pittsfield, MA area. You can tell by the call letters on the bottom button, WBRK which is still on the air today. It also had regional stations from Hartford, Albany, NYC, Baltimore, & Waterbury.
(Medical Xpress)—The human brain's exquisite complexity and power make it a unique evolutionary marvel. One of the brain's more interesting abilities is known as the placebo effect, in which no more than the expectation of relief can lead to analgesia – the relief of pain, anxiety, depression, nausea, and many other aversive states. However, scientists at University of Gothenburg and University of Oslo recently showed that the placebo effect may not be limited to pain reduction, but may also enhance pleasure, or hyperhedonia. The researchers used the placebo effect to improve both painful and pleasant touch sensations in healthy humans – and by comparing brain processing using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), found that, depending on whether the starting point was painful or pleasant, neurocircuitry associated with emotion and reward underpinned improvement of both pain and pleasant touch by dampening pain but increasing touch pleasantness.
In an interview with Medical Xpress, PhD candidate Dan-Mikael Ellingsen discussed the paper he and his colleagues published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "In recent years, functional brain imaging studies have shown that expecting a treatment to relieve negative symptoms – like pain, anxiety or unpleasant taste – leads to not only subjective reports of relief, but also suppressed brain activity in sensory circuitry during aversive stimuli, such as noxious heat or touch, threatening images, and unpleasant taste," Ellingsen tells Medical Xpress. "However, both aversive and appetitive experiences – for example, tasty food or a pleasant touch – are affected by context and expectation." Therefore, Ellingsen explains, in forming their hypothesis for this study, the researchers asked whether improvement of good experiences is encoded entirely in higher-level valuation processing, or whether it would mirror the modulation of early stages of sensory processing that is seen for aversive stimuli. "If so, we'd expect such positive sensory signals to be up-regulated, in contrast to the down-regulation of sensory signals we see during placebo-induced reduction of aversive experiences."
In the placebo manipulation procedure, participants were shown a short video documentary convincing them that a nasal spray containing the neuropeptide oxytocin would reduce pain and enhance the pleasantness of pleasant touch. Following this video, they self-administered 10 puffs of a placebo nasal that they were told could contain oxytocin. The pleasant touch stimuli consisted of caress-like light strokes with a soft brush, or a hot/cold pack (resembling a warm hand, applied to the subject's forearm. The pain stimulus was a thermode (~47 degrees Celsius) on the hand.
Ellingsen notes that by comparing brain activation during painful or pleasant touch stimuli after placebo treatment versus no-placebo, the scientists were able to assess differences in activation that was specifically related to having received placebo treatment. "Importantly, the subjective reports showed that, after receiving placebo relative to no-placebo, touch pleasantness was increased while pain unpleasantness was decreased," he adds. "When contrasting placebo and no-placebo on brain activation, we found that sensory activation was increased during pleasant touch stimuli and decreased during painful touch stimuli. In other words, the placebo-induced change in sensory processing reflected the placebo-induced change in subjective reports."
The team also hypothesized that placebo improvement of pleasant touch would recruit the same emotion appraisal neurocircuitry that underpins placebo analgesia. "Neural systems mediating pain and pleasure interact extensively, with pain and pleasure often being mutually inhibitory," Ellingsen says. "For instance," he illustrates, "pleasant stimuli such as music, food, odors, and touch can have analgesic effects – and pain can inhibit pleasure and positive feelings. Further, opioids can induce both potent analgesia and feelings of pleasure." (An opioid is any psychoactive chemical that resembles morphine or other opiate in its pharmacological effects.) Ellingsen points out that previous findings show that relief from pain induces pleasant feelings1,2, and when a normally painful stimulus represents the best possible outcome – that is, when the alternative is even more intense pain3 – it can even become pleasant.
Ellingsen explains that a central element in all placebo effects is that there is an expectation or desire for an improvement, for example, a relief of pain or unpleasantness – and placebo effects have been theorized to arise from a generalized mechanism of reward prediction. This reasoning, he notes, is supported by evidence that placebo responses across modalities – analgesia6, anxiety relief7, and so on – rely on activation of similar neural systems involved in reward and emotion. "In line with this strong link between pleasure and the relief from negative feelings, we hypothesized that improving the pleasantness of an appetitive stimulus would rely on modulatory mechanisms similar to those involved in the improvement of aversive feelings."
A key aspect of the team's research was devising and applying an fMRI crossover study to compare neural processing of placebo hyperhedonia and analgesia. "In order to compare the brain mechanisms of placebo hyperhedonia and analgesia, we assessed the effect of placebo treatment on subjective experiences within the same sensory modality – namely, touch, both pleasant and painful."
A key aspect of the study's analytic design was based on the researchers' knowledge that all dermal information is processed in the same neural pathways – specifically, the sensory thalamus, primary and secondary somatosensory areas, and the posterior insula. "As a result," Ellingsen points out, "we were able to perform two important measurements: we directly compared how expectation of improvement affected the processing of positive and negative somatosensory signals in these pathways, and investigated the effect of higher-level modulatory circuitry on sensory processing of pleasant or painful touch."
Proposed mechanism of placebo analgesia and hyperhedonia. During expectation of hyperhedonia and analgesia, a shared modulatory network up-regulates pleasant touch processing and down-regulates painful touch processing in somatosensory areas, …more
Another factor the scientists had to consider was that the use of subjective rating scales varies widely between individuals (as opposed to a single individual's typical consistency). As a result, these scales are significantly better at detecting changes between placebo and no-placebo within individuals rather than between one group who received placebo and another that received no placebo. "Consequently," Ellingsen explains, "such a design has superior statistical power – that is, a greater ability to detect a true effect."
Further, the potential benefit of a crossover design can be found when the order of treatment – specifically, placebo or no-placebo first – is considered, since it may potentially affect responses. "To control for this potential confounder," notes Ellingsen, "we used a crossover design, that is, half of the subjects got placebo in the first session, and the other half got placebo in the last session." However, he adds, in the analyses they performed, they found that the treatment order had no effect on either subjective placebo improvement or brain activation.
"To our knowledge," Ellingsen continues, "our study is the first to investigate placebo improvement of pleasurable feelings. By directly comparing this effect with the more well-known placebo analgesia effect, we were able to identify both the differences and a potential shared mechanism of these two types of improvement: People with stronger placebo-induced increases in functional coupling between ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and subcortical structures (PAG) reported greater placebo hyperhedonia and analgesia, and had greater analgesic decreases and hyperhedonic increases in somatosensory processing."
Ellingsen says that this finding suggests that endogenous improvement of positive and negative feelings are tightly coupled. "Interestingly, we saw that people with the greatest placebo hyperhedonia responses also had the greatest placebo analgesia responses. Overall, the results provide a piece of the puzzle of how positive expectations affect both positive and negative feelings."
Expanding on the team's findings, Ellingsen describes how the researchers first observed that placebo hyperhedonia was associated with increased activation of a number of cortical and subcortical areas important for placebo analgesia – namely, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, accumbens, amygdala, and the midbrain structures periaqueductal grey and the ventral tegmental area. Not only was there increased activation in these areas after placebo administration compared to no-placebo, Ellingsen adds, but the amount of increase was positively correlated to the magnitude of the reported improvement: Those with largest placebo-induced hyperhedonia and analgesia had the highest placebo-induced activation in these areas. Moreover, those with largest placebo hyperhedonia and analgesia also had the strongest placebo-induced increase in functional connectivity within this circuitry, a measure of how much these areas communicate with each other. "Although our findings show similar patterns of activation between placebo hyperhedonia and analgesia, it's important to point out that they weren't identical. There are likely to be fine-grained differences between these processes within this circuitry that were not identified by this study."
Ellingsen stresses that an important mechanism in placebo analgesia – one that has been replicated several times – is the engagement of the opioid descending modulatory system, which consists of vmPFC, amygdala, and PAG. "When treated with a placebo that is expected to have analgesic effects," Ellingsen explains, "activation of this system suppresses nociceptive" (the neural processes of encoding and processing noxious or painful stimuli) "signaling both in the brain and – since the PAG has descending connections through the rostroventral medulla, RVM, to the spinal dorsal horn, where it can modulate incoming nociceptive signals – at the spinal cord level." Importantly, he notes, placebo analgesia and the activation of this system are reversed when the individual is given the opioid receptor antagonist naloxone, indicating that this mechanism is dependent on opioid signaling.
To ask whether this system is involved also in placebo improvement of pleasantness, we assessed the relationship between 1) the placebo-induced change in functional connectivity between the vmPFC and PAG, and 2) placebo-induced change in sensory processing. Strikingly, we found that the co-activation of vmPFC and PAG was related to opposite effects during placebo hyperhedonia and analgesia: During pain, those with strongest increases in functional coupling had the largest decreases in sensory processing, while during pleasant touch, those with strongest functional coupling had the largest sensory increases. We are now planning to investigate whether placebo hyperhedonia, like (most) placebo analgesia, depends on opioid signaling.
Moving forward, Ellingsen says, their study opens up several important questions for future studies:
Does placebo hyperhedonia, similar to analgesia, rely on opioid or dopamine signaling?
Could expectation of hyperhedonia alone have analgesic effects – and vice versa?
Could including information about potential hyperhedonic effects actually boost treatment effects of analgesic drugs?
What is the exact mechanism of the up-regulation of sensory processing in placebo hyperhedonia? Is it entirely central in its action, or could it involve descending facilitation of touch processing at the spinal cord level, which is a component in placebo analgesia4 and nocebo hyperalgesia5?
(A nocebo – the opposite of a placebo – is a harmless substance that creates detrimental effects in a patient who takes it. Likewise, the nocebo effect is the negative expectation-based reaction experienced by a patient who receives a nocebo.)
Regarding other areas of research that might benefit from their study, Ellingsen cites a growing recognition that health care systems need to be remodeled to target placebo mechanisms – and to do so by altering expectations, motivation, treatment context, and the therapist-patient relationship. "In most medical settings, however, the focus is to ease negative symptoms – to relieve pain, nausea, or discomfort – but to attain positive feelings, people have to seek elsewhere, despite our knowledge that positive experiences, like captivating music, pleasant odors, beautiful pictures, pleasant touch, and support from people we care about, can have potent analgesic effects."
If the tightly-coupling expectations of improvement in pleasurable and painful feelings suggested by their results interact in the clinical setting, Ellingsen believes it to be very likely that increasing the focus on positive appetitive effects of medical care (increased life quality, regained ability to enjoy pleasures, and the like) may have potent effects on the relief of negative symptoms. "In general," he concludes, "our findings shed some light on the complex relationship between positive feelings, negative feelings and expectation in the context of medical treatment. We believe our findings are relevant to the field of medical research in general, and promote widening the scope of medical research to improvement of positive experiences and pleasure."
Explore further: Intranasal application of hormone appears to enhance placebo response
More information: Placebo improves pleasure and pain through opposite modulation of sensory processing, PNAS Published online before print October 14, 2013, doi:10.1073/pnas.1305050110
Related:
1Relief as a Reward: Hedonic and Neural Responses to Safety from Pain, PLoS ONE 6(4): e17870. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0017870
2Opponent appetitive-aversive neural processes underlie predictive learning of pain relief, Nature Neuroscience 8, 1234-1240 (2005),
doi:10.1038/nn1527
3The importance of context: When relative relief renders pain
Pleasant, Pain 2013 Mar;154(3):402-10, doi:10.1016/j.pain.2012.11.018
4Direct Evidence for Spinal Cord Involvement in Placebo Analgesia, Science 16 October 2009: Vol. 326 no. 5951 p. 404, doi:10.1126/science.1180142
5Facilitation of Pain in the Human Spinal Cord by Nocebo Treatment, The Journal of Neuroscience, 21 August 2013, 33(34): 13784-13790; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2191-13.2013
6Placebo-induced changes in FMRI in the anticipation and experience of pain, Science, 303(5661): 1162-1167 (2004), doi:10.1126/science.1093065
7Placebo in emotional processing—induced expectations of anxiety relief activate a generalized modulatory network, Neuron, 46(6), 957-969 (2005), doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2005.05.023
Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PLoS ONE Nature Neuroscience Pain Science Journal of Neuroscience Neuron
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I saw this MOC of a Lego Moog first on the Music Radar website and was so impressed by it, that I planned to build my own. But after studying all the photos I found in the internet I soon recognised that I wouldn’t manage to build it with the full functionality (working keyboard, pitch- and modulation wheels and controller knobs) like the one built by the Arvo brothers. So, my mod is simply a display piece.
You can find the original of the Arvo brothers here:
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 2.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com
Hu Zhengyan (c. 1584-1674) was a Chinese traditional painter, calligrapher, seal carver and publisher during the transition of the Ming and Qing dynasties. He produced China’s first printed publication in color, and was famous for his incredible techniques achieving gradation and modulation of shades in woodblock prints.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: rawpixel
subatomic Midibox SID V2
synthesizer in old vintage commodore c64 computer case
read about this DIY project here in the work blog: www.subatomicglue.com/sidl0g/
for information about making your own midibox go here: www.ucapps.de/midibox_sid.html
This is a MidiboxSID, a synthesizer that has sound chips from the original commodore 64 personal computer from the 1980's. These sound chips are called the SID 6582
The synth is built into an original Commodore 64 computer case. And features 8 SID chips (4 stereo pairs - one SID per ear x 4 voices). Each SID chip has 3 oscillators and a variety of other features like filters, ADSR, ringmod, sync. The synth has a very flexible (and simple to use) modulation matrix, LFO, bassline sequencers, and stores patches in presets.
UPDATE:
2008-05-28 We got midibox of the day! and also covered on the midibox.org's blog
2008-06-02 matrixsynth covered this story
2008-06-05 hack a day covered this story with their own synopsis of the build process!
29 cm (11.4 inches) on a side, 2 turns of 6-strand telephone cable, with wires daisy-chained to make the equivalent of 12 turns. Two ends of loop connected to 700 pF variable capacitor. A separate single turn of a single telephone wire is looped between the two cables and used as a sensing coil, with its two ends fed to the AM radio antenna input. Very directional (a few degrees) for nulling interfering channels and selective, tuning from about 500 kHz to about 1400 kHz, with good long-wave reception, too...
Helps pick up French, German, Dutch, Belgian, Manx, Irish and English AM stations from southern Scotland on medium-wave in late Spring. From my location, daylight range in summer on MW seems to be between 200-300 km when used outdoors, unfiltered by thick stone walls, and 150-200 km in the house, using a 1990s JVC hi-fi radio receiver. Autumn is another story: October after sunset gets reliable reception from Russia, Spain, Poland, Czech Republic, Italy, Algeria, Egypt, Saudia Arabia...about a 1500 km range. All but five or six available frequencies on the AM dial have reliable stations, and some have as many as five, at different times and directions. These latest pick-ups were using a 1956 Phillips B3G63A valve radio for DX and regular listening.
Subsequently added an additional capacitor in parallel with the variable capacitor (i.e. adding capacitance) to better tune the LW band:
Use 0.0047 uF in parallel with variable cap to boost amplitude at lower broadcast frequencies of the LW band (notably France Inter at 162 kHz and Europe 1 at 183 kHz), and alternatively a 0.001 uF capacitor to allow tuning of the loop at the higher frequencies of the LW band (e.g. RTL Luxembourg at 234 kHz and RTE Eire at 252 kHz). The extra caps are alternately selected by a SPDT switch, with centre off to select MW reception.
Subsequently have tried tapping via a switch to use fewer turns. Tried 10, 8 and 6 turns. As expected, this shifts the tuning upward in frequency (so no longer tuning at the bottom end of 550, but closer to 1000 kHz using 6 turns). Unfortunately, the self-capacitance of the cable still restricts the upper range of tuning to around 1400 kHz. The amplitude of weak stations at the top end (1600 kHz or so) is about twice as high as with 12 turns, so there is a slight net advantage but scarcely worth it. So, only solution for tuning the top of the range is to construct another aerial having less self-capacitance, i.e. with individual, more widely spaced and parallel, wires.
Over the summer of 2013 have built several, larger loops for considerably better performance. Will post some details when I get a chance...
A Place to Bury Strangers graces us with their presence once again. I'm still surprised this avant garde experimental band comes to St. Louis. The crowd, though not large, understands and appreciates this unique band. You have to see them to understand their artistry and power.
The subtitle of this series is the "madness of photographing in stobe lights". I asked Oliver Ackermann before they played if they were going to have strobes likes the first time I saw them. I just wanted to be ready for them. He laughed and, "Maybe." Oh yes there were strobes and they were even more intense than last time. It was a smaller more independent venue this time and maybe that made it easier to put on the show they REALLY wanted to. Though 60% of my shots were black, I managed to get a few.
#amy buxton
#Fall
#St. Louis
#A Place to Bury Strangers
#band
#music
#noise manipulation
#Off Broadway
#wave modulation
#Death By Audio
#Dion Lunadon
#Oliver Ackermann
#experimental rock
#space rock
#strobe light
#strobe
#concert
from Wikipedia:
The chapel combines harmoniously a variety of styles: the Norman architecture and door decor, the Arabic arches and scripts adorning the roof, the Byzantine dome and mosaics. For instance, clusters of four eight-pointed stars, typical for Muslim design, are arranged on the ceiling so as to form a Christian cross.
Saracen arches and Byzantine mosaics complement each other within the Palatine Chapel
The Palatine Chapel (Italian: Cappella Palatina[1]) is the royal chapel of the Norman kings of Sicily situated on the ground floor at the center of the Palazzo Reale in Palermo, southern Italy.
The chapel was commissioned by Roger II of Sicily in 1132 to be built upon an older chapel (now the crypt) constructed around 1080. It took eight years to build and many more to decorate with mosaics and fine art. The sanctuary, dedicated to Saint Peter, is reminiscent of a domed basilica. It has three apses, as is usual in Byzantine architecture, with six pointed arches (three on each side of the central nave) resting on recycled classical columns.
The mosaics of the Palatine Chapel are of unparalleled elegance as concerns elongated proportions and streaming draperies of figures. They are also noted for subtle modulations of colour and luminance. The oldest are probably those covering the ceiling, the drum, and the dome. The shimmering mosaics of the transept, presumably dating from the 1140s and attributed to Byzantine artists, illustrate scenes from the Acts of the Apostles. Every composition is set within an ornamental frame, not dissimilar to that used in contemporaneous mosaic icons.
Other remarkable features of the chapel include the Carolingian throne, a low stage for royal receptions, and a balcony which allowed the king to view religious processions from above. In addition, the muqarnas ceiling is spectacular. The hundreds of facets were painted, notably with many purely ornamental vegetal and zoomorphic designs but also with scenes of daily life and many subjects that have not yet been explained. Stylistically influenced by Iraqi 'Abbasid art, these paintings are innovative in their more spatially aware representation of personages and of animals
Fox Theatre - Queen Street East, Toronto [ www.foxtheatre.ca/ ]
"It all began in October 1913 when a man named Arthur Brooks Webster was issued a permit to build a theatre on Queen St East, close to Beech Ave. At the time, the resident Beachers were not too thrilled about having another theatre in their midst; as there were already two other local cinemas (The Coliseum, and The Peter Pan). This forced Webster to petition door to door in the neighborhood, enlisting his friends to help out, and eventually he gained the necessary support.
In April 1914 the Toronto Sunday World reported that the doors were opening on the Theatre Without a Name. Opening nights feature film was 'The Squaw Man,' and a contest was announced to name the theatre. For a short time after (April 1914 until December 1914) the theatre ran under the name The Pastime. Within the same year however that name would be changed to Prince Edward, to honor the Prince of Wales. This was a patriotic gesture in response to Britain’s (and, subsequently, Canada’s) declaration of war against Germany. In fact, the stain glass window bearing that name, Prince Edward, remains above the interior doorway of the theatre.
In 1918 Webster died and the theatre was taken over by his son, Cecil Herbert Webster.
Throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s the movie industry changed drastically; from silent films, to talkies, to full sound, and The Prince Edward always kept up with the industry.
In 1937 the name of the theatre was changed to The Fox, and the name has stuck for 70 years. While ownership of the theatre has changed several times, The Fox has remained a mainstay of the Beach Community for nearly a century, making it the longest running cinema in Canada." www.foxtheatre.ca/about/index.html
*****
"'Love Story' is a song by American country music-pop music artist Taylor Swift. It is the first single from her second studio album, 2008's Fearless. The song was released in September 2008, and by November it reached the top of the Billboard country chart, becoming her third Billboard Number One. It has also become her first top 5 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. As with most of the songs on Fearless, Swift wrote 'Love Story' herself. 'Love Story' is Swift's first international single venturing into other markets outside North America and Australia. The single is also Swift's first single to receive remixes for the clubs. As of the week ending Feb. 8, 2009, 'Love Story' has been downloaded more than 2.64 million times making it the most downloaded country song in history. In addition, 'Love Story' also became the first country crossover recording to hit #1 on the Nielsen BDS CHR/Top 40 chart, which appears in industry leading trade publications Radio & Records and Billboard as well as #1 on the Mediabase Top 40 Chart. The song is currently number two in the UK Singles chart.
In an article for Billboard, Swift described 'Love Story' as 'a love that you've got to hide because for whatever reason it wouldn't go over well. I spun it in the direction of Romeo and Juliet; our parents are fighting. I relate to it more as a love that you cannot really elaborate on — a love that maybe society wouldn't accept [or] maybe your friends wouldn't accept.'
The song is a mid-tempo, accompanied by banjo and guitar. The chord progression is a simple I-V-vi-IV, very common in pop music. In the lyrics, the narrator alludes to Romeo and Juliet and The Scarlet Letter to describe a lover whom her father will not let her see. In the end, however, the father reconciles and the lover proposes to the female narrator. The proposal is accompanied by a modulation in key up one whole step, from D to E. Swift has repeatedly mentioned in interviews that the song was written around the lyrics, 'This love is difficult, but it's real.'
The Pop Mix replaces the Country-style instruments (i.e. the banjo) and adds a heavier bassline, a drum loop and heavier electric guitars.
The International Radio Mix is a hybrid mix of the album version and pop edit, keeping the storybook theme of the original song with a pop overtone arrangement." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Story_(Taylor_Swift_song)
Period-adding route to chaos in a diode-inductor circuit - or, how to make clean frequency dividers for 5 pence.
The frequency dividers also preserve modulations, up to a point. Here we see the drive frequency at the bottom, and waveforms of divide by 2,3,4 and 5 as the amplitude of the drive is progressively increased. The maximum division ratio which has been observed is a divide by 41 waveform.
Deperming, or degaussing, is a procedure for erasing the permanent magnetism from ships and submarines to camouflage them against magnetic detection vessels and enemy marine mines.
A sea-going metal-hulled ship or submarine, by its very nature, develops a magnetic signature as it travels due to a magneto-mechanical interaction with the Earth's magnetic field. This signature can be exploited by magnetic mines, or facilitate the detection of a submarine by ships or aircraft with magnetic anomaly detection (MAD) equipment. Navies use the deperming procedure, in conjunction with degaussing, as a countermeasure against this.
Specialized deperming facilities, such as the United States Navy's Lambert's Point Deperming Station are used to perform the procedure. Heavy gauge copper cables are wrapped around the hull and superstructure of the vessel, and very high electrical currents (as high as 4000 amps) are pulsed through the cables. This has the effect of "resetting" the ship's magnetic signature. It is also possible to assign a specific signature that is best suited to the particular area of the world in which the ship will operate. Over time the deperm will begin to degrade and the procedure must be redone periodically to maintain the desired effect.
During World War II the United States Navy commissioned a specialized class of degaussing ships that were capable of performing this function. One of them, USS Deperm (ADG-10), was named after the procedure.
Researcher Jacques Vallée describes a procedure on board the USS Engstrom (DE-50), which was docked alongside the Eldridge in 1943. The operation involved the generation of a powerful electromagnetic field on board the ship in order to deperm or degauss it, with the goal of rendering the ship undetectable or "invisible" to magnetically-fused undersea mines and torpedoes. This system was invented by a Canadian, and the Royal Navy and other navies used it widely during WWII. British ships of the era often included such degaussing systems built into the upper decks (the conduits are still visible on the deck of HMS Belfast (C35) in London, for example). Degaussing is still used today. However, it has absolutely no effect on visible light or radar. Vallée speculates that accounts of the USS Engstrom’s degaussing might have been garbled and confabulated in subsequent retellings, and that these accounts may have influenced the story of the so-called "Philadelphia Experiment".
According to Vallée, a Navy veteran who served on board the USS Engstrom noted that the Eldridge might indeed have travelled from Philadelphia to Norfolk and back again in a single day at a time when merchant ships could not: by use of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and the Chesapeake Bay, which at the time was open only to naval vessels.Use of that channel was kept quiet: German submarines had ravaged shipping along the East Coast during Operation Drumbeat, and thus military ships unable to protect themselves were secretly moved via canals to avoid the threat. It should be noted that this same veteran claims to be the man that Allende witnessed “disappearing” at a bar. He claims that when the fight broke out, friendly barmaids whisked him out the back door of the bar before the police arrived, because he was under age for drinking. They then covered for him by claiming that he had disappeared.
The USS Eldridge was not commissioned until August 27, 1943, and it remained in port in New York City until September 1943. The October experiment allegedly took place while the ship was on its first shakedown cruise in the Bahamas, although proponents of the story claim that the ship's logs might have been falsified, or else still be classified.
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) stated in September 1996 that "ONR has never conducted investigations on radar invisibility, either in 1943 or at any other time". Pointing out that the ONR was not established until 1946
The claims of the Philadelphia experiment contradict the known laws of physics. Magnetic fields cannot bend light waves according to Maxwell's equations. While Einstein's theory of general relativity shows that light waves can be bent near the surface of an extremely massive object such as the sun or a black hole, current human technology cannot manipulate the astronomical amounts of matter needed to do this.
No Unified Field Theory currently exists, although it is still a subject of ongoing research. William Moore's book on the "Philadelphia Experiment" claims that Albert Einstein completed, and subsequently destroyed, a theory before his death. Moore bases this on Carl Allen's letter to Jessup in which Allen refers to a conversation between Einstein and Bertrand Russell acknowledging that the theory had been solved, but that man was not ready for it.
Also, shortly before his death in 1943, Nikola Tesla supposedly claimed to have completed some kind of a "Unified Field Theory". It was never published.
These claims are completely at odds with modern physics. While it is true that Einstein attempted to unify gravity with electromagnetism based on classical physics, his geometric approaches called classical unified field theories ignored the modern developments of quantum theory and the discovery of the strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force. Most physicists consider his overall approach to be unsuccessful. Attempts by recent scientists focus on the development of a quantum theory that includes gravitation. It should be noted however that even if a unified field theory were discovered, it still would not present a practical engineering method to bend light waves around a large object like a battleship.
While very limited "invisibility cloaks" have recently been developed using metamaterial, these are unrelated to theories linking electromagnetism with gravity.
Metamaterials are artificial materials engineered to have properties that may not be found in nature. Metamaterials usually gain their properties from structure rather than composition, using small inhomogeneities to create effective macroscopic behavior
The story begins in June of 1943, with the Destroyer Escort, U.S.S. Eldridge, DE-173, being fitted with tons of experimental electronic equipment. This included, according to one source, two massive generators of 75 KVA each, mounted where the forward gun turret would have been, distributing their power through four magnetic coils mounted on the deck. Three RF transmitters (2 megawatt CW each, mounted on the deck), three thousand “6L6” power amplifier tubes (used to drive the field coils of the two generators), special synchronizing and modulation circuits, and a host of other specialized hardware were employed to generate massive electromagnetic fields which, when properly configured, would be able to bend light and radio waves around the ship, thus making it invisible to enemy observers.
At 0900 hours, on July 22nd, 1943, the power to the generators was turned on, and the massive electromagnetic fields started to build up. A greenish fog was seen to slowly envelop the ship, concealing it from view. Then the fog itself is said to have disappeared, taking the U.S.S. Eldridge with it, leaving only undisturbed water where the ship had been anchored only moments before.
The elite officers of the U.S. Navy and scientists involved gazed in awe at their greatest achievement: the ship and crew were not only radar invisible but invisible to the eye as well! Everything worked as planned, and about fifteen minutes later they ordered the men to shut down the generators. The greenish fog slowly reappeared, and the U.S.S. Eldridge began to re-materialize as the fog subsided, but it was evident to all that something had gone wrong.
When boarded by personnel from shore, the crewmembers above decks were disoriented and nauseous. The U.S. Navy removed the crew from that original experiment, and shortly afterward, obtained another crew for a second experiment. In the end, the U.S. Navy decided that they only wanted to achieve radar invisibility, and the equipment was altered.
On the 28th of October in 1943, at 17:15, the final test on the U.S.S. Eldridge was performed. The electromagnetic field generators were turned on again, and the U.S.S. Eldridge became nearly invisible. Only a faint outline of the hull remained visible in the water. Everything was fine for the first few seconds, and then, in a blinding blue flash, the ship completely vanished. Within seconds it reappeared hundreds of miles away, in Norfolk, Virginia, and was seen for several minutes. The U.S.S. Eldridge then disappeared from Norfolk as mysteriously as it had arrived, and reappeared back in Philadelphia Naval Yard. This time most of the sailors were violently sick. Some of the crew were simply “missing” never to return. Some of the crew went crazy. The strangest result of all of this experiment was that five men were found fused to the metal within the ship’s structure.
The men that survived were never the same again. Those that lived were discharged as “mentally unfit” for duty, regardless of their true condition.
I saw this MOC of a Lego Moog first on the Music Radar website and was so impressed by it, that I planned to build my own. But after studying all the photos I found in the internet I soon recognised that I wouldn’t manage to build it with the full functionality (working keyboard, pitch- and modulation wheels and controller knobs) like the one built by the Arvo brothers. So, my mod is simply a display piece.
You can find the original of the Arvo brothers here:
I am looking for more information on this 1960's artifact used for Earth-to-CSM-spacecraft communications testing for Apollo.
The original “USB” (Unified S-Band) was a common communication channel used during the Apollo missions. With just 20 Watts, they could communicate with Houston from the moon (across 239,000 miles). And a single antenna combined voice, television, command, tracking and ranging.
After nine months of effort, the incredible team of Curious Marc, Ken Shirriff and Mike Stewart have revived my 50+year-old Apollo S-Band communications system, using my ground support equipment and the vintage Apollo CSM transponder. In the most recent episode, they powered it up and got the Apollo transponder to lock bidirectionally, with the original NASA test transmitter and receiver, which we both restored to their original Apollo frequencies.
An artifact from the Future Ventures’ 🚀 Space Collection.
Back in my late teens through my mid 20's my big hobby was amateur radio. I had a Yeasu FT-2400 and hung out on the 2 meter FM band. Most of the time I would just chat with other local hams and developed a couple of friendships. The 2 meter band with repeaters would usually get you a range of 50 miles or so from your location.
This QSL card is from the night of September 14th 1997. A night I will never forget as both a ham radio operator and a scanner and radio enthusiast. It started as I left work at midnight, I turned on the radio as I started the car and I could tell that something was going on over 2 meters..
I got this call from friend of mine on the Hampton Minnesota Repeater (147.360 K0JTA)
N0ZBM to N0RCX, ya out there Scott?
Go ahead Mark!
Scott 2 meters is going insane, lets meet at the field day location and see what we can get for signals above the fog bank
"Sounds great, I'll meet ya there".
I always carried my radio log in the car incase something ever good happened and that night was the night. Repeaters were transmitting over each other, if you would "key up" you could trip 5 or more repeaters.
This night I had many out of state contacts, I made contacts with people in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin and Michigan, This is record of a contact I had with KB0ZIX, Darrell in Harper Kansas.
Not was the amateur bands going crazy but so were other parts of the VHF band. I was listening to fire departments in Iowa and Missouri being paged out. Skip was competing with our local radio stations also.
The coolest thing I heard that night was on our local National Weather Service channel KEC65 out of Chanhassen Minnesota. When I tuned in I was receiving KIG76, the National Weather Service out of Paducah Kentucky transmitting on a transmitter out of Evansville Indiana over our signal and it was just as loud and clear as ours, completely overpowering our signal for a couple of minutes. It was unbelievable
MUTABILIDAD
Somos como las nubes que enmascaran la luna,
que huyen sin descanso, relampaguean, tiemblan,
rasgando con destellos lo oscuro, mas, de pronto,
la noche las rodea y se pierden para siempre;
o arrinconadas liras de cuerdas disonantes
que a cada son diverso responden diferente,
y en cuya hechura frágil ninguna melodía
resuena semejante al volver a tocarla.
Dormidos, pesadillas turban nuestro reposo;
despiertos, vagos sueños contaminan el día;
ya con risa o con llanto, fantasía o razón,
ya abracemos las penas o ya las desechemos
¡da lo mismo! Pues, sea alegre o sea triste,
la senda de su marcha final está ya abierta:
tal vez no sea el pasado del hombre su mañana;
tal vez sólo perdure la Mutabilidad.
MUTABILITY
We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly! -yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:
Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.
We rest. -A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise. -One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:
It is the same! -For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 – 1822)
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 2.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com
Hu Zhengyan (c. 1584-1674) was a Chinese traditional painter, calligrapher, seal carver and publisher during the transition of the Ming and Qing dynasties. He produced China’s first printed publication in color, and was famous for his incredible techniques achieving gradation and modulation of shades in woodblock prints.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: rawpixel
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 2.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com
Hu Zhengyan (c. 1584-1674) was a Chinese traditional painter, calligrapher, seal carver and publisher during the transition of the Ming and Qing dynasties. He produced China’s first printed publication in color, and was famous for his incredible techniques achieving gradation and modulation of shades in woodblock prints.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: rawpixel
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 2.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com
Hu Zhengyan (c. 1584-1674) was a Chinese traditional painter, calligrapher, seal carver and publisher during the transition of the Ming and Qing dynasties. He produced China’s first printed publication in color, and was famous for his incredible techniques achieving gradation and modulation of shades in woodblock prints.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: rawpixel
In order to convert the Bertin to a 650B I exchanged the Mafac Racer brakes for a set of long reach Lam sidepulls of the same type that work very well on my 650B porteur. As it turns out, the large, stiff springs on these brakes are nearly impossible to operate with road brake levers. Neither the CLB's that were on the bike already or the Mafacs that I tried were up to the task, so I've installed the guidonet levers that were on my Urago instead. These levers are perfectly matched to the brakes and are easy to operate with good modulation. An additional bonus of the levers is to streamline the top of a bike that has a lot going on visually as it is. Now for those British fenders...
Preview 01 here
Preview 03 here
Preview 04 here
For the past two and a half months I have been developing my first, cursive Arabic (and a Latin) typeface.
Normally, type designers tend to raise the Arabic characters upto the Latin x-height - which in my view distorts the letterforms from their true, cursive, fluid and diversified beauty. I understand the reason behind this though - it is to harmonise two alien scripts - and more often than not - it is the Latin script which was developed first and so the Arabic must follow suit.
As such, on this occasion, I began with the Arabic - and in doing so retained all its' calligraphic character without the calligraphic embellishments. It is essentially a monoline font - clean cut and simple - with minor but very necessary modulation (mostly on terminal endings) - which makes it perfect for use as a contemporary, Modernistic typeface.
The Arabic featured here has a fluid beauty to it resonant and respectful to the centuries of character development and handwriting systems developed through the many lifetimes of Master Khattats (calligraphers) around the world.
I am currently in the process of developing a matching Latin with the help of Swiss typographer, Bruno Maag, and his associates at the infamous type house, Dalton Maag, in London.
More will be revealed very soon :)
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 2.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com
Hu Zhengyan (c. 1584-1674) was a Chinese traditional painter, calligrapher, seal carver and publisher during the transition of the Ming and Qing dynasties. He produced China’s first printed publication in color, and was famous for his incredible techniques achieving gradation and modulation of shades in woodblock prints.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: rawpixel
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 2.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com
Hu Zhengyan (c. 1584-1674) was a Chinese traditional painter, calligrapher, seal carver and publisher during the transition of the Ming and Qing dynasties. He produced China’s first printed publication in color, and was famous for his incredible techniques achieving gradation and modulation of shades in woodblock prints.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: rawpixel
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 2.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com
Hu Zhengyan (c. 1584-1674) was a Chinese traditional painter, calligrapher, seal carver and publisher during the transition of the Ming and Qing dynasties. He produced China’s first printed publication in color, and was famous for his incredible techniques achieving gradation and modulation of shades in woodblock prints.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: rawpixel
1) MP4 / WMA / MPX/ DRM (Can Save WMV, WMA, ASF, MPG, MPEG, MOV, and AVI into AMV)
2) USB flash disk, 1GB MP4/ 2G MP4 /4G MP4 /8GB mp4 built-in flash memory
3) Digital voice recording; 8 hours recording for 128M and VOX recording
4) 1.8" TFT color display MP4
5) ID3 support, Lyric display
6) E-book function and photo browse
7) Support multi-language display: Simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, English, Spanish, Italian, German, French,
Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Swedish, Czech, Denmark, Polish, Russian And Thai
8) 7-mode equalizer
9) A-B repeat function
10) Rechargeable lithium battery through USB / AC charger
11) FM frequency modulation: Listens to frequency 76~108MHz
12) Color: White and black
13) No driver needed under Windows ME, 2000, XP or above (except Win98)
14) Accessories: Earphone, CD drive for Win98, USB cable, charger, users' manual
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 2.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com
Hu Zhengyan (c. 1584-1674) was a Chinese traditional painter, calligrapher, seal carver and publisher during the transition of the Ming and Qing dynasties. He produced China’s first printed publication in color, and was famous for his incredible techniques achieving gradation and modulation of shades in woodblock prints.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: rawpixel
Realistic Navaho TRC-441 Base CB, manufactured in 1978. This model is similar to the TRC-440, but has an LED channel display and Modulation indicator LED. Both models were great basic CB base stations.
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 2.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com
Hu Zhengyan (c. 1584-1674) was a Chinese traditional painter, calligrapher, seal carver and publisher during the transition of the Ming and Qing dynasties. He produced China’s first printed publication in color, and was famous for his incredible techniques achieving gradation and modulation of shades in woodblock prints.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: rawpixel
Context Provocation Mythogram (Part 1 on Lost by David Shrigley) (part 2 on The Messenger - by Bill Viola)
I had seen the grey and white pigeon with black bits, on a number of occasions. It seemed to have a habit of standing in the gutter at Gorbals Cross, even in the pouring rain. Why it seemed indifferent to the wet, when everyone else in Glasgow was running for shelter, I could only wonder at. Then I saw this notice Sellotaped to a tree in a park. It had an intriguing strangeness about it, so I called the telephone number, but it was unobtainable. There was a cold wind blowing when I returned to the park, but it brought with it a faint aroma of baking bread. I moved in close to the advertisement, to try and understand its logic, but suddenly a colder gust tore the scrap of paper from the tree, and as I watched, it soared away and fluttered in a huge grey Glasgow sky.
What was the significance of the advertisement? Glasgow must have a million pigeons, all of them grey and white with black bits, so why would anyone need to advertise for one that's 'lost', and then by the same token imply that they didn't want to find it anyway? I began to suspect that there never had been a pigeon, and that something quite different was lost. But how do you find what's lost, when you don't know what you're looking for?
There does seem to be a pigeon living, so to speak, in the visual language of the notice. It's an ideal, not a physical pigeon. A kind of word pigeon, which seems to be hinted at by the addition of the letter 'd' to the word pigeon, suggesting a creature hybridised from two words:
pigeon: a bird with a heavy body and short legs, sometimes trained to carry messages.
pidgin: language, not a mother tongue, made up of elements of two or more other languages.
Is what is sought a normal sized, mangy, grey white and black, nameless bird, with short legs and a heavy body? Is it sometimes trained to carry messages in a language made up of elements of two or more of the languages? This is not so confusing, because any text carries at least two themes. Some are read in the words, and the others can be read between the lines. By doing this, and accepting that there is only language, we can try to understand the difference between this ideal pigeon and a pigeon-shaped physical thing.
Supposing, for the sake of argument, that there are such things as pigeons, (and we can't tell from the advert that there are), we could make an inventory of things we think we know about pigeons. We could then say, that this is an inventory of assumptions that are implied by, and therefore used by the advert to kindle the ideal pigeon. They lie as it were, between the lines of the advert, but they affect the language it uses, and the way it looks.
Of all we think we know about physical pigeons, one important difference is that they live and die in a city of cliffs and ledges. They don't experience the city they shit on, and fly in, as the buildings of an urban social system. We experience their behaviour as a sequence of differences, and when we think we understand these differences, we make words for their different ways of behaving. Through language, pigeons are absorbed into the structure of the city; but they aren't aware of being absorbed into a world of words. They experience the city as pure spatial difference, and they don't need their language to indicate objects.
This is where the two languages of the advert seemed to conflict. Language for us is the means by which we try to organise the world, but between the lines, we see that language for a pigeon is not that at all. We could call this conflict 'poetry', and leave it at that; but that might divert us into art, and away from the city. If we are to find and read its lost message, we should really face head on, the dangers that the advert imposes on logic.
A pigeon's life is the defence of its pigeon-hood. Everything a pigeon does, is aimed towards its survival until that situation is impossible. Even its call. We hear a pigeon making a cooing sound that differentiates it from the other things in our frame of reference, and we say that one of the reasons that this thing is a pigeon is because it is cooing. But cooing is not metaphorical language, made up from various subtly different sounds that represent things like the eggs and nest. Although there are certain modulations of cooing, these are not differentiated from each other by their need to function in a language as a sign for something. Cooing is part of the sexual posturing of a pigeon, and because of this, cooing is the profound defence of its own pigeon-hood. As far as we can determine, a pigeon is absolutely its own most cooing thing - for itself and only for itself.
A pigeon is essentially an 'am cooing' thing, not a self-conscious 'I am cooing'. Cooing is pigeon; but that 'is', as an implication of presence, is only as far as we can say it with words, because pigeons aren't inside something called presence. And because pigeons have no need to represent themselves to themselves, they have not evolved a language that can elevate the self, that a pigeon could be conscious of, to the status of the genetically infinite.
Our consciousness of time as a linear unfolding of 'nows', centred on the present, supports a common language structure that is also linear. We talk in time, and we hear ourselves speaking at this present moment. Our language is made of words that are repeatable ideal values, derived from ideas and from things like pigeons. We hold these things ready for use, and at any time, we can represent them, so to speak, almost as if they are physically here. But to be able to communicate in this way, we need to suppress in a quite unethical way, that physicality of things, the unity of which is the very idea of pure spatiality, that profound exterior difference between any one present moment and the next, that would compromise and confuse the linear logic of language. We must suppress the physicality of things, or we wouldn't be able to speak, for living in the pure breadth of unlimited relativity. But the physical nature of pigeon shit is never experienced through discourse. The sanctity of our consciousness of pigeons is seldom contaminated by the abject orifice.
This necessary degree of colloquial insulation from the physical is reflected in our practical behaviour. We have a manual dexterity that enables us to arrange materials, and experience them as such. This is because our internal time consciousness predisposes these skills and materials to being for the sake of some future arrangement, and for some progress towards a better situation. We call this technical expertise, technē, which was for the Greeks, crucially, a practical experience gained from encountering the differences of the physical world, which they were part of.
This view from within the physical world was manifest in their art and architecture, and the Greek body and mind was no doubt fused to the planet. But this plural and diverse way of thinking was already being suppressed through the linearity of a language that had to be made to account for the capitalism and control of material wealth. Derrida's reference to Leroi-Gourhan's text, describes this:
"The development of the first cities corresponds not only to the appearance of the technician of fire, but... writing is born at the same time as metallurgy. Here again, this is not a coincidence... it is at the moment when agrarian capitalism began to establish itself, that the means of stabilising it in written balance accounts appears, and it is also at the moment when social hierarchization is affirmed that writing constructs its first genealogists... the appearance of writing is not fortuitous; after millennia of maturation in the systems of mythographic representation, there emerges, along with metal and slavery, the linear notation of thought. Its content is not fortuitous."
Through the centuries, this linear notation assumed an ascendancy that changed the way European people thought, and the type of questions they asked. Technical specialism and linear notation gradually came to repress what Leroi-Gourhan calls the "Mythogram" - a writing that spells its symbols pluri-dimensionally. Gradually, people asked less the question, why is this the way it is, and more they began to ask, what is it in its own structure? This change of purpose may be evidence that a 'culture' had begun to see itself as self-sufficient; but it was also the opening of technology, that paved the way for an unlimited globalized commodification.
Today, the technical operations of our production lines dovetail smoothly and imperceptibly with linear language. These two modes of structural or systemic defence become synonymous in the word technology, which is the practical management of something called nature, within the voice of consciousness. This ideal world enables us to avoid grappling with pure awkward difference.
Pigeons are not technological. A nest isn't built from twiggy and feathery materials. As a pigeon grapples with the pure awkwardness of physical things, it's not aware of them as materials for progress. What we call materials for nestbuilding, are for a pigeon that exterior part of its own physicality, that must be arranged as a defence of its pigeon-hood. A pigeon is that properly constructed nest, the truth of which is only verifiable in terms of eggs and chicks. Pigeons are their own profound physical relationship with the planet, they are that very spatial exteriority of difference between them and the things they deal with, that one day just stops.
By calling on lost feral pigeon, the notice implies something of this. What is so disconcerting, or indeed dangerous about it, is that it plugs straight into that unnameable spacing, that was already there between one present moment and the next, before the very idea of representation. In other words the advertisement cannot be a representation derived from anything; the advertisement is a purely physical, and visual thing. You might say that its words were never voiced, or that its speech, which would always have been the easiest and most powerful way to represent and dominate things in the breath of its spirit, is immediately silenced by a pigeon that could never be present. Or even lost.
By implying that neither nests nor twigs exist as such - by making us think the one as a trace of the other - the advert is quietly and persistently subverting all urban technologies. By drawing on that very unremarkable ubiquitous thing, which is the absolute opposite to what is required for any marketable item, the notice introduces a lethal virus into the world of advertising. By calling with words, to a pigeon that could never be lost, the notice does violence to the logical structure of language. In fact, by the invocation of something that could never be present, the advert erases its own words as representations. Pigeons do not exist. This advertisement is essentially and profoundly untrue. The answer to the question 'what is lost?' is indeed 'what is lost?', or at least that voracious mode of questioning, and with it goes the assumption that texts relate to objects. Because it has used the ideal pigeon, as pidgeon, to silence its own voice, it hangs there abjectly, but quietly optimistic.
To write these things is to think towards deconstruction, and to be suspicious of the power assumptions inherent in a language of representation. The central currency of this language is the image. Which is why so much of traditional art practice has, in recent years, been called into question, by artists whose thoughts tend towards deconstruction. This may have something to do with what Joseph Kosuth was thinking about when he said in 1969:
"Being an artist now means to question the nature of art. If one is questioning the nature of painting, one cannot be questioning the nature of art. If an artist accepts painting (or sculpture) he is accepting the tradition that goes with it. That's because the word art is general and the word painting is specific. Painting as a kind of art. If you make paintings, you are already accepting (not questioning) the nature of art. One is then accepting the nature of art to be the European tradition of a painting - sculpture dichotomy".
Well maybe. It all depends on the context and the intention of the image. David Shrigley's advertisement for a lost pidgeon, as an advertisement in a world of advertising, is a static image that successfully interrogates itself to death, and by doing this, performs deconstructive surgery on its greater technological structure.
Context Provocation Mythogram Part 2 - on The Messenger by Bill Viola
A critical essay by Stan Bonnar
link to still from the video: www.flickr.com/photos/stan_bonnars_artworks/9640685983
In 1996, the church of England's chaplaincy to the arts and recreation in north-east England, commissioned the American artist Bill Viola to make a work in response to Durham Cathedral. The building of this great cathedral was begun in 1093, and it is considered to be one of the finest examples of a Romanesque-Norman architecture in Europe. Viola's artwork is a video entitled 'The Messenger', and this is how he describes the piece:
"A large image is projected onto a screen mounted to the great West door in Durham Cathedral. The image sequence begins with a small, central, luminous, abstract form, shimmering and undulating against a deep blue-black void. Gradually the luminous shape begins to get larger and less distorted, and it soon becomes apparent that we are seeing a human form, illuminated, rising towards us from under the surface of a body of water. The water becomes more still and transparent and the figure more clear on its journey upwards towards us. We identify the figure as a man, pale blue, on his back rising up slowly. After some time, the figure breaks the surface, an act at once startling, relieving and desperate. His pale form emerges into the warm hues of a bright light, the water glistening on his body. His eyes immediately open and he releases a long held breath from the depths, shattering the silence of the image as this forceful primal sound of life that resonates momentarily in the space. After a few moments, he inhales deeply, and, with his eyes shut and his mouth closed, he sinks into the depths of the blue-black void, to become a shimmering moving point of light once more. The image then returns to its original state and the cycle begins anew."
The scandal which ensued the installation was eagerly grasped by the national press. This response from John MacEwan in the Sunday Telegraph:
"On press day, journalists arrived to find to the Dean and Chapter in a flap. They had been legally advised to protect themselves against indecency charges by getting police clearance. Screens were being hastily arranged to hide the film from the general view, because the police had warned that the sight of 'appendages' might upset the public. As the Dean explained: A child who had been sexually abused might come into the cathedral and be disturbed by a large image of a nude male.
"The Dean praised the film: I only saw it this morning, but I think it is a great work of art. Canon Bill Hall, who commissioned the work, added to general approval that it was regrettable it could not be seen as conceived, in full view at the west end of the nave.
"Such verbal support cannot conceal the fact that by admitting the film can cause offence, the Dean and Chapter immediately put themselves in the wrong. To add humiliation to lack of judgement, they have also bowed to the secular authority of the police on a matter they claim to be spiritual. The ensuing mess is no more than they deserve. By turning a blue movie into a Blue Movie, there does indeed seem very good reason for an outraged member of the public to take them to court. The heavy breathing of the soundtrack is now far more scandalous than the screened-off nudity."
Viola's intention had been to make The Messenger: "...have this resonance with, hopefully have a dance with - on the positive side, - on the negative side maybe a conflict with this incredibly powerful place." But although he hopes that the work will have a perceptible interaction with the place, somewhere between dance and conflict, the result was off the scale. In Durham the messenger will inevitably be remembered as screened and censored, so it is worth trying to understand what happened.
It should be noted at this point that The Messenger was also seen in art spaces around the country. I saw the work in the South London Gallery, and although the space was quite dark, being illuminated only by the video projection, there was little resonance with the building itself. I approached the work from this location. Under normal circumstances, the time that the cycle takes, would have involved the terminal expulsion of breath while underwater. This technological stretching of time could be viewed as a subversive commentary on the breath, the voice, and the spiritual dominion of man - a deconstruction of representational purity, glimpsed through an image of the very invincibility of man in fortress 'metaphor'. The authenticity of this view would be signalled by abject desperation, the symbol of a search for the means of linguistic suicide. But although the man is said to be desperate, there is nothing in his body language to suggest despair. That Viola's man is not distressed by any technological dislocation from the meaning of his image, might suggest a utilisation, rather than a critique of metaphorical language.
If this is true, it suggests that the messenger does not address the problem of time and language to the extent that's possible in video artworks. It may be that the water is a metaphor for the subconscious in unity with its physical surroundings, and that this is evidence of pluralistic thinking; but the apparent ease with which he uses metaphor, means that the image as an ideal narrative object, cannot be wrested away from a dominating subject. Because metaphor is essentially derivative and linguistic, its viability as a tool for use towards a greater understanding is in doubt, immediately understanding attempts to dig its way out of representational language. Viola stops The Messenger from drowning through the use of metaphor.
Although Viola reintroduces the human body into the Christian spiritual equation after its exile for centuries, he fails to convince the Sunday telegraph art critic, that The Messenger is nothing more than "... yet another example of body art, its concentration on the physical the reverse of spirituality." Yet surely, as one so involved in the mystical aspects of religious thought, it could be expected that an exploration of mind as body would be central to his project, and that the messenger's body would not be isolated from its own abject but nevertheless potentially ethical reality, by an envelope of spiritual consciousness. Nevertheless although bathing in a linear model of time, The Messenger is the catalyst that causes the very foundations of Durham Cathedral to shake.
It could be argued that what was being censored was not the nudity of the messenger, but the idea of ecstatic love as a way to God. Bill Viola writes that his work is based in unknowing, in doubt, in being lost, in questions and not answers, and he relates to the role of the mystic because of this. He is fascinated by the ancient Christian teaching called the via negativa, the basic tenet of which is an unknowability of God, who can only be approached in love - through the body as much as through the mind of the individual. By love, the soul enters into union with God, a union not infrequently described through the metaphor of ecstatic sex. The via negativa was eventually dominated by the more familiar via positiva of today, a method of affirmation that describes positive, human attributes such as Good and All-Knowing to the image of a transcendent God. But there is also an other aspect to ecstasy.
In his book Being and Time, Martin Heidegger disclosed ecstatic temporalising as primordial to the commonsense sequence of 'nows' we recognize as everyday time: "Temporality is the primordial 'out-side-of-itself' in and for itself. We therefore call the phenomena of the future, the character of having been, and the Present, the 'ecstases' of temporality."
He also disclosed temporality as the ontological meaning of care, and care as Being-towards-death, from which one might assume that ecstasy, both ontological and colloquial, encounters death in a way that would be threatening to the infinite linearity of English ecclesiastical time. In other words it could be argued that it would be necessary for the clergy to censor this aspect of ecstasy, even more so than the sexual aspect of the image.
Nevertheless, the attempt to censor many intimate moments of divergent thought, backfired, causing what might have been a gradual evolution of understanding, to become one of a least intended, catastrophic change, that plunged the people, the clergy and the shaman into an abyss of controversy.
To remember an important dream, is to begin to make sense of its symbols. Although these are events in time, what is important in a dream, is the way in which its images are patterned by the brain. This gives a symbolic picture of the subconscious state, and introduces a potential energy for change. To tell about the dream, is to make word signs that represent its symbols. In Durham, The Messenger may have inadvertently threatened the temporal power base of the Church, and provoked an abject dislocation in its language structure; nevertheless, because this is a shared experience, the first thing to change in light of this dream, might be the very language used to tell it.
The Messenger works because Bill Viola is immersed in the same linguistic structure as the church. He is able to open up this meaningful dialogue in a common language, that results in the spontaneous transformation of the situation. This is the only criterion for success. Most important though, is the need to recognize that it's not an artwork entitled The Messenger that people are standing around questioning, but it's their own ideas of what happened, that they are standing among as part of.
When Canon Bill Hall says that The Messenger is great art, he is defining great art within its context. This is close to what Donald Judd meant when he said, "if someone calls it art, it's art." Within that frame of reference, art becomes a word to use, to contextualise an act, to locate it in a social structure of the same name. Here there is a problematic difference of perspectives on art, from two structures that lay claim to ownership of the messenger. When the Dean refers to this as great art, he sees the entire situation at the cathedral as something that's going to profoundly affect his life. He no doubt is very sensitized to the abjectness of the whole situation. On the other hand, when The Messenger is viewed in the isolation of art, a sense of the abject that might signal an intention to bring death into the linguistic equation is missing.
Viola is happy for the work to be shown in art galleries around the country, because he also belongs to an art world structure. But here the problem centres on the definition of something as art. As long as this uni-dimensional conceptual pattern of a specialized social system called art, persists, it will place a barrier between an intention to deconstruct, and any functioning social system which that deconstruction intends to be part of. In this case it forestalls the necessity for art critique to delve into the contextual background of the work, which would reveal the situation as being truly subversive for its context, the Church. This seems to raise the question as to whether it would in fact be counterproductive to place artists-in-residence in such institutions.
To paraphrase Joseph Kosuth's earlier statement, an artist, being a thinker now, means to question the nature of functioning social structures. If one is questioning the nature of art, one cannot be questioning the nature of other functioning social structures. If a thinker accepts art, they are accepting the tradition that goes with it. That's because the word society is general and the word art is specific. The art world is a kind of functioning social structure. If you make art, you are already accepting (not questioning) the nature of society. One is then accepting that the human image can only really be reflected by art, and disseminated as such to society.
Nevertheless, art exists, and a defining factor of deconstruction is that it operates on the periphery of its own linguistic structure. It could be argued that if something is art, then by definition it can only deconstruct the languages of art. To be sure it filters through eventually to a broader church, as minimalist style, but to whose benefit? Although much of contemporary deconstructive art is difficult to commodify, it still submits to an art objectification, which capitalism would no doubt see as its last line of defence. If it is this linear, linguistic, capitalization of physical things that threatens to be erased by deconstruction, then capitalist thinking would need to maintain the Object, in order for its languages to be able to predict an infinity of its own presence. This objectification is a technological distance that corporate interest must proliferate to survive; but it means that people forget what proximity is for.
These political processes through which art appropriates, commodifies, and neutralizes the ethical impulse of deconstruction, thwart even the most determined attempts at linguistic suicide. To be art, it must have at some stage controlled unpredictability for its own pre-diction as art; it must at some stage in its own future, be able and willing to look back on proximity, as something that happened before it became art. And yet it is that very unpredictability of proximity that allows fluid discourse to find its own democratic level. Deconstruction seeks democracy in the silence of the artists voice, but this is inevitably only a demonstration of how to deconstruct. If art is to transcend its own objectification, a new art tendency must be conceptualised from which the whole of art can be deconstructed. If the whole of art could be viewed by the whole of the population, from the multitude of tiny intimate moments in time that would motivate such a tendency, then the silence would be intense.
To begin to recognize what factors might characterise this tendency toward democracy in art, we might refer to Simon Critchley's book, The Ethics of Deconstruction, Derrida & Levinas. In this work, Critchley draws on Emmanuel Levinas' thinking on ethics.
"...Levinas is preoccupied with the possibility of an ethical form of language, the Saying, which would be irreducible to the ontological language of the Said, in which all entities are disclosed and comprehended in the light of Being... the Saying is my exposure - corporeal, sensible - to the Other, my inability to refuse the Other's approach. It is the performative stating, proposing, or expressive position of myself facing the Other. It is a verbal or non-verbal ethical performance, whose essence cannot be caught in constative propositions. It is a performative doing that cannot be reduced to a constative description."
A tendency towards democracy in art might germinate in this spatial relation to the other. Language opens up the issue of HOW being in relation to the human other is articulated, ethical or not, but prior to language is the Saying, as the "...sheer radicality of human speaking... as the very enactment of the ethical movement from the Same to the Other", as the very unnameability of the trace. Art might raise the issue of its own transcendence in this space, as a performance in the unpredictable proximity before the Other.
At issue here is a tendency within the ontological language of art, to say 'Yes' to the unpredictable Otherness of the Other. If as Levinas states, the Saying is my corporeal and sensible inability to refuse the Other's approach, then it makes sense to perform art in a space of maximum unpredictability. This does seem to suggest that the whole of art might best be deconstructed in public spaces that are unrestricted, and in which the Other is not a predictable object in the artistic field of vision.
Unrestricted public space is full of people, who come close in an unpredictable way, but who are nevertheless capable of forming the 'we' who can in this present moment, demanded justice, or take a political decision for the justification of any issue. Art is such an issue, but deconstructive art, as a signification that raises the question of signification, could be a means to rediscover the sheer proximity necessary to democracy.
I want to refer back to the mythogram, but now as a clearing for the writing of stories whose symbols spell themselves pluri-dimensionally, and as a deconstructive continuum for ethico-political decisions. A tendency to open democratic space.
website - stanbonnar.net/
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 2.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com
Hu Zhengyan (c. 1584-1674) was a Chinese traditional painter, calligrapher, seal carver and publisher during the transition of the Ming and Qing dynasties. He produced China’s first printed publication in color, and was famous for his incredible techniques achieving gradation and modulation of shades in woodblock prints.
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The perfect counterpart to a good scope – a signal generator. This one provides for internal and external modulation in various modulation modes, RF carriers up to 30 MHz, and audio down to tiny fractions of a Hz. Here, I've set it up for 5 KHz sine wave modulation on a 1 MHz carrier.
After using it for a while, some observations:
Pros:
o very flexible; not all that intuitive, but learnable
o great display; once understood, very clear what's going on
Cons:
o it's very, very slow to start up when first turned on
o the deep case is a poor match for the scope
o it doesn't remember what output was left on last
o display of actual waveform is... approximate
o that mechanical power button... meh. Scope's is better.
A stylus gauge from Weathers Industries, used to measure stylus tracking force of a phonograph tone arm.
Weathers Industries was founded by Paul Weathers in 1950. He was an engineer who developed a turntable with an exceptionaly light tone arm using FM modulation and a stereo speaker system using a subwoofer. He manufactured his high end turntables and speaker systems first in Collingswood NJ, then in Barrington, then Cherry Hill Industrial Park. He later moved his operation to 1006 Route 73 in Mt. Laurel. Weathers was last located in Marlton Sqaure (today Staples Plaza) in Marlton, where it moved to from Mt. Laurel in the late 1970s. It is said Mr. Weathers kept this small shop open for his customers who purchased his equipment, but they also serviced other brands. Shortly before his death in the early 1990s the shop became Fidelity Stereo and TV Service Center.
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 2.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com
Hu Zhengyan (c. 1584-1674) was a Chinese traditional painter, calligrapher, seal carver and publisher during the transition of the Ming and Qing dynasties. He produced China’s first printed publication in color, and was famous for his incredible techniques achieving gradation and modulation of shades in woodblock prints.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: rawpixel
A Place to Bury Strangers graces us with their presence once again. I'm still surprised this avant garde experimental band comes to St. Louis. The crowd, though not large, understands and appreciates this unique band. You have to see them to understand their artistry and power.
The subtitle of this series is the "madness of photographing in stobe lights". I asked Oliver Ackermann before they played if they were going to have strobes likes the first time I saw them. I just wanted to be ready for them. He laughed and, "Maybe." Oh yes there were strobes and they were even more intense than last time. It was a smaller more independent venue this time and maybe that made it easier to put on the show they REALLY wanted to. Though 60% of my shots were black, I managed to get a few.
#amy buxton
#Fall
#St. Louis
#A Place to Bury Strangers
#band
#music
#noise manipulation
#Off Broadway
#wave modulation
#Death By Audio
#Dion Lunadon
#Oliver Ackermann
#experimental rock
#space rock
#strobe light
#strobe
#concert