January 07, 2014

"A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge." - Thomas Carlyle

-----

My secret is out; they've discovered I'm a fairly decent proofreader within the office and now I have a stack of documents that need to be attacked with a red pen.

I don't mind the work and it's a wonderful excuse to brush up on my lackluster grammar skills. The issue for me is context. I usually use writing as a means to ramble, but with official documents I have to do my best to keep the sentences structured and the points clear while maintaining the rules and regulations for the specific documents I'm going through.

I'm getting the hang of it now; but what I would like to know is just who let my secret out of the bag? Next they'll discover that I'm fairly well versed with the quirks of Microsoft software.

On another note; what do you think of the processing for this photo? I'm never sure when I attempt HDR if the results are good or overdone and I've been trying to find that happy medium lately.

Hope everyone has had a good day.

Click "L" for a larger view.

Canon 40D, Canon 50mm/f1.4, Lightroom.

drive.google.com/file/d/1xcK3l1kFwFc2KVjiXFjayd-5ZIJzWQNw...

375に纏わる謎Vol_4

drive.google.com/file/d/142tV5Wb6J8qj7a7LX1jXBZ6Hdr-54T9M...

　In the previous article Vol.3, Mr. Tim de Palavicchini pointed out that inch should be added to the [LE85] diaphragm diameter in mm. Therefore, I added it to [Mystery of 375] Vol.3 and added cross-sectional views of phasing plugs of [WE594A] and [375]. At that time, I noticed a new difference between the two, so I would like to point it out.

　I think it was around 2002, but when I printed and scrutinized a design note for Jim Lansing's 4-inch driver from LANSING HERITAGE, I found out the dimensions of each component in detail. Therefore, I started by reproducing the cross-sectional view in full scale based on the values in this memo.

The number I wrote was in inches, so when I multiplied it by 2.54 and turned everything into centimeters, I was able to reproduce 100% of the shape and size of each part from the notes he left behind. The drawings are conveniently drawn in millimeters. The full-scale drawing had the advantage that it could be drawn as-is without conversion. This figure and [WE594A] did not have the same number.

What's more, Lansing writes a sketchy note with up to three decimal places. When I saw this, I intuitively thought that it was not a blueprint of the driver, but a memo of the actual object. Moreover, it was obvious that the magnetic circuit of [WE594A] was not replaced with Alnico 5 because the dimensions of both were different. Then, it can be inferred that the compression driver written in this memo is not a remedy for the flaws of [WE594A], but a new record. Therefore, I compared the two well. The result is the following difference.

[Figure.1]

[Black letters are Lansing letters, and red letters are converted by Fujimori to cm. Based on this number, I have transcribed the following figure.]

[Figure.2]

[Driver cross section taken from Lansing memo. The unit is millimeter. The red letters are the inches left by Lansing.]

He number I wrote was in inches, so if I multiply it by 2.54 and turn it into centimeters, I was able to reproduce 100% of the shape and size of each part from the notes he left behind.The drawings are conveniently drawn in millimeters. The full-scale drawing had the advantage that it could be drawn as-is without conversion. This figure and [WE594A] did not have the same number.What's more, Lansing writes a sketchy note with up to three decimal places. When I saw this, I intuitively thought that it was not a blueprint of the driver, but a memo of the actual object.Moreover, it was obvious that the magnetic circuit of [WE594A] was not replaced with the Alnico 5 because the dimensions of both were different.Then, it can be inferred that the compression driver written in this memo is not a remedy for the flaws of [WE594A], but a new record.

Therefore, I compared the two well. The result is the following difference.

First of all, the first thing I did was change the magnification of the copy of the [WE594A] cross-section drawn by Mr. Shozo Kinoshita to the actual size, and reproduce the wrong aspect ratio correctly, the same screen as the sketch reproduction on the right This is what I copied above.

Looking at the figure below, you can see the difference in depth between the two phasing plugs. It can be seen that the distance that the air flow passes through each slit is designed to be shorter at [375]. ‥

The difference between [WE594A] and [375] is that the cross-section of the inner wall of the pole piece indicated by the red line is a straight line or an exponential curve, as was often pointed out in the previous article. The phases of the air flow when they merge at the throat are aligned, but further improvements can be seen in this paper.

[Figure.3]

[Cross-sectional view of [WE-594A] (actual size) written by Kinoshita]

Figure 4

[Sketch = [JBL375]? Full-scale cross section of]

[What I noticed this time is the difference in the length of the 1st plug indicated by the white line. The length of ① from the diaphragm side (left end) to the right end of the 1st plug is 43.8 mm in [WE594A], while [375] is 36.83 mm, so it is 6.97-mm shorter (-15.9%).

The difference of slightly less than 16% is represented by the difference in depth between the tip of the plug group (blue line) and the tip of the pole piece (yellow line). Along with the difference in shape, Jim Lansing is the main improvement to the [WE594A] phasing plug. It can be considered that the high frequency characteristics are improved by this.

The small difference in size between the two is not a big difference, but the difference in the inner wall of the pole piece and the plug length is a big difference that affects the sound.]

Considering the improvements made by Lansing, I think that the fact that the shape of the inner wall of the pole piece has been changed has made it possible to spread the airflow in the same manner as other slits.

Also, by shortening the slit length that was pointed out this time, the air flow will gather in the throat somewhat earlier, so the compression time will be slightly shortened (16%).

Did you expect the effect of shortening the trumpet pipe? .. Is this a change in tone closer to the Flugelhorn than the trumpet?

In any case, you can see that suppleness is added to the peaky [WE594A].

However, in the 1940s, duralumin was a lightweight and strong material in the 1940s, and there was nothing better than this. I think the high range was limited to 10,000 Hz due to the distortion of the 4-inch diaphragm made of duralumin material.

Therefore, Lansing, which 3Way dislikes, may have secretly sealed [375], which he secretly developed. Still, there is a section that was developing the 075 for 3Way for future JBL. If you look at the model number of the device he developed, you can guess the circumstances at that time.

JBL drivers are changing their initial numbers to [075], [175], [275], [375]. The ones modified by Locancy have the LE prefix, and conversely, for consumers without LE, it can be considered Lansing's own work. By the way, looking at the order of release date, it is D175: 1948, T530A / 375: 1953, 275: 1958, LE75 / LE85: 1960, LE175: 1965.

Forty-five years ago, after re-challengeing audio with JBL's LE15A + LE85, I began to study the life and achievements of James B. Lansing with mysterious ties. At that time, it was said that he produced most of the speakers that were behind the scenes of a movie screen. However, in 2000, former Mitsubishi Electric engineer Mr. Tamon Saeki said, “Lansing made the 284 with the technology of a compression driver that was repaired in the subcontracting era of Western Electric.” “WE555 and WE594A are Wente from Bell Labs. "Toulus made and patented it." Because of this, I've been so sad that I couldn't sleep at night. Certainly, the US Patent Office records the names of E.C.Wente and A.L.Thuras, who belonged to Bell Telephone Laboratory. However, it was a certain common sense for the company that bought the driver prototype to apply for a patent in the name of an employee. So in the 1950s and 80s, audio magazines also published articles in honor of Lansing's accomplishments.

When all of the seniors at that time died, that is, when there were no witnesses, Mr. Saeki said, `` I didn't listen to audio superstitions or exaggerated stories, and after hard work. In order to bring out the many technologies that were almost buried in the history, we aimed to bring out the technology developed by the company and the materials and patents by the developers themselves, and to dig this out, aiming to bring out many spoker technologies. I wrote the book "100 Years of Speaker Technology" with the concept "I wrote the technical records of the times in the references."

Knowing the story about Lansing that "The Western driver was developed by Lansing," and then dare to bring up the patent record and despise Lansing, there is no word.

It can be said that this is a kind of violence that exploits weaknesses.

He prioritized the patent record, which was just the cause, and repeated the claim to overthrow the true genius, Lansing, which is rare in speaker history.

When all of the seniors at that time died, that is, when there were no witnesses, Mr. Saeki said, `` I didn't listen to audio superstitions or exaggerated stories, and after hard work. In order to bring out the many technologies that were almost buried in the history, we aimed to bring out the technology developed by the company and the materials and patents by the developers themselves, and to dig this out, aiming to bring out many speaker technologies. I wrote the book "100 Years of Speaker Technology" with the concept "I wrote the technical records of the times in the references."

Knowing the story about Lansing that "The Western driver was developed by Lansing," and then dare to bring up the patent record and despise Lansing, there is no word.

It can be said that this is a kind of violence that exploits weaknesses.

He prioritized the patent record, which was just the cause, and repeated the claim to overthrow the true genius, Lansing, which is rare in speaker history.

So I wrote my sentence "James Bullough Lansing".

In January 2020, my friend M recommended that "this research is valuable for future generations, so why not put it on my home-page"? The sequel reached 20 manuscripts.

In the meantime, there was cooperation such as the collection and translation of materials by Mr. M.

In addition, it has been promoted under a number of collaborations such as proofreading important texts and providing ideas. I would like to thank Mr. M for his kindness, and at the same time, I hope that this sentence will catch the attention of music lovers and JBL enthusiasts.。

I wrote this article on Windows 10 using LibreOffice6.

When viewed at a magnification of 106 on a PC, the size of the drawing is almost the same as the actual size.

Feel free to use this JPG format graphic electronically or for print purposes.

Black & white version is available at www.flickr.com/photos/vblibrary/6322368951

We're building 4 of these. The custom drawn mixte tubes from True Temper came in the mail yesterday.

Come all ye proofreaders, let's have it.

Marcin Białas "Above the pavements"

Book info:

- 300 copies, signed and numbered (dedication on request)

- hard back cover, cloth spine

- number of pages: 128

- size: 300×215 mm

- number of images (graphic, photos, projects): 93

- language of texts: polish and english

- autors of texts: Maciej Linttner , Grzegorz Hańderek, Marta Anna Raczek-Karcz

- type of papier: Cyclus Print 130g (eco)

- concept and edition: Marcin Białas, Katarzyna Wolny

- graphic design: Katarzyna Wolny, Marcin Białas

- typesetting: Katarzyna Wolny

- photography: Marcin Białas

- english translation: Katarzyna Drewniak

- proofreading: Izabela Blacha

- ISBN 978-83-937997-0-1

Details about prices and shipping - check out: www.facebook.com/notes/marcin-bialas-graphic-arts/above-t...

If you'd like to order or have any other question please use this email address: abovethepavements@gmail.com

Born in 1734, Restif de la Bretonne took an apprenticeship with a printer in Auxerre and later at the Imprimerie Royale. He began writing in 1767 and from then on he wrote more and more. He started printing his own books in 1791. Imagination, sensuality and verve are found in his descriptions of the people around where he lived most of the time: the peasants, the workers, the petty bourgeoisie … The Revolution ruined him and he sold his printing works and became a proofreader until his death.

Nicolas Edme Restif, dit Restif de La Bretonne, également épelé Rétif et de La Bretone, est un écrivain français né le 23 octobre 1734 à Sacy et mort le 3 février 1806 à Paris.

I tried to proofread as much as I could but I take no responsibility for any of the graffiti.

Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin 1895 – 1925, sometimes spelled as Esenin, was a Russian lyric poet. He is one of the most popular and well-known Russian poets of the 20th century. One of his narratives was "lyrical evocations of and nostalgia for the village life of his childhood – no idyll, presented in all its rawness, with an implied curse on urbanisation and industrialisation".

Sergei Yesenin was born in the village of Konstantinovo in Ryazan County, Ryazan Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Rybnovsky District, Ryazan Oblast) into a peasant family. His father was Alexander Nikitich Yesenin (1873–1931), his mother was Tatyana Fyodorovna Yesenina, née Titova, (1875–1955).

Both his parents spent most of their time looking for work, his father in Moscow, his mother in Ryazan, so at age two Sergei was moved to the nearby village of Matovo to join Fyodor Alexeyevich Titov and Natalya Yevtikhiyevna Titova, his relatively well-off maternal grandparents, who essentially raised him.

The Titovs had three grown-up sons, who were Yesenin's companions in his early life. "My uncles taught me horse riding and swimming, one of them... even employed me as a hunting dog when he went duck hunting in local ponds," he later remembered. He started to read at age five, and at nine began to write poetry, inspired originally by chastushkas and folklore, provided mostly by his grandmother, whom he also remembered as a highly religious woman who used to take him to every single monastery she visited. He had two younger sisters, Yekaterina (1905–1977), and Alexandra (1911–1981).

In 1904 Yesenin joined the Konstantinovo zemstvo school, where in 1909 he graduated with an honorary certificate. He then went on to study in the local secondary parish school in Spas-Klepiki. From 1910 onwards he started to write poetry systematically; eight poems dated that year were later included in his 1925 Collected Works. In all, Yesenin wrote around thirty poems during his school years. He compiled them into what was supposed to be his first book, which he entitled "Volnye Dumy" (Free Thoughts) and tried to publish it in 1912 in Ryazan, but failed.

In 1912, with a teacher’s diploma, Yesenin moved to Moscow, where he supported himself working as a proofreader's assistant at Sytin's printing company. The following year he enrolled in Shanyavsky Moscow City People's University to study history and philology as an external student (вольнослушатель), but had to leave after eighteen months due to lack of funds. At the University he became friends with several aspiring poets, among them Dmitry Semyonovsky, Vasily Nasedkin, Nikolai Kolokolov and Ivan Filipchenko. Yesenin’s first marriage (which lasted three years) was in 1913 to Anna Izryadnova, a co-worker from the publishing house, with whom he had a son, Yuri.

1913 saw Yesenin becoming increasingly interested in Christianity, and biblical motives became frequent in his poems. "Grisha, what I am reading at the moment is the Gospel and I find a lot of things which for me are new," he wrote to his close childhood friend G. Panfilov. That was also the year when he became involved with Moscow revolutionary circles: for several months his flat was under secret police surveillance and in September 1913 it was raided and searched.

In January 1914 Yesenin's first published poem, "Beryoza" (The Birch Tree), appeared in the children's magazine Mirok (Small World). More appearances followed in minor magazines such as Protalinka and Mlechny Put. In December 1914 Yesenin left his job "and dedicated himself to poetry, writing continually," according to his wife. Around this time he became a member of the Surikov Literary and Music circle.

In 1915, exasperated with the lack of interest in Moscow, Yesenin moved to Petrograd. He arrived in Petrograd on 8 March and the next day met Alexander Blok at his home, to read him poetry. He was quickly acquainted with fellow poets Sergey Gorodetsky, Nikolai Klyuev and Andrei Bely, who were well known. Blok was especially helpful in promoting Yesenin's early literary career, describing him as "a gem of a peasant poet" and his verse as "fresh, pure and resounding", even if "wordy".

The same year he joined the Krasa (Beauty) group of peasant poets which included Klyuyev, Gorodetsky, Sergey Klychkov and Alexander Shiryayevets, among others. In his 1925 autobiography Yesenin said that Bely gave him the meaning of form while Blok and Klyuev taught him lyricism. It was Klyuyev who introduced Yesenin to the publisher Averyanov, who in early 1916 released his debut poetry collection Radunitsa which featured many of his early spiritual-themed verse. "I would have eagerly relinquished some of my religious poems, large and small, but they make sense as an illustration of a poet's progress towards the revolution," he would later write. Yesenin and Klyuyev maintained close and intimate, a friendship that lasted several years, and indeed it is likely they became lovers.

Later in 1915, Yesenin became a co-founder of the Krasa literary group and published numerous poems in the Petrograd magazines Russkaya Mysl, Ezhemesyachny Zhurnal, Novy Zhurnal Dlya Vsekh, Golos Zhizni and Niva. Among the authors he met later in the year were Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Nikolai Gumilyov and Anna Akhmatova; he also visited the painter Ilya Repin in his Penaty. Yesenin's rise to fame was meteoric; by the end of the year he became the star of St Petersburg's literary circles and salons. "The city took to him with the delight a gourmet reserves for strawberries in winter. A barrage of praise hit him, excessive and often insincere," Maxim Gorky wrote to Romain Rolland.

On 25 March 1916 Yesenin was drafted for military duty and in April joined a medical train based in Tsarskoye Selo under the command of Colonel D.N. Loman. On 22 July 1916, at a special concert attended by the Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna (the train's patron) and her daughters, Yesenin recited his poems "Rus" and "In Scarlet Fireglow". "The Empress told me my poems were beautiful, but sad. I replied that the same could be said about Russia as a whole," he recalled later. His relationship with Loman soon deteriorated. In October Yesenin declined the colonel's offer to write (with Klyuyev) and have published a book of pro-monarchist verses, and spent twenty days under arrest as a consequence.

In March 1917, Yesenin was sent to the Warrant Officers School but soon deserted Kerensky's army. In August 1917 (having divorced Izryadnova a year earlier) Yesenin married for a second time, to Zinaida Raikh (later an actress and the wife of Vsevolod Meyerhold). They had two children, a daughter Tatyana and a son Konstantin. The parents subsequently quarreled and lived separately for some time prior to their divorce in 1921. Tatyana became a writer and journalist and Konstantin Yesenin would become a well-known soccer statistician.

Yesenin supported the February Revolution. "If not for [it], I might have withered away on useless religious symbolism," he wrote later.[8] He greeted the rise of the Bolsheviks too. "In the Revolution I was all on the side of October, even if I perceived everything in my own peculiar way, from a peasant's standpoint," he remembered in his 1925 autobiography. Later he criticized the Bolshevik rule, in such poems as "The Stern October Has Deceived Me". "I feel very sad now, for we are going through such a period in [our] history when human individuality is being destroyed, and the approaching socialism is totally different from the one I was dreaming of," he wrote in an August 1920 letter to his friend Yevgeniya Livshits. "I never joined the RKP, being further to the left than them," he maintained in his 1922 autobiography.

Artistically, the revolutionary years were an exciting time for Yesenin. Among the important poems he wrote in 1917–1918 were "Prishestviye" (The Advent), "Preobrazheniye" (Transfiguration, which gave the title to the 1918 collection), and "Inoniya". In February 1918, after the Sovnarkom issued the "Socialist Homeland is in Danger!" decree-appeal, he joined the esers' military unit. He actively participated in the magazine Nash Put (Our Way), as well as the almanacs Skify (Скифы) and Krasny Zvon (in February his large poem "Marfa Posadnitsa" appeared in an issue of the latter). In September 1918 Yesenin co-founded (with Andrey Bely, Pyotr Oreshin, Lev Povitsky and Sergey Klychkov) the publishing house Трудовая Артель Художников Слова (the Labor Artel of the Artists of the Word) which reissued (in six books) all that he had written up until then.

In September 1918 Yesenin became friends with Anatoly Marienhof, with whom he founded the Russian literary movement of imaginism. Describing their group's general appeal, he wrote in 1922: "Prostitutes and bandits are our fans. With them, we are pals. Bolsheviks do not like us due to some kind of misunderstanding." In January 1919, Yesenin signed the Imaginists' Manifesto. In February he, Marienhof and Vadim Shershenevich, founded the Imaginists' publishing house. Before that, Yesenin became a member of the Moscow Union of Professional Writers and several months later was elected a member of the All-Russian Union of Poets. Two of his books, Kobyli Korabli (Кобыльи корабли, Mare's Ships) and Klyuchi Marii (Ключи Марии, The Keys of Mary) came out later that year.

In July–August 1920, Yesenin toured the Russian South, starting in Rostov-on-Don and ending in Tiflis (Tbilisi), Georgia. In November 1920, he met Galina Benislavskaya, his future secretary and close friend. Following an anonymous report, he and two of his Imaginist friends, brothers Alexander and Ruben Kusikovs, were arrested by the Cheka in October but released a week later on the solicitation of his friend Yakov Blumkin. In the course of that year, the publication of three of Yesenin's books were refused by publishing house Goslitizdat. His Triptych collection came out through the Skify Publishers in Berlin. Next year saw the collections Confession of a Hooligan (January) and Treryaditsa (February) published. The drama in verse Pugachov came out in December 1921, to much acclaim.

In May 1921, he visited a friend, the poet Alexander Shiryaevets, in Tashkent, giving poetry readings and making a short trip to Samarkand. In the autumn of 1921, while visiting the studio of painter Georgi Yakulov, Yesenin met the Paris-based American dancer Isadora Duncan, a woman 18 years his senior. She knew only a dozen words in Russian, and he spoke no foreign languages. Nevertheless, they married on 2 May 1922. Yesenin accompanied his celebrity wife on a tour of Europe and the United States. His marriage to Duncan was brief and in May 1923, he returned to Moscow.

In his 1922 autobiography, Yesenin wrote: "Russia's recent nomadic past does not appeal to me, and I am all for civilization. But I dislike America intensely. America is a stinking place where not just art is being murdered, but with it, all the loftiest aspirations of humankind. If it's America that we are looking up to, as [a model for our] future, then I'd rather stay under our greyish skies... We do not have those skyscrapers that have so far managed to produce nothing but Rockefeller and McCormick, but here Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin and Lermontov were born."

In 1923, Yesenin became romantically involved with the actress Augusta Miklashevskaya to whom he dedicated several poems, among them those of the Hooligan's Love cycle. In the same year, he had a son by the poet Nadezhda Volpina. Alexander Esenin-Volpin grew up to become a poet and a prominent activist in the Soviet dissident movement of the 1960s. From 1972 until his death in 2016 he lived in the United States as a famous mathematician and teacher.

As Yesenin's popularity grew, stories began to circulate about his heavy drinking and consequent public outbursts. This may have been caused by his a struggle to deal with his bisexuality In autumn 1923, he was arrested in Moscow twice and underwent a series of enquiries from the OGPU secret police. Other accusations against Yesenin and three of his close friends, fellow poets Sergey Klytchkov, Alexei Ganin and Pyotr Oreshin, were made by Lev Sosnovsky, a journalist and close Trotsky associate. The foursome retorted with an open letter in Pravda and, in December, were cleared by the Writers' Union comrades' court. It was later suggested, though, that Yesenin's departure to the Caucasus in the summer of 1924 might have been a direct result of harassment by the NKVD. Earlier that year fourteen writers and poets, including his friend Ganin, were arrested as alleged members of the (apparently fictitious) Order of Russian Fascists. They were tortured and executed in March without trial.

In January–April 1924 Yesenin was arrested and interrogated four times. In February he was admitted to the Sheremetev hospital, then moved into the Kremlin clinic in March. Nevertheless, he continued to make public recitals and released several books in the course of the year, including Moskva Kabatskaya. In August 1924 Yesenin and fellow poet Ivan Gruzinov published a letter in Pravda, announcing the end of the Imaginists.

In 1924-1925, Yesenin visited Azerbaijan, and stayed in the village of Mardakan, where he published a collection of poems in the "Krasny Vostok" printing house, and was also published in a local publishing house. According to one source it was here, in May 1925, that the poetic “Message to the Evangelist Demyan” was written. There is today a street and a museum house in memory of the poet in Mardakan, Azerbaijan.

In early 1925 Yesenin met and married Countess Sophia Andreyevna Tolstaya (1900–1957), a granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy. In May, what proved to be his final large poem, Anna Snegina, came out. During that year he compiled and edited The Works of Yesenin in three volumes which were published by Gosizdat posthumously.

It's a slow lesson to learn that effort owes you nothing. I'm not impressed by hard work, not even my own – art isn't like some physical labour. Pile up a hundred hours on something heartless, and you'll still reach the same range of nowhere. Sure, there's technical time to get good at what you do, but chasing perfection has diminishing returns. Most of my favourite musicians have their very best songs on their first couple albums, and it's not because they had no room to improve. Listen later in their careers, and you'll likely hear better playing or vocal control – but a certain loss of spark in the core creative output. It's a part more tricky to work on, the reason behind the work itself. Inspiration is the ghost we all chase.

From the very beginning, I've created quickly. Almost everything I write is done in half an hour, poem or prose – proofread then left alone, unedited, forever. Photos and videos are shot in the moment, pulled from my camera and shared with minor adjustments. If something is a failure, no effort could ever turn it around. If something is successful, fiddling too much can easily kill the spark. I did both enough in the early years to lose my taste. Part of the drive behind my daily journal has always been enforced immediacy. When every single day has its own kind of story, you've got to shake off yesterday's in time to make room.

To reach the old cabin where I took this picture, I hiked an hour through deep snow, got wet and cold feet, and aching muscles in my legs. The scenes I saw never really moved me. Hard to say why, it's impossible to define, just is. Maybe I was feeling too down-hearted, disconnected in a way that stopped me seeing beauty. Maybe I was just in the wrong place and time. It can be tempting to start obsessing, trying to make it mean more – but some days are just there to let go. I've spent a lot of my life on adventures to the edge, places with no pity or expectations fulfilled. I've learned to leave a looser grip, for things that I can't grasp anyhow.

December 21, 2022

Annapolis County, Nova Scotia

facebook | instagram | tumblr | youtube | etsy

You can support my work

get things in the mail

and see everything

first on Patreon

I did not realize that Flickr only allows 3 minute uploads until now... So I'm posting it in parts.

Written & Directed by: Yi Chen

Executive Producer: Fausto Di Marco

Cast:

Fausto Di Marco

Yi Chen

Danyal Zafar

Eric Mayer

Kira Walls

Lakni Hansika

Lucas Shepherd

Matteo Pennarts

Pihla Pekkarinen

Sylvie Dumont

William Tippins

Assisstant Director: William Tippins

Cinematography Supervisor: Marina Buening

Director of Drama: Lakni Hansika

First Assisstant Camera & Lights: Alessandra N. Garber

Second Assisstant Camera: Pihla Pekkarinen

Original Music:

Brian Balmages

Yi Chen

Sets & Props: Fausto Di Marco

Lights & Lenses:

Oisin Curran

Marina Buening

Focus Puller: Pihla Pekkarinen

Script Proofreading:

Jacob Sadoff

Lucas Shepherd

Location Scout: William Tippins

In Association with St. Stephen's Cineasti. Visit their Youtube page: www.youtube.com/channel/UCci2oEOTzPvg2DGPfr7dnlw

Visit Marina Buening's website: www.marinabuening.com

The wiki for this film: thetimemachinefilm.wikia.com/

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how it happens. This is my image build for the Facebook Group "The Best Car Photos"'s Photoshop contest.

(Top photo/photo of the Ferrari courtesy of GF Williams. The lowest photo is my edit. All other photos are my own with the exception of the railing and the road sign; I do not know who to credit for those).

___________________________

More details: I began by editing the original photo with the same background. However, it just didn't have that "wow!" effect for me. It just wasn't impressive. Plus, other editors were posting essentially the same thing over and over again, so I knew that a photo just like that would not stand out at all. That's when I decided to go ahead and put the car onto a new background.

Now, I did not want to pay for or even borrow someone else's backdrop--that just wouldn't be right. I mean... it's got to be my work. It'd be too easy to paste a car onto someone else's photo of a winding mountain road. Anyone else can do that. So this question popped into my mind: why not just build my own background from my own personal library? Why not go all out and see what I'm capable of creating? Well, now we all know that's precisely what I did.

I started out looking for a background by searching through some old photos I had taken in the Colorado Rockies back in '09. After selecting several potential shots, I moved on to two photos of a straight, flat road I shot a few weeks ago. Once that was decided, I continued on with searching Google for the railing and then realized I would need to add more depth to the photo by adding rocks and grass behind as well as in front of the railing. Those three photos came from the same set as the backdrop. Next was the sky. Nothing special to say, really; Just something I shot out of my backyard a few months ago. I absolutely love Kansas skies. They are the greatest ever! End of story. :)

After the photo all kinda came together, I decided it was missing three things: something to balance the photo out from the brightly-colored Ferrari, something to lend some more authenticity to the photo, and a little bit of sun flare to top it all off.

I decided at some point that the best thing I could do to balance it all would be to add in a yellow road sign. Long story short, I replicated a sign post by rendering fibers into a rectangle, colored that brown, added a grunge texture (thanks Google once again) over the sign, resized it, and bam. I had myself I decently-convincing road sign. As for adding authenticity? Well, aside from overall/general curves, levels, and color adjustments, it finally donned upon me that I forgot to add a shadow to the railing! I had added the car's shadow already, but had neglected to put the railing's shadow in there. Now, I kid you not, that part was truly the most difficult and annoying part of the entire photo for me. That shadow just would not cooperate for me no matter how much I manipulated it. I finally got it down and was satisfied, so I added the sign's shadow in there too. That part was a cinch. haha. After that, I topped it all off with the flare.

Oh! And just for Casey since he asked: I stripped the car of all the decals by using a combination of the Clone Tool, Healing Brush, and lots of patience. Nothing really other than that except curves and levels complete with masking.

__________________________

Well, that about wraps it up. I apologize for any grammatical and spelling errors as I have not taken much time to proofread this post. :) Have a great day, ya'll. Take it easy out there.

______________

Favorite/Press F if you like this shot!

Facebook

500px

Last Saturday, I proofread a 400-page book as a Monday deadline loomed.

Today, I read a few newspapers, worked in my garden, went for two long walks, and played with Sophie in a green field dappled with wildflowers.

All in all, I preferred today.

Cute big.

Scene XXIII - Testament

#flickrnovel #novel @lunamir #neya

Found this note in a random hallway of the MoMA NYC offices. love it!

May 10: It's been a full day--prompt, sitting, web class, long talk with Kathi, hike at Garland, dinner out at Tarpy's. But mostly, it was work, proofreading--as this early-morning shot illustrates.

At long, long, long last, my 2013 Christmas card slash book is finished! This is the reason why I haven't posted any drawings since last August.

Obviously you'll have to view Original Size in order to read the text. Note that the white page numbers don't actually appear in the card slash book, they're included here to help you figure out the order in which to read the book.

Like every year, it was touch and go there for a while and I honestly wasn't sure it would be done in time for Christmas. Christmas 2013, that is.

The Good News: It's finally finished, with a few days to spare before the Holiday! The Bad News: This is the last of these cards I'll be doing. I know I say that every year, but this time I mean it.

As I do every year, right after I finished the 2012 card slash book I started thinking about what I was going to do for 2013.

I'd drawn both Dr. Killdeath and Count Gothula way back in 2009 and even made a fake Little Golden Book cover starring the Doctor back then. I'd always wanted to do something with the characters and decided this was the proper venue for them.

I quickly came up with an idea where the two would battle it out with deadly Christmas gifts. For the past three years these cards slash books have been sixteen pages. This year was going to be a whopping twenty eight! Almost twice as long! I knew the extra page count would take longer to draw, so I started working on it much earlier than I usually start these things, in late August.

Thank Thor I did. Despite the fact that I started so early, it came right down to the wire again. Although this book only has two main characters, each page was incredibly complicated and took a long time to draw. Then I had my annual spate of computer problems, as my graphic tablet started unexpectedly losing its pressure sensitivity. If you've never used a graphic tablet before, trust me, that's a bad thing.

Even the weather conspired against the project! In early December a huge ice storm hit my neck of the woods. The last time that happened the ice downed power lines all over the city and my electricity was out for a whopping five days! Five! I sat nervously at my computer during the this year's storm, fully expecting the power to go out any second. Fortunately that didn't happen, but it was a harrowing night.

I finally finished the thing on December 14! If I'd have started it in October or November like I usually do, I'd still be working on it at Valentine's Day!

Because of the amount of pages I had to draw, I took advantage of Photoshop and reused elements whenever possible. For some reason I have a lot of trouble drawing brains. All those fiddly little folds are really tough for me to get right. So once I drew Dr. Killdeath's brain once, I reused it on every page in which he appears. Yep, every time you see his brain, it's the same piece of art.

The same goes for the Doctor's little robotic minion. I drew him once, then started to draw him again on the next page and thought, "Why am I reinventing the wheel here?" He was basically a ball and appeared pretty much the same from any angle, so I reused him on every page as well.

Is this cheating? I like to think of it as working smarter, not harder.

Like last year, I didn't draw the pages in order. This was intentional, as it's normal for you to get better at drawing your characters as time goes by. I didn't want the later pages to look better than the early ones, so by jumping around they all have a uniform mediocrity (heh).

Drawing the pages out of order meant I had to keep track of all kinds of little details. I drew the page where Count Gothula opens the gift containing the Man Eating Tornado before he received it, so I had to remember that the gift box should be red with gold ribbon in both.

Working out of order came back to haunt me at least once though. The first time I drew the Count's castle was in a closeup on the page in which he receives the first gift. Much, much later I drew the establishing shot of the castle, and then found that it didn't match the closeup at all. So... I had to go back and redraw the closeup. Whoops!

In all we see eight deadly Christmas gifts. There were originally a lot more, but even with the expanded page count I couldn't include them all. I did manage to at least mention the rest of them on the Soul Sucker page though.

In past years I've always written out the story first before illustrating it, so I'd know how much space I'd have for the drawing. This year I wrote out the story last, after everything had been drawn. A dangerous way to work, I know. Some pages had way too much text and I had to shrink the artwork a bit just to get it all in.

Hopefully there aren't too many typos in the text. A few always creep in, no matter how many times I proofread it.

As I said before, this will unfortunately be the last of these card slash books that I do. I enjoy making on them, but they're a lot of work. A lot. I worked on this thing virtually every day for four months! Four! And not just a few minutes a day for four months, I'm talking hours, every day, for 120 days. That's a big chunk out of my year. It's just too much work for too little reward.

I'll probably still do some kind of Christmas thing next year, but it'll be something simpler that doesn't take up a fourth of my year.

You can check out my earlier card slash books here:

• Santa Claus, The Yeti And The Really Bad Decision

Want to see more? Check out my new blog! All the cool kids are doing it!

I'm also on Twitter for some reason.

After 5 long years of field work and photography and over a year of analyzing data, writing, editing and proofreading the book is finally out!

It is available for international order and shipping from this address:

guyhaimovitch.com/reptiles-and-amphibians-of-israel/index...

I really put a lot of thought into this theme. Obviously, being open to almost limitless interpretation meant I had a huge wealth of lyrics to draw on, from a spread of artists whose work I adore and has comforted, confronted, and challenged me over the course of my life. My initial plan was to work with lyrics from the band who most encapsulate that range of emotion and responses, Coil. However even by my standards I found myself diving into rabbit holes that I couldn't even begin to get a handle on (the 30+ releases of theirs I have made this no small task to explore, either) and eventually I realised if I wanted to get something that felt even close to fully formed, I needed to go elsewhere.

After an awful lot of text which I just typed out, proofread, and deleted, I ended up back with Fever Ray, the solo project of Karin Dreijer Andersson (perhaps better known for The Knife, her project with brother Olof Dreijer). As a musician and lyricist, Karin is known for using myriad effects on her voice, obscure and cryptic lyrical refrains and generally cultivating a mysterious and theatrical persona through which she presents her work. Perfect. She also has a knack for coming up with phrases and lines in her work that stick firmly in my head, little nuggets of emotive power, taking on a life beyond the original songs.

The one I chose to use has been taken from the context of the song and given it's own by me. Not for this project - Actually, for a long time it has had this second meaning. Ever since I read an article about people being encouraged to write letters to younger versions of themselves, I had wondered what I would tell a young me - and what I would leave out. What would be better discovered fresh, should I leave a warning, or advise myself to avoid things and experiences? What if that changed who I was now? What if I could ease some of the difficulties I had experienced? Is that worth the risk? Should I be explicit, or cryptic? Should I lie? It's an interesting idea to chew over.

So, that's where I went with this theme. A little flight of fancy that I could, somehow, pop back to have a short chat with a 12 year old me, back when life was simple (but wouldn't be for much longer) and just.. encourage him. Be kind to him. Give him something to look forward to. Let him know there is an amazing life ahead, full of wonders and experiences and fun - so hold on tight. You'll get there.

Fever Ray - 'Coconut' ~ "he came back one day and told me stories that I now dream of"

Facebook | Twitter | Youtube | Blog

Until now I've only heard rumors of the pure awesomeness of the Canon 70-200mm Lens. Today, I joined the 70-200 enthusiast club. This lens is like A hot chick… NAKED - Amazing! Its like an ice cold Guinness… frickin fantastic, its like… ya, I can go on and on! I admit, its not the lens I'd find myself grabbing for out of default. There are a number of reasons for this. First and foremost, my "style" wouldn't work with the buttery bokeh that this lens flawlessly produces. If depth of field were a pool, this lens would be a puddle! 2.8 at 200 is unbelievable. Unbelievably difficult to master sharp focus that is. Although, with a little practice, I seemed to get the hang of it.

Another downfall of this lens as a default is the sheer size and weight. It's definitely the fat kid of the lens family. Attach it to the 5d Mkii with Battery grip and you have a camera that can double as a blunt force weapon. My arms aren't weak but this lens forced me to mount it to a tripod after 2 short minutes. Carrying this around a city will definitely be a challenge. Looks, like I'll be busting out the old mono pod.

So, if you follow this crazy adventure of mine, you'll wonder how I obtained a 2300.00 lens when I'm clawing and fighting for the funding to adopt my own MKII. If there is one thing that I have to be thankful for other than my charm, wit and striking good looks, it's undoubtedly the kindness and generosity of people. I have never had such an outpour of support then I have had this year. I have had so many people help me in so many ways. From gear loans, to volunteers and even proofreaders. I've been lucky for such amazing people in my life this past year!

To all who have helped. You are appreciated more than words can express. Thank you!

So, with a new lens to test, what better subject then dear old dad? He was there the first day and he is still willing to sacrifice dignity for my art. Don't feel bad dad, The wide open aperture really helps soften those hard lines on your face. The squinting eyes don't help though. Although they do make for one funny ass picture.

I figured that at f 2.8 I'd get such a soft background that I wouldn't need to photoshop a new one in. Boy, was I right. The background looks as if it weren't a Walmart bed sheet! Straight out of the camera, it looked bad ass. Once I got it into Lightroom I realized that with very minor tweaks, I wouldn't really need Photoshop. However, because its me, I had to take it into PS just for a minute. I enjoy these kind of portraits as you can really focus on the person and not the overall look. My dad is a great participant as he really does have incredible patience in front of the camera. As long as there's not a football game on or a poker match starting up.

This blog is the end of a very long day! I had to wake up at 2am to drive Shawn to the airport 100 miles away. His flight departed at 6am, so we had to be there at 5am, which means we had to leave at 3am. We arrived at the airport just before 5, rolled into a parking spot and proceeded to the moving sidewalks! I told Shawn I'd race him going the wrong way. It was a challenge but I managed to whoop his ass! So what if he wasn't trying, I still won!

Since it was his first time flying alone, I walked him through the procedure. My father also gave him a 35 minute lecture on airport safety! We get the same talk every time we travel. My car has several long screw drivers and pointy objects just incase I ever need them! He makes sure of that!

We stroll up to TSA, I shake his hand and see him off. I hang back just long enough to listen to him strike up a battle field 3 conversation with one TSA agents and then get "randomly" chosen for additional screening. Funny that out of 4 people in line, he gets picked. I swear, TSA hand book says, facial hair = potential threat! Once Shawn's done getting violated, I leave. First up was breakfast, Stupid Mc Donald's in Lauderdale doesn't do the $1 any size drinks. I paid 2.00 for a large coke - Rape! I also seem to never learn as every time I eat a mc Donalds Mc Skillet burrito and Coke, I get a stomach ache. Today was no different!

I wanted to catch the sunrise so went straight to the beach after food. I paid for 1 hour of parking and made why way to the water. I snapped dozens of shots of the ocean, sky, beach and birds before the sun finally peaked over the horizon. That was my cue to move on. Next up was down town Fort Lauderdale. I was hoping to get some bad ass city shots but soon remembered that Ft. Lauderdale isn't much of a city. I instead decided to try and get some stock shots of the airplanes coming in for a landing. I got several shots before I got the impression that TSA was sending an army of minions to beat me down, steal my camera and piss on my CF card! Animals, I tell you… animals!

I met up with Adam Kaplin of ASK media Productions to get my HDD from the Patty Madden Shoot. I then made my way to the Boynton Beach art district and ended up shooting the shit with Ronaldo Barrero who runs and promote the district. Chatted a bit about a photography show I'll be doing in March and how he has BIG plans for the area, Including an opera house. "dream big" he says to me! I think I'll take his advice and dream about my own 747 jet painted with my obnoxious face on the side of it!

I figured since I was out this far south, I'd stop in and get that creative meeting in with Patty Madden for the next ad campaign were working on for February. This one should be way over the top and SO much fun!

After patty's I was on a mission to collect more backgrounds. Soon after I leave, I get a call from patty saying her husband Gary was in Palm beach and found a cool location. I make a detour and exit the highway. I find my way to Palm Beach and find Gary, on his bike, smoking a fat cigar. I follow him down the street and he shows me one of the biggest trees I've ever seen! I snap a few shots of it and of him. We part ways after some interesting business talk. Soon after I found myself at the Port of Palm beach. There is a giant bridge that goes over the shipyard. I'm not to sure how legal it is to be taking high res photos of somewhere that you need an id and badge to enter. All I know is I parked the car and walked almost 1/4 mile over broken beer bottles, condoms and nasty shit I can't identify, all the way to the top of the bridge. I then attempted to be as inconspicuous as possible while hanging the camera off the side of the bridge. I captured several 3 shot HDR's of the ship yard and quickly retreated before someone decided to question me. I also drove down several streets that appeared to be abandoned, they butted right up against the ship yard and with the broken windows, open doors and booze bottles everywhere. One could only assume that these un livable boxes were vacant. I was wrong as a suspicious big assed woman walks out of one of the windowless, doorless domiciles. While talking on the phone, she looks over to me, gives a strange smirk and then walks back into the box. Not shutting the door of course, since it was missing!

I did however, manage to get some pretty kick ass shots of the shipping containers despite putting my life and gear in jeopardy. My final stop was The Rankin family home to pick up the gear that the Good Dr. was lending me for the trip, the 70-200 being among the items lent!

I am barely able to keep my head up, let alone type. I'll just give up now before I start rambling or even worse, repeating myself. LIke how I shot in downtown Ft. Lauderdale… Anyway, thats it. In about 20 minutes I'll video chat with Cory, Katie and Shawn and tell cory that the box he's been keeping for me for the past 2 weeks was actually his christmas gift! If I wasn't so tired, I'd probably laugh pretty hard!

Lighting:

AB800 Med Gridded Softbox at both 10:00 and 2:00. full power

AB800 Beauty Dish Boomed overhead at 6:00 3/4 power

Triggered Via Cyber Syncs and Commander.

These little taglines are scattered throughout the store, as little filler bits between department signs along the sponge-painted band. I took a picture of this one in particular, because I'm prety sure it should be "any time", not "anytime", in this context. (looking around online just made me more confused, not less...) Anyways, it's also amusing how this one is posted above the deserts and ice cream... though I suppose I could eat ice cream at any time of the day, at least in summer :)

Proofread texts before sending ladies.

Here's an updated version of the video (I first shared yesterday) about achieving my Second Life Goals for Easter 2024.

My proofreader (some guy named Simon Garrison - who is now in the naughty corner) missed a few typos in the earlier video 🤔

I've also added different audio to Version 2 and have created a PDF with active links in it for all the Second Life Destinations visited as well as products and creators mentioned. the PDF is available here: drive.google.com/file/d/1Ayhsvqzdw5beff34HpmBBcvWYYmlK-_z...

My Facebook: www.facebook.com/simon.r.garrison/

Get Fantastic Document Writers college essay proofreading service' Aid t.co/Dbbe964MgL #acn (via Twitter twitter.com/AgenciaCN/status/826064380362158083)

A short film about a homeless man telling a teenager a heartbreaking story about his life. The original story inspired by a dream. Shot on the grounds of St. Stephen's International School of Rome, Italy, and a street adjacent to it.

Written & Directed by: Yi Chen

Executive Producer: Fausto Di Marco

Cast:

Fausto Di Marco

Yi Chen

Danyal Zafar

Eric Mayer

Kira Walls

Lakni Hansika

Lucas Shepherd

Matteo Pennarts

Pihla Pekkarinen

Sylvie Dumont

William Tippins

Assisstant Director: William Tippins

Cinematography Supervisor: Marina Buening

Director of Drama: Lakni Hansika

First Assisstant Camera & Lights: Alessandra N. Garber

Second Assisstant Camera: Pihla Pekkarinen

Original Music:

Brian Balmages

Yi Chen

Sets & Props: Fausto Di Marco

Lights & Lenses:

Oisin Curran

Marina Buening

Focus Puller: Pihla Pekkarinen

Script Proofreading:

Jacob Sadoff

Lucas Shepherd

Location Scout: William Tippins

In Association with St. Stephen's Cineasti. Visit their Youtube page: www.youtube.com/channel/UCci2oEOTzPvg2DGPfr7dnlw

Visit Marina Buening's website: www.marinabuening.com

The wiki for this film: thetimemachinefilm.wikia.com/wiki/The_Time_Machine_-_A_Sh...

...of concrete and nature.

(I will catch up with everyone today. I've been busy helping a friend proofread some deposition transcripts. She described them as boring reading...I found them better reading than any Jackie Collins novels -- not that I've read any Jackie Collins novels.)

(Important: make sure humans don't catch you doing this!)

First you need to type in what you want to say. Second, make sure you proofread your post. Paws are bigger than fingers making it very easy to hit more than one key at once! Don't be afraid to use the spell check function. Next, remember to click the "Publish Post" button. This is a fun part because you get to play with the mouse! Lastly, it is very important to take a nap. Blogging really tires you out.

Cats of the world are learning and finding the joy in computing.

Here is a picture of Yi from Japan. :)

~

~

~

Okay, we have no intention of insulting your intelligence any further ... We here at Blythe Fifth Avenue realize it is blatently obvious who is wearing the Madame Ze Cat antic [sic] castle dress :) :)

~

~

fyi: editors' proofreading symbol: Sic in square brackets is an editing term used with excerpts. It means "that's really how it appears in the original." listing

~

~

~

All my girls out for a little Spring sunshine ...

Left to right:

RUBY RAPUNZEL: Prima Dolly Adorable Aubrey (PDAA), Custom #3 by Phillaine; with UC (Urban Cowgirl) scalp (adopted from kitty); Licca body

YARDLEY YOPLAIT: My Mrs. Sally Rice (matte when I adopted her); with SAFFY scalp; MSR Takara body

PRUDENCE PEACH: My Mademoiselle Rosebud, with custom dyed scalp by Minklet ~ of Blythe Rescue Mission fame ~ Adopted from Gina Garan. She now has a new RBL face-up by BFA, and a Licca body.

FRENCHIE FAITH: One of the Blythe Fifth Avenue TWINS; She is a Sunshine Holiday with a Sleeping Elf scalp in white mohair; Takara body (for now, until maybe Veronica can help me out later ... ;)

GODIVA GRACE: One of the Blythe Fifth Avenue TWINS: She has an RBL faceplate and a pale pale factory body (again, for now ... ) and a Sleeping Elf scalp in rich black mohair.

NENETL NENETL: My first Blythe ... she is an ADG Aztec Arrival; so many transformations along the way, but presently wearing her RIT dyed Sunshine Holiday scalp in Brave Hot Red. (Licca body)

INGRID INGENUE: My little translucent factory girl with the "human-like-hair" ... She also has a Licca body now :)

ZABRINA ZADORA: She is a PD2Se, SAFFY GIRL ... with a NEON scalp, and Licca body.

- That is 8 of the "Nouveau Nine" Modeling Troupe at Blythe Fifth Avenue ;

~

~

ALL girls are wearing Floral headpieces by Blythe Fifth Avenue;

~

~

I normally am not a fan of "barefoot Blythe", however, today I made an exception ;)

~

~

The next issue has been proofread, so we will be sending out PDF's to all contributors to glance over. Then the printing can start!

Sketchcrawl , Lyon le 16 avril 2011.

I used of the white proofreader called Pentex!

Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American writer and, to a lesser extent, painter. He is known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of "novel" that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is distinctly always about and expressive of the real-life Henry Miller and yet is also an imaginative construct. His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, and Black Spring. He also wrote travel memoirs and essays of literary criticism and analysis.

He was played by Fred Ward in the 1990 movie Henry & June, and Rip Torn in the 1970 film adaptation of Tropic of Cancer.

Biography

Miller was born to tailor Heinrich Miller and Louise Marie Neiting, in Manhattan, New York City, of German Catholic heritage. As a child he lived at 662 Driggs Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. As a young man, he tried a variety of jobs and briefly attended the City College of New York. In both 1928 and 1929, he spent several months in Paris with his second wife, June Edith Smith (June Miller). He moved to Paris the next year unaccompanied, where he lived until the outbreak of World War II. He lived an impecunious lifestyle that depended on the benevolence of friends, such as Anaïs Nin, who became his lover and financed the first printing of Tropic of Cancer in 1934.

In the fall of 1931, Miller got a job with the Chicago Tribune (Paris edition) as a proofreader, thanks to his friend Alfred Perlès who worked there. Miller took the opportunity to submit some of his articles under Perlès name, since only the editorial staff were permitted to publish in the paper in 1934.

A small number of his works contain detailed accounts of sexual experiences, and his books did much to free the discussion of sexual subjects in American writing from both legal and social restrictions. He continued to write novels that were banned in the United States on grounds of obscenity. Along with Tropic of Cancer, his Black Spring (1936), and Tropic of Capricorn (1939), were smuggled into his native country, building Miller an underground reputation. One of the first acknowledgements of Henry Miller as a major modern writer was by George Orwell in his essay Inside the Whale [1], where he wrote in 1940, "Here in my opinion is the only imaginative prose-writer of the slightest value who has appeared among the English-speaking races for some years past. Even if that is objected to as an overstatement, it will probably be admitted that Miller is a writer out of the ordinary, worth more than a single glance; and after all, he is a completely negative, unconstructive, amoral writer, a mere Jonah, a passive acceptor of evil, a sort of Whitman among the corpses."

In 1940, he returned to the United States settling in Big Sur, California. He continued to produce his vividly written works that challenged contemporary American cultural values and moral attitudes. He spent the last years of his life in Pacific Palisades.

The publication of Miller's Tropic of Cancer in the United States in 1961 led to a series of obscenity trials that tested American laws on pornography. The US Supreme Court, in Grove Press, Inc., v. Gerstein, citing Jacobellis v. Ohio (which was decided the same day in 1964), overruled the state court findings of obscenity and declared the book a work of literature; it was one of the notable events in what has come to be known as the sexual revolution. Elmer Gertz, the lawyer who successfully argued the initial case for the novel's publication in Illinois, became a lifelong friend of Miller's. Volumes of their correspondence have been published.

In addition to his literary abilities, Miller was a moderately talented painter and wrote books about his painting. He was a close friend of the French painter Grégoire Michonze. He was also an amateur pianist.

Miller died in Pacific Palisades, California. After his death, he was cremated and his ashes scattered off Big Sur where he had lived for some time. There are two museums holding Henry Miller's watercolors: The Henry Miller Museum of Art in Omachi City in Nagano, Japan and The Henry Miller Art Museum at Coast Gallery in Big Sur.

Miller's papers were donated to the UCLA Young Research Library Department of Special Collections.

A Titanic mistake on Amazon? There's no pride at amazon and no proofreaders either.

I never wanted you to be my man

I just need your company

Don't want to get dependent on

Your time or who you spend it on

Or lose the way you love me

Like smoke, I hung around

And be your balance

[Nas]

It's not a movie, this is not a script to proofread

I'll spit some untruths to dumb fools and groupies

Tryna punctuate the funds I make amounts I take

put in your face oh, my mistake

You're not a floozy? Then excuse me

Before I talk, my style introduced me

Get your name and phone number like 1-2-3

Y'all know the story, y'all know the commentary

I kick the narrative, this is legendary

The good Samaritan, good thespian

Like a polygamist, with a twist

Will I marry again? Maybe, I guess

I hold a lady's interest, I just met

The love scholar, she the teacher's pet

Every other eve we'd meet and make each other sweat

I feel triumph with no strings

Just a fling to have fun with

I be out in London, Camden

Huntin' for the answers, why did God take away the homie?

I can't stand it

I'm a firm believer that we all meet up in eternity

Just hope the big man show me some courtesy

Why? 'Cause I'm deemed a heartbreaker

Like smoke, girls linger 'round a player

Yeah-yuh

I never wanted you to be my man

I just need your company

Don't want to get dependent on

Your time or who you spend it on

Or lose the way you love me

Like smoke, I hung around

And be your balance

[Nas]

Yo, this recession is a test

It's affecting my complexion

Misdirecting my affection

My concerns of bill collections

The facts is the taxes, they after me

Chapter three, my property

My handlers, they dealt with me improperly

I say some things I should probably keep privately

Evaluate the world bank trusts like I'm IEG

This fly sweet bourgeoisie

Tall freak, she wouldn't protest with me at Wall Street

She says, no you're so deep

I said, no let's go thru it

Historically so ruthless feds came for Joe Lewis

She said, my man you needs to laugh sometime

Classifies me as a bore, I told her have some wine

You colder than penguin pussy at her her dismay

She's thinkin' that's just so silly to say

But if you really think about it hussy

See a penguin, he drags his ass on the ground all day

And there's a drag

And it's a bust and you're in tune with just lust

I'm thru with you after I crush, so is that humorous enough?

The smoke I puff

Tell the car to go to Aura, Funky Buddah, Whiskey Mist

on Mayfair

I hope I meet some Monie Loves so she can show me love

NYC to UK I might stay there

Everybody in the club tonight say, "Yeah"

You know how me and Amy are, straight players

I never wanted you to be my man

I just need your company

Don't want to get dependent on

Your time or who you spend it on

Or lose the way you love me

Like smoke, I hung around

And be your balance

Ohh, ohh, ooooohh, ohh

Hello lovely people,

I put together a little book with some of my writings and words. I haven't gotten it in the mail yet, but once I do and make sure it is all proofread and stuff, I'll put a link up on here for anyone who cares to buy one. It's very short, only about 32 pages, because I picked the wrong setting and I couldn't switch it so there were more pages :( Silly me. So, maybe if anyone enjoys it and I start to be creative again, I'll make another sometime. For now, I'll be selling An Overflow Of Nothings. I'm not sure whether or not I should just have you order your own through the website or just order a bunch and you can buy it through me, I'll let you know. Hopefully you're interested, if not.. that's okay :) hehe. Thank you <3

Had a lovely Saturday, just pottering around at home (what's new?) Did a bit of cleaning in the bathroom this morning, caught up a bit on my photos, and sat outside with my laptop this afternoon to do a bit more proofreading of my friend's novel (I'm about two-thirds of the way through now). Went out for a walk after dinner - it was looking a little gloomy, but the evening sun was just starting to break through and it was lovely by the time I got to the heath.

Slightly shocked to strike out across one part of the heath and then see a car coming towards me at high speed across the grass (thankfully not directly at me!) I fully expected to see a police car follow after it, but there was none. The car drove off onto the road at the end of the heath and sped off round the corner. I just managed to video it as it did that, but couldn't get the reg number, unfortunately.

Anyway, made it to the pond alive and stalked the Egyptian geese again. It seems this is a regular perch for mummy goose :)

Walk-around Day, 12/24/2018, Manhattan, New York, NY

Canon EOS 30D

18.0-55.0 mm

ƒ/5.6 48.0 mm 1/125 400

FaceBook | Blogger | Twitter | Tumblr | Pinterest | Getty | Instagram | Lens Wide-Open

@kalliebah ift.tt/1KhP2uD kalliebah

copyright © Mim Eisenberg/mimbrava studio. All rights reserved.

I was the proofreader for the Atlanta Audubon Society's monthly newsletter for more than 12 years but retired from that volunteer job a couple of years ago. I was asked to be interviewed for a forthcoming issue, as a featured artist, and yesterday Beth Giddens of AAS came to my house for the interview. The picture she took of me holding a 16x20 print of my 'luminous' photo will appear in the newsletter, but since this was one of the better photos taken of me (I usually take lousy pictures), I decided to share it with you before it's published there. First I did a big crop to remove the print, then I de-noised the photo and framed it. It was taken at my back door. In the background, through the screen, are small trees and shrubs in front of my new fence.

Please keep sending your healing energy to lucy(ms.lume). She is recovering, but she still needs our thoughts and prayers. Thanks, Flickr friends.

See my shots on flickriver:

www.flickrriver.com/photos/mimbrava/

Please join us on Super Eco and enter our October photo contest “A Festival of Leaves” by tagging it SuperEco, posting it in the pool, and entering it in the contest thread. Thanks.

The contest ends October 31st.

“2017 AYIP”

365 Project (2017 and beyond)

“The 365 Toy Project”

Bachelor in Paradise, by Vera Caspary

Dell First Edition C121, 1961 PBO

Cover art by Robert McGinnis

Movie tie-in

"staring" Bob Hope?? Fire the proofreader !!

i finished the final proofreads for my book yesterday -- so unless something goes crazily wrong with the index (being compiled by a freelancer), it is officially DONE except for the physical printing!

cover photos are all by me (and all here on Flickr!), as are most of the illustrations in the book.

and you can already pre-order it here!

www.amazon.com/Paradox-Preservation-Wilderness-Landscapes...

I wonder who the lucky recipient of this piece was, and whether or not it was a genuine sentiment or an "I hate you" as the design is so...questionable!

People have wondered what I do for work, and the fact is, that it's usually too damned strange to explain. I work with rare coins. This usually elicts one of two responses from people: a blank stare or a comment such as, "my grandpa used to collect," or "what's my old quarter worth?". The fact is, that it's a highly specialized, incestuous industry. Everyone knows each other. There are countless small time dealers and countless crooks and scheisters, too. But in the top tier of auction houses...there are few. I work for one. My father is a famous numismatist (aka, coin weenie). I have had the privelege for the last seven years to work with arguably the most famous and respected, knowledgable numismatists of our time, Q. David Bowers. He is also a prolific and award winning author, and I am proud to say I have proofread a few of his books and my name appears in the credits and thank yous. : ) When I started in the business I was actually in our auction department, working with all incoming consignments, and I had to learn the ropes. I learned how to put things in "Red Book Order" and became familiar with several series, I can give surface descriptions, simple tasks. I am NOT a numismatist, though. I can't tell you what your coin is worth. Chances are good, if you have it in a drawer somewhere because you found it in pocket change and thought it was neat, chances are good it's not worth much more than face value, I can tell you that. If you think you have an 1804 Silver Dollar...you are mistaken, we know where all the examples of them are. The 1913 Liberty Head Nickels? Accounted for.

In my years in numismatics I finally was moved into the photography department, where for several years now I have spent hours a day, in a room with the lights off, opening up batches of raw coin images, and through a series of Photoshop actions I created, deleted the background, adjusted the levels and curves, added paths, and created catalogue-ready files. I've even worked the camera, though once it's set up a deak monkey could do the actual shooting. That's not to tear down the head of the photography department, who is the best in the business, no questions asked. But he created the set up, that's where the talent came in.

My boss, Dave (QDB), has said coins are romantic and I know what he means. To hold something in your hands and contemplate where it's been, who has handled it, what it may have meant to someone or been spent on, there's a lot of romance to that back story. Coins sometimes have a "provenance" and we know exactly who owned them, what major collecter had it in a collection. That's just as exciting, really! (Although who owned the above piece is a mystery.)

Over the years, if it was an important or rare coin to pass through our office, I've had the luck to hold it and contemplate its "romance", its story, its importance in our strange little hobby.

And over the years its become obvious to me I could never afford to have the sort of collection I would require. I would want the best. Not the rarest per se, but the most appealing of each type. I am spoiled, I have truly seen the rarest and most beautiful of coins.

But I would spend my money on camera equipment, or cars, before I ever got into the hobby aside from the work I've done.

So, I have a collection of absurd things.

The above piece...a love token...is perhaps the stranges and funny and most fabulous piece I own. This piece brings out hearty laughs and double takes from every numismatist I show. I had a coworker whip out $100 in cash the other day he wanted it so badly, "That's the best love token I've ever seen!" he said. I agree. It's not for sale, no matter how badly I could have used the cash lately.

Love Tokens are "generally defined as coins on which one side (or sometimes both sides) has been smoothed down and engraved with initials, names, phrases and/or scenes. These were often given to young ladies as "tokens of love" by suitors, seems to have originated as a practice in Great Britain in the early 1800's, and migrated to the United States in the mid- to late-1800's. The Seated Liberty dime of the 1850's - 1880's is by far the most popular "host coin", but tokens are known on all denominations of U. S. coins from half cents through twenty-dollar gold pieces as well as numerous world coin denominations."

The Love Token Society has a good amount of information on these odd little pieces.

But they don't seem to have anything related to "cat's assholes" on their site. Hmph.

A pair of anti-abortion billboards popped up along I-5 in Woodland in both directions which read like a more poorly proofread Dr. Bronner's bottle if it catches your eye at 70mph and you double back and pull over to read it.

They were paid for by Dr. Richard D. Rasmussen, apparently a dermatologist with a practice in Grants Pass, Oregon, who suddenly became very spendy in support of the crackpot wave rising within the Republican Party suddenly in 2008 for some reason (Thanks, Obama!).

There are some weird leaps of ill-logic in this billboard, beginning with the contents of a dialog bubble from the mouth of a young Lizzie Borden, appropos of nothing. The chief point being made here is protesting abortions publicly funded through Medi-Cal, but there's a lot of muddying the message. If you're half as loopy as Rasmussen, you might believe he's okay with abortion if the embryo-daddy or fetus-daddy pays for it. The "Lizzie's AXE worked" blurb seems to suggest abortion is okay if a pregnant woman does a DIY hatchet job. The bilingual sign's messages in Español are the most unmoored missives of all; e.g., "Lentejuelas para malo o' [sic] para bien" means "sequins for bad or for good."

Text of billboard:

Foul play suspected in disappearance. sister, Tonya, thinks her...

brother has been killed and buried somewhere,,, The Del Norte "BRADY BURIAL GROUNDS"?

DA Katherine Micks , Del Norte County please DO NOT CONTACT DISTRICT ATTORNEY.

DA RESIG RESPONDS. Does NOT meet threshold to be considered criminal

LAW FIRM IN SAC GOES DOWNEY TUBES. FRAUD ON COURT? (Judge Gutierrez Solano)

LIZZIE BORDEN TOOK AN AXE GAVE HER FETUS 40 WHACKS WHEN SHE FOUND WHAT SHE HAD DONE, Gave the fetus 41.

ABORTION FREE in CALIFORNIA IF YOU HAVE MEDI-CAL. AND ARE California RESIDENT. Otherwise, Lizzie's AXE Worked.

Medi-Cal AND RESIDENT. EASY ABORTION.

CHOOSE LIFE GET AN ULTRASOUND FREE @ PCC's

DUDE WHO IMPREGNATED YOU? Pay Up U Slug.

California... Y BABOSA ERES TU...

HOLD the men in California who impregnate responsible.

THE CALIFORNIA Fact ACT DENIES WOMEN

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS.

CALL SENATOR HARRIS & call N.O.W.

RICO accepts this as their CHOICE. Rico is a non-resident of California, a non-citizen of California and Rico dice Gracias Dios for los dos todos los Dias.

26 week fetus by ultrasound.

Paid for by Richard D. Rasmussen MD PhD. Non-citizen of California Lentejuelas Para Malo o' Para Bien

Up in the top right of the billboard is a scan of a letter on official letterhead from the office of Yolo County DA Jeff Reisig addressed to Rasmussen's vacation home address on Wollam Road in Brookings, Oregon.

Our annual report is almost finshed. But after editing and before printing, the report is proofread by our charming expert. Nobody could do this better!

---------------

„ Sicher ist, dass nichts sicher ist. Selbst das nicht.“

(Joachim Ringelnatz)